Commodus

by Simon Turney

  Another shiver. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Clarus and Falco have to die, Marcia.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Clarus has been openly speaking against me. He accuses me of bleeding the senate dry and lavishing everything on the plebs. He attacks my reputation. He sullies my name.’

  In fact, everything Clarus had said was little more than plain truth, though he had certainly taken the bit between his teeth and made sport with it all.

  ‘He can be punished in other ways,’ I tried.

  ‘No. Clarus must die. I have built a new world, a new Rome, and Commodus Hercules is glorious. Beloved by the people. I cannot have that endangered by one bitter old rich man who is too spoiled to see how I have been lenient with his class thus far.’

  ‘No. You can’t.’

  His eyes hardened. ‘Think hard before you attempt to impose commands upon me, Marcia. Falco is behind the destruction of my statues. The frumentarii have been at work and they have unpicked the web of my opponents. Falco is even the man behind the defacing of the colossus. Falco must die too. That is why I offered he and Clarus the consulate.’

  ‘I just don’t understand,’ I stuttered.

  ‘I wanted them on a pedestal, because there they are most visible and have the furthest to fall. And I want it in public. In front of the senators. It needs to be open and clear. They will die for treachery against their emperor, and the message will be clear to the senate. They need to understand. A knife in the dark for the pair would remove them, but it would not prevent others taking up their treasonous standard and rallying to it. I need the senate to understand what it means to oppose their emperor. I will start the first year of my new empire with a sacrifice for Janus. Two heads for the two-faced god.’

  I shuddered. I had known for months that the situation with the senate was going to explode. I had been grateful that Commodus was no longer under the influence of Cleander and that he could perhaps be persuaded to handling the situation carefully. But I had forgotten that I could no longer be that influence, and Eclectus, trusted though he was, did not have enough of a voice to change an emperor’s mind. I had not counted on the fact that, unseen by me, Commodus had slipped into the darkest of moods. The combination was appalling, given the timing. An angry, tortured man, seemingly beset by suicidal thoughts, dealing with men who had openly challenged and insulted him? What chance did they stand?

  ‘You can’t kill them,’ I said desperately.

  ‘Watch me. They have had leniency for too long. Now they take advantage. Cleander once advocated butchering the whole lot of them. Clearing out the senate and disbanding them. I almost let him – perhaps I should have done – but I will not be the man to kill Rome’s government entire. I shall, however, take my two most bitter opponents and make an example of them to send out my message.’

  I shook my head. ‘It will only provoke more reaction. It will not heal the problem. It will make it worse.’

  He flashed that look at me again, hard-eyed. ‘I warned you not to command me, Marcia. I will not have it.’

  Lord, but I had to do something. If he marched out into the banquet tomorrow with blades in hand and gladiators at his back and butchered two of Rome’s highest nobles in cold blood in front of a horrified banquet of people? Even Commodus’ great reputation could not withstand what that would do.

  ‘Forget the senate,’ I urged him. ‘You have the army. The people love you. Even the Christians praise you and they have never approved of an emperor before. What does the senate matter? They are just bureaucrats. Please, Commodus. Don’t do this.’

  His hard eyes narrowed. ‘I will have my golden age, Marcia, and I will not allow its sheen to be dulled by the tarnish of the senate. They have to live in my new world, yet they resist. How can I have a new age when bitter men cling to the old? Be grateful I plan to do this with just two deaths. Remember that Cleander would have had the lot.’

  I shivered again.

  ‘You can’t,’ I pleaded. ‘This won’t knock the senate into line. It will just turn them further from you. And your beloved people will see you killing men for nothing more than speaking against you. You cannot do this. You must not do this.’

  He slapped me.

  I staggered back in shock. I had been hit by no man since Quadratus. And I would never have expected it from Commodus. His slap left a sting on my cheek and a throbbing in the flesh. I stared in horror, even as I realised what I had done.

