by Kyle Onstott
Child of the Sun
by Kyle Onstott
First published in 1966
This edition published by Reading Essentials
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
CHILD OF THE SUN
by
Kyle Onstott
1
The full splendor of the late afternoon Syrian sun streamed into the courtyard of the palace at Emesa, gilding the patterned mosaic floor, highlighting the pillars of colored marble and changing the jet of the fountain in the center from crystal to liquid gold. Varius Avitus Bassianus, nephew of the Emperor Caracalla of Rome, stretched his naked limbs on the ivory couch under the canopy of wine-red gauze and sought a spot on the mattress which was not already dampened by his sweat. He adjusted the fold of black cloth that kept the full force of the sun from his eyes, turned over slowly so that the filtered rays could reach his back, punched the pillow into a more comfortable position and tried to recapture the voluptuously peopled dream from which he had so recently awakened.
Ah, but it was useless. The clatter of horses’ hooves outside and the shouts of his cousin Alexianus and his boorish companions had set a flock of pigeons to wheeling back and forth inside the courtyard which made further sleep impossible. He sat up, unwrapped the blindfold from his eyes and blinked into the sunlight. Slowly he inched over on the bed, keeping a precarious balance, until his hand encountered the ivory handle of a small mallet with which he struck a brass gong. Its echoing clamor started the pigeons wheeling again.
In the interval before the slave would appear in answer to his summons, Varius stretched himself languidly into wakefulness. His adolescent body and tawny golden skin had all the feline grace of the cheetah which dozed on the floor beside his couch. A tangle of black curls, now damp with sweat, covered his head, and dark brows, precisely plucked to an exact symmetry, framed his large liquid brown eyes. The nose was straight, chiseled in classic perfection which was marred only by the nostrils, which were over-wide. A precisely dented upper lip, red, wet and bee-stung, seemed both petulant and sensual and the cleft chin, although well formed, was weak. Without the all too apparent evidence of the body, it would have been difficult to distinguish the sex of the face for it was girlish in its beauty and yet as masculine as that of any boy in his early teens. The slender body that stretched on the couch was well formed but delicate with immature muscles which promised future strength without magnitude.
Varius glanced up as the long, embroidered Babylonian curtains parted and a slave entered and glided across the floor. His movements, like those of the boy he was about to serve, were smooth and catlike; mincing and delicate as he lifted his feet gingerly from the sun-warmed mosaic. He was older than Varius by some seven years and his hair, of a violent shade of orange, came to his shoulders in carefully arranged ringlets. It. could not have been a natural color—no man was ever born with hair of that shade—and the darker blackness at the scalp showed that it had been hennaed. Even at twenty, his face showed the ravages of dissipation which he had carefully tried to hide by painting his face with white lead, rouging his cheeks, and darkening his eyes with antimony. He approached the couch, fluttered his hands in the air and laid a delicate finger on Varius’s shoulder.
He shook his head and clucked with disapproval. “My dear, dear boy! Either the sun was too strong today or the gauze awning not thick enough. You are far too brown. Only a golden color, the priest said, just the kiss of the sun, and now,” he ran the finger along Varius’s skin as if to erase the color, “you are actually tanned. Oh, dear! What will your lady mother say and what will Zenotabalus the High Priest say? Oh, but we must do something about it.”
Varius looked at his shoulder where the finger had been. He too ran his finger across his skin and frowned. He reached for the whip which lay on the floor beside the cheetah and before the slave could move back, Varius let the lash fall across the man’s chest. Strangely enough the slave did not seem to mind although a red welt appeared on his soft skin.
“It’s your fault, Gannys,” Varius let the lash descend again and still the slave smiled, “all your fault! You should take better care of me. Why didn’t you order another layer of gauze? Why didn’t you wake me sooner or at least turn me over? Why didn’t you attend me? Where were you? In the kitchen, fondling the new slave? Keep your hands off him. I want him first. I’ve a mind to have you whipped, Gannys. You’re lazy and now what shall we do? Oh, it’s your fault.”
Gannys paid no more attention to the threat of whipping than he had to the lash. “ ’Tis nothing, my dear lad. We’ll bleach it out in moments with the new cream I have received from Egypt. Oh, ’tis wonderful, with the loveliest perfume. Lotus, I think, although I’ve never smelled anything quite like it before. ’Twill send you into ecstasies. You’ll adore it.”
Varius rose from the couch and walked across the courtyard. His walk lacked the mincing affectation of Gannys and yet he carried himself, naked as he was, as though he were trailing a court robe behind him. As he neared the curtains, he stopped, and listened with disapproval to the loud voices that were coming nearer.
“My cousin Alexianus arrives.” Wrinkles appeared in his forehead which he smoothed quickly away with his fingers. “He’s been hunting, I suppose.”
“Yes.” Gannys’s painted face showed the same distaste as Varius’s’ “He and the palace boys that hang on his every word! Kill, kill, kill, that’s all they want to do. Today it’s falcons, tomorrow it’s arrows and the next day it will be swords or spears. It matters not to them except that they bring back some poor dead bird or animal.”
