CHAPTER IV THE CRIME

‘Une grande reine, fille, femme, mère de rois si puissants.’—Bossuet, Oraison Funèbre d’Henriette de France.

‘Boletos ... optimi quidem hos cibi, sed immenso exemplo in crimen adductos.’—Pliny, N. H. xxii. 46.

A fortnight had elapsed since the evening which we have described. Claudius, worn out with the heavy cares of state, to which he always devoted a conscientious, if somewhat bewildered, attention, had fallen into ill health, which was increased by his unhappy intemperance. Unwilling at all times to allow himself a holiday, even in his advancing years, he had at last been persuaded to visit Sinuessa, near the mouth of the River Vulturnus, in the hope that its charming climate and healing waters might restore him to his usual strength. He had there enjoyed a few days of quiet, during which his suspicions had been lulled to sleep by the incessant assiduities of Agrippina. His children had accompanied him, and Agrippina had been forced to conceal the furious jealousy with which she witnessed the signs of affection which he began to lavish upon them. She did not dare to delay any longer the terrible crime which she had for some time meditated. She stood on the edge of a precipice. There was peril in every day’s procrastination. What if Pallas, whose scruples she had witnessed, should feel an impulse of repentance—should fling himself at his master’s feet, confess all, and hurry her to execution, as Narcissus had hurried Messalina? The weak mind of Claudius was easily stirred to suspicions. He had already shown marked signs of uneasiness. Halotus, Xenophon, Locusta—they knew all. Could so frightful a secret be kept? Might not any whisper or any accident reveal it? If she would end this harassing uncertainty and reap the glittering reward of crime, there must be no delay.

She had intended to carry out the fatal deed at Sinuessa, but Claudius felt restless; and as a few days of country air had refreshed his health and spirits, he hurried back to Rome on October 13, A.D. 54. She felt that, if she was not prompt, Narcissus, the vigilant guardian of his master, might return, and the opportunity might slip away for ever.

They had scarcely reached the Palace when she bade Acerronia to summon Halotus to her presence as secretly as possible.

The eunuch entered—a wrinkled and evil specimen of humanity, who had grown grey in the household of Claudius.

‘The Emperor,’ she said, ‘is far from well. His appetite needs to be enticed by the most delicate kinds of food. You will see that his tastes are consulted in the supper of this evening.’

‘Madam,’ said the slave, ‘there is nothing of which the noble Claudius is fonder than boletus mushrooms. They are scarce, but a small dish of them has been procured.’

‘Let them be brought here, that I may see them.’

Halotus returned in a few moments, followed by a slave, who set the mushrooms before her on a silver dish, and retired. They were few in number, but one was peculiarly fine.

‘I will consult the physician Xenophon, whether they will suit the Emperor’s health,’ said Agrippina. ‘He is in attendance.’

Passing into an adjoining room, which was empty, she hastily drew from her bosom the little box which Locusta had given her, and sprinkled the yellow flakes and powder among the sporules on the pink inner surface of the mushroom. Then returning she said,

‘Halotus, this dainty must be reserved for the table of the Emperor alone, and I design this mushroom particularly for him. He will be pleased at the care which I have taken to stimulate his appetite. And if I have reason to be satisfied with you, your freedom is secured—your fortune made.’

The eunuch bowed; but as he left the room he thrust his tongue into his cheek, and his wrinkled face bore an ugly smile.

The evening came. The supper party was small, for Claudius still longed for quiet, and had been glad, in the retirement of Sinuessa, to lay aside the superb state of the imperial household. Usually when he was at Rome the hall was crowded with guests; but on this day he had desired that only a few friends should be present. At the sigma, or semicircular table at which he reclined, there were no others except Agrippina, who was next to him, Pallas, Octavia, and Nero. Burrus, the commander of the Prætorian camp, was in attendance, and Seneca, Nero’s tutor; but they were at another sigma, with one or two distinguished senators who had been asked to meet them.

Except Halotus and Pallas, there was not one person in the room who had the least suspicion of the tragedy which was about to be enacted. Yet there fell on all the guests one of those unaccountable spells of silence and depression which are so often the prelude to great calamities. At the lower table, indeed, Burrus tried to enliven the guests with the narrative of scenes which he had witnessed in Germany and Britain in days of active service, and told once more how he had received the wound which disabled his left hand. But to these stories they listened with polite apathy, nor could they be roused from their languor by the studied impromptus of Seneca. At the upper table Nero, startled by a few vague words which his mother had dropped early in the day, was timid and restless. The young Octavia—she was but fourteen years old—was habitually taciturn in the presence of her husband, Nero, who even in these early days had conceived an aversion, which he was not always able to conceal, for the bride who had been forced upon him by his mother’s ambition. Claudius talked but little, for he was intent, as usual, on the pleasures of the table, and all conversation with him soon became impossible, as he drained goblet after goblet of Massic wine. Agrippina alone affected cheerfulness as she congratulated the Emperor on his improving health, and praised the wisdom which had at last induced him to yield to her loving entreaties, and to take a much-needed holiday.