  I had torn off that scab and the wound had begun to bleed once more. Half a year of careful behaviour, reconstructing his trust, all lost in one encounter, for I had tried to change his decision. I shook my head, unwilling to believe what I had done.

  ‘I did not mean to . . . I didn’t . . . I just . . .’

  He looked at me, and I recoiled from what I now saw in those eyes. ‘You play me like a piece in a game, woman. I had begun to believe my mistrust unfounded. That perhaps I was being unfair. That Bruttia and Cleander had got you wrong. But no, they were absolutely correct about you. And I was fooling myself that you had changed. You will never change.’

  ‘My love—’

  Desperate. And I sounded it.

  ‘Silence,’ he snapped. ‘You and Eclectus. Always trying to push me. To direct me. He’s nearly as bad, but you . . . After all this time I come to you in a moment of need, and instead of helping me, supporting me, healing me, you refuse me. You push me. You command me.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to . . .’ I reached up, imploringly with both arms. I had opened that wound and now it bled worse than ever, a torrent of dark life.

  ‘No,’ he said in a voice cold as ice. ‘No. You will never control me again. Nobody will. And when I have made an example of those two vile hypocrites tomorrow, I shall need to make a few more examples, I think. Rome will have its new age, even if I have to construct it on the bodies of the old.’

  He threw one last furious look at me, spun on his heel and stormed out of my room.

  What had I done?

  After everything I had worked for, I had ruined it all for the sake of two men I didn’t even like. I had denied Commodus, and he had pulled down that mask once more over a soul no longer black with sorrow, but crimson with rage.

  God help the world on the morrow.

  XXVI

  THE GLORIOUS HERCULES

  Rome, 31 December ad 192

  Commodus had stormed from my room, but he did not go straight to the gladiator barracks as he had planned. Instead, enraged and bellowing threats, he retreated to his own apartments in the palace. I was beside myself. I had no idea what to do. I had clearly killed off whatever remained between us. I could not see Commodus ever coming to me again, ever trusting me. Perhaps he was right not to. But equally, what I had seen in him just then showed me how much he had changed in those months of wearing his mask and playing to the crowd. This was not the Commodus I had nurtured. This was a different Commodus entirely, transformed from my childhood friend, given to melancholia, into Cleander’s monster of manic danger and heights of extravagance. A creature of violence and raw, unchecked emotion. I was not sure I would even want that man.

  My Commodus had gone.

  Still, even if it was almost certainly over, I did not want there to remain such a gulf between us, and despite the danger, I still had it in mind to try once more, carefully, to persuade him from the course of his murderous plan. I went to his rooms, only to find that even inside the apartment he was guarded by his gladiators, as though perhaps I might come after him with a blade in his own room.

  I discovered that he had only briefly visited his apartment before heading to the private baths. I could picture him there, seething in his rage and drinking more than was good for him. I enquired as to whether he had taken wine and water with him. Yes, a single jug of wine, but he had sent to the kitchens for another.

  I shiver
ed. He was currently sober and angry, and look what he had planned. What might he decide upon when drunk and angry?

  Resolved that I would withstand his anger and even a beating if need be, I went to the baths to reason with him, only to find my way barred. Narcissus stood at the door and refused me access. The emperor wished to be alone. Briefly I considered trying to persuade Narcissus to admit me – he had known me as long as he had known Commodus, after all – but I knew it to be a futile notion. For Narcissus I had ever been a peripheral figure, while the emperor had been his patron, his student, even his friend.

  I fumed impotently. If Commodus went on unchecked, the new consuls would die in the morning in a most unpleasant and very public manner, and with them would die the reputation of Commodus the golden. He would be seen as a tyrant, at best. I had to stop him, for them and for himself. For Rome, in fact. But how could I persuade him from his path if that hulking wrestler would not let me see him?

