the Moon had moved another degree forward through the Zodiac, her lips fluttered in an inaudible murmur as she read the next entry in her star diary.
This was a document that she'd drawn up herself to keep track of the motion of the planets around her chart so that she could tell precisely what Fate had in store for her every moment of every day.
I soon discovered that there was nothing unusual about Agrippina's obsession with astrology. I was often amazed at the sight of a room full of fashionable women who were gambling with dice suspend their play at the sound of the hour-caller's trumpet, one blast for each hour, while they checked the very latest alignment of their planets. None was more devoted to this practice than Lollia Paulina who'd been empress once already, Caligula's. Still young, immensely wealthy, as ambitious as she was beautiful, Lollia had been only narrowly defeated by Agrippina in the contest for Claudius's hand, a defeat which everyone knew could at any time be reversed.
Accustomed to being ignored by Agrippina when she was in company, except when she wanted me to take a note, I was surprised when she said to Lollia, "Have you met Epaphroditus my new secretary?"
Lollia flashed me a glance that was sharp as a razor. "No, but of course I've heard how you flushed him out of Alexandria because of his wonderful stars. What do they predict, do tell!"
Agrippina gave her a thin smile. "My wish list, of course. Intelligence, diligence, initiative, complete discretion. He can be trusted with anything, no matter how confidential it is."
Lollia's eyes glittered as brightly as the king’s ransom of emeralds and pears that festooned her from head to toe. "First find the stars and then the person. How perfectly ingenious of you!"
Agrippina knew that I met Euodus every evening at the Circus. Once she’d even reminded me that I was late. The day after my first meeting with Lollia the freedman didn't, as usual, ask me immediately what I had to report.
"Tomorrow you will be asked to go to into the city,” Euodus said. “You’ll go alone. A man named Basilicus will approach you. He'll have proof that you're in the business of selling smoke, do you know what that is?"
It was a hint of imperial favor, usually imaginary. It was also gossip, scraps of information about the emperor's current whims, with whom he had dinner the previous evening, who seemed to have his ear and who didn't. Everybody from chambermaids to imperial secretaries sold smoke. Smoke was what I passed on to Tigellinus via Euodus.
“Yes,” I told him.
"Good. Basilicus will ask you to do something for him that will frighten you. Appear to be reluctant until he threatens you. Then promise to do exactly what he wants."
"Are those Tigellinus's instructions?" I asked.
Euodus gave me his quick mischievous glance but said nothing.
The next morning Agrippina had me do another run down to the Argiletum, the booksellers' center just north of the Forum, for copies of tracts by Berossus, the Chaldaean priest who had broken his vow of secrecy and taught astrology to the Greeks on Cos three hundred years ago.
“The Athenians erected a golden tongued statue in his memory,” she told me, “because of his divine prophecies.”
Always, when I left the palace on an errand, two bodyguards went with me. I was a very valuable piece of property. Today the burly slaves weren’t waiting for me at the gate and as instructed I didn’t ask for them. But I wasn’t alone. The eyes of the watchers followed me. If they weren’t imaginary, the symptom of a peculiar mental disturbance, who were they? You have been chosen. Mark the Lion’s words. Were my watchers Christians? Again that thought. Just last month Claudius had expelled their leaders from Rome because they’d caused a riot during the Jewish Passover holiday by insisting that Jews should be commemorating the martyrdom of Christ the Messiah instead of the night they were spared from some
This was a document that she'd drawn up herself to keep track of the motion of the planets around her chart so that she could tell precisely what Fate had in store for her every moment of every day.
I soon discovered that there was nothing unusual about Agrippina's obsession with astrology. I was often amazed at the sight of a room full of fashionable women who were gambling with dice suspend their play at the sound of the hour-caller's trumpet, one blast for each hour, while they checked the very latest alignment of their planets. None was more devoted to this practice than Lollia Paulina who'd been empress once already, Caligula's. Still young, immensely wealthy, as ambitious as she was beautiful, Lollia had been only narrowly defeated by Agrippina in the contest for Claudius's hand, a defeat which everyone knew could at any time be reversed.
Accustomed to being ignored by Agrippina when she was in company, except when she wanted me to take a note, I was surprised when she said to Lollia, "Have you met Epaphroditus my new secretary?"
Lollia flashed me a glance that was sharp as a razor. "No, but of course I've heard how you flushed him out of Alexandria because of his wonderful stars. What do they predict, do tell!"
Agrippina gave her a thin smile. "My wish list, of course. Intelligence, diligence, initiative, complete discretion. He can be trusted with anything, no matter how confidential it is."
Lollia's eyes glittered as brightly as the king’s ransom of emeralds and pears that festooned her from head to toe. "First find the stars and then the person. How perfectly ingenious of you!"
Agrippina knew that I met Euodus every evening at the Circus. Once she’d even reminded me that I was late. The day after my first meeting with Lollia the freedman didn't, as usual, ask me immediately what I had to report.
"Tomorrow you will be asked to go to into the city,” Euodus said. “You’ll go alone. A man named Basilicus will approach you. He'll have proof that you're in the business of selling smoke, do you know what that is?"
It was a hint of imperial favor, usually imaginary. It was also gossip, scraps of information about the emperor's current whims, with whom he had dinner the previous evening, who seemed to have his ear and who didn't. Everybody from chambermaids to imperial secretaries sold smoke. Smoke was what I passed on to Tigellinus via Euodus.
“Yes,” I told him.
"Good. Basilicus will ask you to do something for him that will frighten you. Appear to be reluctant until he threatens you. Then promise to do exactly what he wants."
"Are those Tigellinus's instructions?" I asked.
Euodus gave me his quick mischievous glance but said nothing.
The next morning Agrippina had me do another run down to the Argiletum, the booksellers' center just north of the Forum, for copies of tracts by Berossus, the Chaldaean priest who had broken his vow of secrecy and taught astrology to the Greeks on Cos three hundred years ago.
“The Athenians erected a golden tongued statue in his memory,” she told me, “because of his divine prophecies.”
Always, when I left the palace on an errand, two bodyguards went with me. I was a very valuable piece of property. Today the burly slaves weren’t waiting for me at the gate and as instructed I didn’t ask for them. But I wasn’t alone. The eyes of the watchers followed me. If they weren’t imaginary, the symptom of a peculiar mental disturbance, who were they? You have been chosen. Mark the Lion’s words. Were my watchers Christians? Again that thought. Just last month Claudius had expelled their leaders from Rome because they’d caused a riot during the Jewish Passover holiday by insisting that Jews should be commemorating the martyrdom of Christ the Messiah instead of the night they were spared from some
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