Fanina, Child of Rome

by Pierre Sabbagh

  Fanina seemed to hear the acclamations of the crowd, driven wild at the supreme harmony of that naked torso, stupefied by the strength of those formidable arms with their muscles knotted by three years of inhuman toil in the hell that was Altai, captivated by those features whose virile perfection made one forget the ridiculous twisted legs, that grotesque waddle like a bear, which at first had made them all laugh.

  Horo moved towards a mirmillon who stood waiting, his chest thrust forward, and his short sword in his hand. Wretched mirmillon! He could not guess that that impassive, set face that moved slowly towards him, was the face of his own death, and he stood there laughing. To him, this battle was nothing more than one of those bloody jests which occasionally made a pleasing break in the tragic course of the circus games. Since he had been asked to kill this monster, he would kill it. And then they would move on to more serious matters.

  Fanina was living through the scene. She had seen the dwarf at work and she knew what was going to happen. The crowd yelled still louder. Parrying his adversary’s sword with unexpected deftness, Horo dived below his guard. These were the tactics he had used the day he broke Kald the bestiary’s back. His long dagger Hashed, and the mirmillon fell to the ground, his throat slit.

  Now one after the other the retiaries, the Samnites, the Thracians and the mirmillons bit the dust. A terrifying incarnation of death, Horo waddled about heavily under Fanina’s eyes, pitilessly slaying all who rose against him. Recovering from their amazement, the gladiators brought to bear all their prowess to vanquish him. But in vain.

  The tenth gladiator, a retiary, was wounded only and cried for mercy. The crowd shouted to Horo to finish him off, but he, shrugging his powerful shoulders, raised his dagger in defiance at the Samnite who was to follow the retiary....

  ‘It was then that the tragedy occurred, Bella. Furious that this dwarf had scorned its verdict, the crowd rose to its feet as a man. A terrible cracking noise was heard and the arena, which was packed out, collapsed.’

  It had happened four years back. Fanina remembered the catastrophe in which thousands of the spectators had been crushed beneath the debris of the amphitheatre and had died in terrible Agony.

  ‘While help was being organized, the Watchmen arrested Horo whom they accused of bringing down the wrath of the gods by refusing to comply with the wishes of the spectators. A few days later, as the dwarf was waiting to be executed, the Emperor’s guards removed him from prison.... I came across him again on Capri with Tiberius. I do not know by what miracle this Emperor whom everyone is deserting has managed to obtain the devotion of the man who for so long fought against us, but my instinct tells me that if only one loyal man were to remain with the Emperor, that man would be Horo.’

  He broke off for a moment reflectively, then went on:

  ‘And yet Horo left the Emperor six months ago. From time to time one of my agents tells me of his whereabouts. He has been coming and going in Rome, apparently wandering about with no fixed plan and sleeping in the streets like a vagrant. He does not attempt to remain hidden, seems to take little interest in what is going on and to have broken with Tiberius.’

  Meeting Fanina’s gaze, the commander of the Praetorians looked away.

  ‘This man has something about him that is evil and makes me feel uneasy, not on account of the danger he represents to me — for I know that should he decide to get rid of me, all my nine cohorts would not be able to protect me any better than did Adherbal’s guard when Horo dragged himself, half dead, to his bedside to kill him.’

  Sejanus’s voice grew faint.

  ‘... I often think I see in Horo the pattern of my own destiny.... He was once the man I would have liked to be. He is the man I fear I could become....’

  Chapter Eighteen

  The carruca stopped again at a relay-post and they changed horses. Then the carriage went on. The sun must have reached its zenith, for Fanina heard one of the Praetorians ask when they were going to halt for their lunch.

  Sejanus was silent. Motionless and withdrawn, he was very close to Fanina.

  Fanina was day-dreaming. She could not put out of her mind the thoughts that the story told by the commander of the Praetorians had aroused within her. She again saw in her mind’s eye Horo in the bed of the river Arminia, and felt once again the inexpressible emotion that had come over her when she had untied the heavy russet leather hood that hid his features. She imagined him as he had looked in the Temple at Vulci, bare shouldered and his head swathed in those dazzling white bandages that made him once more look like a Norse mariner from the island ‘where the world vanishes into the eternal snows’.

