‘How will you do that?’
‘We must get to Capri.’
Agrippina got up, walked to the door and opened it.
‘You will arrange that, Parmenon. In the meantime, ask Metellus to come up!’
I looked up in surprise.
‘Go on!’ she urged. ‘Tell him I need him now!’
I obeyed her command and went down the gallery. I could hear shouts, doors opening and closing. The festivities after the Games were now in full swing. I slipped downstairs into the gallery below, where servants and their girls were milling about, some much the worse for drink. Metellus was sitting at a table, tapping his fingers as if mystified by what had happened.
‘Domina Agrippina will see you now!’ I declared.
‘Will she? Where has she been? Where have you been?’
‘I’ve been nowhere,’ I slurred, pretending to be tipsy. ‘You’d best go upstairs now.’
Metellus scraped back the stool and followed me up. I went along the gallery and knocked on the door. Agrippina opened it, almost dragged the fellow through, then slammed it shut in my face. I stood wondering what was to happen. I heard Agrippina laugh, the clink of cups. Was she playing some game? I tried the handle but the bolts were in place. I was walking down the gallery when I heard the screams, terrible piercing yells, so strident they quelled the clamour below. I ran back towards the door and pushed against it. From inside I could hear the clatter of noise as if a violent struggle was taking place. The alarm was being raised. Two Praetorian guards came running up, swords drawn. Burly fellows, they shoved me aside. Using the pommel of their swords, they hammered on the door, from behind which came Agrippina’s screams and yells, and the sounds of a scuffle grew more strident. Stools and benches were used to force open the door and I followed the soldiers into the room. Metellus lay sprawled on the floor before the couch, a gaping wound in his chest. Agrippina, her tunic covered in blood, knelt beside him holding a dagger. Her stola had been ripped, and she had scratch marks on her face. She pushed her hair back and stared wildly at the soldiers.
‘He tried to rape me!’ she hissed. She pointed to the goblets lying in a pool of wine in the middle of the room. ‘He was drunk.’
She caught my gaze and, for a second, I saw the smile in her eyes. She got to her feet still holding the dagger.
‘Is this the way — ’ she yelled, ‘- to treat the daughter of Germanicus? Am I some common whore to be pawed at by servants?’
Her maids appeared. Agrippina yelled obscenities, asking them where they had been. They tried to reply but Agrippina threw the dagger on the floor. She crumpled on the couch, put her face in her hands and sobbed bitterly. The soldiers, both outraged and fearful at what had happened, grabbed Metellus’s corpse and flung it through the window onto the courtyard below. I decided it was time to act as if I was the Domina’s secretarius. Water and towels were ordered. I thanked the soldiers and asked them to leave. Once they had, Agrippina got to her feet and allowed the maids to dab at the cuts on her face and hands. She seized a moment in the hustle and bustle to beckon me over.
‘Go, tell Sejanus’s minions,’ she whispered, ‘that I am of the blood imperial. I have been attacked! A lowling has tried to rape me. I demand to see the Emperor!’ She grabbed my hand and pulled me closer. ‘Use your wit, Parmenon. Act as if you were truly Sejanus’s spy. Tell the truth!’
I left immediately, threading my way through the passageways of the Palatine Palace across the parklands. Darkness was falling, and torches and lamps were being lit. I found the Minion in the same chamber in which we had first met. I suspect he already knew what had happened but when I gave him the details his face paled. He plucked at his face and sifted the parchments on the table.
‘I see. I see,’ he muttered. ‘You’d best stay here.’
An hour passed. The darkness deepened, the light from the oil lamps gutted out. At last the Minion returned.
‘His Excellency will see you now!’
Chapter 5
‘I wish the Roman populace had only one neck’
‘So, she wishes to go to Capri?’
Sejanus lounged on a couch, one arm on the headrest, a wax writing tablet on his knee. A small tripod next to the couch held quills, ink and pumice stone. He put the tablet down and glanced at me, fingers laced. Sejanus was at his most avuncular: patrician, his grey hair carefully combed, smiling eyes, slightly hooked nose, his face freshly shaved and oiled.
‘I’ve heard what happened.’ He smiled. ‘Do you believe it?’
I recalled Agrippina’s advice.
‘No, I don’t, Excellency.’
Sejanus furrowed his brow. ‘I am glad you said that. Neither do I. Metellus was a cold fish, who prefered little boys to women so why should he try and rape Agrippina?’ He clicked his tongue.
I was standing about three yards from him. I hoped he couldn’t smell my fear.
‘But Agrippina acted foolishly. Surely she would have known about Metellus’s preferences? Let me think this through.’ Sejanus reflected. ‘Agrippina sent you to bring Metellus to her room, and then locked the door. Almost immediately she started to scream a yell and when the Praetorians broke in, Metellus, one of my spies, was found with a dagger thrust through the heart. Now Agrippina is acting the hysterical bitch and pleading to be sent to Capri to complain to the Emperor.’ He sighed. ‘To be perfectly honest I suspect the Divine One won’t believe her either.’
He lowered his head and clicked his tongue. I stared round the marble room. Purple and gold drapes hung against the walls and two crumbling gravestones, a memento mori, perched at either end of the couch. Was it Sejanus’s idea to terrify visitors or had this been the great Augustus’s writing chamber? The furniture was exquisite, much of it of Egyptian design, as were the statuettes — an Apis bull, a Hermes, a dancing girl — and a silver lamp-stand carved in the shape of a tree. Agrippina later explained that it was all looted from Cleopatra’s court. At the time I didn’t really care, only aware of the warmth and the brooding silence. The drapes moved slightly, and I glanced down and caught sight of the toe of a boot peeping out beneath. Sejanus was no fooclass="underline" he appeared to be frightened of no one but the chamber was full of guards, their swords drawn, ready to protect him or to carry out his slightest whim. He continued to click his tongue, an unnerving sound: sometimes fast, sometimes slow it seemed to echo the beat of my heart. I stared down at the floor and studied the mosaic which was of Demeter rising from the corn fields.
‘I am wondering,’ Sejanus smiled, ‘dearest kinsman, if you are part of this plot?’
He picked up a bell and rang it vigorously. A door in the wall opened and the Minion stepped through. Sejanus didn’t even bother to turn his head.
‘Who’s in the chamber below?’ he demanded.
‘Tibullus.’
‘Ah yes, our self-styled poet who thinks he is a new Virgil. Any progress?’
The Minion shook his sweat-soaked face.
‘Take my kinsman Parmenon down.’
The Minion snapped his fingers, and I followed him out. The chamber beyond was pitch black except for a torch flickering at the bottom of the steep, sharp steps. The Minion grabbed me by the arm and bustled me down.
‘Don’t be frightened!’ he sniggered.
I wished I’d fled. Agrippina’s plot was doomed to failure. Sejanus had realised what she was up to. She wouldn’t be travelling to Capri and I was about to end my days in a place like this. We reached the bottom of the steps and went along a poorly lit corridor which debouched into a circular chamber, where I saw men dressed like gladiators and satyrs, the masks over their faces made all the more grotesque by the leaping torchlight. The smell was as fetid as that from an open latrine. The grotesques moved away to reveal the outstretched body of a man on the table.