CHAPTER XXXIV
Flavia stared into the bronze mirror propped over her vanity. The table was littered with bottles of expensive scent, pots of creams and powders, combs and brushes, jewelry—everything she’d ever wanted. Yet she felt her power over Nero dwindling. He talked constantly about his dead mother, seemed to think she watched him. On one point, at least, he defied Agrippina.
“He won’t give me up,” Flavia said to her reflection.
But worse than his preoccupation with his mother, was his obsession with Elissa. Flavia had hoped her sister’s arrest would put an end to Elissa’s meddling, but lately Nero kept asking questions like, “What would Elissa think of this? How would she respond to that?”
Flavia ran a comb through her hair, still shorn as required for a novice, but beginning to grow out. She leaned toward the mirror, examining her face. A pimple had erupted on her chin.
And, thanks to Elissa, all Flavia’s plans to travel had been thwarted. After the Lemuria fiasco, Nero sent a notice to Alexandria announcing his trip had been abandoned, his performances indefinitely postponed. Not that anyone would cry about his cancelled concerts, but Flavia wanted to see Egypt. She dreamed about sailing up the Nile as had Cleopatra.
At first, Nero had been an ardent lover. Breaking all the rules, he’d transported Flavia to private chambers within his palace. The senate and the Collegiate of Pontiffs—stuffy old men, in Flavia’s opinion—were outraged, as was his wife Poppaea. But Nero said anyone who questioned his judgment must be a traitor to the state. A vestal’s vow of chastity, he claimed, was null regarding the Pontifex Maximus. Their copulation should be viewed as a divine fertility rite.
But a month later Nero had lost interest. Flavia hadn’t seen him in days.
Desperate to win him back, she’d hired a well-known actress to transform her into Venus—or at least Aphrodite. The actress came from Thrace and was an expert at cosmetics and complicated Grecian hair designs.
Loaded down with sacks and baskets filled with her trade secrets, the actress entered Flavia’s dressing room.
“Set them there.” Flavia pointed to a table.
The actress looked her over, shook her head. “You’re just a child,” she said. “And nearly bald.”
“Did I hire you to insult me?”
“I’d better get to work. Close your eyes.” Using the fur of a rabbit, the actress doused Flavia’s face with lead powder.
Flavia shooed away the dust and sneezed. She glanced at the mirror. “I look like a ghost,” she said.
“Powder hides your blemishes.” The smile the actress offered was as warm as a wolf’s.
Wolves populated Nero’s court, Flavia had learned. At first, they’d seemed friendly—concerned for the poor virgin held hostage in the palace. But swiftly Rome’s aristocracy had turned, circling her with hungry eyes, hearts pounding with envy, drooling for her devastation. She’d clung to Nero, throwing herself into a tidal-wave of banquets, a sea of parties. But, with the summer’s heat, Nero’s enthusiasm for his paramour had waned. By the Ides of June, his interest had dwindled from a rushing torrent to a dry creek bed.
Flavia was cast into a desert without friends.
But she would win him back tonight.
A three day feast, thrown by Tigellinus, was to begin this evening—the most spectacular banquet Rome had ever seen. Flavia had not received an invitation. Apparently, Nero intended to keep his vestal virgin safely locked away while all of Rome partook of the festivities.
But she had other plans.
“Perhaps a smudge of blush on my cheeks,” she said to the actress.
“With your reputation, blushing comes naturally.”
Flavia tried to ignore the remark, in the past month she’d become accustomed to people whispering behind her back. She’d become a laughingstock. She promised herself, after tonight, things would be different.
The actress babbled as she worked, but Flavia paid no attention. She had a lot to think about. She’d consulted her astrologer and the haruspices, sacrificed a flock of doves to Venus, and by her calculations tonight proved the ideal date for conception. Bearing Nero’s son, heir to the throne, would be her salvation. And her revenge.
“Just make me beautiful,” she said.
“You need a wig.”
“Before my head was shaved, people said my hair looked like spun gold.”
“Looks like new-mown hay now.” The actress brushed red ochre on Flavia’s cheeks, and the result was garish. She rummaged through her sack, muttering, “A wig, a wig, a wig.” Finding a mop of inky curls, she slapped it on Flavia’s head.
“Now I look
paler
than a ghost.”
