B007IIXYQY EBOK (42 page)

“They are my friends from the academies, and I wish them to be treated with respect,” he answered coolly.

The dining tables were strewn with parsley and early wildflowers. Arranged in a semicircle about the tables were three couches, each accommodating three diners to make a total of nine; the bridal table was set at the room’s center, beneath a multitiered chandelier in the form of a Babylonian temple sculpted in fire and cut glass. Julianus settled in the host’s place on the third couch, but the position of highest honor, the third place on the middle couch, was left empty in honor of his father. Domitian, without asking, speedily usurped the place on the couch opposite Julianus, taking advantage of the fact that the former consul assigned that position had never arrived. Julianus knew Diocles, who observed this clumsy breach of propriety from his place by the wall, was wishing he could set the doorkeeper’s dogs on the young man.

The wind whipped the torches set in the garden; to Julianus, they were bright warning spirits urgently trying to get his attention.

Junilla, reclining at his left, observed him closely with those luminous eyes while she answered the polite queries of those about her with short, simple responses that invited no conversation. She knew the power of her beauty, he observed; she portioned it out like sacks of gold to those she thought worthy. Her gaze lingered long over Saturninus; a smokiness came into her eyes. The students, on the other hand, might well have been dogs; she simply did not see them. Occasionally her gaze slipped over to Domitian, and with him, too, she seemed to consider, to measure; Julianus had a momentary feeling she might have forgotten which was her husband. It struck him her nature was far closer to Domitian’s than to his own; both seemed to attune their senses to reading the weaknesses of those about them. He doubted her curiosity ever strayed to questions of nature and being—she concerned herself only with who held power, and who was ready to lose it.

Nero’s musicians followed the whole company and hastily reassembled themselves around the bridal table. They played softly now, but also they listened; Julianus felt he dined next to unfed hounds. As the iced platters of cultured Lucrine oysters were being set on the tables, he tensed, remembering Nero had a passion for them. How long would he be able to restrain himself? Julianus had no wish to dine with him openly, when one question not skillfully answered could mean death.

And sure enough, moments later as Domitian was insisting drunkenly to a doubtful Junilla he had cured a toothache by rubbing the tooth with the ashes of a weasel and a black chameleon, Dionysus began edging closer as if to better hear the recipe. Then he flopped down heavily on the couch of honor next to Marcus Julianus.

The guests watched this with outraged astonishment as if they had seen a worshiper in the Temple of Juno lift his tunic and relieve himself on the sacred image.

“Allow me to remove my mask,” said Dionysus in that familiar, ringing girl’s voice tinged with hurt. “It is most difficult to eat with it.”

“You are a most impertinent musician,” Julianus replied, his tone cautiously playful.

“Yes, and an overly indulgent Emperor,” Dionysus responded, disengaging himself from the heavy mask.

Julianus found himself looking into the broad, sweating face of Nero.

Knowledge of his presence pervaded the room slowly, like the scent of death.

Nero’s puckered, too-small mouth was set in the pout of the deadly child who needs to be continuously petted and praised. Damp ringlets were matted to his wide, heavy forehead; his eyes were an empty, faded blue. His nature had begun already to assert itself in his face: Those cheeks, Marcus thought, seemed swollen and mottled with poison, as though he were drugged with the pleasure of cruelty, with the lies his flatterers dosed him with daily. His frequent nightmares seemed to have taken their toll as well; those eyes protruded slightly as if permanently frozen in fright. He had a gaze that seemed to stalk and trap every movement about him as a cat its prey; that gaze was oddly agile, considering his indolent body with its settled layers of flesh. A fleecy beard covered a chin that went smoothly down to a bloated neck that seemed ready to inflate like a bullfrog’s. But it was that mouth that was always most disturbing to Julianus—its babyishness coupled with its deadliness—a soft, sucking mouth that drained not milk but blood.

Nero motioned with one plump hand for a washing basin; the flesh between his multiple rings was pinched like dough. One of the servants stationed behind the table, a frightened boy, came forward unsteadily with towel and silver bowl. Nero sloppily washed his hands in the warm flower-scented water, then, ignoring the towel, with bored deliberation dried his hands in the boy’s fluffy blond hair.

When all the company realized who was among them, there followed a stifling moment in which no one knew what to do. Should they arise, and prostrate themselves? Should they call out a greeting?

Marcus Julianus solved the problem by rising quickly and giving a slight bow. “This house has never been so honored, Divinity. I greatly regret we did not know; the fare is far too modest.”

“Ah, what’s missing in the fare is
more
than made up for by the amusements to be found here. And you
knew
me, you sly conniver! You are not surprised enough. How did you know?”

Julianus paused, tension accumulating as he rapidly thought.

I recognized your silly curls. I would know that ungainly body from a hundred others. What can I say that will not get us all damned to Hades?

“It was the old woman,” he said at last. “She was…your own touch, such a clever act of…the use and transformation of ordinary lives and events into a dramatic play of your own devising. You made a play of life! I did not think you would be absent and miss its effect.”

Domitian thought: Thank all the gods for that gift of spewing intelligent rubbish with no preparation. He felt such gratefulness to Marcus Julianus that he almost forgave him the insults.

Nero brightened like the child who finally elicits the praise he craves from an elder. “Tell me, do you think it will become fashionable as a form of drama?”

“Well, no, I think not.”

Nero’s scowl was like a terrible shift of the weather.

Marcus, be an idiot with your own life, Domitian thought. Leave us out of it!

“And why is that?” Had he not a hundred sharpened swords at his back to redress that hurt, the scowl would have been simply ludicrous.

“Because it is a game only emperors can play. If I, for instance, did such a thing—I would be charged with a crime.”

