Julianus turned and smiled. “That is flattering—you must think me a magician. Calm yourself, my dear Gallus.” He seemed distracted for an instant, wrestling still with his own plans, then he moved to a travertine bench set by a cascade in the artificial stream that fed the pool—the rush of water would cover their words well. He invited his two visitors to sit.
“His wanting the title of Censor,” Julianus went on, “is actually a last, lingering sign of honor in him—it proves he still strives to preserve the image of doing things legally. Though, ultimately, he’ll find a way to do what he wants, legal or not.”
“October’s still October for me,” Saturninus spat bitterly, looking like a disgruntled Bacchus as he eased himself onto the marble seat. “What vainglory. I’ll never use Domitianus except when I have to in public. I am so wearied of his veiled threats and his pretensions, I’m ready to stretch out my neck for his blade just to put an end to it.”
Gallus said with an attempt at lightness, “Well, we’d best get on with hiring someone to strike him down, no?” He realized as he spoke how little he knew of the practical steps involved in disposing of an Emperor.
Julianus regarded them both severely. “That is our last task, not the first. Would you set the old cycle in motion and let the dice fall where they will, as when Nero died? No. This time we will do it the wise way. First, we must all agree on a successor. That means the entire Senate—and the Guard.”
“Impossible. The Guard will never like who we like,” Gallus protested. “Anyway, he’s paying them off shamelessly. And—it sounds too slow.”
“I know what he pays the Guard—we’ll offer them more,” Marcus Julianus replied. “And remember, there are men among them so loyal to Titus’ memory they would turn on Domitian in an instant if they knew for an indisputable fact that he murdered his brother. And proof is coming. I know now where Caenis’ letters are to be found—they’re concealed within a wall in her shut-up library rooms off the east courtyard of the Old Palace. The difficulty lies in getting to them without rousing suspicions. I must somehow break in there without alerting the guards. I’m also close to ferreting out that physician who took part in the murder—he bolted once, but my agents found him again. Do not forget how slowly Domitian must move in order to avoid alerting us to his intentions. We must get to work at once and find the man who offends fewest of us.”
Saturninus and Gallus stared at Julianus with an intensity that left him distinctly uncomfortable.
“Do not even think it,” Julianus spoke up quickly. “I cannot imagine anything I’d like less. The only endeavor that has the kick of life about it for me is the pursuit of philosophy. Anyway, there are able men whose lineage is less distant from the Julio-Claudian line than mine. Nerva, for one. No. We’ll draw up a list of names and take them about in secret, man by man.”
Julianus then smiled affably. “Do not look so woebegone, both of you! I got him to lower the taxes for those farms in Tuscany and to let us vote on the corn issue. And, Gallus, I’m certain I convinced him to rescind your brother’s sentence of banishment. The world has not ended.”
Gallus looked at Julianus, his mouth slack and open with surprise. “I do not know how to properly repay you,” he said finally. “My dear Julianus, my brother owes you his life.”
“He’s got a greater opinion of living in Rome than I do, then. It’s convenient you should broach the subject of repayment, however. I have thought of a way.”
“Name it!”
Julianus put a rolled document into Gallus’ hand. “Find someone to read this in the Senate as soon as it can be arranged. The man must be someone much your junior—he’ll better be able to get away with it. And it must be someone no one will connect with me. I want it read at noon.”
Gallus swiftly read. An expression of dismay came slowly over his face. It was a speech Julianus had written the night before—a plea for leniency for the captives, and an impassioned defense of the rebellious woman who bore arms. In it he reminded the Senate of the legendary clemency shown to the native rebel Caratacus, who had led a revolt of the Britons in the time of the Emperor Claudius. When Caratacus was finally apprehended after ten years of struggle, the Senate judged him a noble enemy and spared his life, allowing him to live on in the city on a small pension. Like Caratacus, Julianus argued, this woman and her accomplices tortured no prisoners, were never treacherous, and fought only for freedom. And when they had the three tribunes at their mercy, they treated them well by barbarian standards; there was evidence that the woman called Aurinia, in particular, argued that their lives be spared. “We have a long tradition of showing mercy to a gallant enemy,” the speech concluded. “Why put it aside in this more enlightened age?”
