B007IIXYQY EBOK (40 page)

Across the gardens in apartments set aside for her was Junilla, that brilliant mystery he would soon claim as his own. Shrieks of laughter came from those shuttered apartments as she submitted to the elaborate ritual of the dressing of the bride, performed as custom decreed by six noble matrons who had married but once. By age-old tradition they began by parting the bride’s hair into six plaits with the head of a spear to dispell evil spirits; when their work was complete, they tied the cord of her wedding tunica with the knot of Hercules, which only the new husband could untie. All in the household stayed well away from those chambers; it was unlucky to view the bride before the procession.

Marcus Julianus thought: It is a bitter thing to come this close to a life that is not to be lived. Junilla was but a child; what would become of her after his early death?

An hour before the guests were to arrive he was interrupted when Arria rushed into the library in flowing undertunica, her hair loose, her face half painted. Arria was a widow of middle years with blunt, plain features, burdened eyes, an instinctive distrust of frivolity. For a long moment she stared at him, too numbed by grief to speak. Slowly Julianus rose to his feet.

Then with a savage motion she buried her face in her tunica. “Just now came some cursed gift of wine from the Palace,” she cried into the cloth, “and with it an order to give up the children!”

He came forward and caught her shoulders as she collapsed onto the reading couch, her body convulsed with deep, silent sobs; she was like a creature with its back broken, crying for mercy while expecting none. He knelt beside her, steadying her, while several half-formed plans rushed through his mind, all involving much risk.

“If I were merciful,” Arria cried, “I would end their lives now, myself, and spare them this!”

“Arria, do not speak so!” He harbored little hope, but he could not bear her grief. “You must trust me to think of some ruse.”

“What can you do? You cannot stop the Guards.”

“I’ll have
some
plan together before the last hour, Arria, I promise it.”

“The gods preserve you, you have troubles enough.”

“Do not think of it. Arria, listen to me:
Tonight at the wedding feast you must not look frightened or distraught.
Expect an informer at every table—speak only of things of no consequence. Be calm. Nero plays with his victims. If you act as if there is danger, he will think there
should
be danger.”

“What is the use?” Numbly she shook her head; tears streaked her cosmetic mask of white lead. “You will be condemned in a hidden chamber and will die horribly. I will be driven naked from the city, and the children will—”

“You must bear up a little longer! As I live, I’ll find a way.”

At lamplighting the wedding guests began to arrive; they were an odd mix of the aristocratic, the scholarly, the nobly poor. Powerful friends of his father were there, among them old Saturninus, his father’s greatest friend, but there also were penniless students in freshly cleaned rags, a collection of tutors and tenement-dwelling philosophers who had become friends, and more distant kinfolk who traveled in from their country estates, as well as his friends from the city academies, among them Domitian. The noble guests, Julianus thought, had the look of hostages—they dared not stay home from such an affair, for Nero nursed dark suspicions about any among the aristocracy who shunned society, but attending was equally dangerous when a single ill-considered word overheard by a friend-turned-informer could result in arrest for treason.

For the ceremony itself the guests gathered in the grand hall, seated on finely worked chairs of walnut wood and ivory, set in a semicircle, facing Marcus Arrius Julianus as he poured a libation of Falernian wine at the altar of the Lares, the old guardian spirits of the house. Bronze candelabra in the form of many-branched trees were set along the walls. Their myriad flames were a constellation of modest stars; every surface of the hall was lustrous in their quiet light—the moldings of mother-of-pearl, the glossy paint of the pastoral panoramas seeming to roam over the walls, the slender columns of Phrygian marble that divided the hall from the garden. The rooms were haunted by the music of concealed cithara players, their drowsy tones accumulating like smoke, lulling the guests into a wary contentment.

As Julianus filled a gem-studded wine cup from one of several amphorae bearing the stamp of the Palace cellars, the guests watched with suppressed alarm; all knew the wine was sent by Nero. What a fine, and not improbable, joke it would be for the Emperor to have spiced it with aconite—certainly there were enough guests present that Nero would consider himself well rid of.

