Rapture's Slave

by Becky Lee Weyrich

  Nero took her hand and held it. He whispered, “Acte, will you rape me before the emperor and my wife and mother?”

  Her answer came with a husky sigh of longing. “If you wish, my love.”

  He brushed her cheek with his lips and replaced her hand in her lap. “What’s that scent you’re wearing?” Nero asked.

  His fires flared when she answered, “It’s the potion of Cleopatra you gave me.”

  For so long Nero had begged her to try the cream, and now at last she had. He groaned in anguish as her hand slipped once again from her lap to find him. Trying to take his mind off this pleasant torture, Nero looked to Otho and Poppaea, but found no comfort in that quarter. The Feast of Augustus with its pearl elixir had fanned the passions of all, it seemed. Poppaea, throwing aside conventions, was sprawled on Otho’s couch almost covered by his massive body, though one nude and shapely thigh showed startlingly white against the surrounding deep scarlet material.

  Nero at last gave in to defeat.

  Agrippina, too intent upon her own plans, failed to see her son seize his lover and pull her onto the couch beside him. Calm and assured amid a sea of passion about her, Agrippina motioned for Halotus. Then she said to Claudius, “I have a surprise for you, my husband.”

  The emperor gazed at her warily, not sure he wanted any more surprises from Agrippina. His attention diverted to Halotus, who entered the triclinium carrying a mountain of freshly picked mushrooms on a silver salver. Claudius’s eyes grew wide with delight.

  The chef set the mushrooms down before him. Claudius reached hungrily for one, but Agrippina stopped him.

  “Wait, my love, until Halotus has tested them. I’d hate to think it, but should they be of the wrong variety, I’d far prefer to lose a chef, even an excellent one, than a husband.”

  Claudius and Agrippina both watched as Halotus took a mushroom from the platter and ate it. The emperor’s face showed great anxiety. Agrippina mused at his expression, wondering if his worry was that he might lose his chef to a poisoned mushroom or lose one good mushroom to a lowly slave. When Halotus didn’t drop dead on the spot, Claudius dived into the dish with both hands, stuffing the delicacies into his mouth with greedy vigor. Agrippina touched his arm. He paid no attention.

  “Claudius.” She held a mushroom in her hand, offering it to him. “Here is a particularly large and succulent one. Try it.”

  At the same time, Agrippina took a smaller one from the plate for all to see. She nibbled at it daintily and thoughtfully as her eyes fixed on her husband’s face.

  Acte was jerked abruptly from the threshold of ecstasy with Nero by a great crash and clatter of dishes, and then screams from the head table.

  Nero’s voice cut through the confusion. “Great Jupiter, it’s the emperor!”

  He left Acte disarrayed on his couch and shoved his way through the crowd to his mother’s side. The emperor had fallen from his couch and overturned the table. He lay sprawled on the marble floor gasping for breath and holding his great belly as the banquet guests closed in around him.

  Nero pushed senators, slave girls and drunken patricians aside. “Move back!” he ordered. “Give him air. He can’t breathe in this crush!”

  When he’d cleared the crowd back to some extent, Nero went to his mother. Great tears rolled down her pale cheeks—real or induced, Nero couldn’t tell.

  “What happened, Mater?”

  She stammered and swayed as if faint, then answered, “I don’t know, Nero. The—the mushrooms, but they were good. First Halotus tested them, and then I ate one myself.”

  Nero called to several slaves. “Come carry the emperor to his bed. His illness will pass. And send a runner for the physician, Xenophon.”

  The emperor moaned miserably as he was carried out of the banquet hall, but Nero noticed that his face hadn’t discolored as it would have from poison. But still the dark shadow lurked in his mind. Locusta knew her deadly business well. She might have concocted something special for this occasion at his mother’s request. He glanced at Agrippina in doubt. She seemed to have regained her composure.

  Her commands came quick and sure. “Guards, see the guests out, but keep the royal family here. Send runners about announcing that the emperor has had an attack of gluttony, but is even now recovering. Then bolt and guard all the entrances to and from the palace. Let no one in or out except the emperor’s physician and the head of the Praetorian Guard, Burrhus. Send them both to me in the emperor’s chamber the instant they arrive.”

