The Nero Prediction (7 page)

Although the marriage of an uncle to his niece was against Roman custom, several influential senators quickly came around to Vitellius’s point of view and no one wanted to be left behind. Two and a half months later, on New Year’s day, Claudius married Agrippina and I became the personal secretary of the most powerful woman on earth.

My good fortune surprised no one. By now everyone on the Palatine knew that Agrippina had chosen me as her personal secretary because of the brilliant promise of my horoscope. Suddenly everyone warmed to me, I became the darling of the court. Slaves gaped, whispering to each other in awe as I passed. Freedmen showered me with presents, grasping for access to my mistress. Women, some of them old enough to know better, offered themselves to me. I turned most of them down. None could compete with a swarthy Indian girl, recently retired from the emperor's bed, who taught me how to make love in one hundred positions.

“What’s Claudius like in bed?” I asked her while we rested between bouts.

She answered without hesitation. “Astonishing, for a man of his age. He has the lust of a goat. But he drools when he gets angry, spitting all over the place. He also drools when he gets excited by a woman, all over her, it’s disgusting but at least it’s imperial drool!” She reached down to my exhausted member with her slender hand. “Are you nearly ready? Just the thought of the emperor has got me itching for more.”

It took a few minutes’ attention from her clever tongue and capacious throat, but very soon I was. This was the life of a prince. Phocion’s shade no longer haunted my dreams. If it weren’t for Euodus I would have forgotten about Tigellinus as well.

Of course no one believed in my essential luckiness more fervently than Agrippina which was why she kept me at her side, jotting down the notes she dictated to me and recording her conversations with the droves of clients who called on her to discuss matters that were sometimes very confidential. I don't know if she interpreted my horoscope on a daily basis but she couldn't have paid more attention to hers. Every two hours, on the hour, when the Moon had moved another degree forward through the Zodiac, her lips fluttered in an inaudible murmur as she read the next entry in her star diary.

This was a document that she'd drawn up herself to keep track of the motion of the planets around her chart so that she could tell precisely what Fate had in store for her every moment of every day.

I soon discovered that there was nothing unusual about Agrippina's obsession with astrology. I was often amazed at the sight of a room full of fashionable women who were gambling with dice suspend their play at the sound of the hour-caller's trumpet, one blast for each hour, while they checked the very latest alignment of their planets. None was more devoted to this practice than Lollia Paulina who'd been empress once already, Caligula's. Still young, immensely wealthy, as ambitious as she was beautiful, Lollia had been only narrowly defeated by Agrippina in the contest for Claudius's hand, a defeat which everyone knew could at any time be reversed.

Accustomed to being ignored by Agrippina when she was in company, except when she wanted me to take a note, I was surprised when she said to Lollia, "Have you met Epaphroditus my new secretary?"

Lollia flashed me a glance that was sharp as a razor. "No, but of course I've heard how you flushed him out of Alexandria because of his wonderful stars. What do they predict, do tell!"

Agrippina gave her a thin smile. "My wish list, of course. Intelligence, diligence, initiative, complete discretion. He can be trusted with anything, no matter how confidential it is."

Lollia's eyes glittered as brightly as the king’s ransom of emeralds and pears that festooned her from head to toe. "First find the stars and then the person. How perfectly ingenious of you!"

Agrippina knew that I met Euodus every evening at the Circus. Once she’d even reminded me that I was late. The day after my first meeting with Lollia the freedman didn't, as usual, ask me immediately what I had to report.

"Tomorrow you will be asked to go to into the city,” Euodus said. “You’ll go alone. A man named Basilicus will approach you. He'll have proof that you're in the business of selling smoke, do you know what that is?"

It was a hint of imperial favor, usually imaginary. It was also gossip, scraps of information about the emperor's current whims, with whom he had dinner the previous evening, who seemed to have his ear and who didn't. Everybody from chambermaids to imperial secretaries sold smoke. Smoke was what I passed on to Tigellinus via Euodus.

“Yes,” I told him.

"Good. Basilicus will ask you to do something for him that will frighten you. Appear to be reluctant until he threatens you. Then promise to do exactly what he wants."

