Domina (Paul Doherty Historical Mysteries) (23 page)

Caligula hooted with laughter, and pounded Passienus on the back. He kept repeating the remark to himself for days, a constant source of chuckling amusement. Passienus had always been Agrippina’s friend, lending her money, attending her banquets, one of the few men who could genuinely make her laugh. In his role as court jester, I suspect, he had secretly used his influence and wealth to advance Agrippina’s cause in Rome. Messalina would see him as no threat. Agrippina and Passienus were allowed to settle down into quiet, boring nuptial bliss.

Passienus was overwhelmed, flattered to be a kinsman, a member of the imperial family. Agrippina wove her web around him. Once, under the influence of wine, Passienus cheerfully admitted to me that Agrippina was a marvellous lover: energetic and enthusiastic in bed sports. I told him to keep such opinions to himself. He was a likeable, cheerful rogue, thirty years Agrippina’s senior, and he soon settled into his role as her companion and protector. She used him as she used every man. Passienus had a finger in many pies and he had the wealth to finance an army of informers. Nonetheless, Agrippina kept well away from Rome, staying at Antium or travelling north to Tusculum. She never spoke to me of her relationship with Passienus. She was absorbed with Nero as well as listening carefully to whatever news Passienus brought from the city.

Within four years of the marriage, Passienus began to suffer the effects of dropsy. I happened to remind her that her first husband, Domitius, had suffered from the same ailment.

‘It’s quite common,’ Agrippina evenly replied, ‘in men of that age group, of a certain social class. I am doing all I can to help.’

Passienus became a shadow of his former self, more subdued and withdrawn, as if concentrating on a problem to which the solution constantly evaded him. More and more Agrippina took over their affairs. I noticed that Passienus had little love for Nero and the boy responded in kind.

Nero was developing into a sturdy, copper-headed dumpling, with thick lips, a podgy nose and striking blue eyes, which he would constantly screw up as if short-sighted. A clever boy who learnt his lessons quickly, Nero was also a consummate actor. He loved singing or dancing, and composing his own poetry and every visitor to his mother’s household was always entertained by Nero’s childish songs, poems or performance in some play. He was a creditable athlete, graceful at running and swimming, and with no fear of horses. Acting, however, was his great passion – that and his mother. Perhaps their separation in his early years had created an insatiable hunger for her presence. He clung to her and she responded, allowing him to share her bed as protection against his constant nightmares. Even when Passienus joined her, Nero slept on a couch in the same room. One morning I heard Passienus arguing with Agrippina about it – he never protested again.

As Nero grew older, I became more interested in the little monster. I would often find him crouching by Agrippina’s door, listening or peering through the keyhole. The servants and slaves gave him the run of the villa, treating him with fawning adoration. Of course there were also whispers and gossip about their relationship. One maid made the mistake of telling others that she had seen Nero wearing his mother’s clothes. Within a day she disappeared and was never seen again.

Passienus avoided the boy as much as he could. I once heard him refer to Nero as ‘that little horror’ but generally he had the sense to keep such sentiments to himself. I didn’t like Nero’s cloying sweetness, the mock adoration in those chilling blue eyes as he questioned me, particularly about his mother and the activities of Uncle Caligula. I tried to answer as tactfully as possible. Nero had a sharp mind and keen wit, and would pester me until he was satisfied.

Agrippina still used me to send messages into the city.

‘You are nondescript, Parmenon,’ she declared. ‘You can enter rooms and stand silently without being noticed. You are a born spy.’

I baulked at the insult but she threw her arms round my neck and kissed me on the lips. ‘Not my spy,’ she murmured. ‘More my shadow.’

I never knew exactly what I took into Rome, letters hidden away in a flask of wine, coded messages which only the recipient could understand. I would collect the gossip and the scandal, scooping it up like a fisherman would a catch in his net, and bring it all back to Agrippina. I told her how the Lamian Gardens were still haunted by Caligula’s ghost, whilst the same eerie phenomenon had been experienced in the place where he’d been assassinated. Nero overhead this, absorbing every detail avidly. Of course, he questioned me closely later and made me repeat all the ghastly stories.

