by Ian Ross
‘Your husband’s at Nisibis, so they say, kyria,’ the man who called himself Europas had said, casting back his hood in the dim lamplight of the upper chamber. ‘Not much we can do to help him.’
‘You know what I want,’ Marcellina said, hiding her anxiety. Pharnax leaned in the doorway, chewing a toothpick. If the gladiator had not vouched for this man himself, Marcellina would never have trusted him.
‘I remember your husband,’ Europas went on in a smooth voice. An actor’s voice. ‘He didn’t make many friends when he was in Antioch over the winter. But people liked it when he stood up to Ablabius. And now he’s an enemy to Dracilianus too, you say? Interesting man!’
Dracilianus, Marcellina knew, had not made himself popular either. But why he appeared to have turned against Castus she did not know. Valerius Mucatra, the commander of the field army, now went everywhere with the new prefect; had Dracilianus just wanted to clear a position for his own man? No, there had to be more to it than that. But the most pressing thing was to force them both to take action. Explanations could wait.
‘I can’t offer you much, as you know,’ she told Europas. ‘If you can do what Pharnax claims you can… I can pay you a certain sum.’
Europas made a gracious gesture. ‘Most generous,’ he said. ‘But it doesn’t work that way. We do something for you – and, in time, you do something for us.’
‘I can’t do anything for you if I’m dead,’ she whispered. Aeliana was in her sleeping chamber, out of earshot, but she wanted to be careful.
‘Staying alive’s your job, kyria,’ the actor said with a glinting smile.
They had discussed nothing more that evening, and Marcellina still had little idea of what would happen. It would be here, though, at the theatre. Europas’s domain. How many others knew of what was planned? How far had the secret networks of the city carried their schemes? Biting her bottom lip, Marcellina concentrated on watching, and waiting.
The first performance had come to an end, and through the spattering of applause came a blast of trumpets. Figures had appeared beneath the canopy of the tribunal: with a shiver of nervous relief, Marcellina recognised Dracilianus among them. A tribune of the Scholae stood behind him, with the squat, bearded figure of Valerius Mucatra, dressed in his full military regalia, at his side. As Dracilianus seated himself, a herald mounted the opposite podium.
‘All rise!’ the herald cried. ‘All rise for his eminence, the most distinguished Domitius Dracilianus, Praetorian Prefect of the East!’
Marcellina got quickly to her feet, pulling the silk shawl tighter around her head and shoulders. The richly patterned fabric had come from Nisibis; a gift, Castus had told her, from the councillors of that city. She wore it now for good luck, and to send a message: surely none could mistake its origin. Most of the other ladies on the higher seats were standing too, but with a shock Marcellina noticed that the greater mass of the crowd below had remained seated. Here and there men were on their feet, but they resembled stray stalks in a field of harvest stubble.
‘Noble Dracilianus,’ the herald declared, stretching out his arms towards the podium, ‘lover of your country! Defender of the city! You dignify us with your presence!’
He turned to the crowd, raising his arms to signal the acclamation. Marcellina breathed the words silently, her mouth dry. The women to either side repeated the praises in a mumble. But from the stalls below came only a few voices; instead, a strange sound was rising from the multitude on the lower seats. A whisper at first, rising to an eerie low chirring, like the distant sound of swarming bees. Marcellina stared down into the crowd, wide-eyed.
‘Noble Dracilianus,’ the herald went on, a catch in his voice, ‘may you rule over our provinces with wisdom…!’
But now the strange noise, the humming buzzing clamour, was rising to drown out the herald’s words. Dracilianus was looking baffled. Beside him, Mucatra stared with clenched fury into the crowd.
‘Where is our emperor?’ a voice cried, seeming to come from nowhere but carrying across the auditorium. ‘Bring us our emperor!’
‘Who defends the cities?’ another voice called out. ‘Who repels the Persians? Why do our troops refuse to fight?’
Glancing to either side of her, Marcellina could not make out who had spoken. Actors, she had heard, were trained to throw their voices; some could make words appear from the very air.
