David Wishart - Nero

'Petronius.' Burrus nodded. 'Good to see you. You've heard the news?'

'I've just come from the palace.' I took a seat as far from the brazier as possible. 'Acte sent for us.'

'How is the dear girl?' The Man Himself smiled. 'Still…upset?'

'She was when we arrived. She's better now.'

Burrus grunted. 'Highly strung, these Greeks. But I'm sorry about Acte. She was a good woman, ex-slave or not. And at least we knew where we were with her.'

'Burrus, you're talking as if the poor soul were dead.' Seneca frowned. 'She's not out of favour, my dear fellow. Far from it, whatever she may think herself. The emperor has simply…taken on an extra interest.'

'A bit on the side, you mean?' I said.

The fishy eyes turned in my direction.'Poppaea Sabina is not Nero's mistress, Petronius. Not officially, anyway. And she has many good qualities. She is intelligent, witty, well-read…'

'Strong-minded.' Burrus was leaning back with his eyes closed; he really did not look well. 'Ambitious. Unscrupulous….'

'All I am saying,' Seneca snapped, 'is that this is not the disaster you three — I include Claudia Acte — seem to think it is. Poppaea is no real threat. I would be far more worried had the Empress Agrippina been back in favour.'

Burrus's eyes opened. 'Agrippina learned her lesson with Britannicus,’ he said. ‘She's keeping her head well down these days, and very wisely, too.'

'That may be so.' Seneca's tone sharpened: the poor dear really did not like to be contradicted, especially on his own ground. 'But I would not count on the situation being permanent. She is still a considerable force, and the emperor, whether he will or nill, remains very much…attracted to her. Acte may be a sterling lady in her way, but she cannot satisfy the Emperor's more unusual, er,' — he looked down — 'physical yearnings.'

'Nero does very well on that score already, darling,' I said calmly. 'You take it from me.'

Burrus chuckled. Seneca eyed me with distaste.

'I am not talking about temporary liaisons,’ he said. ‘You must know by now that the poor boy has a need to be dominated — sexually dominated — by older women. Acte, as I say, is temperamentally incapable of satisfying that need, but satisfied it must be if the emperor is to remain tractable.'

That was fair, so far as it went. Also remarkably perceptive. 'And you think Poppaea fits the bill?' I said.

'I do.'

'I disagree.' Burrus's brows were down. 'Oh, not with what you say about Nero's character, Seneca. You're quite right, the lad's always been tied up in apron strings and he won't grow out of it now. But I don't think Poppaea Sabina's quite the innocent you evidently believe her to be. The woman has ambitions.'

Seneca sighed. 'My dear fellow, please give me credit for a little intelligence! Of course she has ambitions, but she is not a fool, and unlike Agrippina she has neither great political acumen nor the empress's single-minded drive for political power. I am not particularly happy with having her as an additional factor, but comparing her with Agrippina she is by far the lesser evil.'

'You're making her sound almost like Messalina,' I said. 'She wasn't political either.'

As I'd intended, the name produced a sudden silence. We had all lived through the reign of Claudius's beautiful and viciously amoral wife; and we'd also all known people who hadn't been so lucky.

'That is nonsense,' Seneca said flatly. 'Messalina was a totally different case. In the first place she was a fool, in the second so was Claudius, and for all his…eccentricities Nero is not. In the third place the emperor is married already.'

'To Octavia,' I pointed out, 'whom he can't stand and who hasn't lived with him for years, never mind shared a bed. And there is such a thing as divorce.'

Seneca reddened: with anger, not embarrassment. For someone to have the temerity to contradict him was bad enough, but argument set one beyond the pale.

'Poppaea's mother may have come of reasonable stock,' he said, 'but she was certainly not noble. And her father was a complete nonentity. You're not suggesting that the lady is contemplating marriage, surely?'

I blinked. I hadn't considered that, like many provincials, Seneca might be a snob, especially when his attitude to class distinctions was otherwise so relaxed. Normally I would have found this unexpected blind spot amusing. In this case it was worrying.

'I'd have thought it was obvious that's what she's after,' I said mildly.

'I agree.' Burrus sat up. 'Of course she is. She'd be wasting her time otherwise.'

Seneca looked from one of us to the other like a baffled rhino. 'You're both wrong,’ he said. ‘Completely wrong. A mistress is one thing, a wife another. The emperor would never divorce his predecessor's daughter to marry Poppaea Sabina. Never.'

Ah, well. There was no point in arguing further, especially with the old bore in this bone-headed mood. I'd done my best, but in any case there was very little we could do in the meantime. To look ahead a little, though, it's only fair to add that Seneca wasn't completely unjustified in his opinion; it was to take darling Poppy four years to make an honest man of Lucius, and that wasn't, as Acte put it, for want of trying.

I called in on Otho on my way home. He was busy packing, and uncommunicative. I was sorry for Otho; he may have had his faults but he was an honourable enough man at bottom. Before we said goodbye to each other he took me aside. He was fingering the small silver figurine of Isis that he always wore round his neck.

'Tell Nero I'll be back,' he said; just that. But his eyes added, 'And I'll spit on the bastard's grave.'

I shivered as I climbed back into my litter. The day had turned grey and cold.

It didn't take Poppaea long to prove me right. I was kept abreast of her plans by Lucius himself, who was completely disingenuous where his sexual partners were concerned.

'Poppy wants me to marry her, Titus,' he said, setting down a plate (we were in one of the palace dining rooms; I was advising him on the choice of a new dinner service). 'She asked me again last night, and that's the fifth time this month. I mean, honestly, darling, I'd love to indulge the dear girl but how can I? It's so unreasonable!'

'Don't ask me about marriage.' I picked up a mushroom dish from the selection on the table and held it to the light. 'It's the one subject on which I'm not an expert. Not from the inside, at least.'

He laughed. 'Oh, come on, don't be modest! What do you think? I can't divorce Octavia. Mother would be furious, she's always saying how much she likes the little wimp.'

I put the salver down — it would never have done, the decoration was repetitive and hopelessly old-fashioned — and tried to keep my voice light.

'You see the empress often these days?'

'Oh, no! Just now and again. She's a lot less frosty than she was, but Poppy can't stand her any more than Acte can.' He frowned, presumably at the juxtaposition of the two names: Acte still lived at the palace, but he hardly ever visited her now and never mentioned her. 'Titus, I really can't divorce Octavia, can I? I mean, we don't live together and so on, and I've never liked the woman. But she is old Claudius's daughter, and she hasn't actually done anything, has she?'

'No,' I said. 'She hasn't. And,' I added carefully, 'I doubt if she would, either. Forget about her. Octavia's quite content as she is.'

He nodded. 'That's right! That's just what I'm always telling Poppy!' He picked up a delicately-fluted spoon. 'How about these? They'd go very nicely with the soup bowls, wouldn't they?'

'Yes, very nicely.' I moved on to more sensitive ground. 'You say your mother's becoming "less frosty"'.

'Mmm.' He laid the spoon to one side and reached for a fruit dish with a raised boss in the shape of a satyr's head. 'She can be terriblyc ritical, you know, and she's no time for art. But we had quite a cosy little chat the other day about modern painting. She's obviously taking an interest at long last.' He held up the fruit dish. 'He's an ugly-looking devil, isn't he?'