  You are the living image of the woman who meant everything to me, Horo had written.

  ‘You are the very image of the woman who, from the day he met her, was everything to Thuleus,’ Sejanus had said.

  Was she really the image of Rhoxolana for whom that demi-god had sacrificed more than any man had ever sacrificed for a woman? Or was she not rather the image of this woman, happier than she in her tragic misfortune, only in so far as she had evoked a similar passion?

  Sejanus stirred beside Fanina. His hip brushed against hers. His voice was hoarse and broken:

  ‘Why did I tell you this story, Bella?’ he said.

  He raised himself so as to be able to see her better.

  ‘Perhaps, Bella, it was to enable me to see better into the abyss that is opening before me today.’

  Their eyes met as they faced one another. Then Sejanus went on:

  ‘For the very first time in my life, I am frightened. I am frightened of no longer being the man whose future has always been laid down as exactly as if traced with a plumb-line.’

  Sejanus’s mouth was trembling. Fanina gave a twist and drew back into the comer of the carruca, her heart constricted, her chest aching, unable to sustain the feverish passion of his glance.

  ‘Is this really the moment to go over an old story that ...’ she began in a voice she tried to make sound firm.

  He did not hear her. Leaning over her, he had seized her by her wrists which he held in a vice-like grip.

  ‘You should be thinking of Horo; you know how dangerous he could be to you if he were to decide to get rid of you!’

  She bit her lips, fearing to bring misfortune upon the dwarf by what she had just said, in an outburst calculated to frighten Sejanus. The commander of the Praetorians replied:

  ‘Even if Tiberius suspected what I am planning, he would never risk having Horo kill me. If he still has an ounce of common sense, he must know how much unrest would break out throughout the Empire as a result of my assassination.’

  Tightening his grip, he leant over Fanina.

  ‘It is not Tiberius I fear, and still less Horo, Bella ... it’s you, for I love you, and a man with ambitions as great as mine cannot love anyone without it impairing his strength. I love you so much that I am running the risk of forgetting all about the things which, until now, have been my sole preoccupation.’

  His lips drew nearer to Fanina’s, nearer still...

  ‘By all the gods, I love you so much that I see in you the be-all and end-all of my ambition!’

  All aflame from the warm light that filtered through the scarlet silk curtains of the carruca, his face seemed shaped in a different material, more precious and supernatural. His eyes sparkled, and his voice was warm and appealing. He loved her. He had told her so, and was repeating it in every possible variation in a passionate litany that was intoxicating her.

  ‘Afterwards, you will curse me,’ she murmured, her eyes closed. ‘Whatever my past shortcomings, Sejanus, I am a vestal, for ever a vestal, and you know what curse falls on those who love a priestess of the Goddess.’

  ‘I love you, Bella!’

  ‘Later, you will see in me no more than this Rhoxolana who was the undoing of Thuleus, Sejanus!’

  ‘I love you, Bella! History will not repeat itself for us!’

  ‘But I don’t love you, Lucius.’
>
  ‘You will! You won’t be able to help loving me. You are the only woman, the woman I have always dreamed of!’

  ‘Men of your stamp are not allowed to love.... You were the one who said that, Lucius.’

  ‘I didn’t know what I was saying. With you, for you, my love, I could do anything.’

  His muscular arm was about her waist, while his feverish hand was laying bare her taught breasts which she was unable to withdraw from his caresses. Head thrown back, panting again, she stammered:

  ‘Later, later, Lucius ...’

  Her mouth met that of Lucius, and it needed nothing more....

  The sound of the carruca as it rolled across the cobbles had grown faint, and Fanina no longer heard the dull thudding of the little squad escorting them. In the broad polished electrum mirror strangely situated at the head of what was by now nothing more than a very tumbled bed, she caught sight of her strangely pale face with its huge, half-closed eyes, deeply ringed, and her lips as red as a ripe pomegranate. She gave herself utterly to the man who, forgetting his superstitious fear of her, and possibly thereby condemning himself to be damned, controlled his own desire in order to give her the greatest possible pleasure, and tenderly initiated her to the most subtle love-play....

