Commodus Read online

  ‘Your threats mean nothing to me, Cleander. You’re no Spartacus, just a palace slave full of ambition and self-importance.’

  ‘And you’re no noble,’ spat Cleander, just as Commodus emerged unexpectedly around the corner at the far end of the corridor. Two Praetorian guardsmen at his shoulders dropped their hands to the hilts of their weapons at the sight of the two arguing men, just a hair’s breadth from openly brawling. I almost wished that would happen, for Saoterus had a good five years on Cleander and was much brighter, and I suspected it would be the latter who came off worst.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ Commodus demanded of his two favourites, and then glanced up as I rounded the corner.

  ‘Many apologies, Majesty,’ Saoterus said smoothly with a bow. ‘It will not happen again.’

  ‘See that it doesn’t,’ the prince barked, his irritated glance enough to make Cleander bow low and flee.

  Saoterus straightened. ‘Majesty?’

  ‘I have received a summons.’

  We both looked at him expectantly.

  ‘There is no mention of Father’s condition worsening, but I am summoned to Sirmium. It seems the emperor and his court are on the move. Even a cursory glance at a map suggests that he is on the way from the Danubius to deal with Cassius in the east. Saoterus, have everything made ready and send a missive to Sirmium, informing the emperor and any authorities present that we are on our way in haste.’

  Saoterus bowed and hurried off, leaving Commodus and I alone in the corridor.

  ‘You’re coming too,’ he said.

  I rubbed my neck in worry. ‘I can only go with Quadratus.’

  ‘Then he’ll have to come,’ snapped Commodus, and I marvelled at how my little prince had grown into a man, and a man who would one day be emperor. Surely the time must be coming for him to take the toga?

  ‘What were those two fighting about?’ he asked me as we began to walk.

  ‘Just personal things. But it’s not right. I know they are both your favourites, but it’s not right listening to a slave speaking to a freedman in that manner.’

  I had hoped to elicit some promise of admonishment for Cleander. Never had I seen a plan fail so utterly. The prince nodded his agreement. ‘You are quite right. It should not be so. I shall have Cleander freed this very day.’

  Shit.

  IX

  A TRAIL OF CRIMSON

  Sirmium, summer ad 175

  Two more years of campaigning in the north had worn down the emperor. The great Marcus Aurelius looked sallow, tired and a little frail. He was, on the other hand, far from the mouldering corpse that rumour would have us believe, and certainly his mind was still sharp and vital. Among his gathered consilium of senior officers stood the competent Pompeianus, and a flick of the eyes confirmed that his sour-faced wife, Lucilla, stood on the edge of proceedings, stabbing the general to death with her eyes.

  ‘Father,’ Commodus said with a broad smile as he clacked across the marble floor in his worn travel boots and bowed.

  ‘Lucius,’ the emperor greeted his son warmly.

  The two men went through the traditional pleasantries of greeting, asking after relations and journeys and the like, while the rest of us stood silent and patient. I scanned the faces around me as I waited, sizing them up. Quadratus was eager, watching intently, hoping for something he could turn to his advantage and waiting for a chance to inveigle his way into the emperor’s consilium once more. Saoterus was the picture of stoic calmness, eyes respectfully downcast, the perfect courtier. Behind, Cleander glared at his back.

  My attention was torn back to the men who ruled the world as Commodus straightened and said in a louder, more businesslike tone, ‘When do we leave for the east?’

  The emperor stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘Not until we are ready. The army is divided and spread thin. Much of our force remains committed in the north under Pertinax, fighting back the Iazyges in Dacia, and seven days ago I dispatched Vettius Sabinianus west with a small force to maintain our hold on Illyricum and Italia.’

  ‘Surely Italia is secure?’ Commodus asked.

  ‘I would like to think so, but in a time when men can rise against the throne unchecked I would be more comfortable knowing that there is someone I trust with an appropriate force looking after imperial interests at home. But between those men I was forced to send to Dacia, the garrisons settled in northern Pannonia, and the units that went west with Sabinianus, the remaining force will be dwarfed by that upon which Cassius can call. I have commissioned new units from everywhere that can claim even close to sufficient manpower, sent messages to our allies in Armenia and the Bosporan Kingdom seeking support, and drawn what units I can from Africa and Achaea. Within the next two months the bulk of the army will have gathered, and we will be ready to move on Cassius.’

