by Simon Turney
The autumn rolled into winter, passed through Saturnalia, and emerged into a new year in something of a dreamy blur for me. If I could have frozen time in a moment, it would have been sometime that season I would choose. But even the happiest beasts deep in hibernation eventually have to emerge into the cold light of day and seek sustenance.
I began to become aware of what was going on around me.
Dulius Silanus and Servilius Silanus became consuls, both bowing their heads in acknowledgement to Cleander, both seething at their patrician blood being forced to obeisance before a former slave. An undercurrent of disaffection that rippled across the city. It was not aimed at the emperor, for Commodus was still Rome’s golden prince, and a man of unsurpassed breeding; it was aimed at Cleander, and inevitably there was a growing dismay that the emperor was doing nothing to curtail the situation.
I wondered occasionally at how Septimius Severus and his fellow conspirators were faring. I had been forbidden from becoming involved and it had taken an effort of conscious will to stay away. On the one hand, neither Severus, Rufinus nor Dionysius had been mentioned in any untoward way, and all had steered clear of proscriptions, so they were still clearly free to work. On the other hand, they had seemed so convinced that they would be able to bring down the upstart chamberlain, and yet thus far things had only become worse.
Even had I not been urged to leave them to their work, in the tight imperial circles I now moved, in a city where every wall held Cleander’s eyes and ears, I was hardly in a position to start enquiring anyway.
I watched with dismay what was happening in the streets, though. Food was becoming scarce. Whether that was the fault of the plague preventing farms from being harvested, or some other crisis, I did not know, but when added to the disaffection under Cleander’s hard rule and the constant ravaging of the disease in the streets, it helped to turn the mood of Rome sour. Despite our happy closeness, I began to regret returning to the city.
Cleander started working against me once more. He had removed every other opponent in the regime and now, once he got rid of me, only the emperor could gainsay him. He was very circumspect, very careful. He had to be. Now that I was the emperor’s mistress and sharing his apartment I was almost untouchable. Almost. Yet twice I found among my things love letters from men purporting to be waiting for me to do away with the emperor so that we could be together. I had never heard of one of the men. The other was Eclectus, who had disappeared entirely from the scene some time ago. Subtle and dangerous. I kept a close watch, even as I burned each piece of spurious evidence that appeared in my chamber. And, of course, I did not go everywhere with Commodus. When I was on my own, I swiftly became aware that I was never truly alone. Men trailed me and watched my every move. I am certain there was a ledger in Cleander’s office that told where I was and what I was doing every moment of every day. He felt sure I would trip myself up. And I could do nothing to aid that happening. I lived an exemplary life that season, willing Severus and his companions to work their hidden magic.
I did make inroads with one old acquaintance, though.
In the winter, Galen came to court once more. He had remained in Rome during our absence, healing the wealthy and influential, putting into place once more those responses of his to the ravaging disease and, I understand, working on a treatise on the temperaments. I found him one morning waiting to seek an audience with the emperor. Oddly, it was about the only time I could claim even the remotest level of privacy outside the bedchamber. The vestibule in which the physician sat quietly was almost empty. None of the ubiquitous pursuers had followed me in here. It would have been too obvious, and was almost certainly deemed unnecessary on the Palatine, for the Praetorians had eyes and ears everywhere here anyway. But the only other two people in the room were tunic-clad figures who from their very look and stance I knew to be Commodus’ gladiatorial guardsmen. The Praetorians who habitually waited here had entered the room beyond to petition the emperor for Galen’s audience. I had only moments before they returned, but for that brief spell, I could trust everyone in the room.
‘Galen?’
His head turned slowly, wearily, and his brow knit for a moment, then recognition dawned on him.
‘Young lady. Yes, I remember you. Verus’ seamstress girl. The emperor’s consort, no less, I understand.’
I smiled. ‘Marcia, and yes. You’ve come about the trouble in the city?’
Galen nodded sadly. ‘I once left Rome, with no wish to become part of its charnel landscape like so many other thousand mouldering souls. The emperor’s father called me back to care for his family. I have done so where that was possible, but it seems so redundant now. The emperor rides chariots and fights with gladiators. He is clearly determined to maim or kill himself. And each day in this city is a die roll for my survival. I seek to return to the calm of Pergamon.’
Would that we could flee Rome so easily. To be free of both the plague and the chamberlain . . .
I frowned. Perhaps we could. There were plenty of places we could go that weren’t that Quintilian villa, after all. Would it be dangerous leaving Cleander in sole control again? Last time we had done so he had consolidated his power considerably. Could he be allowed to do so again? But then what difference were we making here anyway? Commodus was spending time at his favourite hobbies and leaving Cleander in control. I could do nothing with the man’s eyes on me constantly anyway.
‘What would your advice be to the emperor?’ I said quietly.
‘Stop fighting and racing before he kills himself.’
I chuckled hollowly. ‘I mean with regards to the plague.’
‘Staying in the city is foolish. Even here on the Palatine it is never far from the door. I have seen palace slaves struck by it.’
‘So you would advise the emperor to depart the city.’
‘Yes. And I shall.’
