Commodus Read online

  ‘His name was on the list, Majesty,’ Perennis said quietly.

  ‘Then it should not have been,’ snarled Commodus, rounding on the prefect. ‘And even if it was, no executions should be carried out without my sanction.’

  My skin prickled. Executions?

  Perennis, clearly a brave man, spread his arms wide. ‘In defence of my colleague, Majesty, throughout this investigation you have made it clear that we had the authority to do just that.’

  Commodus glared at him, but said nothing, his silence confirming the truth of Perennis’ words.

  ‘Tell me that you would have butchered him out of hand without consulting me first?’

  Perennis shook his head. ‘I would not, Majesty. But Paternus is not me.’

  ‘He will not be himself for long, either,’ snapped the emperor.

  A moment later the outer door opened once more and another man in a Praetorian prefect’s uniform entered, Eclectus at his heel. He must have been close by, then. ‘Majesty?’

  ‘Why, Paternus? And without consulting me first?’

  The prefect stood straight and stony. ‘You refer to Saoterus, Majesty?’

  My blood ran cold and I fell back into the seat. Saoterus? Executed?

  ‘His name appeared on the list of those who visited the empress more than once. We had agreed that multiple visits suggested a potential major conspirator.’

  ‘He was my chamberlain.’

  ‘And a consort of your sister, Majesty. Before he died, he confessed all.’

  Commodus’ glare could have cut through steel. At that moment, Cleander stepped into the room from the other door and I caught, entirely by chance, a knowing exchange in a single glance between he and Paternus. With cold certainty, I felt I knew what had happened. Saoterus was the emperor’s favourite. A more loyal man I could not imagine in the palace. He had never visited the villa to my knowledge, though whether he had or not, it would be remarkably easy for certain folk – say, for instance, the imperial secretary – to add a name to a list. Cleander was at the heart of this, ink still wet from the execution order for his opponent. He had wanted Saoterus out of the way since the day they met. I knew him for a devious snake, but his ruthlessness was clearly greater than even I had appreciated. I found myself seeing him now as a far greater danger than ever before.

  Eclectus, who was only peripherally involved in the rest of the exchange, finally noticed me. With a bow to the emperor, he crossed the chamber, bade me rise, and led me from the room to show me the apartment that would be my new home.

  Paternus died that same day for his part in it all, his traitor’s ravaged body dumped in the Tiber to float away with the refuse, and with him went any possible proof that Cleander had been behind the death. Over the coming days, I watched with sickened dismay as a number of other names were attached to funeral urns, now far outside the original web of conspirators, each one carefully selected by Cleander, I was sure, and then approved by the emperor before they met the edge of the executioner’s blade.

  I went to see Commodus a few days after I had settled in as the latest handful of dead ‘conspirators’ was announced. I was admitted to his presence by the guard only with Eclectus’ support, though I was once more a palace resident. Even then, I was not alone. Two Praetorians and a palace slave entered with me. I found Commodus sitting by a window, looking out at a grey sky where birds wheeled carelessly. He turned at my arrival and my heart sank.

  There, once more, were the dark circles and the sallow complexion. That age-old problem had not faded with youth but merely become dormant as disaster and heartache faded. Saoterus’ death had brought it all back.

  There was one person in the whole empire who knew what to do about it: me. Commodus turned to me with a bleak, dark face and pointed at the door.

  ‘Out.’

  I had been dismissed.

  XIV

  THE FATE OF THE EMPIRE

  Rome, ad 185

  Everything changed after the day Lucilla tried to kill her brother. When Pompeianus’ son, a willing conspirator in the plot even without his father’s knowledge, had thrust a blade at the emperor, he’d announced that the senate had sent it. In truth, I think we all knew the attack had precious little to do with the senate. Lucilla had instigated the plot in an attempt to place her own children on the throne, as she felt was only right, being offspring of the emperor Verus, and she had dragged in disaffected friends and family. Yet the fact remained that several of those who were linked to the plot, even if only peripherally, were senators, which, when added to the assassin’s words, cast a permanent doubt over the loyalty of all their ilk.

