"And the woman?"

"The woman executed. Run through with a tribune's sword."

Caenis swallowed, saw his face, then for his sake asked in a neutral tone, "On whose orders?"

"On the Emperor's orders," said Narcissus. He sighed. "Or so I had to say."

* * *

After a silence, Narcissus confided, as if he could hardly bear it but had to share this with someone, "You know, he called for her at dinner. Truly, I had told him she was dead. He never asked me how. Then later he wondered aloud where she was. He was drunk." That was not unusual. Claudius was also extremely forgetful, whether for convenience or not. " ‘That poor unfortunate woman,' he called her."

"So she was," Caenis said. Knowing her strict good sense, Narcissus looked surprised. "They have too much," Caenis decreed savagely. "These ladies. Taking risks, shocking society, is the only challenge left for them. Yet compared with us they know nothing; nobody has taught them self-respect or self-discipline. So I do pity her. Besides, I am a party to this. I must take the responsibility of a witness, you know; I went to the poor woman's wedding!"

The events of the night were so wrapped up in his thoughts that it took Narcissus a moment to remember that apart from the wedding to Silius, there had once been another grim farce with Messalina wearing her saffron shoes and vermilion veil in front of witnesses.

* * *

He was ready to go.

"Thanks, Caenis." On his feet, he was staring at her in an odd way. "There is something I want to ask you." He rubbed his eyes, so shy of making the request that Caenis was embarrassed by the fact that she thought she had guessed what it was.

Narcissus was not effeminate. She believed he had mistresses, though they flitted in and out of his life, leaving no substantial mark. He was too serious now to be offering such a liaison to her. He needed her to confide in; he would not surrender that for some fleeting dalliance.

He was thinking how to put it.

"I can look after the Empire," Narcissus said in that flat, tired voice. "I need somebody to look after the Emperor."

Caenis breathed. It was not what she had prepared herself to hear. Those sharp wits of her childhood still betrayed her into difficulty.

In her surprise she became more vicious than she liked. "I always knew a state servant resembled a pimp! All that pestering and being pestered; all that soiled money changing hands on the backstairs!"

"You are quite right; if I could save him by fixing him up I would!" Narcissus replied patiently, though he was still so weary he could hardly stand. "He told the Guards, he had been so unfortunate with his wives he was determined to live single all his life; they could kill him if he changed his mind. Well, the Guards may, or they may not—but he has already demanded a shortlist from Pallas, Callistus, and me, so unless I can call up some generous and discreet alternative, we can reckon the next matrimonial disaster is well on its way."

They were not exactly quarreling, so an answer was required. For once he had astonished her. He assumed that Caenis would want to do this for Rome—not at the expense of her personal interests; rather, he did not realize she might have hopes or ambitions otherwise.

"Oh, I am grateful for your flattery; a girl needs a bit of that! But looking after an emperor," declared Caenis, comparatively mildly for her, "is something for which I am unqualified."

"An emperor could do a lot worse."

"Oh, he will!" she returned drably. "We both know that."

She would not move. It was his own fault; he had taught her to reach rapid judgments, then bravely stick to them.

So Narcissus braced himself for the burdens of the Empire, the Emperor, and the Emperor's new wife, whoever she turned out to be. He did wonder (Caenis had not entirely lost her sensitivity) whether, if he ever needed it, Caenis would look after him. On the whole he preferred not to ask. He knew he sank too much of himself into his work for the question to be fair. Besides, he also knew his capabilities. Taking care of an empire was straightforward enough, but taking responsibility for Caenis required a special kind of man.

She had always been his favorite, and he wanted the best for her. He still thought even an emperor could do worse.

TWENTY-FOUR

The search for a new wife for Claudius was conducted on brisk official lines. His Chief Ministers each selected a candidate, whose merits they set out in elaborate position papers, which were debated at a formal meeting with the Emperor in the chair. This system seemed no worse than granting free rein to the ludicrous eccentricities of personal taste.

Narcissus supported: Candidate A, Aelia Paetina; married to Claudius once before, she was the mother of his daughter Claudia Antonia—the sound, no-nonsense, known-quantity candidate.

Callistus supported: Candidate B, Lollia Paulina; an extremely beautiful woman, she had married Caligula briefly, though under duress—the brilliant and popular candidate. She was fabulously wealthy too. Lest anyone doubt it, when she went to a dinner party covered in jewels she took the bills of sale to prove what her gemstones had cost.

Pallas supported: Candidate C, Agrippina; Claudius' niece. She was Caligula's sister, one of the famous three—the underhand, dangerous, dark-horse candidate. She had a son, Domitius Ahenobarbus, so she had proved her fertility. Her ambitions for that son were likely to be ferocious—but then Claudius had a son of his own, Britannicus.

It was illegal for an uncle to marry his niece, so Claudius did just that.

"That's the trouble with formal meetings." Narcissus sighed despondently. "Either no decision at all, or the worst choice on the Chairman's casting vote."

* * *

It was when Agrippina married Claudius, as a sense of impending doom depressed her, that Caenis deliberately made a decision that surprised some of her friends. There was a knight she knew privately, Marius Pomponius Gallus, a good-tempered, decent, thoroughly amusing man. Narcissus had introduced them. For several years past Marius had been asking her to marry him. Quite suddenly, Caenis agreed. He had in fact asked her the first time they went to bed. This burst of initial enthusiasm later faded to a good-mannered routine; he was more startled than anyone when she did say yes. But he received the news stoically, and they began to look for dinner bowls and napkin sets.

A couple of years later, luckily before Agrippina really made her presence felt, Flavius Vespasianus was elected to a consulship. That same year, still intending to marry Caenis, Marius Pomponius Gallus unexpectedly died.

It all seemed sadly unimportant. Caenis knew she could have turned Marius into a bridegroom—quite a keen one—if she had wanted; she realized that what she had really been looking forward to most was a home of her own instead of the inelegant apartments where she had lived ever since Antonia died. She wanted peace and permanence, and on a long lease. So with the help of Narcissus, who was generous with money and time, she found a site and had built for herself a substantial, tasteful house, which she would own until she died.

Her new home lay just outside the northeast city boundary, on the Via Nomentana. The site was not well chosen, since it was right beside the huge Praetorian Camp, built for the Guards by Sejanus. The location caused her constant teasing from her friends. Still, she was spared from enduring neighbors. And there would never be burglaries or riots.

Narcissus had given her a steward: Aglaus. Caenis first inspected Aglaus in the wild garden at Narcissus' own private house. She knew better than to accept a gift from a minister of state sight unseen.

Narcissus' gardens, though enclosed on all sides by the wings of his mansion, were as spacious and well designed as any public park. The noise of the city was muffled by trees. Songbirds clustered in the bushes and bounced about the gutters of the house; there were white doves basking on the pantiles of the roof. The wild garden was full of water: rectangular pools where stone nymphs with calm, regular faces looked down into the reeds among whose wiry clumps moved contemplative fish; fountains everywhere; and streams that wriggled through casual arrangements of shrubs to splash into shell-shaped porphyry bowls. Sometimes at night little candles were set afloat like stars in these bowls. At every turn stood a bench or seat; every bench had a pleasing view.