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With a wrenching bitterness he knew then how much he
had
wanted a companion of his own heart. Vigorously he shook the vision off. There was no time for such dreams while Nero lived, while he had not yet righted the injustice done his father.

CHAPTER XI

N
ERO’S TEMPER WAS SO CHANGEABLE THAT
Julianus dared not send Junilla off; he judged it wisest to confine her to a guarded chamber so she could not make any further attempts on his life. In the light of morning she seemed more pathetic than evil, and he wished her no harm—he wanted only to be well rid of her. He believed part of Nero’s purpose had been to introduce a fanatically devoted spy into the household; Junilla was to listen and report his true opinions of the Emperor’s poetic works, of his competence to rule—for Nero literally believed that the condemned were divinely impelled to speak the truth.

But afterward Nero seemed to lose interest in the whole affair; he had much to distract him. The state of his Empire daily grew more precarious; everywhere his hold on the army loosened. As the legions of Hispania revolted and proclaimed their Commander, Galba, as Emperor, then began their slow march on the capital city to wrest it from Nero, he began the sharp descent into final madness. He would call emergency meetings of the Senate, then instead of giving his prepared address, would demonstrate a new water organ he had helped design. On other days he would begin preparations to go on campaign and fight for his throne. But he planned to bring his stage equipment so he could perform his tragedies for the soldiers, and he meant to march with a bodyguard composed of his concubines dressed as Amazons armed with axes; once he went so far as ordering them to be given men’s haircuts before he abandoned the plan, managing to convince himself once more that all was well.

The trial of Marcus Arrius Julianus the Younger was set for a day late in the month of
Maius.
It was but one in a dreary succession of treason trials in which the captive Senators were prodded to condemn one of their own for Nero’s pleasure; none who set out at dawn that day for the Senate House had good reason to believe this trial would end differently.

Ten Praetorians in gilded armor came to conduct Julianus to the Curia where the Senate was housed. The walk was short but the low places were flooded with rain; it seemed to Marcus the city pelted him with mud to humble him. He felt strangely alive, lucidly aware of ordinary things—the red tile roofs sturdily climbing the hillsides like a grand flight of steps to the sky, the feeble dawn touching the glistening cobbles underfoot, transforming them into dark, mysterious gems, a crossroads shrine with its pitiful offering of scattered flowers, the hopeful knots of citizens crowded around the bakeries from which drifted the comforting aroma of bread. Already he felt detached from this city that was so like a goddess-mother, nourishing, punishing, all-pervading—this savage, luxurious city that enslaved him, freed him and now set him an impossible task, like some labor of Hercules cruelly laid on a mortal man.
Here it ends, Endymion. Whether I perform it well or fail miserably, either way I am bound for the sacrificial pit.

As his entourage came to the Sacred Way, the street was thick with crowds; by the time Marcus Julianus reached the Old Forum, their numbers had multiplied so that a cohort of Praetorians was needed to contain them. Shopkeepers, freedmen, aristocrats and beggars stood shoulder to shoulder; they were remarkably silent, he thought, for their numbers. Only gradually did he realize they came to show love for him and wish him well. He knew the tale of the wedding had been retold so often it had been transformed into legend with himself cast as hero; his denials had actually won stays of execution for several of the conspirators Domitian named that night; that his steadfastness actually slowed Nero’s murderous rampage was counted a near-miraculous thing. But he had not known the tale had moved all classes to such devotion, nor had he realized they were this close to demonstrating defiance of Nero’s rule.

With his Guards flanking him, Marcus Julianus ascended the steps of the Senate House; the outer walls of this venerable old monolith were blackened still from Nero’s fire. The Curia dwarfed the ceaselessly swarming human life below—the bankers and accountants going to their places of business, the hawkers, the wide-eyed foreigners. Though temples and government buildings of equal arrogance crowded closely about it, still the Curia stood apart with a sort of grim purity; its austere columns looked down on him in stern judgment. As always, here he felt the eyes of the dead—for so long this site had been holy ground. In the archaic earth beneath the foundation the blood of aeons of sacrifices turned to dust, mingling with the powdered bones of mythical kings. Many bold enough to linger about these steps past midnight claimed to have heard the voice of the long-dead Cicero or other great ghosts floating out from the Stygian dark.

