Rome's Lost Son(118)

With theatrical aplomb the dashing, current heir to the Purple presented the huge prizes to the triumphant Blue charioteers, basking in their glory as if he himself had driven the winning team. From the back of the box, the boy with whom Claudius, in his befuddled mind, planned to replace the glamorous poseur looked on unnoticed by the crowd as his rightful position was unashamedly usurped.

As Nero finished presenting the final prize of the day to the victorious Blues both his mother and Pallas conferred with him. He glanced at Claudius, then over to the senators’ enclosure and then gestured, with studied melodrama, for quiet; almost a quarter of a million people obeyed the request.

‘People of Rome,’ he declaimed in a voice that was husky and far from strong. ‘My father,’ he paused and indicated with a flourish the bewildered sot oblivious to what was happening as he struggled to read the dots on the dice of his latest throw, ‘invites you all to feast at his expense this evening. Tables have been set up throughout the city and will be supplied with food and drink for four hours. He wishes you the joy of the Augustalia!’ Standing side-on, Nero held one hand to his heart and extended the other out and up and then turned slowly to take in the entire screaming crowd. With a flick of his wrist and a downward motion of his arm, he silenced them and turned to the senators’ enclosure. ‘As a personal favour to him, my father requests the company of all senators of Praetorian or consular rank to join him for an intimate dinner at the palace. He expects you there at your earliest convenience.’

Vespasian swore to himself now that his first meeting with Caenis in nearly three years would have to be postponed.

Nero turned back to the crowd and struck a heroic pose, hands on hips, one foot forward, head held high and eyes gazing valiantly into the distance as his adoptive father was helped to the exit, leaving Paelignus, for once, staring at two large piles of winnings, one silver and the other gold.

‘I can’t imagine that he was in any state to make that invitation,’ Gaius observed, watching Claudius being restrained as he lurched to embrace his natural son as he passed.

‘No, Uncle,’ Vespasian replied, ‘it was Pallas and Agrippina who made it.’

Gaius looked over to Agrippina who now held her son’s right arm high in the air as if he had won a race. ‘Oh dear, dear boy, oh dear.’





CHAPTER XVIIII

‘N-N-NONE OFF YOUSH shup-p-p-ported me!’ Claudius muttered, returning to his favourite topic of the evening and pointing a trembling finger around the palace’s vast triclinium, built by Caligula. ‘N-n-none of yoush wanted a cr-cr-cripple for your Emperor.’

Not one of the hundred or so senators present bothered to gainsay him; instead they picked in embarrassed silence at the delicacies set on the tables before them and tried not to notice the fact that their Emperor had wet himself.

Agrippina laid a soothing hand on Claudius’ arm and plied him with yet more drink as slaves padded about bringing in fresh dishes and clearing those either empty or cold.

Nero, on the couch to Claudius’ right, took no notice of his drunken adoptive father, preferring instead to alternatively feed titbits to his wife and be fed the same by his slightly older friend, Marcus Salvius Otho.

Vespasian and Gaius reclined to the Emperor’s left, sharing their couch with Pallas; both trying to think of any small talk with which to bridge the uncomfortable near-silence now shrouding the room as Claudius took slow, methodical sips of his refilled cup until it was dry. The feast was in its fourth hour and no one, apart from Nero, could have claimed to be enjoying themselves.

‘Where’s Narcissus?’ Vespasian eventually asked, turning to Pallas.

‘He’s gone to his estate near Veii to try to help relieve his gout.’

‘Voluntarily?’

‘Agrippina did suggest that it might be very good for his health, if you take my meaning, as Magnus would say.’

‘Indeed he would and I do.’

Vespasian cast his eyes around the sombre gathering of Rome’s élite as Claudius slurred on, spiralling down into introspective self-pity as only a man well into his cups can do. Again he noticed Galba was next to the Vitellius brothers, reclining on the same couch, all three of them looking openly disgusted at Claudius’ appearance. As Vespasian began to wonder again just what Galba and the Vitellii were doing together, a pair of pale eyes, which seemed vaguely familiar, caught his gaze; they belonged to a huge man reclining on the couch placed next to Galba’s. The man raised his cup and drank to Vespasian; not wanting to appear rude, Vespasian returned the toast unable to work out where he knew the face from. His hair, clipped short, and clean-shaven face accentuated a vast, bony head, supported by a bull neck that in turn protruded from a powerful torso.