  The emperor severed his ties with the senate thereafter, removing himself from the traditional relationship he shared with that august body. Even Pompeianus, who had ever been recognised as the most loyal of subjects, was cast out in light of his connections to both senate and conspirators. Those other advisors of his father he had kept on were thrust away, Pertinax to provincial commands, Seius Fuscianus into roles of urban authority.

  For a few days after the death of his favourite, Commodus donned his impenetrable mask of well-being over that turbulent sea of sorrow. Saoterus could not be properly mourned, for as a denounced traitor there had been little left of the body to mourn, even before it had been cast into the river. Instead, Commodus threw himself into a brief, fierce and critical reorganisation, his mood clearly constantly wavering between ire and depression. Cleander was once more made chamberlain and placed in control of the palace, grinning with glee, with Eclectus returning to the role of secretary, also lodged on the Palatine. Both men would serve the palace and the empire, but neither would serve the emperor as such, for Commodus withdrew from Rome, hiding away with that sow of a wife in a grand villa on the Via Appia that had belonged to the Quintilii until their recent demise. Whether he continued to wallow in despair there or had since recovered I had no idea, but he clearly had no intention of returning to public life. Naturally I feared the worst, but, stung by his rejection following the disaster, I no longer tried to visit him. I seemed to flip about like an eel these days between my urgent need to be part of his life and my refusal to do so, when he so bluntly refused me, yet let Bruttia Crispina into his bed.

  I was something of a mess.

  In Commodus’ place in the city, Perennis, now one of the few men the emperor seemed to trust, was given free rein as sole prefect of the Guard. I wanted to visit Commodus, to make sure that his slide into melancholia was neither critical nor permanent, but it took me a long time to fight down my own objections to doing so. In the end, like everyone else, I was refused permission to visit the villa anyway. A blessing in a way, since I really did not want to have to pass the time of day with his wife.

  That year was bad for everyone, even though the plague seemed finally to be abating. The people of Rome began to worry instead about their absent emperor. All public business with Commodus went through a trusted few. Perennis, a man with a solid legal background as well as military talent, became much more than just the commander of the Praetorians. He began to answer petitions on behalf of the emperor, and make legal judgements in his name, even with his seal. He held banquets for the emperor. He bridged that ever-widening gap with the senate. In many ways, while Commodus wallowed in privacy, Perennis ran the business of empire for him. Eclectus remained important as secretary, though now working mostly with the prefect. Cleander, who had begun initially to take on the emperor’s tasks for him, soon found himself with little more authority than any house’s major-domo. After all, he had no training or experience in law, politics, or military matters and it was only natural that most of the work should fall to Perennis. Cleander’s hate for the prefect soon overtook his hatred for me.

  The year rolled on and I became more and more lonely in that palace of a thousand people.

  As winter sent us its last icy throes before the ad
vent of spring, I met with the Praetorian prefect quite by chance. I stepped out into the cold, my breath frosting as I crossed the balcony that looked down upon the valley of the circus. Tigidius Perennis was leaning on the balustrade with a cup of wine. He started as I appeared and then, recognising me, relaxed and sank back to the rail. I was simply seeking company, for much of my time now was spent in solitude, and even the company of a man I didn’t know very well, like this vital character, was welcome.

  ‘Lady,’ he acknowledged me with more respect than most would. I warmed to him for that if nothing else.

  ‘Prefect.’

  He looked tired, and I realised that while I had left my rooms in search of human interaction, he had almost certainly come here for quite the opposite reason.

  ‘How is the emperor?’ I asked, quietly.

  ‘I have no idea,’ he replied wearily. ‘He remains on his estate away from Rome, and I see him no more than anyone else. I am beginning to tire of his duties, though. Months ago, it seemed so sensible. I think I even enjoyed wielding the authority. But now? It is just work, and endless work at that. The senate have not taken to me at all. An equestrian, beneath their social circles and yet wielding power over them? They are polite and deferential in words, but their eyes carry the constant desire to see me fall.’ He sighed. ‘Cleander too. That rat sees me as opposition. I apologise for my candour, but the emperor once confided in me how little love was lost between you two. I can quite see why. I worry that the empire is faltering, Lady Marcia. Once, back in the early days, Tiberius retired to his island and left a Praetorian prefect to run Rome. No good came of that.’

