Child of the Sun

by Kyle Onstott

  “Do you mean that, Antoninus . . . I mean Great Caesar?”

  “I do. I shall adopt him as my son and heir. I shall legitimize him through a decree of the Senate so that upon my death, he will become Caesar. But, in order that you may not hasten my death to put the laurel leaves on Alexianus’s greasy hair, I shall go even farther than that.”

  Julia Maesa spoke for the first time.

  “What do you mean by ‘farther,’ Great Caesar?”

  “I mean that I shall make Alexianus Consul of Rome for the coming year along with myself. Next to being Emperor that is the highest position Rome can offer. As Consul of Rome he may learn something, in fact, he may even learn to speak Latin. He shall be my son and, as my son, I shall be responsible for his upbringing. He will be separated from both of you and will see you only when I permit it. Do you agree to that? Alexianus to be legal heir and Consul of Rome, and entirely under my supervision?”

  “You intend to hold him hostage?”

  “He will not be a prisoner, except that he will be forbidden to visit either his mother or his grandmother. I shall supervise his education and training. One more attempt against my life and your precious son will either die or wish himself dead.” Antoninus reached down and touched Hierocles and bade him stand up. Together they walked out, leaving Mamaea and Julia Maesa still on their knees. That same day Alexianus was moved from his own apartments adjoining those of Mamaea to rooms in the same wing as Antoninus. A detachment of the Palace Guard replaced the Praetorians who had hitherto guarded him.

  21

  Within a few days, true to his promise, Antoninus set the cumbersome machinery of Senate politics in motion which would make Alexianus his legal son and heir and raise him to the high post of Consul of Rome. For once the August Fathers were more than anxious to comply with his wishes and the two decrees were issued forthwith. Alexianus’s name was changed to Alexander and he was confirmed as Consul of Rome for the coming year.

  Julia Maesa discreetly kept herself in the background, smugly satisfied with the way things were progressing. It had become increasingly unimportant to her which of her grandsons ruled Rome as long as she retained the power in her own hands.

  Mamaea caused a scene at Alexander’s appearance in the Senate to receive the consulship because she found that she had been placed next to the Lady Dulcilla, Hierocles’s mother, and that Dulcilla’s jewels were far more elaborate than her own. But, although she made her dislike for the Lady Dulcilla apparent, she was forced to walk beside her in the procession. However, she consoled herself that it was a small sacrifice to make, even though Dulcilla outranked her as mother of the Caesar Honoralibus as compared to mother of the Heir Apparent.

  Soaemias managed to separate herself from the arms of her latest lover, the young patrician Ahenobarbus, long enough to come to Antoninus’s apartment and congratulate him on his wily move, and cast longing eyes on Hierocles.

  Hierocles felt it his duty to keep an eye on Alexander and frequently checked to make sure that the boy was safely in custody. The day after the official ceremony, Hierocles entered the new Consul’s room. Alexander was lolling on a couch. The boy looked up at Hierocles and spat at him. “Know you, slave, what my first act as Caesar will be?”

  “Something stupid, I imagine.” Hierocles itched to slap him.

  “Not so stupid, slave. I’ll order you crucified, and naked too, so that all Rome can gaze upon my dear papa’s plaything.”

  “But you are not Caesar yet.” Hierocles left and returned to Antoninus.

  “This Alexander is impossible. May all the Gods protect Rome if he ever becomes Emperor! Would it not have been better to slit the lout’s throat, banish your aunt to the Pandatarian Rock and send your grandmother to Syria? You will never be safe as long as you have those three plotting against you.”

  Antoninus looked up, overturning the bottle of oil with which Cleander was massaging him. A wave of his hand dismissed Cleander.

  “Since the day I became Caesar, nay, even before that, I have never been safe, nor has any Caesar before me. Even the divine Julius was murdered in the Senate.”

  “Shall you continue with this,” Hierocles swept the room with its bronze, gold and marble with his hand, “and never know when you go to bed at night whether you will awaken in the morning? Or shall you eliminate your enemies before they eliminate you?”

  Antoninus shrugged his shoulders.

  “As for me, I desire only one thing. To die!”

  There was a long silence. Hierocles did not move. Finally he forced himself to speak one word and that haltingly.

  “Why?”

  ‘‘Because except for you, Hierocles, I have nothing else to live for. What new joy can life hold for me? Lust? I have already experienced everything that could possibly be invented. Power? I have been Caesar for nearly four years. Wealth? I tire of gold and jewels, of silk robes and soft beds, of fawning slaves and fawning senators. My ears have been surfeited with music. My nostrils are deadened by cloying perfumes so that even the smell of honest sweat becomes more satisfying than the odor of lilies. My palate has tasted all the delights of every country from India to Britain. I no longer crave the caress of silk on my body, the deft fingers of slaves, the weight of diadems. There is only one thing left that could make life worth living for me.”

