Acte’s strangled answer was in the negative as she once more reached for the vomitorium.
Within the hour Acte’s nausea subsided, but still her mind whirled with troubled thoughts. As she sat alone in the sunlit garden trying to sort out her ever-growing problems, a low whistle met her ear. Then a yellow rose came flying seemingly out of nowhere to land in her lap. Looking up, she stared into the smoke-colored eyes of Sergio. Forgetting all else, she flung herself into his waiting arms, moistening his tunic with happy tears.
She covered his sun-bronzed face with kisses and whispered excitedly, “Sergio, Sergio, have you really come? I’ve waited so long.”
Without answering, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the villa.
A smiling Eucerus pointed the way to Acte’s room and posted a guard at the gate in case Nero should put in a surprise appearance.
Sergio fell on the bed with Acte still clutched in his arms. He drank in the perfume of her body until his head swam with the delicious thought of his passions, long awaited, about to be quenched.
Acte was suddenly startled into fear by the realization that the moment of truth, the moment she had longed for and now dreaded, had arrived. She tried to fend off her lover’s advances.
Sergio laughed good-naturedly, feeling his fires fanned by what he considered her coy playfulness. He pulled off his tunic. Then he ripped away her gown and lovingly kissed her ripe breasts. Her moans spurred him on. He flicked his tongue teasingly over her body until he found her nest, where he sucked and probed. Then when she was ready, his penis invaded her with ease. They climbed to the summit of their desires and enjoyed the sweetness of their love together.
As they lay side by side afterward, waves of shame washed over Acte. She couldn’t speak—the words wouldn’t form in her mind. How could she tell him her secret? Surely it would cast them apart once more and forever.
Sergio’s voice broke the stillness. “We’ll leave this very night, my love. All the arrangements are made.”
Tears came to Acte’s eyes, and soon she was sobbing as the astonished Sergio stared down at her.
“What is it, Acte? Isn’t this what we’ve both waited for so long? Aren’t we both free at last?”
Acte couldn’t answer through her tears, but shook her head from side to side. At length she managed, “Look—look at me, Sergio, at my body.”
She could almost feel his eyes caressing her nakedness.
“Well, what do you see?”
He touched her breasts lovingly as he answered, “I see that my little one has added a bit of flesh, and I find it most becoming.”
Then in a rush of words before she lost her nerve, she confessed, “I can’t marry you, Sergio. This added flesh belongs to someone else’s child. I won’t force myself on you in this condition.”
For an instant Acte saw anger flash in Sergio’s eyes, but then it disappeared as quickly as it had come. “And do you love the father of this child?”
Acte’s whisper was barely audible. “I love you, Sergio.”
“Then the child will be ours. Don’t tell me who the father is. I never want to know.”
Acte sat up in bed and clung to Sergio’s neck. “I must tell you. Nero is the father. Now do you see why we can’t be together? When he finds out that I’m carrying a child, he’ll know whose it is. We wouldn’t be safe anywhere on earth. I have to let you go, though my whole life goes with you, my love.”
Sergio clasped Acte to him, almost forcing the breath out of her. She could hear the grinding of his teeth as he said fiercely, “I’ll never let you go, Acte. You need someone to take care of you, to love you. I am that someone. No man or child can come between us.”
Acte ached on hearing his words. What could she say in response? The situation was so hopeless. Sergio deserved better than she could give. She thought back to the words of the Sibyl—the promised happiness and pain. How long could she endure?
“You must leave Rome, Sergio. If Nero finds out that you’ve visited my villa, he’ll throw you into prison or have you killed instantly.” She didn’t speak her worst fears—that he would be killed slowly, inch by inch. Her tears were for Sergio now, not for herself.
His voice boomed through the villa. “No! I won’t leave you alone in Rome with that monster. I have no fear for myself, but I do fear for you, my love.”
Acte pleaded, “But he’s always been jealous of you, Sergio. I know there are spies in my household. Should word reach his ears that you’ve been with me, I don’t dare think of the consequences. Go to Greece. I’ll join you there when I can.”
