The Nero Prediction (39 page)

The ivory crook traced aspects on the chart. "See here in the inner circle, the one which represents the birth stars. The Moon is square Jupiter. Now look at the outer circle, the one representing the transits on June 11. What is the angle between the transit Moon and transit Jupiter?"

I shrugged. "Also square, but you know I’m not a believer.”

I didn't like the remorselessness in Balbillus's voice nor the way he went on to show me that six of the seven planets were in the same aspects to each other on June 11 as they were on the day Nero was born. The whole thing was so uncanny that I pounced on what looked like a glaring inconsistency. "But what about the Moon? She doesn't fit the pattern. Or is that because she doesn't count?"

"Oh she fits the pattern all right. In Nero's birth chart she's in his House of Death. On the fatal day she's in the Fishes, sign of the end."

Beware the seventy-third year for there will be blood in the stars when the Moon shines on the fishes.
Of course I remembered the prediction. I said, "I've heard something like that before, from the Oracle of Delphi. That bag of gold that we found under the prophet's mattress. Wasn't yours by any chance?"

It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but I could have sworn Balbillus flinched. "How dare you even suggest that?"

"But you do admit the prediction that Nero would live to seventy three was yours?'

"I've discovered that I made an error."

"Generous of you to admit it."

Balbillus went back on the offensive. "When Sagittarius, the sign that was rising at Nero's birth will be setting, the sands of his life will have run out."

Someone shouted down to us, "All passengers must board the ship immediately, the gangplank is being raised."

"One minute more," I shouted.

"Balbillus, astrology’s only power is that its prophecies are self fulfilling. If you've leaked your prediction of Nero’s death to anyone, which wouldn't surprise me at all, you need to tell them that you've made another mistake, that you've discovered Nero will be saved by Venus when she starts moving forward again, oh any hogwash will do just so long as you say it with a straight face. Help me save Nero or I swear to you by all the non-existent Gods of Fate that I'll crush you."

Balbillus recovered his nerve. "Possible but pointless."

"Why?"

Because Nero’s Moon is situated in his twelfth house, his Way of Death. You are ruled by the Moon. Epaphroditus, I've found Nero's assassin for you. You'll kill him yourself."

Oh, how I'd longed for this moment, how I relished spitting out the words! "Rubbish. That isn't my horoscope. It was invented by an astrologer in Alexandria called Phocion. My certificate of ownership with that date and time on it is a forgery by my Copy Master so he could get the reward for finding Fate’s Anointed. Tigellinus knows the truth, he must have told you.”

Balbillus didn't turn a hair. "Really? Then when were you born?"

"I haven't the slightest idea, nor has anyone else."

"The year is not correct?"

"Approximately, but -"

"Time and again, has this horoscope you say isn't yours not correctly predicted your fortune?"

"Yes, but only because others believed in it.”

"But Agrippina couldn't make you finish off Nero."

"No, which proves -"

"That she got the wrong day. On June 11, precisely at sunrise, that's when you'll do it."

Fate’s Puppet

March 7 – April 2, 68 A.D.

"Why was I the last one to know?" I asked Tigellinus.

The Praetorian Prefect was out on a balcony, mellowed by the wine being fed to him in sips by the young girl, practically naked in diaphanous silk, who reclined on the couch with him. He shoed her off by patting her rear, let his violet eyes drift upwards to the Full Moon floating above the seaside garden that was still alive with loose laughter. "Obviously you've been talking to Balbillus. A tearful farewell at the docks, that's what's upset you."

His mockery irritated me. "You're going to have to answer my question. What Balbillus told me is treason."

"I thought it was murder he was talking about."

"Are you telling me that you believe that absurd nonsense?"

"Yes I do. The astrology is very convincing."

"But you know as well as I do that my horoscope is a forgery."

Tigellinus’s laugh ended up in a cough. He wiped a speck of blood from the corner of his mouth. “It isn’t,” he said very calmly and held out a papyrus scroll that had being lying on the table next to him. “Take a look for yourself.”

I couldn’t touch it. The paper seemed more poisonous than an asp.

“What is it?”

“Your certificate of ownership.”

“The one on which the Copy Master forged the birth time?”

“It’s genuine.”

