Vestal Virgin: Suspense in Ancient Rome by Suzanne Tyrpak Read Free Book Online

she’d been more amenable, I might have pardoned him.”
    Nero’s words wrapped around Elissa’s throat making speech impossible. She sat rigid in the chair. Hands locked together, she stared straight ahead. Perhaps what Nero claimed was true. Perhaps she could have saved her brother. The noose she felt around her neck grew tighter. Edges faded into darkness. Nothing seemed real. Except the pain she felt. At the corners of her eyes, she noticed movement, figures forming in the shadows. Lemures.
    “Where’s the body?” Justinus asked.
    Nero motioned toward the door. “In an urn. Not the most expensive, but acceptable.”
    “Cremated?”
    “Burned,” Elissa’s voice sounded strangled. “Burned alive.”
    “I should have thrown that traitor’s ashes in the sewer,” Nero said, “let the filth of his remains wash into the Tiber. But I’m known for my clemency, so I’ve had the traitor’s urn delivered to The House of Rubrius.”
    Elissa dug her fingernails into the chair, attempting to control her rage. She couldn’t bear to think about her parents, could not begin to imagine their anguish.
    “And to think I once called you my friend,” Justinus said, his voice rising. “Angerona, Elissa—let’s go now.”
    “Not so fast,” Nero said. “We need to talk.”
    “I have nothing to say to you.”
    “I want to hear about the plot to murder me.”
    “What plot?”
    “Perhaps you’re in on it. Marcus was, and I suspect Elissa.” Nero held up his hand, displaying red marks. “She bit me like an animal. By rights, she should be punished. No, my friend, you’re not leaving yet.”
    Turning from Justinus, Nero ordered slaves to light the lamps and serve more wine.
    Shadows jumped along the walls and flickered over Nero’s face. Elissa couldn’t bear to look at him. Eyes closed, she floated down the River Styx, descending into Hades. The dead surrounded her.
    Remember us, they whispered.
    Sosianus, beaten with hooked whips for reciting a poem insulting to Nero; Octavia, Nero’s first wife, wrongly accused of adultery then put to death; Britannicus, half-brother of Nero and true heir to the empire, sodomized and poisoned. And his mother, Agrippina—when drowning failed, she had been bludgeoned.
    Remember us!
    Some called Elissa’s ability to see lemures-to hear them and to speak to them-a gift. Supplicants came to the temple, seeking contact with lost souls, hoping for a moment of connection. But, to Elissa, the gift often seemed like a curse. The dead gave no warning, arriving when they chose.
    Mist rose from the river as she drifted. On the far bank the shade of Agrippina beckoned. The queen called out, her voice high-pitched as winter’s wind, “You hold the key, Elissa—the key to truth.”
    Angry voices dragged Elissa back into the chamber. Nero and Justinus were arguing.
    “You’ve gone too far, Ahenobarbus,” Justinus shouted.
    “How dare you call me by that name?”
    “It’s your name by birth. Or have you forgotten? Forgotten your humanity?” As he spoke, it seemed to Elissa that Justinus grew taller. “What happened to the young man who despised violence,” he said, his voice gaining strength. “The man who lost himself in scholarly pursuits. The hope of the empire.”
    “I might ask the same of you. You’re an old man at twenty-four. Remember how we ran wild in the streets—you, me, and Lucan? Disrupting taverns, playing havoc in the brothels. Do you deny it?”
    “That was a long time ago. I’ve grown up since then.”
    “You’ve grown old.”
    “And wiser.”
    “Time takes its toll on all of us.” Nero placed his hand over his heart, his face a tragic mask. “I should have been a poet. My lyric verse exceeds Lucan’s. Some claim it rivals Virgil’s. But destiny demands I play the role of emperor.”
    “I pity you,” Elissa said.
    “What?” Nero turned to her. “Did you say something, Elissa? You look tired. Worn. But just last week I noticed your