by Q V Hunter
‘Exactly.’
‘Magnentius will need them if it comes to a fight, Magister.’
‘Fine, fine, Marcus. And then, what will the Persians do if Constantius turns his face to reclaim the West by force?’ He rubbed his hands up and down his wrinkled, sun-blotched cheeks as if to wake himself up. ‘Most important, what will Eusebius tell him to do?’
***
For the second night in a row, I slept in the Castra’s barracks, listening to a trio of trainees rattling dice in a neighboring cell. Apodemius’ de-briefings inevitably came after dusk, so the corridors always stirred with trainers or agents shuffling, one by one, in and out of the barracks—some of them headed to the toilets, others to the hub of imperial intelligence—one never knew for sure. I got three hours of sleep. Gregorius had told me to wait for him at the city’s northeast Porta Collina the next morning.
I was delayed by the Castra’s pencil pushers. They’d been slack in renewing my identification papers.
‘I was starting to worry, Marcus. You’ve never been late. I raised you better than that.’
‘Yes, Commander. I’m very sorry. I had to collect new documents.’
‘Yes, of course, Marcus. Sometimes I forget you answer to new masters.’
The Commander waited on horseback alongside an unfamiliar carriage, tightly curtained and embossed with the insignia of the bride-to-be’s clan. An elegant old driver the parents had spared for their cherished girl soothed the horses with a handful of oats.
I gestured at the carriage as I fished out my agens identification for the final gate. ‘Congratulations. I see you’ve been successful, Commander. Are you and the lady ready to go?’
I refrained from mentioning that one wheel’s iron binding was warped, despite the well-intentioned efforts of a smithy’s hammer. The carriage’s suspension and brakes looked worn down as well. I hoped the vehicle would make it to Aquileia.
‘No, but tardiness is a lady’s privilege, not a freedman’s.’ Gregorius’ expression was more troubled than my lateness warranted. I marched to the gatekeepers, excused myself from the warm embrace of Great Mother Roma’s ancient walls as required by law, and remounted.
‘Who are we waiting for, Commander?’
‘The future Empress’s pleasure, of course.’
‘I don’t understand.’ I glanced at the curtained wagon.
‘The Lady Justina forgot something.’
I was just digesting this information when a second, high-roofed carriage trundled toward us along the inner wall of Roma, the Agger Servii Tulii. I knew that transport well. It had once ferried Lady Laetitia to and from her afternoon salons. I saw that time, fashion, and no doubt the new Lady Kahina’s taste, had wrought changes. I admired its fresh coat of silvery lacquer and dark blue brocade curtains swinging in the windows.
To my astonishment, the Lady Kahina now stepped out of the Manlius carriage and hurried over with her bundle to climb the steps of the other carriage. Even in her travelling clothes, her soft hips and graceful neckline under an elaborate concoction of curls and waves hinted at the pleasures I knew she could give and I was always trying to forget.
So the woman I secretly loved the most in the world was to join the Usurper’s court I turned away, fearful that a mix of admiration and affection blared like a cornicen’s horn from my eyes.
We exited Roma at a crawl through the morning crush of merchants, pilgrims, farmers and slave trains using the Porta Collina for the Via Nomentana. I led the carriages with the Commander riding at the side of the Vettius wagon. A trip that would have taken me a day and a half riding hard, demanding the best relay horses and racing past official carriages and state cargo, was going to take us many days at this rate, provided the Vettius’ discarded wagon held up. I suspected a nice new model was parked back at the family’s mansion on the hill at home and that it had been ordered on credit in expectation of Justina’s departure for glory.
For his part, Gregorius didn’t seem as happy as he should have been. He had thrown in his lot with Magnentius who now commanded all the troops of the West and controlled Roma through Prefect Titianus. To secure the rebels’ legitimacy, the Commander was delivering a Constantine bride to his new emperor. Such a marriage could bring the Empire nothing but peace and, if fruitful, nothing but honor to the Manlius marriage broker.
Privately, I thought of our tiny Leo with contentment. One way or another, this honor would be part of his inheritance.
Yet, the Commander seemed preoccupied and sullen the whole day.
