The Uncertain Hour (25 page)

“And yet you’ve never said anything about it. You pretended to know nothing.”

“I understand the way men think. You’d have found a way to blame me if I had.”

“And now?’

“And now what?”

“Have you forgiven me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive. You did the best you could with what you had.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

“Of course I do. Anyway, why ask me? You’ll be dead in an hour or so. Take it up with Junius when you run into him. He’s the one you should be asking for forgiveness.”

Petronius sighed contentedly and closed his eyes. He’d forgotten how perfect it was, lying with his head in her lap. Perhaps he should kiss her, make love to her right now, a touching communion, a fitting remembrance? But no, everything was right the way it was; the time for such intimacies had passed. They seemed too encumbered now, too earthbound. Besides, who would get to be on top? Petronius laughed quietly, and sighed again. Then he remembered what he’d wanted to ask.

“Melissa, what did you say?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you and Pollia were talking about second chances. I can imagine what she said.”

“She said she was in love with you, and she asked for my forgiveness. She said she wished she’d never married Fabius.”

“Naturally. But what did you say?”

“Are you sure you want to ask me that question, Titus?”

“Of course I am.”

“I said nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I said there was nothing I would wish to change. There is no decision that I have ever made that I would wish to undo.”

“What about all the pain I caused you?”

“That was your decision, not mine. The only way I could have avoided that pain would have been to decide not to be with you, and that I could never have done.”

“Why not?”

“I had a mission to make you a wiser man. And to bring us to this moment. Isn’t that enough?”

She was right, of course. It was more than enough, this moment. It was the moment for which one waits an entire lifetime, and Petronius had. But what of Melissa? Tomorrow, in just an hour or two, the world would change for her forever, and what would it mean for her then, who must find a way to preserve it? Petronius thought of the
kouros
. Born eight hundred years earlier, in a world so different from his own, it might very well endure another eight hundred, or more, into a world that would be even more different still. It was only a rock; it did not retain or remember the world through which it had passed, and yet it served as a reminder of all who saw and touched it, not just at the moment of its creation and of the living, breathing man who put his chisel to the stone, but also of every age it had seen, of every generation that had preserved it, or neglected it, and passed it on intact. And it occurred to Petronius that this love of his, this moment, did not actually belong to him at all, or to Melissa, or to the next man on whom she might bestow it, should there be one. Perhaps this love was a
kouros
, created in ancient times, and passed from keeper to keeper, through him and Melissa and on into the unknown future. And though, like the statue, it would not remember either of them, still, to some lover a thousand years hence who had never heard their names or known their deeds, it would serve as a reminder of all the lovers who had received it, cosseted it, and passed it on. Its very existence would be a testament to their care of it, and maybe, just maybe, in a moment similar to this one, those impossibly distant lovers will think back in gratitude on all those who had held it and saved it on their behalf.

As if she were reading his thoughts, Melissa leaned over, held his cheeks between her palms, and kissed him full and long on the lips. After that, they were quiet, listening to the breath of the sea. And then Martialis sneezed somewhere off along the terrace.

“I have one more thing I have to do,” Petronius said, and rolled off her lap to pick himself up off the ground. Martialis was over by the balustrade, staring morosely out over the black water.

“I’ll only be a moment, Marcus. Wait for me, and we’ll take a walk.” He strode off into the house.

The rooms and corridors were dark and quiet, as was normal for this time of night, yet they seemed especially lifeless now. Petronius suspected that there was not a slave in the house, with the possible exception of Commagenus and Demetrius, who were not much given to revelry and, ever diligent, were probably in their quarters preparing themselves for their new life as freed-men. Petronius considered rousing Demetrius for the task at hand, but decided that, having already said their good-byes, it would be uncomfortable for both of them to have to reprise them. Besides which, given the possibility that members of his household might still be tortured for any further information that could be of use to the state—and a scribe was certainly the most obvious potential guardian of such information—Petronius wished to spare him the possession of any incriminating secrets. This last job was something he could do himself.

As per standing orders, the lamps were still lit in his study, though the oil had been allowed to deplete itself tonight and would run out momentarily. He sat at his desk, retrieved a fresh sheet of his finest letter papyrus, dipped his pen, and began to write.

Titus Petronius Niger to Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, greetings—

PETRONIUS HAD LEARNED
a simple truth: It is not possible to love another when you despise yourself. Did everyone but him already know it? One thing was certain: Melissa knew it. He taught it to her every day in their growing estrangement; in his anger and in his despair; in the brutality of his lovemaking and then in his inability to make love to her at all; in his indifference to her happiness and to his own; in his peevish response to minor irritations and in his atrophied moral judgment; in his apathy toward her social trajectory and in the carelessness with which he steered his own. Dark times indeed. He had lost Melissa, and gained an empire.

Where else was he to take himself, where else on Earth was more suited to a man like him than Nero’s court? Giving in to the emperor’s blandishments and launching himself into court society had not been difficult decisions to make. They were barely decisions at all; more like slipping into a warm, perfumed bath. Now that the veil had been stripped from his eyes, and he saw himself for who he truly was, it came to seem his only natural home, and his Tartarus.

