The Confessions of Young Nero Read online

  Messalina, tight-lipped, nodded. “And Silanus is safe, too,” she said. “We can be so thankful for that.”

  Locusta came over to me. “Well, little boy, you were brave to come into the room and say what you did, even if your knees were shaking. I saw it. But only the brave can do it anyway, no matter how hard their knees shake.”

  “It was true. And I hate Caligula. He should not be allowed to do to others what he did to me.”

  “Ah, but who will bell the cat?”

  “I am not sure what you mean.”

  “It is a country saying. A council of mice met to decide what to do about the tomcat who was on the loose. They agreed the best plan was to attach a bell to his neck so they could hear him coming and hide. It was a fine plan—but it needed a mouse brave enough to risk his life jumping on the cat.”

  “I see.” No one would dare to attack Caligula. “But the ambrosia . . .”

  “Clever lad. That would be the same as putting out a dish of milk for the cat, but to get it he must pass his head through the bell loop. The hand that set up the trap is nowhere near when the trap is sprung.” She sighed. “Still, if they don’t want my services, well, they will just have to take their chances with something more dangerous.”

  V

  They say that where you are when you hear of a life-changing event is forever burned into your memory. You can recall every little detail and, at the same time, you cannot fix the larger picture—like a dream, where the little things are clear but the bigger meaning or location is a mystery. Thus it is that I remember being in a garden, watching two white butterflies dancing around each other, with the rest of the setting a blur, when I first heard the scream—“Caligula is dead!”

  Who said it? I do not know. Where did the voice come from? I do not know. I stood rooted, watching the butterflies. Caligula was dead, Caligula was dead . . .

  I must have run back into Aunt’s house. I must have been told then that the emperor was dead, murdered by those who hated him—which left a lot of suspects. But the assassins had been captured, and their leader was none other than Cassius Chaerea, the man who had rescued me. I must have been told then that the new emperor was Claudius. Because I came to know all these things, but I have no memory of how I learned them. I remember the joy I felt in knowing my torturer was gone.

  • • •

  The change in the household was immediate. Aunt was now the mother of an empress—Messalina, barely twenty years old. The Praetorian Guards had proclaimed Claudius emperor, as one of the few surviving members of the imperial family on hand. They did not have time, nor did they wish to bother, fetching someone from further afield.

  “He tried to refuse,” Aunt said, with a shake of her head. “And rightly so, because he hardly is very majestic. But the blood in his veins is royal, and that was what mattered.”

  “And Messalina is empress,” I said. “You must be proud.”

  “Indeed I am, and so is Silanus, that his stepdaughter is in such an exalted position.”

  And now I felt more than ever like an outsider, a poor ward of this elevated family. My father dead, my mother gone, and my inheritance from my father seized by Caligula, so that I lived on Aunt’s charity. Would she now cast me out as an embarrassment?

  I was the last thing on anyone’s mind during this upheaval; I became invisible, and happy to be so. Sometimes I hid in the room with the ancestral busts. They calmed me; I am not sure why. Because they and their troubles were gone? Because they stared out at a world that had gone past them? Antony could not know what had become of his Roman daughters, whether they had even survived into adulthood, let alone his children with Cleopatra, or that the Senate had stripped him of his honors, forbidden any celebration of his birthday, and ordered all his official statues removed. Death bestowed a blissful ignorance upon him and allowed him to be free.

  We were not free. As we learned more about what had happened, fear ran through the household, so thick even a child could taste it. Caligula had been struck down by his trusted guards, led by Chaerea, hacked and left gushing blood like the flamingo he had personally sacrificed earlier on that day. His wife and baby daughter had been killed, and the rampaging assassins went looking for other members of the imperial family. I may have been saved because of my lowly status in Aunt’s household, far from the Forum. The story was that they almost killed Claudius, too, but he was saved by some other Praetorian Guards, who found him cowering behind a curtain.

  “I would doubt that story if I were you,” whispered Paris to me. “Claudius is more clever than he likes to appear.” When I looked blank, he said, “If Claudius was accidently found, it was because he had arranged to be found.”

  A chill ran right down my spine. So even Claudius was a snake beneath the cover of his amiability and ineptitude? “Do you mean that he—arranged it?”

  Paris shrugged. “Not necessarily. But if he knew of the plan to kill his nephew, he made sure that he would profit by it.”

  “What have they done with Caligula?”

  “Took his body and gave it a quick burn, then put what was left of it in a shallow grave in the Lamian Gardens. They say his ghost’s screams ring out nightly from that place.”

  • • •

  Claudius assumed the purple and added the names Caesar Augustus to his birth names. In the early summer Messalina invited her family to the palace, the first time we would step foot into it. I hoped that going there would banish the nervous fears I had, the dreams of Caligula’s ghostly form invading my room that refused to fade away. The new emperor would protect me, not hunt me down.

  Like so much from that time, my memories are in little pieces. The slow trundle of the cart bearing us to Rome . . . the entry into the city, the mass of buildings crowded all together, some red brick, others gleaming white marble . . . the litter that I was put into, that bounced all the way . . . the hill it climbed, so that I was pitched backward . . . alighting in a cool green garden on the flat top of the hill . . . the sprawling building before us.

