The eunuch's face was a picture of amazement and Nero laughed. 'Don't look so surprised! I like you too — why wouldn't I? Stick with my uncle and me and you won't go wrong. Think about it. Castor's going to be Emperor one day. One day soon, I'd say.'
Lygdus looked strange as he rejoined me on the procession route. I asked him what was wrong.
'Nothing,' he replied. 'Just…'
I swished a long fan across my resplendent domina 's face as she swayed high above us in her throne. 'Just what?'
'Just that… Sometimes they're capable of being kind, aren't they? The masters…'
'Sometimes, yes — but not very often, in my experience.' I swished the fan again and saw that Livia's eyes were upon us. It seemed like a good moment to boost Lygdus's resolve. 'When the second king is on the throne,' I whispered, 'you and I will know more kindness than we can imagine, Lygdus. Just you wait and see.'
Lygdus tried to imagine how much kindness that could possibly be, given that the kindness he just experienced — mixing his piss with a master's in the fuller's pot — was already more kindness than he thought had existed on this earth.
'Just wait,' I whispered. 'The second king will see us living like gods.'
'You told me you're a god already, Iphicles.'
'Well, yes,' I said. 'A god who serves his goddess closely. But you must admit I don't live like one.'
Lygdus conceded this was true.
'These things will change. Just keep it up with the footbaths,' I whispered. 'Everything is going exactly to plan.'
Lygdus nodded obediently. Yet his eyes, as he did so, were not on me but on Nero, far ahead at the front of the procession with Castor, the Emperor's chosen heir.
The Nones of March
AD 22
One week later: Lucius Ennius, a wealthy equestrian, is charged with treason for melting down a silver statue of the Emperor to use as plate
The bewildered steward stared open-mouthed at the gesturing, jabbering man who clung to the doorway for support, raving like a madman trying to make a fantastical story seem real.
'He is patrician,' the nomenclator slave at the steward's shoulder whispered as they both stared at the man. 'The accent suggests it — and it suggests that he's from Rome, as well.'
Claudius pointed wildly into the sumptuous rooms behind them, stammering on.
'You've never seen this man before?' the steward whispered back to his colleague.
The nomenclator shook his head. 'It's my job to remember names for the dominus — and I've never seen this poor bastard in my life.'
Claudius's stammer intensified, the desperation stark in his face.
'Give him some watered wine,' ordered the steward.
The nomenclator thrust a cup into Claudius's hand, but he shook so much that it slipped from his grip and clattered to the tiles.
'He's having a fit,' said the steward. 'I saw things like this in the wars.'
'Will it kill him?' said the nomenclator in alarm.
The steward stepped forward and punched Claudius squarely in the eye. 'Not now it won't.'
Claudius screamed and threw his hands up to protect himself, before falling into an abrupt and fearful silence.
The two slaves raised their eyebrows at one another and then addressed Claudius slowly and deliberately, as they would a child. 'The admiral, our master, is not home, domine.'
'Not him I want to see…' Claudius managed to gasp, his breath jagged in his chest as he tried to pull himself together.
'Who, then?'
'The blinding love… the rarest of birds…'
The slaves cast shocked looks at each other.
'Must meet her… it's why I've come… it's been foretold.'
'But how do you even know about her…?' asked the steward in astonishment.
'Thrasyllus foretold… and today is Mercury…'
Looks of fear came to the servants' faces. 'Our master is not home,' the nomenclator said hurriedly again. 'He is out at sea. Please go now, domine.'
'No,' stammered Claudius. 'I must meet her… It's why I've come… for the rarest of birds…'
'Who are you?' demanded the steward.
'Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus,' Claudius spat out in a rush. 'Nephew of the Emperor.'
The two slaves went white. Then they threw themselves onto the floor of the entrance hall. 'Spare us, domine!'
Claudius broke wind in his hurry, staggering past the prostrate servants into the middle of the admiral's exquisite atrium. 'Where is she?' he shouted into the void. 'Let me see my precious child!'
The servants scrambled to their feet to pursue him. 'We'll have to show her to him.'
'We've got no choice in it!'
'Where is she?' Claudius wailed.
'The tablinum, domine — she's in the master's study!'
They reached him just as he flung back the embroidered curtain that divided the atrium from the admiral's private room. The curtain ripped from its rings, spilling at their feet in a billowing bundle.
Claudius stared into the lavishly decorated study. It was empty. 'Where is she?'
'You are looking at her, domine.'
An outraged shriek pitched Claudius to the floor and he threw his hands to his mouth in horror. A ghost-grey Fury bestrode the admiral's desk, filling the room with a volcanic anger that burned in her face as she fixed him with her pus-coloured eyes. Claudius tried to flee on his knees but she leaped to the floor and advanced upon him, flinging her feathered arms high in the air.
Claudius's screams of terror proved even louder than her cries of abject disgust.
In Rome a Palatine father was presented with his firstborn child. He looked at the tiny thing swaddled in linen at his feet, while the midwives waited with bated breath, praying to Diana that he'd pick the baby up.
'Is it a girl then?' he asked them flatly.
The midwives nodded, keenly aware that a son had been hoped for. 'And the domina is doing well — very little blood lost in the labour,' the older of them added.
But the father made no move to embrace the child. He tapped the baby lightly with his foot. The baby squirmed a little but didn't stir. 'Is it healthy?'
'Very healthy. She will be a beautiful child, you can see it in her tiny face — an asset to you, domine.'
The father stood up, stepping over the baby. The midwives looked at each other in confusion — then looked to the wet nurse.
' Domine?' the wet nurse asked.
The father stopped.
'Are you… rejecting this child?'
'Don't be a fool.'
Relief flooded the servants. 'You have a name for her, then, domine?'
'Her name will honour mine, not her mother's,' was all he said over his shoulder before leaving the room.
The servants looked at each other again for a moment, and the wet nurse took up a clean wax tablet from her master's desk. 'The family name is Messala,' she told the midwives. 'We will find a name for her from that.' She scratched down a few letters, disliked what they made, and scratched them out before trying another derivative. 'There,' she said.
The oldest midwife cradled the tiny girl again. 'What is she called then?'
