A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom

by John Boyne

  “My father, the Emperor, speaks highly of yours,” he declared after a lengthy silence during which we concentrated on the game. “Were it not for his good opinion, I wouldn’t have invited you here today. Naturally, I cannot allow just anyone into my bedchamber. You don’t smell as bad as some of the other children, I’m pleased to say. Although you’re uglier than most.”

  “Thank you, Highness,” I said.

  “My father says that your father has two wives,” he continued when my turn came and I managed to catch only one, a defeat in which he took extravagant pleasure. “Can this be true?”

  “Not quite,” I said. “Maarav is married to my mother, Fabia. But there is another woman, Noemi, with whom he has a daughter. And Noemi herself has a son.”

  “The cripple?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, feeling defensive for Hagan, for I had grown to recognize him as a boy of uncommon sympathy and understanding and I valued his presence in a mostly female home. The note of contempt in Commodus’s tone offended me, but I would not have dared to challenge him.

  “And your mother does not object to such an unusual arrangement?”

  “She would never go against my father’s wishes,” I said.

  “Of course not. That would oppose the natural order of things. But I daresay she is grieved by it?”

  I remained silent. In the two years since Maarav had introduced us to his mistress, the women of the house had formed a strong matriarchal alliance, and they had become more sisters than rivals.

  “From now on,” he told me then with a decisive nod, “you are to come to the palace every day. You may sit outside my rooms and, if I wish to play with you, then I will. If I don’t, then you will be completely ignored and make no noise. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Highness,” I said, bowing my head, and, our pact made, we played a few more games of knucklebones until I defeated him at last. I leaped up with a delighted cry and he immediately grew incensed, pushing me over and kicking me so hard in the ribs that I felt the breath leave my body. More violence followed and, when he began to kick me in the face, he sent two of my teeth flying across the floor. Even as I lay there, with blood pouring down my chin, I blamed myself for displeasing him and swore not to do so again. Commodus, I realized, was not one to be gracious in defeat.

  * * *

  • • •

  Over the weeks that followed, I obeyed the young Caesar’s instructions to the word, stationing myself outside his rooms during the day, in anticipation of his pleasure. Sometimes he would summon me inside to play dice or tabula and, although I made sure never to achieve a victory over him again, he would usually find some reason to lash out at me before sending me on my way. More often than not, however, I would be left sitting outside without food or water and, if he passed in the corridor, he would ignore me, as if I were no more important than a tile on the wall.

  After eight consecutive days when I did not lay eyes on him, however, but watched as members of the household entered and left his bedchamber with expressions of concern on their faces, I began to wonder whether something untoward had taken place within. My anxiety only increased when I discovered my father waiting for me at home on the ninth morning, saying that he would accompany me to the palace that day. Fabia was weeping and held me to her with such intensity it was as if she believed she would never see me again. When Maarav and I left, she buried herself in Noemi’s shoulder, crying inconsolably.

  As we walked the short distance from the barracks, where the families of the Praetorian Guard lived, my father took my hand in his and surprised me by saying that I was a good son.

  “Perhaps I have been slow to show you the love that a boy should expect from his father,” he added quietly. “But my affections were so strong for your brother Joao that when he disappeared I grew anxious of allowing those feelings to develop for another.”

  I said nothing of the fact that he had shown a want of emotion toward me since long before Joao’s departure.

  “But I am proud of you this day,” he added. “Very proud.”

  “Thank you, Father,” I said, looking ahead toward the great stone doors, where a tall, bearded man stood in wait. I was convinced now that, having outlived my usefulness, Commodus had decided to add me to the lions’ lunch menu. When the man stepped forward to receive us, Maarav knelt down, taking me in his arms and embracing me with almost as much fervor as my mother had earlier.

  “We must each do what we can for the glory of Rome,” he said. “And you, my son, are making the greatest sacrifice of all. You will bring great honor to our family name.”

  He stood up, turned and walked away. I felt sick inside. Whatever was going to happen would happen and there was no point in resisting.

  The tall man, left in charge of me, rested a hand on my shoulder before introducing himself as Galen, a physician from Pergamon who had the honor to act as personal doctor to the imperial heir.

  “Am I to be eaten?” I asked, and he frowned, looking as if he had not quite understood my question. “By the lions,” I added, and he shook his head, laughing a little, as he led me down the familiar corridor.

  “No,” he said. “At least not today.”

  “Does His Highness wish to play, then?” I asked, and Galen sighed.

  “You are aware of the plague?” he asked me, and I nodded, for over recent months the people of Rome had spoken of little else. The sickness had arrived in the city with troops returning from Western Asia, killing hundreds of people in only a few weeks. Typically, victims would come down with a fever before suffering the filthy scourge of diarrhea, at which point they would be confined to their beds in a delirium. Next, they would lose the ability to speak, a terrible rash forming at the back of their throats that made swallowing a most painful experience. Soon, the skin would erupt in a multitude of abscesses, engorged with pus, that covered the face and body. Then there would be nothing to be done; the patient would either recover or die. It did not discriminate between social ranks.

