But when I timidly joined the imperial group, Julia Domna smiled indulgently at me. She did not look as if she had been on a long sea voyage. Her stola was as perfectly draped as that of a statue’s, and not a hair was out of place.
“My poor child, you have lost your mother. Now I will be a mother to you,” she announced. There was sympathetic murmuring from some of her attendants, curious and resentful glances from others. All were much older than me, except for a couple of the slave girls who were really just there to pour perfume and scatter rose petals at the right moment. Feeling awkward, I bowed my head and murmured something grateful. As I stepped into the carriage, the air was heavy with the perfume of her hair, arranged like a gladiator’s helmet.
With a shout and a crack of the whip, the heavy carriage rattled and rolled into movement. We were leaving London. We went through the streets and out through the great gates, turning onto the road that led north. From now on, every mile took us further from safety, deeper into the land of barbarians.
Julia Domna opened a small wooden box and offered it to me. I could not believe what I saw inside, nestling in the straw.
“Fresh figs!” I exclaimed. My father’s words – let us not wish for figs in winter – came back to me. If you were an empress, it seemed, you could wish for anything you liked. You could carry summer with you in a box.
“A taste of home,” Julia Domna said with a smile.
The fig was not as sweet as it would have tasted in Leptis Magna. In fact, I thought it tasted salty, like seawater. The memory of the shipwreck rushed back to me and I had to force myself to swallow the fruit. A moment of panic gripped me as I thought: We’re leaving my mother behind.
I turned to the window to try to find one last glimpse of the river. Above Londinium, the clouds were a deep grey like an iron sword, and a rainbow hung in the air.
“Beautiful,” I whispered. And yet, I missed the sun so much.
I must have looked about to leap from the carriage because Julia Domna leaned forward and gripped my wrist. Her hand was gentle, but powerful. She looked into my eyes, serene and mysterious as one of the Fates.
“Poor child,” she said again. But this time it sounded like a warning.
12.
Among the Barbarians
We travelled up to Eboracum on the bad, British roads. They weren’t paved like the ones everywhere else. Instead they were covered in a layer of gravel, which flung chips and dust up and stung the horses’ legs. But a Roman road is never a dull place, and there was plenty to break up the boredom and the discomfort, though sometimes I felt so jolted that I thought my head would shake loose from my body and tumble to the ground like a stone.
There were carts full of clucking chickens and barrels of wine all the way from Lugdunum in Gaul; there were oxen hauling timber and grit, driven by sweating, swearing men up the hills. There were Northern barbarians with hair the colour of flame. There were pedlars and beggars and every so often, a speedy rider carrying official business, their horses’ hooves thundering up the dust. There were sheep and pigs and slaves and goats on their way to market.
The Emperor was carried in a litter all the way. I barely saw it, for it was surrounded at all times by the Praetorian Guard, his personal guard: a wall of scarlet and gold and steel. Not all of these were Roman. Some were barbarians. My father said that he had a much bigger guard than previous emperors had had.
“The Emperor doesn’t care where men come from as long as they are good soldiers,” Marcus told us. “The army love him. He has made us rich and given us freedom and honours. I can marry my wife now, and not fear leaving her penniless when I die.”
Of course he had to say that, but it seemed true – the Emperor was greeted with great cheers whenever we entered an army town or garrison. And Britain seemed full of army towns and garrisons, as we went further and further north. A grey, bleak land, I thought, full of hard stones and hard faces. But wherever the Emperor stopped, he made things appear. As if he were a god, from whose feet – gouty and painful as they were – gold flowed and flowers blossomed. Timber buildings were torn down and new stone ones leaped up, soldiers building them faster and in a more organised way than I had ever seen building happen before. New temples were built to honour the Emperor, and palaces were created almost overnight for him to rest in.
We stopped at Lindum first. The land all around was flat and marshy, and boats seemed to move across the fields by magic.