  Commodus nodded his understanding, and Quadratus took a step forward hopefully. The emperor, ever a man aware of his surroundings, glanced at the courtier for but a moment.

  ‘Pompeianus will continue to command the gathered force, though I will select other staff officers in due course.’

  Pompeianus bowed his head in quiet acceptance, Lucilla’s lip twisted at the realisation that this meant she would continue to tour battlefields with the court and, satisfied that the emperor meant him to be among the commanders, Quadratus stepped back once more into the group.

  ‘However,’ Marcus Aurelius said, addressing the gathering as a whole now, ‘since we are to move against a usurper who has strong support, and since we must be sure to impose our direct rule over the region once more, it would be most appropriate for the locals to see not only their emperor but also their future emperor in the best possible light. It is time, my son, that you took the toga virilis and lost the bulla of childhood. As Romulus ascended to sit among the gods on the seventh of Iulius, so shall you rise on that day as a man, an emperor-in-waiting, and leader of the knights of Rome.’

  I smiled to see the look of pride in my prince’s face. He had not been a child, in truth, for some time, except in the legal eyes of Rome, but in a little over a month, not long before his fourteenth birthday, he would officially be a man. He would travel east with his father to put down a rebel as a true officer and leader of men.

  We settled in at Sirmium and watched over the ensuing days as new units of soldiers arrived in Pannonia from other climes and bolstered the growing force. Following an overwhelming victory in Dacia, General Pertinax arrived unexpectedly with a force of many thousands, to the great relief of all present. We celebrated Commodus taking the toga, and then, even before his birthday the next month, we began the preparations for journeying east.

  Plans changed one warm, balmy morning as I stood in the palace garden, taking in the gentle scent of the flower beds and listening to the bees as they hummed around the lush blooms. Coincidentally, I was also hiding from Quadratus, whose ongoing lack of assigned command was making him irritable enough to take it out on me. He had hit me twice. I had endured it in meek silence, which he probably took to be some Christian weakness, but in truth it was me adding his name to my mental proscription list beneath Cleander and Lucilla. It was remarkably calming in that garden, given the martial activity all around Sirmium that summer. I heard footsteps approaching through the atrium, clicking on the marble, and turned to see Commodus emerging into the warm sunshine, wearing a smile that warmed the heart.

  It seemed now to have been a lifetime ago that my prince had suffered his melancholia, and I was beginning to think that perhaps it had been some childhood malady caused by such deep grief in quick succession, but which maturity and growth had pushed away. Certainly, he had seemed happy and quite positive now for a long time. The last few years had wrought such a change upon the boy I had known, growing him into a man of wit and strength. I smiled in return and noted that he was clutching an opened scroll case that bore the seal of the cur
sus publicus.

  ‘You would not credit it, Marcia,’ he grinned.

  ‘Good news, I take it?’

  ‘Perhaps the best. Avidius Cassius is no more. His revolt has collapsed.’

  I blinked my surprise. I had privately prayed that I would not be forced to witness a repeat of that awfulness by the river in the north but, with Romans on both sides, I rather doubted the God of Abraham had been instrumental in stopping this.

  ‘One of his own centurions,’ Commodus smiled. ‘He proclaimed his loyalty to Father and drove his blade through Cassius’ heart.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ It sounded too easy by far.

  ‘Fairly sure . . . they sent his head to us with the letter. Father wouldn’t look in the box, but I did, and Pompeianus confirmed it was him. The revolt is over without the need for war, Marcia.’

  ‘God be praised,’ I said, feeling faintly nauseous about the idea of looking into a box containing a mouldering head.

  ‘Indeed,’ he said, giving me a strange, sidelong look, ‘all of them.’