Julianus expected this measure would be soundly put down. But he also knew that the mob would, as always, be pressing about the Curia, listening for the results of critical votes, and at noon its doors would be open because of the heat. His purpose was to present Auriane sympathetically to the people—intuitively he felt that the common people’s love, if managed properly so it did not rouse Domitian’s jealousies, might one day shield her.
“This cannot be a jest,” Gallus said, looking politely befuddled. “Your sense of humor generally doesn’t run to inducing innocent colleagues into making idiots of themselves. And it cannot be serious. So what is it?”
Julianus smiled good-humoredly. “I fear I must leave you puzzled, good friend. This one time I’m forced to prevail upon your generosity. Trust me, the cause is a good one.”
On the next day Diocles, bearing a wax tablet, interrupted Marcus Julianus at his labors. It was a decoded version of letter that had been handed through a network of men, originating with an aide of the Prefect of cavalry in charge of the captives’ transport from Germania.
“It’s about that barbarian creature, isn’t it?” Diocles demanded to know, full white brows drawn together as he mustered his most formidable look. Then he winced, spoiling its ferocity—nervous excitement always seemed to worsen his gout pains.
Julianus nodded in assent, his expression suddenly tense, alert, sad. An instant later he saw Diocles’ discomfort and rose to help him settle into a chair, setting the old man’s afflicted leg on a footstool. Then he took up the letter and began to read.
Diocles’ voice rose up into a petulant whine. “I cannot bear it when you make yourself a laughingstock. It’s common knowledge you cannot civilize an adult savage. You must capture them as infants. This one will be clambering up the trees in the gardens. Why is it I always care more for your dignity than you do? Why, your father, if he’s watching…”
Diocles’ protests died in his throat as he saw the haunted desolation coming into his master’s face.
After an awkward silence Diocles ventured, “Is she… well?” with cautious apology in his tone. In reply Julianus read from the letter.
“She is eating the dried fruits you procured for her, and I am able to see that her food is free of maggots and mold. She seems well enough, though she languishes in fits of melancholia pitiful to see. But it has become apparent there is official interest in her at the highest level, for Camillus himself ordered her moved to a better wagon in which she travels alone….”
This chilled Julianus even as it pleased him. Domitian obviously wanted her to be in good health when he took his pleasure of her, or—how had he put it?—“used her as a tonic.”
Julianus read on: “They do not molest her, however, and none suspect I watch her. I judge that if grief does not kill her, she will live.”
“You did not tell me the Emperor had an eye on the wench,” Diocles exclaimed, jowls shivering as he struggled to his feet.
“You worry so about everything.”
“I must, because you do not worry enough. The gods help you and her if he learns you mean to have what he covets.”
“I know.”
“When he’s had his fill of her, he’ll have her killed in some barbarous way, for the pleasure of watc
hing your face.”
“He will not lay a hand on her.”
“You must be Jove then.”
“No, just a mortal man who knows our august ruler’s embarrassing weaknesses.”
“He’ll have her brought to the Alban Mount, soon as he’s seen her fattened and cleaned up. What will you do, storm it with soldiers?”
“I do not yet know. I’ll manage something. All I can do now is have her closely watched…and wait.” He looked off into the garden, studying a stand of wind-ruffled olive trees. “The game becomes maddeningly subtle. Of late, Domitian’s senses have become acute as a wolf’s. He knows I’ve drawn back from him, though I swear there’s no rational way he could know my plans. Now it’s as if he’s courting me. If I do not come to his pretentious Alban dinner fests, he frets. Of course, I’ve learned how little good it does us—I’ve seen how he can court and kill.” He sighed, his face composed but somber. “Domitian’s lingering need of my good opinion is the only weapon I have left. When that is gone, the gods help us both.”
