Then the room was so still Julianus could hear Nero’s rasping breaths beneath the mask of Dionysus.
Junilla turned to face him. He sensed the company leaning closer: Let her be seen! The musicians seemed to lean forward in a body; there was something akin to hungry hounds in their eagerness to feast their eyes on the bride. No new masterpiece by Praxiteles could have been awaited with greater expectation.
He gathered the cloth of the veil and threw it back.
Arria shrieked. From all about came small cries—he heard every god and goddess in the Pantheon invoked for protection against evil. But most sat starkly still, open-mouthed in horror.
Before him was a hag of over a hundred winters. Her head was thrust forward on a neck like a vulture’s; protruding eyes brought to mind a carp several hours dead. A few feeble strands of hair sprouted from her skull. She grinned impishly, proudly revealing one blackened tooth, looking slowly from side to side to gather the effect. She reeked of the dank, heavy essences used at funerals.
The musicians beat, blew, plucked, or stamped their feet, raising a raucous noise that was not so much music as loud, rude laughter.
Julianus felt first a terrible sadness, for the old woman, mocked so and not knowing it, and for them all; then came a rush of rage at being prodded about like a Circus beast. He was sharply aware of Dionysus, who was performing an ungainly pirouette.
Nero, you will pirouette in Hades.
When the musicians were silent, the only sound was Arria’s muffled crying, and he could feel the collective thought: What a prodigy of evil. We live in a tomb.
Where was Junilla? he wondered angrily. Somehow Nero’s agents broke into her apartments and dressed this poor creature in her clothes.
I dare not show affront—it could be the undoing of us all.
Facing the guests, Julianus forced himself to say calmly, “A clever jest, was it not? Yes, a more inspired jest than I have ever seen at a wedding!”
Before he could say more, the old woman, while gently nodding her head, began reciting lines from an epic poem in uncertain voice, dribbling out her words, faint delirium in her eyes. She has been chewing the leaves of cherry laurel, Julianus thought, or else she is more than half mad.
The guests exchanged looks of bewildered revulsion, each expecting their neighbor to have some explanation for this sad show; a few glared at Marcus Julianus, uncertain if he were victim or perpetrator. But Julianus remained alert, listening carefully to the old woman’s words; the lines, some passably deft, some painfully grandiose, were familiar. Suddenly he remembered hearing Nero recite them—was it one or perhaps two state banquets ago? He silently thanked the Muse of Memory. They were Nero’s own—or at least, Nero thought they were; in fact, the lines so closely followed a passage of Virgil they might be regarded as stolen outright, with a few clumsy embellishments put in to cover the theft.
He means to startle me into a candid response to his poetry.
Julianus was not surprised when the musician dressed as Pan, in hairy tunic and goat beard, danced toward him and did a tight bow. “Tell me, what think you of these lines, my lord? First, who wrote them?”
He was too irritated to flatter, even if it meant his head. “Virgil wrote them.”
Pan paused, feigning deep consideration of the reply. “Well spoken! You have given the highest praise to the Emperor.”
“I praised no one; I simply stated a fact.”
“Nero wrote the lines.”
“If he did so, he wrote them with help—too much help—from Virgil.”
Domitian looked at Marcus Julianus with anxious fright. Surely he knew the room was thick with spies?
Then to Domitian’s dismay Pan came straight toward him with that mincing walk and nearly alighted in his lap.
“And what think you of the lines, my young prince?”
My young prince? Domitian thought frantically, feeling death creep slowly over him. How dare anyone address me so, publicly?
Too stunned to feel foolish, Domitian managed in a stiff monotone, “The lines were elegantly put together. Marcus Julianus is mistaken. They are…better than Virgil.”
Pan grinned with evil relish, nodding first to Julianus, then at Domitian. “This one does not flatter, this one does. Which tells the truth, which lies? Which should live—and which should die?”