For two years he stood at the emperor’s right hand, whispering in his ear, advising and cajoling him. He was not, it was true, a political counselor, and he avoided inserting himself into lethal enmities, but that was a spurious distinction. In a tyrant’s court, culture and politics are indissoluble, and Petronius knew exactly what he was doing, even as he staggered along in a sort of heedless, drunken haze. He made light of Nero’s excesses and couched his sins in apposite classical justifications. Petronius’s intellect, eloquence, and refinement flattered the emperor’s vision of himself as an aesthete of the highest rank, in a way that the brutal vulgarians of the inner circle—who complemented the butcher and the thug in him—could never hope to compete with. When Nero kicked the pregnant empress Poppaea Sabina to death, it was Petronius who sat with him in private mourning and helped compose her funeral eulogy.

But it was only a waiting game, and Petronius knew it. Compared to Tigellinus and the other ruthless, low-born ministers, he was an amateur in the kind of scheming and backbiting necessary to maintain a career at court. From the moment he had elbowed Tigellinus aside, it was merely a matter of time before revenge was exacted, and allowing himself to be crowned “Arbiter” was just a manner of slow-motion suicide.

The fatal moment arrived with the surprise banquet which Tigellinus organized in Nero’s honor on Agrippa’s lake. The lakeshore was stocked with exotic birds and beasts, lined with elegant makeshift brothels staffed with willing patrician matrons, and ablaze with a thousand flaming torches. Vibrant song rang out upon the water from choruses cleverly concealed along the embankments. The emperor and his party (including Petronius) were towed upon a raft of gold and ivory and dined with unsurpassed luxury, their every foible and depravity administered to by a crew of professional hedonists. The emperor was presented with a stunning Greek youth who kept him entertained throughout the night. The event was planned and executed perfectly from beginning to end, and everyone involved knew that the Arbiter of Elegance had been made obsolete in a single blow.

When Rome burned not long afterward, Petronius took it as his cue to bow out. His relationship with Melissa had long since withered into a hollow, misshapen thing; he had fully justified her every fear and misgiving, and she no longer expected anything of him. She let him go without anger or bitterness, but rather in profound sadness for what he had become. He left her to manage the Esquiline villa, retired to Cumae, and waited for his sins to catch up with him.

PETRONIUS GLANCED DOWN
at the papyrus and reread what he had written:

Titus Petronius Niger to Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Ger-manicus, greetings—

Then he continued to write.

Sire, our late friend and colleague, Annaeus Seneca, in one of his more lucid moments, once said to me: “All conversations with autocrats end with expressions of gratitude.” At the time, I believed this observation to be a rather sorry commentary on the life he had led in your company. I see now, however, that it was remarkably sagacious—that means “clever,” Caesar—as I find myself in the unanticipated position of writing on my deathbed to offer you my undying thanks for all you have done for me. Your own mother, Sire, could not have been more grateful to you than I am when you made it possible for her to retire at the full height of her powers.

Without your guidance, example, and stimulus, I would never have grasped the urgency and reward of being adequately prepared for death. Had I lived to be an old man, I believe that I should never have attained the conclusions and serenity that dire necessity has thrust upon me, and that sustain me now in my final, happy moments. I do not claim to have attained wisdom or understanding; that would be too much to ask. Yet I feel that you have gifted me with an almost equal treasure: a measure of self-awareness that, while modest, has nevertheless cast a splendid new light on the world around me and my place in it. I cannot help but believe that it is a gift afforded to few men, and for that I shall remain eternally in your debt.

One more thing, Caesar. Since it may come to pass that you shall find yourself in similar circumstances in the not-too-distant future, and in pressing need of a medium whereby to record your final thoughts and wishes in haste, may I humbly suggest that you keep about you at all times a quill, an inkhorn, and a sheet of papyrus for that purpose, as I have done for the past several years, living in the shadow of your displeasure. They may prove to be very handy indeed and bring you peace of mind when you are most in need of it, as they have me.

Without pausing to reread a single word of the letter, Petronius sanded, folded, and sealed it with wax, stamping the seal with his signet ring. Next, rummaging through his strongbox, he found the most recent codicil to his will, broke the seal, made some minor amendments, and resealed it. He pocketed a fistful of gold denarii and then, with both documents tucked into a fold of his cape, strode out onto the terrace. He felt full of strength, his every muscle vibrant with energy, like a wineskin filled with new, green wine. He knew it was the vigor of last chances, but it felt very good nonetheless, and he wondered how it might be, and why it cannot be, to feel this way every moment of one’s life. He found Melissa and Martialis deep in conversation on a bench beneath the colonnade.

“Quickly now, Marcus, find me a heavy rock.”

“A what?”

“Just do it, please.”

Martialis threw a perfunctory, sweeping gaze over the pavement and, finding nothing suitable, crossed to the gate set into the wall of the perfume garden. He returned a moment later with a fist-size lump of black basalt, which he handed to Petronius.