Domina (Paul Doherty Historical Mysteries) Read Free Page B

body streak through the water, her skill and speed reminding me of a dolphin. I was giving her my usual lecture on the need for prudence.
    ‘You should come in!’ Agrippina called out, ignoring all my pleas for caution with her son. She stood naked on the far side of the pool, the water pouring off her.
    ‘I prefer watching you,’ I called.
    ‘A legacy from Caligula,’ she shouted. ‘When you are exiled to an island, the only way to get off is to swim around it.’
    Callienus appeared. He had been ill with a fever. He sat on a stone seat, cradling a cup in his hands and stared mournfully at his mistress.
    ‘Don’t drink too much!’ Agrippina called. ‘You’ve got duties tonight.’
    She winked at me and disappeared again beneath the water.
    ‘I’ll drink what I bloody well want!’ Callienus growled.
    I ignored him. He was a good-looking Greek actor, but his pretty face was always spoilt by a scowl. Agrippina left the pool. She dried off and quickly dressed. Acerronia came out, complaining about the workmen. Agrippina, drying her hair, half-listened, more interested in finding out what we were eating that night.
    ‘Piglet cooked in honey,’ Acerronia replied. ‘I’ve found some quite old Falernian in your cellars.’ She stomped off.
    ‘Isn’t it strange?’ Agrippina mused.
    ‘What is?’
    I had come round the pool, but Callienus had slunk away. Agrippina was always lecturing him about how much he drank.
    ‘I’d forgotten about that wine. I bought it from a vineyard owner who used to live nearby. He was a strange man, who kept lambs in his house.’
    ‘When did you buy the wine?’ I asked.
    ‘Ah, it was when I was courting Claudius. We came here for one of our pleasant little weekends. He did like his wine.’ She grinned. ‘Almost as much as mushrooms!’
    Now, I don’t believe in portents but at that moment something strange happened. An owl flew across the garden chased by other birds. I shivered and touched the tip of my penis for luck. Agrippina watched the harassed bird seek shelter in a line of trees.
    ‘Approaching death,’ she remarked. ‘Isn’t an owl in daylight a harbinger of impending doom?’
    It was as if the sun had slipped behind a cloud. Looking back, of course, I realise that owl was no natural occurrence: one of Nero’s spies must have been nearby with the poor bird in a cage, and released it at that moment. I joked and tried to pass it off but Agrippina remained tense and watchful.
    The incident marred the atmosphere at supper. Agrippina drank too much and indulged in a heated argument with Callienus. There was nothing that little bum boy liked more than flouncing off and he did so now in style.
    ‘Let him go.’ Agrippina made a gesture. ‘I’m tired of his scowling face. Now, let me tell you about Tiberius. Do you know he used to swim on Capri with little boys who had been trained to nibble at him from under water?’
    Acerronia burst out laughing. Agrippina ordered the lights to be doused. As the servants had been dismissed, I was engaged in this task when I heard a terrible crash.
    Agrippina’s bedchamber was at the back of the villa. It was a small annexe built on the corner and flanked on either side by a two-storeyed building. She never really told me the reason why she had chosen this chamber. Most people like to sleep on the roof. Agrippina, however, always preferred to shelter at the rear of the villa on the ground floor. This bedchamber had been specially built, with a ceiling made of slats of wood, not like some fence, but fashioned out of the best cedars of Lebanon with small gaps between so you could glimpse the moon and the stars. Agrippina was a devotee of the moon: she loved its light and, in the fourth quarter when it was full and strong, would often sit and study it.
    Well, by the time I reached that bedchamber, the roof had gone, and Callienus with it. The roof had collapsed, crushing the bed and the Greek under a mass of fallen timbers and rubble.