I had bribed certain guards to look after the young Nero and now went searching for Claudius, who, in the general chaos everyone had ignored. Looting had broken out in the palace, where slaves, soldiers and servants were helping themselves. I searched the library but found it empty. I then recalled where his mother’s chamber had been and discovered Claudius hiding behind a curtain.
‘Everything is going to plan,’ I assured him. ‘Agrippina’s son is safe but you have to assert yourself.’
Claudius was almost wetting himself with fright. It took two cups of wine before he stopped shaking. I grabbed him by the hand and bundled him down the steps.
A group of Praetorian officers were waiting, and greeted the old man as if he was a God incarnate. Claudius was immediately put into a litter and, protected by soldiers, taken down to the Praetorian camp outside the city gates. Once he was there, Claudius started to regain his nerve. In a clash of gleaming swords, their cloaks billowing out, the Praetorian Guard hailed Claudius as Emperor and Caesar. He stood shaking on the purple-draped rostrum but accepted their salutes and oaths of fealty. Slowly but surely the word spread. Clerks, secretaries, civil servants, and even a few senators joined Claudius. The Senate tried to negotiate, whilst Claudius prevaricated, dodging and swerving like an old fox. He pointed out that the army had already hailed him as Emperor. He had promised them a donative and he hoped the Senate would see sense and recognise him. They had no choice: Rome accepted him as Emperor. Two weeks later Claudius invited my mistress back to Rome. He treated her honourably, restored her possessions and, after executing those who had murdered Caligula, studiously ignored any reference to her or me.
Agrippina was delighted to see her son again. She was now twenty-five years of age. The different crises had created furrows in her olive-skinned face and silvery lines in the night-black hair but her eyes were still bright and vivacious. When she saw Nero, however, the years fell away. She picked him up and danced. For days afterwards, she wouldn’t let him out of her sight. She studied every inch of his little body and questioned him closely about what he liked, his favourite toys. At first he was shy and coy with her, but eventually they became inseparable. Domitia Lepida who looked after him during her exile was totally ignored. Agrippina would have liked to have torn her eyes out but Lepida was the mother of Messalina, that copper-haired, round-faced beauty who had the good fortune to be married to Claudius the Emperor.
Agrippina very rarely mentioned Messalina’s name, yet, I could tell, they were the deadliest enemies from the start. One day, shortly after her return, Agrippina asked me to comb her hair. She sat on a small stool in front of a silver sheen mirror. Young Nero sat at her feet, thumb in mouth, watching her with wide eyes.
‘I have learnt my lesson, Parmenon,’ Agrippina declared, studying her reflection closely.
‘In what way, Domina?’
‘To survive.’ She leaned down and rustled Nero’s hair. ‘And to wait.’
‘For what, Domina?’
‘Is the door closed?’ she asked.
‘You know it is, Mistress. You’ve chosen this room carefully, just like the one where we first met.’
‘I’ll tell you what I’ve planned,’ she murmured, so matter of fact you’d think she was choosing an ointment or a pot of paint for her face. ‘One day Nero will become Emperor, won’t you, my little child?’ She smiled beatifically at her son as he sat at her feet. ‘And I shall become Empress.’
I dropped the brush.
‘And you, Parmenon,’ she continued, ‘must not be so clumsy.’
‘And how will you achieve all this?’ I asked. ‘Ask Claudius to divorce Messalina and marry you?’
Agrippina pulled a face.
‘Messalina has already given birth to one child, a girl Octavia.’ I continued warningly.
‘So?’ She shrugged one shoulder. ‘I doubt if she is Claudius’s child.’ She bit her lip. ‘I mustn’t say that again.’
I gave her hair one hard brush and stood back. She caught my gaze in the mirror.
‘What is it, Parmenon?’ she whispered.
‘Haven’t you heard the news, Domina?’
She spun round on the stool. When she lost her temper, Agrippina’s face changed; it seemed to grow longer, harder, her high cheekbones more pronounced, the sensuous lips a mere pink, thin line. She could read my thoughts.
‘What is it, Parmenon?’ she demanded again.
‘Mama, Mama, what’s the matter?’ Nero jumped up and clutched at her leg.
Agrippina put an arm round his shoulder.
‘Hush, little one,’ she soothed. ‘I’ll take you into the garden. I’ve bought some new fish. Parmenon has something to tell me, haven’t you?’
