B007IIXYQY EBOK (68 page)

Domitian had selected the eight guests at the imperial table with an eye
to making himself seem a cultured man. Julianus felt not so much honored on this night as used as a stage-prop to make the new Emperor appear the companion of philosophers. Saturninus’ place was assured because he numbered an esteemed playwright among his clients; from time to time Saturninus shot Julianus a distracted, worried look, as if alert for the first signs of rebellious behavior. Next to Saturninus was Licinius Gallus, who earned his place because he was a famed gourmand—it was said he could taste an oyster and name the bay from which it was taken. Junilla was banished to a lower table for the evening—no doubt, Julianus mused, because her single serious flirtation with the arts was that much-talked-of occasion at one of Domitian’s private parties when she rolled off her couch onto the esteemed poet and essayist Milo, and, beneath the eyes of Domitian’s disbelieving but delighted friends, began idly coupling with him as though she thought him the dessert course. Reclining on Domitian’s left was his sixteen-year-old niece, Julia, daughter of Titus, his murdered brother, upon whom the Emperor had been lavishing more than avuncular attention since his brother’s death. Julia was a frail, tentative presence who at least had the scent of learning about her; unlike Junilla, the suffering in Julia’s eyes had an artistic and thoughtful cast. With her aristocratically arched brows, bewilderingly complex coiffure, and rose-stem neck, she was an icy bloom, seeming pulled back from the world—not surprising since she had been thrust so young into the world of the court.

The next course was held back while Domitian explained the sauces arrayed before them in silver bowls, lost in a display of his knowledge of fine cookery, unmindful that only the diners at the imperial table could hear him—and these were weary of him and hungry. His white-liveried servants were poised by the serving carts in the crimson-curtained entranceway, awaiting the Emperor’s signal. As Julianus watched Domitian gesturing with almost comic majesty, as if each sweep of his hand created a kingdom or scattered bread to the starving, he reflected—how quickly Domitian is comfortable with the trappings of supreme power. He needed no time to adapt. Perhaps it’s because he’s always set himself apart from his peers; from youth, he’s had that tendency to treat friends as good or bad servants. The imperial purple did not look so immediately right on either his father, his brother, or Nero.

“But the tartest sauce,” Domitian was saying, “is this
one.” He leaned across his couch and, to everyone’s embarrassment, seized one of Julia’s too-thin arms, and before the eyes of the seven hundred banqueters, inflicted on her a languid, devouring kiss from which she could not escape. One clumsy, blunt-fingered hand moved determinedly down her back, boldly claiming territory as it went.

The dinner guests looked everywhere but at Domitian, their collective demeanor expressing polite, muted shock. Julia writhed—the instinctive motion of a trapped animal—but dared not break the embrace. Julianus knew Domitian intended this outrage as a slap at his brother’s memory, an assertion of his own authority. He is saying to the people—
I will do what I like with my brother’s daughter. You will not rule me with rumors and tales. Believe I murdered Titus if you want—even say that I did it so I could enjoy his daughter openly—I do not care.

I must stop this. Before Julia suffocates. Or her heart stops.
Julianus signaled to the servants to come forth with the silver carts, then quietly ordered them to begin serving.

When the heavy gold platter bearing a grilled whole mullet stuffed with minced pheasant brains glazed with rue-berry honey was set grandly before Domitian, the Emperor looked at it irritably, then heaved himself away from Julia, leaving the imprint of his thick fingers on her arm. Julia’s face was ashen. She understood what Julianus had done, and met his eye with a fleeting appreciative look that held a trace of a cry for help.

An instant later Domitian realized whose interference this was. He turned to Julianus with a look that was steely and remote.

“Perhaps you’d like to take a turn on the throne at tomorrow’s morning audience.”

This was a voice Julianus had never heard from him—it spoke not to him as an individual but to a collective presence—a whole room full of wayward servants. A sharp chill seized him. But he fought it and managed an amiable smile, as if at an amusing misunderstanding between two cultured men. He leaned close and said in a conspiratorial voice, “Fine words for a man who saved you from disgrace! This dish is ruined, you know, if it’s even a trifle
overcooked.”

Domitian hesitated. Then he remembered the heating flames on the serving carts. He had forgotten them. His withering look softened faintly, sabotaged because he truly
was
grateful. Did Julianus catch his blunder in time? Domitian stole a glance at Licinius Gallus. Was the gourmand thinking: Our rude, countrified Emperor is too ignorant to know this himself?

“You’re going to wring your own neck some day with this habit of yours of taking matters into your own hands, old friend. Fortunately for you, the wine has rendered me affable.”

“Ah, a good servant isn’t motivated by desire for words of praise, so I’ll let this stinging moment pass,” Julianus replied, smiling.

Domitian looked intently at him, probing for mockery, finally deciding it wisest to behave as if none were intended. He nodded to the flaxen-haired eunuch Carinus, his cupbearer and current favorite in the bedchamber, who stood at attention behind him, indicating the one sauce bowl that was covered. Carinus placed this bowl beside Domitian’s plate, then discreetly spooned it out for him. Julianus caught the stink of putrefaction and knew it was the cheap fish sauce called
garum,
so popular in the streets. Domitian ordered the boy to put it on everything—the fish, the cultivated asparagus, the flat bread—while he cast an occasional defensive glance about the room and shifted his body slightly on the couch so Julia could not see. After the learned discourse on sauces he did not want her to know this plebeian fish sauce was to his taste.

After a few bites Domitian forgot Julianus’ small insurrection and seemed to remember why he was here. The Emperor put a proprietary hand on Julianus’ shoulder, lavishing on him a look that was proud and paternal, his eyes softly focused as if they were beginning to dissolve in the wine.