‘Dracilianus is a false governor!’ a higher voice yelled. ‘To the river with Dracilianus!’
But now the steady buzzing of the crowd had gained a pulse. Feet stamping in the stalls, hands clapping. The slap of leather against stone. Marcellina saw a few missiles flying from the upper tiers. Shoes, she realised, they were throwing shoes… Many of the people below her were passing baskets between them, each filled with worn old sandals and boots.
‘Silence!’ Mucatra bellowed into the wall of noise. One of the flung shoes landed on the podium beside him, and he kicked it angrily away.
The calls from the crowd had built to a steady chant now. ‘WHO DEFENDS THE CITIES? WHO DEFENDS THE CITIES...?’
‘Dracilianus to the river!’ somebody yelled.
‘Dracilianus to the lions!’ another cried.
And now a sudden wave of motion flowed through the packed stands. Leaning forward over the balustrade, Marcellina watched in amazed horror. The guards that had ringed the tribunal were wading into the crowd, striking out with their iron-tipped staves, trying to isolate and capture whoever was leading the chant. People screamed, scrambling upward over the ranked seating. The orchestra pit was in turmoil as the dignitaries from the lower tiers made a rush for the exits.
Dracilianus was gone, and the tribunal was empty.
‘Domina!’ a voice said, and Marcellina turned from the riotous scene below her. Pharnax stood in the rose-tinted shadows. ‘Domina, best leave now,’ Pharnax urged, his scarred face looking demonic in the ruddy glow. ‘I’ve got a litter outside – Aeliana’s there, with some of the household slaves.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Marcellina said hurriedly. Many of the other women were also making their escape, packing the upper colonnade and the stairway, stifling their shrieks. From the stalls, Marcellina could hear roars of combat, the thud of staves striking bodies, the screams of the injured.
Her mind was racing. She had imagined many times in the last two days what sort of disturbance Europas and his confederates might cause, but she had never anticipated this level of violence, or this sudden a conflagration. As she followed Pharnax down the booming funnel of the stairway, the burly gladiator forging a path ahead of her, she fought to control her terror. What have I done? What have I caused to happen?
*
She had assumed that it would be an easy matter to escape the city with Aeliana, once Dracilianus and his guards were distracted. A boat was waiting at the river dock below the palace island, and it would take them down the Orontes to Hormisdas’s estates south of Daphne. They would be safe there at least.
But as she rode in the litter along the colonnaded street towards the river, Marcellina saw that things would not be so simple. The riot that had ignited at the theatre had already flowed out into the city, racing like a wind-driven blaze, faster than a man could run. How had it happened? At every street corner there were gangs of men chanting slogans, abusing Dracilianus and the army commanders. She heard the crash of shutters breaking, of amphorae smashed on the cobbles. Holding Aeliana beside her in a tight embrace, she kept the drapes of the litter closed. Pharnax was striding alongside.
Bodies shoved against the side of the litter as it passed a crowded intersection. Suddenly the drape was snatched aside, and a man leered in. Unshaven, gap-toothed, his breath stinking of wine, he grinned at Marcellina and her daughter. ‘Hello, ladies! Looking for some fun?’
Marcellina hugged her daughter closer, drawing the dagger she kept beneath the litter cushion. But before she could move, Pharnax had punched the man on the side of the head and knocked him down, then casually stamped
on his face. The drapes fell closed, and they moved on.
By the time they had crossed the bridge and reached the river dock, night was falling. The bearers set the litter down on the quayside, and as she climbed out Marcellina saw the boat tied up only a few paces away. But figures were gathering from the shadows; light flared as one of them uncovered a lantern.
‘In the name of Constantius Augustus,’ a man cried, ‘remain where you are!’
Pharnax had already pulled a short sword from beneath his cloak. Aeliana was still inside the litter, and Marcellina shrank back against it, gesturing for her daughter to stay seated. The men around them were from the city watch, she realised, with an officer of the Scholae leading them.
‘No need for trouble,’ Pharnax said, moving to stand between the officer and Marcellina. He held his sword low, in a fighting grip. ‘The ladies are leaving the city – things are getting too hot here…’
‘Take them,’ the officer said, and the guards closed in.