Stalking about the room now like a half-starved lion awaiting its turn in the arena, Sergio refused. “No! I say again, I won’t leave you at his mercy. I have my villa here in the city. When you need me I’ll be there.”
Though Acte felt in her heart that Sergio was being dangerously foolish, she rejoiced and loved him all the more for it. Kissing him with new fervor, she stared at him, memorizing his broad brow, his straight nose, his strong chin and his full lips. Her fingers caressed the dark curls on his head. “Sergio, this is madness,” she whispered.
He held her close and nuzzled her ear. “If this is madness, let me die insane!”
With great reluctance Acte pushed him away and said urgently, “You must go now, my love.”
He held her gaze for a few moments before he relased her. “I’ll go, but remember that I’ll be watching over you, little one. And someday you’ll be mine—all mine.”
And then he was gone. Acte collapsed on her bed in tearful misery. Why were the fates so cruel?
The days and weeks moved slowly by at the little villa on the hill. Acte’s stomach grew large, and Nike treated her as if she were made of fragile Egyptian glass.
Sergio didn’t visit the villa again, but every morning a single yellow rose arrived at dawn with one of his slaves. She cherished these tokens of love beyond any jewels he might have sent.
One morning Acte, now very near her time, sat in the arbor watching Nero far below drive his matched team around the race course. She held the morning’s rose to her cheek. Nike came running in with news from the marketplace.
“Acte, you won’t believe what the emperor intends to do!”
Acte caressed her belly to quiet the thumps inside. “Tell me. I’d believe Nero capable of anything. Has he decided to declare himself a god and challenge Jupiter to a contest of thunder and lightning as his Uncle Caligula did?”
Nike paused for breath, then hurried on. “More outlandish than that! He’s announced that he’ll perform Canace in Labor at the Circus for all to come and see. He’ll actually play the lead part in woman’s clothing. Can you believe that?”
Acte giggled at the thought, then said, “How appropriate! Both mother and father are about to give birth. We’ll go to see the performance, of course. When is it?”
Nike looked horrified. “In the coming week, but I won’t permit you to attend!”
Acte’s laugh was light and slightly accusing. “Come now, Nike, are we living in such an age of innocence that a pregnant woman can’t appear in public?”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. The performance would be too tiring for you. It will last hours, and no one’s permitted to leave until the play is over. You’re too far along for me to allow you to undergo such strain.”
Acte stood up, her face a mask of determination. “I will see the father of my child perform! There’ll be no further discussion on the subject.”
Nike had learned that argument with Acte was useless. But she took the precaution of secretly alerting Sergio to Acte’s plans.
The day of Nero’s enactment of Canace dawned sultry, and a pall of thick dust lay over Rome. There was not a hint of a sea breeze to cool the city. Throngs jammed the area of the Circus Maximus for miles around, filling the unpaved streets and further intensifying the clogged air.
Acte felt uncomfortable and overheated
in the cloak Nike insisted she wear to disguise her condition. The scarf wrapped about her nose and mouth to keep her from choking on the dust made her feel like a fat brigand. After hours of waiting, the doors opened and the crowd swept Nike and Acte into the Circus. A giant of a man followed closely, but inconspicuously, behind.
“I think we should sit on a low tier so we’ll be near an exit if you have any problems,” Nike said as they looked for seats. “Besides, the climb to a higher level wouldn’t be good for you.”
Acte was already climbing to the very top. Nike hurried to catch up with her and try to stop her, glancing over her shoulder to make sure their protective shadow followed.
“Nonsense! I want to see and hear Nero. I can’t see anything down here. I’ll be fine.”
Knowing that she couldn’t dissuade Acte from her purpose, Nike followed in silence.
The two lone women, one obviously pregnant, brought many interested stares and lewd comments from the men they passed. Acte was too preoccupied with the thought of seeing Nero on stage to notice. Nike ignored the suggestive remarks.
