He stopped, and blushed crimson, for his mother’s eagle eye was upon him, and he had almost let out the secret of his sudden and passionate love for Acte, the beautiful freedwoman of his wife.
‘Well?’ said Agrippina suspiciously, but not ill-pleased to see how her son quailed before her imperious glance. ‘Go on.’
‘I meant nothing particular,’ he stammered, his cheek still dyed with its deep blush, ‘but that I sometimes wish I were not going to be Emperor at all. Julius was murdered. Augustus, they say, was poisoned. Tiberius was suffocated. My uncle Gaius was stabbed with many wounds. The life is not a happy one, and the dagger-stab too often finds its way through the purple.’
‘Degenerate boy!’ said Agrippina; ‘I do not wonder that you blush. Is it such a nothing to be a Lord of the World? Have you forgotten that you are a grandson of Germanicus, and that the blood of the Cæsars as well as of the Domitii flows in your veins? One would think you were as ordinary a boy as Britannicus. For shame!’
‘Well, well, mother,’ he said, ‘you always get your own way with every one. Pallas is in the anteroom, and I must go.’
Nero kissed her, and took his leave. Immediately afterwards the slave announced that Pallas was awaiting the pleasure of the Empress.
CHAPTER III
INSTRUMENTA IMPERII
‘It is the curse of kings to be attended
By slaves who take their humours for a warrant
To break into the bloody house of life.’