Fanina, Child of Rome

by Pierre Sabbagh

  Seeing Fanina, the unfortunate girl cried:

  ‘Illustrious lady! By Venus I beg you to tell this man that you gave me no ...’

  Had Fanina obeyed her first impulse, she would have rushed forward and torn from the big decurion’s clutches the unfortunate girl who was fighting for her breath and whose eyes had turned up as she tottered on the brink of fainting. Gryllus was obviously looking for any message Fanina might have entrusted to the slave-girl and whatever the pleasure he got from this brutal personal search, he would certainly never have undertaken it in this posting-house — a public place if ever there was one — without express orders to do so from Sejanus.

  If she sided with the slave-girl she would merely re-arouse Sejanus’s suspicions. It would be far better for her to pretend she did not understand the true reasons for the scene which she was witnessing. With a wry expression of disgust and a note of sovereign contempt in her voice, she appealed to Romilius to bear her out as she said:

  ‘And what could I possibly have entrusted to this poor girl that was so precious? I should complain to the illustrious Sejanus about the role your companion is making me play in this rather sordid scene he has contrived, in order to take advantage of a servant-girl who is unable to defend herself against his shameless advances; but I shall not do so, since I know just how severe your commander is when it comes to punishing those who bring discredit upon the name of the glorious Praetorian cavalry.’

  And with that, Fanina went back into her room again. After closing the door and bolting it in silence, she put her ear to it and listened.

  First she heard Romilius’s light tread as he tiptoed towards the end of the landing. Then she heard the two decurions whispering and chortling on the stairs. Then Romilius returned to his post while Gryllus’s heavy tread grew fainter and fainter on the ground floor as he dragged away the servant-girl, who had fainted.

  The two decurions had no doubt been laughing at Fanina’s naivety. And now Gryllus was no doubt going to report it all to Sejanus.

  Fanina clenched her fists. Was her alliance with the commander of the Praetorians to be broken so soon after it had been made?

  She cared little for Sejanus himself. Remembering her father’s opinion of him and, still more, the brutal way he had treated her, she felt no warmth towards him. Sejanus was nothing more to her than a tool in the ambitious scheme she had projected. Sejanus would get rid of the Emperor; after that she would think again.

  For the time being what mattered to Fanina was to consolidate I heir alliance. In order to carry out the mission she had set herself, she must be kept informed of every detail of the conspiracy, she must know who the principal conspirators were so that she could seek support from the most trustworthy of them and set them against the commander of the Praetorians should he still be thinking, as he had confided to Atia, of establishing himself as another Tiberius, invested with the same powers and granting the Roman people neither the right of a say in affairs nor the right freely to ilecide their own fate.

  Fanina crept across the room, blew out the two nightlights that were burning faintly in the darkness, then quietly opened the window.

  The sky was studded with stars and wonderfully clear. Fanina’s room looked out over the back of the main building, and through the half-open casement she could see the dark shapes of the hills around Vulci.

  She leant out and saw that there was a dim light coming from a window on the ground floor. It was late. The person still up in the room below must be Sejanus. Fanina’s eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness. Someone walked silently by below. It was one of the Praetorians, muffled in a long dark cloak, and his plumed helmet glittered as he passed the lighted window.

  There was a sentry posted on this side too. Was he meant to be protecting the commander of the Praetorians or watching her?

  The soldier was walking away from her towards the end of the building. It was then that Fanina caught sight of another shape imperceptibly emerging from the shadows into the dim light falling from the ground-floor window.

  Fanina caught her breath sharply and her heart jumped in her breast. That short, impressively broad silhouette ... and that pointed hood on the top of the spreading cloak ... it was Horo. For one fleeting moment Fanina thought she saw the pale shape of his face turned towards her, and his incredibly long arm rise in her direction. Then he vanished into the blackness. Fanina held her breath and leant out a little farther. The sentry was coming back.

  That was why Horo had disappeared after making his presence known to Fanina, his protegee.