  It irked me further when a slave boy appeared, carrying a tray of small snacks, and Narcissus permitted him access. I tried to follow the boy, but my way was barred again. I retreated to the outer corridor to think. I should go and see Eclectus. Commodus had spoken of the chamberlain in the same breath and the same tone as myself. He was an ally of mine and clearly still so. Perhaps he would have a better idea of what to do, though it had sounded during the emperor’s rant as though Eclectus had made himself unpopular in the same way as I. Perhaps together we might stand a chance?

  Still I dithered out there in the corridor.

  With a huff of irritation, I turned to have a last go at passing the gladiator on the door, but as I made to leave the vestibule and enter the bathhouse area once more, I walked straight into that slave boy on his return journey. He bounced from me and fell, his burden clattering away across the floor. I felt sorry for the lad. None of this was his fault. As he rubbed the bump on his head he had received from the marble floor, I collected up the item he had dropped.

  It was a wax writing tablet of a very common sort in the palace, made of linden wood and tied with a leather thong. Such a mundane thing. When it hit the ground, the tie had come undone and I picked it up, turning it over, ready to close it once more.

  I stopped. Quite by chance, I had automatically read the top line.

  My heart fluttered.

  The top line was my name, inscribed in Commodus’ own handwriting that I knew so well.

  My name!

  The boy struggled up, dazed, shaking his head, apologising profusely for his clumsiness. I barely heard him. My name topped a list. Below it was Eclectus’. Warnings began to sound in my mind.

  Marcia

  Eclectus

  Laetus

  Pompeianus

  The list went on, and my shrewd brain formed the link instantly with each new name. They were all those who argued with Commodus, who tried to steer him, even down to Pompeianus, who had been his father’s confidante and who had tried to persuade the young emperor against abandoning the Danubius war. And Laetus who, though I knew not of any argument he’d had with the emperor, had been made Praetorian prefect purely on the advice of Eclectus, with whom he was close friends.

  We were all opponents of one sort or another. Even me.

  I hardly dared believe what this meant. But in truth I knew even before I had the confirmation. There were few reasons for such a list, and only one blatant one.

  ‘Who are you to deliver this to?’ I asked, closing the tablet and clutching it tight.

  ‘Centurion Adrastus, Domina.’

  My already chilled blood froze at the confirmation I had dreaded. That particular centurion of the Praetorians had a name that was synonymous with death. Adrastus was the man in charge of the execution of those proscribed by imperial order. He and his soldiers were the men who took the blade to the neck of traitors and enemies of the state. They were the men who would cast a body down the Gemonian Stairs to be torn to pieces by the public.

  It was a list of proscriptions.

  A death list.

  And my name topped it.

  Oddly, it was not panic that gripped me. I was past panic. It was a sad mixture of disappointment and resolve. I would not die. I might not be able to save the consuls from the emperor’s blades, but I would damn well make sure this list did not become a reality. I contemplated simply erasing the list and discarding the tablet. Perhaps that would be enough? Maybe in the morning the emperor’s anger would have abated and he would have second thoughts about his proscriptions. It was possible.

  But it was a dreadful gamble. If he did not change his mind and it came to light that I had waylaid his list . . . well, in Antonine Rome there are worse fates than the edge of a blade. Cleander had made that clear with all his proscriptions, some of which had resulted in ten days of blood-curdling screams from the Palatine’s cellars before a man was allowed the blessing of death.

  No. I would not die. I had to find Eclectus. He might have an answer, and at the very least he deserved to know that he too was on the list.

  ‘I will deliver this to the centurion,’ I told the slave. He looked uncertain for a moment, but he had no idea what the thing was. He was only young and almost certainly could not read, and slaves did not generally refuse someone in my position. He bowed and left me with the tablet.

