David Wishart - Nero

'Petronius, my dear fellow! How are you these days?'

I turned, although I'd already recognised the voice: Seneca's plummy tones were unmistakable.

Seneca himself was not.

I didn't ask him if he was well. Clearly he wasn't, and even allowing for the two-year interval I wouldn't have recognised him. The face above the immaculate mantle was a death mask, all shadows and pits and hollows. The hand was a claw.

'I'm back in Rome as you see, like the proverbial bad penny.' He smiled and let me go, and I handed the guard my invitation. We walked through the gate together. 'Terrible affair, terrible! I lost the town house and a good fifty million in property besides. Yourself? Not too badly hit, I trust?'

It took me a moment to realise he meant the fire. Of course, that would bring him back. Absentee landlords from all over Italy were coming to the city to check on their investments and do a bit of judicious buying while prices were low.

'The Quirinal was hardly touched,' I said. 'And I've no other property in the city.'

'Lucky man! But take my advice and buy some now. You won't regret it.'

I could see the torches up ahead near the centre of the gardens. The evening breeze carried a delicious smell of cooking.

'Roast pork,' I said. 'How nice.'

'I eat hardly anything myself these days. Mostly vegetables and fruit.' Seneca patted his once-ample stomach; like the rest of him it was shrunk almost to nothing. 'A return to my youth, when I took philosophy seriously.'

I laughed politely, as he expected: from Seneca it had to be a joke.

We were on the fringes of the party now, and it was well under way and quite crowded. The trees and bushes had been hung with glass and metal spangles lit from beneath with hundreds of tiny lamps, but the main area where the crowd was thickest had dozens of huge torches the height of trees. Even at this distance I could smell the pitch-pine resin mingling with the scent of the roasting pigs. Over to the left a flute wailed.

We were almost knocked over by a young man in a wreath and very little else pursuing two giggling dancing-girls. They disappeared together into the shrubbery, the girls already turning and falling, with their arms raised. Delightful. I hoped I wouldn't be saddled with Seneca all evening.

'You've seen the emperor since you got back?' I asked.

'No. But I sent him word from Naples that I was coming, and staying fora few days. The dear boy was good enough to invite — '

Seneca stopped, so suddenly that I thought he'd had a seizure.

'What's wrong?' He was rigid, his mouth open, seemingly fascinated by the pitch-pine torches immediately ahead of us. 'Seneca, are you ill?'

His head moved from side to side, but not his eyes. They were still fixed on the nearest torch. I allowed my own to follow them.

It wasn't a pitch-pine torch after all, and what I'd smelled wasn't roast pork. The bundle of rags on a stick had been a human being once, nailed by its wrists to a crosspiece, doused with pitch and set alight. There were, as I've said, dozens of the things scattered over the middle of the gardens.

'Oh, Jupiter Best and Greatest!' I whispered. 'Oh, sweet Serapis!' My throat tightened, and I fought back the nausea.

'There can be slain no sacrifice more acceptable to God,' Seneca murmured. At least I think these were the words. They were Latin, but they sounded like a quotation; a particularly cold-blooded one in the circumstances.

'Indeed,' I said. 'Indeed.'

The politeness was a reflex. Neither of us could tear our eyes away from the obscenity on the cross.

I was turning aside, finally, when I caught sight of Lucius staggering through the crowd in our direction, hugging a pair of doe-eyed Persian beauties. He was drunk, and his gilded laurel-leaf garland kept slipping down over one eye. As the girl-child — the Persians were twins, no older than ten — reached up on tiptoe to straighten it, he saw us and changed course like a heavy merchantman fighting its way across a contrary current.

'Titus!' he cried. 'Is that you? Seneca, you old devil! Join the party! How do you like my lanterns, eh?'

Neither of us spoke. I know I couldn't. Seneca looked grey.

Lucius stooped down and kissed first the girl then the boy hard on the mouth, his hands stroking their private parts. Then he looked at us and beamed.

'Serves the fuckers right! Poetic justice! They burn Rome, I burn them. Tit for tat. Economical, too.' He giggled. 'A good Christian will last you hours, properly oiled.'

'Were they dead before you set them alight?' Seneca's voice was deceptively mild; I could see he was shaking.

'Some of them. We nailed them all up first then went round with the pitch. Most lasted out. The ones that weren't too heavy.' He giggled again. 'Mind you, the fatsos burn better, so it comes to the same thing in the end.'

'Was this Tigellinus's idea?' I was watching the two children. They were fondling each other's genitals now, completely absorbed. Neither of them paid any attention to us, or to the burning corpses.

'Tiggy's idea? Of course not!' Lucius laughed. 'Why on earth should it be Tiggy's idea, darling?'

'No reason.' I felt empty.

'I mean, give me some credit for originality!' He turned to Seneca. 'That's these self-styled aesthetes all over, my dear. No one's allowed to have any good ideas but them. Tiggy's the same, it's so tiresome sometimes you just wouldn't believe.' Suddenly he sagged against the children's shoulders; they must have been stronger than they looked, because they were supporting most of his weight. 'Anyway, don't let me keep you. Go ahead, darlings, there's tons to eat and drink. Enjoy yourselves.'

The Persians moved off, towards one of the little pergolas that dotted the gardens on the edge of the lamplight. I would've gone home myself, but someone would no doubt have noticed and reported it to Lucius when he was sober. That I couldn't risk.

Nor could Seneca, seemingly. We moved forward to join the party. I noticed that as we passed the first of the human torches he bent down surreptitiously, scooped up a handful of earth and tossed it into the flames. I noticed something else, too. The fire had left the corpse's lower legs intact, and on one of them was a broad discolouration, like a childhood burn.

My slave Crito was safe at Alba. Paullus, with his Roman citizenship, was also safe, for the time being, at least. Justin, who had brought me my wine and had nothing and no one to protect him, was another matter.

I only stayed for a couple of hours, although by that time the crosses with their charred remains still attached had burned themselves out and been replaced with more conventional lighting. Tigellinus was there, drinking alone, but I avoided him, not caring much if he saw me do it. Nor did I search out any more congenial company, despite the fact that there was plenty of it around, both male and female. I don't know whether Seneca had gone by the time I left or not. He was hustled away from me early on by a tight knot of grim-faced senators in uncompromisingly plain mantles, and that was the last I saw of him.

I only found out that something out of the usual was happening when I went round by arrangement at the end of April to see how the decoration of the new palace was progressing. The gates were closed and guarded. Even my written invitation had no effect on the Praetorians in the gatehouse.

'Sorry, sir,' the commander said as he handed it back. 'No one goes in or out till further notice.'

'Is there anything wrong?' A pointless question: there were twice the number of troops on duty, including a contingent of heavily armed Germans.

'Couldn't say, sir.' The man was polite enough but firm. 'If you've a message for the emperor I'll see he gets it.'