  Fanina shut the window silently again, undressed rapidly, then, drawing the covers right up to her chin, tried to go to sleep so as not to have to spend any more time turning over the thoughts that assailed her even more forcefully in the solitude of this unknown room. But it was in vain. She had to look the future in the face and get it firmly into her head that, in the path she had chosen to tread, the situation would never be clear enough for her liking. She had allied herself with Sejanus, and Sejanus was suspicious of her. She wanted to bring Tiberius down, but in order to do so she might well have to deal with people who certainly still ranked amongst the Emperor’s most faithful supporters: Vibidia, Horo, Fabius and Aquilus, the pontiffs who had so courageously defended her at her trial, Dolabella and her father’s friends.

  Everything seemed so straightforward in the history books, when the passage of time had wiped away the memory of the pangs of conscience which had tormented the heroes she so admired. How many a friendship, how many a love perhaps had Brutus and Cassius, Tiberius and Caius Gracchus to sacrifice in order to fulfil their noble plans!

  Fanina started. Someone was creeping up the stairs then tiptoeing along the corridor. She heard Romilius start to his feet, then she heard someone talking softly to him.

  ‘The light’s out,’ Romilius replied in his deep voice he seemed unable to hush. ‘She must be asleep ...’

  Fanina sat up. Someone was approaching her door. The latch moved. Someone was trying to get into her room. It could only be Sejanus!

  He pushed the door gently, then the latch fell back quietly.

  ‘She must have locked it, master,’ remarked Romilius.

  ‘Master ...’ So it was Sejanus who had tried to come into her room. The floor creaked as the commander of the Praetorians went away again. Exceedingly weary but feeling easier in her mind, Fanina fell back again on the bed.

  The irresistible attraction she still held for Sejanus was stronger than his fear of the vestal she would always remain, and stronger than his mistrust of her.

  She would have to play a cautious game, but all was not lost. Tomorrow she would see.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sejanus shook his head and said:

  ‘Last week a party of some twenty men wearing the uniform of cavalry legionaries stopped all travellers on the Aurelian Way, ostensibly to search their baggage.’

  The commander of the Praetorians looked thoughtfully at Fanina and went on:

  ‘If one is to give credence to those who saw them, illustrious Bella, these men were all past their first youth, very tall, covered with scars like veteran soldiers, and spoke with a strong Germanic accent.’

  ‘I don’t see why this report should cause you any anxiety, illustrious Sejanus,’ Fanina replied.

  Sejanus’s eyes narrowed, heightening the oriental cast of his pure Etruscan features. Without raising his voice, he went on in clear, measured tones, as if weighing his every word:

  ‘This report, illustrious Bella, merely proves that troops of the Emperor’s personal guard left Capri without my being informed of the fact. There can be no doubt about it: the only soldiers of German race in Italy are those of the Emperor’s personal guard.’ Still watching Fanina closely he fell silent, and all one could hear was the clatter of hooves of the Praetorian escort and the rumbling of the carruca dormitoria, or sleeping carriage, in which he and Fanina were installed.

  This carruca was an extraordinary
vehicle, drawn by four splendid milk-white Barbary horses, which the white-clad Numidian slaves found very hard to keep reined in to walking pace. It was the most sumptuous carriage imaginable, with its elegant chassis made of precious woods, covered on the outside with ivory panels that had been carved and encrusted with a wealth of delicate motifs in gold, silver and precious stones. It was a luxurious bed on wheels, upholstered with soft cushions and topped with a tall canopy supported on delicate ebony corner-posts. Being both a bed and a coach, it made it possible for Fanina to travel without being seen by the throngs of spectators who had come from far and wide to the Aurelian Way to marvel at the sight of such wealth and to cheer the thirty Praetorians with their purple plumes, and their capes flying in the wind, and their helmets and breast-plates glittering as they pranced along beside the coach.

  The carruca enabled Sejanus to travel with Fanina, and thus to engage her in conversation, while it also allowed him to escape under some pretext should he find himself caught unprepared by any indiscreet or unexpected question.