At last settled in her seat, Acte tried to relax and hide the slight pains she was experiencing from the watchful Nike. There would still be at least a two-hour wait until Nero’s appearance. She would rest and try to hold on until then.
Acte closed her eyes and went over the plot of Canace in her mind, as Nero had taught it to her. Canace was the daughter of an Etrurian king. She had had intercourse with her brother, and the result was a child whose cries told of the infamy of its origins. Hearing of the sad state of his family, the king sent his daughter a sword with instructions that she should kill herself. Acte held her aching belly and closed her eyes to stifle a moan, thinking how lucky she was that her fate wouldn’t be that of Canace.
Finally when the emperor walked onto the stage, the crowd of thousands went wild. Acte forced herself to stand on her tiptoes to catch a glimpse of Nero over the others. How tired he looks, she thought.
The crowd settled down as Nero returned in costume to the stage to begin the performance. Nike had become aware of the strained look on Acte’s face and the sudden, though suppressed, gasps which regularly punctuated the silence about them.
Touching her arm, Nike asked, “Acte, are you all right?”
When she tried to answer that she was fine, a sudden, excruciating spasm forced a half-scream from her lips.
Nike muttered miserably, “I knew this would happen! We must get you out of here.” She looked about frantically for Sergio, but couldn’t spot him in the crowd.
“No! No! I want to stay and see Nero.”
“Do you want to have the child before all the eyes of Rome in this filthy arena? I’m going for help. Don’t move!”
Nike rushed down the tiers of seats until she spied a guard. She shook his arm fiercely.
“You must open the gate and let us out. My friend is ill!”
The guard pulled his sleeve away and looked down at Nike without the slightest trace of sympathy in his face. “You know the rules,” he bellowed. “No one leaves during a performance. Let me know if your friend dies. Then we’ll remove the body, but that’s the only way anyone gets out. Those are the emperor’s orders. Now go back to your seat!”
Disgustedly, Nike raced back up to where Acte waited.
“How are you feeling?”
Perspiration beaded Acte’s forehead and upper lip. She had shed the cloak. But she smiled and responded, “I’ll be fine, Nike. Don’t worry about me.” Then, pointing, she cried, “Look, Nero is also having his first labor pains!”
Sure enough, on the stage Nero began Canace’s delivery scene. Nike glanced back to see Acte bend forward in agony.
She raced back down to the gate area and apprehended another guard.
“You must open the gate! My friend is having a baby!”
The guard looked at Nike for a moment and then, slapping a comrade on the back, he roared with laughter. “So is the emperor!”
It was futile. Afraid to leave Acte alone for long, Nike rushed back. Acte lay panting on the bench, her eyes closed tight with pain. She no longer tried to suppress her cries as the labor progressed.
Nike took the discarded cloak and tied the ends to two roof supports, forming a makeshift curtain to shelter Acte from the eyes of the curious sitting about them. Then, performing with skill accomplished through much practice, Nike went about the task of delivering the child. Nero’s voice and screams of feigned agony in childbirth added a farcical atmosphere to the real drama being enacted in the audience.
After Acte endured one final, shattering burst of pain, Nike eased the child into the world.
“Is it—is it normal—healthy?” Acte asked weakly.
Busy with her work, Nike replied, “Yes.”
“A boy, of course?”
“Of course.”
With her questions answered, Acte let herself slip into exhausted sleep.
Hours later the performance ended. Acte, with her son at her breast, was too weak to applaud. Taking several coins from the pocket of her cloak, she pressed them into Nike’s hand, saying, “Give these to one of the guards and have him tell the emperor that—” She hesitated, trying to compose the perfect message. “That he has just given birth to a great poet.”
Nike approached one of the guards who’d been unwilling to open the gate earlier. He was more than willing now to accept the money to deliver a message to the emperor.
Acte watched as the guard approached Nero at the edge of the stage. She saw the emperor lean down as the guard spoke to him. Nero made a triumphal gesture with his arms. He’d taken the message as a compliment to his great acting abilities.