‘And now, Cæsar,’ she said, ‘I have a little surprise for you. There is, I know, nothing which you like better than these rare boleti. They are entirely for ourselves. I shall take some; the rest are for you, especially this—the finest I could procure.’

With her own white and jewelled hand she took from the dish the fatal mushroom, and handed it to her husband. He greedily ate the dainty, and thanked her. Not long after he looked wildly round him, tried in vain to speak, rose from the table, and, staggering, fell back into the arms of the treacherous Halotus.

The unfortunate Emperor was carried out of the triclinium by his attendants. Such an end of the banquet was common enough after he had sat long over the wine, but that he should be removed so suddenly before the supper was half over was an unwonted circumstance.

The slaves had carried him into the adjoining Nymphæum, a room adorned with rare plants, and were splashing his face with the water of the fountain. Xenophon was summoned, and gave orders that he should be at once conveyed to his chamber. The guests caught one last glimpse of his senseless form as the slaves hurriedly carried it back through the dining-hall.

Seneca and Burrus exchanged terrified glances, but no word was spoken until Agrippina whispered to Pallas to dismiss the guests. He rose, and told them that the Emperor had suddenly been taken ill, but that the illness did not seem to be serious. A night’s rest would doubtless set him right. Meanwhile the Empress was naturally anxious, and as she desired to tend her suffering husband, it was better that all strangers should take their farewell.

As they departed, they heard her ordering the preparation of heated cloths and fomentations, as she hurried to the sick room. The Emperor lay gasping and convulsed, sometimes unconscious, sometimes in a delirium of agony; and it was clear that the quantities of wine which he had drunk might tend to dilute the poison, possibly even to counteract its working. Hour after hour passed by, and Claudius still breathed. Xenophon, the treacherous physician, saw the danger. Assuring those present in the chamber of the dying man that quiet was essential to his recovery, he urged the Empress to have the room cleared, and to take upon herself the duties of nurse. His commands were obeyed, and under pretence that he might produce some natural relief by irritating the throat, Xenophon sent for a large feather. The feather of a flamingo was brought, and when the slaves had retired, he smeared it with a rapid and deadly poison. The effect was instant. The swollen form of the Emperor heaved with the spasm of a last struggle, and he lay dead before them.

Not a tear did Agrippina shed, not one sigh broke from the murderess, as her uncle and husband breathed his last.

‘It must not be known that he is dead,’ she whispered. ‘Watch here. I will give out that he has fallen into a refreshing sleep, and will probably awake in his accustomed health. Fear not for your reward; it shall be immense when my Nero reigns. But much has first to be done.’

She hurried to her room, and despatched messengers in all directions, though it was now near midnight. She sent to the Priests, bidding them to offer vows to all the gods for the Emperor’s safety; she ordered the Consuls to convoke the Senate, and gave them secret directions that, while they prayed for Claudius, they should be prepared for all emergencies. Special despatches were sent to Seneca and Burrus. The former was to prepare an address which Nero might, if necessary, pronounce before the Senate; the latter was to repair to the Palace at earliest dawn and await the issue of events.

Meanwhile she gave the strictest orders that the Palace gates should be guarded, and that none should be allowed to enter or to leave unless they could produce written permission. All this was easy for her. The Palace was full of her creatures. Britannicus and Octavia had been gradually deprived of nearly all who were known to be faithful to their interests. They were kept in profound ignorance that death had robbed them of the one natural protector, who loved them with a tenderness which had often been obscured by the bedazed character of his intellect, but which had never been for one moment quenched. All that they learnt from the spies and traitors who were placed about their persons was that the Emperor had been taken suddenly ill, but was already recovering, and was now in a peaceful slumber.

Having taken all these precautions, and secured that no one except Pallas or herself should be admitted during the night into the room where Xenophon kept watch beside the corpse, Agrippina retired to her chamber. One thing alone troubled her. Before she retired she had looked for a moment on the nightly sky, and saw on the far horizon a gleam unknown to her. She called her Greek astrologer and asked him what it was. He paused, and for a moment looked alarmed. ‘It is a comet,’ he said.

‘Is that an omen of disaster?’

The learned slave was too politic to give it that interpretation. ‘It may,’ he said, ‘portend the brilliant inauguration of a new reign.’

She was reassured by the answer, and laid herself down to rest. Though greatly excited by the events of the day, and the immense cares which fell upon her, she slept as sweetly as a child. No pale faces looked in upon her slumber; no shriek rang through her dreams; no fancy troubled her of gibbering spectre or Fury from the abyss. She had given orders that she should be awakened in a few hours, and by the time that the first grey light shuddered in the east she had dressed herself in rich array, and, with a sense of positive exultation, stepped out of her room, calm and perfumed, to achieve that which had been for years the main ambition of her life.