syllable slowly to herself in a hoarse whisper: 'O
schol-ar,' she said, 'you have tasted now both hon-ey and g<dl. Be care-ful that the sweet-ness of your pleas-ure does not turn to-morr-ow in-to the bit-ter-ness of re-pent-ance!'
'Pshaw,' I returned, 'My sweet-heart, I am read-y, if you give me an-oth-er kiss like that last one, to be roasted up-on a slow fire like a-ny chick-en or duckling.'
She chuckled at this and then said aloud, 'Go to sleep, husband. I'm waiting until I hear you snore.'
I protested, 'Then you shouldn't read such exciting stories.'
I heard Plautius go to bed after a time. 'O Heavens,' I thought. 'He'll be asleep in a few minutes and with two doors between us he won't hear my cries when Urgulanilla throttles me.' Urgulanilla stopped reading and I had no muttering and crackling of paper to help me fight against ray sleepiness. I felt myself falling asleep. I was asleep. I knew that I was asleep and I simply must wake up. I struggled frantically to be awake. At last I was awake. There was a thud and a rustle of paper. The book had blown off the table on to the floor. The lamp had gone out; I was aware of a strong draught in the room. The door must be open. I listened attentively for about three minutes.
Urgulanilla was certainly not in the room.
As I was trying to make up my mind what to do I heard the most dreadful shriek ring out--from quite close it seemed. A woman screamed, 'Spare me! Spare me! This is Numantina's doing! O! O!' Then came the bump of a heavy metal object falling, then the crash of splintering glass, another shriek, a distant thud, then hurried footsteps across the corridor. Somebody was in my room again.
The door was softly closed and barred. I recognised Urgulanilla's panting breath. I heard her clothes being taken off and laid on a chair, and soon she was lying beside me. I pretended to be asleep. She groped for my throat in the dark.
I said, as if half-waking: 'Don't do that, darling. It tickles.
And I've got to go to Rome tomorrow to buy some cosmetics for you.'
Then in a more wakeful voice: 'O Urgulanilla! Is that you? What's all that noise?
What's the time?
Have we been asleep long?'
She said, 'I don't know. I must have been asleep about three hours. It's just before dawn. It sounds as though something dreadful has happened. Let's go and see.'
So we got up and put on our clothes in a hurry and unlocked the door.
Plautius, naked except for a coverlet hastily wrapped round him, stood in the middle of an excited crowd armed with torches. He was quite distracted and kept saying, 'I didn't do it. I was asleep. I felt her torn from my arms and heard her borne through the air screaming for help, and then a crash of something falling and another crash as she went through the window. It was pitch dark. She called out:
'Spare mel It's Numantina's doing.''
'Tell that to the judges,' said Apronia's brother, striding up, 'and see whether they'll believe you. You've killed her all right. Her skull's smashed in.'
'I didn't do it,' said Plautius. 'How could I have done?
I was asleep. It was witchcraft. Numantina's a witch.'
At dawn he was taken before the Emperor by Apronia's brother. Tiberius cross-examined him severely. He said now [^ that while he was sound asleep she had torn herself from his arms and leaped across the room, shrieking and crashed through the window into the courtyard below. Tiberius made Plautius accompany him at once to the scene of the murder. The first thing that he noticed in the bedroom was his own wedding-gift to Flautius, a beautiful bronze-and gold candelabra taken from the tomb of a queen, now lying broken on the ground. He glanced up and saw that it had been wrenched from the ceiling. He said: 'She clung to it and it came down. She was being carried towards the window on somebody's shoulders. And look how high up in the window the hole is! She was pitched through, she did not jump through.'
'It was witchcraft,' said Plautius. 'She was carried through the air by an unseen power. She shrieked and blamed my former wife Numantina.'
Tiberius scoffed. Plautius' friends realised that he would be convicted of murder and executed, and his property confiscated. His grandmother Urgulania therefore sent him a dagger, telling him to think of his heirs, who would be allowed to keep the property if he anticipated the verdict by immediate suicide. He was a coward and could not bring himself to drive the dagger home. Eventually he got into a hot bath and ordered a surgeon to open his veins for him; he slowly and painlessly bled to death. I felt very badly about his death. I had not accused Urgulanilla of the murder at once because I would have been asked why when I heard the first shrieks I had not jumped up and rescued Apronia. I had decided to wait until the trial and only come forward if Plautius seemed likely to be condemned. I knew nothing about the dagger until it was too late. I comforted myself by the thought that he had treated Numantina very cruelly and had been a bad friend to me, besides.
To clear Plautius’ memory his brother brought a charge against Numantina of having disordered Plautius' wits by witchcraft. But Tiberius intervened and said that he was satisfied that Plautius had been in full possession of his faculties at the time. Numantina was discharged.
There was not another word spoken between Urgulanilla and myself. But a month later Sejanus paid me a surprise visit as he was passing through Capua. He was in Tiberius' company, on the way to Capri, an island near Naples, where Tiberius had twelve villas and frequently went for amusement. Sejanus said:
'You'll be able to divorce Urgulanilla now. She's due to have a child in about five months' time, so my agents inform me. You have me to thank for this. I knew Urgulanilla's obsession about Numantina. I happened to see a young slave, a Greek, who might have been Numantina's male twin. I made her a present of him and she fell in love with him at once. His name's Boter.'
What could I do but thank him? Then I said, 'And who's my new wife to be?'
'So you remember our conversation? Well, the lady I have in mind is my sister by adoption--ASIia. You know her of course?'
I did, but I hid my disappointment, and merely asked whether anyone so young, beautiful and. intelligent would be content to marry an old, lame, sick, stammering fool like myself.
'Oh,' he answered brutally, 'she won't mind it in the least. She'll be marrying Tiberius' nephew and Nero's uncle, that's all she thinks about. Don't imagine that she's in love with you. She might bring herself to have a child by you for the sake of its ancestry, but as for any sentiment----'
'In fact, apart from the honour of becoming your brother-in-law, I might just as well not divorce Urgulanilla for all the improvement it will make to my life?'
'Oh, you'll manage,' he laughed. 'You don't live too lonely a life here, by the look of this room. There's a nice woman about somewhere, I can see. Gloves, a hand-mirror, an embroidery frame, that box of sweets, flowers carefully arranged.
And -<Glia won't be jealous. She has her own men friends, probably, though I don't pry into her affairs.'
'All right,' I said. 'I'll do it.'
'You don't sound very grateful.'
'It's not ingratitude. You have taken great trouble on my account and I don't know how to thank you properly.
I was only feeling rather nervous. From what I know of ,/Elia she's rather critical, if you understand what I mean.'
He burst out laughing. 'She has a tongue like a sacking [^P] needle. But surely by now you're hardened against mere scolding? Your mother has given you a good enough training, hasn't she?'
'I am still a little thin-skinned,' I said, 'in places.'
'Well, I mustn't stay here any longer, my dear Claudius.
Tiberius will be wondering where I've gone. So it's a bargain?'
'Yes, and I thank you very much.'
'Oh, by the way, it was Urgulanilla, wasn't it, who killed poor Apronia? I rather expected a tragedy. Urgulanilla had a letter from Numantina begging her to avenge her. Numantina didn't really write it, you understand.'
'I know nothing. I was sound asleep at the time.'
'Like