  The chamberlain was easy to find. As I entered his office and he turned to look up at me from his desk, I noticed for the first time the darkness around his eyes. Eclectus looked nervous and tired. He had not been sleeping – I knew the signs well enough. I thought back on Commodus’ words. Yes, Eclectus had been arguing with him. I should have seen the direction the man was headed that day by the colossus when I first lost Commodus. That day Eclectus had confided in me his opinion that the emperor was going too far.

  We had both been trying to steer him and, instead, we had both steered ourselves onto that list.

  ‘Marcia?’

  Without a word, I walked over and slapped the tablet down on his desk, open and with the text visible. I stepped back as Eclectus frowned at the list. Then his eyes widened and he looked up at me again.

  ‘Is this . . . ?’

  I nodded.

  ‘How did you come by it?’

  ‘Through chance entirely. It was bound for Adrastus.’

  He shook his head. ‘I knew he was angry with me, but I had never dreamed of this.’

  I tapped my name on the list. ‘I fear he has been teetering on the edge for some time, but an hour or so ago I may have pushed him over it.’

  ‘What do we do?’

  I shrugged. ‘I was hoping you would have an answer to that. I considered just losing the list and hoping.’

  Eclectus shook his head again. ‘No. That is no solution. If we wish to see another sunset we need to stop these proscriptions.’

  ‘I cannot persuade him. I know that now. Nor, I doubt, can you.’

  ‘No one on this list can. That’s why they are on the list,’ he noted, rather astutely. ‘But we are just courtiers. I am not used to encountering such problems. Last time I was in danger, from Cleander, I retired and removed myself before I ended up on such a list. This time it’s too late for that. Laetus will know what to do. Come on.’

  And so we hurried off through the palace, Eclectus clutching the tablet tight. The Praetorian prefect divided his time roughly evenly between his headquarters at the Praetorian fortress on the Esquiline Hill and his office in the palace. With all the upcoming events of the new year, Laetus would be on the Palatine, and it was at his office that we arrived, breathless, a short while later.

  Laetus greeted the news with a lot more stoic calmness than either I or Eclectus had. I admit that I had not got to know Laetus as well as I could have. Though we had become acquainted during the dark days of Cleander’s zenith, once he had become commander of the Praetorians we had had little to do wi
th one another. Peril makes strange bedfellows, though. Here we were now, a mistress, a soldier and a bureaucrat, huddled together and facing death.

  ‘There comes a time in any confrontation,’ the prefect said in a quiet, oddly menacing tone, ‘when it comes down to a simple choice.’

  Eclectus nodded bleakly, but I, despite being bright, had not yet grasped his meaning.

  ‘What choice?’

  ‘Them or us,’ replied Laetus. ‘Every soldier is familiar with it. You can talk about grand strategies and ambushes, pincer movements and deployments, but every man of arms knows that in the end, when death looms, it always comes down to them or you. A simple choice.’

  Now I suddenly realised what he was saying. God, no!

  ‘Not that!’

  Laetus nodded. ‘The emperor has made known his displeasure with me increasingly these past few months. I have been half expecting this, and I have been as loyal to Commodus as any man could. But I am no martyr. I have no intention of kneeling and waiting for the blade just through loyalty to a man who has cast me aside because he does not like to be argued with.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Eclectus added.

  ‘No.’ This was ridiculous. Two hours ago I had been trying to decide what outfit to wear for a feast tomorrow, knowing that my love would be with me. Now I was in the office of the Praetorian prefect calmly discussing the murder of the legitimate emperor of Rome, a man I had loved since childhood and had nurtured, guided and protected all his life, even when he turned away from me.

  ‘It has to be,’ Laetus said flatly. ‘Can you not see? You said you could find no solution and neither could Eclectus. That is why you came to me, and I present you with a solution. The only solution.’

  The chamberlain shuddered. ‘But even if we contemplate such a thing, and I am loath to do so even if my own life hangs in the balance, how could we achieve it? Lucilla plotted for a year with a group of powerful and well-placed conspirators, and all it took was one mistake and an alert Praetorian and the whole thing failed.’