When a cup was passed to each guest, Julianus lifted his own and calmly drank from it. Domitian watched this with mild amazement. He personally would have given it first to one of his slaves. Marcus was an unnecessary fool sometimes.

And Domitian noticed that the company, filled cups in hand, tried to discreetly leave them untouched for a few moments while they waited to see if the host fell dead, some feigning intense interest in the conversation of a companion. Domitian did not judge himself for doing the same as he observed the proceedings with his usual sour curiosity.

Then Julianus signaled to the augur to bring forth the lamb so the auspices could be taken for the marriage. He would not have animals slaughtered for sacrifice, but this was an augury. Junilla’s mother had protested that without it wedded happiness was doomed. Marcus did not know how he had room to pity that frantic creature writhing violently in the augur’s strong hands, while Arria’s children were huddled in the back rooms faced with a far more savage fate.

The augur held his silver knife to the throat of the lamb.

A resounding crash came from the front part of the house, followed by hammering as if a Herculean fist pounded on the house’s heavy outer door. This was followed by curses, scuffling, belligerent laughter. All sat tense and straight in their seats. Had a gang of street bandits forced their way past the doorkeeper?

Julianus softly cursed and signaled to the augur to lay down his knife.
My family is allowed no dignity in death or in marriage.

The company watched in taut silence as he strode toward the atrium.

Who would dare demand entry at this time?
He felt his house was a ship lurching into a gathering storm. Before he gained the entranceway Diocles barred his way, eyes afire with indignation. “My lord,” he said, clutching his hands together, “we’ve been invaded by musicians!”

“Is that such a grave matter? Now, acrobats or pantomimes,” Julianus said, trying to tease Diocles out of his terror,
“that
might be cause for alarm, but—”

“You do not understand!” Diocles persisted, following Julianus as he continued on to the entranceway. “These are vile musicians with the manners of asses and sows. I told them we’ve engaged musicians already, but they would hear none of it. I beg your lenience that I could not stop them—”

Julianus put a reassuring hand on Diocles’ shoulder. “Settle your mind, I am certain you did all you could. Wait now while I have words with them.”

In the atrium he came upon a macabre ensemble hard to comprehend at a glance; it was like looking at some mythical beast like a hippogriff, made of mismatched parts. The musicians numbered twenty-five or so; some, garbed in costly robes stained with mud and blood, looked like rowdy youths after a night of mischief; others had the look of the soft eunuch priests of Cybele, while others, surely, were catamites from the Circus stalls, with plucked beards, gold hoops in their ears, and eyes boldly outlined in black paint. A reek of sweat and rancid Oriental perfumes rose from them. One was a tall youth of indeterminate sex with long, dirty red tresses; he—or she—carried a scabellum, a raucous instrument consisting of boards fastened to the feet that was played by dancing; its music was more appropriate for a farce in a brothel than a wedding. Beside him was a woman with orange-dyed hair; the veins of her forehead were outlined in blue, and her damp tunica of white silk clung like a loose skin to her great breasts, revealing gold-tipped nipples. She held a sistrum in her right hand and was rattling it idly. Three slender blond boys, naked but for panther skins about their loins and precious gems braided into their hair, bore antique country panpipes. A small gnome-like man wore a red leather tunic trimmed with bells; slung across his chest was a skin drum that he played with human thigh bones.

“Look at them!” Diocles whispered indignantly, unable to stay behind. “What is this monstrous insult? They should be performing beneath a bridge. I hope the lice stay put!”

Julianus signaled to Diocles to be silent. As he approached them, some fine instinct for preservation carried over from his days as Endymion curbed an impulse to anger. Politely he asked how he might assist them.

A heavy-browed brute who held a double flute as though it were a club planted himself in front of Julianus and put a rolled document in his hand.

“For Marcus Arrius Julianus the Younger on the day of his wedding,” he read, “we send blessings and hope of good fortune. We are the gift of Nero.”