  “Tiberius built it,” said Aunt. “The divine Augustus was content to live simply in a small house, sleeping in the same little bedroom for forty years, on a low bed with a thin coverlet.” Was there a whiff of disapproval in her voice about his successors’ way of living? If so, it vanished when Messalina appeared and invited us inside.

  She seemed different. She was enveloped in swaths of silk, and her hair was dressed with pearls and gold threads.

  “My dear mother,” she said, kissing her cheek, but in a formal manner.

  “Silanus.” She looked a long time at him before she held out her hand and said, “I am joyous to welcome you.” Silanus bowed stiffly.

  “Lucius,” she said, bending to look at me. There was none of the sticky warmth she had exuded at Aunt’s house. She was sizing me up anew. “You should not wear green,” she said. “It doesn’t suit you.”

  “What color should I wear, lady?”

  She narrowed her eyes, thinking. “Red, perhaps. Gold. Definitely not purple.”

  A warning even I understood: Do not think of climbing higher than you already stand.

  The first room we entered was so high ceilinged that I could not see where it ended above me. Walking through it took a long time; the marble was slippery underfoot. Then there was another room, then another, then another. Open windows framed fluttering green leaves and ushered in soft breezes, rich with the scent of box hedge and mint. The whisper of Messalina’s silks drew us on.

  At length we reached a chamber that opened onto a gigantic balcony; from it the great city spread out below. I rushed to the balustrade, barely able to see over it. Far below was a huge open area, a long thin oval.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Lucius!” said Aunt. “You should stay with us until you are called to do otherwise.”

  “It is all right,” said Messali
na. “He is just a little boy, and they can hardly stand still.” She came over to me. “That is the Circus Maximus,” she said. “They race chariots there.”

  Chariots! “Oh, when?”

  “They have them all the time,” she said. “It makes a dreadful racket.”

  “But you can watch them from here?”

  “Yes, but you have to have good eyes—it’s not close.”

  I was longing for an invitation to see a day of races but dared not ask. She did not offer.

  Claudius joined us. Unlike his wife, he did not seem different, except that he now wore purple.

  “It is w-with great joy that I welcome you,” he said, shuffling forward.

  Everyone bowed.

  “I have been in this p-palace at many different s-stages of my life,” he said. “So in many ways it is like coming h-home. But whenever one moves into someone else’s house one tries to make it his own. So there are ch-changes. And I will undo some of Caligula’s decrees, which I hope will p-please people.” He turned to me. “There is a s-special event I wish to invite you to.”

  My heart rose. Was it the chariot races?

  He turned and murmured something to Aunt. She nodded.

  Claudius then said to me, “It will be a surprise. The true end of something, that will make you happy.” Then, in a most unimperial manner, he winked.

  A servant entered quietly and offered a tray of golden goblets filled with a refreshing cool drink. I stared at the goblets, at the intricate designs on them. The gold felt heavy in my hand. But such a heavenly heaviness!

  To be an emperor, then, was to drink even your simplest refreshments from weighty gold goblets. It was to see the chariot races whenever you pleased from the privacy of your dwelling. It was to have fleets of servants waiting to hear your bidding, then sliding away silently to fulfill it.

  “Lucius looks tired,” said Messalina suddenly. “Perhaps he should lie down.” Before I could protest that I was wide-awake, she grabbed my hand and placed it in the palm of a servant, who then pulled me away, through more long rooms, and finally into a room with a couch spread with silk. It was plain I was to lie down and pretend to rest.

  Slats of sunlight came through the shutters, but the room was cool and otherwise dark. I could barely make out the decorations on the walls—red and black designs framed by deep yellow backgrounds. From somewhere in another of the cavernous rooms came soft flute music.

  To be an emperor was to lie upon such couches in such rooms and hear sweet music wafting in from secret places.

  Why would Augustus have preferred his little house, his narrow bed with plain linen like mine at Aunt’s house? He may have been divine, but dare I think he may have also been foolish? At least in earthly things.

  The gentle warm air passing over me died as the afternoon wore on. Then the flute faded away, replaced by notes of such pure beauty they could only come from Apollo himself—a rippling, golden, liquid sound. I lay utterly still, as if by moving I might cause it to cease—was it a dream? But it was not, and I knew I must approach its source and hear it even more clearly and directly.

  I stole through the rooms, drawn on by the sound. Finally I reached the room where it originated. For long moments I stood outside, my eyes closed, drinking in the sound. I did not want to look inside, for fear of who I would see playing. Paris had told me many tales of enchanted music that lured people to their doom. The player was always a demon or a god in disguise. But finally I had to stick my head in and look.

  A slender young man was standing before the window, holding a large instrument—his left arm supported its flat bottom while he touched strings from behind, and at the same time he plucked strings from the front with his right hand, holding a pick. The instrument was shaped like an incomplete circle, with flourishes at each end. The notes played with the fingers were soft, while the ones with the pick were clear and sharp, together making a melodious and complex waterfall of sound. Suddenly the musician was aware that someone was in the room, and he jerked his head around to see me.