At dusk, we pulled over at the state mansio in Oriculum, a minor stopover I’d sped past a dozen or more times. I took charge of handing the horses over to the stable hands while Gregorius inspected the ladies’ bedchambers and then returned with a slave for their luggage.
‘Where’s Leo?’ I asked Kahina.
‘With Lavinia and the Senator in Roma. The farmhouse got too cold for them. Verus promised he’ll keep an eye on things.’
‘Verus is more than the sum of his parts,’ I said and changed the subject. ‘So! It looks like we’re in for an extended tour of the countryside.’
Kahina lowered her eyes and suppressed a smile. ‘Lady Justina has never travelled farther than her family’s suburban villa before tonight. Come, ladies,’ she called, ‘We’ll be comfortable here and dine well.’
Kahina knocked on the old carriage door. A tiny, white hand devoid of rings or bracelets reached out for assistance. Then a ruby satin slipper appeared on the uppermost step and a veiled head tipped low and cleared the door.
With a light jump, the future Empress landed on the paving stones and laughed. ‘Oh, I forgot Claudia, again.’ She jumped back up the stepladder and reached into the carriage.
Another veiled woman now emerged, carrying a doll in her arms. She handed the toy to Justina with a polite nod.
‘Come, Claudia, suppertime!’ Lady Justina cried to the doll. She clutched her bobbing treasure and with Magnentius’ enormous gold rock of a ring bouncing on a delicate chain from her tiny neck, she dashed pell-mell for the mansio’s dining room.
‘Well, both mistress and doll seem to share a good appetite. How old is our new Imperatrix?’ I croaked.
‘About twelve, I would say?’ Lady Laetitia asked her veiled travelling companion.
‘If that,’ the other woman answered in a low note of dry humor. She lifted her veil and gave me a challenging stare.
‘How do you do?’ she asked.
‘I’m . . . just fine, thank you,’ I gagged out somehow.
The other woman was Roxana.
Chapter 12, A Tiber of Blood
—Aquileia, Spring, 350 AD
‘Well, she won’t be the first Roman female to grow up overnight,’ Roxana muttered in my ear over dinner.
‘Magnentius will be gentle. He’s a decent man,’ I said, ‘although he is a big man.’
‘How old is he? Forty-seven? Forty-eight?’ Roxana shook her head at the slight child nearby. Justina looked nervous under the pathetic, pink circles of rouge daubed on cheeks and lips. Yet I could see she was trained to adult conversation and determined to make Gregorius her first courtier. She sat a few feet away babbling to the Commander over dishes of preserved oranges in honey. To her credit, she took his ghastly visage in her stride.
Roxana didn’t seem moved by the painful prospect of this cheerful child in a middle-aged barbarian’s lusty arms. Her cynical expression made one wonder what unpleasant path had led to her own recruitment as agens.
I gazed down the bench at Kahina, from whom all traces of girlish innocence had also disappeared. But unlike Roxana’s aura of feline tension, Kahina exuded the relaxed glow of a confident young matron. I saw no hint of cynicism or unhappiness. She grinned with contentment across the table at the ravaged features of her husband. Guilt at our deception stabbed my conscience as sharp as the secret weapon hidden in my boot cuff.
The dining room was full of traders from the East, braving the late winter thaw to g
rab high prices for scarce goods in marketplaces around the imperial courts. They were a noisy bunch, smelling profits in the air as they compared price lists and delivery routes.
I admired Roxana’s generous breasts wrapped tight under her demure blue woolen bodice. Staring at her lush charms was certainly safer than sneaking peeks at the married Kahina.
‘You’re looking very fine tonight, Roxana. Travel agrees with you.’
‘I enjoy seeing new places,’ she said, sucking on an overpriced fig.
‘And bumping into old friends?’ I smiled with a touch of familiarity that recalled our ‘exercises’ back in the Castra. I tried not to sound too hopeful, but failed. Under the protection of the wooden table, memories of our lusty bout together were already heating my thighs. The unexpected prospect of having Roxana as a colleague in Aquileia was certainly a juicier bonus than what I deserved for my services to Apodemius thus far.
