‘Come on!’ Agrippina urged.

I started to recite the litany. I had only listed seven names when Agrippina clapped her hands.

‘Enough! Enough!’ She smiled, her eyes all soft and kitten-like. ‘Aren’t you missing some out?’

‘Well, there’s dear Passienus. .’

‘Oh yes, my second husband.’

‘And, of course, there’s. .’

‘I know.’ She made a moue with her mouth. ‘Dear Clau. . Clau. . dear Claudius,’ she scoffed. ‘He did like mushrooms.’

Agrippina sat, swinging her feet, letting the water ripple through her toes, humming a song a gladiator had once taught her. Oh, she looked so beautiful with the sun shining, the air perfumed with roses and the scent of crushed grapes.

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Why what, Domina?’

‘Why did I murder? Why did I kill?’ She smiled at me with those butterfly eyes like a young girl teasing a teacher. ‘Shall I tell you why?’

I glanced away. Her words are the cause of this story. Shall I tell you why? That’s where my story begins and ends. For the first and last time, Agrippina, Domina Mea, was going to confess. She looked at me directly, no longer the coquette, the flirt, the imperial wife or mother. This was a soul-wrenching, haunted glance. Never once had Domina ever discussed this. Oh, she’d removed enemies. She’d plotted carefully but. .

‘Why?’ I whispered.

I daren’t look round. Were the ghosts thronging in? Tiberius with his rotting body? Caligula playing with himself as he made love to the moon? Claudius with his lopsided face and quivering jaw, hobbling through the palace or purple-faced as he choked to death. Britannicus would be there, livid with poison. Would his ghost also carry the gypsum smeared over his corpse to conceal the poison’s noxious effects?

‘Why?’ Domina broke into my reverie.

‘Because you had to.’

She pulled a face. ‘Seneca could debate that till the sun froze over.’ She shook her head. ‘Because I enjoyed it? Not really, enemies are like old friends: you miss them when they are gone. No, I killed because I was born to kill.’ She stared at me, then burst out laughing. ‘Don’t sit there scratching that black mop, your shrewd eyes wet with tears.’ She prodded me gently on the tip of the nose. ‘Do you understand what I am saying, Parmenon?’

‘You were born to kill. It’s in the blood?’

‘The imperial blood is no different from any other. I don’t believe I am different from anyone else. No better, no finer.’ She splashed her feet in the fountain. ‘You don’t understand, Parmenon.’

‘I am trying to.’

‘Don’t be petulant.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Think of the amphitheatre. Its awnings are pulled out, the sand is raked, the crowd sits hushed and the gladiators strut into the arena. I always listen for the sound of the iron gate clanging behind them, locked and bolted. There’s no going back. They are to stand and fight, live or die. They raise their swords.’ She imitated the gesture of a gladiator. ‘“We who are about to die salute thee!” The Consul or the Emperor returns the salute. Do you know what I do at that moment, Parmenon?’

She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I whisper the words back: “We who are about to die also salute you”. That’s what we are, Parmenon, gladiators. When you’re born into the purple, you step into an arena. You either fight or die. It’s as simple as that. You can try and skulk away like Uncle Claudius did, and stay in the shadows but, eventually, the roar of the crowd and the whips of the lanistae will drive you into the centre. You either kill them or they kill you.’

I stared across the fountain.

‘Well, Parmenon?’

‘I thought you fought for power?’

Agrippina did not seem to hear.

‘Domina?’

‘If you are born into the imperial purple, life and power are synonymous, you can’t have one without the other.’

‘So you killed because you had to?’

‘No, Parmenon, it’s different. What you are saying implies choice. We fight, we murder because that’s our life. You know when the gladiators separate to choose their opponent — the net man against the swordsman, the Thracian against the Samnite? We are the same. I fought Caligula and, when he was gone, I turned to face my next opponent, Messalina, a victor from her fights. Now it’s Poppea. If I won there’d be someone else. If I lose, Poppea will take breath, and wipe the sweat from her brow just as she glimpses the shadow of her next opponent. There are no exceptions.’

‘Not even. .?’

‘No! Caligula slept with me, his sister. Claudius married me, his niece. You’re referring to my darling son, aren’t you? Can’t you see, Parmenon, in the arena, there can only be one victor.’

‘I’ve heard the prophecy,’ I remarked.

