Arena (16 page)

She was sober now. A black cloak concealed her body. As I hauled myself up beside her she exclaimed, “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for you here? People said you went with Agrippina. I didn’t believe them.” Her nails dug into my arm. “What fool’s business have you gotten into, Cassius? Just remember, whatever you’ve done, my reputation is at stake along with yours. I brought you here.”

“Take your hands off me!” I shouted. “The Emperor’s mother is dead.”

Locusta went white. “You bungler. You infernal idiot. To mix in court intrigues —”

“Be quiet, damn you! This was no intrigue, but a plot by pirates to loot her villa. She died in the struggle. I was the only one left alive.” I started up the wharf. “Come along or stay, as you wish.

But I must find the Emperor and tell him what’s happened.”

Locusta hurried after me. “The messenger arrived near dawn. He said the barge had gone down but that Agrippina was safe.”

“The pirates had a fleet ready in case the barge trick failed,” I replied, approaching two Praetorians who crossed their spears to bar my way. “My name is Cassius. I was a guest at this villa last night. The Emperor’s mother is dead. Murdered by sea brigands. I must go to him at once and report.”

The Praetorians deliberated. One said, “Take him inside, Marcus. He must be telling the truth, because I know this woman with him.”

A few moments later I followed the armored figure through the entrance of the great hall. A lute sang softly. More than a hundred Senators, equites and their women lounged around in various stages of undress. The hall was a shambles of broken couches and stale, strewn food. One of those present was Tigellinus.

He gazed at me with hateful distaste as I presented myself at the foot of the dais and saluted. The Emperor paid no attention.

Nero Augustus Caesar was thoroughly drunk. His toga was filthy with gobs of food. His head garland was awry. He was practicing a difficult passage on his lute and botching it, while an old dodderer I took to be his teacher, the famed harpist Terpnus, vainly tried to correct his fingering.

Locusta gave me a curious glance whose meaning I did not understand. Plagued by fatigue and worry, I blurted out, “Emperor! I beg your attention!”

My outburst spoiled his chord even more. Jarring, discordant notes hummed away to silence.

The guests ceased their tittering and drinking, shocked at my rudeness. There was mean wrath in Nero’s eyes as he leaned over and deliberately spat at my feet.

“That’s for your attention, dolt. Get out of here! Don’t interrupt my lesson or I’ll have you sliced up and served for luncheon.”

Woodenly I stood my ground. “Emperor, your mother —”

“My mother? What about my mother? A fine woman. But forward. Much too forward.”

He leaped down from the dais. He seized my arm, his face puffy and drunken.

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“Don’t you agree she’s much too forward? I recognize your face now, from last night. You’re the one she dragged with her on the barge. Well, the barge is safe and so is she. I think you fail to realize you have upset me coming here, whining —”

I fairly screamed into his malicious face, “She’sdead! ”

His hand dropped. He staggered back a step. His lips jerked, surely in a grimace of pain rather than a smile.

“What’s this lout’s name?” he asked.

Tigellinus immediately told him, with obvious relish.

“Well, Cassius, let me inform you that I kill men for making far milder jokes at my expense.”

“Emperor, it’s the truth! She’s lying dead this moment in her villa, slaughtered by the pirates who conspired to wreck the barge.”

I spilled out the details of the attack. A measure of sobriety returned to his flushed young face.

When he laid his fleshy hand on my shoulder again, I wanted to shudder. He peered into my eyes and asked in a quiet voice whether it really was the truth.

“Yes, Emperor. I tried my best to stop them but there were too many.”

Nero returned to the dais. He sank down and stared out from under his brows. His face had turned a sickly white color in the pale morning sunshine.

“I am sorry,” he said tonelessly. “Let the gods be witness and Jupiter Stator attend my statement. I, the Emperor, am sorry that my beloved mother is dead.”

In my tired and befogged state I believe his soft-spoken grief was genuine. He crooked a finger heavy with two sapphire rings.

“Draw a little closer, Cassius. Sit here at my feet and tell me the whole story once more.”

As I approached to obey, I caught a glimpse of Locusta’s face, still strained, still anxious.

Perhaps I was in more danger than I knew. I might anger Nero with a wrong word, but my body ached so fiercely and my mind was so weary, I cared little. I dropped down on the marble and the round face bent closer to listen.