“You said you want to be disguised.” The actress jabbed a pin into Flavia’s scalp to hold the wig in place.
“That hurts!”
“Beauty has its price.” The actress tossed her head of curls. “Of course, my mane is natural, though I use a dye of vinegar and leeches to heighten the color. Some hair is thin, some hair lacks shine. But life is unfair, don’t you think?”
“I suppose.”
“Take you, for example.”
“Me?”
“You must know what they say.”
“Who?”
“Everyone.”
“What do they say?”
“Never mind.” The actress wrapped a strand of Flavia’s wig around a heated curling tong to make a ringlet.
“Tell me what they say,” Flavia insisted.
“They say…” The actress took her time heating the tong. “They say you prostitute yourself to Nero without consequence, and they call you the sacred whore. Meanwhile, your sister is held prisoner with no evidence.”
“My sister will stand trial, and have a chance to prove her innocence.”
“You feel no remorse for being her accuser?”
“She’s guilty.”
“And you’re not?”
The curling iron slipped.
“Watch what you’re doing!” If the woman had been a servant, Flavia would have had her flogged. But the actress was popular at court, especially with Poppaea.
Flavia stared at the mirror. Perhaps she felt a smattering of remorse for having accused her sister. Even now, after a month’s confinement, Elissa refused to admit to her guilt. Why did she have to be so stubborn, so self-righteous? To make matters worse, although a physical examination had proved Elissa was no virgin, the high vestal insisted on her innocence.
Flavia frowned at her reflection.
Even her parents had turned against her. Instead of congratulating her on her rise in the world, her mother suffered melancholia and cried constantly. The health of her father had also deteriorated. These days Honoratus rambled on for hours about leaving Rome as soon as he gained strength. He talked about moving to the countryside.
Flavia rolled her eyes.
Did no one in her family consider how their actions might affect her? They were selfish, egotistical. And Elissa was the worst. She had ruined everything.
“I’m not like my sister,” she said. “I was chosen by the Pontifex Maximus.”
The actress stabbed another pin into the wig.
“Ouch!” Flavia rubbed her scalp. “This wig looks hideous.”
“Without it you look like a boy.”
“Show some respect,” Flavia said. “In case you forgot, I’m Nero’s favorite.”
“They say he favors cocks. That’s why he rarely beds you.”
“Get out!”
The actress dodged an earthen pot. It shattered, showering the room with red ochre. A jar of powder followed. Neglecting her curling iron, combs and pins, the actress bolted from the chamber.
“For an encore,” Flavia shouted, “I’ll have you crucified.”
She tore the mop of curls from her head and flung the wig against the wall.
What the actress said was true. Nero flaunted her at parties, flirted with her in front of guests, but when night fell he preferred boys.
How could she conceive his heir if he refused to touch her?
She wiped the powder from her face. Using bear fat, she removed the gray galena from her eyes, the carmine from her lips. Roughing up her butchered hair, she stared at her reflection.
All she needed was the clothes.
She would seduce him as a boy.
* * * * *
Dressed in a soldier’s leather tunic and boots—her breasts tightly bound, her shorn locks tousled—Flavia hid within a grove of olive trees. The night air felt smooth and warm, and many guests wore only diaphanous scarves. A full moon lit the sky and torches flared along the lakeshore illuminating gardens and pavilions. On successive days the artificial lake might be filled for mock naval battles or drained for wild beast hunts. Tonight, rafts strung with lanterns drifted on a rippling sea of black and silver, while lesser guests milled on the shore. The largest raft, and the most luxurious, supported Nero’s private party.
Tigellinus had spared no expense. A sumptuous feast had been provided along with entertainment—music and dancing, contortionists and fire-eaters. It seemed to Flavia that all of Rome had been invited to the banquet from plebeians to aristocracy. All of Rome, except for her.
The imperial raft drifted close to shore. Festooned with flowers, like a barge of Ramses the Great, the raft was buoyed by empty wine barrels and drawn by tugboats. Slaves, chosen for their beauty as well as their brawn, manned the oars. Sea creatures had been released into the lake: vicious eels, stinging jellyfish, and sharks—though they would not survive for long in fresh water. Nero’s guests reclined on couches, nibbling delicacies then tossing scraps into the water to be snatched by predators.
