Nero dominated the top table: that unpleasant neck, the chubby jowls, the beardless blond good looks that appeared washed out and gray. His mother, Agrippina, was there, of course, queening it in a tiara and gold silk; and Octavia, the out-of-place teenaged Empress, who hardly spoke. Caenis recognized also Nero's two tutors, such markedly different men: Seneca, who made a decent stab at writing the speeches Nero so woodenly declaimed, and Burrus, the blunt soldier who commanded the Guard. There was no sign of Actë, though people spoke of her. Someone said, "A common girl who bears no grudges—she's ideal!"
Britannicus and various other young sprigs of nobility were consigned to a less luxurious table to one side, in what passed for the old-fashioned, austere way. It was probably a deliberate insult. At other low tables around the arc of the room were all the sycophants, timeservers, and snobs a palace dining room expects.
Everything seemed fairly routine. There were the usual incidents of slaves dropping overloaded dishes so pints of sticky brown liquid sprayed across the central serving floor. A woman fainted in the heat from the lamps and food-warmers and was carried out headfirst. Caenis made the mistake of accepting an hors-d'oeuvre that looked like eggs in fish-pickle relish—fairly safe, she surmised—but which turned out to be anonymous crustaceans, boiled to a fibrous mush and floating in sadly coral-colored grease. On the whole all the food was overcooked, overspiced, and oversalted; then it had stood too long before serving, so none of it was warm. Demetrius did manage to commandeer her a decent artichoke in hot herb sauce; the calf's tongue in fennel cream was genuinely tasty, and the white bread rolls were not unbearably hard. Yet in the strict tradition of large-scale catering, all the meat was carved too thinly and all the vegetables were limp.
Caenis began to long for a plain honey omelette in a bowl she knew was clean.
Most of the time she could not quite see Britannicus. However, she was able to watch the slave who tasted his food. Standing behind Britannicus' couch, this man appeared to be doing a thorough job. He took proper mouthfuls, and chewed them down well before he gave Britannicus anything to eat. The mushrooms that had dispatched the boy's father appeared to have been deleted from the chefs' repertoire.
Nero looked in ghastly good form. He was seventeen, an uncouth age at which most Romans were kept decently out of sight by the parents they oppressed. He did try to demonstrate the rudiments of culture—sculpture, singing, writing poetry, recitation, the harp—but it all turned out too labored. He had no natural artistry. Caenis, who so loved music, was hoping that he would not sing tonight.
The slaves had carried out the serving tables once; they now brought in others with the fruit and the dessert. She risked a dish of custard, mainly because she was attracted by the pretty green glass in which it came; she regretted it at the first curdled mouthful, then listlessly nibbled a pear. She still had a headache, and she wanted to go home.
By this time she was feeling the melancholy irritation of a woman on her own at a party who has realized she is twice the age of most of her fellow guests. This was a young man's court. She had strayed into a world she found shallow and loud. Foolish laughter surrounded her—shrieking girls in off-the-shoulder necklines and youths who were almost too drunk to finish a sentence trying to tell long-winded pointless jokes. One of Veronica's huge earrings was pinching her ear. She even experienced a faint trace of hostility toward her young host.
The attendants, by now red-faced and too harassed even to try to be polite, were carrying out the half-demolished pastry towers; others were sweeping up the litter of stalks and peel and pips. Standards among both diners and attendants were definitely starting to relax.
Nero had poured a formal libation at the start of the meal; there had been wine mixed with honey after each course; now the heavy drinking would start. Short-legged boys, puffing with exertion, struggled in with giant decorated cauldrons of steaming wine infused with cinnamon and herbs. Trays of cups, flagons of cold water, honey to mix—all the apparatus of preparing toasts to the niceties of personal taste, had already appeared. There were amphorae, sooty with age, leaning in rows behind the imperial couch. One or two people took advantage of the lull to leave the room to attend to personal needs. Caenis stayed where she was for the time being; as soon as she could she intended to slip away for home.
There was a pause. Following ancient Roman custom, slaves paraded round the room with the imperial family's household gods. The small bronze statues of dancing lares held up their horns of plenty as gracefully as those in any ordinary home. They were left on the low table immediately in front of the group of youngsters among whom Britannicus dined. Now that the room had cleared somewhat, Caenis could just make him out.
A ruffle of movement, a wave of anticipation, started at the top table, then rolled along each arm of the room, as the flagon-bearers served the first wine. The noise, which was by then making her head throb at every movement, dimmed slightly as people stopped their animated chatter to watch the mixing of their drinks. Skillful slaves poured the hot crimson liquor through funnel-shaped strainers in a hiss of aromatic steam; others followed with the cold water in a practiced routine, providing whatever was required by each diner almost without bothering to listen for the request; sometimes they got it wrong and caused a spat of indignation. There was a certain amount of extraneous activity as people summoned rose water and napkins to wash the final stickiness of the dinner from their hands. One or two women idly poked at ringlets unwinding from their padded towers of hair.
While his taster was occupied with his goblet of wine, Britannicus rose from his couch to wave to Caenis as he had promised, down the length of the room. He looked happier; she smiled. He accepted the goblet, then stayed on his feet—a tall, slight figure with rather too-big ears like his father, but that sweet-natured grin. As the young prince raised his cup to her, she felt her heart warm. She was glad she had come, for his sake.
She noticed Nero pause in his conversation, critical perhaps that the young man should openly salute his grandmother's ex-slave. She shook her head at Britannicus, but he only glanced at his adoptive brother and deliberately rebelled.
The wine was too hot for him. Before he drank, he held out the cup to be topped up with cold water by a waiting slave. At once he took it back, tipped it casually to the watching Emperor, then raised it—formally, between both his long hands—to his lady guest. She had been kind to him, and Britannicus did not forget. Then he drank.
There was nothing she could do. Caenis realized at once. The taster had made no attempt to try it; he would have been warned not to. The poison must be in the cold water.
If she had called out, Britannicus would never have heard her above the din. It was too late anyway. She saw Nero's triumphant half-shadowed glance. She watched the young Octavia notice what was happening, whiten, then grow expressionless as she knew she must. Even Agrippina for an instant showed by her consternation that she had been no party to this.
Britannicus drank.
At the first mouthful he dropped the cup. His whole body convulsed. He stopped breathing. He fell. Britannicus crashed full length across the low table in front of his couch, where the bearers had placed his family's household gods, so when the diners' cacophony stilled in amazement, the dreadful hush was broken by a slowly settling scrape on the tiny marble tiles as the Claudian god of the larder skittered in ever diminishing half circles over the floor, then finally came to rest.