by Simon Turney
‘This is critical imperial business, and I am a close friend of the emperor. Fetch him!’
Perhaps there was something in my expression or my voice. I was part of the emperor’s court, but I was still in truth little more than a pleb, yet something made one of the gladiators bow his head and open the door, disappearing inside.
Commodus emerged from his rooms a moment later with the gladiator. I had no idea what he planned, but he seemed to be dressed as Hercules again, down to the lion pelt and the huge club. I like to think that he was preparing for some strange pagan ceremony of which I was unaware, or perhaps readying himself for some kind of ritual bout in the arena. Whatever the case, he was clearly surprised to see me.
‘Marcia?’
I bowed. ‘Majesty. I have . . . You need to come with me.’
It is perhaps testament to what existed between us that he came without question. A moment later we were moving through the corridors of the villa with two gladiators at our back. Before we reached our destination, I tried to decide what to say. If I made it too clear, I could, in theory, be accused of leading his logic, especially if that scent had faded.
In the event, I need not have worried. Even as we neared the empress’ door, Commodus’ nose wrinkled, and I knew that he smelled it.
‘No.’
His eyes were suddenly afire. I started to worry about the wisdom of what I’d done. My eyes dropped to that monstrous Herculean club he carried, nervously. We reached Bruttia’s door and, without knocking, Commodus reached out and grasped the handle, flinging it open. The empress was lounging on a couch. I felt a chill run through me from the aroma that washed over me. There was the warm glow of charcoal and burning oil, there was the empress’ rose-petal perfume, but there was more than that. The spicy-sweat aroma of an Emesene body and the unmistakable smell of sex.
I flinched as Commodus stepped into the doorway. Oddly, as though attracted by disaster, a pair of Praetorians were suddenly in attendance. I never heard them arrive. By the time Commodus stepped into his horrified wife’s room, two trained killers and two elite soldiers were with him, all with weapons drawn.
‘You faithless harpy,’ Commodus snarled.
Bruttia Crispina recoiled as though struck.
‘Whore. Adulteress. You kill my heirs repeatedly, yet retain your honour and place. And how do you repay me? Betrayal. With him? Him?’
Bruttia clearly knew there was little point in attempting to dissemble. The odour alone condemned her. ‘You . . . you never come to me, my love.’
Commodus’ lip curled. ‘Why would I? Why would I come to a barren wife who cannot do what needs to be done?’
Bruttia quivered and, just for a moment, I actually felt sorry for her.
‘I am still a woman.’
‘No.’ Commodus spun and extended a digit at her. ‘You are an empress. That carries almost the same weight as being emperor. You must be the very embodiment of Romanitas, and if there is a single duty you have that is paramount, it is to produce an heir, a duty that you clearly cannot perform.’
Bruttia wailed. ‘I tried. I tried and I almost died.’
Commodus, still shuddering with heaving breaths of anger, gestured at the guards that accompanied us. ‘Take the empress to Rome this night. Gather her personal effects and then give her an escort of a century of Praetorians and put her on the first ship to Capri. She will not leave the island thenceforth.’
Bruttia’s eyes widened. Exile? ‘No, husband. No . . .’
Commodus’ lip twitched. ‘Do not test me, woman. You know the law. The punishment of both of you is my decision. I am inclined to leniency given our long and contented time together, and that is why you will go to blessed Capri and not meet some fate that would make you wish you’d died with one of those unborn heirs.’
‘But exile . . .’
Commodus had already turned his back on her and left the room. I glanced after him and then back to Bruttia. She fixed me with a look and I knew at that moment that she blamed me for the revelation of her adultery. Conflicting emotions flooded through me, and I threw her a sympathetic look and left. Yes, I am aware of the hypocrisy. Throughout that maelstrom of complex emotions that followed my actions and her fall, the feeling that rose paramount above the others was one of victory. I never saw her again and my final memory of her is that dreadful expression as she was condemned to exile.