CHAPTER XXXII
THE CAPTIVES’ JOURNEY ENDED IN THE twilight underworld of a stone prison within the Praetorian Guard’s camp just outside the walls of Rome, where they were to be held while awaiting Domitian’s triumphal procession into the city. It was September, the time of the Ludi Romani or Roman Games—fourteen days given over to revelry and races in the Circus Maximus—but little of the gaiety in the city’s streets penetrated this place of stern monumental walls and pitiless reverberating voices.
On the first day male and female captives were herded into separate cells—and Auriane saw at once Athelinda was not with them. She learned that many captives had been sent to the great slave markets near Alexandria, and could scarce bear to think of her mother in such a monstrous place. She prayed Fria had given her a gentle death and that she was with Baldemar. The captives numbered about five thousand; she saw no one with them who was sickly or aged past thirty winters—the tribe had been pared down to its young, muscular heart.
She found herself in a cell not much larger than a horse stall; moldering straw littered the floor. Everywhere about the vast chamber that housed the cells lingered the smell of strange, pungent herbs and sweet rot. The whole of this land she found stiflingly hot, but in this place the wind was kept out utterly—she might have been sealed into a great clay oven, left to slowly bake to death. But she at once made a discovery, and it was the greatest good fortune to befall her since her capture.
Among the five women who shared her cell was Sunia.
When they first saw each other, they mutely stared, fearful that if they spoke each other’s name the vision would vanish. Auriane felt a knot of joyful sadness collecting in her throat as she forced back tears. Sunia was a pale, elfin creature regarding her with solemn orphan’s eyes. Her rags hung on her like cloth caught on tentpoles; mouse-brown hair dangled in her face in filthy ropes. But to Auriane nothing could have been more welcome than the sight of that well-meaning face, that downcast, hesitant, hopeful glance, calculating always, but from fear, not deviousness, and the cautious appearance of that smile.
“Sunia,” Auriane said at last, her voice low in her throat. They came swiftly together, clinging to each other with elated desperation while the four other women in the cell dully looked on.
After a time Sunia said, “Of all the people, kinsmen and friends, who might have followed you here, you get me. What a low jest.”
Auriane held Sunia at arm’s length and gave her a reproving mother’s look. “Do not ever speak so again. You are my beloved kinswoman.”
A progression of days began that were no more than times of dark and light, punctuated with regular feedings and the resonant barks that announced the precise movements of guard changes. Auriane and Sunia stayed close by one another, telling rambling tales of their lives, weaving a closeness, while by degrees Sunia overcame her fear that Auriane would find her company tiresome—she could scarce believe Auriane had use for a companion of so little consequence. And Auriane found that being in the presence of someone whose shame was more crippling than her own made her look differently at all shame—it seemed less like part of the soul’s center and more like an affliction, like boils or ague.
As she thought this, she thought she saw a fleeting vision of Ramis.
One morning Sunia awakened before the others and saw Auriane standing in the hazed needle of sunlight slanting from the narrow window high in the wall. She kept her eyes closed so Auriane would think she slept, and managed to hear part of Auriane’s prayer:
“Radiant One, whose garment is the sun, Mother of all Knowledge, you who give all good things…I thank you with great praise for preserving Sunia alive and twining our two threads in this barren place….”
Sunia held in a breath with amazement—Auriane actually offered a prayer of thanksgiving for her. For a moment that was fleeting and rare, Sunia felt she held a secure place in the world.
Close-set iron bars separated their cell from its neighbor; the adjacent cell was crowded with twenty women captives. In its back wall was a hole in the mortar large enough to thrust a hand through; beyond this, in a larger cell, were a hundred or more male captives—among whom, she learned from the women in the next cell, were Coniaric and Thorgild. They, too, were reasonably fit and healthy. These four quickly formed a makeshift family, communicating through the women in the connecting cell.