  In fact, in the underhand struggle that had been going on between Fanina and Sejanus since they left Forum Aurelii, this carruca gave Sejanus the advantage, since he was able to conduct the conversation exactly as he wished. Without appearing unduly annoyed, although inwardly she was in fact as tense as a drawn bow, Fanina joined in the difficult game forced upon her by her mistrustful opponent whose trust she had promised herself she would win without, however, giving him the pledges he sought from her.

  She lay stretched out languidly, her eyes half-closed, but watching Sejanus’s every move through the double curtain of her long, curved eyelashes, as he squatted at her feet acting as if completely relaxed, but in fact never taking his eyes off her.

  A week before, thought Fanina, she had been travelling in a cart along this same stretch of the Aurelian Way, dressed as a servant-girl, fleeing for her life from Rome; and feelings of profound despair had alternated in her heart with her thousand schemes to win back Vindex whom she never for a moment suspected of being false to her.

  Now, lolling in this princely carriage, under the protection of an escort of veterans from the Praetorian cohorts in full regalia, she was returning to Rome to overthrow Tiberius.

  Meanwhile she had for ever lost the man who, only the day before, had been her sole reason for living, and now she was accompanied by another man, a very different one, the most powerful man in die most powerful of all empires.

  This man, whom she had every reason to hate for the cavalier manner in which he had subjected her to his desire, this man was the notorious Sejanus, despised and feared by her father and by the Supreme Vestal, and against whom Fanina herself, not so long ago, had wanted to rouse the people of Rome.

  What a strange turn events had taken! Now Sejanus was her ally, or at least she wanted him to be, for she fully realized that the past night had done nothing to dispel his suspicions.

  Leaning against the front of the carruca, with his curled-up legs brushing against Fanina’s feet, Sejanus watched her closely. How strangely he was looking at her! With a look that was an uneasy mixture of desire and distrust. The look he had given her in the Via Triumphalis, that day when he had first set eyes on her. The same expression he had worn when, after having her so brutally stripped by his bodyguards, he had advanced towards her to take possession of her in spite of her desperate attempts at self-defence.

  It was also the suspicious look of a wild beast which, when fascinated by a particularly enticing prey, wonders whether the object of his greed is not perhaps a bait hiding the trap that will be his downfall. Fanina wondered how she could talk to Sejanus about the soldiers without mentioning Horo, to whom she owed so much and whom she refused to betray.

  ‘The German guards were patrolling this road the day you went to Vulci...’ Sejanus went on.

  He was pursuing his offensive. Fanina simply raised her eyebrows, and the commander of the Praetorians added: ‘accompanied by a slave belonging to Jupiter’s Flamen.’

  Ignoring for the moment the first part of what Sejanus had said, Fanina calmly replied:

  ‘I note that you could not refrain from making inquiries about my past.’

  Sejanus did not bat an eyelid, and Fanina went on:

  ‘You know, I could be quite justifiably angry about the way you are acting after the oath I swore, to become your ally if you really intend to restore the Republic.’

  His eyes half closed, Sejanus replied smoothly:

  ‘I realize what a great and unexpected piece of luck it is for me to have you as my ally, but too much is at stake for me not to want to convince myself more completely of the reality of my good fortune in having you with me.’

  Fanina did not like this sugary speech, and replied dryly:

  ‘There is just as much at stake for me as for you, Sejanus. What matters to me is the future, not the past!’

  Rising on one elbow, she went on in sharp emphatic tones: ‘If I were to choose to dwell on certain images from the recent past, you can be sure that I would find abundant cause to be your enemy and to hasten on your downfall by going over to the other side....’

  She was silent. It was the first time since that feverish night in which Sejanus had taken advantage of her that Fanina had referred to that distressing episode.

  Distressing? Distressing by reason of the remorse she had felt at the time at the thought of betraying Vindex.