Then we were marching off in the direction of the guest quarters where Julius Alexander was staying. I felt a tingle of anticipation. Commodus was angry and, while he had been lenient on Bruttia, I could not see the same clemency being levelled at his Syrian guest. I scurried along in his wake and we arrived at the guest quarters to the surprise of the two Praetorians on guard. They snapped to attention.
‘Majesty.’
‘Which room is Prince Julius Alexander’s?’ Commodus said, his voice carrying a leaden toll of doom.
The soldiers exchanged a look. ‘He and his protégé have gone night hunting, Majesty. They went to the stables just now.’
‘Night hunting indeed,’ snarled Commodus. ‘I have no idea how he knew, but he is running. Have the Nymphaeum gate sealed and alert the boundary guards. Julius Alexander is not to leave the estate.’
The Praetorians saluted and both dashed off about that duty, leaving just us and our four-man escort. Commodus turned to the two gladiators among them. ‘Go to the ludus. Rouse your fellows. Scour the estate and bring me Julius Alexander alive or dead. A bag of gold to the man who achieves it.’
With no need for further urging, the gladiators hurried off to stir their companions. I could see the twitch in Commodus’ lip. He felt furious and impotent. He was a man of action, and in a perfect world it would be him hunting down the cuckolding Emesene. Gently taking his arm, I steered him through the villa to the triclinium, where the wine from our evening symposium still stood on the table, unfinished. The two Praetorians remained with us, yet with just four of us it felt like solitude. I poured a cup of Caecuban and passed it to him, reaching for the jug of water, but he put his hand over the cup top and shook his head. It was a measure of his state of mind, since he liked his wine for sure, but always cut it with an appropriate quantity of water.
We strolled from the room onto the balcony, where the evening air had picked up into a gentle, warm breeze and the atmosphere was less cloyed with braziers. Standing on that balustrade, with Commodus occasionally supping from his unwatered wine, felt oddly perfect. As though we were the couple we had always been meant to be. It was all too easy to imagine, mentally discarding the empress who would, even now, be hurrying for the Via Appia under escort. I almost slid my arm into his, but stopped short. The evening air was quiet with the night-time susurration of insects and the fresh smell of night-blooming flowers. It was only partially marred by the muffled distant shouts of the men guarding the estate, who were scouring the periphery, looking for Julius Alexander. Despite the sprawling estate and the huge boundary, it was well protected and there were many guards. I doubted he would escape.
‘Will you divorce her?’ I asked quietly.
‘I don’t know,’ he said in reply. ‘I ought to. But I still feel somehow responsible for her. She has suffered so much, and she never really wanted me, as you can imagine. She is from a very powerful and popular family. Merely exiling her will make me enemies.’
‘But you will have to divorce her. Or take her back,’ I responded, urging him. Completely free of her, he could be mine . . .
‘I cannot take her back. Under ancient statutes, I would be in violation of the law myself if I remained with an adulterous wife. I just . . . I can’t think about it now, Marcia.’
I smiled sympathetically while inside I screamed DIVORCE at him. The moment was broken by sudden shouting. Commodus drained his cup and slapped it down on the balustrade as figures emerged from the woods that were part of the eastern ground
s of the estate. I felt tense, suddenly.
The lead figure was most definitely Julius Alexander, and on the horse close behind had to be the man he’d taken with him. Just heartbeats after them, three gladiators emerged on horseback, each armed with gleaming iron and urging their beasts on. They were going to overtake the second refugee any moment.
It was like sitting in the stands of the amphitheatre, watching this chase and combat play out. Alexander, suddenly aware that his friend was in danger, wheeled his horse and raced at the gladiators. As he rode, he lifted a javelin to shoulder height and steadied it. I watched, tense, as the two groups of riders neared.
The javelin launched and the expert hunter’s aim was true. One of the pursuing gladiators fell to the missile, though at such a distance all I could see was it strike him and throw him from his mount. More shouts of consternation and anger, and the two remaining gladiators went for Alexander, ignoring his friend – the second man was not worth a bag of coins, after all.