  “I—I am sorry, I just wanted to hear more.” My knees were shaking—not from fear but from the abruptly stopped divine music.

  “I am only practicing,” he said. “The cithara is a stern mistress. She will not yield her music easily, or to just anyone. She makes us all suppliants first.”

  I could see that only an adult could play it; it was too large and heavy for a child. I made up my mind in that instant that I would learn to play it as soon as I was able.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  Of course he would be puzzled. I was too old to be Messalina’s son and too bold to be a slave. “Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus,” I said.

  “The emperor’s great-nephew,” he said. “We all know about you.”

  “You do? What do you know?” How curious that this musician knew of me.

  “Well, in truth, we know about your lineage but nothing more than that. We don’t know, for example, whether you like mullet better than lamb. Or whether you can swim.”

  “I prefer mullet,” I announced. Swim . . . the mention of it made me shudder.

  He gave a flourish with his deft right hand and the magic sound came out of the instrument once again. Then he stopped. I waited, but there was nothing forthcoming.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Perhaps when I am older you could give me lessons.”

  He smiled. “If you remember. And if I am still here.”

  Slowly I made my way back to the resting room, the day ordinary again.

  VI

  The summer was a hot one. My little room at Aunt’s house was stifling; I told her I felt like a loaf of bread baking when I lay down.

  “I suppose you want a slave to stand over you and fan you,” she said. “We can’t spare any.”

  The bean plants were drooping in the fields, and the morning glories that opened at dawn shriveled up before noon. The fishponds were drying out, and the fountains ceased running, their silent stone spouts gaping like open mouths. It was the time of the Dog Star, when the mad star rose and brought in the searing heat of midsummer. Romans fled the city, some to the coast and some to the mountains, if they had homes there. We sat out under the trellis with its wilting canopy of leaves, but it was no cooler than being in the house.

  A message came from the imperial palace. Aunt seized it eagerly, hoping that it was from Messalina. She heard from her seldom, although Silanus was often summoned to Rome. But her face fell. “It’s for you, Lucius, and Silanus,” she said. “The emperor wants your company for a trip. Where, he doesn’t say. Once again I am not invited, but my husband is!” She turned to me. “Best get ready. Apparently he is already on his way.”

  • • •

  Claudius arrived shortly and I clambered into the carriage beside him, Silanus following. So far Claudius had not extended the promised invitation to watch the chariot races, but this proved he had not forgotten me.

  “Where are we going?” I asked eagerly.

  “To lay ghosts to rest,” said Claudius.

  “But where—”

  “Trust me,” he said. “Did I n-not tell you I would surprise you?”

  Silanus was looking around with more than idle curiosity.

  “My wife is not here,” said Claudius.

  “I can see that, sir,” said Silanus.

  “I hope you are not d-disappointed,” said Claudius.

  “No,” replied Silanus. “Although I always enjoy her company.”

  Claudius grunted. The carriage rumbled on.

  • • •

  After several hours we began climbing a fairly steep hill; when we crested it I could see that it was the lip of a big circle—and in its center below was a glittering lake.

  A round lake . . . reflecting the sky . . . calm and unmoving . . .

  And in it floated two enormous
boats, shaped like stingrays.

  I gripped the arms of my seat. Claudius reached out and took my hand. “Do not be afraid,” he said. “Today they perish.”

  The carriage began its descent.

  We stood on the dock, and the monsters floated before us. I saw again the hideous bronze animal heads that had burned in the torchlight, boars and wolves marking the place of each rower. I could see the white marble cabin that I had gazed upon in the moonlight. All the things that had haunted my dreams now loomed before me, stripped of their magic. The harsh sunlight had banished the mystery of the moonlight, burned it off.

  Claudius held up his arm. “Strip and sink them!” he ordered a large company of workmen gathered there. “Take all the v-valuables off. Then tow them to the middle of the lake and sink them.”

  Claudius bent down and took my hands. “The S-Senate wanted to condemn Caligula, declare his memory legally damned—damnatio memoriae. Mad and cruel as he was, I could not allow someone of my b-blood to be dishonored publicly. But I am doing the same th-thing, on my own accord. He will be removed from the official lists, his statues taken down, his name erased from m-monuments. And these t-tokens of his folly, waste, and cruelty will be destroyed. Tonight is the dark of the moon. Diana will not be offended—she c-cannot see our deed.” His words were hard to hear over the hammering and splintering coming from the doomed boats. The men began tossing the bronze animal heads onto the shore. Each snout had a big ring.

  Claudius bent down and examined one. “Fine workmanship,” he said. “Do you w-want one?”

  I recoiled. “No! Destroy them!”

  “We’ll m-melt them down,” said Claudius, turning one over in his hand. The tusks of the boar scratched his finger.

  • • •

  As the sun set, the disabled boats gurgled and sank beneath the surface of the lake. There were bubbles and ripples and then all was quiet. “Gone,” said Claudius. “Now, little Lucius, you must no longer fear the water.”