It was the eighth centenary of the traditional founding of Rome. Claudius inaugurated the Ludi Saecularii, the ancient commemorative Games. They were supposed to be held only once every hundred years so no one would attend who had ever seen them before; in fact Augustus had held them too, but that was a mere technicality. This time there was a Trojan Pageant in the Circus at which young boys from leading families performed intricate feats of horsemanship while their parents and grandparents chewed off their nails expecting tantrums, broken legs, and trampled heads. On this occasion Britannicus led one of the dressage teams. The other was taken by Domitius Ahenobarbus, the son of Claudius' niece Agrippina. He was three years older and far more confident, so of course he came off best; although Britannicus conducted himself with the gravity of a tiny Aeneas in the field, as soon as the dimple-kneed imperial infant reached home it ended in tears.

Claudius did all this, and no one had ever suggested he was too busy to pay attention to his wife. Everyone else knew; she was too busy for him.

* * *

Caenis spoke, since no one else would risk it: "Claudius believes his pretty darling is matchless in bed and a perfect mother—faithful, devoted, clever, helpful and sweet. Whatever you do, remember he believes that because it is what he wants to believe."

Various freedmen wriggled and scratched themselves, sensing some general criticism of their sex.

She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. She addressed herself to Narcissus, partly because she knew and understood him best, and partly because his colleagues were arguing for caution, frightened that interference would have unpleasant results for themselves. "Show him that they are stealing his throne—he believes himself the best man to hold it now. Perhaps he is. His ignorance of Messalina's antics makes it easier; the truth will be devastating, and he is a vain man. She can work him; ensure that she never gets the chance. Work him yourselves. . . ."She used the plural, though she guessed that this would be one man's work. "What will affect Claudius most will be the fact that she has thrown up their marriage in his face."

It struck Narcissus that Caenis was not, as it had turned out, telling them the woman's point of view but the man's. He glanced at Callistus and Pallas for support, failed to find it, then rehearsed what he could say: "Yes . . . ‘Sir, do you know you are divorced?' " He ended with a gesture, open-palmed like an acrobat. The effect was sinister.

"That poor besotted bastard!" Callistus commented.

* * *

Going home afterward, Caenis reflected privately how Claudius had a graceful knack of choosing whom to trust as his friends. His wives were disasters, and though all four of those, including Messalina, had been chosen for him by his relatives, Caenis doubted he would do better for himself. In marriage a man looked for a boost to his bank account, adornment for his home, and a submissive sexual partner. It would be a man of rare intelligence who realized he might so much more wisely share his household with a friend.

That was a long night.

The sharp clear morning with its indigo sky had become the blazing autumn afternoon when Narcissus came to Caenis at Antonia's house. She had never seen anyone so completely exhausted. He owned a home that ran with peaceful decorum, yet she saw on this one occasion that to return to his good-tempered battalions of servants would be to remain unbearably alone. He had passed beyond his private strength. His competence was all used up.

"Freedman, rest. I will send word; I will watch."

She dismissed all her own slaves. Then she herself attended to the shutters, poured water for him to wash his hands and face, mixed wine with honey which he proved too tired to drink, took his shoes, set the cushions around him, and laid the rug over him while he slept.

Caenis stayed in the room.

"Thank you," he said briefly when he woke.

He lay on his back for a long while, the rug flung aside now so she could see his hands interlaced limply on his chest. Narcissus' hands were unusually small. She had noticed that when she was fourteen and secretly in love with him in a frightening physical way, as a girl will be with a teacher who concentrates her mind. They had come a long way since then.

He was thinking. From a nearby reclining chair Caenis silently watched; it was an intimacy few would ever share with him. The olive-skinned face was hollow-cheeked in rare relaxation, although he knew she was there. His eyes were frantic with thought and dark with melancholy; their gaze fluttered about the ceiling, from bead-and-dart cornice to the plaster molding that had been smoked to an oily gloss by lamps, and on to the solid ball from which hung the delicate bronze swansnecks of an unlit chandelier. He saw nothing.

People blamed the man for personal ambition. Yet his gratitude to Claudius would always come from a full heart. He regretted his patron's weaknesses, but appreciated the man's strengths and did so completely without cynicism. There was love there. He would be glad that he had saved the day (Caenis recognized from his stillness how he must have done that), but Narcissus would not really exult. He would feel for his man's tragedy as Claudius himself, understandably, could not bear to feel.

Sensing some shift in the focus of his reverie, Caenis asked gently, "Well?"

"I have watched a heart break." He closed his eyes.

Finally he spoke again. "How does a man react? While returning from a journey in all innocence, he meets the stark news that his wife has taken a lover—many lovers—there is incontrovertible proof. Now she has left him without a word and been married, in front of witnesses: banquet, bridal regalia, sacrifices, new marital bed. All this is common knowledge in the city, from the Senate and the army down to the sleaziest barbershops and waterfront booths. His clean white pearl has been rolled in a night-soil cart. His betrayal is a barrack-room byword. Caenis, what should he do?"

He turned on his elbow and stared at her.

"What happened?" she asked again in her calm, quiet way.

"He said very little. I don't suppose he ever will. The story was so fantastic, he realized it must be true. As we approached Rome on his return from Ostia, Messalina was celebrating the marriage with a mock grape harvest at the Gardens of Lucullus. Hair flowing in the breeze, treading vats, waving Bacchic wands—everyone disgustingly drunk. You can imagine the scene."

There was a fastidious pause. The gardens had once belonged to Asinius Gallus; Messalina accused him of adultery with a woman of whom she was jealous, then compelled him to judicial suicide; it was the easiest way to wrest away the man from his gardens, which he had refused to sell. "Her party vanished; most of them were picked up later by the Guards. She walked—walked!—the whole length of the city almost alone, then started out toward Ostia in a garden-rubbish cart. She took the Chief Vestal Virgin to help argue her case, and sent for the children to soften his heart."

"Poor mites!"

Caenis imagined them brought by panic-stricken maids, presented to a silent father more or less in the public street, glimpsing their mother distraught, terrified by wild faces and the charged atmosphere—then taken home to an empty palace with no one to explain. Britannicus was seven, Octavia not much more than a year older. Caenis would go and see them when she could.

Narcissus went on in that terrible dull tone, "Vitellius was there, but he couldn't bring himself to say much." That was Lucius Vitellius, Vespasian's old patron. He was the Emperor's closest adviser, almost his only friend.

"So who had to tell him?"

"I stuck with him wherever he went. Rode in his carriage, talked to him constantly. My instinct was to remain in the background—" Caenis violently shook her head. Narcissus agreed: "No. Wrong. So; when she found us—which frankly I wasn't expecting—I managed to outface her temporarily with the plain fact of the wedding and a charge sheet of her crimes. She decided to cry a lot—bad mistake; no chance to speak to him. As soon as I could, I sent the Vestal packing, had the children removed, opened up Silius' house. I showed Claudius how it was stuffed with his own things—his household slaves, the masks of the Caesars, his family heirlooms; oh, he was angry then. So I got him to the Praetorian Camp. . . ." By now his voice was dragging with suppressed reluctance to relive that sorry night. "For a time I seem to have taken command of the Guards myself. Sometimes, Caenis, I think we live in an old wives' tale! The Guards rallied; I believe I made some sort of speech. By the time we had him sat down to his dinner in the Palace the situation was stable, with most of the conspirators tried and hanged."