The Course of Honour (27 page)

Britannicus had become a stoical child. He took all this in apparent good part. He had two sensible allies throughout: one was Narcissus. The other, who held no official post so she could never be dismissed, was his grandmother's freedwoman Antonia Caenis.

 

Caenis and Britannicus became good friends. Caenis was well-presented enough to carry a sniff of danger for an adolescent boy, yet ancient enough to be safe; she said she refused to mother him, though when he needed it she always did. Britannicus had been brought up rather primly; she discussed politics with him in a way that sounded treasonous and told him stories that were definitely rude. They played
a private game of challenging each other in any situation to find a song from the drama to fit. He had an excellent voice. It was natural that Caenis should be drawn to a child growing up in the Palace so starved of affection yet so good-humoured and sane.

She was giving Britannicus secret shorthand coaching so he could catch up with one of the other boys who shared his education. It was while they were practising, ready to surprise the Other Boy that the door flung open and someone shot into the room. There was no doubt who it was. It had to be the competitive rival, because Britannicus with great presence of mind slipped his notebook down the back of his reading couch and adjusted a vase to hide the water clock by which he had been timing himself. Then he winked at Caenis.

She had never seen him before, but she recognised the Other Boy at once.

Her protégé, Britannicus, was by now as tall as many men, with the same gaunt neck and prominent ears as his father; at thirteen he was going through a gangly, self-conscious phase. Since their mother's death both he and his sister Octavia were understandably solemn and withdrawn. This boy was quite different. Britannicus' friend—they were obviously friends—was a short, square, dynamic tugboat of a boy. He was built with the graceful solidity of an obelisk. He had a thick thatch of tightly curling hair, and though his nose was straighter than his father's, an identical upjerking chin and rectangular brow.

‘Aha! New ladylove?' he cried, stopping in surprise. Britannicus blushed; he was old enough to be interested yet young enough to be terrified of women.

Caenis tried to adopt the air of a sophisticated, extremely expensive witch. ‘You must be Titus!' she divined coolly. ‘Titus Flavius Vespasianus, son of Titus, voting tribe Quirina, citizen of Reate.'

Both children were deeply impressed.

‘This is the face-detector?' Titus demanded of Britannicus eagerly.

Britannicus replied with a nicely suave, secretive smile. He was learning fast; it was wonderful to watch. ‘Just a friend,' he tormented the other, who was bursting with curiosity. ‘Going to give me a second opinion, I hope.'

Caenis endured the odd experience of being eyed up appraisingly by Vespasian's teenaged son.

 

It turned out that Narcissus was still worrying over his dynasty, pointless though that was beginning to appear. He had called in a physiognomist: someone who would tell Britannicus' fortune from his face. Since Narcissus entered the room almost immediately with this character, Caenis had no opportunity to say to the boys just what she thought of that.

The seer was an overweight greasy Chaldean in a shiny emerald overshirt, his knuckles carbuncled with mysterious scarab rings. He wore bright green laced-up pointed shoes; Caenis had made it her lifelong rule never to trust a man with peculiar footwear.

Narcissus, who knew just what she would think about this business, avoided meeting her eye; he was obviously hoping Caenis would go away. She crossed her ankles calmly, looked dignified and stayed. When Britannicus noticed how Narcissus was flapping he winked at Caenis again. She had taught him to wink. His upbringing had been first at the hands of slaves hand-picked by Messalina as easy to manipulate, then seedy nominees chosen by Agrippina out of spite; it had been uninspiring and totally neglected useful social accomplishments. Still, he could sing, and he did; no one would ever be a complete failure while they could sing.

Britannicus was poignantly nervous of having his face read. Narcissus and the physiognomist at last finished fiddling about setting a stool in the best light. Caenis placed herself behind their reluctant subject, resting her light protective hands on his shoulders and staring belligerently at the Chaldean over the top of the prince's head. Young Titus scrambled over and knelt beside the stool to get a good view of what went on. As Caenis said to them afterwards, it was sensible to be nervous of someone who smelt of such a strange mixture of patchouli and onions.