Aeliana screamed, throwing herself from the litter and clasping Marcellina’s legs. Pharnax had dodged forward to intercept one of the guards, feinting with his sword. The officer shouted another command, and bows thrummed from the darkness.
Pharnax jolted upright, the sword falling from his hand. He turned slowly to Marcellina, and with a cry of horror she saw the three arrows jutting from his chest. The scarred old gladiator’s face creased in pain, and he tried to speak. Then another arrow struck him in the neck, and he dropped without a sound.
*
A pair of lamps burned on tall stands, illuminating the polished marble floor, but the high ceiling of the chamber was lost in darkness. Marcellina sat upright on a stool, Aeliana standing beside her. The girl had not made a sound since they were captured at the river dock. She appeared to be holding her breath.
‘Tell me,’ Dracilianus said, ‘why I should not have you thrown in a cell? Tell me why I should not have my quaestionarii scourge the flesh from your back? Yours, and your daughter’s too?’
‘Why would you do such a thing?’ Marcellina managed to say. She was struggling to maintain an appearance of calm, but the blood was pulsing fast in her head.
‘Why?’ the prefect said with cool severity. ‘You don’t think that conspiring to provoke a riot in the city of Antioch is a grave offence? A treasonous offence? Think of the damage to property, the injuries, the possible loss of life. Not to mention the insult to my own office, and to the dignity of the emperor I serve!’
Marcellina could smell smoke, trapped in the clothes of the guards and military officers who stood around them in the gloom. There were fires still burning in the city. Dracilianus himself appeared unruffled, as usual. In the low light his eyes looked like smooth grey pebbles, pressed into the waxy mask of his face. He smelled only of rosewater.
‘I did not provoke anything,’ she forced herself to say. ‘How could I?’
‘Don’t weary us with your excuses,’ Dracilianus said. ‘My investigators quickly determined who was responsible for this outrage. Indeed, they already knew you were plotting something. We might not catch the instigators… the principal actors, we might say… but we’ve caught the director. The patron. You.’
‘I’ve been asking to speak with you for weeks,’ Marcellina said, forcing a tight smile. ‘Now, at least, I have your attention, don’t I?’
Dracilianus flinched slightly, as if her audacity had disarmed him. ‘Cleverness does not suit a lady of your years and status,’ he said quietly. ‘Although,’ he went on with more assurance, ‘I’m not sure exactly what your status might be…’
‘My husband,’ Marcellina declared, her voice ringing off the marbled walls, ‘is Magister Equitum per Orientem – his rank equals yours!’
‘Your husband,’ Dracilianus replied, his expression hardening, ‘is a traitorous worm. At present he’s probably rotting in a stinking grave pit outside the walls of Nisibis!’
Marcellina felt the chill of renewed fear. ‘Aurelius Castus is no traitor,’ she said quietly, ‘and you know it. He’s always been loyal to the emperor – always!’
‘Oh, so we believed,’ Dracilianus said, shaking his head. He began to pace, back and forth before his captives. ‘I confess I was rather taken in myself by his simple-soldier act, his knuckleheaded demeanour...! But now we know different.’
He fanned his arm towards the officers and guards surrounding him. ‘Since we disposed of that oaf Ablabius, new evidence has come to light. Treasonous correspondence, between Ablabius and Aurelius Castus, proving that they conspired to raise a mutiny of the troops against the rightful Caesar Constantius and place Flavius Julius Dalmatius upon the throne.’
‘This is madness!’ Marcellina cried. She had flinched back on the stool at the prefect’s words, hugging Aeliana to her side.
‘But what should we expect?’ Dracilianus went on. ‘It was always a mistake, I think, to promote such base men to high office. Ablabius, born in the scum of a Cretan brothel. And Aurelius Castus, the son of a nobody, a common soldier… To think that he once dared to marry a lady of the Roman aristocracy! A daughter of the Domitii… How my family loathed him. He killed her too, or drove her to her death with his brutal ways. He murdered another cousin of mine too, in cold blood. We could never forgive him for that. By all the gods, I’ve prayed long and hard for the chance to cleanse our family name of that particular taint.’
