I, Claudius - Robert Graves [141]
"Tell that to the judges," said Apronia's brother, striding up, "and see whether they'll believe you. You've killed her all right. Her skull's smashed in."
"I didn't do it," said Plautius. "How could I have done?
I was asleep. It was witchcraft. Numantina's a witch."
At dawn he was taken before the Emperor by Apronia's brother. Tiberius cross-examined him severely. He said now that while he was sound asleep she had torn herself from his arms and leaped across the room, shrieking and crashed through the window into the courtyard below. Tiberius made Plautius accompany him at once to the scene of the murder. The first thing that he noticed in the bedroom was his own wedding-gift to Flautius, a beautiful bronze-and gold candelabra taken from the tomb of a queen, now lying broken on the ground. He glanced up and saw that it had been wrenched from the ceiling. He said: "She clung to it and it came down. She was being carried towards the window on somebody's shoulders. And look how high up in the window the hole is! She was pitched through, she did not jump through."
"It was witchcraft," said Plautius. "She was carried through the air by an unseen power. She shrieked and blamed my former wife Numantina."
Tiberius scoffed. Plautius' friends realised that he would be convicted of murder and executed, and his property confiscated. His grandmother Urgulania therefore sent him a dagger, telling him to think of his heirs, who would be allowed to keep the property if he anticipated the verdict by immediate suicide. He was a coward and could not bring himself to drive the dagger home. Eventually he got into a hot bath and ordered a surgeon to open his veins for him; he slowly and painlessly bled to death. I felt very badly about his death. I had not accused Urgulanilla of the murder at once because I would have been asked why when I heard the first shrieks I had not jumped up and rescued Apronia. I had decided to wait until the trial and only come forward if Plautius seemed likely to be condemned. I knew nothing about the dagger until it was too late. I comforted myself by the thought that he had treated Numantina very cruelly and had been a bad friend to me, besides.
To clear Plautius’ memory his brother brought a charge against Numantina of having disordered Plautius' wits by witchcraft. But Tiberius intervened and said that he was satisfied that Plautius had been in full possession of his faculties at the time. Numantina was discharged.
There was not another word spoken between Urgulanilla and myself. But a month later Sejanus paid me a surprise visit as he was passing through Capua. He was in Tiberius' company, on the way to Capri, an island near Naples, where Tiberius had twelve villas and frequently went for amusement. Sejanus said: "You'll be able to divorce Urgulanilla now. She's due to have a child in about five months' time, so my agents inform me. You have me to thank for this. I knew Urgulanilla's obsession about Numantina. I happened to see a young slave, a Greek, who might have been Numantina's male twin. I made her a present of him and she fell in love with him at once. His name's Boter."
What could I do but thank him? Then I said, "And who's my new wife to be?"
"So you remember our conversation? Well, the lady I have in mind is my sister by adoption—Elia. You know her of course?"
I did, but I hid my disappointment, and merely asked whether anyone so young, beautiful and. intelligent would be content to marry an old, lame, sick, stammering fool like myself.
"Oh," he answered brutally, "she won't mind it in the least. She'll be marrying Tiberius' nephew and Nero's uncle, that's all she thinks about. Don't imagine that she's in love with you. She might bring herself to have a child by you for the sake of its ancestry, but as for any sentiment—"
"In fact, apart from the honour of becoming your brother-in-law, I might just as well not divorce Urgulanilla for all the improvement it will make to my life?"
"Oh, you'll manage," he laughed. "You don't live too lonely a life here, by the look of this room. There's a nice woman about somewhere, I can see. Gloves, a hand-mirror, an embroidery frame, that box of sweets, flowers carefully arranged. And Elia won't be jealous. She has her own men friends, probably, though I don't pry into her affairs."