by Simon Turney
‘It’ll be Jupiter. Or Saturn. No, Jupiter. Father’s a god, you know?’
This was difficult territory. I was seven years old and no master theologian, but even I could see the narrow, difficult avenues this conversation was heading down. I tried to change the subject a little. ‘It’s the same god as the Jews have. Or so Mother says. I’m not sure how that is, but apparently it is.’
‘When I grow up, I’m going to be a god,’ Commodus said with a strange faraway look in his eye. ‘Like Father, but not the same one. He’s him. I’ll be Hercules. I like Hercules.’
And suddenly he was off again. In his head, he was now the Greek hero, completing trials and slaying foes. My theological crisis had been averted by the attention span of a three-year-old, and I could only thank him for that. But suddenly his eyes darkened again.
‘Wish I was Aesculapius. Then I’d make Fulvus better. When will he be well?’
Lord, but this was a day for difficult conversations. His parents had explained to him that his twin brother might never be well, and that they were praying and sacrificing in every way they could, yet to Commodus it was never a question of if Fulvus would get better. Just when.
The month passed and Saturnalia came and went, though celebrated in a rather subdued manner in the palace. It made little difference to me. Mother would not allow me to celebrate that pagan ritual anyway, though I would often sneak out to watch what I could, and once I even caught sight of the red-painted Lord of Misrule being released to cause havoc.
The slave Cleander put in increasing appearances over the winter, whenever the adults were not watching, and always welcomed by Commodus. While I did not like him, especially since his tirade against me, I could hardly deny how important he became to Commodus, distracting him from his worry with games and humour. I had not the heart to try and stop him.
Januarius came and there was a little visible improvement in Fulvus, hope restored with the new year. The emperor made sure to visit the Tiber island at least once in every market cycle and gave such gifts to the god as might buy a kingdom somewhere. The physicians, though, were cagey. When consulted, despite the apparent improvement, they still sucked their teeth and refused to commit to the belief that he was on the mend.
Physicians know their craft. Despite having gained colour and a little activity, Fulvus died before Aprilis.
The loss hit me hard. Very hard. I had spent two happy years playing and learning alongside that extraordinary little prince and he was as close to me as any brother. The emperor and empress went about the business of state and managed to fit in the appropriate mourning time and ceremonies. Fulvus was to be elevated among the gods despite his youth. Looking back, I realise now how badly Aurelius and Faustina took the death, and it is a credit to them both just how thoroughly they continued to rule and administer, giving way to grief only in private. I was to be allowed neither the time nor the room to grieve in myself, for Commodus was there, and with the increase in activity around the imperial family now, Cleander was unable to play his part in keeping the prince happy.
The empire mourned. The imperial family mourned. And me? I supported the surviving prince, trying to fill the role that Cleander had created over the past month. I have heard it said that there is a link between twins that does not exist between other siblings, or indeed any other people. I suspect that when such a link is broken something fails inside. Certainly, Commodus changed the day Fulvus died. Something came over him then, something that never left.
I spent months with Commodus, and our parents not only allowed it, but actively encouraged it. He was troubled, and I seemed to be the only thing he clung to. I know that he could easily pass a day in lessons or social activities as though nothing untoward had occurred, but then suddenly he would suffer in the evenings. His mood would plunge, and he would become dour and untalkative. Once, even, I found him pulling out clumps of his glorious golden hair, leaving raw skin in patches. I did not know what to do, other than try to calm him and brush his luscious curls so that they covered the worst of the damage. Then, one day in late summer, I decided that, since no one else seemed to know how to deal with the distraught and unpredictable prince and they were all content to leave me consoling him, I would have to find a way to heal him myself. I found him in his room, staring at the floor.
‘Why didn’t I die?’ he asked without looking up as I entered the room. I gently clicked the door closed behind me.
‘Why should you have?’
‘Nikandros is teaching me about halves,’ he answered, seemingly at a tangent, but I knew him well enough to wait for the connection. It came directly, and when it did, it floored me. ‘I’m half a person, Em, and Fulvus is the other half. When a man loses an arm or a leg, he dies. I losed half of me. Why am I still alive?’
I nodded. That explained the hair tearing in some warped way. ‘Maybe God still has a plan for you.’
He gave me a look that made me regret bringing my faith into the subject.
I sighed and tried again. ‘You still have a future. More than a future. You’re the son of the emperor. No emperor’s had a son since the Flavians. You know what that means? It means you will be the next emperor. The first boy born to the purple in a hundred years. That has to mean something. Your father needs you. The empire needs you.’ I smiled weakly.
He slumped back. ‘I’m . . . broken. Don’t know how to get better.’
I shivered. He was not yet four years of age, and such words from his mouth as would make a philosopher marvel.
‘Then let’s find out. Together.’
And we did. The next morning, I found him still moping in the dark. The sun was out, and bees hummed, almost as much as the reek of the streets in the heat. But I had an idea.