‘Old friends are a comfort, but new friends are a duty. I wouldn’t expect much bumping in the night if I were you,’ she said, wiping her rosy lips clean of juice.
‘No, no, Of course not,’ I struggled to recover my dignity. ‘No. I assume you’re here to help me keep an eye on our Magister Officiorum. I certainly need help. He’s clamming up around me.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of Marcellinus. The wealthy Gallic conspirator is all yours.’
‘Then, why are you here? Surely not to chaperone Lady Justina and her “Claudia” doll?’
‘To watch Silvanus, of course.’
‘Yes, of course, but I . . . I just didn’t think you’d say it out loud,’ I fumbled. My face reddened at my presumption that Roxana had any role in assisting me, much less sporting with me on off-hours.
She looked me straight in the eye as if I was the stupidest man of her entire acquaintance, and at that moment, perhaps I was.
***
Magnentius took one look at the child Justina and gave her an imperial welcome but announced himself in no rush for the wedding. The date was set for late May. Now that he’d won an uneasy accommodation with the Illyrian legions under Vetranio, there was less excuse for him to sit on the border facing the East and resist Marcellinus’ insistence we all return to the larger palace complex in Mediolanum.
The move to Mediolanum also meant that the imperial wedding would be the biggest event of the capital’s social season—a week of festive political horse-trading, consultation, backstabbing, bribery and bargaining. With a female Constantine in his bed and Constantius on many of his new coins, Magnentius was philosophical about being yoked to a little girl.
‘Perhaps she’ll ripen with the weather, like spring into summer,’ he joked. ‘Until then, I leave her to her dollies. Remember, I have a grown daughter of my own.’
Roxana spent her days tasting Justina’s food or sewing with the other maids while the child herself played in a suite laid aside for ‘the Empress.’
Whenever I caught sight of Roxana in the evenings, however, the woolen dress was gone. Layers of rose silk under a long sleeveless tunic of forest green velvet took its place. But there were changes that dress couldn’t disguise. Each week that passed, dark hollows under her wide brown eyes deepened. With a pang of remorse for my lustier urges, I realized that Roxana was working double shifts for the old man back in the Castra Peregrina. No doubt she was also paid much less than I on some specious argument that she didn’t have to ride express relays or carry a weapon.
I wanted her to know that she had my sympathy. ‘You have my respect, dear colleague. It seems your devotion to duty leaves you no time for sleep,’ I said one day as we passed each other in the outer courtyard.
‘Sleep? I have no time to write my reports.’
‘Is there so very much to say?’
She shrugged, as if any assignment was easy for her, but I could see she was exhausted and troubled.
‘Would it help you, Roxana, if I took the Empress for a walk into the countryside? Long enough for you to rest this afternoon?’
‘Oh, Marcus,’ she sighed. ‘I would love to sleep more than three hours at a time. The mother of a newborn gets more sleep than I do.’
‘Then I give you five hours with a word to no one. I’ll return the child for the evening meal, but sit with her until you fetch her, just as you like.’
‘You won’t find her quite the child she looks,’ she said, lifting an eyebrow.
I fetched a palace driver and a two-wheeled cart for the expedition. Since her wedding day, Justina had had the run of the Palace. She knew me by now as one of the friendlier aides who lingered on the margins of her betrothed’s consistorium, not quite in and not quite out of the inner circle.
After the midday meal, we rode into the hills beyond the city walls with her driver as chaperone. It was a brilliant day in early June. I shed my cloak and Pannonian cap after twenty minutes riding horseback next to her cart.
‘You know, Marcus Numidianus, my father did not want to give me to His Excellency, General Magnentius.’
‘I see. Did you have someone else in mind?’ I wiggled my eyebrows at her in jest.
‘Sadly, he couldn’t really afford his own taste in sons-in-law.’
‘I see.’
‘Yes, but now I don’t understand. That one-eyed officer handed over a lot of money for this engagement, but Magnentius ignores me day after day. Perhaps I wasn’t worth all those bags of gold.’ She still had the chubby cheeks of a child under those wistful hazel eyes. One day she might be a beauty. Already she was graceful and well-spoken.
