Empire's End

by Leila Rasheed

  “I can assure you—” my father began, but the Emperor waved him silent.

  “Don’t assure me, Quintus, I despise broken promises.” The Emperor laughed again, but this time no one else did. “Simply use your genius to keep me in good health, and you will find it worth your while. We were boys together. You have no son. You have a daughter whom I have no objection to settling well – even if a senator’s son is a high prize for a doctor’s daughter.”

  I froze as all attention turned to me.

  “And so we will be departing as soon as the gods allow,” the Emperor went on. “You may first conclude the marriage. I have arranged for her and Publius to meet at his house. One should always meet before one is married.”

  “Departing?” my father said.

  “For Britain. As my personal physician, I will need you by my side throughout the campaign against the Caledonians.”

  I had always admired my father. I admired his wisdom, his clever mind and surgeon’s fingers. Sometimes his cures seemed almost magical. But I never admired him more than at that moment, when he pulled hope out of his worst disappointment. He had finally, after years of scheming and string-pulling, arrived at the one place in the world that he wanted to be – Rome. When the Emperor said he was to go at once to Britain his expression broke, like a reflection in a still pool when a stone is thrown into it. But he only lost control for a second. Then he pulled himself together, drew himself up tall and behaved as if nothing could please him more than to go to the freezing, bleak barbarian land that made Leptis Magna look as magnificent as Rome.

  “I shall be honoured to serve my emperor, even to the very ends of the Empire,” he said, and bowed.

  “We are glad to hear it, are we not?” The Emperor glanced at his sons.

  “Very glad,” Geta said.

  Caracalla just smiled. However, as we prepared to leave the garden, he said lazily: “Hey, doctor – what would you advise for this little bruise of mine?”

  He raised his clenched fist up to my father’s face, so fast that my father flinched back. It was the fist with the bruised knuckles I had noticed before.

  My father recovered quickly. Putting on his professional manner in a way that terrified me but also made me proud, he coolly took Caracalla’s hand and turned it back and forth, observing it as if it were no more than anyone else’s hand. There was a short silence.

  “I advise, my lord, that you stop hitting your slaves,” my father said quietly, releasing Caracalla’s hand. “All the philosophers are against mindless violence.”

  There was a horrifying pause in which I felt as if my entire stomach had plummeted to the Circus Maximus below and been trampled on by maddened horses. Then the Emperor burst out into a roar of approving laughter.

  “Very good, Quintus, very good!” he said, slapping my father on the back. “Exactly what I always tell him. But he never listens to me.”

  Caracalla smiled thinly, and Geta sniggered, and Julia Domna called for some slaves to take us to our rooms so we could rest. I walked away, feeling Caracalla watching us the whole way.

  As soon as we were alone in our apartments, my father sat down by the window and stared out at the palace gardens.

  “A good philosopher must treat good news and bad news exactly the same,” he said. I knew he wanted to be cheerful for us, but his voice sounded empty and my heart ached for him. “What a blessing philosophy is.”

  We waited, not daring to say anything in case we upset him even more. After a few long moments, he pulled himself upright and gave us a smile.

  “Britain won’t be for long,” he said firmly. “And as we will be on a battlefield, I may even get a dead barbarian to dissect – think of that! The law against dissecting humans has held medicine back for so long.”

  “Cutting up a dead person, against all the gods – to think I should live to see the day!” As if my father putting a brave face on it had given her a licence to show her feelings again, my mother threw her veil over her face and rocked back and forth.

  “Well, dear, you won’t see it. It will be best if you remain in Rome to support Camilla in her new marriage,” my father replied. “You will need to see no dead barbarians at all.”

  So, I was going to be married. In the next few weeks, if I understood rightly. I realised I was shaking. I picked up a shawl and wrapped it tightly around me so that no one would see how frightened I was. I was absolutely terrified. I clutched the amulet Nurse had given me. I wished she were there; I would have forgiven her everything.

  9.