  I nodded. Tiberius’ madness and the vicious cruelty of the prefect Sejanus were the stuff of legend. ‘But you do not seek the throne as he did, and Commodus is not mad.’

  ‘I know that,’ he sighed, ‘and so do you, but what does it look like to the senate and the people? I hear my name whispered in the same breath as the word usurper. My future is uncertain, Lady, at best. Certain at worst.’

  ‘The emperor trusts you. And he will return.’

  He looked unconvinced as he returned to his silent contemplation of the valley below us, and I decided there and then that I had had enough of this. For the better part of a year Commodus had been gone from public life and I, in my weak and flappable inability to decide what I wanted out of life, had let him do so. I, the only person who could really regulate his mood when it fell. Perennis was suffering in his place though now, Eclectus was powerless, and Cleander dangerous. And I was just lonely.

  I left the palace that day with just two slaves and two guards as company, courtesy of Eclectus. We travelled the five or six miles along the queen of roads to the grand villa, following the secretary’s instructions, and arrived at the gate in the late afternoon.

  Despite the seriousness and urgency of my task, I had to marvel as we halted before the villa gates. I could understand now how the emperor could lower himself to living in a former senator’s villa. The place was quite magnificent. The great arched portico entrance was flanked with colonnades and statues, sheathed in expensive marble and towering high, yet dwarfed by a great nymphaeum that gushed with crystal-clear torrents, jets arcing high into the air, statues of gods and weird creatures that would have no place on Noah’s ship amid the flow. If this was just the entrance . . .

  One of the slaves hurried over and rapped on the metal gate as the other helped me down from the carriage we had used. A surly doorman appeared through a smaller side door and barked at us, demanding to know what we wanted. I was grateful when one of the two Praetorians accompanying me stepped forward and took it upon himself to interfere.

  ‘The lady Marcia brings greetings to his Majesty from the Palatine, and I bear a message for him from my prefect.’ Of course, Perennis sent his men here daily with missives for one reason or another.

  ‘The emperor is not accepting visitors,’ the doorman rumbled, then held his hand out for the letter. His eyes bulged in shock as the soldier took a step forward and grasped him beneath the chin, bunching his tunic and yanking him forth from the door.

  ‘Take us to someone of authority.’

  All sense of self-importance dissipated in the slave as he recoiled from the soldier’s directness. The Praetorian let go, and the man scurried inside and held the door open. That wonderful soldier smiled at me and gestured for me to proceed. I did so, with one soldier and one slave, the other two remaining with the carriage. I felt, possibly for the first time ever, like a noblewoman. Bless that guardsman.

  I marvelled once more inside the place. Behind that grand façade and the huge nymphaeum lay a beautifully landscaped garden, perhaps a hundred paces wide and three hundred long, bounded by an aqueduct and a decorative wall. Neatly tended flower beds, ponds, cunningly placed trees and hedges stretched ahead as far as the villa, which was itself palatial. Also evident were members of the Praetorian Guard at strategic points around the entrance and the entire garden’s periphery.

  I passed through the garden in awe. The Quintilii had clearly been very rich men. We reached the main complex swiftly and the slave hurried in through a large set of doors that stood open despite the cold weather. I heard a brief murmur inside and then another functionary, this one wearing an expensive silk tunic, emerged.

  ‘Please come in, Domina. If you would wait in the antechamber, I shall petition his Majesty for an audience on your behalf.’