I felt my arm reaching out for it. The paper was frayed at the edges from age. I unrolled it. I hadn’t seen the handwriting in twenty years but I recognized it instantly. It was Phocion’s, or at least was identical to Phocion’s.

“Where did you get this?” I growled.

“From the Copy Master of course, when he came for his reward.”

I read it twice, the first time very quickly and the second time more slowly. “Certificate of Ownership. This document records the birth of a boy on New Year’s Day precisely when Sothis who is also called Sirius first reappeared in the dawn sky after being consumed by the Sun. He has been named Epaphroditus and is, like his parents, a possession of the Museum. His mother crossed over to the west soon after she gave birth. The scribe who writes this is the child’s father. Certified true and correct by myself, Phocion, records officer, Museum of Alexandria.”

A gale of memory drove clouds of emotion through my mind. All those years, beginning as early as I could remember, Phocion had taken me to the temple of Isis not to celebrate the dawn of New Year, July 19, but to celebrate my birthday. Afterwards came the celebration when the Goddess was carried through the streets of Alexandria, the focus of a mighty procession. Leading were women in white robes and transcendent smiles who sprinkled the street with scents as they walked. They were followed by devotees carrying torches and lanterns and tapers to illustrate that Isis was the child of the stars. Next the musicians on pipe and flute, the choir of youths singing songs that told the ancient history of the cult. Then the thousands of initiates all in pure white linen, the women wearing head scarves, the men’s shaven heads shiny with unguents, all keeping up a continuous, thrilling, high-pitched jingle with the little bronze sistra, sacred to Isis, that they rattled above their heads. How that sound had lifted my heart. My birthday party! Tears flooded my eyes. I blinked them away hastily. Suddenly my only emotion was anger.

“So the ‘agreement’ between the Copy Master and Phocion, the tetradrachmas in exchange for a horoscope, was a forgery?”

“Of course not. The Copy Master wrote that before he lost his hand.”

The voice came from inside, old and cracked but still recognizable. “He’s right. There was no forgery.” An old man with a long white philosopher’s beard limped out onto the balcony helping himself along with a stick. I knew exactly how old he was, eighty-two. In a horrible, giddy moment of paranoia I thought of Rachel and Winged Victory and how I’d been tricked into believing that I’d burnt her alive.

“Is it you?” I asked, stupidly.

The old man nodded, his eyes swimming, just as they had done exactly twenty years before in that Alexandrian courtyard. “Yes my only son. Embrace me.”

I did, and I cried too into his expensive linen robe. “Father, where have you been?”

“Antioch. I am an elder in the church there. I am a disciple of Paul’s.”

“What are you doing here?”

“The lord Tigellinus sent for me.”

Tigellinus seemed delighted by the family reunion. “You see, Epaphroditus, I’m not a monster. I settled a nice sum of money on him. He’s done very well in Syria, made quite a reputation for himself as an astrologer. Everyone there goes to him. Even I consult him sometimes.”

“What did you mean, ‘there was no forgery’?”

“Didn’t I tell you that I knew the day, the hour, the very minute of your birth?” Phocion piped. “I was there when you came into my life and your mother left. I wrote that certificate when you were born.”

“If my certificate wasn’t forged why did you tell me to run away?”

“Because, when I did my calculations, I found that the birth time they wanted was yours.”

“So what were you doing trying to get into the Records Office?” I said. “Collecting your second hundred from the Copy Master?”

Phocion stamped his stick for emphasis. “No, to return the hundred he’d advanced me! I planned to tell him I couldn’t find the birth time and then destroy your certificate as soon as his back was turned. But the soldiers wouldn’t let me in.”

“The Copy Master saw you?”

“Yes. I was making a fuss about getting into the filing rooms. That’s what started him thinking that I’d discovered you were the chosen one, that he didn’t have to pay me the extra hundred, that all he needed was your certificate. Later that day he found it, just as I knew he would.”

I had my arm around Phocion’s bony shoulders. My hand squeezed his withered arm like his hand had once squeezed mine. I examined his face like he’d once examined mine. He grinned inanely at me showing toothless gums. He wasn’t my father, except in name. He was Tigellinus’s ape now. 

I dropped my arm, turned on the Sicilian. “Why have you deceived me all these years?”

“Agrippina’s orders, of course. One more way to control you.”

