The Conqueror

by Bryan Litfin

  “Oh, she’s Flavia to you now?” Geta teased. “Why don’t you just admit you’re in love?”

  “I’m not in love!”

  Or am I?

  Another bather entered the caldarium then and settled into the hot pool. Rex and Geta agreed they’d had enough of the heat, so they retired to the tepidarium to cool down. After a good half hour in its pleasant warmth, they took a cold plunge in the frigidarium, then redressed and went back into the street.

  “I guess I’ll see you around the barracks,” Geta said. He leaned close and spoke in Rex’s ear. “We only get a little leave time from camp, so we need to use it wisely. Let’s meet at this bath once a week to discuss what we’ve learned and share intelligence. And sometime soon, I need to meet your friend who’s leading this conspiracy. Things are starting to come together. I wouldn’t be surprised if either Constantine or Licinius shows up in Italy this spring as soon as he can get an army over the Alps.”

  “I hope it’s Constantine,” Rex whispered.

  Geta stared at his feet for a moment. Finally, he looked Rex in the eye. “Listen, I used to serve under Licinius when I was a new recruit in the infantry, before I started speculator training. That man is an excellent soldier. And he gives more generous donatives than any other general I’ve ever heard of.”

  “What are you saying, Geta? We’re here to help Constantine, not Licinius.”

  “I know. And we will! But you and I, we have to watch out for each other. We’re just swords for hire. Nobody really cares about us. It’s good to keep our options open, you know?”

  Rex shook his head as he patted the tau-rho amulet under his tunic. “Not me. I’ve cast my lot with the man who gave me this.”

  “Me too,” Geta said, pointing to the tiny lump under his own collar. “But things can change. People die in battle. Sometimes there are rebellions, and emperors get executed. If the situation evolves, foot soldiers like us need to be ready to adjust.”

  “I suppose you have a point.”

  Geta grinned and clapped Rex on the shoulder. “Alright. Just keep an open mind. And as for the current mission, one week from today let’s come here again and share what we’ve learned.”

  “Good plan. You got it.”

  “In the meantime, if there’s anything I can do for you, let me know.”

  “The same for you.” Rex looked his friend in the eyes and offered his hand for Geta to clasp. Geta pulled Rex to himself. There on the street, the two men embraced.

  “Brothers, always,” Rex said.

  “To the death!” Geta agreed. And then, with a nod of mutual respect, the two Roman guardsmen parted ways and headed in opposite directions.

  Chloe found she slept better now that she was rooming with Flavia in Gelotiana House. Flavia had insisted on a stop to the stream of male visitors to Chloe’s bed. Until that point, she had always assumed the enjoyments of the flesh would put her in a more relaxed state for sleep. But Flavia was right; it was better to protect the boundaries of one’s own body. Chloe had decided it was nice to have the bed all to herself again. Of course, being seven months pregnant was another good reason to bring the nocturnal visits to an end. Sleep was a precious commodity these days.

  A late-night stillness had descended on the house when Chloe was awakened by a loud banging on the outer door. Several of the boys shouted for quiet, but whoever was knocking outside kept up the racket. Flavia was awake now too.

  “Who could it be?” she asked Chloe.

  “I don’t know. I’m sure Alexamenos will take care of it.”

  The sounds intensified into an argument. When the visitors came inside the house, Chloe began to grow concerned. She could hear the metallic sound of scale armor clinking as the men moved around. At one point, she thought she heard a sword being drawn. The men were demanding to search the place, while Alexamenos was insisting they had no right.

  “Chloe!” Flavia murmured. “I’ve got to get out of here! It’s me they want!”

  But she was wrong.

  Four Praetorians burst into the bedroom, causing both Chloe and Flavia to shriek. “That’s the girl! Right there!” shouted a sallow-faced scullery maid whom Chloe knew from her daily work. “The pregnant one!”

  “Very good. You can go now,” the tallest of the four soldiers said to the maid.

  A second man marched over and grabbed Chloe’s arm. “You’re coming with me. Don’t struggle, or it will go worse for you.”

  “Why? What have I done?” Chloe asked, playing ignorant, though a deep fear had seized her soul. She knew exactly what this was. The augustus wants me whipped!

  Alexamenos was in the room now, trying to intervene, but it was pointless. When he attempted to wedge himself between Chloe and the soldier who gripped her arm, another one of the Praetorians simply threw the slender man aside. “Stay put,” he growled to Alexamenos on the floor, “or I’ll have to draw my blade. It can go right through armor, so it’ll surely go through you.”

  “Please, sirs,” Flavia said, trying a different tactic. “We have funds at our disposal. I’m sure we could settle this in a way you’d like.”

  The tall leader now whirled on Flavia. “You think you got some money, slave? There ain’t enough gold in all of Rome to pay us off! What good is a bribe if you’re dead? Failure ain’t an option for us. This order comes from the top. And I mean the top.” He turned to his squad. “Come on, boys. We got the girl. Let’s go.”

  “Please!” Chloe begged. “Tell the augustus I’m sorry! I love him!”

  “You can tell him yourself!” the leader snarled.

  Chloe’s body sagged, and her legs felt weak. Great Artemis, she prayed, let it be brief. And let it be plain leather—not the scourge!

  The men yanked Chloe into the main street outside Gelotiana House. The long avenue ran parallel to the Circus Maximus, but the soldiers started her toward a different path: the steep one that climbed to the palace atop the Palatine. Chloe let out a little groan.

  “Wait!” a voice cried.

  A dark figure ran toward the soldiers, prompting all of them to draw their swords.

  “Stay back, man!” one warned.