‘Come on,’ I said, grabbing him and leaving no room for argument. I took him to the old stadium on the eastern side of the palace. In truth, it had probably never been used as a stadium and had always been a garden, but during the reign of Hadrian part of the garden had been turned into a bestiary, containing some of the exotic creatures that wide-travelled emperor had seen in their native countries. Most of the beasts had long since perished and had never been replaced by successive emperors, but there was one creature there that I knew Commodus loved. The lion was known as Maximus, named for the assassin who had put an end to hated Domitian, and he had been here more years than anyone could remember, yet still seemed virile and powerful.
As we crossed the marble chipping path and passed between well-tended flower beds towards that cage, I knew I had done something right. I caught Commodus’ eye and there was a sparkle there that had been lacking these past few months. I had kindled something. He approached the cage and nodded.
‘Why do we follow a silly bird?’
I chuckled. ‘The eagle of Rome. It is noble. Powerful. Ancient.’
‘It’s just a bird,’ he replied. ‘Put it in the cage with Maximus and see. Rome shouldn’t be a bird. It should be a lion.’
And that started it. Over the next few days we visited anything that sparked interest in the young prince. The change was noted by the emperor and his empress, and my mother was astonished when a gift of a whole bag of silver coins appeared in our apartment. With the emperor’s permission, and an escort of Praetorians, slaves, lackeys and freedmen, of course, we visited the supplier of beasts for the arena and secured the purchase of a number of new exhibits for the Palatine.
And with every new beast we caged, I watched the boy’s smile widen.
III
THE ERRANT PRINCE
Rome, ad 166
Another year passed in the palace. The emperor Marcus Aurelius continued to rule from the city itself, leading processions and rites and presiding over important matters of state, attending meetings of the senate and the like. Commodus seemed to have recovered somewhat from the shock of Fulvus’ death, thanks in no small part to my efforts,
I believe, and, though I am loath to admit it, also the efforts of Cleander when access was possible. Still, sometimes I would catch him with a distant, forlorn look. His odd obsession with Hercules continued, and he could sometimes be found carrying a makeshift club and wearing an old piece of drapery resembling a lion pelt. The emperor seemed to find this endearing, and perhaps he approved of his son’s interest in so great a hero, for on his fourth birthday, his father commissioned a statue that now stood in the palace, depicting young Commodus as a childhood Hercules, battling serpents. In my head, the serpents were beginning to bear a marked resemblance to Cleander.
I did have another, more welcome, helper in keeping the prince grounded and lively, though. While I was now eight and Commodus nearing five, little Annius had grown into himself at a lively three, with his next birthday rapidly approaching. He was every bit the lively scamp his older brother had been, and the two of them had begun to form a definite bond in the absence of Fulvus. It was not the same sort of bond the twins had shared, of course, but there was a closeness which, added to my own connection with the prince, began to stitch together the open wound of Fulvus’ passing.
I must admit to a little jealousy on my part. The closeness that was growing between the brothers impinged on the connection I had with Commodus, and I found that I preferred his attentions all to myself – not an attractive trait in a person, I know, and I suppressed it as best I could and concealed it beneath a warm smile. It was not Annius’ fault I felt that way, and the positive influence he had on his brother was undeniable. Still, it was an insight into myself that I was not particularly proud of.
The palace on that morning of the Ides of Aprilis was in turmoil. Rome seemed to be a whirlwind of events, and its beating heart on the Palatine even more so. With the birthday of the young prince approaching, the palace was being made ready and slaves and freedmen rushed this way and that in an organisational flurry. My mother was working flat out, even though she had been given permission to bring in another seamstress to help spread the workload, for finery was required for the celebration, as well as other, perhaps even more important, events.
Lucius Verus was on the way home. Couriers had brought the news a matter of days ago. The emperor had been victorious over the dreaded Parthians, as we all knew he must be, and he was coming home. His legions had been settled and veterans were flooding back west ahead of their glorious master, who travelled slowly, in state, visiting every important town on the way. One of the great burdens of empire is to be omnipresent, but even with two emperors, it was difficult. I was less thrilled to realise that this meant the ice-cold Lucilla would be returning to Rome alongside her husband, but, apparently, as well as marrying while in Ephesus on campaign, she had given birth and was bringing home a new princess of the Antonine dynasty. Perhaps the baby would keep her busy and away from us all. There was talk that the emperor would have a triumph, and certainly there would be celebrations across the city.
But every coin has two sides, and the coin of Verus’ success bore a reverse face of misery. A shadow was already falling across Rome for, in advance of the glorious emperor, his veterans brought back more than victory. From somewhere in the east, they brought sickness. As yet, Rome seemed to be enduring, but there were tales from Asia and from Greece, and even from other parts of Italia, that towns were being ravaged by a plague brought from Parthia. Not for the first time was I glad that we lived on the Palatine with its lofty heights and spacious gardens, high above the narrow, reeking streets where the disease would take hold soon enough.
There were days now when the boys and I did not share lessons. Officially it was in order to vary the subject according to the student, such that Commodus was now learning sentence structure using the translated works of Hesiod, while I was given tuition in household matters, like sewing, and Annius was dragged through his numbers and letters to catch us up. I wanted to sit through Commodus’ lessons instead, for I needed precious little instruction in sewing, and household management bored me, but in my paltry free time I had discovered a love of reading already, even stuffy, dry Cicero.