My throat had gone dry. I had never seen Agrippina look so furious.
‘Rumours, Domina, mere gossip. That’s what you pay me to collect, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t pay you anything,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘You are mine, Parmenon, body and soul. I can see it in your eyes: Messalina is expecting another child, isn’t she?’
I agreed. ‘Her women are talking about her courses having stopped for two months in succession. They will take oaths that Claudius is the father. Messalina has already consulted the midwives and the auguries. She has been promised a fine boy.’
Agrippina didn’t move.
‘Did you hear me, Domina?’
She hugged Nero closer. ‘Get out!’ she ordered.
She had bitten the corner of her lips so savagely that a trickle of blood ran down her chin. ‘Get out and leave me alone!’
For the next few days I never saw Agrippina. She remained closeted in her apartment, sending to the kitchen for food for both herself and her son. Other people came and went: the legion of spies she had in the city; merchants; traders; tinkers; the occasional soldier from the Praetorian Guard. I knew it was best to leave her alone. I was also aware of visitors arriving late at night, of horsemen, soldiers in the garden below, pinpricks of light in the darkness, the rumbling wheels of a cart.
Eventually the crisis passed. Agrippina invited me back to her chamber, where she was sitting on the same stool. Her long, black hair was thrust behind her but her face bore no paint. She looked older, more severe.
‘I want you to brush my hair, Parmenon,’ she declared, ‘for the last time.’
My heart sank. I thought I was to be dismissed.
‘Brush it, feel it, smell its perfume. Go on!’
I picked up the brush from the ivory basket and obeyed. I held her hair to my face.
‘So,’ she said as if there had been no interruption in our conversation. ‘Messalina is expecting a brat?’ She sighed. ‘More obstacles eh, Parmenon? Someone else in the arena. I shall tell you what we’ll do!’
‘Yes, Domina.’
‘We’ll keep quiet and we’ll wait.’
I brushed Domina’s hair. It was the last time for many years.
From that day Agrippina transformed herself: she wore her hair tightly caught up as if she was a Roman matron. Her stola and dress would have been more appropriate for the fashion of the Republic than for the ostentatious finery of Claudius’s court. Her face went largely unpainted and rarely did I see jewellery around her throat or fingers. She also hired a tutor, that little turd Anicetus, who educated her in the history of Rome and the intricacies and subtleties of the Julio-Claudian family. I was fascinated. I had never seen such an actress. She was no longer the young, passionate, tempestuous Agrippina but a severe Roman matron. Her dinner parties became so conservative and boring I often fell asleep. Sometimes, rarely, she’d catch my eye and wink quickly. She invited her sister Julia more and more to her banquet evenings and afterwards they would stroll, arm-in-arm, around the gardens. Julia was very much like Drusilla: dark with a lush, sensuous body, provocative eye-catching gestures, and a twinkling laugh, but she was vapid and empty-headed. She soon fell under Agrippina’s sway, to whom she brought the gossip of the court and all the scandals of the city. Agrippina would sit, listen and nod wisely.
One evening Domina invited the Emperor Claudius to dine. Power, I suppose, changes people: Claudius could act the fool but he had soon proved himself to be shrewd and as ruthless as any of his predecessors – opposition both at home and abroad had been cruelly crushed. Agrippina welcomed him as her revered kinsman and led both Claudius and Messalina to the couch of honour. If Agrippina looked dowdy, Messalina was as brilliant as the sun in the heavens. She was not very tall but perfectly formed; just the way she walked made men’s heads turn. She had a round, doll-like face, a petite nose and full-lipped mouth, with strange dark-blue eyes offset by her red-gold hair. She wore more jewellery on one wrist than Agrippina had in her treasure coffers. She loved to dress herself in white. As she walked into the dining chamber, the light caught the jewellery at her throat and ears and she shimmered like some goddess appearing to mortals.
Agrippina courted her and tried to indulge her every whim. Claudius swallowed the bait whole, but Messalina suspected what Agrippina was plotting. Throughout the meal she drank little but listened with a sneer on her pretty face as Agrippina flattered Claudius and impressed him with her knowledge of Rome, its legends and customs. Claudius listened open-mouthed in admiration, until eventually he fell asleep as he always did. Messalina leaned across. She reminded me of how Helen of Troy must have looked: beautiful, treacherous and very, very dangerous.