“Friends!” Domitian called out in his rhetorical voice, commanding the attention of the greater part of the hall. The imperial table was raised on a low platform so that all could view him if not perfectly hear him. “Let us lift a cup to this man in whose honor we are assembled on this night.”

A tribute, Julianus realized with dismay.

Obediently his guests stopped picking delicately at their fish and turned to the Emperor. “This man is first among my friends, and I will be leaning heavily on his wisdom.” Here and there Domitian inserted a phrase of Greek, to prove he was no boorish ruffian. Julianus and Saturninus made an effort not to wince as he ever so slightly mispronounced them, revealing to all he had acquired a tutor in Greek embarrassingly late in life.

“He will not let me honor him in the traditional ways, so I can only give this tribute. Not only is he a man of prodigious learning, he is one of those exceedingly rare men who will speak his mind to a ruler.”

Julianus cast a quick glance about to observe the reaction of his fellow members of the Imperial Council, most of whom reclined at the second table just beneath them on their right. Among them were his old enemy Veiento, in whose eyes Julianus saw a muted flash of hatred, and Veiento’s pawn the Senator Montanus, who met his gaze with vacant eyes, porcine cheeks greasy from overeager feeding, a gnawed quail leg, a remnant of the last course, dangling idly in one hand.

“He will not let me make him Consul,” Domitian continued liltingly, grandly, glancing once at Julianus, who read clearly in the look:
Accept my gifts and behave, you too-clever man, and all will be right between us.
“Nevertheless, he has consented to be part of my private Council—and I want it known he will be first among them. Let us drink to the well-being of my great and good friend, Marcus Arrius Julianus.”

All cheerfully drank, except for Veiento, who had a murderous look lurking just behind that mask of blandness as he pointedly made no move for his wine. Veiento had been teased into believing he himself would be named First Advisor. His minion Montanus started to reach for his wine cup, but Veiento chopped that hand off with a glance. Domitian chose to ignore this.

Junilla did drink, allowing a drop of the dark wine to escape her lips so it looked as though she was bleeding from the mouth. Without moving to wipe it, she gazed meaningfully at Julianus, a bare smile on her lips, recalling some sleekly beautiful beast that had just consumed something bloody and raw. The look convinced him Junilla plotted some fresh vengeful act. With every honor accorded him, her resentment grew—for she counted that honor by rights hers, as
he
was by rights hers. He had noted long ago a contradiction at the core of her strategy: If she did succeed in ruining him as her nature demanded, she rendered the remarriage she so ardently desired pointless.

When the hum of conversation began again, Domitian said companionably to Julianus, “Ah, here we are, victorious! Remember how we wanted the world to be when we were at the academies together? Now it is ours to shape! Light and knowledge have won! Tell me frankly, Marcus, you did not believe it, did you?” He pointed playfully with his spoon. “I insist you speak to me as friend, not as subject.”

Julianus smiled, then said with careful firmness, “My lord, I fear light and knowledge still have not quite won.”

Uncertainty flitted across Domitian’s flushed Apollo’s face. But he mastered it and returned to effusiveness. “So…a cloud appears over the happy kingdom!
Now
what have I done?”

Julianus discerned a measure of genuine concern.
Thank all the gods he
does
still require my blessings on his acts.

But before he could reply Domitian spoke on: “I know you hesitated, old friend, before agreeing to come along with me. That grieves me, you know.”

“There was…much to contemplate.”

Battle readiness leapt into Domitian’s eyes. “Many things—or
one
thing?” He studied Julianus’ face as though it were a cryptogram. Julianus knew Domitian probed for his conclusions in the matter of the imperial ring that should not have fit. Domitian edged perilously close to uttering the words of that fatal question, the need to ask growing large and painful within him, but in the end he drew back, well aware that one question was all that stood between his friend and death. If Julianus openly accused him, Domitian would be compelled to charge him with treason.

“One thing did rear its head above others.”

“What
one thing?”

Saturninus looked on with growing alarm.

“Long ago you made a promise to me that you would not persecute philosophers, historians, and men of letters.”

Julia’s eyes widened at this audacity. At the lower table Junilla’s gaze whipped about; she scented Julianus’ peril and watched him through slitted cat’s eyes that slowly resolved into a look of crude pleasure.

Domitian’s relief when he realized Julianus was not referring to his brother’s murder shifted to extravagant annoyance.

“You’ve a damnably acute memory, my friend. Sometimes one wishes it were possible to kill memories without killing the whole man.” Domitian’s smile was unpleasant. “And do you not know it’s terrible manners to remind a ruler of promises made long ago?”

“But you asked me to speak as a friend, not as a subject.”

“By Minerva, you know how to irritate a man,” Domitian said with easy tolerance, but as he spoke, he slashed at the mullet with his small, sharp dinner knife.

“This morning I received an order to cease publication of my father’s volumes on the tribes of Germania,” Julianus pressed on. “What could offend you in these books that treat only of the habits and beliefs of rude barbarians?”

This brought the whole table to tight silence. Julia’s great gray eyes had a look of tragic sadness, as if she watched her only ally committing suicide. Saturninus’ expression would have looked well on the chief mourner in a funeral procession.

“They are…imitative of my own style,” Domitian said a little stiffly, his look evasive, full of playful warning. Julianus ignored it.

“Come. Those books were begun when you were at your mother’s breast. Give me another reason.”

The stifling quiet encompassed several tables now. Emperor and guest of honor were actors on a stage in a tragic drama that was careening out of control.

“We
are
having a good time pressing the advantage of old friendship, are we not?” Domitian said softly. The flush on his cheeks began to spread.
“Another
reason. Well then. Those books portray my deified father Vespasian in a poor light, for they draw attention to the tribes of Germania…and the fact that he never properly put them down.”

“It is odd, then, that in all his years on the throne
he
never thought so.”