David Wishart - Nero

Early in March Acte sent me word from the palace that she wanted to see me urgently; and not only Acte, as I discovered when I arrived. I recognised Seneca's dry tones even before the slave bowed me into the room.

Acte glanced up quickly. She looked frightened.

'Petronius!' she said. 'Thank the gods it's you!'

'Who else would it be, darling?'

She reddened. 'I thought it might be Lucius.'

Seneca, who was sitting with his back to the door, turned round and stared. He, at least, didn't seem too pleased to see me.

'You know Annaeus Seneca?' Acte asked.

'We've met.' An overstatement: philosophers don't patronise my kind of parties and vice versa. The only time I'd seen the old fraud socially was at Lucius's abortive dinner.

'Young man.' Seneca inclined his head gravely.

'Sit down, Titus.' Acte was looking even more haggard than she had the last time I'd seen her. She'd never been beautiful. Now she looked a positive sight. 'We need your help.'

It was the first time she'd used my given name, but I didn't mind. We were, I supposed, old enough friends to make no difference, and I suspected that Acte needed all the friends she could get. I pulled up an ornate gold and wickerwork chair: we weren't in the sanctum but one of the palace's public rooms, and the furnishings were eccentric. 'Help with what, dear?'

'With Lucius, of course. The poor love's causing himself no end of trouble.'

'Causing himself trouble?' Love may be blind, but Acte seemed afflicted with a moral astigmatism which was positively heroic.

'Philosophically speaking our friend here is quite correct,' Seneca put in smoothly. 'By his misguided actions the dear boy is tarnishing his soul; hence he can truly be said to be doing himself a disservice.'

I could have kicked his smug ankles. In any case I'd no intention of being diverted by dubious platitudes. 'From what I hear,' I said, 'any problems there are with the emperor's behaviour seem to be other people's. To speak plainly, the Emperor Nero is turning into a proper little thug.'

Seneca frowned but said nothing.

'So you don't know what happened last night?' Acte was chewing on a fingernail; the other nine, I noticed, were bitten to the quick. 'With Julius Montanus?'

I shook my head. The name was familiar: I remembered a thick-set middle-aged man with the build of a wrestler, not known for his equable temper.

'Lucius…came across him outside Marcellus's Theatre. Montanus punched him.'

I laughed. 'Oh, how marvellous! Good for Montanus!' A punch on the nose was just what the brat needed, in my view. 'Was he badly hurt?'

'You don't understand. When Montanus saw who it was he apologised. Lucius told him to go home and slit his wrists.'

Oh, Jupiter! Oh, good sweet Jupiter! 'He did what? '

'Told him to kill himself, Titus.' Acte stood up and walked over to the window; the room was on the first floor, overlooking the courtyard garden. She kept her back turned towards me as she spoke. 'It just isn't like him. Lucius isn't a monster, he even hates signing official death warrants. How could he do a thing like that? Kill someone for nothing?'

'Not for nothing.' I was remembering the dead man in the alleyway; he had recognised the emperor too. 'Did Lucius tell you this himself?'

'He didn't even mention it. I only found out this morning.'

'So what do you expect me to do?'

She turned round again to face me. 'Help. I don't know how. Just help. Lucius needs help. He has to be stopped now, before…' She bit her lip.

'Before he gets a taste for capricious killing.'

A nod, with lowered eyes. Seneca wasn't looking at me either.

'Acte, be realistic! I hardly know the man. Why should he listen to anything I have to say?'

'Because he seems to have a curious respect for your…ah…powers of judgment, Petronius,' Seneca said stiffly. 'Although a respect based on what evidence I'm not exactly sure.'

Again my foot itched to hack at his shins. 'Even more respect, my dear, than for the sterling advice that you give him so freely? Oh, Seneca, darling! Surely not!'

The large bland face coloured and the fat lips drooped.

'Petronius,' he said. 'You are a young man. I am not. The young will listen to the young where an older man's words, even if they are wiser, will go unheeded. I have talked to Nero. He refuses to admit that he encountered Montanus last night at all. More, he denies being engaged on any nocturnal…expeditions at any time.'

'But that's — ' I was going to use the word 'insane' and thought better of it. 'That makes no sense at all. He's made no secret of what he gets up to at nights. I've been with him myself.'

Seneca pursed his lips with distaste. 'Exactly. He couldn't deny it to you. With me the case is different. I would have to start by calling the dear boy a liar.'

I saw his point, of course, and it was a good one. Seneca had no official standing at court, not even (now Lucius had reached adulthood) that of tutor. To provoke a quarrel would be extremely stupid, almost certainly futile, and possibly disastrous for Rome. Not to say potentially fatal for Seneca himself.

'The nub of the matter' — Seneca was fingering a fold of his expensive mantle — 'is that the lad is emperor and can do what he likes. As yet he hasn't fully realised this. The longer we can delay realisation the better, for his sake and for ours.'

'And how does this involve me?'

Instead of replying Seneca looked at Acte.

'We thought we — you — might divert him, Titus,' she said. 'It's only boredom after all. Lucius doesn't really want to be emperor, he never has.'

'Divert him?'

'Into safer channels,' Seneca said. 'As Acte says, the lad needs an interest. Something to take his mind off mundane pursuits like…like…'

'Governing? Beating people up? Handing out arbitrary death sentences?'

He glared at me. I stared back impassively.

'Quite. At least until he develops a more responsible attitude.'

'And did you have anything particular in mind?' I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

'Titus, don't be difficult, please!' Acte crossed the room and put a hand on my arm. 'This is too important.'

'I'm sorry.' I was. She was quite right, it was important. Crucial, even. 'It's just that I'm genuinely at a loss as to what you expect me to do.'

'Lucius is an artist. We felt,' — she glanced at Seneca, who frowned — 'at least I felt, that if he had someone to encourage him, someone whose opinion he valued, an older man…' She stopped in confusion.

'What Acte is trying to say,' Seneca's lips were pursed again, 'is that the Emperor is, or would like to be seen as, that rare bird, an aesthete. A philhellene .' He used the Greek word, pronouncing it carefully and with distaste.

Acte was nodding with relief.

'He likes Greeks,' she translated.

'Thank you, darling,' I said. 'I do understand the term. Only I still don't see what — '

'My dear Petronius, that is precisely the point,' Seneca interrupted me. 'Rightly or wrongly, Nero considers you…unRoman, if I may coin the word. In his mind you are indeed' — he smiled smugly as he delivered the mot , — 'rare birds of a feather. If you can use your influence to divert the emperor's attention from his other pursuits down that innocuous path then you will have our eternal gratitude.'

'I doubt if Rome would take kindly to a Greekling wearing the purple,' I said.

'It may be that or suffer another Caligula.' That came out flat. Acte drew in her breath, and Seneca turned briefly in her direction. 'I'm sorry, my dear, but it had to be said. I like it no more than you do, but the lad already expresses an admiration for his late unlamented uncle. You understand now, Petronius?'

'I understand.' I felt unutterably weary. 'Very well, I'll help if I can. What exactly do you want me to do?'