“It’s the canals,” Marcus said with clear pride. “We dug them out and connected the rivers, and drained the land. Now everything that was useless, fever-ridden marsh is as good as a road. Better!”
Wherever we stopped, my father drew a small crowd of suffering, hopeful locals who had heard that a doctor travelled with the Emperor. Just as in Leptis Magna, he did not turn anyone away, day or night. He took their pulses and drew their blood and prescribed medicine for them if their four humours – blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm – were out of balance.
“The more patients you treat, the more you learn about how the human body works,” he told me.
Ever since we left Rome, he had been treating the Emperor’s chalkstones with a method he had learned from the great doctor, Galen: mix rancid cheese with cooked, pickled pig’s meat, and apply to the feet as a plaster. I had the job of pounding up the cheese and the meat in a mortar and pestle.
“There is no one I trust as much as you,” he told me.
The mixture smelt eye-wateringly bad, but the Emperor dutifully reclined every evening with his feet up and the stinking mixture lavishly smeared all over them.
I found myself mixing up and dispensing medicines, and I actually found it interesting. After a while, a few people started coming to me for help – the humblest ones, like the slaves, who would not dare go to my father. I was especially flattered when Marcus, who had been watching us closely and curiously, one day shyly showed me an infected fingernail and asked what I suggested for it. Not that I was sure what to suggest. It seemed to me that my father could perform wonders with surgery, but the medicines we gave out were much less reliable. Certainly, the cheese-and-ham treatment did not seem to be working for the Emperor. His chalkstones were as bad as ever.
I also began fetching and carrying for Julia Domna. She had discovered somehow that I was educated, and knew how to read and write Greek and Latin, and so I found myself in charge of her social correspondence.
“Call my maids to undress me,” the Empress would tell me with a yawn, and then, as the women removed the sandals from her feet and bathed them in rose water, she dictated her letters to me. The letters were usually notes to the wives of the most important men in the area, summoning them to meet her. Sometimes though, they were written to people in Rome, or in Syria, and seemed to hide mysteries under polite words. I realised I was useful to her because I was educated, obedient and completely ignorant of politics. I was a writing machine: too far beneath contempt to pose any kind of danger to them. I hoped – as I handed the sealed notes to the messenger – that they would continue to see me that way.
“Try to swim silently, little fish,” my father murmured to me. “It’s a big pond – hide yourself well.”
It was by being so close to the Empress that I came to realise that Caracalla and Geta fought endlessly. They bickered under their breath as soon as they saw each other – anything could set it off, from one stepping through a door before the other, to a quarrel over the merits of some charioteer back in Rome. As soon as the doors to whatever palace we had stolen for the night had closed behind them, the bickering broke out into real, bitter arguments. When I first saw them snarling and shouting at each other, I was terrified. I thought the Emperor would have them executed. But he just looked at them with weary contempt, and I realised that this must have been going on for a very long time. It was almost, I thought, as if they knew that all their father wanted was for them to get along, and that this was the one thing they could withhold from him. After all, they
were his heirs. What could he do to punish them without putting himself in danger?
Everywhere we went, we stood out for more reasons than simply being the Emperor’s household. We were Libyans, Africans – our accent, our curly hair and our skin colouring all showed it. Some of the barbarians we passed on the road gaped at us as if we were gods. That was a surprise.
In Rome, the great aristocratic Roman families, the senators, were deeply proud of their heritage that went all the way back to the earliest days of the city of Rome. They looked down on people from the provinces – anywhere in the Empire that wasn’t Rome itself. People from senatorial families, like Publius’ mother, had always privately mocked the Emperor’s Libyan accent, even if they didn’t dare to in public. Septimius Severus might spread gold and death around like a god, but to the senators, he would still be a nobody from the provinces, an outsider. They feared him, but they did not respect him. Things were different in Britain. No one looked down on us for being from the provinces, because everyone here was just as provincial as we were. It was rare, in Britain, to find anyone who spoke with a pure Roman accent the way that Publius’s family did.
