‘Will the Emperor now show mercy to your mother and Drusus?’ I asked.
Agrippina was painting a doll, a gift for the daughter of one of her handmaids.
‘Tiberius never forgets and never forgives. He will compromise. Gaius and his sisters will survive but there will be no mercy shown to the rest.’
She held the doll up, her tongue half-sticking out of her mouth as she painted its face.
‘I’ll keep quiet and hide deep in the shadows.’ She put the brush down and wiped her fingers on a rag. ‘It’s going to be a pretty doll, isn’t it, Parmenon? If I can’t have children at least I can look after those of others.’
‘Why can’t you have children?’
‘You could have taught them grammar, Parmenon. I should have said, won’t.’ Her eyes became fierce and hard. ‘I’ll never have children whilst that monster on Capri lives. Until he’s dead, no one’s safe.’
Agrippina’s prophecy was as shrewd as it was accurate. Apicata, Sejanus’s estranged wife, wrote a letter to Tiberius denouncing her dead husband as the murderer of Tiberius’s son Drusus. She then took a warm bath, opened her veins and escaped the Emperor’s vengeance. The news drove Tiberius to the edge of madness: no possible rival was safe. On Pandateria, Agrippina’s mother was starved to death. Her brother Drusus was never released from prison; he died a starving madman, tearing and eating the stuffing from his own mattress.
More deaths occurred. Tiberius’s old colleague, Sextus Letillus, opened his veins when the Emperor denounced him but promptly closed them, thinking he might escape with a begging letter. When he received Tiberius’s reply, he quickly opened his veins again and announced that he welcomed death. One senator took poison in the Senate, drinking it cheerfully whilst he denounced Tiberius’s cruelty and rapacity. Another senator, Sabinus, was executed and his body exposed on the Steps of Mourning. His faithful dog brought food every day and placed it close to the dead man’s mouth. Even when the corpse was thrown into the Tiber, the animal plunged into the water and kept it afloat before the admiring gaze of the people, who saw it as a clear sign of the dead man’s innocence.
Youth and innocence were no defence. Sejanus’s children went under the knife. His son was old enough to know what was happening, but his young daughter, distraught, kept asking everyone what she had done wrong and where was she being taken? As she was a virgin, the executioner violated the girl immediately before strangling her. Both corpses were exposed to the public view.
I tried to draw Agrippina into conversation about what would happen next but she shook her head. She never mourned her mother or brother: that was too dangerous and could be taken as treason. She grew thinner, paler. She went to bed late and rose early, busying herself with humdrum tasks. I was aware of her tension. Sometimes she would let me embrace her or hold her hand but then she would push me away. Some days she’d disappear and come back red-eyed, with bruises on her arms and legs. I suspected she was visiting Macro, Rome’s new master, and her only link with Tiberius. Days, months and years slid one into the other. If Agrippina kept free of the politics of Rome, she also ensured I did the same. I was never entrusted with any secret tasks or sent on mysterious errands. Instead I became her steward and secretary, kept busy organising stores and purchasing goods. Occasionally I would be sent out to her villa at Antium to check that all was well there.
‘You’ve done well,’ she once remarked. ‘What you did in Capri, Parmenon, was more than enough. I will keep you like an arrow in my quiver. Hidden from public gaze until the time comes. .’
Chapter 7
‘O fairer daughter of a fair Mother!’
Early in the spring of Tiberius’s last year, just after a Roman force had been ambushed and cut to pieces by the Frisians on the empire’s northern border and the survivors cruelly tortured, Agrippina dropped her mask.
At first I thought it was the break in the weather: a sudden, glorious spring had transformed Rome in bursts of golden sunlight, fresh flowers, and sweetness in the air. The blood bath had begun to abate; the list of proscriptions appearing less often in the Forum as Tiberius became more engrossed with the security of Rome’s frontiers. The change in Agrippina began almost imperceptibly, but once I had noticed it, I realised that her spirit had revived. She met me early one afternoon, in one of those flowery grottoes so lovingly designed by imperial gardeners. She’d been reading poetry again and talked about visiting the theatre. She looked round like a young girl ready for mischief, placed her reading tray on the turf seat beside her, got up and put her arms round my neck.
‘Parmenon, I am pregnant!’
She seemed so excited, so full of life. I tried to hide my jealousy. ‘Which means,’ I replied sourly, ‘Tiberius must be dying.’
This was one of those bitter remarks which slip from your tongue before you can think. It was also highly dangerous. On any other occasion Agrippina would have been angry but today she drew me closer, those dark eyes bubbling with laughter.
‘Parmenon, you should be an astrologer. The monster is dying!’
Now I was nervous. I pulled away and went to the edge of the arbour and stared round the garden. Agrippina was always cunning: there was no one about.
‘You don’t believe me do you?’ she asked. ‘Parmenon, the old cadaver is dying at last. I doubt if he’ll last till summer.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘Oh I do. But you have fresh orders: you’re to visit Tiberius.’
‘Orders?’ I demanded. ‘Is that what I am now, Domina, your lackey?’
‘Parmenon, Parmenon.’ She held her stomach. ‘Believe me, if I thought Tiberius would live, I would never have conceived.’
‘How?’ I whispered.
‘Oh the usual way,’ she laughed. ‘Domitius got into my bed and I gave him free rein.’
‘No,’ I contradicted. ‘Tiberius?’
‘The queen of all poisons, Parmenon. Aconite.’
I stared in disbelief. Agrippina, even then, had an interest in the collection and mixing of poisons. Aconite, ground from herbs grown in the Alps, was rare, powerful and went under many names: wolf’s-bane, woman’s-bane. Its effects were very much like dropsy: alternating bouts of heat and chill, numbness of the limbs, tingling in the mouth and throat, giddiness, loss of feeling.
‘Caligula?’ I asked.
‘He’s quite the gardener.’ Agrippina could hardly stop laughing. ‘You know how Tiberius likes his vegetables? Well, he encouraged Gaius to be a gardener and my darling brother faithfully followed the Emperor’s orders. “Little Boots” has got more poisons than I have in my cupboard. Remember the message you took to Caligula about his salvation being on Capri? It was a reference to Aconite specially grown there. Gaius has been killing Tiberius drop by drop, mixing it with his snails and cream, and a little with his wine.’ She giggled behind her fingers. ‘Sometimes it was even mixed in with dishes of horseradish and we all know how much Tiberius likes his radishes!’
‘He might be caught?’
‘Caught? Someone else will take the blame.’
‘I thought Tiberius took antidotes to all poisons?’
‘He does. He’s a regular medicine chest. You’ve heard the phrase, “creaking doors hang longer”. Tiberius has so many ailments he doesn’t really know what’s happening.’ She stepped closer. ‘Aconite, if fed long enough, will overcome any antidote. Gaius has simply increased the usual dosage.’
‘And why now?’ I asked, looking furtively over my shoulder.
‘Oh, don’t be so nervous, Parmenon. Macro knows everything, and this garden is guarded by his best men.’
‘Why now?’ I repeated.