  “Of course,” I replied. “But I’m healthy and have shown no signs of illness. My parents say that I’ve never been sick a day in my life.”

  “I don’t care about you,” he said dismissively as we approached Commodus’s door. “But those who are struck down must be kept in strict quarantine, in order to avoid any further spread of the disease. I’m sorry to say that the Emperor’s son has developed symptoms and is very ill.”

  I hesitated, stopping in the corridor, and he turned around.

  “The boy is lonely,” he continued. “He needs companionship. Someone who will sleep next to him, deliver his food and take care of his needs. Your reputation is high, and I believe that you have been a playmate of the prince in the past?”

  “Yes,” I said, feeling frightened at the prospect of being cast inside the infected room. “But I don’t think he likes me very much. He beats me frequently and calls me names. I can’t be the right person for such a task. I’m not even of noble birth and—”

  But Galen cared nothing for my protestations, opening the door before pushing me inside and quickly pulling it closed again.

  I looked around and took a deep breath, hoping not to let any of the infected air into my lungs, but of course I could not manage this for more than a few seconds. The room stank of vomit and excrement, there was uneaten fruit rotting on one of the tables, and when I looked toward the bed I saw Commodus lying there, one hand thrown across his face, the other beckoning me forward. I took small steps, hoping that he would tell me to stop before I put myself in any further danger, but instead he urged me closer and closer.

  “You are good to come,” he whispered, his voice a dry croak, almost unrecognizable from the confident, belligerent boy I had come to know and fear. “I grow lonely here, and both my father and mother are too frightened to visit. Even my sister Lucilla, who swore that she loved me abov
e all others, has not set foot inside this room. Perhaps she hopes that she will usurp my position and become empress if I die. The gods would never allow such a perverse outcome, would they? I am divine. My place is on the mountaintop with Jupiter, Mars and Apollo.”

  As I moved nearer still, I saw how altered his face had become since our last encounter. His skin had turned blotchy and pockmarked, the signs of the plague all too visible. He reached out a hand and I had no choice but to take it. Commodus would surely perish, and I would succumb to the disease next.

  “Can I get you some water, Highness?” I asked, but he shook his head. He patted the other side of the enormous bed and asked me to lie next to him, for comfort’s sake, and I removed my sandals and did as requested.

  “I would have been a great emperor,” he croaked, and I nodded, for I was young enough to believe that the old ways were the bad ways and that when my generation came to power a revolution would begin. In my mind, despite his many cruelties toward me, Commodus represented change.

  “Don’t give up hope,” I told him. “Remember, half die and half survive.”

  “The gods long to have me among their number,” he said listlessly. “They crave my wisdom, so summon me to Olympus. I feel it, more so every day. It’s understandable, of course. I was always too good for this world.”

  Outside the door, when Galen had pressed my task upon me, I had been frightened, but here, in the sick room, on the very precipice of infection, I found that I was ready for whatever might come next. I reached over and placed a kiss upon Commodus’s forehead, my lips grazing against a grotesque carbuncle, and, while the stench that emanated from his body was repulsive, I held him beside me in the hope that he would feel some comfort, and soon, in this false tableau of devotion, we both fell asleep.

  * * *

  • • •

  For several weeks we carried on like this. A knock would come from outside and our meals would arrive, a banquet for the young prince, who could barely eat, and a few miserly scraps for me. I was hungry, of course, but would not have dared to touch his food. Occasionally, Galen would speak to me through the door and ask how fared the patient before leaving potions which I administered to Commodus, feeling less revolted now by the bursting blisters that marked his countenance.

  And then, one day, to my surprise, he began to show signs of improvement. His deliriums ceased, as did the rasp in his throat. His appetite returned, he ate all the food that was brought to him and, when I bathed him in a mixture of hot water, goat’s milk and coconut oil, the infected skin slipped from his body, leaving behind only red scars as souvenirs. Almost a month after my sequestration had begun, the doors were flung open and Commodus returned to the court, healthy and revived, and without, I might add, a single word of thanks. And I, too, returned home to my family, where I was welcomed with tears of joy from Fabia and Noemi and obvious pride by Maarav.

  Throughout the entire experience, I was fortunate not to succumb to the plague myself. Indeed, I never displayed a single symptom of the disease and told myself in private moments that perhaps I was stronger than anyone believed, stronger even than the Emperor’s son himself. And although a man can never know what the gods have in store for him, my immunity to the epidemic suggested to me once again that I was destined for a long life, one filled with incident, and this pleased me, for there was much that I wanted to achieve before laying down my burden.

  SWITZERLAND

  A.D. 214

  MY FATHER, Marvel, liked to recount the story of how an ancestor of his, a man named Lonus, made a valiant attempt at murdering Julius Caesar, long before the conspirators drew their daggers on the floor of the Senate. Our people, the Helvetii, were only days from defeat at the Battle of Bibracte and, finding the idea of capitulation to such savage trespassers repugnant to his nature, Lonus rode directly into the Roman army camp, his swinging sword ripping the heads from three unsuspecting legionnaires before charging in the direction of the tent where Caesar was consulting with his generals. Had it not been for the quick thinking of Crassus, who hurled a spear between the shoulder blades of the would-be assassin, the fortunes of the Roman Empire might have turned out very differently. I didn’t like to point out that the narrative in which he took so much pride had not only ended in failure but also in the death of his forebear, who, having survived the spear, had his fingers and toes removed with a blunt knife before being skinned alive and roasted slowly over a spit.