Nero nodded meditatively. Domitian knew then what a wise answer this was; Nero took great pride in being able to do deeds not allowed to ordinary mortals. “Well spoken, Marcus Julianus. And I judge you were right earlier—Virgil wrote those lines. Though it hurts, mind you. But great artists have great hearts. Now, what do you think of the bride?”

“What anyone would think—she would make the Graces weep.”

“Ha! Well, I hope you enjoy her. I know I did,” Nero said idly, suddenly inspecting a gold-painted fingernail. Julianus refused to react to this. He stole one glance at Junilla, but in her look was only blankness, as if those lustrous eyes were blind. Had someone drawn out her soul as a spider sucks juice out of a fly?

“Tell me, my good man, why was no pig sacrificed?” Nero leaned close so that Julianus could smell the sweet stink of nardus oil in his hair. “What makes you so certain the gods do not want blood?”

“I am certain of nothing, my lord. But once all nations believed the gods required the blood of men. When the practice was stopped, did the Heavens raise an outcry? They did not, and now we believe it a cruelty, for nothing. The passing times better us, and who can say but that one day we will think animal sacrifice, too, a cruelty for nothing.”

“Oh, silence, now you remind me of someone I didn’t like.” Julianus supposed he meant Seneca. “Were the hundred filleted white bullocks sacrificed on the occasion of my Olympic victories then slaughtered in vain?”

“I say yes, I am damned. I say no, and I lie,” Julianus replied. “Which do you prefer for a dinner partner, a liar or a dead man?”

Domitian put his head in his hands.

But Nero only laughed a heaving laugh. “The dread honesty of the condemned! I should sentence all my Council to death, then maybe I would entice honest sentiments from them.” Without warning Nero turned on Domitian.

“Now,
someone
has eaten every oyster,” Nero said sulkily, “and left not a
one
for anyone else at this table. Domitian?”

Domitian looked at him with a jerk of his head, then turned away, flushing deeply. “I apologize, my Divine Lord. I didn’t realize…”

“Nervous men eat without realizing it. What are you nervous about?”

Domitian suddenly felt he could not move; he was pinned beneath the tyranny of those yellowed eyes. “I beg your indulgence, but I am—I am not—”

Nero smoothly drained his wine cup, then set it down so forcefully wine splattered everywhere; his tunic seemed flecked with blood. His voice fell to a gurgling whisper as if his throat had gone too slack to swallow the wine. “I will tell you what you are nervous about, since you seem a little shy. You’ve a lot of friends, important friends, with complicated plans for my demise. I imagine that weighs heavy with the victim right here, and oysters make a distraction if an inadequate one. Tell them not to bother sawing through the axle of my racing chariot. You know, it doesn’t work very well, I’ve tried it on others. It tends to leave them mangled but alive. You, there,” he called to a passing servant, “bring some more of those enticing sea creatures for the rest of us and keep them out of
his
reach this time.”

Domitian opened his mouth to speak, but his breath was gone. He felt he was made of stone, sinking heavily into the cushions; he couldn’t breathe; the cushions would smother him. And he found himself wishing desperately he were just that, a stone image, not a man of flesh and blood with a living throat to be cut, a body to be put to torture.

“Now we will play a little game,” Nero said, his sleepy, lethal eyes fixed mildly on Domitian, regarding him as prey that must be calmed before it could be killed.

“I have no plotting friends!”
Domitian managed hoarsely. “I am your most loyal of servants!”

“Really?
I will prove to you in a moment that you do.”

Domitian started to take up his wine cup and three servants rushed forward to aid him. Humiliated that the trembling of his hands was so obvious, he set it back down, deciding he wanted no wine after all.

“Ah, you’re a man to make me feel like Jupiter himself!” Nero went on, “a man of clay, to be formed into any shape I wish. Well, my young cock, so puffed up with your certainty you are more morally fit and firmer of purpose than me—I will demonstrate to you that your Cappadocian footmen are more fit to rule than you.”

Nero wriggled into a more comfortable position on the couch, languishing in the pleasure of the moment, settling into his layers of flesh long enough to raise a wild hope in Domitian that he might fall into a drunken stupor. But after a short time those eyes returned to bright, malicious life.

“I will do the difficult part. I will name the names, you won’t have to dredge them out of that wine-pickled memory.” Nero chose a name at random from the rolls of the Senate. “Servianus, does he plot against me?”

Domitian’s voice was a frantic whisper. “I am no informer, my family has always hated informers, do you think me capable of—”

“I think you capable of
anything,
if it gets you what you want. A simple yes or no!”

“I will say nothing!”

Everyone averted their gaze, too polite to increase Domitian’s torment by looking at him. All except Junilla. She smoothly licked her lips and smiled. This was more delicious than any banquet fare.

“I think you
will
say something! Your loyalty is worth mud. Speak, or…or…” Nero paused, face contorted in a caricature of deep thought. “Ha!” he cried as if he had just thought of it, “I will draft an edict on the morrow making it a crime to harbor eunuchs in the city.”

Quickly Domitian looked at him. “This is for certain?” He felt ridiculous asking, but the question burst out of its own accord.

“Do you think I play children’s games! For doubting me I should do it whether you yield or not.”

How did Nero know? Domitian wondered frantically. Nero seemed to have second sight when it came to flushing out the secret passions of others that they counted shameful.

“Do you think I would destroy my friends to keep my eunuchs?” Domitian’s forehead gleamed with perspiration.

“The likelihood frightens me. But that’s
only the appetizer,” Nero went on merrily. “Here comes the main course: If you do not give me names…, I will recall your father from Judaea.”

Domitian felt as if a blow landed in his stomach. Nausea and fright gripped him.

I cannot let him block my one near-certain route to becoming emperor.
He suspects the whole of the Senate anyway, Domitian rationalized; it means little if
I
give names. It means little….