`Do you wish your life to be spared? Shall I put you into the custody of your family as an irresponsible imbecile?'
`I wish to die.'
Messalina had written me a letter from the Gardens. In it she told me that she loved me as much as ever and that she hoped I wouldn't take her prank seriously; she had just been leading Silius on, as she and I had arranged, and if she had rather overdone the joke by getting beastly drunk, I mustn't be stupid and feel cross or jealous. `There is nothing that makes a man so hateful and ugly in a woman's eyes as jealousy.' The letter was handed to me on the tribunal, but Narcissus would not let me answer it until the trials were over, except by a formal `Your communication has been received, and will be granted my Imperial attention in due course.' He said that until I was satisfied as to the extent of her guilt it was better not to compromise myself in writing: I must not hold out any hope that she would escape death and merely be exiled to some small prison-island.
Messalina's reply to my formal acknowledgement of her letter was a long screed, blotted with tears, reproaching me for my cold answer to her loving words. She now made a full confession, as she called it, of her many indiscretions, but did not admit to actual adultery in a single instance; she begged me for the sake of the children to forgive her and grant her a chance of starting again as a faithful and dutiful wife; and she promised to set a perfect example of matronly deportment to Roman noble-women for all ages to come. 'She signed herself by her pet name. It reached me during Silius's trial.
Narcissus saw tears in my eyes and said: `Caesar, don't give way. A born whore can never reform. She's not honest with you even in this letter.
I said: `No, I won't give way. A man can't die twice of the same disease.'
I wrote again: `Your communication has been received and will be granted my attention in due course.'
Messalina's third letter arrived just as the last heads had fallen. It was angry and threatening. She wrote that she had now given me every chance to treat her fairly and decently, and that if I did not immediately beg her pardon for the insolent, heartless, and ungrateful behaviour I had shown her, I must take the consequences; for her patience was wearing out. She secretly commanded the loyalty of all my Guards officers, and of all my freedmen with the exception of Narcissus, and of most of the Senate; she had only to speak the word and I would immediately be arrested and surrendered to her vengeance. Narcissus threw back his head and laughed. `Well, at least she acknowledges my loyalty to you, Caesar. Now, let's go to the Palace. You must be nearly fainting with hunger. You have had nothing since breakfast, have you?'
'But what shall I answer?'
`It deserves no answer.'
We returned to the Palace and there was a fine meal waiting for us. Vermouth (recommended by Xenophon as a sedative) and
oysters, and roast goose with my favourite mushroom and onion sauce - made according to a recipe given my mother by Berenice, Herod's mother - and stewed veal with horse-radish, and a mixed dish of vegetables, and apple-pie flavoured with honey and cloves, and water-melon from Africa. I ate ravenously and when I had done I began to feel very sleepy. I said, to Narcissus : 'My mind won't work anymore to-night. I'm tired out. I put you in charge of affairs until tomorrow morning. I suppose that I ought to warn that miserable woman to attend here to-morrow morning and defend herself against those charges. I promised Vibidia that I'd give her a fair trial.' Narcissus said nothing: I went to sleep on, my couch.
Narcissus beckoned to the Colonel of the Guard. `The Emperor's orders. You are to proceed with six men to the pleasure-house in the Gardens of Lucullus and there execute the Lady Valeria Messalina, the Emperor's divorced wife.' Then he told Euodus to run ahead of the Guards and warn Messalina that they were coming, thus giving her an opportunity of committing suicide. If she took it, as she could hardly fail to do, I would not need to hear of the unauthorized order for her execution. Euodus found her lying on her face on the floor of the pleasure-house, sobbing. Her mother knelt beside her. Messalina said, without looking up '0 beloved Claudius, I'm so miserable and ashamed.'
Euodus laughed: `You're mistaken, Madam. The Emperor is asleep, at the Palace, with orders not to be disturbed. Before he went off he told the Colonel of the Guard to come here and cut off your pretty head. His very words, Madam. "Cut off her pretty head and stick it on the end of a spear. I ran ahead to let you know. If you've as much courage as you have beauty, Madam, my advice is to get it over before they come. I brought this dagger along in case you hadn't one handy.'
Domitia Lepida said: `There's no hope, my poor child; you can't escape now. The only honourable thing left for you to do is to take his dagger and kill yourself.'
`It's not true,' Messalina wept. `Claudius would never dare to get rid of me like this. It's an invention of Narcissus's. I ought to have killed Narcissus long ago. Vile, hateful Narcissus!'
The tramp of heavy feet was heard on the pavement outside. `Guard, halt! Order arms!' The door flew open and the Colonel stood with folded arms in the entrance, outlined against the night sky. He did not say a word.
Messalina screamed at the sight of him and snatched the dagger from Euodus. She felt the edge and point timorously. Euodus sneered: `Do you want the Guards to wait there while I fetch. a grindstone and sharpen it up for you?'
Domitia Lepida said `Be brave, child. It won't hurt if you drive it home quick.'
The Colonel slowly unfolded his arms: his right hand reached for the pommel of his sword. Messalina put the point of the dagger first to her throat and then to her breast. `Oh, I can't, Mother! I'm afraid!'
The Colonel's sword was out of its sheath. He took three long steps forward and ran her through.
Chapter 30
XENOPHON had given me another dose of the `Olympian mixture' just before I went to sleep, and the exalted feeling, which had been wearing off slightly during supper, revived in me. I woke up with a start - a careless slave had dropped a pile of dishes yawned loudly and apologized to the company for my bad tablemanners. `Granted, Caesar,' they all cried. I thought how frightened they looked. Bad lives and bad consciences.
`Has anyone been poisoning my drink while I was asleep?' I bantered.
`God forbid, Caesar,' they protested.
`Narcissus, what was the sense of that Colchester joke of Vettius Vileness'? Something about the Britons worshipping me as a God.'
Narcissus said: `It was not altogether a joke, Caesar. In fact, you may as well know that a temple at Colchester had been dedicated to the God Claudius Augustus. They have been worshipping you there since the early summer. But I've only just heard about it.'
`So that's why I feel so queer. I've been turning into a God! But how did it happen? I wrote to Ostorius, I remember, sanctioning the erection and dedication of a temple at Colchester to the God Augustus, in gratitude for the victory he had given Roman arms in the island of Britain.'
`Then I suppose, Caesar, that Ostorius made the natural mistake of understanding "Augustus" as meaning yourself, particularly as you specified a victory given by Augustus to Roman arms in Britain. The God' Augustus fixed the frontier at the Channel - and his name means nothing to the British, in comparison with your own. The natives speak of you there, I am informed, with the deepest religious awe. There are poems composed about your thunder and lightning and your magic mists and your black spirits and your humped monsters and your monsters with snakes, for noses. Politically speaking, Ostorius was-perfectly correct in dedicating the temple to you. But I must regret that it was done without your consent, and, I suppose, against your wishes.'