The number of Messalina’s lovers was staggering, and the repetition of the process was numbing. Titus would gladly have fled, but he had no choice but to see and hear everything. His cousin wanted him to act as mute witness to an ordeal that was almost as painful and degrading for Claudius as it was for the accused.

Or was Claudius playing a cruel game with him? If Narcissus and his agents had uncovered Messalina’s dalliances with all these other men, how had they failed to identify Titus? At any moment, Titus half expected to hear Narcissus call his name, to feel the hands of the garlic-stinking Praetorian upon him, and to be thrust before Claudius to beg for his life.

Could Claudius be that devious? He seemed to have become more simpleminded as he had grown older, but perhaps that was merely the ruse of a truly ingenious mind. Titus looked sidelong at his cousin, who was wiping a bit of drool from his mouth, and tried to imagine him not as the rather sad fool he appeared to be but as a master manipulator. Claudius not only had outlived virtually everyone else in his family but had managed to become emperor. Was his survival the result of blind chance, or careful design?

Yet if any proof of Claudius’s blindness was required, surely it was the spectacle taking place before them, as one lover after another was produced to demonstrate just how unaware Claudius had been.

Narcissus called out the name of the next man to face judgement: “Bring forth Mnester!”

Titus’s heart skipped a beat. Claudius groaned.

Mnester’s golden hair was mussed and he wore only a brief, sleeveless sleeping tunic, as if he had just been pulled from his bed. His eyes were wide with fright as he peered around the room. Titus took a couple of steps back and to the side, concealing himself as best he could behind the hulking Praetorian. Had Mnester seen him already? Titus thought not. He held his breath.

Narcissus read the charges: numerous counts of adultery with the emperor’s wife and taking part in a criminal conspiracy to kill the emperor.

Claudius was close to tears. “Mnester, how c-c-could you?”

“But, Caesar, you yourself ordered me to submit to her.”

Claudius looked baffled. “Did I?”

“Do you not recall? I tried to resist her, and I begged you to take my side, but you ordered me to do whatever she commanded, no matter how degrading. You said those very words to me: ‘You must do anything she asks.’ And as a result you can see for yourself how I’ve suffered!”

Mnester lurched forward and dropped to his knees. Titus gave a jerk, for suddenly he was visible to Mnester, but the actor kept his face down and his eyes averted as he pulled his tunic over his head. He was not wearing a loincloth. Naked, he prostrated himself before Claudius, showing the lash marks across his broad back.

Mnester was racked by sobs. “Do you see how she mistreats me, Caesar? Many times, I wanted to come to you and complain, but I was too afraid of her. Afraid for my very life, Caesar!”

Mnester had not seemed very frightened when Titus had last seen him naked; indeed, the actor had seemed an eager participant in everything that had happened. But even though Titus saw through the lie, he was moved by the man’s lament. Mnester was a superb actor, and this was the performance of his life. The tears that streamed from his eyes were real, and so were the fiery red lash marks across the rippling muscles of his back.

Claudius was unnerved. He put one hand to his mouth and shook his head. His eyes glistened with tears.

Mnester glanced up. Titus saw the flash of hope in his eyes. “Please, Caesar, I have been foully used, degraded, humiliated, made the plaything of a woman who had the power of life and death over me. Have pity on me, I beg you! Banish me from Roma, send me to the wilderness, but spare my life!”

“She used you, yes,” muttered Claudius, “just as she used me.”

Titus looked sidelong at Claudius and saw that his cousin was completely dazzled by the performance. Titus saw the contrast between the two men and at the same time he grasped the connection between them: the aging, hunched emperor gazed raptly at Mnester as if the handsome, prostrate figure before him were the idealized personification of his own suffering. Was this not the highest achievement an actor could attain?

Titus stepped farther behind the Praetorian, but not before Mnester’s eyes met his. It was only a brief look, but Titus was certain that Mnester recognized him, and in the other man’s eyes Titus saw his own doom. Mnester began to raise one hand, as if to point in accusation. Titus felt as if the floor lurched beneath him. His face turned hot and his heart pounded.

“Remember the auspices!” Titus whispered.

Claudius twitched his head to one side. “What’s that?”

“Remember the auspices, Caesar. The gods demand justice.”

Claudius slowly nodded his head. He called Narcissus to him and spoke in his ear. Narcissus crossed the room and spoke to the Praetorians at the door.

Mnester remained on the floor, his face and chest wet with tears but with the faint intimation of a smile at the corner of his mouth. It was the face of an actor at the end of a tragic play, exhausted by the role and still immersed in the cathartic moment, but ready to receive the accolades of the audience. He thought he had won Claudius’s pardon.

In the next moment he was made aware of his mistake. Praetorians surrounded him. One of them produced a leather strap attached at both ends to an iron rod. While two men held Mnester to keep him from struggling free, the strangling device was slipped over his head. Only two twists of the rod were required to sufficiently tighten the strap. Mnester’s face turned a vivid shade of red, then purple. His eyes bulged. Mucus erupted from his nose. His tongue protruded from his mouth. The only noise he made sounded disconcertingly like the squeaking of a mouse.

The man holding the rod gave it another full twist. Every part of Mnester’s body convulsed, so violently that the Praetorians barely maintained their hold. Then Mnester went limp.

His body was dragged from the room. Narcissus called a slave to clean the floor where Mnester had emptied his bladder. The slave used Mnester’s discarded sleeping tunic as a mop.

“Are there m-m-more?” said Claudius in a hollow voice.

“Yes,” said Narcissus. “Several more.”

Claudius shook his head. “No more today. I’m tired. And hungry.”

“As you wish, Caesar. I’ll see that your dinner is made ready.”

“Cousin Titus will d-d-dine with me.”

Titus suppressed a groan. “If you’d rather be alone-”

“Oh, no, I insist. Run along, Narcissus. We’ll catch up.” He turned to Titus. “Thank you, cousin.”

“For what?”

“For helping me keep my nerve. I almost lost it. Mnester had to be p-p-punished.”

“Still, Caesar, there was no need for you to witness the unpleasantness.”

“No? Mnester betrayed me. He deserved to d-d-die. But his acting gave me great pleasure over the years. I owed it to him to witness his final performance.”

At dinner, Titus was the only guest. He said little. It was Claudius who filled the silence as he rambled from one topic to another, from the military situation in Britannia – conquered but still undergoing pacification by the general Vespasian – to his anger at the Jews, and all the trouble their religious fanaticism was causing, not just in their homeland but in Roma and Alexandria and every other city where their numbers were significant.

Claudius seemed completely disconnected from the events of the day. Titus could think of nothing else. A part of him remained braced for some terrible surprise.

He kept seeing Mnester’s face at the end. If Titus had said nothing, would Mnester still be alive? Titus had merely reminded Claudius of the auspices. Why did he feel a need to justify himself? Everyone else manipulated Claudius to gain his own ends. Titus had done so to save his own life.