The guests sat rigidly, most perspiring with fright; some bolted their wine in one or two gulps while others let their cups tip in numb hands, spilling the contents onto the floor. This was a trial in Hades—the court could materialize anywhere, and judge and jury were madmen.
Pan spun about, put his arm round the ancient woman, then led her to a place in the rear of the ensemble and supplied her with a harp; there she sat in her wedding clothes, still silently mouthing lines. Then he went on in his lyrical voice, nodding significantly at Domitian—
“Your friends stole Junilla, my princeling, to give her to you as a gift! Then after you’ve murdered Nero and seized the throne, they will have won your favor eternally.”
Julianus thought, he is a dead man. I must do something to save him. He fought for steadiness. How long can I keep the beast at bay? He prayed he guessed correctly: that Pan was instructed to say these words more to test everyone’s response to them than because Nero had real evidence against Domitian.
“An unsophisticated theory,” Julianus broke in, gesturing broadly with an easy smile, “from one who speaks before he knows. In the first place, Domitian’s friends are such rogues that if they snatched Junilla they would keep her for themselves.” He felt Nero lusting for every word. “And anyway, she should have a husband of her own rank.”
Domitian was too numb to follow this well, but understood he was being helped.
“Her own rank? What nonsense is this?” was Pan’s mocking reply.
“Domitian means not even to stand for the Senate—how could he possibly have ambitions for the throne? That is the key word, stand. He would have to shy away from the grape for two days running. And anyway he means to have a hand in business enterprises of a sordid nature, such as disqualify a man from the Senate. And look at him. That dithering pup could not rally a cohort of Vigiles behind him. Really, an informer should be better informed lest he lose his good reputation—who then would pay you for your murderous gossip?”
Pan recoiled faintly but never lost his cheerfully manic grin. Domitian felt a rush of relief that was quickly soured by anger. Admittedly he drank too much wine but it did not rule him, and a brickmaking factory was not a training school for gladiators; he never meant to disqualify himself from the Senate. Marcus Julianus to his mind seemed to enjoy these lies a little too much.
Julianus could not tell how successful he had been; Nero was so susceptible to influence that Julianus feared the effect of his words might only last until the Emperor encountered another opinion offered by someone who sounded equally sure of himself.
Pan then looked discreetly at Dionysus, who gave him the barest of nods; Julianus alone noticed the exchange. Then the goat-bearded musician clapped his hands. “Let the games go on! Now for the true bride—that is, if you think you are ready for her.”
Domitian felt danger pass on. But he was consumed with ambivalence toward Marcus Julianus, who had saved his life, yes, but by ridiculing him before those he longed most to impress. And so, while hardly aware of it himself, Domitian ascribed a malice to the act that was not there, and stored it away as a hurt to be avenged later.
Junilla had apparently been taken nowhere because within moments the attendants fetched the new bride. This woman was a trifle taller, and like her ancient sister, wholly concealed beneath a voluminous red-gold veil.
This second bride halted beside Julianus. He went through the same ritual acts, closed to all feeling: For all he knew, Nero meant to play with them until dawn and have him unveil ten false Junillas. It might be that Nero fancied the poor maid himself, and she was now hidden somewhere in the plush depths of Nero’s Golden Hous
e, or perhaps he had murdered her and she had been thrown into the pits for unclaimed dead, a discarded victim of some Palace frolic.
And I mean to appeal to this madman for a public trial?
The new bride’s shoulders shuddered with excitement or fear. The augur signed to him to lift the veil. Julianus lifted it slowly, with reverence, so as not to frighten her more.
This was Junilla. The whole company dropped into deep silence.
That shyly downturned face was delicate perfection. Despite a pedigree as old as the city, it was touched with the exotic. There was a faint Asiatic curve to her cheek, a hint of the Egyptian in the length and slenderness of her neck, her stately bearing. That rose and ivory skin seemed to have been bathed daily in milk. She looked up at him with great, luminous Indian-dark eyes. Her lips, darkened with wine lees, were full and boldly arched; they parted slightly, putting him in mind of the imperceptibly slow opening of a rose. A soft radiance emanated from her dark, shining hair, pulled tightly into six braided locks secured by woolen fillets; pearls beyond counting were woven into the plaits.