“And neither of you had second thoughts about taking away my stars?”

Tigellinus smiled. He did seem to be having a good time. “Why do you care? You don’t believe in astrology. Or is that just sour grapes?”

“You still had no right.”

“Come Epaphroditus. You were a slave then, an object, you had no rights. Look on the bright side for a change, you’ve achieved everything your horoscope promised, haven’t you?”

“Except for one final, fateful act,” I said
.
Agrippina’s words.

“What?”

“I haven’t killed Nero yet.”

The man who claimed to be my father lost his silly grin. “But you will,” he piped. “Mars is in your ninth house. You are destined to exorcise evil, we Christians have known that all along. That’s why we watched over you. You are destined to kill the Beast.”

I stumbled down the dark steps into the garden. When I was sure no one could see me I raised my face to the radiant Moon, reached out to her with my arms and my heart. “If you are not just a pockmarked pebble, guide me. But do not ask me to murder Nero.”

The giant glowing orb was frigid, the stars didn’t sing. All I heard was wild music and tipsy laughter from everywhere in the dark garden. I’d noticed the way Phocion looked at Tigellinus. It was the way a dog looks at his master. I sank to the damp grass, put my hands on top of my head and wept.

Eleven days later I was working on petitions with Nero when there was a brusque knock at the door. "A dispatch from Gaul, Caesar," said the Guard colonel.

Nero made the sign for me to open it. I broke the seal and fell through a trapdoor.

Nero frowned. "What is it man?"

"It's from Gaul, dominus. Julius Vindex, the legate, he's raised the standard of revolt.

Nero snorted with contempt. "There it is then, the evil the comet indicated when it pointed a warning finger at my Mars and it's only Vindex! How many legions does he have?"

The Guard colonel smiled. "Not even one, Caesar."

"I didn't think so. Send him this message: Piso has invited him to dinner in Hades and I suggest he goes. Now let's go watch the wrestling. There ought to be a real contest there."

That evening, at dinner, another dispatch came in. Vindex was circulating a revolutionary pamphlet. The courier had brought a copy.

Nero, already flushed with wine, indicated the coiffured boy dressed in women's clothes who was reclining on the couch with him. "Give it to Poppaea. She's got a taste for the ridiculous."

Sporus, who had by this time mastered the mellifluous tones of a court lady, exaggerated them for comic effect. "Gauls," it began, "I Julius Vindex, Roman senator and governor of Central Gaul, urge you to join me in the just and long overdue revolt against the degenerate tyrant who disgraces the title of emperor of the Romans."

At this Nero made an ironic gesture, as if acknowledging a flattering acclamation. The sniggers of his dinner companions swelled into laughter.

Sporus went on. "All of you know how the world groans under Nero's taxes, how he squanders your money, people of the empire, on entertainment for the Roman mob. What you may not know is that this Nero is a foul criminal as well as a vainglorious spendthrift. Not only has he murdered the flower of the Roman Senate but he first debauched and then murdered his own mother as well."

This statement was met with an awkward silence. By an unhappy coincidence Vindex's letter had arrived on the eve of the festival of Minerva, the anniversary of Agrippina's death.

“Oh what nonsense!” It was Nero breaking the ice. “Everybody knows those were tragic roles I played, like
Oedipus
. I never actually slept with my own mother. In fact I can’t think of anything more appalling!”

Sporus nodded hastily and hurried on. "Other emperors have committed murders, robberies and in other ways outraged morality, but in infamy who can compare with Nero? I have seen this man, if you can call someone a man who has married a boy, I have seen this degenerate in the orchestra of a theater playing a kithara!"

Coming so soon after the chill caused by the mention of Agrippina's death, this complaint, clearly the high point of Vindex's invective, sounded so ridiculously provincial that everyone howled with laughter.

Sporus screeched to be heard. "Yes, I have myself heard him sing, play the herald, act in tragedies, weighed down in chains, being pushed around like a criminal. I have seen him heavy with child, yes pretend to give birth right there on stage with thousands looking on, hardly able to believe their eyes. A mere actor and a singer, that's what this Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus is, for who would demean the names Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus by connecting them with this female impersonator? The names Thyestes, Oedipus, Alcmaeon and Orestes: these are the ones by which he should be known, this entertainer!"