  With that Agrippina departed to go to her ailing husband. Nero looked about the nearly deserted hall. Acte sat in stunned silence on the couch where he had left her. Beside her Octavia tried to quiet Britannicus’s hysterical sobs.

  A stormy Antonia, followed by her glum husband, demanded of Nero, “Where has that woman taken my father? I want to see him!”

  Nero did his best to calm the lot of them. “The emperor has no more than a bellyache. He’s in his chamber now and will soon be attended by his physician. I’m sure you’ll all be allowed to see him after he’s been treated.”

  The usually bitchy Octavia turned on her husband. “Oh, yes. I’m sure we’ll all be allowed to see him after your dear mother has finished her job with him! No doubt she’ll have her poisoner thrashed for not making the first batch potent enough to finish him with one dose!”

  Nero blushed to think that Octavia, this wife he so despised, was voicing his own private thoughts.

  Ignoring her, Nero commanded, “Come, all of you. Let’s go and wait for word of the emperor’s condition.”

  As he started from the room, with Acte clinging close by his side, he heard a mournful sob from Britannicus.

  “Did she kill him, Octavia? Did that whore poison our father?”

  Nero whirled and roared at his wife, “Get that babbling idiot to his room and give him whatever it takes to shut him up! I won’t listen to this. Do you hear me?”

  At the murderous gleam in Nero’s eye, Octavia obeyed meekly.

  At last, Nero and Acte were alone. Nero felt himself quivering with a deep dread. Acte, still under Cleopatra’s spell, snuggled close to him. He let her pour out her longings as he led her to his room. Perhaps her love would soothe the horror of the night. There was nothing he could do. And who knew what would come? Indeed, who dared speculate?

  Agrippina admitted the physician, Xenophon, to the emperor’s chamber at the same moment that Acte was being placed on Nero’s couch. She had little time to worry about her son’s dalliance with his slave lover as she hurried the old man into the room. Also there were Pallas, Seneca and Burrhus.

  The physician from the isle of Cos moved to the bed and peered down at the emperor, who groaned in pain. Claudius clutched his heaving stomach and made ugly gurgling noises in his throat as if he was trying to make himself vomit. Xenophon felt his forehead and opened his eyelids to examine the color of his eyeballs.

  Setting his bag down, Xenophon muttered instructions. “Bring hot poultices for his stomach and the largest vomitorium which can be carried. The emperor will need to fill it before he is purged of this poison.”

  Agrippina cringed at the physician’s choice of words, then realized that the old doctor spoke only in general terms and did not suspect the cause of her husband’s illness. She hurried Seneca and Burrhus out of the chamber to enlist slaves to fetch and carry.

  Xenophon exposed the emperor’s distended belly, stretched taut with food, wine and gases. He applied the poultices. Then Xenophon pried the emperor’s clenched teeth apart and forced a feather down his throat. He turned the emperor’s head to the vomitorium, and turned his own away as Claudius offered up a sea of undigested delicacies and bile. Agrippina held a perfumed scarf to her delicate nostrils. Xenophon turned to her when the emperor ceased his retching.

  “That should relieve him. How one man, even the Emperor of Rome, can consume such an amount of food and beverage is beyond me.” Then shaking his head,
“And haven’t I warned him against this abuse of his system often enough?”

  But as they watched, Claudius showed no signs of relief. His pain seemed to increase with each passing moment. As dawn lit the chamber, Agrippina pulled Seneca aside and whispered, “Go and find Nero and bring him to me.”

  In the corridor outside, all the family waited, all except Nero and Acte. Having witnessed the lad’s display with Acte earlier in the evening, Seneca guessed where to look for him.

  When he approached the drawn curtains at the door of Nero’s apartment, the sounds from within were unmistakable. Seneca marveled at Nero’s endurance. Curious about this Greek love of Nero’s, a love he himself had encouraged and helped along, Seneca felt no pangs of guilt as he slipped silently into the curtained chamber and stationed himself in the shadows to observe. Had dawn not been creeping into the room like a curious cat on the prowl, there would have been nothing to see, for no lamp was lit. But as it was, Seneca viewed young passion in all the flame of sunrise.

