Free The Nero Prediction by Humphry Knipe Page A

crucify him."
    The tormentor examined me, his light gray eyes curiously innocent. "Domina, in the light of what we have just heard, I request permission to question your note taker."
    Agrippina looked at me. Her face was as calm as the surface of a sea under which frightful creatures lurked. "There is no need. We are going to see the emperor. Bring your notes, Epaphroditus and fetch the gold she gave you."
     
    It took a hot bath and several oilings and scrapings to get rid of the stench of my terror. Euodus sat with me making small talk.
    Afterwards he watched me consume half a bottle of wine and two helpings of pork sausage.
    "What did you tell Claudius?" he asked.
    "Everything of course. What I don't understand is why I'm eating sausages instead of hanging on a cross. Or worse, if there is such a thing."
    "It's interesting, isn't it, how often destiny rewards the guilty and punishes the innocent? In fact it's one of the strongest proofs that it's Fate and not the gods who rules."
    For once, it seemed, Euodus actually wanted to talk. I said, "But I made a copy of Agrippina's horoscope, how could she possibly forgive me for that?"
    "Phah!” His green eyes danced with mischief. “Do you really think that was her horoscope?"
    My head spun. "You mean it wasn't?" 
    Euodus basked in my confusion. "Of course not. Nor was the star diary. They were both revised according to Agrippina's specifications."
    I felt a warm glow of achievement, I had read her correctly. "All along Agrippina knew what I was doing."
    "Of course. It was her idea."
    "But how did she know the attack was going to take place in the Mausoleum?"
    "Agrippina doctored the birth time of the version of her horoscope you copied for Lollia so that the Moon ruled Agrippina’s House of Calamities. Then she bribed Lollia's astrologer Ptolemy Seleucus."
     "Wasn't he Messalina's astrologer as well?"
    "The same. Cost her the million she got back from you to get him to tell Lollia that Agrippina would be attacked by a dog the day that the transit Moon moved into the same longitude as Sirius the Dog Star, the one the Egyptians call the star of Isis. When she was told that Agrippina was going to visit Augustus’s mausoleum to join her dead family that very hour, Lollia took this as proof that Agrippina was destined to die there."
    “Where did the dog come from?”
    "Lollia had a mastiff trained to kill anyone with Agrippina's scent on it. They trained it by making slaves wear your mistress’s used laundry."
    My smile tasted bitter as gall. "She used me as bait."
    Euodus chuckled. "Yes. The worm wriggling on the hook. It's what you do best."
     
    Claudius's address to the Senate was a long catalog of Lollia Paulina's illustrious ancestry and a short one of her crimes. Of course he got what he wanted: the Senate packed her off to the island of Pandateria.
    Her return was the first secret I shared with young Lucius, just as the final, the fateful one, was the last. It was hot and humid, had been all week. When I heard him call I was cooling off in the night air on the little balcony that went along with the new room which Lucius had persuaded his mother to give me.
    "Epaphroditus, where in Hades are you?"
    The urgent tone of his voice hurried me inside. "Here dominus."
    His freckled face was pale and his eyes wide. "Come quickly. Lollia Paulina's returned. Mother insists on seeing her right away. They hate each other. I think there may be a fight."
    I followed Lucius down the corridor, trying to make sense of what he'd said. Exiles of imperial rank seldom returned from Pandateria. He took me through his own rooms to an antechamber that led to Agrippina's private suite. Instead of a door there was a heavy curtain.
    Lucius opened it a chink. "Look, she's waiting. She's been waiting all day."
    Instead of reclining, Agrippina sat motionless in a chair, just the way she'd sat the morning they delivered me to her. Illuminating her was a candelabra which stood near her right