Slowly I related how Agrippina had been fearful of the stormy water; how the barge had broken apart, doubtless weakened by men on board in league with the pirates; how I had fallen, fighting, in the courtyard. Nero’s face became grave.

“Cassius, I believe you. I believe you served my mother as best you could. The men who perpetrated this evil act will be punished. But first, we must find them.” He seized a gem-crusted wine cup, draining it. His gaze became oblique. “Who were they, Cassius? Did you recognize them? Have you ever seen any of them before?”

“No, Emperor, to my everlasting regret. I did catch sight of the leader, though.”

“The leader?” Nero’s voice was flat. “How do you know he was the leader?”

“He issued the orders. Told the pirates to kill all the slaves, leaving no witnesses.”

“And his face? Did you recognize it?”

“I did not.”

“Was it an ordinary face?”

“No, Emperor. Extraordinary. He was thin. He wore a pearl in his left ear, like mariners do.

And his right eyelid drooped, as though it had been cut once, perhaps in a brawl.”

Behind me I heard a gasp. When I looked, Locusta was staring at me and trembling. I understood neither her look nor the shocked, blank expression of the stock-still guests on their couches.

“An interesting description,” Nero murmured. “An unfamiliar one to me, however.” Eyelids drooping, he gazed around the ring of faces. “Is it familiar to anyone here?”

Murmurs and head-shakings said no. The Emperor sighed. He leaned back in his purple chair.

“As my faithful servant, Cassius, you deserve a reward from your sovereign. Let me confer a payment upon you so that you may retire from my chambers, and I also, to bear privately the grief of my heart’s loss.”

I was so tired and addled I was unable for an instant to comprehend what he’d offered. A
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shadow fell across the marble between us. With a rude shove Tigellinus thrust me out of the way and presented himself before Nero.

“A word, Emperor.”

Nero nodded. He signaled for me to take myself off. I turned around, chilled and alert. The intrusion of the Sicilian horse-breeder meant no good.

I walked the few paces to where Locusta waited, grim-lipped. I would have spoken, asked her the reason for her anger, but I feared to break the silence of the hall. The other men and women, clothes rumpled and stained with the signs of their debauchery, hung their heads and avoided my glance.

Presently I heard a low chuckle. The Emperor’s? He called my name and I turned back.

“It has come to my attention, Cassius, that you have a certain desire I alone may satisfy.”

I was wary now, watching Tigellinus absently pick at a spot on his toga.

“I am afraid what the Emperor is saying is not clear to me,” I answered.

Nero smiled, without humor. “Isn’t it true you wish to be raised to the rank of eques?”

Perhaps my mouth fell open in dismay and surprise. I only recall I stood there a great while until the fear of a trap began to unfold me. The only way Nero could have learned of my vow was from the man who heard it first, Tigellinus. I could not conceive of him doing me any favors at all.

At last I stammered: “A wish only, Emperor. Probably an idle one. Far too high a reward for my meager service of last night. I failed your mother when she needed me.”

The Emperor waved. “No matter. My sadness makes me tolerant. In a mood to be generous to a fault. It is within my purview to grant the eques rank. I’m told you are now a man of property, and can support the rank’s obligations. In return I ask one additional service. A service a man in your profession is well qualified to perform.”

“Anything I can do to serve the sovereignty of Rome, I will do,” I said, badly worried.

Nero’s protruding eyes slid across my shoulder. He continued, “Legend maintains that when poison is placed in a cup made from a unicorn’s horn, the poison boils up, foments, revealing its presence and thereby preventing death. For a long time I have wanted to own such a miraculous cup. And only an Emperor has the resources to command that such a cup be sought for him.

Since my own family seems to be plagued with murderers, with poisoners —” He was staring at me intently, but I knew now that he had been looking at Locusta a moment ago, and was speaking to her as well as me. “— since my reign, I say, seems to be ridden with dangers, I need such a cup.”

He rested one elbow on his knee, ringlets sparkling in the sunlight. He asked in a confidential way, “Cassius, would you take ship to Africa and search out and bring back a unicorn’s horn?

Say yes, and when you return, the eques rank is yours.”