  ‘Then we will return to Rome?’ While that would effectively put me back in Quadratus’ house and curtail my travels, Rome was a good place to be these days, and we could relax there. Perhaps even the emperor might return with us.

  ‘No,’ Commodus replied, still smiling. ‘Much of the army will be dispersed, but with the core of it we still go east.’

  ‘But why, if Cassius is dead?’

  ‘Because the people of the eastern provinces need to see us. To see the imperial family, to be reminded of our place in the world. Father is insistent that we both go; Mother too.’

  ‘Surely with Cassius dead, loyalty will be assumed?’

  ‘It is not always that simple,’ Commodus said with a shrug. ‘Sometimes a rebellious people need to be reminded of their loyalties. Sometimes even on a permanent basis. Look at Jerusalem. Rose against Hadrian and now it has been called Aelia Capitolina after him for half a century, the old Jewish name all but extinct. They will never again forget who rules them, for his name is ingrained in their very streets. Perhaps Antioch, where Cassius’ revolt started, could now be Aurelia Capitolina? I shall suggest it to Father.’

  I did not know whether to be pleased or afraid. We were to travel east, and I knew that I was to go, else Commodus would not have told me such things himself. Besides, with a foot in the imperial door again, Quadratus was hardly ready to rush off home into obscurity.

  East, where the people had rebelled against their lawful emperor, where revolts were commonplace, close to the deadly Parthians, and inevitably crossing more than one large stretch of open water. East, where it was said to be a land of rock and desert and unforgiving sun, where the plague that had almost brought Rome to its knees had been born.

  East. Exotic and enticing. Land of Hercules. Land of spice and incense. Land of the Christ child.

  Land of change.

  There was some discussion as to the route and departure point. The emperor advocated the shortest potential journey at that time of year, to Antioch, the heartland of Cassius’ rising. That notion sent shivers down my spine as they marked out the journey on the huge wall map in Sirmium: back to where we had landed on our way here, and then twelve to fourteen days by ship through the Adriatic and around the tip of Achaea to Asia. The very thought of that much water for that long made me shrivel inside. Fortunately, Pompeianus countered with a route he considered more favourable considering the sizeable military contingent we would take. We would travel across Moesia and Thrace to Byzantium, making the briefest of hops across the swift Bosphorus and slogging through dusty Bithynia and Galatia to the former rebel stronghold. The empress and Lucilla were very vocally dismayed at such a long journey over difficult terrain when the same could be achieved by a sea voyage only half as long. I rejoiced, albeit silently.

  Despite the long journey ahead, the court that set off from Sirmium on a sun-soaked autumn morning was upbeat and content. The empress, who had spoken to her husband at some length of her feelings on protracted carriage travel, had been reminded delicately that Hadrian, only half a century earlier, had spent some fifteen years extensively touring the provinces with his court, and that his wife had accompanied him. It was hard not to smile at her expression in reply, especially given that Hadrian’s empress had been rather superfluous, since he had taken his young lover Antinous on much of the journey as well.

  I have no idea how large the army was that travelled with us across Thrace and Anatolia, just that it included horsemen and infantry, slowed us interminably, raised a cloud of dust such as I have never seen, and engendered a constant need to gather supplies from each region through which we passed. The small party of illustrious nobles that rode with us included Pompeianus, the heroic general Pertinax, who had saved Dacia from the Iazyges, and a pair of near-identical brothers – the Quintilii. Those two men seemed to me to be every bit as self-serving and smug as Quadratus, though I was quietly told by Commodus that they were respected generals who had shared the consulate a number of years ago and who had been favourites of the emperor Antoninus. Still, I decided at first glance that I would trust neither of them as far as I could spit.

  I managed to spend time with Commodus on the journey, except when he was required to ride with his father and the senior generals and plot for the coming days. Oddly, Quadratus was too busy to bother with me except on odd nights when his lust overtook his greed. He had been granted some semi-important logistical role, and was determined to prove his worth to the emperor. Given the size of the army, it occupied much of his time. Saoterus was only peripherally occupied, since everyone with whom the prince might communicate was with us, and Cleander was made somewhat redundant by the presence and competency of the emperor’s own cubicularius. Thus, the pair made sport of their mutual hatred throughout the journey, constantly bickering, niggling, attempting to one-up each other. They were as circumspect about it as ever, of course, neither wanting the emperor or the prince to witness their bile, but both were happy to argue in front of me.