‘Perhaps you could remain court physician if we left? Must it be Pergamon you leave for?’
He looked wistfully into a distance only he could see. ‘To be back in that sultry homeland, its red roofs nestled between the heights, lofty and graceful homes of the gods. It is my heart’s desire.’ He sighed. ‘But there is also my duty to my work and to an old friend to do what I can for his son.’
We were interrupted then by the door to the imperial aula regia, and the Praetorians called Galen in. I left, aware that my time of privacy had passed, but that night when Commodus came to me, I learned more. We lay, tangled in sheets, resting and touching, content.
‘Galen wants me to leave Rome,’ he said in little more than a whisper, his breath on the nape of my neck.
‘Oh?’ I shivered. His fingers twined themselves in my dark hair, and I sighed contentedly.
‘He says that Rome festers and no good comes of staying here. He wishes to leave. If I go, he will accompany the court. But if I stay, he begs leave to return to his home.’
I rolled over and snuggled into the crook of his arm, my Hercules. It was still new for me. I still relished every touch.
‘What will you do?’
He stroked my hair again, and gave me an odd smile. ‘What do you think I should do? You’ve always had the answers, since we were young. When I was in despair, you found me Maximus the lion. When Mother died, you made me climb a mountain to look down on the world like a god. What do I do now?’
‘You leave,’ I replied, quietly but without a hint of hesitation and doubt.
‘Rome will not take it well. They need their emperor visible. I remember telling you that years ago when we went east and then came back and held triumphs, all to remind the people who it is that rules Rome.’
Cleander rules Rome. It almost passed between my lips and I clamped them shut to stop it. He caressed my side as I pondered, and I felt a thrill of desire pass through me again. It made me think along new lines.
‘I would say your prime concern w
ould be the succession.’
His face darkened, for that brought back unwanted memories of Bruttia Crispina and her betrayal, but he sighed. ‘With you? Don’t think I haven’t considered it. But if the senate are so set against a freedman with power – yes, I am aware that Cleander is not universally popular – imagine how they would feel about an emperor who is half born of the purple and half to the daughter of a freedwoman. The succession would be argued. There are ways, of course. If we were to marry, then it would be legitimate. But for that you would need raising from your current status. And I cannot simply make you a patrician. It doesn’t work like that. Yet perhaps someone would be willing to adopt you?’
I frowned in confusion. ‘Adopt?’
‘It is not unknown. Quadratus wanted no wife but needed an heir, so he adopted one. Back in the days of the Republic, even as a grown man, the wily patrician Publius Claudius Pulcher wanted to lower his class to secure a tribunate and had himself adopted by a much lesser equestrian family, becoming Clodius Pulcher. These things can be done. But they must be done right. Carefully.’
I continued to frown. The very idea of renouncing my link to Mother and allowing another woman to call me daughter? Strange. And no new family would likely be as welcoming of my unpopular beliefs, either. Still, along that road . . .
Empress?
I stretched. I was daydreaming now, and straying from the point. ‘We should leave Rome. The plague. It claimed your uncle. Don’t let it claim you.’
That was the correct tack to take. Verus remained his idol. To be reminded of how swiftly the glorious co-emperor had succumbed to the pestilence brought it all a little more into focus for my love.
‘Where, though? I shall not go back to the villa on the Via Appia. It is lost to me now. And the great Tibur villa was where Lucilla plotted her murder. The Tiberian island is now home to Bruttia. There are many other imperial villas, though.’ He wrapped me in his arms. ‘Would you live by the sea?’
I shivered, despite everything. Would I? Ever since that first night of the flood in Rome, great swathes of water and crashing waves have plucked at my courage and filled me with dread. Yet when I had endured the sea time and again, I had always been on a ship, at its mercy. Perhaps if I were on land? But then had I not been on dry land when the Tiber tried to take Mother . . .
‘I don’t know,’ was my honest answer.
‘There is a grand villa at Laurentinum, just up from that owned by the great Pliny once upon a time. It is perfect. Well-appointed and grand, with a guardable perimeter, close to the market and emporia at Ostia, and only a day’s travel from Rome. It has excellent gardens.’
I smiled. It would make him happy, and it would get us away from Rome, the plague, Cleander.
‘Laurentinum it is.’
It is a rare occasion when the imperial court can move at short notice and this was certainly not one of those times. Indeed, some parts of the administration were only now beginning to normalise after our return from the Via Appia. We left the city before spring began to show her luscious wares, though, and moved to Laurentinum.
I need not have worried too much about the sea. Though the villa was officially a seaside residence of the imperial family, in fact the bulk of the complex lay some distance from the shore, with one wing lancing out towards the water, ending in some sort of promontory and viewing area-cum-dining room. I nodded and smiled politely while I was shown it, fighting down the faint signs of unease at such huge quantities of water. And thereafter, I stayed as much as possible in the garden wing. Despite the constant aroma of brine and the cawing of gulls, it was a refreshing place to be. Best of all, it was purely a villa in which to relax, which meant it had no amphitheatres or race tracks, and the boundary was much shorter than the previous villa’s. The consequences suited me fine.