  I nodded and thanked the man, moving through the corridor and to the room he indicated. I had expected to fight and argue for such an audience. I had expected to be refused while the emperor wallowed in the dark, possibly tearing out his beautiful golden hair. What was I to expect now? I waited there for perhaps a quarter of an hour under the watchful eye of two more Praetorians. The focal point of the chamber was a grand statue of Hercules in painted marble. Was this who I had come to see? I wondered. Was my Herculean prince in residence, or was it the sorrowful young man who lived in the dark? He had been here for some time, after all, away from public eyes.

  Finally, the man in the silk tunic returned and bade me follow him. I did so, through the labyrinthine villa and out into a small, well-tended courtyard garden. Across that space stood a high, curved wall. Moving around the outer edge, I could hear the sounds of blades clashing and the grunts of men exerting themselves. I shivered. A small amphitheatre, clearly, for private performances. Just being here took me straight back to that day when Commodus had almost died in the tunnels of just such a place. We reached a flight of steps and climbed into the light on a small arc of marble seats covered with plush red cushions.

  I felt a surge of joint dismay and dislike to discover that the cavea’s only occupant was Bruttia Crispina. Why had the slave shown me to the empress? My gaze then slid to the arena itself and my eyes widened at the sight of Commodus engaged in combat with a gladiator in the armour of a murmillo.

  I stopped and stared. He was the same Commodus I had always known, yet different. He had let his beard grow out; it was longer and curlier than his father’s had been. Gone were the sallow complexion and black circles beneath the eyes I remembered from our last meeting, and which I’d expected to find. Instead, he looked bronzed and healthy, alert and alive – for now. His opponent’s blade came for him and only failed to draw blood because the emperor pivoted lithely and danced out of the way. He was holding a spear and made to jab with it, then noticed me in the stands.

  Commodus stopped, waving his opponent away. The murmillo bowed and retreated through a doorway, leaving us alone, or at least with only the empress. Commodus flashed me a smile and cast his spear. I marvelled at how straight and true it flew with such a negligent toss, striking one of the three targets set up at the far edge of the arena, almost centrally.

  ‘Marcia,’ he said, still smiling, and jogged over to the door at this side of the arena, opening it and climbing up to the stands. The weather was still chilly, and
I was shivering, even little Bruttia was wrapped in a cloak. Not Commodus. Stripped to the waist, he wore only gauntlets and a loincloth, his skin slick with sweat, though starting to come up in gooseflesh now he had stopped exercising.

  ‘Majesty,’ I said politely as Bruttia smiled pleasantly at me with everything but her eyes. Here I was once again: a challenge to her primacy. She saw me as a threat, and that was without knowing how we had embraced . . . how close I had come to perhaps supplanting her.

  ‘I was not expecting visitors.’ He smiled.

  ‘Clearly,’ I noted with an arched eyebrow.

  He laughed. ‘I have been training for months. I’m getting rather good, if I say so myself.’

  I shook my head. ‘It is not . . . an emperor shouldn’t . . .’ I didn’t quite know how to say it, but he laughed easily again.

  ‘I know. You disapprove. So does Bruttia. Most of them do, in fact, but it’s only exercise. No one minds if I run or swim, but somehow fighting is beneath me. I like it, though.’

  He always did. I remembered him sparring as a child with Cleander in the palace. More, still: he had been reborn in the cauldron of the empire’s strife. ‘I am, it seems, made for war,’ he had once told me in the cold and barren north.

  ‘I am pleased,’ I said, haltingly, ‘and surprised, to find you so well.’

  His look grew serious for a moment. ‘I wasn’t for some time after . . . you know. I was not myself. But Bruttia brought a lanista here and hired a stable of gladiators for the villa. I came to watch them more and more, and then eventually walked down among them. It is very liberating, fighting. I cannot express adequately how it has pulled me out of deep sadness.’

  Good. I didn’t particularly like him fighting, but he had found a way to lift himself back up where I could not. I tried not to admit that his wife had clearly had a large part in it. A bell of warning chimed somewhere deep within as I remembered those days of his youth when he would be seized by excitement and explore dangerous pastimes with his brothers. Damn it, but I also had to admit that it had been Cleander who had tamed him then, honing those games into something less perilous.