David Wishart - Nero

'Okay,' she said. 'Okay, but no promises. You say I can help. Tell me how.'

Silia told her. In the end she took surprisingly little persuading: Jupiter knows what the woman saw in him, but as you've probably realised yourself reading between the lines Acte was seriously smitten even then with young Lucius. Silia had a word with Crispinilla the imperial wardrobe mistress (they used the same perfumier), poor ugly Acte was duly drafted onto the palace's domestic staff, and we sat back to await results.

The effect was even better than we'd hoped for. By the end of the month Lucius was head over heels in love…

Oh dear, oh dear! This is beginning to sound dreadfully unconvincing, like one of those gushy, ghastly Alexandrian novelettes where clean-limbed young strangers (who turn out to be princes in disguise) sweep dewy-eyed heroines off their feet and carry them away on their Arab chargers to an eternity of expurgated wedded bliss. Don't blame me, please; it's honestly not my fault. That's how things went, even although the heroine was rather a sight and the princely hero had spots and bad breath. Human nature is a curious beast, and there is no accounting for taste. I use the word loosely, of course.

The dewy-eyed part, however, was literally true. When Acte came round to Silia's to report just after the Kalends she was sickeningly primaveral. Even her wart glowed.

'He's marvellous,' she told us. 'Just as nice as I remembered him. Kind and considerate and sensitive and…'

'Have a grape.' I held out the bowl.

Silia looked daggers at me. 'Stop it, Titus,' she said. 'I think it's lovely. So terribly romantic. Do go on, dear.'

'…and he wants me to marry him.'

'Serapis!' I almost dropped the dish. 'You're not serious!'

Acte looked at me. Her eyes were like deep pools in which reflected starlight lurked (they were! I swear they were!).

'Why not?' she snapped. 'Why shouldn't he?'

'For one thing, darling, he's already married to Octavia.'

'But he doesn't like the little wimp. He's never even slept with her.'

'There, Titus!' Silia gave a smug, self-satisfied smile. 'I knew he was a virgin.'

'Does Agrippina know about this?' I was, I admit it, in shock. Self-confidence was one thing. Divorcing an imperial wife, however wimpish, to marry an ex-slave who made theatrical costumes for a living was not the behaviour one expected of an emperor.

'Of course she doesn't! Agrippina doesn't even know we're…seeing each other.' Acte blushed; she actually blushed!

'This is your fault, Silia.' I rounded on her. 'I warned you about interfering. You've created a monster.'

Silia gently removed the fruit bowl from my nerveless fingers and replaced it on the table. 'Don't talk nonsense, dear,' she said.

'It isn't nonsense! The Senate'll never stand for it for a start!' I turned back to Acte. 'And what about Burrus and Seneca? What do they have to say about these impending nuptials of yours?'

'They don't know either. It's our secret. They just think Lucius and I are' — she paused and lowered her eyes modestly — 'cohabiting.'

This was too much. 'Cohabiting? You're cohabiting crazy, both of you!' I glared at Silia. 'All three of you!'

'Titus, dear, you're being a bore.'

'You think this isn't serious? What happens when Agrippina finds out?'

'Oh, we've talked about that.' Acte was calm. 'Lucius says he's the emperor, not her, and if she makes trouble he'll tell her where she gets off.'

Oh, Serapis! I goggled at her, beyond speech.

'I really don't see why you're making all this fuss, darling.' Silia smoothed out a non-existent crease in her mantle. 'We wanted the boy to have more self-confidence. Now he does, thanks to Acte here. And I'm sure Seneca and Burrus are simply thrilled that he's facing up to that terrible woman at last. They are, aren't they, dear?'

'Sure.' Acte glowed. 'They're doing handstands.'

'You see, Titus?' Silia turned back to me smugly. 'Everything is going just splendidly. I told you it'd work, didn't I? Now stop scowling and don't be such a sourpuss.'

And if this had indeed been a gushy, ghastly Alexandrian novelette we'd leave it there, with young love and virtue triumphant, evil vanquished and sourpusses censured; but life, I'm afraid, isn't like that. Life, sadly, is a bowl, not of cherries, but of pickles.

Let's hear it for the sourpusses.

Sourpusses, however, were not much in evidence at first. When I next stumbled into Persicus down at our mutual baths he was ecstatic over the new regime; in fact, he hailed me from the other side of the cold plunge.

'Hey, Petronius! You know any good poets?'

I went over. The sulky slave with the chicken-baster's hands wasn't in evidence; traded in, no doubt, for a later model.

'No, but if you're really interested I do a nice line in dirty drinking songs,' I said.

'Then widen your field, boy!' A grin. 'Start writing encomiums.'

'I didn't know you even knew the word, darling.' Bitchy, but I'd had a hard night. Never have bear meat on top of ostrich-brain fricassee.

He laughed. 'Yeah? Well, we've got ourselves an emperor for a change.'

'So I've noticed. Mind you there's already been Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula…'

'Stuff it.' He threw his towel at me. 'You know what I mean. The lad's doing well. They're saying down at the Senate House that he's old Augustus born again only without the starch.'

' They would say anything.'

He shook his head decisively. 'Not in private. They mean it, Titus. That's some commendation, even if they do know Burrus and Seneca are pulling the strings. The kid's got to listen to somebody, and at least now it's not Agrippina. She is out — but I mean seriously!'

'And how is our dowager empress taking it?' We sat down with our backs against a pillar.

'How do you think? Like a rhino with migraine.' He frowned. 'Hey, you know this Acte woman?'

'No.' I wasn't going to let Persicus in on that little secret, oh no. Good at his job he might be and a splendid young man all round, but he was also the loosest mouth in Rome. 'No, I've never even seen her.'

'Me neither. I don't move in these circles, and he keeps her well under wraps. But she must be something really special the way she's hooked the boy away from Mummy.'

'They say she was Mithridates's mistress.' I put in my two-pennyworth of false gossip: Mithridates was one of the leading eastern client-kings and randy as a drunken camel. 'They also say she wore him out in a month.'

Persicus whistled. 'No kidding? Jupiter's balls! That makes sense, because when the Bitch caught them together she went up the wall.'

'Agrippina caught them?' My stomach turned over. 'You mean, she's found out?' It'd been inevitable from the start, of course, but even so…

Persicus grinned. 'She walked in on them this morning, in Nero's bedroom. The kid just lay there petrified like he'd been caught with his hand in the honey jar, but Acte told her to piss off.'

'And did she?'

'She did. She was spitting blood. But she went right enough.'

'Persicus, how do you know all this?'

'Oh, it's true, don't you worry!' He was practically crowing. 'I got it on the slave network. The story was all over the palace by noon. The Bitch is on the skids, Petronius. A month or two more and she'll be history.'

'If Acte lives that long.' I was frowning. Now the secret was out I didn't rate her chances better than marginal.

'Agrippina wouldn't dare touch a hair of the lady's head, not with Nero up there on his cloud. She's got more sense.'

'You think she'll just give up? Let her have him?' If Persicus thought that then the odds were pretty fair.

He stared at me. 'Give up? The Bitch? No chance. Three in a bed isn't her bag.' I must've looked blank because he laughed. 'Hey, Petronius! You didn't know? Agrippina's been screwing her blue-eyed bunny rabbit for years. No wonder she's jealous.'