He tried to join his gaze with hers but felt he glanced off the onyx surface of those eyes; they were polished shields that let nothing in. Of course, he thought, the child is frightened.
They joined hands. He felt such awe and pity and desire to shelter her that in that moment he could believe nothing evil of her; surely there was a perfection of soul to match that face. He must find some way to survive. Perhaps this was Nero’s cruelest jest—to show him this creature with whom he would have lived his life.
Her voice was soft and muted as doves as she spoke the ancient ritual words by which she declared herself his wife, “Where you are Gaius, I am Gaia,” which meant, “Now I belong to your clan.” As they shared the spelt cake, those brilliant eyes continued to watch him. Was that fear there? Or was she somehow taking his measure? What he saw in those eyes might not be shyness but stealth.
And then he had the marriage tablets brought. Guests exchanged discreet perplexed looks; normally at this time a pig would be sacrificed; to omit this was unaccountable. A few remembered Marcus Julianus’ peculiar reluctance to see animals slaughtered, and whispered of this to the others.
Then with ten guests standing as witnesses, he and Junilla signed the tablets, which gave the terms of the dowry. This was followed by applause, during which a number of the guests came up to embrace him. One wealthy young matron of sultry manner pressed a note into Julianus’ hand that he knew was an invitation to a tryst; her lovers must indeed have become scarce, he thought, smiling to himself in mild amazement, if she stalks the groom at a wedding.
As they walked to the twelve banqueting tables, followed by the hundred guests, he spoke to Junilla, careful that none should hear, “Take heart, dearest, we are captives—but it will not always be so, I promise it. You’ll not be mocked like this again.”
She gave him a look strangely empty of emotion; he had the unpleasant feeling he had spoken in a foreign tongue. “No one mocks me,” she said with delicate irritation. “And in any case, everyone is a captive, except for His Divinity—but that is as it should be.” She lowered her voice; the exquisite eyes ignited with mischievous fire. “And who admitted those clever-looking plebeians in overwashed rags to my wedding? Do you not fear they will steal the silver plate?”
She is a child, mouthing what she has been taught, he told himself. But a small knot of disappointment started to form. Part of him knew she would always think so.
“They are my friends from the academies, and I wish them to be treated with respect,” he answered coolly.
The dining tables were strewn with parsley and early wildflowers. Arranged in a semicircle about the tables were three couches, each accommodating three diners to make a total of nine; the bridal table was set at the room’s center, beneath a multitiered chandelier in the form of a Babylonian temple sculpted in fire and cut glass. Julianus settled in the host’s place on the third couch, but the position of highest honor, the third place on the middle couch, was left empty in honor of his father. Domitian, without asking, speedily usurped the place on the couch opposite Julianus, taking advantage of the fact that the former consul assigned that position had never arrived. Julianus knew Diocles, who observed this clumsy breach of propriety from his place by the wall, was wishing he could set the doorkeeper’s dogs on the young man.
The wind whipped the torches set in the garden; to Julianus, they were bright warning spirits urgently trying to get his attention.
Junilla, reclining at his left, observed him closely with those luminous eyes while she answered the polite queries of those about her with short, simple responses that invited no conversation. She knew the power of her beauty, he observed; she portioned it out like sacks of gold to those she thought worthy. Her gaze lingered long over Saturninus; a smokiness came into her eyes. The students, on the other hand, might well have been dogs; she simply did not see them. Occasionally her gaze slipped over to Domitian, and with him, too, she seemed to consider, to measure; Julianus had a momentary feeling she might have forgotten which was her husband. It struck him her nature was far closer to Domitian’s than to his own; both seemed to attune their senses to reading the weaknesses of those about them. He doubted her curiosity ever strayed to questions of nature and being—she concerned herself only with who held power, and who was ready to lose it.