  “Name it, beloved, and I will get it for you,” Hierocles pleaded.

  “You and I together, apart from the world, seeking sanctuary on our little farm, working for our daily bread, sleeping the tired sleep of exhaustion and then waking in the morning to the sound of birds singing. Thus let me live, carissimus, and I shall no longer desire to die. Let us flee this palace today.”

  Hierocles’s hand covered Antoninus’s mouth.

  “Hush!”

  “Order the chariot, Hierocles, we leave now!”

  “And guards?”

  “Half of my Palace Guards to surround the farmhouse at a distance of a quarter of a millia. None to approach closer unless we alert them.”

  “And messengers to ride from Rome in case they are needed?” Hierocles asked.

  “Alas, Hierocles, whom can we trust in Rome to send a messenger if one was needed?”

  “Only one.”

  “My mother?”

  “No, she rarely leaves the arms of young Ahenobarbus.”

  “Then who?”

  “Gordius! Since you spared his life and made him Praefect of the Palace Guards, he is faithful to you.”

  “And methinks he still loves you, Hierocles.”

  “This is no time to waste words in senseless jealousy.”

  “And he can send Aegenax. I trust him.” He shouted for Gordius.

  “Yes, Great Caesar.” Gordius stepped inside.

  “Close the door. Hierocles will have instructions for you, but now attend me well. Once you told me you knew everyone in Rome.”

  Gordius nodded.

  “I have heard of a certain Hardranes, a quondam priest at the Temple of Isis.”

  “Hardranes the poisoner?”

  “The same.”

  “While we are gone, you will seek him out, Gordius. You will find out from him if he knows of a very subtle kind of poison—one which does not kill at once but which produces the symptoms of a lingering illness that defies all physicians. Ask him if he knows of such a poison and how it can be administered.”

  “The sword is quicker and it is deadly sure. Let me go to Alexander’s rooms. In five minutes I shall return here and the job will be done. In truth, I shall enjoy doing it.”

  “And make Alexander a martyr for all Rome to mourn? Ah no, Gordius. It would be quicker and surer but it would mean my end as well as his. No, seek out Hardranes. And now, heed Hierocles, and have your men ready to leave in an hour’s time. Mount them on horses so they will arrive even before us.”

  “Where do you go, Great Caesar, and who goes with you?”

  “As immortal Jove took the young Ganymede in his eagle’s talons and carried h
im to Mount Olympus, so do I go to seek a taste of heaven in the arms of an immortal god. Death is near me, Gordius. Ask me not how I know, but I know. You nor all your guards cannot save men from it so I would have one taste of heaven before I seek the shades.” Antoninus was sobbing.

  Hierocles walked slowly to the weeping boy and took him in his arms. Gordius stood by the door, his fingers on the bronze latch. Suddenly he turned, walked to the two and spread his huge arms around both of them.

  “We shall protect you, little Antonine.”

  “That you cannot do, even with your great strength, Gordius. But . . . promise me one thing.”

  “Anything, my lord and master, my Caesar, my friend.”

  “Promise me that when they kill me, you will not allow them to desecrate my body or mutilate it. Carry me to the little farm and bury me secretly in the glade by the pool. Secretly, Gordius, so that no man may know my grave except you and Hierocles. Then, Gordius, plant hyacinths around it—purple ones for Imperial Caesar; red ones for the moments of passion I have known; and white ones for the purity of my love for Hierocles.”

  22

  The soft blackness of the night with its welcome cloak of anonymity enfolded them as their speeding chariot thundered over the paved road from Rome. It was a night unrelieved by either moon or stars, with a chill breeze that turned even colder as they sped along, cutting through their thin tunics and numbing their flesh. As they turned off the road into the dirt Jane that wound over the hills to the farmhouse, the blackness of the night was studded with a comforting ring of far-off camp fires, and the questioning hail of a posted sentry was reassuring evidence that the Palace Guards had bivouacked for the night.

  The quadriga came to a grinding stop before the dim outline of the little farmhouse and Antoninus leaped out, shivering in the night air, while Hierocles drove the horses around to the stable in the rear. While he was unharnessing them and bedding them down, Antoninus fitted the clumsy key in the Jock and entered. The chill inside was even worse than that outside and there was a close smell of stale air in the house. He knelt on the cold stones of the floor.

  “Oh, almighty Elah-ga-baal, even though your power is now gone, swallowed up in the night, when you arise once more in the morning, grant to me your son, wisdom and strength, and above all courage to protect him whom I love.”

  He stood up. “And myself,” he added.

  A spark leaped in his hand and caught the tinder. In its feeble light, he saw a small oil lamp on the table, exactly where they had left it when they had departed in such high hopes only a few months earlier. The flame caught and the steadier light from the lamp enabled Antoninus to locate other lamps and light them.