  The Ghost of a Marriage

  I was to meet Publius the very next day, at his family’s house. Before we left, my mother had the slaves spend hours on my hair and arranging my dress. They were palace slaves, so they had high standards. Ropes of amber and gold were wrapped around my throat. Whitening lead make-up was rubbed over my face, and ochre was daubed on my lips and cheeks to make them look red. My hair was waved like the Empress’s, which meant tucking wads of hair that used to belong to some unfortunate slave girl under my own hair to give it volume. By the end of it my neck was stiff with being held upright and my eyes ached from looking in the mirror. I no longer even looked like myself.

  Then my father came in in a rage and made me wash it all off.

  “Absolute nonsense,” he told my mother. “That white lead that rich women smear on their faces is bad for the health. It can poison, even as far as death if it is used too much. That was written in the Alexipharmaca of Nicander, the great Greek physician. No daughter of mine is using it.”

  “But everyone uses it,” my mother protested. “Even the Empress!”

  “Not my daughter,” my father repeated firmly. “It’s bad for the health.”

  My mother shrugged. “Oh well,” she said with a sigh, “perhaps it is for the best. It may be fashionable, but it made you look too grown-up. He is marrying a girl, after all, not an adult woman on her second husband.”

  So, in the end, I went to meet Publius wearing a fashionable hairstyle, gold earrings and necklace, perfume, but no make-up. I didn’t care. I felt sick with nerves and I just wanted to get the meeting over with.

  The house itself was a villa in the heart of the city’s finest district. Slaves unbarred the door for us and we went in over the mosaic floor, into the wide, pleasant courtyard filled with the scent of blossom and grapes dangling overhead. Publius’s mother, a plump, giggly woman with house keys jingling at her waist, came out to meet us, and embraced my mother – the two had been friends before I was born.

  “You have such a cute accent!” she exclaimed, pinching my cheeks in a way I hated. “Just like the Emperor himself, may he live forever! I couldn’t understand a word the man was saying when I first met him. I suppose everyone sounds like that in the provinces.”

  I hardly heard her. I was looking around trying to guess which of the young men I saw might be Publius. His mother led me over to him. I recognised his long-lashed eyes and his shy expression. The knobbly elbows were gone, however, and I wished Livia were there, because I could have told her: he was handsome.

  “Mother!” You look at me, shocked. I have to laugh.

  “What? There are other handsome men in the world than your father, you know,” I tease. “Anyway, he wasn’t just handsome. He was. . .” I search for the right word. Gentle, modest. . . and yet those weren’t the things that made me feel at ease with him. “Kind.”

  Our mothers sat a polite distance away from us, while Publius and I walked awkwardly together around the large pool in the courtyard. He was twenty, slim and quiet with dark curly hair, and not much suited to the senatorial toga he wore. I expected the purple stripe to be on fat, old men with bald heads and wrinkles. He seemed rather embarrassed by his, instead of honoured.

  “I don’t usually wear this at home,” he told me in a low voice. “After all, it’s my father who is the senator – not me.”

  I said very little at first, suddenly feeling too shy and awkward to talk. It was no
t as if I had never met any men before. I was used to my father’s friends, who enjoyed loud philosophical discussions over plenty of wine and a good meal, but that was different; I wasn’t expected to marry them. Suddenly I felt I had to prove I would be a good wife. Publius seemed to notice that I was tongue-tied, and kindly asked me questions I could answer, about my life in Leptis Magna, and about my reading.

  This was something I could be confident about.

  “I have read all of Virgil, and Cicero, and the Greek philosophers, and the writings of Marcus Aurelius. . . but my favourite is the Aeneid.”

  “It is a wonderful story,” he said. “It has everything – burning cities, shipwreck, adventure, love. . .” He broke off, blushing. He was clearly as embarrassed as I was about being reminded of the reason we were here. I wished we could just have a conversation without the ghost of marriage hanging over us the whole time.