The physiognomist stood in silence, looking at Britannicus from directly in front. He came close, giving the Emperor's son a full blast of his onions, then lifted Britannicus' chin on one finger. At a younger
age Britannicus would certainly have bitten him. At thirteen he was, thank the gods, too proud.

The physiognomist stepped back. Caenis and Britannicus stopped holding their breath. The Chaldean turned to Narcissus. ‘No,' he said off-handedly, and prepared to leave.

Even Narcissus seemed nonplussed.

Titus who was lively as a monkey in a warehouse of soft fruit, was bursting to ask a question but he was forestalled. Narcissus had not been a bureaucrat for thirty years in order to be baffled by the mysteries of Ur. ‘
No?
' he challenged briskly. The pained monosyllable indicated that this verdict was too short, too vague, and much too expensive for the Privy Purse.

‘No,' repeated the Chaldean. Sensing a proposed abatement in his fee, he condescended to explain: ‘He will never succeed his father. I presume that is what you wish to know?'

It seemed to Caenis that anyone with the smallest knowledge of Claudian family life—or as much awareness of recent history as could be gleaned from skimming lightly through the obituaries in the
Daily Gazette
—would be able to make that prophecy.

‘Are you sure?' Narcissus was bound to be disappointed.

‘Certainly!' The man brushed him aside with an irritation that Caenis quite enjoyed.

He was heading for the door, but Narcissus liked to get his money's worth from specialists. ‘So what do you expect to happen to him instead?'

A prince learns to put up with impertinence; Britannicus did not move.

The physiognomist gave Narcissus a pitying look. ‘He will live out his span, sir, as we all must, then as we all must he will die.'

‘How long is the span?' urged the Chief Secretary harshly.

This time Caenis felt the long-limbed boy tense beneath her hands. At once she stated curtly, ‘Britannicus prefers not to know!'

The physiognomist seemed to like her firmness; he nodded to the boy. Some things were confidential to the victim, apparently, even when the Privy Purse was footing the bill. Narcissus had to subside.

Only when he reached the door did the man turn back. ‘Of course,' he said, ‘the other will.'

There was a small pause. He had hardly glanced at Titus the whole time. No one liked to risk offending the man again, but when the attendant started to lift the door curtain so she thought they were going to lose him Caenis demanded patiently, ‘Titus will what?'

The Chaldean did not hesitate. ‘He will succeed his father.'

‘As what?'

‘As whatever his father is or becomes!' Even Caenis was making his hackles rise. ‘I cannot tell you that, lady, without seeing the father's face.'

Caenis laughed. She pointed to her Sabine friend's son, then told the man in ringing tones, ‘
There!
Is there no imagination in the Chaldees? Add a nose like a boxer on the brink of retirement and you have it.'

For the first time the man showed that he too could smile. ‘Ah
that
face!' he mocked. (He was not being paid for Titus, let alone his Sabine papa.) ‘That would be the face of a nobody.'

Then at once Caenis wished she had not asked, because although she was certain Vespasian himself would have roared with delight, the poor child kneeling beside Britannicus was bitterly upset. She was so concerned about Titus it caught her off guard when the Chaldean asked quietly, ‘And your own face, my lady? Will you not ask?'

Yet she found an answer for him: ‘Oh, that has been prophesied,' said Caenis, with a slight smile. ‘Of my face one has said, “It can never be upon the coinage.” '

‘He spoke well!' observed the Chaldean, who obviously appreciated a pointless remark.

 

 

 

 

T
he face-detector was quite right: Britannicus did not succeed his father.

The light that had cheered the early years of Claudius' reign went out with Messalina's death. He allowed Agrippina, who was a strong, strong-willed woman in the single-minded political mould of her family, to govern the Empire. She did it as ruthlessly as she governed Claudius himself. And when Britannicus was in sight of his coming-of-age, Claudius died.

The Emperor's death was not immediately announced. Not until Agrippina, pretending to suffer inconsolable grief, had gathered into her grim clutch all of her husband's natural children—Claudia Antonia, Octavia, and of course Britannicus. Once they had been secured at the Palace, her own son Nero was wheeled out in a carriage and presented to the Praetorians as their new Caesar.