Julianus allowed no expression to come to his face. He inclined his head and said in a courtly voice, “How thoughtful and kind.” The brutish musician grunted, somewhat irritated by Julianus’ calm. Quickly Julianus passed the letter to Diocles so the steward could discreetly inform the guests whose gift this was, so they would show only gratitude.

Julianus then directed the musicians to the banqueting rooms, his mind in ferment: Was Nero merely amusing himself by debasing the sanctity of a wedding? Or was there some more sinister purpose here? As the grotesque company filed past, an ungainly man in their midst caught his eye.

He wore a drape of spotted fawnskin adorned with strips of goat hair over an ungirded tunic of gauzy material patterned with flowers, revealing soft, dimpled arms and knees. Julianus realized he was dressed as Dionysus, god of ecstasy. He seemed to stay purposefully in the center of the troupe as if to conceal himself. In one hand he carried a tambourine; in the other, the god’s symbol—the thyrsus, a pinecone atop a fennel stalk. His mask was disturbing and seemed to have an evil life of its own: It was blue-white with leering blood-red lips, prompting Julianus to remember that Dionysus’ celebrants in archaic times consumed their sacrifices raw. A long wig of free-flowing black hair had slipped slightly, and Julianus caught sight of the man’s own hair beneath—tight blond ringlets, curled patiently with an iron.

He felt a sickening twist in his stomach.
Nero.

In the next instant such a storm of fury arose in him he feared it might drive him to a blind fit of murder.

Fall on him with your dagger. The cut of one blade across one throat will free thousands.

And that same cut will destroy hundreds of thousands when the deed unleashes civil war.

He steadied himself, fighting dizziness, letting the fury break over him like a wave.

I must not let it carry me off. Too many have need of me.

Before the doorkeeper pulled the oak door closed, Julianus looked briefly into the street and caught a glint of steel, the unfurling of military cloaks. Nero took no chances when he came uninvited to dinner—the house was surrounded by Praetorian Guards.

The musicians took their places at the right of the altar, arranging themselves in no order, some sitting, some standing; they grinned at the guests, or scratched themselves, or idly thrummed their instruments. In most circumstances it would be humorous. Julianus saw Domitian was using all his strength to throttle laughter and, except for a few stray facial twitches, was succeeding. But most of the guests were terrified, half expecting the sinister company to fall on them with their instruments. It was just as well, he thought, that none seemed to suspect who was behind the mask of Dionysus.

An eerie lowing of flutes floating out from the garden announced the coming of Junilla. The augur made the sign against the evil eye over the marriage cakes. Junilla’s torchlit procession wended its way through the garden, then came through the garlanded columns that flanked the entrance to the hall. They were led by four flute blowers, followed by four flaxen-haired girls of noble parentage, chosen for the task because each had both parents living. Each bore a torch of whitethorn meant to propitiate the goddess Diana, who loathed marriage ceremonies and was pleased only when all creatures coupled freely.

Then came Junilla herself, a stately specter in her loose, rippling marriage clothes. Her tunica was of white muslin woven by custom on the upright loom of earlier times. Over this was a striking flame-colored veil secured at the crown with a wreath of marjoram. The company watched with curiosity sharpened to a keen pitch; for too many years they had been teased with rumors of this maid’s haunting beauty. At last, that mythic face would be seen.

Poor child, Julianus thought as he awaited her next to the altar. Surely their stares upset you. My difficulties are at least known to me; you are a half-grown maid expected to join a doomed household and give yourself without complaint to a man you have never seen.

As she approached, he noticed an odd unsteadiness in her walk. He did not know what to make of it. He flushed with anger when he caught the too-loud whisper of one of the guests among the students, “Either the bride’s sandals are too tightly laced…or she’s in her cups!” Julianus stole a look at Domitian and saw the young man seemed embarrassed, sorry, perhaps, he had told everyone he loved her, as though Junilla somehow deliberately shamed him.