  “I am glad you are educated,” he said finally. “So many girls are not, and it makes them very dull to talk to. It seems, to me anyway—” he glanced shyly at me “—that we will get along together very well, if we can talk about the same things.”

  After our visit, when my mother leaned across to me in the carriage and asked, “Well?” – looking into my face as demandingly as a tax collector – it really was not that hard to make myself smile and nod: I like him.

  I saw Publius almost every day after that. He never again wore the senatorial toga; he wore a plain toga over a simple tunic. We talked about my favourite places in Leptis Magna, and we discussed philosophy and literature.

  Once, Caracalla came with us.

  I was never sure exactly why he came. I suspected that it was to inspect Publius, to see if he was a threat. But Publius was so obviously gentle and unassuming that Caracalla, after a few questions that were as pointed and loaded as ballista missiles, got up abruptly, snatched a peach from the silver fruit bowl and strode off, ignoring both the hostess and Publius. His visit gave me a new insight into Publius, however, because that was the only time I ever heard him sound angry.

  “I dislike that man,” he said, although his voice sounded as if he had said hate instead of dislike.

  “Me too,” I replied at once, without thinking whether this was a wise thing to say, or a wife-like thing to say. I met his eyes and I saw Publius meant it.

  “He is cruel,” Publius went on, his fists clenching. “He has his slaves whipped for the slightest offence, and I have heard tales—” He stopped, scowling to himself. “I shall not repeat them.” Then he burst out: “I don’t believe we should have slaves at all. People are not for owning. If we were to free all ours, when we are married, what would you say?”

  I was taken aback. We had always had slaves. I really didn’t know what we would do without them. Who would do the washing, I wondered, and the cooking, and the cleaning? And what on earth would Publius’s father – a grand old man of a senator – say? It seemed completely unrealistic to me. But. . .

  “I would say it was a good idea,” I said, and smiled at him.

  He looked into my face, as if trying to judge how much he could trust me. What he saw seemed to please him. He smiled.

  “You must miss Leptis Magna,” he said. He hesitated. “Once we are married, we could travel there perhaps. For a visit.”

  My eyes filled with tears. I hadn’t realised how nervous I had been feeling, or how much depended on him being kind. I knew I was lucky in the man I was betrothed to.

  But I also realised that I needed to be lucky. What happened in my life did not depend on me, but on the whim of the Emperor and the goodwill of the man I was told to marry. I felt glad and happy that Publius was going to be a good husband, but a shadow was cast over it by the knowledge that it was just luck. At any moment, a wave might come and knock my sandcastle life to pieces.

  As I talked to Publius over the next few days, I learned more about Roman politics. When I asked whether his father and the Emperor were friends, Publius shook his head.

  “The Emperor and the senate are not friends. Too many senators had their noses put out of joint by a provincial general taking control after they had spent years working to gain power,” he added. “That is why the Emperor is encouraging us two to marry. He wants to make some alliances among his friends and the senate.”

  “But doesn’t the Emperor rule by the will of the senate?”

  “Not this emperor. No, he rules by the will of the army. No one dares rebel, not when all the men with swords are loyal to him. If you cross him. . .” He made a gesture of slitting a throat with his hand.

  “Like Plautianus,” I said, remembering.

  “Yes, that was a scandal. The man was powerful, but Caracalla hated being married off to his daughter. Poor little Plautilla. She was sent off to the ends of the earth, and her father was dead soon after. Caracalla has his own plans and the Emperor won’t be able to hold him back for long.” He sounded bitter. “This is Rome, full of murderers, liars and thieves. One day they will all be called to answer to God.”

  That last word rang oddly in my ears, and I began to suspect something. As it turned out, I was right to be suspicious.

  10.

  Godless

  A few days later, my mother was unwell and unable to travel to Publius’s house. The Empress herself said she would act as chaperone for me. She brought her secretary with her, and sat dictating letters to him as Publius and I strolled in the gardens.

  At the end of the gardens was a grotto, overhung with cool plants and with the trickle of water. As we reached it, Publius turned to me, a serious look on his face.