  He marveled at the straight lines of Acte’s back as she rode atop her love in the manner of an experienced horsewoman handling a spirited steed—her dark hair flying about her as she moved in ever-accelerating rhythm. She cried out as Nero lifted her from his body and held her in the air for a moment before placing her gently beside him on the satin sheets.

  Seneca felt himself aroused as he viewed the smooth and perfect curves of her vernal body. He could almost feel with Nero’s hand as he watched it caress and fondle, then travel to that virgin forest.

  Then Nero spoke. “The dawn has come. It’s time, my love.”

  Seneca felt himself throbbing as he watched Nero cover Acte’s waiting mouth with his and enter her slowly, but urgently. They moved together with a superb oneness, Nero guiding the way and setting the pace. Not many minutes passed before they reached the heights. Seneca suppressed a moan of fulfillment as he joined them at that moment, though they still knew nothing of his presence.

  A bit weakly, Seneca slipped out of the room. Once outside again, he knocked and, at length, received Nero’s permission to enter. This time Nero was alone. Acte had hurried to the adjoining chamber at the sound of Seneca’s rap on the door. Nero stood robed and rubbing his eyes as if he’d just awakened from a long night’s rest.

  “Seneca, my friend, what news of the emperor?”

  “No change, I’m afraid. Your mother requests your presence in the emperor’s chamber immediately.”

  Nero imagined the trembling in Seneca’s voice to be caused by concern for the emperor.

  “Tell Mater that I’ll be there instantly.”

  Seneca bowed and left to deliver his message to the empress. He returned to the chamber just in time to see Agrippina hand Xenophon a feather and suggest, “Try this one. It’s from a special type of bird, and I’ve found it to have curative powers.”

  Once more prying the jaws open, Xenophon thrust the feather deeply into the miserable emperor’s throat. Claudius gagged, twisted in agony, expelled one final excretion of fluids and then went limp.

  Xenophon stared first at the dead emperor and then at Agrippina, horrified by the realization of what he’d done. The feather’s powers were not curative, they were deadly! But he dared not speak, for it was he who had used the poisoned feather, though he had known nothing of its deadliness when he had accepted it from Agrippina’s hand. He was trapped. For the rest of his life he would be forced to do her bidding or be accused of murdering the Emperor Claudius.

  There was silence in the room as all stood motionless listening to the death rattle fade. Then Agrippina snapped to attention and to business.

  “Seneca, have you located Nero?”

  The Stoic bowed. “He’s on his way, my lady. My condolences.”

  She passed over his touch of sarcasm and spoke to Burrhus. “When Nero arrives here, you and Seneca will accompany him in a closed litter to your headquarters. There you will give him your endorsement as the next emperor of Rome. Am I understood?”

  Burrhus only nodded.

  “Seneca, you will compose an acceptance speech for him on the way. Nero will deliver this to the armies on the spot as soon as they have approved him as emperor. When you pass through the gates, give out the word that the Emperor Claudius is recovering. Nero must not be proclaimed emperor until the stroke of noon today. This detail is of the utmost importance.”

  Nero had entered the chamber in time to hear his mother’s last order. He stared at her in amazement, then at the lifeless form on the bed.

  He stammered, “But—but what about Britannicus?”

  She turned a cold eye on her son as she answered, “He is weak of mind and body. Were Britannicus proclaimed emperor, he wouldn’t live out the month.” Then, touching Nero’s flaming hair in a sympathetic gesture, Agrippina kissed him with a mother’s tenderness. “Besides, my dear, Rome loves you as much as I do. You, none other, shall be called Caesar. Now go and prepare to address the armies.”

  When Nero left, accompanied by Seneca and Burrhus, Agrippina put her next plan into action.

  “Xenophon, prop the emperor up on his pillows and open his eyes.”

  The physician didn’t question her motives, but hurried to uncover the face of the corpse and do as he was instructed.

  To a mute slave, the only one allowed in the chamber, she commanded, “Bring more hot poultices.”