As Marcus Julianus passed through towering bronze doors, he felt the sweep of many gazes moving toward him.
The day’s victim has come.
He knew their only security lay in the fact that on this day they were safe—someone else was to be immolated.

The Senators formed a small island of white almost lost in the vast gloom of the mammoth chamber. Entering this place even as a prisoner was faintly intoxicating, like being drawn up suddenly among the gods of Mount Olympus—for so many generations the fates of nations had been determined here. The stark light-and-dark pattern of the floor, made of precious marbles laid out in a bold geometric pattern, suggested some gameboard to be played on by gods.

The four hundred Senators who were present sat in a semicircle of ornately carved benches set in tiers; the lowest seats were reserved for the members of greatest eminence. Facing the Senators was a dais; here sat the presiding Consul, Messalinus, as well as Veiento, acting as chief prosecutor, and his three assistant prosecutors. Behind them was a loftier dais and atop it was the imperial seat. Here Nero displayed himself in splendor, his gold-bordered toga spilling over the throne’s lion-headed, ivory armrests. He was a sulky god propped precariously on a high, narrow throne, his swollen body all but overflowing the space; Julianus thought of a turnip sack carelessly swathed in the imperial purple. The weighty, gem-studded diadem he wore seemed to press his head down into his neck. Those jowls were comfortably settled, and he sat unmoving. Only his eyes were restless, malign, as they scavenged the hall, gathering information from every face, desiring to learn what could not be learned from a recorder’s report, such as who spoke his praises with a faint look of distaste, who looked down to cover an inappropriate smile.

Julianus took one of the seats in the rear reserved for the accused. He saw he got the barest of nods even from men he counted allies—few dared do otherwise with Nero examining their faces and occasionally writing notations on a tablet. Two men looked on him with friendliness: One was Saturninus, his father’s long-time friend, the sort of man who always turned round and ran against the herd; he risked much with the look. Why, Julianus wondered, does nature produce so few men like him?

The other was Domitian, high in the visitors’ gallery, who risked little by his nod and smile of support—Nero held him to be of small account, and the Emperor was so shortsighted that Domitian was too distant for him to see, even with the aid of the outsized emerald Nero used to improve his vision. Domitian made quite a show of getting his attention, and Julianus understood at once: Now that he was something of a popular hero, Domitian wanted it publicly well established that Marcus Arrius Julianus was his friend.

The Chief Augur, armed with a crooked, spiral-headed staff, was taking the auspices. He set down the wooden cage in which the sacred chickens were kept, then muttered a prayer while tossing them a measure of grain. Of course, they gave the best of auguries, pecking furiously at the feed; as a child Julianus had stopped wondering why no one ever objected that the chickens had been carefully starved beforehand. Tradition, in this place, he reflected, was the great blindfold. The Senate as a body he thought of as a rigid, remote grandfather walking stiffly through his last days, haughty to the end, affecting not to know he is consulted only for form. Collectively the mind of the Senate was so brittle and unchanging that he accepted his duties here as a heavy price of rank. He had experienced boredom here in great measure, while interminable arguments raged over petty issues—the settling of grander issues the Emperor reserved for himself—and so it was an odd sensation to experience dread, to know those who had bored him now meant to kill him.

The Consul Messalinus rose and with a grand flourish cast incense onto the altar beneath the gilded image of Victory with outstretched wings. A cloud of dark fragrant smoke billowed up.