Thus it was that one day I was sitting on a marble bench beneath a colonnade, alone. I had been given a project to sew that I could have done with my eyes shut. My tutors seemed to forget that my mother was a seamstress, and that I had been watching her sew since before I could say my own name. Annius was off in some dreary room somewhere learning to count, and I knew Commodus was being walked through the basics of ancient sentences by Nautius Costa, a master of language and a funny-looking man who reminded me of a stork.
So, I sat, and I sewed, and all was peaceful despite the organisational flurries of the palace. Occasionally a freedman or slave would pass the time of day with me, and I would respond pleasantly and go on with my work. And then, suddenly, Commodus emerged from a passageway with a gleam of mischief in his eye: the sort he used to have when running off with Fulvus. I paused in my task.
‘What are you up to?’
The prince grinned at me and scurried over, checking the peristyle to confirm we were alone. ‘Hesiod’s boring. C’mon.’
He grabbed my arm and hurried off towards another corridor and, flustered, I followed on. We threw ourselves into the shady passageway and Commodus stopped, still grinning, and put a finger to his lips to keep me silent. We turned and looked back across the gardens in time to see the ungainly, avian figure of Nautius Costa emerge from that same archway as the prince had done. The old man stopped and looked this way and that, grumbling to himself. Honestly, with his gangly form, tendency to bend sharply, and the avian aspect to his nose and eyes, he was so stork-like that I would not have been surprised had he stood there on one leg. He called ‘Highness?’ and began to circle around the colonnade, peering into doorways. Commodus chuckled very quietly, then ran away along the shady corridor, flat sandals slapping softly on the marble.
I followed him and a short while later we emerged into another garden and paused for breath. ‘You will get into so much trouble,’ I reminded the prince, but young Commodus really did not care.
‘Costa is boring. Rhetoric’s boring. Come on.’
And we were off again. Two further corridors and we burst out into sunshine once more. I had no idea why we were taking the somewhat circuitous route that we were, but the reason became clear when Commodus shouted Cleander’s name. Across the garden, the slave was sweeping a balustraded area.
‘Highness?’
‘Come on.’
And now we were all scurrying through the palace, a slave and a plebeian in the wake of a prince who was exhibiting far less decorum than either of us. As we ran, Commodus ahead, leading us to some as yet unannounced destination, Cleander and I shared a look. Empires have clashed with less force than that which passed between our gazes, yet both of us kept silent. Ours was a private hatred, we did not share it with the prince.
We arrived at the stadium soon after, and Commodus hurried off to the ornamental garden at one end. Half a dozen slaves were at work clipping hedges and weeding flower beds. Some poor unfortunate was sawing lumps from something dead and pushing it between the bars of Maximus’ cage at the far end, snatching back his hand hurriedly as the ageing lion’s powerful jaws closed on the food. But Commodus’ purpose today was not in the menagerie. As Cleander and I stood on the path, the young prince ducked behind a neatly tended hedge and reappeared carrying two wooden swords, the sort that soldiers train with, though reduced in size to suit a child. Where he had acquired the weapons and how he had managed to keep them safely hidden from the myriad gardeners, I could not say, but he seemed immensely proud of himself as he stepped back out.
I swallowed, imagining the vast amount of trouble for which we were headed thanks to Commodus skipping out of his lessons to have fun. I half expected him to hand me one of the swords and was struck by an odd mix of relief and disappointment when he did not. Instead, he held out one, hilt first, to Cleander. The s
lave boy stared at the weapon as though it were a cobra, rearing back to strike. Slaves do not touch weapons unless they are given them to clean or handed one and pushed out onto the sands of the arena to bleed for the crowd. If he grasped that sword and someone important saw him, he would almost certainly lose his arm, if not his head.
Commodus grinned. ‘Go on.’
Gingerly, as though it were coated with something vile, Cleander took the sword by the pommel between sweating fingers. He still stared in horror at it.
‘This is dangerous,’ I breathed.
‘And fun.’ Commodus grinned. ‘Take it, Cleander. No one cares.’
Not strictly true, yet with only garden slaves in sight no one would gainsay the young prince, so we were relatively safe for now. ‘What if someone comes?’ I whispered.
‘You’re lookout,’ he said and pointed to the arcades above. I sighed. Wonderful. Commodus played games that would get us all punished and it was my job to keep us from being seen. I found a bench close by from which I could see the two boys, but also the bulk of the palace and the various entrances that opened onto the stadium.
The boys stood facing one another on the grass. Commodus held his little sword with a surprisingly professional grip. Cleander was still clutching his as though it were trying to leach through his skin and poison him.
‘Don’t hurt each other,’ I hissed. ‘One bruise and the empress will know you’ve not been standing in a classroom.’
‘You’re the editor, Em,’ Commodus grinned. ‘You say when.’
I wanted nothing less than to give the word for the two boys to start clubbing and stabbing each other with bits of wood. I tried one last time. ‘This is dangerous. You’ll get hurt. Put them away.’
‘I’ll be editor, then,’ Commodus said, throwing me a black look. He turned back to the slave. ‘Go.’
