‘Not to tell him that,’ answered Pallas. ‘Do you suppose that I would degrade myself by speaking to one of my own slaves, or even of my own freedmen—I who, as the senate truly says, am descended from Evander and the ancient kings of Arcadia, though I deign to be among Cæsar’s servants? No! a look, a sign, a wave of the hand is sufficient command from me. If anything more is wanted I write it down on my tablets. I rejoice—as I told the senate when they offered me four million sesterces—to serve Cæsar and retain my poverty.’
‘The insolent thrall!’ thought Agrippina; ‘and he says this to me who know that he was one of the common slaves of Antonia, the Emperor’s mother, and still has to conceal under his hair the holes bored in his ears. And he talks of his poverty to me, though I know as well as he does how he has amassed sixty million sesterces by robbery in fourteen years!’ But she instantly concealed the disdainful smile which flitted across her lips, and repeated in a low voice, ‘Claudius must die!’
‘The plan has its perils,’ said the freedman.
‘Not if it remains unknown to the world,’ she replied. ‘And who will dare to reveal it, when they know that to allude to it is death?’
‘If you are the daughter of the beloved Germanicus,’ he said, ‘the Emperor is his brother. The soldiers would never rise against him.’
‘I did not think of the Prætorians,’ said Agrippina. ‘There are other means. In the prison beneath this palace is one who will help me.’
‘Locusta?’ whispered Pallas, with an involuntary shudder. ‘But the Emperor has a prægustator who tastes every dish and every cup.’
‘Yes! The eunuch Halotus,’ answered Agrippina. ‘He is in my pay; he will do my bidding.’
‘But Claudius also has a physician.’
‘Yes! The illustrious Xenophon of Cos,’ answered the Empress, with a meaning smile.