It was clear to see, even with the discomfort of travel and the pain his feet gave him, that the Emperor was happier here than he had been in Rome. After all, this was what he was used to – being away from Rome, on campaign with the army. This was how he had made himself emperor. He wanted Caracalla and Geta to enjoy this life, too. But wherever we stopped, the brothers would skulk off sooner or later to find the nearest bear baiting or boxing match or gladiator competition. If it was violent, Caracalla enjoyed it, and Geta just seemed to like throwing money around, especially in company with soldiers. Meanwhile, a light burned till late at night in the imperial apartments, as the Emperor and Empress sat up, ruling the Empire – alone. And in the case of the Emperor, with cheese and ham slathered over his poor, aching feet.
209 AD
13.
Eboracum
When we arrived at Eboracum, the cold rain was drizzling down like walls of grey that hid the town completely. Our carriage stuck in the mud, and the oxen skidded on slippery cobblestones. The river was so high that at first we could not cross it and had to wait around while the carriage was dug out, freezing and dripping and miserably cursing the fate that had dragged us to this horrible place. Even when we got into the town, we saw nothing of Eboracum except the rain for the next two days.
When we finally did get to see it, it was a disappointment. Londinium had been a proper Roman city; Lindum was a centre for trade with a busy feeling about it. But Eboracum was just an army camp, it seemed, with run-down defences. It had been built, Marcus told me, to split the territory of two tribes, the Parisi and the Brigantes, and you could tell it was a fortress. Everyone in Eboracum was there, in one way or another, because of the soldiers.
By now, I was tired of soldiers. I was tired of the tramp-tramp-tramp of their boots and the clashing jingle of their chain mail. Tired of the blaring trumpets. Even the scarlet banner and the gilded eagles hurt my eyes. I missed the sunshine, I missed the grapes and sweet figs that I had taken for granted in Leptis Magna, I missed the grand buildings of Rome, and I missed the clever conversations my father and his friends had late into the evening when the air was scented with blossom. Here, there seemed to be no flowers, no blossom, no colour that wasn’t drab grey-green or the blaring scarlet and gold of the soldiers, and the main smell was the river: cool and damp at best, and stinking at worst. British rivers and marshes, I thought, were a poor exchange for living on the brink of the fresh, wild sea which always smelled clean.
But it was clear that the Emperor had big plans for Eboracum. After all, it was now the most important town in the Empire – for the head of the Empire was wherever the Emperor was.
“From now on, Eboracum will be the capital of Britannia Inferior,” the Emperor told the assembled officials. A ripple of pride and excitement ran through the crowd. He had the defences repaired and improved, timber walls replaced with stone and he had new buildings set up, to make it all more Roman. The message to all who lived here – the soldiers of Rome, the British tribesmen who wore togas and spoke Latin, the Gaulish traders and their Punic wives, their children with blue eyes and tanned skin who played in the river’s shallows – was: This too is Rome, and we are here to stay.
Except the Emperor, it became clear, was not here to stay for long.
For the first evenings in Eboracum, I had nothing to do but sit in my room, listen to the rain, and read or weave and wait for Julia Domna to remember my existence and send for me. It was very boring, for there was no one of my own age, and my father, who would gladly have had me stay with a respectable family in the city, was kept so busy by the Emperor that he had not a moment to arrange it. I got nervous and unhappy and could not stop thinking of my mother, my old nurse and even of Publius. I was fifteen now. I wondered what would happen to me.
Then, just before midnight, my father came into my bedroom, where I was dozing in a chair. I did not like to go to bed before I knew he was home. He was accompanied by his slave, Salvius, whom he had bought in Lindum.
“Camilla?” His face was pale, but perhaps that was just the light from the oil lamp. His voice sounded calm enough.
“Yes, Father?”