“And how they stink when they return.” Varius’s nose indicated the offence that such smells caused him. “Once I offered Alexianus some attar of roses for his smelly armpits. He stank so much I could not sit next to him at the table, and what do you think he said?”
“Something nasty as usual,” Gannys was quick to agree.
“He said that the stink of a little honest sweat would do me good. Me, Gannys, who in three weeks when I pass my fourteenth birthday will be High Priest of Elagabalus, Son of the Sun.”
“Pay no attention to him. He’s jealous. He has always been. You are older than he, handsomer, more intelligent and . . .” Gannys nodded his head in affirmation, “you are to be the High Priest, not he, and besides,” he glanced coyly at Varius, “the soldiers are all your friends.”
Varius basked in the compliments. “Naturally he’s jealous. Just a jealous boor. But . . . he’s not bad looking, Gannys. In fact, he’s very handsome.”
“Not as handsome as the new slave boy in the kitchen. And of course, he cannot be compared with you, dear Varius.” He stopped and raised his hands, “Or should I begin to address you as Elagabalus. I shall soon have to.” Various disregarded the question.
“About the new slave boy! Then you were in the kitchen with him and I forbade you. I forbade you to touch him, Gannys. Oh, this time I will surely have you sent to the whips, I vow. You’ll have a pretty crisscross of welts on your back. Now you’ve spoiled him for me. I’ve been anticipating him all day but I do not want him after you have slobbered over him.”
Gannys was quick to defend himself. “Of course I touched him. How else could I have bathed him? Think you that you would have enjoyed him smelling of leeks and garlics? But apart from bathing him, that is all. So, send me to the w
hips if you must but at least, he is clean and sweet smelling for you and awaits you in the bath. I am always thinking of you, my Varius,” he looked sideways at Varius, “Elagabalus, I mean.”
Gannys always knew how to flatter to gain his own ends and he knew the hold he had over the boy—a hold strengthened by his willingness to pander to the burgeoning desires of the adolescent body. In this he had not only the approval of the boy’s mother but of the priest of the Temple of the Sun as well, albeit for different reasons. Soaemias, the boy’s mother was determined that no other female would ever have any place in her son’s affections, therefore Varius would never be permitted to love a woman. To the sun worshipers, the sun was a man, glorious and strong, who ruled by day. The moon was a woman who ruled by night, whose power diminished as she entered her periods of uncleanliness. Therefore a priest of the sun could have no dealings with a woman. To do so would rob him of his power and his cleanliness. So Zenotabalus, as well as Soaemias, had forbidden Varius to have any contact with women. Varius was apparently quite satisfied.
Instructions had been given to Gannys to indoctrinate Varius into the then-fashionable vices of the East and no better teacher could have been found than he who, indeed, knew them all. He was most willing to lead Varius down such erotic paths for it gave him a hold over Varius, making the boy more amenable to discipline, easier to reward and more completely under Gannys’s influence. Even at his present age of fourteen, Varius was well seasoned in the role he was to play during his life—that of a pawn in others’ hands. Throughout his brief span of existence, Varius was to have no mind of his own—only his body, but this beautiful body was his and from it he would derive all the pleasure he could.
Gannys held up the curtain for Varius to pass through and as it fell behind them, they heard the voices, rough, loud and vulgar approaching down the long corridor.
“Sixteen birds today, Alexianus,” one of the young ruffians was shouting. “Sixteen to my five. Ah, boy, the sun favoured you today. Perhaps it is because your cousin is soon to be Son of the Sun.”
Alexianus’s mouth pursed itself to accommodate the obscene noise he made. “My cousin Varius. Bah! The little sissy! But quiet, here he comes, tripping alongside of his painted Gannys. Of the two, I think I hate the slave the more.” He took up a position in the center of the passageway.
All the good looks that Varius possessed were equaled in his younger cousin Alexianus. The brow was higher, the eyebrows natural instead of plucked, the nose better formed, the mouth less sensual and the chin stronger. But it was the boy’s eyes which were his most prominent feature. Varius regarded the world through the thick veil of his lashes with an indifferent somnolence but Alexianus had eyes of such startling clarity and beauty that many found it impossible to look at him directly. Alexianus was all boy with none of the languid effeminacy of Varius. His face was frankly open and lacked the craftiness which distinguished that of Varius. His words were direct and honest, inspiring confidence. And yet, with all his beauty he lacked the intelligence of Varius.
He stood astride the passage, blocking the way, his friends, sons of the palace freedmen and slaves, behind him. His rough tunic of white cotton was stained with sweat and horse spittle. In his hands he carried a bulging cloth bag through which blood was seeping. As Varius drew near, he delved into the bag and drew out the mutilated body of a partridge.
“A gift to you, Cousin Varius.” He tossed the dead bird to Varius. It hit him on the chest and slithered down his belly to land on the floor—a misshapen lump of flesh and feathers.
