The Nero Prediction by Humphry Knipe

lowered his voice although it was still a resonant rumble. “Balbillus sees marriage in my stars. Can you believe it? At my age!”
    Agrippina smiled, but this time I was on the wrong side of her to see her unnerving eye tooth. “And happily married too!”
    The consul chortled. “That’s what I told him but he was quite insistent. I’d love you to take a look at my chart, if you have time. I owe it to my dear wife to at least get a second opinion.” He gave a broad wink. “Sometimes I think you’re a much better astrologer than he is!”
    “That will be a pleasure,” said Agrippina, already on her way through the door. “I look forward to it.”
     
    I’d seen Tiberius Claudius Balbillus many times in Alexandria, always at a distance, because for the past five years he’d combined his duties as imperial astrologer and friend of the emperor with being Director of Alexandria’s Museum and administrator of imperial buildings in Egypt.
    Son of Tiberius Claudius Thrasyllus and Aka, princess of Commagene in Syria, he’d inherited his knighthood from his famous father. A slender, vital-looking forty-five, his black hair was cut short and he was clean shaven in the Roman manner. His laboratory was draped with twelve dark blue silk panels, three to each wall, on which the stars of the zodiac had been embroidered in silver cloth. Next to the table stood a huge lion-headed statue with its naked human torso entwined by a snake, holding keys in its hands, keys to the future. There he was again, Chronos, Lord of Time.
     Balbillus walked around his desk as we entered, smiling affectionately at Agrippina. He wore a tunic that was the same dark blue as the drapes on the walls. It was embroidered with the signs of the seven planets, also done in silver thread.
    He didn’t bow. “Ah splendid,” he said with the soothing voice of a physician, “so here he is at last!” He examined me with his quick eyes. “Handsome boy, although not as fierce looking as one would have expected.”
    “Yet but he’s the one,” Agrippina said. “He’s already proved that. Have you looked at his horoscope?”
    “Full of hidden meaning. He was born the year that the phoenix was sighted in Egypt, the first time in one thousand four hundred and sixty-one years. Did you know that?”
    Agrippina pursed her lips, a kissing movement. “Of course. That’s one of the reasons I knew he would be found in Egypt.”
     “Does he know his birth time?”
     “No. Tigellinus questioned him.”
    “Anyone else know?”
    “Someone called Phocion.
    A street corner fortuneteller. The boy says he cast his horoscope.”
    Balbillus looked at me again, that quick, clever glance. “And what did he find?” he asked me.
    I cleared my throat. “He said…” I couldn’t go on.
    “What?”
     “I didn’t know I had a horoscope until then, lord. That’s the first time I heard. He said it predicted I would have something to do with the empire.”
    Balbillus smiled faintly. “You mean the Roman empire?”
    “Yes sir.”
     “Really!” Balbillus’s eyes were back on Agrippina’s. “This Phocion of yours wasn’t such a quack after all. I’d like to speak with him, about his interpretation.”
    “That would be a little difficult,” she said. “He rowed his own boat over to the west, as I think you Egyptians say.”
    “You mean he killed himself?”
    “Yes.”
    The astrologer frowned. “Why?”
    “I don’t think he wanted to be questioned, not by Tigellinus.”
    I could have imagined it but I thought Balbillus shuddered. “I see.”
    Agrippina changed the subject by coquettishly tilting her head to one side. She could indeed be charming if it suited her. “Do tell me about poor Vitellius! He’s just told me you said he’s going to get married!”
    Balbillus smiled showing small, neat teeth. “Agrippina you know I can’t go into -”
    “Of course you can! He’s insisting I read his horoscope. Says he wants a second opinion. Balbillus,