“It does,” he answered. “I was hoping you’d suggest that. It would be a shame to waste that moon, and the fountain and flowers.” He was glancing around the luxuriously furnished room. “By the gods, Claudia, you have a handsome place. It’s been a long time since I was here, but it seems more lavish. Did Aemilius have it redecorated?”
“Bona Dea, no. That insipid oaf? What has he ever done for me?” She acted mildly piqued but then smiled. “It has been redecorated, but I had it done. This apartment’s actually an extension of the Imperial Palace, you remember. My beloved stepfather, the great Emperor Tiberius,” she said sarcastically, “had it built for his little girls. When he moved them out to Capri with him—a new group, of course, for several of us were too old by then—he allowed me to stay here. But I moved away when I married Aemilius; we went out to Baiae. After we were divorced, though, I returned here, and that’s when I had it redecorated. But the place was built for the Emperor’s little girls.” She paused, leaned against a high-backed bronze chair. “You understand?”
“I’ve heard stories, yes.”
“Well, when poor Mother sent me to him from Pandateria—you know I was born on that dreadful island soon after Grandfather Augustus banished her there, and I really think she sent me to Tiberius to see that I got away from it. Anyway, he put me in here with the other little girls. This wing connects with his private quarters, or once did. There’s a wing very much like this one on the other side; that’s where he kept his boys.” She shrugged; he sensed that it was more a shudder. “Tiberius, thank the gods, spent more time over on the boys’ side. There’s a small passage-way—few persons probably know about it now—that opened from his quarters into my dressing room. It was all quite convenient. But when the old monster moved out to Capri, I had the door removed and the opening bricked up.”
“I’ve heard stories about the Emperor. Was he ... did he really ... I mean, you know, Claudia, did he actually do ... does he, I mean...?”
She laughed. “Yes, he did. And I presume he still does; they say old men are worse that way than young men. But he no longer bothers me and hasn’t for years. I’m much too old for him; he likes them very young, or did. He’s an old rake, all right, though he can’t be guilty of all the things they’ve charged him with. Out at Capri now I really think he’s more interested in his astrologers and philosophers than in his little girls and his painted pretty boys. But, well”—she shrugged—“there are things I do know about him, experiences I myself have had with him, and although I’m not close blood kin to him, my mother, poor thing, was his wife though she was that only because her father forced her to marry him.” They had crossed into the peristylium, and she paused to face him, smiling. “But let’s talk no more of the Emperor and me, Longinus; by the gods, there are pleasanter subjects.”
“I agree; there are pleasanter subjects than Tiberius.” They walked around a tall potted plant and sat down. Claudia leaned back against the plush cushions of the couch; she pushed her jewel-studded golden sandals out from beneath the folds of her white silk stola. The moonlight danced in the jeweled clasps that fastened the straps above her shoulders, while the gold mesh of her girdle glittered brightly. For a moment she silently studied the fountain. Then suddenly she sat forward.
“Forgive me, Longinus. Would you like some wine and perhaps a wafer? I have some excellent Campania, both Falernian and Surrentine, in the other room. Or perhaps you’re hungry....”
“No, no, Claudia, thank you. I made a pig of myself at Herod’s dinner tonight.”
“But it was a lavish banquet, wasn’t it?” Her smile indicated a sudden secret amusement. “I wonder what Sejanus will think of it.”