never made love to another woman like her. You really owe it yourself to join us, Titus.”
The last of Titus’s resistance faded. They were both young and beautiful and appeared to be completely without inhibitions. The duty would hardly be onerous, as long as Titus could keep his thoughts from leaping to the all the fearsome outcomes that might ensue. He was suddenly extremely aroused. Could it be that the element of danger, even more than Messalina, was exciting to him?
“Well, if I really have no choice,” he muttered, taking a step forward. “And if Claudius does not object,” he added, not believing this lie for a moment. He soon found himself between the two of them, no longer standing but horizontal. The couch was firm, the cushions soft. They took turns refilling the cup with wine and putting it to his lips. They pulled off his shoes and his trabea, and undid the loincloth underneath. Warm hands stroked his flesh. Someone was kissing him – he was not sure which, but the lips were soft and pliant, the tongue eager. It was Messalina who kissed him. Mnester was doing something with his mouth elsewhere. Messalina pulled back so that Titus could see.
“Isn’t he beautiful?” she whispered. “I love him and I hate him for the same reason – because he’s prettier than I am!” From somewhere she produced a thin leather whip with an ivory handle. With a crack that made Titus jump, she wielded it with surprising strength against Mnester’s broad shoulders. He moaned but did not stop what he was doing. If anything, he performed more avidly, making Titus writhe with pleasure.
“Mnester is so pretty, even Claudius has been known to kiss him after a particularly fine performance,” said Messalina. “Do you know, I think he’s the only man my husband has ever kissed. Claudius has no interest in either men or boys, the silly old fool!”
Messalina kissed Titus again, taking his breath away. “And what interests you, Titus Pinarius? No, don’t answer. Between the two of us, Mnester and I will discover everything that gives you pleasure.”
After everyone had been satisfied, and satisfied again, there was a long, languid hour of utter indolence as the three of them lay close together, naked and silent and drained of desire.
It Messalina who finally spoke. “Don’t you have a brother, Titus?”
He was almost dozing. It took him a moment to answer. “Yes.”
“A twin brother?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. I remember meeting the two of you when you first came to Roma. I could tell you apart, though. I knew you were the playful one.”
“You were certainly right about that!” said Mnester sleepily. Titus smiled, enjoying the praise.
“But one never sees him about. He’s still alive, isn’t he, your twin brother?”
“Yes.”
“And still in the city?”
“Yes.” Titus shifted uneasily. He was wide awake now.
“Then where are you hiding him, Titus? You must bring him to meet me. One of you is delightful; two of you would be divine. Can you imagine, Mnester? Identical twins.”
Mnester made a growling sound.
Titus squirmed a bit, not liking the drift of the conversation. “Actually, we’re not as alike as we used to be. Kaeso… doesn’t look after his appearance. He’s rather unkempt these days.”
“A wild man? All the better!” Messalina purred. “I can catalogue the differences and similarities between the two of you.”
Titus was now acutely uncomfortable, reminded for the second time that day of his long-ago audience with Caligula. That occasion had been a torment, the stuff of nightmares. Today’s tryst, equally unexpected and to some extent coerced, had delivered him to a state of bliss. It was a curious thing, how the same acts, resulting in the same physical release, could bring either misery or joy, depending on the circumstances and the people involved.
Messalina was quiet for the moment, and Titus deliberately tried to think of other things.
“At the Secular Games,” he said, “That’s where it was.”
“What are you talking about?” said Messalina.
“That’s where I saw Mnester play Ajax, at one of the plays put on during the Secular Games last summer. I’ve been trying to remember ever since I stepped into this room and recognized him. I could remember the performance, but not the venue.”
“At least I was memorable,” murmured Mnester.
“More than memorable,” said Titus. “You were brilliant. I believed every moment that you were the world’s greatest warrior, wearing that magnificent armour. When Athena put you under a spell, I really thought you were sleepwalking. And when you woke up covered in blood and realized you’d killed a herd of sheep instead of your enemies, well, I had to laugh and shudder at the same time. And your suicide scene – truly, you had me in tears.”
Mnester made a contented noise.
“Now that I think of it,” Titus went on, “the whole festival was remarkable. Everything about the Secular Games was first-rate – the gladiator matches, the races, the plays, the banquets, the concerts in the temples. The panther-hunt in the Circus Maximus – that was spectacular! Though I think I was even more impressed by the Thessalian horsemen, the way they drove that herd of bulls in a stampede around the track, then dismounted and wrestled them to the ground. Amazing stuff! I think those games were the highlight of Claudius’s reign so far. And why not? They say the Secular Games are held only once in a lifetime, and these marked the eight hundredth anniversary of the founding of the city, quite a grand occasion-”
He stopped abruptly. Mnester was kicking him under the thin coverlet. He turned to see that Mnester was frowning and shaking his head, as if to warn Titus away from the subject.
But it was too late. Messalina sat upright and crossed her arms. Her pretty face was twisted by a vexed expression. “The Secular Games – that was where she made her move!”
“She?” said Titus.
“Agrippina, Claudius’s niece. The bitch!”
Mnester cringed and shifted toward the far side of the couch. “Now you’ve set her off,” he whispered.
“It was during the Troy Pageant,” Messalina said. “Were you there that afternoon in the Circus Maximus, Titus? Did you see?”
“The Troy Pageant? No, I missed that.” Watching patrician boys dressed up as Trojan warriors perform maneuvers on horseback was a pastime he considered more suitable for doting mothers and grandparents.
“Then you missed Agrippina’s triumph. I was there, of course, with Claudius and little Britannicus in the imperial box. Before the pageant commenced I stood with Britannicus and we waved to the crowd. There was hardly any applause at all. What were people thinking, to pay so little honour to the wife, and more especially to the son of the emperor? Eventually I sat down, thoroughly disgusted.
“In the box with us was Agrippina. Claudius invites her to everything. He says it’s his duty as her uncle, since both her parents are dead and Agrippina is a widow again, raising her son alone. After I sat, Claudius called on her to stand, along with that spotty-faced brat of her, little Nero. Numa’s balls! I couldn’t hear myself think over the applause and the cheering. It went on and on. Why? All I could think was that people had been reading that insipid memoir of hers, in which she paints such a puffed-up portrait of herself and all her suffering. Have you read it, Titus?”
“No, I haven’t,” he said. Strictly speaking, this was true, but Titus knew most of the stories in Agrippina’s book because his wife had read it. Chrysanthe had been greatly inspired by the tale of a woman born into privilege but forced by Fate to fend for herself and her young one. At bedtime, after finishing a chapter, she had breathlessly repeated the stirring details for Titus’s edification.
Messalina clearly had a different impression of Agrippina’s story. “You’d think she was Cassandra at the burning of Troy, the way she goes on about her woes. Daughter of the great Germanicus and an irreproachable mother, both struck down in their prime – well, everyone’s parents die sooner or later. Sister of Caligula, who turned against her, confiscated her possessions, and exiled her to the Pontine Islands, where she was forced to dive for sponges to support herself. Of course she doesn’t mention her incest with Caligula, or the fact that she plotted to do away with him. Widowed twice and forced to raise the Divine Augustus’s one and only great-great-grandson all by herself – though the suspicious death of her last husband left her very wealthy indeed. Poor, long-suffering