‘I thank you,’ she lisped. ‘For the food, the wine, the company.’ She waved her hand airily in the direction of the musicians. ‘And I do admire your knowledge of Roman history.’ The smile faded from her lips. ‘If it’s true,’ she continued, ‘that Claudius is descended from Aeneas of Troy and if my midwives are correct, it would seem that Aeneas is going to have another descendant. Doesn’t that please you, Agrippina?’
‘I’m ecstatic for you,’ my mistress cooed. ‘Please accept my sincere congratulations. I can assure you,’ Agrippina popped a grape in her mouth, ‘both you and your children are never far from my thoughts.’
‘And you and yours,’ Messalina retorted, ‘are never out of mine.’
On such a note the banquet ended. Claudius, drunkenly murmuring about the Auguries, was helped to his litter. Agrippina and Messalina kissed, looking more like gladiators saluting each other in the arena, and the imperial party left in a blare of trumpets and a line of spluttering torches. Agrippina clapped her hands and pronounced herself satisfied.
‘Be careful,’ I warned.
‘Oh, I’m going to be, Parmenon,’ she whispered. ‘I am going to be very, very careful. I sincerely hope Messalina is as well. Now, was the music appropriate? Do you think Claudius was impressed by my knowledge of Roman history?’
‘Rome has no finer actress,’ I applauded.
She slapped me on the hand. ‘Well, they’ve gone,’ she continued, ‘and I’ve got business to do. It’s going to be a busy night for us, Parmenon.’
She went out, and when she returned, two burly, shadowy figures entered behind her. My heart skipped a beat: their outlines were familiar. I glimpsed thick hair falling down to the shoulders and bearded faces. Castor and Pollux stepped into the pool of torchlight.
‘By all the Gods!’ I exclaimed.
Both Germans glanced at me, those icy-blue eyes studying my face carefully.
‘You’ve got nothing to fear,’ Agrippina assured me. ‘These men took an oath of allegiance to my brother, and now he’s dead, they owe it to me.’
Agrippina stepped forward and looked at each from head to toe. They were now dressed in simple tunics, no longer the red and white of the Emperor’s personal guard. Silver torcs circled their necks, copper bracelets were round their wrists. They still looked very dangerous in their marching boots, with broad daggers hanging from the belts across their shoulders.
‘They have taken an oath of allegiance,’ Agrippina declared, ‘and we have shared bread and salt. They are my shadows, protection for me and my son.’
Chapter 11
‘He goes along the shadowy path from which, they say, no one returns’
Catullus,
Carmina
: 3
Agrippina made the two Germans take a similar oath of loyalty to myself, a macabre ceremony carried out by torch and candlelight. The two Germans ate bread and salt and swore their loyalty by earth, sea and sky. When this makeshift ceremony was over, Agrippina ordered me to follow her down into the cellars of the house; a place I seldom visited, with its warren of galleries and passageways. Agrippina led us to a heavy reinforced door at the end of a corridor. Castor opened it and stepped inside. I sensed someone else was there; there was a moan, a clink of chain. Torches were lit and I gazed upon Progeones, manacled to the wall. Agrippina’s torturers had taken his eyes out, leaving nothing but black, bloody sockets.
‘Here he is,’ Agrippina mocked. ‘The man who carried Caligula’s execution list and had the temerity to betray me.’ She leaned closer and whispered in the man’s battered ear. ‘Well, Progeones, do you want to die?’
He groaned and nodded. He didn’t know who I was, having lost all sense of reality. A man in such pain looks forward only to death.
Agrippina studied his face once more then left. She never mentioned him again but I discovered later that the Germans took him out into the countryside and buried him alive.
The horrors of that night were not yet over. Agrippina had the rest of her retinue summoned. We shared a litter and, preceded by torch-bearers, were taken along winding roads and alleyways to the Lamian Gardens on the Esquiline. It was a haunting, forbidding place, bathed only in the light of a pale moon. Agrippina didn’t say anything as she led us across the lawns to the edge of a secluded cypress grove. Here, the Germans, who were usually frightened of nothing, refused to go any further. Their fear and panic spread to the rest of the retinue. Agrippina berated them but they just stared back and refused to take a step further. She snatched a torch, cursed in exasperation and led me on.