  Consequently, I rode in my carriage in relative silence, watching the varying countryside roll by, often with Commodus riding his white mare alongside. As always, I paid attention to the land and its people as we travelled. As a small girl in that squat building beside the Palatine, helping Mother stitch tunics and cloaks, I had never dreamed of even leaving the great city, let alone touring its provinces.

  We followed the Danubius for a short distance, then turned south along a wide valley that brought us to the commercial metropolis of Naissus. From there the going became more troublesome, the road rising to cross numerous passes in the Dardanian mountains. I had thought the Mons Apenninus or the ridged mountains of Illyricum rugged and impressive, but the mountains of Moesia stole my breath. We passed through grand, well-appointed Serdica and began to descend from the heights into a wide, flat land, at the heart of which stood ancient Philippopolis, and from there followed the valley of the Hebros down into the low plains of coastal Thrace to Byzantium, a sight that will remain in my mind and my heart all my life.

  As we crossed that wide, green land, something occurred to me, and I leaned close to the carriage window, addressing the prince, who rode alongside with an expression of stoic contentment.

  ‘Have you noticed the people?’ I said. ‘The land?’

  He frowned and looked about himself. Nothing seemed to strike him as noteworthy, so he turned that beetled brow to me.

  I smiled. ‘I cannot see as many signs of the plague afflicting this region.’ While it had only just struck me, thinking back I could remember seeing few signs of the dreadful pestilence since leaving Pannonia. The people were still largely poor and hungry, but there were fewer open indications of the effects of the devastating disease, I was sure. No carts of bodies, no fresh burial pits on the edge of settlements. No village apothecaries with queues of coughing patients waiting outside.
r />   ‘Is it starting to fade, perhaps?’ I questioned. ‘Has it moved west and let go its grip on this region? Will it keep drifting west and eventually disappear into the sea?’ I liked the idea that Rome might soon be freed from the plague’s grasp and allowed to breathe.

  Commodus shook his head. ‘It’s not that easy, Marcia. There are simply fewer people here to suffer. All the men of strength and age and vigour have been drawn into new legions and sent to one war or another, and the plague has long since claimed the weakest of the rest. The burial pits are all full and grassed over. I thought the area was considerably more rural and sparsely populated than I’d expected. I spoke to Pompeianus, and he told me all about it. This was once a thriving area. Now it’s a depopulated backwater.’

  I shuddered at the idea that a land could look healthy simply because there was no one left alive. ‘That’s horrible.’

  Commodus nodded. ‘Things would be better for them, even with the plague, if we’d not been forced to enlist all the menfolk. There has to be an end to these interminable and fruitless border wars, Marcia. We can do nothing about the plague but struggle through it and hope it subsides, no matter what my uncle thought, and poverty is a troublesome hydra with many heads – cut one free and another takes its place. But war can be avoided through treaty and discussion, and that is at least one ill of which Rome could be free. It saddens me that Father, who instilled in me these very values, continues to fight a hopeless war with the dream of a conquest that will last for all time. It is remarkably short-sighted for a man with such vision, do you not think?’

  I had no answer to that. And thereafter, as we travelled, what had seemed a peaceful rural region instead resembled a cemetery in my eyes.

  Now more than halfway to Antioch, we crossed the blue stretch of water outside Byzantium’s walls, in which I was astounded to see myriad jellyfish pulsing, something I had never seen before and which fascinated me enough to overcome my terror of even such a short stretch of water. Then we were in the brown, parched lands of Bithynia. The journey became harder here, the settlements fewer and further between. The farmland seemed harsher and the animals scrawnier. I felt as though we had left the lush world of Rome and passed into the borderlands. Was this the terrain in which Verus had fought the Parthians and found the plague? I could imagine it as the source of misery.