Flavia noted, with satisfaction, that Poppaea was not included in the party on Nero’s raft. Nor was any other woman. But her heart sank when she saw Egnatius, pock-faced and flushed with wine. If he noticed her, he might see through her disguise and say something stupid. She hoped he would drink himself into oblivion, lose his balance, and become dinner for the sharks. Nero languished on his couch surrounded by admirers. A young man dressed as a satyr sat beside him. The satyr said something Flavia couldn’t hear, and Nero laughed. She gritted her teeth. If not for the sharks, she might have jumped into the water and swum out to the raft.
She had seen the satyr before. He wasn’t even a freeman, but a slave Nero called Pythagoras. Unlike his namesake, by no stretch of imagination was Pythagoras a mathematician, he could barely add. But according to the gossip, he had other aptitudes. Unable to square a hypotenuse on papyrus, he excelled at triangles in bed. Flavia doubted Pythagoras could count beyond ten fingers, but his eleventh digit, rumor claimed, was prodigious.
Nero fed Pythagoras a fig, offered him more wine.
The unfairness! Flavia wanted to scream. Did Nero intend to discard her, like a worn-out sandal, and return her to the dreary life of a vestal virgin?
The tugboats dragged the raft further from the shore. Tears stung Flavia’s eyes as she watched her hopes and dreams slip from her reach. Despair lured her from the safety of the olive grove. Somehow she’d make Nero pay.
She passed a string of banquet tables where guests stood in line, eager to pile their plates with food. At least a hundred kitchen slaves ran back and forth to the tables, refilling platters of oysters, dishing vegetables from pots, rearranging bowls of fruit and setting out loaves of bread. Whole pigs, stuffed with pigeons, plums, and cherries, turned on spits, dripping fat into the fire.
Jugglers and acrobats vied for Flavia’s attention. A girl, about her age, contorted herself into an impossible position, and kissed her own genitals; a man with skin as black as coal lowered a sword into his throat; two dwarfs engaged in lewd demonstrations. Flavia didn’t stay to watch.
Laughter and voices spilled out of the pavilions along the lake. Tigellinus had arranged makeshift brothels and filled them with makeshift whores. Placards announced the delights a visitor might find within:
THE GOLDEN ASS
—satisfaction guaranteed.
THE ODYSSEY
—tantalizing sirens.
SECRETS OF SOCRATES
—if you dare.
Whoremongers stood at the doorways, collecting fees and offering credit, while bodyguards held back men fervent to get in. Funds were needed for the treasury, and Nero had decreed all Romans do their duty for the empire. Wives of senators, virgin daughters, widows, mothers, were required to serve as prostitutes. No woman was exempt from service, and every male guest was expected to pay up and perform.
Avoiding the brothels, and hoping to gain Nero’s attention, Flavia ventured toward the water’s edge, her boots sinking into mud.
“Soldier!” someone called. “Stay back. That lake is treacherous.”
She recognized an acquaintance of her father, a senator acting as whoremonger. Screams issued from the pavilion behind him, and the crowd of waiting men howled with laughter.
“Virgins,” the whoremonger said. “How much can you cough up, soldier?”
Fearful of being caught, Flavia dug into her pouch.
The whoremonger snatched an aureus from her fingers.
“Make way for a warrior,” he shouted. “Stand aside!” Dragging Flavia by the arm, he pushed through the crowd of shouting men. “Don’t be afraid, boy,” he said to Flavia. “I can tell you’re still a virgin. These two will take care of you.”
Two girls lay on a pallet. They clung to each other, sobbing. Blood stained the rumpled bed linens. A heavyset man, at least twenty years their senior, kneeled in front of them.
“Time’s over,” the whoremonger said.
The patron stood with a grunt. “All yours,” he said to Flavia.
Clamping her hand over her mouth, she ran from the pavilion. Outside, two men were pummeling each other—cheered on by spectators. Fists swinging wildly, they stumbled toward the water’s edge. The larger of the two landed a punch, and blood gushed from the other’s nostrils. Hands cupped over his nose, the man staggered to the lake, scooped up water, and splashed it on his face. Without warning, the lake surged, and snapping jaws clamped around the man’s ankle. A sea creature, Flavia wasn’t sure exactly what, dragged him into the water. Howling for help, he thrashed his arms. Onlookers pushed and shoved, trying to get closer, to gain a better view, but no one offered assistance.