Passing through the peristyle garden and down a short internal corridor, she reached a roofed atrium with a black-and-white-tiled floor at the center of the formal suite. Opposite, a long flight of steps led down from the main door. To either side of her lay public rooms, a reception area and a dining room, both exquisitely decorated with high-quality wall paintings. The private suites and bedrooms lay beyond them and on upper floors, all much smaller rooms.
Her role was to present herself to the usher Maritimus, then if required for dictation she would attend on her mistress in one of the cubicles attached to the receiving room. Tonight Maritimus, who seemed flustered, left her in the receiving room; then for some reason she had to wait. She studied the fine fresco of Io, guarded by Argus, and apprehensively eyeing Mercury as he crept around a large rock to rescue her; he looked like the kind of curly-haired lad-about-town Io's mother had probably warned her about.
Trying to calm herself, Caenis arranged her waxed note tablet and took out a stylus. Normally Diadumenus, as Chief Secretary, would be here to prevent her feeling so exposed. Still, she was familiar with the kind of correspondence required. Antonia owned and managed a vast array of personal property, including estates in Egypt and the East inherited from her father, Mark Antony. At her court she had brought up the princes from far-flung provinces who had been sent to Rome by shrewd royal fathers or simply carried off by the Romans as hostages, and many letters were still written to those who had since returned home. They held no terrors for an able scribe, although this would be the first time Caenis had worked unsupervised with Antonia.
Maritimus, the tetchy usher, bustled in again. "I'm supposed to find Diadumenus. Is there only you? Where's Diadumenus?"
"Given free time for the festival."
"It won't do!" He was sweating.
"It will have to," said Caenis cheerfully, refusing to acknowledge an emergency unless he explained.
Maritimus scowled at her. "She wants to write a letter."
"I can do that." Caenis longed for authority. She enjoyed her new work. She took genuine pleasure in using her skills, and was fascinated by what she saw of Antonia's correspondence. She accepted that she did not yet see it all. Even so, this sense of not being acceptable tonight grated on her. "Will you tell her I'm here?"
"No; she wants Diadumenus. I don't know what's going on, but something's upset her. You can't do this; it's something about her family."
Antonia never talked about her family. She bore that dreadful burden entirely alone.
"I am discreet!" Caenis blazed angrily.
"It's political!" hissed the usher.
"I know how to keep my mouth shut." Any sensible slave did.
It was not enough. Maritimus clucked and bustled off again. Caenis resigned herself to frustration. She wondered what crisis had upset Antonia.
Now she was seeing the world and her own place within it through fresh eyes. Working in a private house felt wonderful. She had already witnessed at close hand how Roman government was conducted. Like most family matters, it was based on short-term loyalties and long-term bad temper, pursued in an atmosphere of spite, greed, and indigestion. Caenis had never had a family; she watched with delight.
Whatever had disturbed her mistress this particular evening, the young secretary already appreciated the background: the Emperor Tiberius, whose famous brother, Drusus, had been Antonia's husband, spent the last years of his bitter reign in depraved exile on the island of Capri; it had come to be accepted in Rome that he would never return here again. He was already over seventy, so the question of a successor was never far away.
Since Augustus had first based his political position upon his family ties with Julius Caesar, ruling Rome had become an inheritable right. Between genuine accidents and the grappling ambition of their fearsome womenfolk, most of the male heirs had gone to their graves. The Emperor's own son, married to Antonia's daughter, Livilla, had died in rather odd circumstances eight years before. By default the choice now fell between Livilla's son, Gemellus, and his cousin Caligula. A fine pair: Caligula, who when barely into his teens had seduced his own sister here in Antonia's house, or Gemellus, who was deeply unpleasant and permanently sickly. But if Tiberius died in the near future, Rome would be left to these two very young boys, while immense power was also being wielded by Sejanus. Maybe Sejanus would prefer another solution.
* * *
Quite quietly and without any warning, Antonia came into the room. Caenis sprang to her feet.
Antonia was nearly seventy, though she still had the round face, soft features, wide-set eyes, and sweet mouth that had made her a famous beauty. Her hair, thinning now, was parted centrally and taken back above her ears to the nape of her neck in a neat, traditional style. Her gown and stole were unobtrusively rich, her earrings and pendants heavy antiques—attributes of extreme wealth and power to which she paid no regard.
"You are Caenis?" The slavegirl nodded. The effect of her mistress's assurance was to make her feel coarse and clumsy. "You are on duty alone? Well, something important has to be done. This cannot wait. We shall have to make the best of it." Her mistress gave her a hard look. A decision occurred. The slavegirl's life took a sudden twist; for indecipherable reasons she was admitted to Antonia's confidence.
Somehow Caenis detected from the first that whatever was to be written had already been thoroughly considered. She had often seen her mistress composing correspondence as she went along; this was different. Now Antonia led her briskly into one of the more private little side rooms then signaled her to a low stool, while she herself continued pacing about, barely able to wait until Caenis had her stylus poised. It was a strange reversal; in Rome the great were seated while their inferiors stood. Caenis had been trained to take shorthand normally while on her feet at the foot of a couch where the dictator reclined.
"This is a letter to the Emperor about Lucius Aelius Sejanus."
Then Caenis understood. The brief formal announcement warned her—and it stunned her. Her mistress was about to expose the man.
Speaking with pain and deliberation, Antonia dictated for Tiberius facts that she hated to acknowledge and that he would hate to hear. She had uncovered a great conspiracy. The sensational story would surprise few in Rome, although few would ever have voiced it, least of all to the Emperor. Here in this sheltered house Antonia's realization of it had been desperately slow to emerge, but those close to her had revealed the plot. She had not taken their word; she made her own investigations. Because of her privileged position she possessed the courage to inform Tiberius, and she supported all her accusations with telling detail. She did not spare even the parts that convicted her own daughter.
She told the Emperor how his friend the Praetorian commander Sejanus had been plotting to gain complete power. His feared position had ensured the allegiance of many senators and many of the imperial freedmen who governed the Empire; leading figures in the army had been bribed. Recent honors had been heaped upon Sejanus, increasing his own ambition and the control he wielded throughout Rome. He had moved in on the Imperial House by marrying one of his relatives, Aelia Paetina, to Antonia's son Claudius, by betrothing his daughter to Claudius' son (though the boy had died), and now after several attempts by persuading the Emperor to agree that he himself might marry Antonia's daughter. But he had already seduced Livilla, then either poisoned her husband or persuaded her to do it, and schemed to ally himself by marriage to the Imperial House in order to legitimize his own position as a future emperor. His own ex-wife, recently divorced, was now prepared to speak as a witness against him.