"Are those Tigellinus's instructions?" I asked.

Euodus gave me his quick mischievous glance but said nothing.

The next morning Agrippina had me do another run down to the Argiletum, the booksellers' center just north of the Forum, for copies of tracts by Berossus, the Chaldaean priest who had broken his vow of secrecy and taught astrology to the Greeks on Cos three hundred years ago.

“The Athenians erected a golden tongued statue in his memory,” she told me, “because of his divine prophecies.”

Always, when I left the palace on an errand, two bodyguards went with me. I was a very valuable piece of property. Today the burly slaves weren’t waiting for me at the gate and as instructed I didn’t ask for them. But I wasn’t alone. The eyes of the watchers followed me. If they weren’t imaginary, the symptom of a peculiar mental disturbance, who were they?
You have been chosen.
  Mark the Lion’s words. Were my watchers Christians? Again that thought. Just last month Claudius had expelled their leaders from Rome because they’d caused a riot during the Jewish Passover holiday by insisting that Jews should be commemorating the martyrdom of Christ the Messiah instead of the night they were spared from some ancient plague in Egypt. Understandably the Jews took violent exception to the idea that their all-powerful Messiah could be snuffed out like a common criminal and it didn’t help much when the Christians assured them he was about to make a glorious reappearance. The riot had special significance for me. I recognized the name of one of the expelled Christians. He was Mark the Lion.

I found a dusty Berossus compendium in a shop that specialized in astrological tracts and put it on Agrippina’s account. As I emerged a man fell into step with me, a Syrian, well oiled and reeking of scent.

"Good afternoon Epaphroditus," he said, very cordially. "My name's Basilicus, I need to talk to you about smoke."

I played my part. "I'm afraid I don't have anything interesting at present."

A hand as strong as a bear trap closed on my arm. "You're being far too modest. I hear from a reliable source that the information you sell comes from someone very close to the emperor. Very close indeed."

I tried to pluck my arm free. "What exactly are you looking for?" I asked.

"Nothing much. Just more smoke, well something a little more substantial than that. Agrippina's star diary."

I didn't take much to fake surprise at this astonishing request because Agrippina's star diary was the key to her strategic planning. "Are you mad?" I spat at him, "she'll have you skinned alive when I report this to her."

The threat didn't ruffle him at all. "But you won't and this is why." He pulled out a roll of paper. "They're all here, a long list of your dirty little secrets. Who Claudius has been sleeping with. The names of the people Agrippina has been seeing, even things said in her private meetings. Oh I wonder who she'll flay if this falls into her hands?"

I broke into a sweat because a glance told me that the information on the Syrian's paper matched what I had reported to Euodus. "I don't know how you got your hands on that gossip," I said, fighting for self control. "It certainly didn't come from me."

"Are you sure that Agrippina will believe that?"

I wasn't. Some of the meatiest tidbits only she and I knew. When Basilicus saw the uncertainty in my eyes he nodded gravely.  "My patron is prepared to pay very well for the service. A million in fact."

A million sesterces was a fantastic bribe, for a sixteen-year-old slave anyway. Agrippina was testing me, that was my first thought. My second thought was that Euodus needed the money, or even Tigellinus. I remembered the portrait of Tiberius winning back the Roman standards. I was destined to be a hero, not a thief. Whoever was behind this was out of luck.

"Impossible,” I said to Basilicus. “When the diary isn't in her possession she locks it away in a strong box. She has the only key."

"But you lock her documents away for her. Separate the diary from the rest and copy it while she sleeps."

"I can’t. She usually takes it to bed with her."

"Wait until she gets you to lock it away for her, you see how much we know? It won't take more than a few minutes to make me a shorthand copy. Consider the alternative. If you don't do it, it will be reported to the empress that you are selling confidential information about her for personal gain.” He waved his inventory of smoke at me. This is undeniable proof. Agrippina will certainly have you crucified. A million sesterces or a miserable death. Why don’t you sleep on it?”