Never mind, Acte thought. Maybe he’ll know someday that he has a son. It’s better for all of us that he doesn’t know now.
She looked at the emperor’s box to see Poppaea’s flaming hair glittering with jewels. Though Octavia still lived in a far part of the palace, she no longer made any pretense of being the emperor’s wife and didn’t appear with him in public. Rome had come to accept Poppaea Sabina grudgingly because of their love for Nero. But Acte knew that as long as her child remained the only heir of the emperor, not even his father could know of his existence. Poppaea and her agents would never allow a child of Nero, not of her womb, to live.
When, at last, the crowds had cleared, Nike carefully helped Acte, still holding her son close, to the exit. Twilight had gone into evening and the streets were all but deserted.
It wasn’t a safe time for two women and a newborn to be abroad. Gangs of cutthroats and molesters were known to roam about the city unchecked after dark. Some whispered, though they dared not say it aloud, that the emperor himself led one of these dreaded bands. Only recently a senator’s wife had been raped by ruffians before her husband’s eyes and he himself badly beaten. In straggling to protect his wife, the senator had struck the leader, knocking the dark wig from his head. It was said that the politician was so appalled at recognizing Nero that he had severed his veins the very next morning.
But Acte and Nike were in luck. The emperor was occupied tonight with a banquet to celebrate his triumph. They reached the villa unaccosted, Acte never knowing that Sergio had seen them to their gate.
Nike put mother and son safely to bed and went to the dark terrace to clear her mind of the day’s problems. After bathing Rome’s filth from her body, she leaned back against a marble column and let a breeze from Ostia tease her flesh through the thin rose silk wrapper she wore. She closed her eyes and tried to make her mind a blank. Trills of music fell upon her ears. The day had been so tiring that she didn’t question the source of the sound until suddenly it seemed all around her.
Opening her eyes reluctantly, Nike saw before her the lean, strong figure of the Egyptian slave Eucerus. His long fingers flittered over his flute as he swayed before her.
She stared at him for several minutes, then spoke. “Are you performing this conc
ert for me, Eucerus? If so, thank you. Your music is a balm for my weary mind.”
The young man stopped his playing abruptly. He moved closer to Nike and gently touched her cheek with his hand. “Is your body weary also, Lady Nike? I might soothe that as well, if you wish,” he said in a soft voice with a melodious Eastern accent.
At Nike’s hollow laugh, the handsome lad drew away.
Not having meant to wound him, Nike reached out to return his touch. “I’m not laughing at your suggestion, dear boy, but at your title for me. I’m no lady! Nor have I ever been one. If you knew my past, you wouldn’t be so free with your offers, I’m afraid.”
Eucerus answered with a wisdom past his years, “Ladies are neither born nor made, Lady Nike. You deserve the title for your fair form and gentle heart. Ladies alone possess such virtues, no matter their circumstances of birth or positions in life. I say again, you are a lady!”
Nike felt a tear escape her eye as she listened. Not since Gaius Lavinius had any man spoken to her so sweetly.
He brushed her tears away. Before she could react, Nike found herself in the arms of the Egyptian, his flesh next to hers. His lips felt warm and sweet against her own.
Though many years older than he, Nike marveled at his knowledge of the art of love. She’d known many kinds of fornication since the earliest years of her life, but only once before had she felt the genuine love of a man.
As the two lay in each other’s arms, their passions spent, Nike could find no words. Her wonder was so great at this unexpected and exquisite experience that she thought she might be dreaming and dared not break the spell.
Eucerus’s words came gently like the notes from his flute. “I’ve loved you since the first day I saw you at the gate, but I was afraid to tell you of my yearning, since I’m a slave. But tonight, Nike, in the moonlight as you swayed to my music, I knew that I couldn’t live without letting you know how I feel. I know that we could never marry, but I’ll love you at your calling. I’ve known the bodies of other women, but never before have I known love. I swear it by the goddess Isis. Tell me what I can do to serve you.”
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