The Nero Prediction Read Online Free PDF Page A

mouth was smeared with bright red paint. It was the figure on the box I had thrown into the sea.
     She sat so still, her face was so totally devoid of expression, that she seemed more a creature of eternity than of this world. Not even time had dared work its mischief on that calm, handsome face framed by auburn hair parted in the middle and falling down to her shoulders in long ringlets as slender as serpents. Her forehead, her cheeks, even her neck and hands, where a woman ages first, were still smooth as polished travertine. Agrippina, Caligula's sister, the emperor Claudius's niece, the owner of my body and soul.
    I fell to my knees and pressed my forehead to the floor. She ignored my obeisance, examined instead the document she’d unrolled. "The very day, the very hour," she whispered, gazing at me with her black eyes. "Yes, you are the one, I am sure of that. You are a copyist."
    "Yes domina."
    "You can mimic anyone's handwriting, I am told."
    "I think so domina."
    “Get up. Look at this,” she said, handing me a short scroll, an edict of some sort. It was signed “Claudius” in a spidery scrawl. It was the emperor's signature, I was sure of that. 
    “Copy it,” she said, passing me a scrap of blank paper. I shuffled forwards on my knees, took the paper from her outstretched hand and smoothed it against the variegated marble floor.
    Agrippina compared my copy with the original. Without comment she handed me a second piece of paper which said, in the neat hand of an official scribe, "As just punishment for the crimes of adultery and treason with Gaius Silius, in conformity with the laws of our ancestors, I hereby command my wife Valeria Messalina to take her own life."
    "Write it with his hand."
    I knew I was being told to do a dreadful thing. My hand shook as I copied Claudius's scribble but that only improved the result.
    Agrippina took the warrant from me, nodded just perceptibly as she checked my work and then sealed it. "Epaphroditus of Alexandria, you are indeed a hand of Fate. Because of me you shall taste greatness.” She inclined her head slightly to her left. “Do you worship Isis?"
    My mother had worshipped Isis, Phocion had told me that, so I felt a sentimental attachment to her even though the goddess hadn’t saved her from dying when she gave birth to me. “Yes domina. Every year, ever since I can remember, I have attended the ceremony of her New Year rising.”
    She nodded as if she knew that already, which I was sure she did. “Yes, Isis has a lot in common with me. Tiberius murdered my father Germanicus, had him poisoned in Antioch. Oh what a glorious Caesar he would have made! Tiberius also murdered my mother, starved her to death on Pandateria. My brother Caligula banished me because my enemies lied to him about me. Stripped of my protection Caligula too was murdered, struck down by assassins like Julius Caesar. With my help Claudius has put down several plots aimed at his life. We Romans fight each other like scorpions in a bottle. This must stop. Isis re-united a man’s body, her husband Osiris’s. I plan to do more. I plan to re-unite an empire.”
    After a long pause during which she seemed to stare vacantly into space, Agrippina inclining her head to the lion-headed statue on her right. "Do you know him?"
    I hesitated before I answered because my mind was reeling. I’d never heard anyone compare herself to a goddess. "Yes, the dominus Tigellinus introduced him to me. His Egyptian name is Kar-Knum. The Greeks call him Kronos. He’s Lord of Time.”
    She didn’t appear to hear what I was saying. “We Romans call him Saturn," she said, rising and walking with slow, deliberate strides to a life-like statue that was catching the morning sun. It was a red-headed boy of about ten years old with a freckled face, small features, blue eyes: a handsome child. "This is my son Lucius. What you may not know is that there is a relationship between the two, this lion-headed creature and my boy.