Nero’s musicians followed the whole company and hastily reassembled themselves around the bridal table. They played softly now, but also they listened; Julianus felt he dined next to unfed hounds. As the iced platters of cultured Lucrine oysters were being set on the tables, he tensed, remembering Nero had a passion for them. How long would he be able to restrain himself? Julianus had no wish to dine with him openly, when one question not skillfully answered could mean death.
And sure enough, moments later as Domitian was insisting drunkenly to a doubtful Junilla he had cured a toothache by rubbing the tooth with the ashes of a weasel and a black chameleon, Dionysus began edging closer as if to better hear the recipe. Then he flopped down heavily on the couch of honor next to Marcus Julianus.
The guests watched this with outraged astonishment as if they had seen a worshiper in the Temple of Juno lift his tunic and relieve himself on the sacred image.
“Allow me to remove my mask,” said Dionysus in that familiar, ringing girl’s voice tinged with hurt. “It is most difficult to eat with it.”
“You are a most impertinent musician,” Julianus replied, his tone cautiously playful.
“Yes, and an overly indulgent Emperor,” Dionysus responded, disengaging himself from the heavy mask.
Julianus found himself looking into the broad, sweating face of Nero.
Knowledge of his presence pervaded the room slowly, like the scent of death.
Nero’s puckered, too-small mouth was set in the pout of the deadly child who needs to be continuously petted and praised. Damp ringlets were matted to his wide, heavy forehead; his eyes were an empty, faded blue. His nature had begun already to assert itself in his face: Those cheeks, Marcus thought, seemed swollen and mottled with poison, as though he were drugged with the pleasure of cruelty, with the lies his flatterers dosed him with daily. His frequent nightmares seemed to have taken their toll as well; those eyes protruded slightly as if permanently frozen in fright. He had a gaze that seemed to stalk and trap every movement about him as a cat its prey; that gaze was oddly agile, considering his indolent body with its settled layers of flesh. A fleecy beard covered a chin that went smoothly down to a bloated neck that seemed ready to inflate like a bullfrog’s. But it was that mouth that was always most disturbing to Julianus—its babyishness coupled with its deadliness—a soft, sucking mouth that drained not milk but blood.
Nero motioned with one plump hand for a washing basin; the flesh between his multiple rings was pinched like dough. One of the servants stationed behind the table, a frightened boy, came forward unsteadily with towel and silver bowl. Nero
sloppily washed his hands in the warm flower-scented water, then, ignoring the towel, with bored deliberation dried his hands in the boy’s fluffy blond hair.
When all the company realized who was among them, there followed a stifling moment in which no one knew what to do. Should they arise, and prostrate themselves? Should they call out a greeting?
Marcus Julianus solved the problem by rising quickly and giving a slight bow. “This house has never been so honored, Divinity. I greatly regret we did not know; the fare is far too modest.”
“Ah, what’s missing in the fare is more than made up for by the amusements to be found here. And you knew me, you sly conniver! You are not surprised enough. How did you know?”
Julianus paused, tension accumulating as he rapidly thought.
I recognized your silly curls. I would know that ungainly body from a hundred others. What can I say that will not get us all damned to Hades?
“It was the old woman,” he said at last. “She was…your own touch, such a clever act of…the use and transformation of ordinary lives and events into a dramatic play of your own devising. You made a play of life! I did not think you would be absent and miss its effect.”
Domitian thought: Thank all the gods for that gift of spewing intelligent rubbish with no preparation. He felt such gratefulness to Marcus Julianus that he almost forgave him the insults.
Nero brightened like the child who finally elicits the praise he craves from an elder. “Tell me, do you think it will become fashionable as a form of drama?”
“Well, no, I think not.”
Nero’s scowl was like a terrible shift of the weather.
Marcus, be an idiot with your own life, Domitian thought. Leave us out of it!
“And why is that?” Had he not a hundred sharpened swords at his back to redress that hurt, the scowl would have been simply ludicrous.
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