As usual, that evening, before turning in Agrippina handed me the key to her strong box to lock up her satchel of documents that included the notes I’d taken down that day. Almost as an afterthought she took her star diary out of the pocket of her stola and gave me that as well. “You’ve seen Euodus today?”

“Yes domina.”

She cradled me with her dark eyes, sharing the unspoken confidence that she wanted me follow his instructions whatever they were. “Good. I’m going to bed now. Give me the key back tomorrow.”

I thought of Tigellinus, I thought of Euodus, I thought of Basilicus and I thought of the Alexandrian scholar I’d watched die on the cross. Agrippina wanted me to copy her star diary, I was almost certain of that. What if I’d misread her? Why would she want an enemy to know her future when she wanted no one except for Balbillus to know mine?

I forced myself not to hurry to my cubicle. Once there I closed the door, listened for passers bye, unrolled the star diary. At the top of the scroll was a spoked wheel on which planetary symbols were inscribed: Agrippina's  horoscope. I dried the sweat off my hands and made a tracing of her wheel. The diary itself, covering the month past and the one to come, extended over almost half a scroll of densely packed writing. The terminology was cryptic, there wasn't a sentence in three that I could make any sense of, but within fifteen minutes I had it all down in shorthand. Then I locked the original away with the rest of her documents and placed the key under my pillow. Perhaps I shouldn’t have, because I was hounded by dreadful nightmares.

The next day during the siesta I met Basilicus the Syrian outside the temple of Mercury on the Aventine. Once again I went without guards, and once again I was sure I was being watched.

"Well?" he said.

I nodded.

"All of it?"

"Yes."

"Excellent! Let's go."

"Where to?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

He set off briskly up the hill in the direction of the temple of Diana and rang the bell of a grand mansion with spectacular views both north and south.

"Your patron?" I asked.

He waited until the gatekeeper admitted us. "Yes."

Except for a fine gilded bronze of Caligula, the statues in the atrium were unfamiliar to me. We were shown into a library, two walls of which were covered with books which looked as if they'd never been touched. In a niche on the third wall, however, stood the lion-headed statue of Chronos wrapped in his snake. The shelves on this wall were stuffed with astrological titles that one could tell, from their worn wrappers, had been well thumbed.

There was the light tap of sandals on marble. Basilicus cleared his throat deferentially. Moving as smoothly as a river, a woman entered, jeweled hair piled high, pride riding on the angle of her chin. It was Lollia Paulina, the ex-empress who'd congratulated Agrippina on choosing me by my stars.

She arched an eyebrow in inquiry. "You have something for me?"

I handed her the scrolls.

She unrolled them impatiently. Her gasp of pleasure was almost sexual. "Her horoscope! Are certain your copy is completely accurate?"

"Yes domina. It's a tracing."

"Good. What about the diary itself?"

"Every word is there and in its right place. I transcribed it from my own shorthand."

Lollia Paulina examined the horoscope. Again that passionate intake of breath. Her upper lip rose to unveil the pearls which capped two of her smaller front teeth.  "So that's her birth time! Well done, Epaphroditus."

My thoughts flew. Lollia's appearance on the scene meant that my introduction to her had been the starting point of the plot to steal Agrippina's star diary. Barely an afternoon had elapsed between Agrippina's assurance that I was the soul of discretion and Basilicus's appearance. For some incomprehensible reason Agrippina wanted her rival to have a list of her unlucky days.

Now that Lollia had that list she didn't need me, I realized that. In fact my continued existence was an inconvenience. If I was going to be of further use to Agrippina I had to survive. When the time for explanations came, I was sure she would understand that.

     "Thank you domina,” I said when Basilicus handed me a heavy bag of coins, “although I'm sure that I can do even better. Balbillus, the emperor's astrologer, has an office in the palace. I happen to know that he's not as careful about keeping his documents secure as he should be."

Lollia examined me thoughtfully. It looked as if she was changing her mind about something.

Three days after I sowed enough gold into my mattress to qualify me for the Senate, Agrippina told me, "You're coming with Lucius and me on a social call. We're going to visit my family. Destiny has decreed that you will be of assistance to our dynasty, so it is appropriate that you pay your respects to its members.”