  The carruca had pulled up beside the Aurelian Way. Fanina stretched voluptuously. She felt deliciously weary. She felt wonderful. Crouching beneath the light dome of the carriage, she slowly put on the tunics Sejanus had left beside her before he went back, happy and leaping along like a boy, to join the soldiers.

  Her other tunics? They lay crumpled and torn, rolled in a ball at her feet.

  Fanina slowly combed out her hair that fell about her in a sumptuous cascade of pure gold, then, gathering it all into one hank, twisted it up in a heavy crown round her head. Then she looked in the big electrum mirror that had been the indiscreet witness of their pleasures. Considering that both her dress and hair-style were improvised, without the assistance of a servant-girl expert in hairdressing and the pleating of tunics, it wasn’t at all bad, she told herself.

  Outside the Praetorians were at last having their lunch, and without wasting words, were noisily scraping their wrought-iron dishes.

  Fanina was still examining herself in the mirror. She could hardly recognize herself. What was it about her face that was so changed? The expression of the eyes? That fold at the corner of her lips? She smiled and the polished metal surface reflected her smile. It was no longer Her smile, but the serious smile of the new woman who was emerging in her.

  Beside her lay a silver tray with a silver ewer, some biscuits, a couple of young pigeons stuffed with dates, marinated in garum, and fruits preserved in honey. Fanina took an apple, wiped it anti bit into it.

  She had given herself to Sejanus, she thought. Given herself of her own free will. And yet she did not love him. How could she have done a thing like that? How could she, at this very moment, be envisaging, without blushing, lying again in his arms in order to experience the intoxicating pleasure he had given her? For she knew that in an hour or so, or at latest when night fell, she would be his again. She would meet his caresses more than willingly. She would even wish to caress him in her turn as he had taught her....

  The day before she would have died of shame at the mere idea. Then she had belonged entirely to Vindex. Furiously she drove the memory from her mind. Had she, through Vindex’s fault, become one if those women who give themselves to the first casual encounter provided he possesses at least some attraction for them?

  Fanina heard the sound of Sejanus’s laughter. The commander of the Praetorians was coming back to the carruca with Romilius, whom Fanina recognized by his loud voice.

  Sejanus was laughing happily. No, she did not love him. She admired in him the strong man who had managed to move her by what still remained pure in him. He also disturbed her on account of the unavowed ambitions he still nourished and on account of his turbulent past with all its violence, its intrigues, its base compromises, its dissimulation and its lies; all of which he had kept hidden from her.

  He was a fighter, a man of calculated daring, and she felt the need of a man at her side who was truly strong, mature and experienced, in whose eyes she was willing to be the final, the best of love affairs after a life of debauchery.

  She had forgotten none of the aims she had set herself. She would not budge an inch from her principles. If the commander of the Praetorians played straight with her, she would be to him as he wanted her to be. Otherwise ...

  The silken curtain of the carruca was drawn aside and Sejanus appeared. Fanina smiled back at him. Then he exclaimed:

  ‘I have some news for you, my dear Bella! Some peasants sighted Hermann and his men yesterday evening near Tuscana, less than twenty-five miles from here. Don’t worry; there are more of us than of them. They have covered a great deal of ground since they attacked the wagon of the fourth legion, but their horses must be exhausted. I don’t know what they are planning, but they seem to be making for Rome. So much the better. Five turmae of cavalry are leaving the city tonight to give chase to them. They will catch up with them a little sooner than I had hoped. If they try to escape, Centurion Rhoecus’s men will intercept them. In three days at the outside the whole thing will be settled.’

  Sejanus’s wolf-like teeth glittered. This was the man of war speaking. He seemed to regret not being himself involved in the action which he had outlined in those few staccato sentences.

  Fanina could not help looking out through the opening in the curtains towards the hills on which stood Tuscana. The mysterious Hermann was there, quite close to them. Soon blood would flow up there.

  The tragedy continued.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘Glory be to you, O Sejanus!’

  ‘Blessed be she who bore you, O light of Italy!’

  ‘Receive our thanks for returning among us, O Sejanus!’