Auriane’s favored treatment continued; in addition to the prisoners’ mush she was given dates, pears and apples, which she secretly shared with the other women. Army surgeons came to examine her and treat her injuries—fractured ribs, swellings, a festering sore on the ankle. She alone was allowed to wash. It was mystifying and disturbing.
Unsettling to her also was how hurried and impersonal this race of people were. Rarely did she see any of them greet another as a friend or brother, from the arrogant soldiers to the legions of slaves, physicians, armorers, leatherworkers, and grooms. Do people live in families here? she wondered. The slaves who tended them had the faces of every nation—and they too seemed to scarcely know their comrades. The very gods of this place, she thought, must be strangers to one another.
Another marvel was how closely they measured time in this place—at least, during times of daylight. As the bars of her prison cart had divided the sky, so the Romans’ days were divided into even parts called hours, and this seemed to govern all activity. The sun came up, and the first hour was announced by a deep-throated bell. The bell would sound another hour and the nerve-jarring clamor from the armory would cease, or the measured tramp of soldiers’ feet would start on the parade ground, amidst a fanfare of trumpets.
By the seventh day Auriane was attempting speech with two men of the Guard often stationed before the captives’ cells. Because it was a festival time, discipline was lax; eventually the pair began to banter with her when their officers were not about.
By the ninth day she had persuaded these two Guards to play dice with her.
They produced a set of battered bone dice and a tarnished silver dice cup, and gave her a few copper coins to start. And before their watch was done, they were cursing her and laughing as she stripped them of a bagful of copper coins.
Between throws, Auriane strove to ply them with questions. The other captives drowsed, or watched her with vague amazement, wondering how Auriane had the spirit to attempt to extract information from the enemy when they were still paralyzed with sadness.
“I hear much of this coming procession of triumph,” Auriane asked once, pronouncing each Latin word with trepidation while holding back the dice cup before a throw. “Is this some rite for your gods?”
“I’d find that schoolmaster who tutored you in our tongue and sue for my fee back,” the one called Justus said wryly. He had an abandoned laugh, sharp, watchful eyes, and a cynicism that seemed a tepid copy of Decius’.
“A ridiculous, gaudy show to dazzle the rabble into grateful silence is what it is,” responded the black
-haired Guard, a massively made young man with a deeply tanned, gnomish face that gleamed with perspiration, a name she could not pronounce, and breath that reeked of an as-yet-unknown spice these people heaped generously all their food. “The cursed procession—and not the land taken—is the real purpose of war, if you ask me.”
The answer was unsatisfactory, but Auriane sensed they were growing impatient with her questions. She gave the cup several more noisy shakes, then tried to insert one more.
“Who is this man Aristos who is on everyone’s tongue, night and day?”
“Enough talk,” Justus protested with mock annoyance. “Throw.”
Auriane released the dice.
“Venus again,” the black-haired Guard exclaimed while he regarded the dice as if they were alive and full of malice. “This northern wench has Fortuna hog-tied.” Sulkily he slid another copper coin beneath the bars.
“If she wins any more I say it’s time for another search,” Justus said.
“Your last throw, my barbarian Circe. Have the decency to lose this time.”
Auriane drew the slender cup farther from the bars, tarrying on purpose, transfixing Justus with a look, not knowing where she found the strength to say playfully, “World’s end will come and go before I throw these dice unless I get my answer.”
“Persistent as rodents…she’ll chew our arms off if we don’t tell her. Aristos, then. You know, Justus, they should march Aristos in that fool’s parade. Word is the Palace is pitifully short of captives.”
Auriane frowned in puzzlement.
“He means Aristos was a captive of this war,” Justus explained, “back at its beginning, over a year ago it was, but now that he’s celebrated and all—”
“Of this war? He is a man of my people?” Auriane asked, sitting forward, eyes intent. “But you speak of him as though he were a prince among you.” They talked in riddles when they spoke of Aristos. He had been condemned to death, but he dined with noblewomen. He was not a soldier, but he won battles.
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