Free Empire by Steven Saylor Page B

staff.”
    “I see,” whispered Claudius. “Uncle Tiberius held off making Augustus’s death public until Agrippa was disposed of, that’s what you m-m-mean. Poor Agrippa!”
    “I’ve only told you the sequence of events. I won’t speculate on the whys or wherefores,” said Euphranor, with the blank expression so often assumed by imperial servants. “When he received the message about Agrippa’s death, Tiberius immediately and publicly disavowed any responsibility.”
    Claudius nodded. “It’s possible that Augustus left instructions that Agrippa be killed upon his death. Or that Livia forged such instructions. Technically, Uncle Tiberius may be innocent of Agrippa’s m-m-murder.”
    “But, Claudius, what will become of
you
?” said Lucius.
    “Me? Harmless, stuttering, half-witted Claudius? I shall be left to my b-books and my lituus, I imagine.”
    The serving girl came to pour more wine. Lucius’s father waved aside her offer of water and took his cup full-strength. Lucius did likewise.
    “How did the emperor die?” said Claudius.
    Euphranor suddenly seemed to fade, done in by exhaustion and wine. His shoulders slumped and his face went slack. “We’d left Capri and were on our way back to Roma. The emperor had been unwell—weakness, a pain in his stomach, loose bowels—but he seemed to have gotten better. But on the road he took a turn for the worse. We made a detour to the family house at Nola. The emperor took to bed in the very room where his father died. He was lucid almost until the end. He seemed resigned to his death. He even seemed a bit . . . amused. He assembled his family and traveling companions, including Livia and Tiberius and myself, and he quoted a line from some play, like an actor seeking approval. ‘If I have played my role in this farce with convincing ease, then applaud me, please. Applaud! Applaud!’ And we did. That seemed to please him. But at the very end he became restless and frightened. He saw things no one else could see. He cried out a word in Etruscan,
‘Huznatre!’
And then, ‘They’re carrying me off! Forty young men are carrying me off!’ And then it was over.”
    Claudius and Lucius exchanged knowing looks.
    “A dying man’s delusion,” said Lucius’s father.
    “Not a delusion but a prophecy,” said Euphranor. “Tiberius has arranged for forty Praetorians to form an honor guard that will carry the emperor’s body back into the city.”

A.D. 16
    It was a bright morning in the month of Maius. On this day, so long awaited, Lucius Pinarius and Acilia would become husband and wife.
    Their marriage had finally been made possible thanks to the generosity of the late Augustus. In his will, besides naming Livia and Tiberius as his chief heirs, Augustus had made numerous smaller but still very generous bequests. Among these was a large sum left to Lucius Pinarius. The gossips of Roma, who pored over the details of the will like Etruscan soothsayers scrutinizing entrails, assumed that this bequest was the emperor’s way of making amends after a lifetime of ignoring his cousins the Pinarii, and perhaps it was; but Lucius assumed that the inheritance was also a kind of fee paid posthumously to him for his role in divining the lightning omen. For whatever reason, Augustus had made Lucius a wealthy man.
    Yet, even with Lucius’s new wealth, Acilia’s father had insisted on a lengthy engagement. This gave Lucius time to pay off the family’s debts, to invest the money left over in the Egyptian grain trade, renewing his grandfather’s old business associations, and to buy and furnish a house for himself and his bride-to-be. He could not afford property on the Palatine, but he was able to buy a house on the more fashionable side of the Aventine, with views from the upper story of the Tiber and the Capitoline and just a glimpse of the Circus Maximus. This pleased his mother greatly.
    At sundown, the wedding party departed from the house of Acilius. The