  As they crossed the Palatine Bridge, it was suddenly as if Fanina’s tiny litter had floated out on to a storm-tossed ocean. Caught up in a tremendous whirlwind, it pitched and tossed and creaked and groaned.

  Clutching one of the frail pillars of the canopy, Fanina opened a chink in the curtains. What she saw took her breath away. When Sejanus had left her some few miles from Rome, in order not to attract her enemies’ attention to her, she had been far from expecting this.

  Spreading out on every side, clambering into the tiniest space in the neighbouring streets and alleyways, pushing and shoving along the muddy banks of the Tiber, massing along the steps of near-by buildings, a tremendous crowd had assembled to welcome Sejanus. Following in his wake, Fanina’s porters had great difficulty in forcing their way through, in spite of the solid wall of Praetorians, in civilian dress, who surrounded them.

  ‘Hail Sejanus, providence of Rome!’

  ‘Hail Sejanus, god among the gods!’

  As they slowly progressed through the busy commercial area of Velabrum towards the Forum, the noise grew louder, multiplied a thousandfold. Her lover’s name was on every lip. No one, since Rome was Rome, had ever been greeted with so warm, so effusive, so unrestrained a concert of praise.

  Where was Sejanus? At the exit of a street, in which all the shops and taverns were decked with garlands and covered with laudatory inscriptions and huge portraits of the hero, in lavish praise of whom every one rivalled the other, Fanina at last caught sight of him between the double row of soldiers.

  Today it was not Sejanus the commander of the Praetorians who was returning to Rome. It was Sejanus the consul, with all the pomp and ceremony of his office, wearing the toga praetexta with its broad band of purple and preceded by twelve lictors walking in single file, as curtly and imperiously they ordered the crowd to make way, to hare their heads and to salute and do honour to the master of the day.

  A triumph!

  ‘Their’ triumph! thought Fanina gaily. Where was Tiberius in .ill this? Nowhere. No one mentioned his name. No one spared a thought for the tyrant, banis
hed to his ridiculous ‘kingdom’ of Capri.

  To convince herself of this, Fanina only had to look at the thousands of faces that surrounded her. Some of the women were weeping for joy. Veterans from the legions with lined faces were choking with emotion, while the common people, hoarse with shouting, thumped one another on the back to show their affection for Sejanus, as they laughed for joy. At a loss for further inspiration, unable to think up any other greetings to shout, the shop-keepers cried: ‘Sejanus! O Sejanus! O Sejanus!’ Men of the equestrian class, with more restraint, waved their greeting.

  It was for these people that Fanina had returned to Rome. For these, whose enemies were her enemies. That she had sworn to herself, and that oath she would keep.

  Fanina’s heart sank. Yes, she was keeping the oath she had sworn on the desolate moors around Vulci, but it was not thus that she had imagined her return to Rome. Then she had visualized herself arriving at nightfall, and slipping exhausted, half-starved and trembling through the lurking perils of the city by night in order to find Vindex. For she had intended to win back Vindex and to get him to join her in her proposed struggle.

  What an intoxicating adventure! How crazy, how hopeless!

  Now she was forbidden to think about Vindex. She belonged now to an infinitely more powerful man than the man she could not forget. The most powerful man in the world! The man before whom Calvinus and Brazen-beard were but insects, and the Emperor a senile old man, whose title Sejanus respected only for the sake of appearances.

  The acclamations redoubled round Fanina, and she sat up in her litter to see better. Over there, opposite the huge colonnade of the Curia Julia, surrounded by senators, an Oblationer, his thin torso bare, was killing an ewe before a statue of Sejanus as a divinity.

  Hands joined, the commander of the Praetorians bowed before his own statue, and Fanina frowned. So, he was allowing himself to be adored as a god. With his finely chiselled dark face bent towards the ground, eyes closed, he stood motionless for a long time. What thoughts was he entertaining behind that narrow, stubborn brow? What words was he murmuring with those over-red, almost feminine lips? Was he aware, amidst this delirious throng of people clamouring his name, of the tremendous power he held? Would that power so intoxicate him as to make him forget the agreement they had made with one another?