“Pack anything of value you have. The Emperor travels to the Northern borders tomorrow.”
I sat up, wide awake suddenly, as Salvius began silently packing my father’s belongings.
“The borders? You mean the wall?”
“Yes, to retake the wall that the emperors before Commodus built.”
“Will it. . . be dangerous?” I said as I began to collect my personal belongings.
“I hope so! I may finally get my barbarian to dissect,” he said cheerfully.
“I meant – for us.”
“Us?” He shook his head. “Camilla, you don’t understand. I am to travel with the Emperor to the wall in the North. You are to remain here, with the Empress. You are packing to move into the Empress’s apartments.”
I leapt to my feet.
“Father, no! You can’t leave me here alone!”
“You won’t be alone. You will live with the Empress.”
“But—”
He glanced at Salvius, then ushered me out of the room and into his own room. In a low voice, he said: “Camilla, I know this is frightening to you, but you will be safe here. You cannot possibly follow the army up North. I would not be able to take care of you and things are different up there. It may well be dangerous, for us as well as the barbarians. But we will soon be home again, and you will be safe with the Empress.”
“Is Caracalla going?”
“Yes, and Geta is staying here to rule in place of his father. The Empress knows you are a clever, good girl. You can make yourself useful to her – but don’t make yourself too useful. You understand.”
I understood. I did not want to know the Empress’s secrets. It would put me in danger.
My father opened his medicine chest. It was a wooden chest, decorated with a carving of the holy serpents of Asclepius. Inside were many compartments, full of the most extraordinary and rare things: venoms and bitumens, spices and dried dungs. He mixed these together in his pestle and mortar to create the cures that amazed people. In every city we had visited, he had been to the market, bargaining with the traders about things he had a shortage of. I knew the uses of some of his medicines, but not all of them.
“I’ll leave you some of my stock,” he told me, measuring some of his medicines out into smaller pouches and wraps. “Diphryges, that’s for nasty tumours. And a small, very small amount of theriac, against poison. Don’t waste that. It is for emergencies only. You are no doctor, but you are a sensible girl and you have learned a lot from me. Be worthy of the education you have received.”
“Thank you, Father, I will,” I replied sincerely.
This made things different. I was not being left behind like a useless lump
of luggage. I was being left with a skill – with work to do.
14.
Avitoria
The Empress herself gave me a medicine chest. It was a silver box, with the staff of Asclepius worked on the lid, the snakes curling around the staff. On the sides, the figures of Hercules and Dionysus were engraved, because the box had been made in Leptis Magna. It was the most expensive thing I had ever owned, and looking at the gods of my home made me feel homesick.
“Perhaps you have the skill of your father,” the Empress told me. I hoped I had. I did not want to disappoint her – or her slaves, who had come to rely on me to take care of their health.
My first job, however, was nothing to do with medicine.
The Empress’s hair was styled every day by a team of slaves who had been trained in the latest methods. For an hour daily, she sat in her chair while three women worked like architects to create a crowning glory for her. Finally they decorated it with gilt, ivory and glass hairpins, which sparkled like a halo when the light touched them. Other slaves applied her make-up, the scented creams and perfumes. These all came in glass or gold pots and vessels, inlaid with patterns or images of serpents or birds. Finally they draped her in her silk stola and the woollen shawl she wore now that we were in cold Eboracum. All this time, she dictated her letters and notes to me, and I did my best to take down every word, in Greek or Latin.
But illness comes suddenly to everyone, and one day the hairdressers were all sick: feverish and vomiting. I arrived to find the Empress as upset as I had ever seen her.
“Camilla,” she greeted me at once, “take the slave Aisopos and go out and find me a hairdresser.”
She must have seen the hesitation on my face, for she added, annoyed: “You have been here every day. You have seen exactly how I like my hair. Go and find someone who can dress it as well as my slaves, or I’ll have the three of them beaten. Go!”
Empire's End Page 7