Julius Alexander was a master of his craft, though. He had come all the way from Syria at the bidding of the imperial consilium to entertain the crowds with his skills. And while the gladiators were good men, the best of their ilk had gone to fight in wars years ago and only now was a new generation of fighters blooming.
The horses met with a crash and again there was just a distant blur from our viewpoint at the villa, but the initial impact left the two gladiators dead or dying, one lolling sideways in his saddle, the other fallen somewhere. Satisfied that he had dealt with the pursuit and saved his friend, Alexander turned and started for the woodland again, where they would stand more chance of losing themselves and making it to the edge of the estate.
As they neared the treeline once more, a veritable sea of figures burst forth from the shadowy canopy. Gladiators, roaring, some on horseback and others on foot. Someone must have had a bow and a passing ability with it, for before they even closed, the younger hunter’s horse suddenly reared and screamed, throwing its rider with a cry of alarm.
Alexander wheeled his own steed ready to ride away again, but as he turned to flee he realised that his friend had fallen. He hauled on the reins and, as his mount stopped, slipped from the saddle, running across to the other hunter.
I watched, my breath held. I had never once believed that Julius Alexander would escape the grounds, but if he had stood a chance, then he cast it aside by stopping to help his friend. I watched the two men, Alexander crouched over the younger man, who must have been wounded in his fall, for he was not rising.
The gladiators began to howl. A variety of wicked blades were brandished and I could see them gleaming in the evening light. Death was closing in on the two fugitive hunters, and it would be brutal, each of those men wanting to be the one to deliver the killing blow and win the prize. I could picture it, a dozen blows at once, slashing and stabbing, trying each to be the first.
Julius Alexander must have come to a similar conclusion. I could not quite see what happened, but the hunter crouched lower over his friend and a moment later they both fell flat. The gladiators reached the two fallen hunters and paused. Clearly their prey were already either dead or mortally wounded. Still not prepared to be robbed of their gold, the gladiators lunged at the hunters and began to stab and hack. They only stopped when one whooped and rose, his hand shooting up into the air, a large object swinging from it. Even at this distance I knew what that was. I felt sick.
‘It is done,’ Commodus said, and his voice was as empty of satisfaction as I had ever heard.
‘What now?’ I whispered.
‘The villa has lost its shine for me,’ he replied sadly. ‘It is time to return to Rome. Even with the stink of the streets, it will smell sweet after this place.’
He turned and disappeared indoors, leaving me alone on the walkway, with howling gladiators carrying a severed head towards me.
After all my work to ruin Bruttia, to keep her from bearing an heir, in the end it had been she who had condemned herself. It was difficult, though, to feel regret or remorse. I had never been closer to Commodus. In Rome, as summer turned to autumn, we could finally be together.
XVIII
THE LIFE OF GODS AND GODDESSES
Rome, ad 188
In the event, Rome was a short-lived return for us, albeit a welcome one. We settled into the palace and, without even consulting me, Commodus had my effects moved into his apartment. I was his. He was mine. That for which I had been yearning, and often working, for more than twenty years had finally come to pass. And now it no longer felt strange, thinking back on those jibes of Cleander so long ago.
Commodus and I were not lovers immediately. I think that perhaps what had transpired with Bruttia had shaken him and made him too careful to leap into bed with me. But he had moved me close, and our time would come soon enough. I was more than willing to allow him the room he needed. After all, we had all the time we wished for, now. I was happy. I was so blissful in our togetherness, in fact, that I became all but oblivious to important things happening around me.
I barely registered as we passed through the city to the Palatine the signs of the plague that were clearly on the rise once more. We had assumed with the visible decline in its effects that the terrible pestilence that had now been with us for more than two decades was fading away. But what it was doing was ebbing and flowing like a dreadful sea, and we were just beginning to see the tide rising once more. The plague carts were at work again and new burial pits were being dug. The populace wandered, deaf to their own misery, their ears and noses stuffed with petals coated with fragrant oils and perfumes to keep the poison at bay.