  He threw open the closed shutters to allow the night wind to sweep the stale dampness from the house, then knelt on the crude hearth to scrape together sticks and half-burned pieces of wood from their last fire. The wood was damp and would not catch but by pouring some of the oil from one of the lamps over it, he finally managed to ignite it and in a few moments, a feeble fire was blazing on the hearth.

  He carried two of the lamps into the bedroom, threw down the covers of the bed and closed the shutters that he had previously opened, coming back into the common room and closing those also. By the time Hierocles had finished his work in the stables, there was light and a semblance of warmth in the house. Antoninus heard his footsteps outside and opened the heavy front door. They entered the house and closed the door behind them, slipping the heavy wooden beam into place that double locked the door.

  The hamper yielded a stock of provisions and an amphora of wine which Cleander had packed hastily, together with a change of tunics for both of them. Soon Antoninus had water heating on the fire and when it boiled, he mixed wine with it. The fire was slowly robbing the stone walls and floor of their accumulated dampness; the lamps were flickering cheerfully; their senses were pleasantly dulled by the wine and they gradually relaxed.

  Hierocles pulled a heavy black bearskin rug over the floor to the hearth and they lay down on it, so near the fire that by stretching their arms out, they could add more fuel to it. The ruddy flames played over their faces, propped on their bands, and they looked into the glowing embers as though to discover some sign or portent in them.

  “Are we or are we not the most fortunate beings in the world?” Hierocles asked.

  “If you mean at this moment,” Antoninus agreed, “we are. I know, without asking, that your happiness equals mine. But, if you mean we are the most fortunate beings in the world because I am Caesar and you are Caesar’s friend, I cannot answer you so well. I suppose if any man, high or low, within the whole stretch of Empire, were given the opportunity to change places with me, he would leap at the chance. To be Caesar! Augustus of Rome! The world at his feet! And yet, I would pity the man who might accept, even though he be a slave in the mines of Egypt.”

  “Ah but, beloved, you do not know what it is to be a slave. I do.”

  “To be a slave? Who knows better than I. You had one man for your master. I have a million. Were you more of a slave when you were on the block than you are here beside Caesar? Then you feared only the lash of your master but today you fear the sword of the assassin . . .”

  “I fear it not for myself. I fear it for you.”

  Hierocles, contrary to his usual custom, had not refused the hot wine. They continued drinking until the amphora was empty. The wine and the heat of the fire began to take effect.

  Hierocles’s eyes were glazed and his speech came thickly.

  “So you intend to poison Alexander?”

  Antoninus pondered the question with drunken deliberation.

  “Within the week. Gordius will arrange it for me. Cleander will administer it in food or wine. It will not have an immediate effect but within the month Alexander will be dead. Then I shall have Hardranes killed, and perhaps Cleander, and nobody will ever know how Alexander died. Am I becoming another Caligula in that I dispense death so freely?”

  “No, you are acting wisely, beloved.”

  “I would have preferred to make Alexander my son and heir. I thought perhaps I could make him intelligent, clean, and honest. But I have seen that it would be impossible. He ‘ will always be the boor Mamaea has made him. As an heir to Rome he is useless, and a threat to me. So he must die, but I regret his death and that of the luckless Hardranes—as I would a hare which was trapped, or a stag which was killed, or even the worm I crush beneath my foot.”

  “And your Aunt Mamaea?”

  “The rock of Pandataria was a fitting place for Nero to exile his wife Octavia. She was murdered there. Mamaea can end her days there but I shall not order her killed.”

  “And your grandmother?”

  “With Alexander dead and Mamaea out of the way, she will cause no problem. All she desires is to sit behind the throne and manipulate Caesar. I could not do without her.”

  “There you are wrong. Dispense with her and together we shall rule Rome and rule it far more wisely.”

  “Can we do it, carissimus?”

  “Together we can do anything.”

  “Then my grandmother goes too. Back to the palace at Emesa.”

  Hierocles shook his head. “From the Palace of Emesa she once climbed to the throne. She might again.”

  “Then where?”

  “Another island as barren as Pandataria.”

  Antoninus thought for several moments then nodded his head in agreement. “And my mother?”

  “Allow her to remain in Rome. She is harmless. Just now she thinks of nothing else but Ahenobarbus. Next month it will be someone else, and the month after still another.” He smiled at Antoninus who was once more stretched out on the rug beside him and his hand rumpled Antoninus’s hair roughly but tenderly. “How could I blame you for being what you are when I remember that you are the son of your mother.” Again his arm drew Antoninus closer. “Like mother, like son, but I am grateful to the gods that you inherited your mother’s passions. Come, little Caesa
r, the stone floor under this rug is not as yielding as our soft _ mattress, and the stiff bristles of this old bear are not as soothing as our silken sheets.”

  A clamorous pounding on the heavy door of oaken planks roused them both.