No entertainment venues meant that he and I made our own entertainment. And the shorter boundary meant fewer men on patrol. Consequently, the villa was almost entirely guarded by my love’s chosen gladiators, his only nod to the authority of, and necessity for, the Praetorian Guard being a small detachment housed in a separate complex on the grounds. Cleander was rendered all but blind, deaf and impotent at the villa.
Galen attended us as court physician, warning Commodus to curtail his love of the rarer seafoods and giving me a check-over, proclaiming that I was in the best of health and, with a nod to Commodus that suggested it had been his idea, that there was no reason I could not bear children.
We revelled in our love that spring and summer. It was the most carefree and happy I have ever been, and the same was true for Commodus, I’m sure. We walked and dined, laughed, talked, made love, listened to songs I’d never heard, even took a few days out to the theatre at Ostia and down to Antium for a change. It was simply the best time of my life.
Such things always come at a cost, in my experience. While we were living the life of gods and goddesses, Rome was suffering. Galen occasionally returned to the city and, though he rarely detailed what he witnessed, I could see in his eyes how bad it must have been. Rome was reaching the height of this latest wave of death. On one occasion when we did get him to speak of it, he told us bleakly that two thousand people a day were dying in the city. He then told the emperor that we were in the best possible place and to stay here until the sickness ebbed again. Then he got drunk.
Only occasionally during that time did I think of Cleander, and when I did, I found myself praying that he might be one of the plague’s latest victims. Then I would curse myself for my uncharitable thoughts, apologise to God and feel contrite, though somewhere deep in my cankered soul I would go on wishing it.
The year rolled on and it was wonderful, even with the nagging knowledge that Rome suffered. But all good things come to an end, and Saturnalia had passed in our private retreat when finally, as we waited out the last frosts of winter and looked forward to the budding Laurentine spring, the world came crashing through our door.
We could hide away no longer. Cleander had finally broken Rome.
XIX
A DANGEROUS MOB
Laurentinum, ad 190
Like many of the more expensive villas along the Laurentine coast, each owned by one of the greatest names in the empire, the one in which we spent that sojourn was connected to the main road by a long drive. The approach was lined with well-tended poplars reaching into the late Februarius sky in ordered rows, like an army on parade. Statues of gods were interspersed with the trees along the route, though pride of place, close to the villa itself, had been given to a grand likeness of Hercules that Commodus had acquired at ridiculous expense from some source in Ostia. Opposite it stood another new marble, and this one was female. It did not resemble any god of whom I was aware, but the presence of a quiver at her hip and her chiton hanging open to show one breast led me to suspect she was an Amazon. Commodus clearly saw the Hercules as himself and I had the nagging feeling that the half-exposed warrior woman was therefore supposed to be me. I did not ask. I wasn’t sure I would like the answer, whatever it turned out to be. She was shapely enough, though nowhere as pretty as the real me, if I might say.
The drive led to the villa’s gate: a beautiful oak door in a whitewashed wall flanked by two small rooms, each of which held several gladiators at any time. More were garrisoned around the periphery and in the house. The small Praetorian unit was housed off to one side, close to the beach, which was patrolled at all times. Inside that main gate lay an intricate garden formed of circular paths of white stone chippings between neat lawns and low hedges, carefully dotted with flower beds and bushes, across which stood the somewhat monumental arched entrance to the villa proper.
Commodus and I were in the atrium that morning, wrapped tight in preparation for our morning walk around the estate. It was still early in the year and the sea carried a salty chill inland. We had paused at the impluvium pool, which tinkled lightly as the water tumbled down
from the bronze satyr fountain. Commodus had been happier this past year or two than I had ever seen him. I had almost forgotten what it used to be like when I found him wallowing in the mire of his misery, contemplating death and pain on a personal, philosophical level. These last few mornings, though, and I could not explain why, there was a sadness about the edge of my love’s eyes, and I began to worry that we were bound for one of those same troughs of melancholia. Perhaps it was something to do with the season or the weather. Perhaps it was because it was this time of year that Fulvus, his twin, had lived his last few gasps of life. Whatever the reason, I was determined that he would not sink into a black mood. When I had woken in the middle of the night to find him gone from the bed and standing at the window looking out across the night, I was doubly determined.
‘We should go to Puteoli for a few days,’ I said, watching the satyr dance within the fountain’s flow.
‘Puteoli?’
‘Verus used to like Puteoli. Mother talked of it. He took his whole court there once for a few days. There are sulphur springs and baths that ease away aches and pains. It is said to be very good for you. Given the cold, why not? We can manage, what, four or five days’ journey?’
‘Two by ship,’ reminded Commodus, but nodded. ‘I know, no ships. But Puteoli is more than healing baths. There lies also one of the gates to Hades. And close by is Cumae, where the Sibyl resides with her prophecies.’
I smiled to see the sadness at the edge of his expression slowly being subsumed by excitement at a new prospect. He might not be worried about sulphur baths, but a pagan prophecy? To be honest, despite what Mother would have thought, I was fascinated at the very idea. I would love to visit Cumae myself. And apologise profusely to the Lord afterwards, of course, but not at the expense of the visit.