Varius shrank from the contact. The smudge of blood stood out against the honey-colored flesh.
“You and your dead birds!” Varius recoiled from the object on the floor. “Think you of nothing but killing? I want not your gift, Alexianus. Neither your gift nor you.” As a final insult, Varius wrinkled his nose again, “And you stink—a rank smell of horses.”
“Then crawl not to my bed tonight, for if you do, you’ll get the same reception you got last night and the night before and the night before that. I’m no slave that you can whip into submission so save your caresses for those luckless bastards and for the soldiers of the Tenth Legion.”
Varius’s face turned red under his tan. He reached out a hand and pushed Alexianus aside. However, Alexianus was not budged by the feeble push, instead he lowered his shoulder, caught Varius on the chest and heaved. Varius went backwards, flailed his arms vainly for a second and then fell, sprawling on the floor. Immediately he started yelling, as though he had been murdered.
Alexianus jumped on him, sitting on his chest. With one hand he grabbed his cousin’s long hair, clutching a handful and banged Varius’s head on the floor. Varius only howled the louder. Gannys, in the background until now, came forward, vainly trying to lift Alexianus from his master but a well directed backhand slap from the youngster sent Gannys into retreat, clutching his belly. Varius’s screams rose above his sobs and with each scream, Alexianus raised his head and let it fall on the floor again.
“Mama, Mama, Mama!” The corridor echoed and reechoed with Varius’s howls as the companions of Alexianus sped away to absent themselves from the conflict. “Mama, help me! Guards, attend me! Gannys, stop him! He’s killing me. Mama!”
The last frantic wail produced results. A woman came running down the corridor, her silken draperies floating behand her; her hands outstretched; her face contorted with anger. She reached down, grabbed Alexianus by the hair and pulled him off Varius. Gannys, quite recovered from his blow, hastened to help her and between the two of them, they got the screaming Varius to his feet.
“Punish him, Mother, punish him.”
“He will be punished, Varius.” Her anxious fingers moved over his head. “Are you hurt, my son?”
Varius’s sobs subsided, but he was trembling with anger.
“He dared to touch me. I, who in a few weeks’ time will be the most sacred person in the world.”
Alexianus did not retreat, although all his friends had run away. He was left alone to witness the torrent of maternal love that flowed over Varius. Soaemias was a most possessive mother. In her son Varius, she held the solitary key to all her hopes and ambitions. That she was a cousin to the Roman Emperor Caracalla, that her mother was sister to the Emperor’s mother had gained her little but the exile of herself, her mother, her sister and her sister’s child, Alexianus, to this provincial city. Caracalla, who lived in fear of the world, trusted his own family less than strangers.
Through her son Varius, Soaemias saw a possible stairway to greatness, the first step towards which would be the boy’s elevation as High Priest of Elagabalus. All competition must be ruled out. No other woman must be allowed to replace her influence. No other contender against Varius must be allowed to rival him or exceed him. In her young nephew, her sister Mamaea’s child, she had long sensed a possible rival.
Alexianus defied her. He pointed to the bloodstained bag on the floor.
“I but made a present to your puling Varius. A bird I killed this afternoon. I was about to suggest that Gannys take it to the kitchen and have it cooked for his supper but he did not want the gift.”
“And you knew that when you gave it to him. Do not cozen me, young whelp. Your gift was not made through love. You know that Varius hates anything that is dead, bloody, dirty or odorous. You had only in mind to plague him. Now run and tattle to your mother about all that has happened and let her relate it to our mother so that it will be the topic of conversation at dinner tonight. ‘Varius did this and Varius did that.’ Know you not that he is to be Priest of the Sun? Keep your hands off him.” She struck out at him but Alexianus sidestepped.
He stretched out his hands, palms up. Indeed they were dirty. He shrugged his shoulders, bowed with mock obeisance to Soaemias and then made an even deeper genuflection towards Varius.
“Lest I profane the air which the divine Varius breathes, I shall leave you. My mother awaits me, but I shall not bother her with a thing so t
rivial as my banging my cousin’s head on the floor. She would only applaud me and worry about some possible damage to the floor.” He turned on his heel and left.
Soaemias released Varius from the smothering restraint of her embrace and turned him over to Gannys.
“Bathe him and put cold compresses on his poor head. Perhaps you can find some way to amuse him and make him forget this ugly scene.” She pushed them protectively before her and watched them walk down the hall.
When they were out of hearing, Varius pinched Gannys’s arm viciously. “Hear that! You are to amuse me. Mama said so, Gannys. And how will you amuse me? Tell me.”
Gannys rubbed the red spot on his arm.
“The new boy from the kitchen is waiting in the baths. That should amuse you. I picked him out especially for you.”
“And that means he’s big and strong and handsome.” Varius bent over and kissed the red spot on Gannys’s arm.
“That he is,” Gannys agreed.
“And being big and strong, perhaps I shall have to whip him to make him mind.” Varius brandished the slender lash which he had brought with him.