Instead of the wild triumph I should have experienced, I felt only that some kind of trap was closing. But where? And what kind? Tigellinus stared into space.

Could the Emperor be serious? Most sensible people regarded the legend of the unicorn cup as humbug. Fakery. An old wives’ tale. I thought over my answer before giving it, “I would go and find a horn, Emperor. But I don’t know whether it would work.”

“Bring it,” Nero replied quickly. “That is all I ask. If it fails, you won’t be blamed.”

Watching the Sicilian from the corner of my eye, I saw his heavy-lidded glance shift to Locusta.

That was it! A plot to get me out of Rome on the thinnest of pretexts, so that Tigellinus might have a free hand with my woman. Suddenly my mind became sharp and swift, discarding choices, picking others.

Had I ever really loved Locusta? No. A year spent in Africa rounding up rhinos — the only unicorns available outside of Ultima Thule, so far as I knew — might be highly profitable for the Cassian School. I could bring back other animals, too. Let Syrax hire another lanista and run the business. At the end of my journey I would be granted the rank I’d vowed to win.

Exultation flooded me. Nero sat drumming his perfumed fingertips.

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“You seem a long time deciding, Cassius. Is an answer so difficult to give?”

“No, Emperor. I will go, and gladly.”

“Excellent, excellent.” He stood up to clap me on the shoulder, his grief mysteriously vanished.

“And because Africa is a hot, lonely place, far from the gentle civilizing benefits of our beloved city of Rome, I want you to have companionship.” A new, stonier edge was in his voice. “The lady Locusta shall go with you. You may both return when you have the unicorn’s horn, and not before.”

Locusta moaned then, somewhere behind me. Tigellinus went purple and blustered forward.

“Emperor! I thought —” He stopped, trapped.

Nero whirled on him, baring his teeth. “Your thoughts, horse-breeder, concern me no more than that!” He snapped his fingers. Then he bowed in Locusta’s direction. “The esteemed lady is said to be an expert on certain exotic potions found in other lands. Perhaps she can help you test the efficacy of the magic cup, Cassius. At any rate I think she’ll be of greater value to you in Africa than she would be at my court.”

Nero smiled sweetly. Beneath that smile lurked malice and treachery and fear. Only last night Locusta had boasted too openly of her power and her secrets. In Africa she would never be a threat, nor a source of information about poisons to any conspirators who might want to topple Nero off the throne.

But the Emperor’s security had been won at the price of infuriating Tigellinus. The Sicilian advanced to the dais with unsteady steps.

“Emperor, I beg you —”

Nero lashed out, leaving a cut on Tigellinus’ cheek where his rings struck. His voice was almost a scream.

“Be silent! She goes with him. I’ll hear no more.”

Tigellinus paled and stepped back. Had there not been so many guests present, I think he would have killed me then and there. The Emperor was trembling, gripped by one of those violent rages for which he was becoming infamous. He snatched up a cup, hurled it at his guests, then another.

“Why are you all still here? Begone! Leave me alone. I’m sick of seeing faces, nothing but faces.

Leave me alone to mourn my mother. Leave me alone!Leave me alone! ”

The guests scurried from the hall. The Emperor slumped back on his throne, his pinkish lips bowed up in a curious smile. Tigellinus stormed past me, bawling for his slaves. Locusta had already gone up the great staircase and out of the hall.

The last I saw of the Emperor, he was sunken into the chair, his lute in his lap. One hand plucked a few sour notes. His head was thrown back. His eyes were vacant. Tears ran down his cheeks. I shuddered and rushed out, because I could not tell whether they were tears of sorrow or of mirth.

Looking about in the antechamber, I failed to see Locusta until she stormed at me from the shadow of a pillar, spitting all sorts of obscene oaths. Tired and unstrung, I gripped both her wrists and shook her.

“One more word, woman, and I’ll strike you in the face.”

Panting, she wrenched free. “Touch me again, Cassius, and I’ll kill you.”

“The gods witness if I know what’s wrong with you, woman.”

“You!” She made the word sound vile. “Your stupidity! Your blindness! To stand there with your imbecilic slave’s face — yes, slave! You’re no better than that now. To stand there telling Nero how sorry you are about his mother! Weeping crocodile tears with him after you’ve practically accused him of murder!”