The Nero Prediction Read Online Free PDF

Saturn is his star, Saturn who is destined to preside over a golden age. The golden age which will come when I resurrect the Roman Empire."
    Even though she was an imperial princess, Agrippina’s presumption was astonishing. Of course the blood of Julius Caesar and Augustus ran in her veins so she would she would be familiar with grand ideas. But she was also Caligula’s sister, so she had the seeds of madness in her too.
    “Do you Egyptians believe in the Golden Age?” she asked, still looking at the boy’s statue.
    “Yes domina. Although in Egypt it is associated with Sothis, also called Sirius, the star of Isis who commands the Nile to rise.”
    “Exactly! Isis and Saturn!” She moved behind her son's statue, placed both hands on his head, as if in benediction. "I had Tigellinus find you for me because the stars foretell that someone with your horoscope will cause the downfall of Messalina. It is because you have signed her death warrant that I am so confident she will die. Your stars predict also that you will be the shield of an emperor. My son Lucius has an imperial horoscope. Therefore I am equally confidant that it is his shield that you are destined to be."
    Agrippina's whisper took on a strange theatrical quality that sent shivers up my spine. It was as if she were talking in a dream. "His accession to the throne, his rule itself, will be illuminated by astrology. For the first time in history, the world will be ruled by science."
    I didn't want her to see the alarm in my eyes so I stared at the hands resting on the painted marble curls. They moved rhythmically, the movement of a woman's hands as she spins at the loom, something that in obedience to ancient Roman tradition Agrippina had no doubt done herself as a child.
    "There is something else that you are destined to do for me," she went on, "one final, fateful act. It must remain secret, even from you, until the appointed time. That is why you must never seek to know your future through your stars. Never. Do you understand me?" 
    I nodded and raised my eyes cautiously to her face. But Agrippina was already in another world where it wasn't the ghost of rough wool that was running though her fingers but the silken thread of Fate itself.
     
    I was fed bread with dried figs and goat’s cheese then shown to a cubicle where I could rest. I fell asleep immediately and dreamt of a beautiful bird flying over black water. In its mouth it carried a twig of laurel. Ammut, the demon who eats the hearts of the damned, lunged out of the water and snapped at the gull with its crocodile mouth. Screeching in agony the bird struggled to escape from the slavering jaws.
    It was Euodus, jerking me awake. "You were crying out," he said. “What did you see?” When I told him he nodded. “Carrying a twig of laurel? Good. That means it’s her.”
    It took me a moment to shake off the horror of Ammut. "What's happened?"
    "The emperor has signed Messalina's death warrant."
    I was befuddled enough to ask when.
    Euodus must have known that it was I who'd signed the warrant because there was that familiar hint of grim humor in the green eyes. "A few minutes ago, along with some others to do with the new harbor. He's at dinner, drunk as usual. Probably won't even remember. I'm going ahead of the Praetorians to make sure the timing is right. You're coming with me."
    "Why me?"
    He gave me a black grin. "You’re Ammut.”
    We hurried down the steps of the Palatine, onto the
    Sacred Way, past the House of the Vestal Virgins and the temple of Julius Caesar towards the Forum with its forest of statues. The glorious dead of Rome peered at me disapprovingly out of the corners of their eyes as we passed. What right had I, a mere Greekling, to be instrumental in the death of one of their own?
    I stared back at them. I had absolutely nothing against Messalina. She was only twenty-three, beautiful with long, curly black hair, there were several statues of her in the palace. From what I’d