A more personal omission in my attention was Cleander. I barely noticed the man as he met us and bowed deep to the emperor. While he had always been my nemesis, I had achieved that which I had sought, so I temporarily allowed myself to forget about him. Foolish. Had I been paying more attention, I might have noted that he was the master of Rome, now. The whole palace bowed to him before they even looked to the emperor. Rome was staffed, paid and punished at the whim of Cleander. And had I noticed, I would have seen the look he must have given me as we returned. His old enemy now in the most dangerous position possible, for him.
And I should have noticed Rome. Rome was not at its best. Even had the plague not troubled the city, it languished under the pestilence that was Cleander. Not one face wore a smile in that city. There was starvation among the poor – those who were not dying of the plague anyway. Those of the senatorial class wore expressions of glassy-eyed hatred, for their world was being ruled by a man who was, in their eyes, a slave, and the emperor had allowed this to happen. I would have felt panic had I really noticed how the aged aristocracy of Rome glared at their emperor. We had been gone from Rome for half a year, and Cleander had consolidated his power.
Commodus, of course, left the man to his work and threw himself into sponsoring games in the arena and races in the circus in a Cleander-inspired and partially successful attempt to keep the populace content. I was cocooned in my comfortable world in the palace, and in the late autumn I was in my chamber reading some of the more wicked poems of Catullus when there was a rap on the door. I responded ‘Enter,’ and my visitor did so. Commodus, in just his tunic and boots with a warm smile. My Hercules finally came to me as I had hoped he would all those years ago in Vindobona when he first enfolded me in an embrace.
I had known the touch of only one man in my life, and he had been forced upon me, a pig of a man. I realised suddenly as Commodus closed the door behind him that I had absolutely no idea how to approach a meeting of lovers.
He came to the bed languidly, and I struggled to decide what I should do. Had this been Quadratus, all animal instinct and wine-soaked desperation, I would have risen up with arched brows and prepared myself to lead him through the night. That would not do with the man I loved. The man I had yearned for all these years. The master of the w
orld.
He slid from his tunic and boots, and to me he was truly Hercules, his body toned and muscular from his years of training and exercise, his flesh taut and smooth, his hair and beard twinkling golden in the lamplight. I held my breath.
I should have removed my own tunic, I suppose, but in the strangest way for a woman who had become a whore and an Amazon to survive her unwanted master, I was suddenly extremely self-conscious and nervous.
His smile eased my spirit a little, but I was still almost shivering with tense anticipation as he slid across the bed and slipped my tunic up over my head. I folded my arms across my breasts.
‘I am not Quadratus.’
That was it. A simple phrase, and yet it sank in, flooding me with relief. It meant that he understood. He knew what I was feeling, and he knew how to deal with it. Just as I had so many times urged him back from the dark with slow, careful words, so he knew how to coax me from my odd shyness. He pushed me gently back to my pillow and we lay side by side, his fingers tracing delicate designs on my shoulders, my neck, my thigh.
Everything I had learned in those years under Quadratus melted away. With Commodus I did not need to struggle. With Commodus I could be a woman. I lay, enjoying his touch, anticipated for so many years. He was surprisingly gentle and delicate. We were there for a day, or it felt as much to me, he enjoying my presence and me enjoying his touch, neither of us willing to push the other into anything. In fact, I think we would have simply laid beside one another like that the whole night, had I not finally plucked up the courage to raise my head from the bed and kiss him.
That kiss changed my world. As though he had been waiting for it, he was unleashed.
We made love. Not the animal sex that I remembered with Quadratus, but a sensual, caring, exciting and daring meeting of lovers. I had never known such ecstasy. And he was insatiable, in the most perfect way.
The birds were already tweeting their greeting to the day when we finally lay, exhausted and still. Even then he returned to tracing delicate designs on my skin with his fingertips, and that was the last thing I felt before an exhausted, contented sleep claimed me.