‘Prophecy?’ she mimicked. ‘You mean, the one from that old charlatan Thrasyllus. He wasn’t making a prophecy. He just knew the rules of the game. Shall I tell you how I could survive?’ Her eyes had that hard, venomous look. ‘Do you want me to spell it out, Parmenon? If I want to survive,’ she continued, ‘there’s only one way.’

‘Kill Poppea?’

‘No, Parmenon, kill my son!’

A bee buzzed hungrily from flower to flower. The moment had gone. Its peace shattered. Already I could hear the shouts of the workmen as they returned from their midday rest to continue work on the villa. They were re-roofing and patching up the walls where cracks had occurred. Until recently Agrippina had supervised their work but the looming crisis had diminished her interest.

I reflected on what had happened so far. Nero and Poppea were busy in Rome with little communication between Agrippina and her son. Domina had sheltered at Antium and waited for news. Eventually the silence was broken: Nero was coming south. He intended to stay at one of his villas at Misenum or Baiae. His cronies were coming with him: Otho, Anicetus and, of course, the lovely Poppea. Would there be a reconciliation between mother and son? Agrippina and her old friend Acerronia had discussed the matter excitedly: perhaps the old times were returning and Nero was missing his mother. Perhaps Poppea’s influence was on the wane! The clouds were lifting. I’d been present at such meetings, lying on my couch in the triclinium, with Acerronia chattering away and the actor Callienus sulking if Agrippina did not lavish her smiles on him.

To be truthful I had been hopeful too. Antium was pleasant enough but it wasn’t Rome, and I missed the turbulent crowded streets, the smells of the cookshops, gossiping with the gladiators or strolling through the forum listening to the chatter. Nero had been very busy with building work on the Palatine, a new chariot course with unique mechanical devices. I’d have liked to have seen them. However, things weren’t changing for the better. Agrippina, in her clear but elliptical way, was able to see the brutal reality of the situation. We might all kiss each other, clasp hands, swear eternal oaths of friendship but it was a charade. Agrippina was in the arena of the amphitheatre, the corpses of her past enemies strewn about, and her new opponent Poppea striding towards her. And what of Nero? Her only son, born feet first, the cause of so much physical and spiritual pain? That golden boy with his red-gold, curly hair, moustache and beard cut in the Greek fashion, those popping blue eyes in that chubby, child-like face.

‘Would you?’ I asked. ‘Could you kill him?’

Agrippina snapped her fingers. ‘Like that, Parmenon.’ She plucked up a grape and squeezed it between her fingers. ‘You forget the ancient laws of Rome. A parent has rights over his or her child’s life.’

‘But could you?’ I insisted.

Agrippina’s eyes grew misty. ‘No,’ she murmured. ‘No, I could not, not him.’

‘But you are in the amphitheatre,’ I insisted. ‘Your enemies are helmeted and masked. They carry swords and shields. Blood, sometimes, is not thicker than water.’

‘You’re wrong!’ she replied hoarsely. ‘Many years ago I was friendly with Volusus, a Thracian gladiator, one of the best. He fought like a dancer, shifting this way and that, flitting like a shadow around his opponents. One day I went to see him fight. There were four pairs to start with; eventually only one remained. The crowd tensed with anticipation. The combat had lasted for hours and it was now late afternoon. You could taste the blood in the air. People were so excited that a number collapsed from sunstroke, refusing to leave their seats and seek shelter. Volusus had fought like one possessed. You know the way of such events? A gladiator kills his opponent, then searches for another. I’d noticed, and so had the crowd, that Volusus had deliberately avoided a certain fighter. I was intrigued. The remaining gladiator was a mere neophyte, a Dacian with only two or three victories to his name. Volusus was of the same nationality.’ She plucked at the grapes. ‘The Dacian was a retiarius, a net man, who had won his fights more by luck than skill. He came in stumbling. Volusus danced away. Time and again the net was cast only to miss. The crowd turned ugly. Volusus could have finished him off, you could see that. People were becoming impatient. They wanted an end, to stream out to the taverns and discuss the day’s events.’ She paused and watched a butterfly gently hover on the early afternoon breeze. ‘That’s what Volusus was,’ she declared. ‘A butterfly, floating in the arena. He was like a dream walker. The retiarius was exhausted. He made a final cast, stumbled and the net flew out of his hands. He lunged, but Volusus blocked the blow and sent the trident whirling out of his hand.’ Agrippina stretched out her arm, thumb extended. ‘“Hoc Habet, Hoc Habet!” the crowd roared. “Let him have it, let him have it!”.’ She paused.