  He told the story once again on the night that the young men of our village set up camp on the Alpine mountain land that we called home, where he and the other elders planned on training us to fight the Romans. There were perhaps one hundred gathered there—every male over the age of fourteen—a small army in comparison to the cohorts that would soon arrive from Italy, and to my surprise I found myself among their number, despite the fact that I was only ten years old. It was the first time that my father had permitted me to accompany him into the world of men, and my mother, Fabiola, protested strongly, claiming that I was still too young to be involved in warfare.

  “Julian would not have been too young, Wife,” he replied, nodding toward me dismissively. “If my firstborn had not vanished, then it would be him accompanying me to the mountains and not this one.”

  “And what of me, Father?” asked my sister Alba, who, despite being a girl, was far more suited to combat than I.

  “You’re worth more than the boy, that’s for sure,” he told her. “But no, Daughter, you must stay at home. The mountain is no place for women.”

  “I would kill ten Romans for every one that he would,” she insisted, raising her voice.

  “I don’t doubt it,” he said. “But I cannot allow it. Even the idea is a sacrilege.”

  “What about me?” asked Hagune, and, although Marvel regarded him admiringly, he shook his head.

  “A boy with twisted legs would be even less use than a girl,” he said, resting his hand upon the boy’s head. “But your bravery earns my respect. As does yours, Alba.”

  “So the one person who doesn’t want to go is the one who goes,” she replied, rolling her eyes and placing a hand against a tile on the wall, as if to steady herself. “To be a healthy boy is all that matters in this life, isn’t that right, Father?”

  * * *

  • • •

  At our mountainside camp, Marvel trained the young men in techniques of hand-to-hand combat, aiming to build our confidence as we prepared to defend ourselves against the expected onslaught of the Empire’s finest soldiers.

  We were each given a sword, a shield and a dagger, but little else, making us lighter on our feet than our Roman counterparts, who typically carried several days’ worth of rations and digging equipment in their backpacks. We fought at various intervals, one man against two, three, four or five, each one building up muscle and stamina and never daring to appear sluggish, for my father could be a brutal taskmaster and was happy to take out his anger on anyone who was not performing at the level he demanded.

  In the evenings, however, he transferred his attention from our bodies to our minds, recounting the legends of our Helvetii ancestors and listing the crimes that the Romans had committed across their plundered world since Mars had first placed twin boys in the womb of the Vestal Virgin.

  I was the youngest there and, while I was pleased to be given an opportunity to earn my father’s respect, the violence and brutality that played out before me every day was upsetting. Of course, the men were considerate toward me on account of my youth, but the image of a warrior’s sword swinging toward me as I raised my shield to stop myself from being slaughtered was a terrifying one. The fact that my opponents laughed when I fell over and held their swords high, as if to slice me in two, only added to my fear.

  With all of this activity going on, and with so many hot-blooded young men trapped on an isolated hilltop with stirred emotions and no women to keep t
heir passions at bay, perhaps it was inevitable that an accident would eventually take place. Late on a cold, damp afternoon, only a few days before the Romans finally appeared, my father pitted me against a boy, Loravix, six years older than me, who was considered something of a coward. I think Marvel sought to humiliate him, or me, or both of us, by gathering the entire army to watch us and mock our chaotic and uncoordinated moves. The men formed a circle and my father roared whenever we swung too soon or our footwork became careless. Loravix directed his sword toward me and I raised my shield to defend myself, aiming my own at his ankles, but he leaped in the air as he had been trained, swinging deftly and narrowly avoiding lifting my head from my shoulders. My father shouted from the sidelines that we were expected only to fight, not to kill each other, and I swung again, expecting to make contact with his shield, but Loravix chose this moment to turn in Marvel’s direction and, as he did so, he dropped his right arm. My own was moving too fast to stop and, to my horror, my sword sliced cleanly through his wrist, relieving him of a hand, and in a moment, blood poured from the stump. Horrified by what I had done, I grew dizzy and, as Loravix started to scream, I turned my head to vomit on the ground. Others came quickly and bound the wound, but there was nothing that could be done and the boy was sent back to the village. I was inconsolable, but my father surprised me by behaving in a solicitous fashion, maintaining that if it hadn’t happened in training, then it would have happened on the field of battle anyway, and it would have been Loravix’s head rolling down the mountain, not his hand.

  Later that night, however, he discovered me at some distance from the camp, urinating against a tree, and spun me around, slapping me hard across my face with his glove. I was taken unawares, uncertain what crime I had committed now, and as I stumbled, he hit me again, and once more until I was lying prostrate on the ground. My crime, of course, had not been maiming another boy but vomiting in front of the other men. Marvel hated any display of weakness, particularly one that reflected badly on him.