  A heavy silence fell in the carruca. The commander of the Praetorian Guard had averted his gaze. Fanina remained propped on her elbow, unable to take her eyes off Sejanus’s delicate profile. Her heart throbbed in great slow beats that shook her from head to foot, and she suddenly realized just how vivid to them both was the memory of those caresses which, in spite of her, had united them.

  Why should Fanina have bothered to drive from her mind those unsettling memories? Had she not fought with all her strength before succumbing to Sejanus’s insidiously knowing embraces?

  A wave of bitterness welled up inside Fanina. She had fought with all her might to belong to Vindex alone, and Vindex had deceived her. She no longer blushed to admit to herself that she had found pleasure in Sejanus’s arms. Her only regret now was the tears she had shed afterwards....

  Tears of rage rose to her eyes. No, there was no longer any room in her heart for the great love she had dreamed of. Never, never again would she plight her troth to any man. There was no room in her heart for anything other than the uncompromising friendship she had vowed towards those who had not forsaken her in the hour of her worst misfortunes. There was no room save for the immense affection she felt towards the humble, the wretched, those for whom she was prepared to lay down the life that had become a burden to her.

  Now Fanina considered Sejanus coldly. She was no fool. She fully realized that up to that moment at any rate, Sejanus in his heart of hearts could not have cared less about the cause for which she had allied herself to him. He intended to use her. He was very misguided to think he could do so, for, once victory had been won, he would only have to make one false move and she would turn implacably against him.

  The silence went on and on. Sejanus turned towards Fanina, who had to make a tremendous effort not to show on her face the sense of triumph she felt. Was it possible? In spite of the male composure he was endeavouring to manifest, he was no longer gazing at her with the expression of a victor. Fanina’s experience in matters of love had been short-lived, but she had already seen in the eyes of other men the strange glint that now burned in Sejanus’s eyes.

  Fanina gave him a bright smile and said in honeyed tones:

  ‘Why go such a roundabout way if you want to ask me for some kind of explanation, Sejanus? If I had thought for a single moment I hat you would have been worried by the presence of those soldiers mi the Aurelian Way, I would have told you that the wagon that look me to Vulci was indeed searched by some legionary cavalry, as was every other vehicle that came after us. And if I had thought l hat you might have bee
n made anxious by the fact that Jupiter’s I'lamen came to my assistance, I would have said to reassure you, that nothing could have been more natural given the bonds that have always linked his family and mine.’

  With apparent reluctance he revealed what was at the bottom of his mind:

  ‘Jupiter’s Flamen is a loyal supporter of the Emperor, Bella, like Vibidia the Supreme Vestal, who helped you to escape from the tomb in the Field of Evil-doers.’

  Still more sweetly, Fanina replied:

  ‘And what about you, my dear Sejanus? Are you not, in the eyes of the world, Tiberius’s alter ego, the man he will undoubtedly nominate to succeed him, if one is to believe public rumour?’

  A broad smile spread over Sejanus’s face, giving him a glow of youthfulness that effaced every hint of the harsh and sometimes sinister look he occasionally wore, and suddenly made him seem extraordinarily attractive.

  ‘The Emperor nominate me, illustrious Bella?’ he asked softly. ‘For that to happen there would have to be no other possible successor. They’re a tough lot, the imperial family, and you can be quite sure that Tiberius’s succession will give rise to a fierce struggle.’

  He hesitated. He clearly had more to say that he dared not put into words; something that was nagging him badly. Fanina let herself fall back slowly on to her couch. Half shutting her eyes, she waited. Slowly, fumbling for his words, he stammered:

  ‘I have great hope in you, Bella, and complete faith in you ... but I am frightened of the people who were around you for so many years, who brought you up.’

  ‘And why do you not add “and those from whom you were born”, Sejanus?’ Fanina asked calmly. ‘My father loathed you and never made any bones about it!’

  ‘It is true that your father hated me,’ Sejanus replied very quietly. ‘He saw in me the self-made man, the knight of undistinguished birth who had ousted the high-born representatives of the ancient nobility of the city, and had managed to ingratiate himself with the Emperor.’