David Wishart: Nero

Junia shook her head violently; a single teardrop landed on my wrist.

'Nero won't stand up to Agrippina,' she said. 'He's soft as a worm.'

She was right, of course, and personally I wouldn't have given tuppence for the Silanus family's chances of seeing the new year in. However, now wasn't the time for pragmatism. I put the wine cup to Junia's lips and tilted. The wine was practically neat, and there was plenty of it. She choked and swallowed. Silia patted her on the back.

'Listen, Junia darling,' I said firmly when the spluttering had stopped. 'The emperor may be a worm, but worms do turn. Especially imperial worms new to the job. Agrippina won't have everything her own way much longer. Now drink up like a good girl, have another doughnut and give us a smile.'

She did, eventually; Junia was a splendid girl (though rather over-large and bouncy for my taste) and as I've said already she wasn't usually prone to the horrors. Members of the old aristocratic families seldom are; they take death by politics in their stride. A few more cups of neat Setinian and a little jollying along and she was enough herself again to be sent home giggling; by which time if Agrippina had walked past she would've spat in the Bitch's eye.

She wouldn't have missed, either.

It was late by the time Junia left, and we'd had more than enough wine ourselves, so we went straight to bed. Unhappily, however, Silia was in no mood for fornication.

'It really is too bad, Titus,' she said. 'Junia was in a terrible state, and she's absolutely right about the emperor. Someone should do something about that woman.'

I sighed: politics is always trying when one's mind is on erections rather than elections. 'What would you suggest?' I said. 'A scorpion in the imperial drawers?'

'Don't be flippant. I'm serious.'

I was serious myself; practically-neat Setinian always makes me feel randy.

'Darling, Junia has my sympathy. Rome has my sympathy. But there is not a great deal that I personally can do about the situation. Certainly not at this time of night. So…'

Silia pushed my questing hand away.

'Titus, do listen!' she snapped. 'This is important! I didn't like to say so in front of poor Junia, but things are going to get worse. You know they are. And by that time it'll be too late.'

'Agrippina isn't the only one with influence over young Lucius, dear.' Priapus! What the hell was I doing in my mistress's bed at two in the morning discussing Julia Agrippina? 'There's always Seneca and Burrus.'

She snorted. 'Agrippina will make mincemeat of those two. So long as she has that poor boy under her thumb she can do anything she likes with him, exactly as she did with Claudius.'

Outside the window an owl hooted. Not the most propitious of omens, and entirely apposite; the blankets were now humped up into an impenetrable barrier. Seemingly all nature was against me. I gave up with as good a grace as I could manage.

'Silia,' I said gently, 'Lucius is only seventeen, he's been under his mother's thumb since he was born, he's had no father to put backbone into him and as a result he's as wet as a half-wrung dishrag. What do you expect? Give him a few months as emperor and he'll dry out enough to tell Mummy to get lost. Now go to sleep, please.'

She lay quiet for a long time. I closed my eyes and tried not to think of sex. Then, suddenly, she said: 'Do you think he's a virgin?'

I sat up so fast that I bumped my head on the brass cupid bed-end.

'What?'

Silia had propped herself up on one elbow and was staring at me wide-eyed. 'Titus, please do pay attention. It's a simple enough question. Do you think that Lucius is a virgin?'

Oh, Serapis! Too much, my lord, too much! I rubbed my scalp, feeling for the rising bruise.

'For God's sake, woman! The boy's been married to the Idiot's daughter Octavia for a year! Of course he isn't a bloody virgin!'

'Don't shout, dear. You'll wake the slaves. I don't mean a technical virgin. I mean a real one.'

'Silia, it's the middle of the night and I am not up to splitting philosophical hairs.'

'How old were you when you had your first girl?'

Plato in a bathrobe! 'Darling, I'm sorry but you've lost me completely. I don't see the connection. And anyway I'm afraid that piece of information is really none of your business.'

'Fourteen?' She ignored me. 'Fifteen?'

I rested my aching head against the offending cupid and closed my eyes. First no sex, now no sleep and questions no gentleman should be expected to answer; certainly not in another woman's bed. Such is not Petronius's idea of the perfect way to finish an evening.

I wondered if it was too late to go to the party after all.

'Titus, I asked you a question.'

'Fourteen. She was the daughter of my father's bailiff. Now honestly, I'd rather not discuss the matter.'

'And did your mother choose her for you?'

Despite myself I laughed. 'She thought I was off fishing, darling. Which I was, in a way.'

'There you are, then.'

'There I am what?'

'Titus, don't be obtuse! Lucius's was an arranged marriage, and from all accounts he can't stand the girl.'

I saw, finally, what she was driving at.

'So you're saying all our emperor needs to boost his self-esteem is a roll on the potting-shed floor with the girl of his dreams? Silia, don't be ridiculous!'

She sniffed. 'Why should it be ridiculous? What the poor boy needs is a nice girl of his own choosing who honestly thinks he's marvellous and who'll give him a bit of confidence.'

'Any girl who thought Lucius was marvellous would be certifiable.'

'Nonsense. He's a charming boy, underneath his spots. And I know just the girl. Woman, rather.'

'If you know her already how can she be of his own choosing?'

'Don't quibble, dear, it's vulgar.'

'Silia, listen to me!' I was becoming seriously alarmed. 'You cannot mess with the imperial family.'

'Who,' she snapped back, 'is messing?'

'You are, darling. Or you would be. Besides, it really is none of your business.'

She sighed. 'Titus, you're being terribly tiresome. Of course it isn't my business. But someone has to do something. If that dreadful woman isn't stopped soon poor Junia and several other friends of mine will almost certainly end up dead or exiled. That I will not have.'

'I'm sure Seneca and Burrus are perfectly capable of…'

She placed a finger over my lips. It smelled of perfume.

'Seneca and Burrus are men. The poor lambs haven't a hope of stopping her. And you haven't met Acte.' Her lips brushed my forehead and I felt the Setinian stirring. 'Now go to sleep, dear. I'm tired.'

She lay down and turned her back towards me. The owl hooted again, mournfully. Probably a male locked out of his nest for the night, stewed on Setinian.

Bugger. I went to sleep. Eventually.

Future historians will no doubt describe Acte as a beautiful young siren, common as muck but with the face and figure of a goddess, sitting on her rock and tempting Lucius down from the Palatine not with her song but by the shimmer of her glorious upturned rosy-nippled breasts and peerless thighs; a nymph of the Aventine with long, unbound hair spilling over her bare shoulders and reaching past her narrow waist to her generous hips and silky purse.

Wrong, my dears. Wrong, wrong, wrong. She wasn't like that at all. If she had been, Lucius — at this stage of his career, at least — would have run a mile.

Silia introduced us in the tiny room three floors above an Egyptian glassware shop near Pompey's Theatre, where the woman had her theatrical costumes business.

'Claudia Acte,' she said. 'Acte, this is my friend Petronius Niger.'

We shook hands (her idea, not mine, and she almost broke my fingers). I wasn't bowled over, to put it mildly. She was Asiatic Greek, thirty if a day, dumpy as a sack of flour, with thick black eyebrows like mating earwigs, coarse-grained skin and a face that wouldn't've launched a rowing boat on the Tiber, let alone started the Trojan War. She even, I noticed with distaste, had a wart. The world to choose from, I thought, and Lucius is expected to fancy this?