  Carefully she tinted the emperor’s cheeks with rouge and powdered the face, which was beginning to discolor from the poison. When the hot poultices had been applied and covered to keep the body warm and delay the effects of rigor mortis, Agrippina stood back to admire her artful fabrication.

  “Doesn’t he look natural, Xenophon?”

  The stricken physician replied, “Yes, my lady.”

  “Very well then. You may pass the word to his children that his recovery has progressed to such a degree that he may receive visitors. But tell them also that you’ve given him a pain-relieving potion which has dulled him mind for a time and he can’t speak. Wait! Let me warm his hands before they enter.”

  And so for the next few hours Octavia, Britannicus, Antonia and Sulla were allowed to visit their “recovering” father. They seemed to find nothing out of order and made no protest when Agrippina sent them away so that their father could rest. During the morning she sent for songsters and jugglers to perform for the corpse, furthering the charade. But at the stroke of noon, she made sure that she and Xenophon were alone with the corpse. Shortly after the hour, Agrippina allowed Xenophon to cover the dead Claudius once more and give the sad news to his family that his heart had failed him.

  Nero meanwhile stood before the two thousand Praetorian guards of Rome to be hailed as the new emperor. Burrhus beamed as repeated cheers went up from the ranks hailing Nero. Seneca’s hastily written speech proved eloquent, and Nero delivered it as if the words had come straight from his heart—praising Claudius, promising to reward each citizen of Rome with his monetary gifts as well as his best judgment when he was proclaimed emperor. Before the Senate knew of Claudius’s death, the armies had approved their new emperor. The Senate had no choice but to add their acceptance, fearing rebellion otherwise. But had the choice been left to them, the Senate would have named Nero over Britannicus in any case.

  Returning to the palace after his long and stimulating day, the Emperor Nero first went to Claudius’s chamber to pay his respects, a mere formality, though he had been fond of the old man. Then he retired to his own apartment to find Acte awaiting him anxiously. She ran into his arms.

  “Nero, the emperor is dead! Have you heard?”

  Nero smiled into her troubled eyes, not realizing that her tears were not only for the emperor, but for the man she believed to be her father as well.

  “No, my love, the emperor has just begun to live, and you’ll live with him and share his delights. Now that I’ve gained my position and power, I can divorce my pitiful excuse for a wife and make you my own.�
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  Acte stared at Nero, hardly believing her ears.

  “You, Nero? You are emperor?”

  He lifted her chin and kissed her parted lips.

  “Yes, Acte, I am emperor. And you’ll soon be my empress.”

  Agrippina, on her way to speak with her son, overheard the conversation with alarm. Nero could not divorce Octavia, and certainly he couldn’t make an ex-slave his empress. But there was time to deal with this. She would make him see things her way—the only way.

  Entering the room, Agrippina was more than cordial to Acte. “My dear, if you’ll excuse us, I must speak to the emperor in private.”

  Acte cast a longing glance at Nero and then left mother and son to themselves.

  Agrippina hurried to embrace her son as soon as they were alone. She covered his face with kisses, making his heart leap as only she could. He gobbled up any crumb of love she offered him quickly before it could be brushed aside. He yearned to be the man she wanted—to satisfy her ambitions for him and so gain her approval.

  “Nero, my son—my emperor!” She bowed deeply before him for several minutes before continuing, “Seneca and Burrhus have told me of your triumph before the Praetorian Guard this morning. How I wish I could have heard your oration and the cheers of the army! Tomorrow you’ll address the Senate. Seneca is preparing your speech. I will be there for that!”

  “But, Mater, no woman is allowed inside the Senate on such an occasion.”

  She smiled and asked, “Not even the mother of the emperor? It’s all been arranged. I’ll sit behind a curtain out of view, but within range of your words of triumph. We’ve done it, Nero! This is the destiny which I’ve known for years would be yours.”

  As she embraced him once more with tenderness and admiration, Nero could feel the blood coursing through his veins.

  A knock at the door separated them.

  Nero answered, “Come.”

  A tall palace guard entered. Giving the royal salute, he asked, “Caesar, have you the watchword for this night?”

  Nero looked at Agrippina, her glowing countenance, her smiling green-flecked eyes.