On one beautiful afternoon at Tusculum, a slave reported that one of the hanging cages in the garden had been forced and the songbird was missing. Usually, a chamberlain or steward would have dealt with such a matter but they were all enjoying a wine-soaked siesta. I decided to take care of the problem myself. I inspected the cage, became intrigued and went deeper into the garden, where I heard a childish voice chanting in the bushes. I quietly moved these apart, to see Nero kneeling inside. His body shielded a small rock, a makeshift altar on which the songbird had been sacrificed. The bird had been slit from throat to crotch, its innards spilt out in a bloody mess. Nero had dipped his fingers into the blood and daubed his face as if he was a priest.

‘What are you doing?’ I demanded.

‘I am performing a sacrifice.’

‘For what?’

‘For nothing, silly!’ Nero retorted. ‘I’m sacrificing to Uncle Caligula. When he comes to me, I talk to him.’

Despite the sunlight and the warmth, my skin crawled and my hands turned clammy. It wasn’t just the sacrifice, the destruction of a beautiful bird, but those clear blue eyes looking at me so earnestly and Nero’s aimless chatter, so reminiscent of Caligula.

‘Uncle is a God,’ Nero pressed the point. ‘And I am his nephew. It is right to make pious sacrifice.’

He was only eight years old but he talked and looked like a seasoned conspirator. I started to withdraw but he sprang to his feet. He grasped my wrist, digging his nails deeply into my skin.

‘It’s our secret, isn’t it, Parmenon? Just between you and me. You won’t tell Mother?’

‘I won’t tell Mother,’ I promised.

‘That’s good,’ the little horror replied. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve done this you know, Parmenon. Uncle tells me everything. He sends his regards.’ His face creased into a smile. ‘Now you may go and I’ll finish the rite.’

I never did tell Agrippina: I was too frightened to do so. In her eyes, Nero could do no wrong. In those heady, conspiratorial days, as Agrippina spun her web, no one was safe. Much as she loved me, much as she needed me, I, too, could become an offering on the altar to her adorable son.

Six years in all passed, slipping away like a dream. Sometimes I tried to live my own life: I’d meet a pretty face, I’d invest a little money. I was planning to buy my own farm but remorselessly Agrippina drew me back. I had no choice; I danced like a moth round the alluring flame. Agrippina used me more and more as her messenger to Rome.

‘Concentrate on Claudius,’ she warned, ‘and that glorious bitch of his.’

I did so. There were plenty of people ready to tell their tales. Claudius had won some respect, being more restrained and less bloodthirsty than his predecessor. However, his growing eccentricity was a constant theme at dinner conversations. Claudius liked the old ways and he fancied himself as a great judge or lawyer. He would often sit in the courts to hear and arbitrate on cases. Sometimes he proved himself a tyrant, at other times he’d allow the lawyers to insult him. One little Greek, frustrated by Claudius’s refusal to give him a fair hearing, hurled a wax tablet across the court, striking Claudius on the face.

‘As for you!’ the Greek screamed. ‘You are not Caesar, you’re just a silly, old man!’

Claudius dabbed at the cut, and allowed the Greek to have his say and leave without being punished. At other times Claudius would become involved in the day-to-day lives of his subjects. He began a campaign against ostentation, which he initiated by buying a beautiful silver chariot and having it smashed to pieces in front of a crowd of onlookers. Or he would issue edicts such as: ‘Yew juice is a sovereign remedy against snake bite’, or, ‘breaking wind at table is not a breach of etiquette’. I think the latter was to excuse his own lack of personal hygiene.

Claudius loved to stage games and pronounced that any gladiator who pretended not to fight well would have his throat cut. Sometimes he would bandy words with the mob or even with the gladiators themselves. On one occasion, during the draining of the Fucine Lake, Claudius decided to stage a mock naval battle. It was the usual nonsense: two triremes, each manned by a team of gladiators, would crash together and the crowd would be treated to a sea battle. Just before the games began the gladiators, as was customary, paraded in front of the imperial box and gave the ritual salute.

‘Hail, Caesar! We, who are about to die, salute you!’

‘Or not die, as the case may be!’ Claudius retorted.

The gladiators thought he was pardoning them, granting them life, so they put down their weapons and refused to fight. The crowd was treated to the spectacle of their Emperor having to climb into the arena and bribe both sides to continue.

Agrippina was most interested in Claudius’s relationship with Messalina. She listened avidly to the tales of her rival’s amorous exploits whilst Claudius was growing more and more puritanical. He banned prostitutes from Rome. When he discovered that the husband of his elder daughter, Antonia, was more interested in pretty boys, Claudius sent soldiers to his house: they caught the miscreant in bed with one of his lovers and promptly stabbed both to death.