Claudius had left a will but it was never read in public.

 

When his father died, the young prince Britannicus was thirteen years and eight months old. He ranked as a child—though not for much longer. That was significant. It was a principle of Roman law that between the ages of seven and fourteen a boy obtained limited legal rights, those at least which were plainly for his benefit and not
restricted to needing the approval of his guardian. At fourteen he reached a more specific maturity: then he could marry, vote in local assemblies, become liable for military service, and manage his own property. The milestone of entering public affairs normally came at twenty-five, but by fourteen he was a person of account. Until then, a mere child.

Britannicus' adopted elder brother, his stepmother's son, Nero, had been declared of age before he became Emperor. In Rome the difference was crucial. For four critical months Britannicus was bound to take second place: the natural son, publicly superseded. But once he came of age, enemies of Agrippina and her son would naturally gravitate to his support. Narcissus, who loved Britannicus as his own, and Caenis, who originally knew his sisters better but had always liked the lad, never discussed what might happen to him. For anyone who had lived under Tiberius and Caligula the possibilities were obvious and grim.

Narcissus had problems of his own. Even before Claudius died he had been ill. In a left-over minister from the previous reign an indisposition was clearly convenient; Narcissus' illness was strongly encouraged by Agrippina and her son. He had never expected a quiet retirement. He withdrew to ‘convalesce' at Sinuessa on the Bay of Naples. But death was his only tactful course.

Caenis, as the Chief Secretary's most discreet associate, escaped such drastic obligations. Before he left Rome Narcissus gave to her a handsome gift of cash, probably more than she could have expected to receive under his will, if the will of the Chief Secretary of the previous Emperor had ever stood a chance of being honoured by the new one. She never saw him again. Within weeks Narcissus had been flung into prison, badly treated, and hastened to his death. It was said to be suicide, but who could tell? And what difference did it make in any case? Caenis missed him even more than she expected.

She tried to keep an eye on Britannicus. She was pleased with the way he was holding his own. At the Festival of Saturnalia in December, two months before his birthday, the young men at court played dice to be King-for-the-Day. Nero won. To a degree this spoilt the point, which was that someone unused to honours, a slave even,
should wear the spangled winter crown. But it avoided unpleasantness; Nero had no concept of allowing himself to lose.

At the evening banquet the King-for-the-Day gave out forfeits, most of them innocuous enough. When it came to Britannicus, who was shy in noisy company and also quite unused to heavy drinking bouts, Nero called him to the centre of the great dining hall—an ordeal in itself—then commanded him to sing. Undeterred, Britannicus piped up at once with a stalwart rendering of a theatrical lament: “I am cast out from the King my father's house . . .” He sang well; he possessed a much better voice than Nero, who was so vain of his own talent. Britannicus had the satisfaction of silencing the room.

A few days later something made him dramatically ill.

Caenis went to see him. ‘Was it something you ate?'

‘No,' replied Britannicus, who was developing a taut sense of humour. ‘
Something I sang!
'

 

Without Narcissus they had nowhere to turn for help. Callistus had always been pitifully cautious, and there were clear signs that Nero was on the verge of dismissing him from his post. Pallas was the only one of the senior freedmen who retained any vestige of power, but only because when she thought it might be useful he had been Agrippina's lover; for that very reason Pallas could not be asked to protect Britannicus.

Caenis felt helpless. She would have brought herself to beg advice from Vespasian, but he was sixty miles away, living quietly at home in Reate with his wife.

She was positive that somebody had tried to poison the prince. The nearer Britannicus came to fourteen the more danger threatened him. The first attempt might have been amateur, but next time his enemy might realise a violent laxative was hardly the best medium to choose. Whoever it was would try something different.

Then she found out that the famous poisoner Lucusta, who had been in league with the Empress Livia, had been glimpsed visiting the Palace. Caenis made her way to the old stillroom where she and Vespasian had met. As well as ingredients for cosmetics there had
been plenty of more sinister vials there then. It had been said that when Claudius became Emperor he found and destroyed quantities of poisons collected by Caligula. He threw one great chest into the sea; thousands of dead fish were washed ashore.