  “I have something for you,” he said under his breath. And then, to my surprise, “Don’t tell your mother.”

  I looked at the flash of gold in his outstretched hand. It was a golden seal ring. It did not show a god, or the Emperor’s head. Instead, cut into the amber stone was the Greek letter chi crossed with the letter rho. I knew as soon as I saw it that this piece of jewellery could put me in danger.

  “You’re a Christian,” I breathed.

  He nodded.

  I’d heard plenty of stories about Christians. They were a Jewish sect, but their ideas had spread to others too. They were traitors to the Empire, traitors to the gods. They didn’t pray in the natural way, proudly in public to the holy gods of Rome, but in private, like thieves. And worse stories, too.

  “Do you eat human flesh?” I blurted out.

  “Of course not!” He looked shocked. “Is that what they say about us?”

  It was one of the things they said about them. I had never quite believed it, and looking at Publius, I was sure he did not. But even so, Christians were not just like worshippers of Mithras or Heliogabalus. They refused to worship the gods at all. My father called Christians átheos, which meant godless in Greek. He usually treated all sects and religions equally, but the Christians: those he did not like. I did not know why, but I guessed it was because they did not worship the gods. I understood, because not worshipping the gods was dangerous. It could only lead to destruction, when the gods grew angry at being disrespected and sent down some terrible force. Cities were destroyed by the Earth-shaker Neptune, Jupiter struck with lightning – all these things killed not just Christians but everyone else, too.

  Publius was looking at the amulet on my wrist, the one my nurse had given me. I had seen him looking at it before, and now I had a sinking feeling. Christians did not like what they called idols.

  “What is that?”

  My other hand closed protectively over it.

  “My nurse gave it to me. It’s a good-luck charm.”

  “If we are to marry,” he said, “you must, like me, abandon false gods and idols.”

  I clutched my amulet. I didn’t know what to say. I had no desire to give up my religion. To abandon Diana, Isis, Asclepius, Hygeia and Salus? To throw away my Lares and Penates? I had not realised how important they were to me, until now.

  “I can’t do that!”

  “I ca
nnot marry a woman who does not share my faith.” He sounded sad. “And I’d like to marry you.”

  I remained silent. I wanted to marry him too. But not if it meant giving up everything that meant most to me.

  “Do you truly believe there can be any power in this thing?” He caught my wrist gently. “Don’t be afraid. If I throw it in the water, do you think that any of your gods will strike me down?”

  I realised I did believe that, because terror hit me like a wave. I liked Publius. I didn’t want him to be destroyed by the furious gods. And I was terrified of losing the amulet, the only thing I had left of Nurse and her love for me, and home itself.

  “Let go!” I pulled away from him, turned and went towards the Empress. I heard his footsteps behind me and broke into a run in a blind panic.

  The Empress rose to meet me and I ran, sobbing, full tilt into her. It was like running into a steel bar. She grabbed my shoulders and gave me a quick, sharp shake that knocked the tears out of me.

  “What has happened?” she asked, seeing my face.

  “I want to go home,” I managed to say.

  She tutted.

  “Young men,” she said with annoyance. She cast a cold look at Publius, who looked terrified. She nodded to the secretary who had come up behind us. “Call the carriage.”

  I was shaking, wondering what I could say to explain matters. To be a Christian was a shameful thing for the son of a senator. If I could hide the ring, I thought, then perhaps I could make up some story. But she was not the Empress for nothing. As soon as we sat in the carriage she reached out for my hand that was grasping the ring.

  “Dear, what’s that?” she asked. “Let me see your treasure.”

  I could not refuse. I handed her the ring. She turned it over and over with some curiosity.

  “Are you a Christian?” she said.

  I shook my head hard.

  “It was a. . . gift from someone,” I muttered, blushing. Then, my tongue lying faster than I knew it could: “I wanted to show Publius. So that there would be no secrets in our marriage.”