Nevertheless, I warned Agrippina that Messalina’s influence over Claudius did not appear to be waning. She was ruthless and sly in exploiting her husband’s fears and growing superstition. One day as Claudius entered her court, a litigant came running up and begged for an audience.

‘Your Excellency,’ he fawned. ‘Take care this day, for I dreamt you were assassinated.’

Claudius, of course, was full of concern and begged the man to describe the would-be assassin: the cunning litigant turned and pointed to his rival waiting in the court. Claudius was taken in by this nonsense and the poor victim was immediately hustled away and executed on a fictitious charge of treason. Messalina was equally successful in using the same method to despatch a senator she hated. One morning Narcissus, the powerful freedman, burst into the Emperor’s bedchamber. Sweaty and stricken, he threw himself on his knees and told the Emperor of his dream in which Messalina’s hated senator had forced his way into the palace and stabbed Claudius to death.

‘I have dreamt a similar dream,’ Messalina divulged.

Claudius heard them out, not yet fully believing, until a chamberlain promptly arrived to say that the very same senator – whom of course Messalina had secretly invited to the palace – had tried to force his way into the imperial chambers. It was confirmation enough for Claudius: orders were issued and, by noon, the senator concerned was forced to take his own life.

Agrippina listened to this story and asked me to repeat it several times.

‘A clever ruse,’ she murmured. ‘A very clever ruse. If only poor Passienus was better, I’d travel to Rome myself to see what was happening.’

Poor Passienus was by now in a terrible way. His mind was wandering and, for some strange reason, he had fallen in love with a beech tree in his garden at Tusculum. He would embrace the trunk and kiss it, ordering his slaves to water the tree only with the finest wine from his cellars. He would sit and talk to it and sleep in its shade, and, late one afternoon, he died there. Agrippina mourned dutifully, and then had the body cremated and buried in the family tomb on the Appian Way. Once the funeral was over, Agrippina announced it was time for her to return to Rome.

‘What times! What manners!’

Cicero,
In Catilinam
: I, i

Agrippina used Passienus’s wealth to set up in luxury in her house on the Via Sacra. Once again she was visited by the powerful and the mighty Claudius himself came, to eat and drink, and listen owl-eyed to Agrippina’s lectures on Roman history. He would fall asleep, mouth open, and a slave would come and tickle his throat to get rid of the excess food and wine. Once this was achieved, two Nubian slaves lifted him up and carried him back to his litter.

Oh, Agrippina was still plotting. I sometimes ask myself why I stayed with her but . . . I loved the woman! In spite of all her wrongdoing and, yes, her killings, I admired her courage, and the fact that, once she had given her heart, she loved without compromise or constraint. She reminded me of a beautiful eagle, wings back, plunging down to the earth; once she had chosen her quarry, only death itself could stop her. During those early months after her return to Rome, Agrippina, like an eagle, perched on a branch, high above the scheming politics of the court, watching, waiting for her opportunity.

Claudius was undoubtedly tiring of Messalina’s strident ways, her jealousy, her fury when her will was blocked. So Agrippina prepared to make her first move. The secular games were being held in Rome, and Nero was invited to take part whilst Agrippina joined Claudius in the imperial box. Messalina and her coterie were also there, and Agrippina watched them avidly, fascinated by Messalina’s open flaunting of her favourites. One of these, Vitellius, Governor of Palestine, was even allowed to carry one of Messalina’s slippers next to his heart as a token of his undying love for her. We all settled down, and watched Nero, aged eleven, and Britannicus, aged nine, lead the procession into the arena. Both boys, their hair dressed in decorative garlands, carried long, sharp javelins, a bow and quiver over their backs and around their necks chains of gold. When Nero came forward and saluted the Emperor, he was greeted by thunderous, rapturous applause, a sharp contrast to the courteous cheers and polite hand claps that greeted Britannicus: Domina had hired a special claque and they did a brilliant job. Messalina turned in her chair and glared at Agrippina, who smiled icily back, her message clear: Agrippina, daughter of Germanicus, had returned to Rome and her war with Messalina had only just begun. Afterwards I advised caution, but as usual Agrippina just ignored me.