‘I’m sure you are worth far more, Imperatrix. Your husband rules the West now. He’s a kind man, but a busy one. Shall we walk up to that hill with the olive trees soaking up the sun? Or head over to that glade? I suspect there’s a brook there where you can rest.’
She chose the glade. The driver unhitched the horse for a needed drink and followed us. She bathed her hand in water and giggled.
‘It’s as cold as snow!’
‘That’s exactly what it is, Alpine snow.’
‘If I put my feet in the water, will you tell on me?’
‘I tell on everyone. It’s my job. If you hadn’t noticed yet, I don’t blame you. You’re not supposed to see me doing it.’ I gave her a broad smile.
‘I’ve never met one of the agentes in rebus before. My father says everybody hates them. I asked my maid Roxana if that was true and she said that everybody fears them, although what would she know about it?’
I shrugged and watched the Augusta remove her slippers.
‘Roxana says you get to look at everyone’s mail and check their accounts, and—is that really interesting?’
‘Not always.’
‘Would you like to know my secrets?’
‘I’d be very grateful, Augusta. It would save me opening and resealing your mail.’
‘Ha! Well, I had a very strange dream last night, no, more like an oracle appearing in my sleep.’ She sank two pale and perfect feet into the icy flow. ‘Woooo! Marcus Numidianus, you have to bathe your feet, too. I’ll bet you can’t stand it!’
I did as she commanded. It felt like a test of trust. Unfortunately, my feet turned blue as fast as hers, but to my surprise, she seemed determined to outlast me.
‘A goddess made of silver appeared. She said I would be the mother of a great imperial dynasty lasting many generations.’
‘Hardly strange, Augusta. I’m losing the feeling in my feet.’
‘But it was very strange, Agens Know-it-all. Because when I asked how many children I would bear the General, she turned her back and faded away.’
‘My blood is turning to ice water,’ I said, laughing as I jerked my feet out of the water and put on my socks and boots. ‘You win.’ I waved to her driver to hitch up the horse. ‘You must be made of iron, Lady Justina.’
‘Well, I hope after I die that all my statues are cast in gold!’ she answered. Only then did she pull out her feet and rub them dry on her priceless brocade over-robe.
; I watched her hoist herself back into the imperial cart like a bounding deer. I noticed she wasn’t carrying her doll any more.
***
That evening it wasn’t Roxana who relieved me of my babysitting, but a cornet summoning the imperial council from its various dining rooms scattered around the city and palace. Entering the anteroom of the Council Chamber, I stood at attention as a white-faced Decentius passed. Then to my astonishment, Gregorius asked me as he raced past, ‘Is the Prefect in there?’
‘Praefectus Urbi Titianus? Surely he’s down in Roma, Commander.’
‘The gods help him if he is. Julius Nepotianus declared himself emperor the night before last and stormed Roma at the head of an armed band of gladiators, felons and slaves. Titianus couldn’t hold them off. We heard he was trying to flee back here.’
Titianus was indeed already with us, barely alive. I followed Gregorius behind a cluster of other officers arriving to listen to the Emperor’s debriefing of the City Prefect.
‘So you just abandoned your Praetorian Prefect of Italia to the mob, Titianus?’ Magnentius stood in front of his desk staring down at what remained of Titianus. At first I didn’t recognize the aristocrat in that kneeling mess of mud-covered uniform, blood-crusted hands and bandaged face.
‘Five of us escaped the municipal complex, but most were slaughtered in their offices, Imperator.’
‘Where were the aediles?’
‘The Senate quickly recognized Nepotianus, only to save their own throats, but still, the aediles did nothing to help us.’ Titianus wailed, ‘People were cut down as they ran . . . The Tiberis is running with blood, corpses fill the doorways, children . . .’
He panted and someone gave him water to drink.
‘Some of the plebs who’d been for Nepotianus, well, they changed their minds when they saw those beasts raping and killing with smiles on their faces. They were like ravenous shades out of Hades. We fought hard and managed to drive most of them out of the city. But it wasn’t safe for us. So Anicetus, the prefectural aides and I headed for the river by the Via Aurelia. The citizens secured the last of the gates behind us.’