The Consul then convened the assembly, and minor matters were attended to: There was a short debate over which of two cities in Gaul would be granted the right to erect a new temple to Nero’s divinity; then came the case of a city in Syria that begged one year’s remission of taxes because they suffered a pestilence. When the votes had been taken, the Consul rose and announced with an ominous tremor, “Marcus Arrius Julianus, come forward, that we might examine your case.”

Julianus rose in his gray mourning cloak. A sudden thought of his father caused him to touch the black amulet at his throat—and for a heartbeat he was aware of the earth below and felt a bright calm, as after a bell has ceased ringing in a temple. The sense was quickly gone, but its nectar lingered.

As he came forward to stand before the Consul and the throne, the vast space was silent but for the sound of his steps echoing off stone. All saw at once this was no cringing victim. Julianus inclined his head to acknowledge the presence of the Emperor, then turned to face the senatorial body. As he examined them steadfastly, fearlessly, with eyes that seemed able to expertly turn a soul inside out, the Senators for a fleeting moment had the sense they themselves were on trial.
This was a man who could not betray,
some thought before he uttered a word.

Domitian was seized with envy; he realized then that part of him hoped this trial would humble his friend as the wedding party had not. Was that faint amusement he saw in Marcus’ face? The fool seemed not to know he was ready to be ferried across the Styx.

Veiento rose and prepared to speak. That gaunt, narrow face was severe as a woodcut; soulless eyes looked out blandly from hollow sockets. There was a look of barrenness about him—cadaverous skin was stretched over jutting bones, a smooth skull, a knife-thin nose. His mouth was set in a curt line, revealing nothing of the rich pleasure he took in his role; long ago he had learned to keep desire concealed lest an enemy learn too much. He was a creature admirably adapted to this world, Julianus reflected: His single loyalty was to the source of power—its good or evil was of no concern—and for it he struck and killed with the passionless efficiency of a shark.

Veiento did not consider this the beginning of a trial but rather the end of one. He had already won; this was the victory celebration. Treason trials were for form alone; the Senators never dared defy the guilty verdict they knew the Emperor expected. The questioning, too, was for show—a board of judges had already reviewed the evidence and advised Nero of the defendant’s guilt. The one difficulty in Veiento’s mind lay in making certain the vote was called for before too many embarrassing questions were raised about his own dealings.

Of the three examiners with him, two were senior senatorial advisors, and one, a young Senator named Montanus who had held few offices. Nero himself had chosen Montanus for this honor because he had bested everyone in an eating-and-drinking contest held this year aboard Nero’s pleasure barge during the Feast of Mars, consuming wine enough to down ten men and a whole suckling pig—and such heroic voracity, as Nero had put it, called for a prize.

Through one turn of the water clock Veiento began to enumerate the many crimes of Marcus Arrius Julianus, father and son. Veiento’s voice was not so colorless as the rest of him; it was florid and full as it arrogantly took possession of the hall. Julianus the Elder had used every means, natural and supernatural, to bring about Nero’s death, he claimed, and at the last he cried out compellingly that Julianus meant to put his son, standing before them, on the throne. By the end of the speech Nero was convinced all over again of the younger Julianus’ guilt; he sat forward, his fleshy face become rigid, his dimpled hands squeezed tight in rage.

When the opening speech had ended, Veiento launched into the questioning. “Son of the traitor—did not your father, Marcus Arrius Julianus the Elder, divulge all his plans to you? And did he not give you first place in them?”

“The word
traitor
in your mouth, my lord,” Julianus replied, his voice austere after Veiento’s, “is little more than a weapon of murder. Do you not fear such a capriciously wielded weapon will one day be used against yourself? And how smoothly and easily it comes off your tongue, when you’ve no real evidence—even the witnesses you bribed refuse to speak against us.”

This brought sharp silence. Few could believe Julianus dared accuse one so senior to him of bribery.

Veiento controlled a pitying smile. The fool actually seemed to think this
was
a trial.
Good. Let him enliven my victory celebration.
Veiento stole a look at Nero, who seemed to have lapsed back into a nap.