‘So that’s what this is about?’ Marcellina said, cold horror flowing through her body. ‘You hate him because he insulted your family?’
‘Why not?’ Dracilianus said. ‘As good a reason to hate a man as any. Besides his treachery, of course!’
He was smiling, but his eyes were still expressionless, dead in his face. No, Marcellina thought, that was not the reason. However this man may have hated her husband, there was something more behind his actions. What threat did Castus pose to him?
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ she said with icy realisation. ‘You sent those men to attack Castus in his own quarters, back in the autumn…’
‘That matter was investigated thoroughly,’ the prefect said with a slight shrug. ‘I see no reason to dwell on it now.’
Marcellina flinched in shocked disgust. He had as good as admitted it… There was no limit to the hatred she felt for this man.
‘Incidentally,’ Dracilianus went on, ‘it may interest you to know that I’ve ordered Valerius Mucatra to march the field army east to Edessa, to counter any further Persian incursions. Now the succession is assured we have no more need for troops in Antioch. The detachments currently stationed at Soura on the Euphrates will join him on the march. Although I assure you this has nothing to do with today’s disgraceful episode – I’d planned it several days ago.’
Liar, Marcellina thought. Her fear and horror were turning to anger now.
‘As for you,’ Dracilianus continued, ‘I’m afraid your options are both bleak, and limited. The property of a condemned traitor is seized by the state, as you know. All of it. So unless you wish yourself and your daughter to live in the public porticoes with the other vagrants, I suggest you look to your future. You’re still quite presentable, and not too old – I believe Valerius Mucatra wants a wife. Perhaps you could make yourself charming to him, when he returns from seeing off the Persians?’
Marcellina gasped, feeling the colour rush to her face. But before she could answer the insult, Aeliana had pulled away from her side. Glaring, the girl confronted Dracilianus.
‘My father will kill you!’ she cried. ‘He’ll come back here and kill you – he promised he would!’
‘Be silent!’ Marcellina hissed, grabbing her daughter’s arm.
But Dracilianus had taken a step closer, stooping to peer at the girl. He reached out and seized her by the chin. ‘What’s that, little chicky? Your father said he would murder an officer of the state? What a bloodthirsty traitor he must be!’
‘Get your hands off her!’ Marcellina screamed, pulling Aeliana from him. Her daught
er was breathing fast, sucking back tears, all the terrified panic she had been suppressing since Pharnax was killed rising up in her.
Dracilianus stepped away, shrugging as he smiled. ‘A dangerous pair, eh?’ he said to the officers behind him. A couple of them laughed. ‘I think we must hold them securely until the emperor returns and determines their fate. Till then, let them remain within their house, under close guard.’
Through the numbing fog of her fear, Marcellina heard the words and realised their implication. Hostages, she thought. We are to be hostages.
She knew what that meant: for all his bluster, Dracilianus was still not in total control of the situation. He still did not know how the dice would fall.
And somewhere, just possibly, Castus still lived.
XXVIII
Birds were wheeling around the citadel mount, fast and black against the pale glow of the sky. He tipped his head, watching them as they flew.
‘Untroubled creatures,’ the doctor said, following his gaze.
Nicagoras had appeared silently on the roof terrace of the Strategion, where Castus had taken to sitting during the brief cool of the evening.
‘Perhaps we could learn from them?’ the doctor went on. ‘They appear to act in such instinctive harmony, without strife or coercion!’
‘The bigger birds still attack the smaller ones,’ Castus said.
‘Hmm. I suppose that is nature’s way… But I always find it amazing that they have such energy, with such small hearts inside their bodies!’
Castus grimaced. He did not want to think about hearts. Especially not his own.
‘You have suffered a paroxysm,’ Nicagoras had told him, when Castus had first emerged from the unconsciousness and delirium that had gripped him for days. ‘Excessive physical and mental strain, coupled with overheating of the blood, caused the vessels within your body to swell and become clogged, thus stopping the motion of your heart.’