  The stranger stopped a few paces away. From his mop of curly hair, Chloe discerned it was Alexamenos again, though the Praetorians might not have recognized him on this moonless night.

  “Chloe!” he shouted. “Do you remember what I’ve been telling you about?”

  “You mean—religion?”

  “Yes!”

  “We’re on imperial business,” the leader of the squad said. “Go back to your home, or we’ll have you flogged.”

  Alexamenos ignored the threat. “We don’t know what will happen tonight, Chloe! You have to decide! Do you want him?”

  For a year or so, the Greek schoolteacher had been urging Chloe to consider the catholic faith. She had been reluctant to abandon the old gods—but now, in this desperate moment, she realized those gods had abandoned her. Alexamenos was asking her to believe instead in the risen Christ.

  “Keep going, men,” the leader commanded. “Up the hill. Double time.” The squad started to move again, dragging their prisoner along.

  “Chloe! Do you want him? Now is the time to decide!”

  “I want him! I believe!” she called over her shoulder.

  Alexamenos darted forward. “Ego se baptizo en hudati!” he cried in Greek, then doused the whole group with a bucket of water.

  Shouts of anger burst from the Praetorians. “Stick him!” one of them yelled, but Alexamenos had retreated into the shadows.

  “Forget him,” said another. “He’s gone.”

  The men started the uphill climb to the imperial palace. Chloe plodded along in their midst, more terrified than she had ever been in her life. Only one thing gave her comfort. Although these soldiers were local thugs who didn’t speak anything but Latin, Chloe was an immigrant from far-off Macedonia. Her native language was Greek, so she knew the meaning of Alexamenos’s shouted words.
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  “I baptize you with water,” he had said to her—which meant Chloe was now a Christian.

  Rex struck the fire-starter, causing a spark to land on a scrap of charcloth nestled inside a wad of tinder. The little flame that sprang up was sufficient to light an oil lamp. Soon Rex had five of them burning, and from them, it was a simple matter to light two torches. Now a lively glow illuminated the entrance stairwell to the place that the Christians called the Cemetery of Callistus.

  “Thank you, friend,” said a distinguished middle-aged man. He wore a long-sleeved tunic of plain black wool. The medallion around his neck was marked with a simple cross. Rex only nodded in response, for he didn’t know what was proper to say to the catholic bishop of Rome.

  Two of the religious men called deacons followed Miltiades down the stairs, and after them came Flavia. Though her face was covered by a black veil, Rex could tell it was her by the way she moved. Behind her followed an aristocratic lady whom he had never met. Even so, her features were similar enough to Flavia’s for Rex to be certain she was Lady Sabina Sophronia. The last person down the stairs was Alexamenos.

  Rex handed the Greek schoolteacher one of the torches and kept the other himself. “I’ll lead,” he said, “and you bring up the rear.”

  The Christian procession made its way down the hallway of the underground cemetery, with each person holding a source of illumination. The walls on the right and left were pockmarked with burial niches sealed by marble slabs. The names of the deceased were carved on them, along with hopeful prayers for peace and rest. Rex stopped in front of a large wooden box that sat on the floor next to an empty niche. A marble slab leaned against the wall.

  “We shall stop here,” Miltiades said, “so that I may read from the scriptures.”

  The bishop placed his lamp in a little nook and received a codex from the deacon’s hand. By the glow of the lamp, he found the place he sought and began to speak. “The passage is from The Gospel according to Matthew,” he said. “It is the parable of the laborers in the vineyard.”

  He proceeded to recite a story that had been told by the god Jesus. In it, a landlord hired workers in shifts throughout the day. Though some laborers worked long hours while others started late, all were paid the same at sundown. Those who had worked in the heat of the day were angry, but the landlord reminded them he had paid what was mutually agreed. “Is it not lawful for me to do whatever I wish with what is mine? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?” the landlord asked the complainers. Jesus concluded the story with the saying, “Thus shall the last be first, and the first last.”

  Miltiades closed the book and handed it back to the deacon. “Our sister who lies at our feet is a fulfillment of the Lord’s word. Many receive the Savior early in their lives, sometimes even as little children. Others come as adults, and still others at old age. Although our sister was not an old woman, nonetheless, she came to God at the end of her life—the last hour before sunset, as the parable describes. In this we learn that our God is a merciful God, showing us his favor even unto our final moments.”

  The bishop paused, and Rex heard Flavia stifle a cry. She reached beneath her veil and dabbed her eyes with a kerchief.

  “Alexamenos, bear witness to what you know,” Miltiades ordered.

  “Chloe had been listening to the gospel for some time. Though she was resistant at first, she was growing open to it, like soil softening to the seed. In the end, she accepted the saving Name—and I watered the soil with the washing of an improvised baptism.”

  “It was irregular, but I declare it valid,” Miltiades said. “In desperate situations, we must recognize the intent of the heart, as God certainly does, even when a proper ritual is not observed.”

  At this point the bishop asked the second deacon to lead the mourners in a doleful hymn. Rex did not know the words, so he merely listened as the Christians sang. When they were finished, the two deacons bent down and opened the wooden box. A body lay there. Even in the dim light, Rex could see a rust-colored stain on the graveclothes. It ran across the corpse’s belly.

  Her baby was taken.

  Rex had chatted with Chloe on a couple of occasions when he stopped at Gelotiana House to check on Flavia. She was a nice enough girl—a little bawdy yet always cheerful. Now here she was, a mangled corpse about to be interred in a Christian tomb. Maxentius had not wanted to whip her after all. Instead, he had murdered her.

  The horrified page boy ordered to discard the body said Chloe had been killed and cut open. And the boy knew why, for he had seen Maxentius’s secret guest. A haruspex—a priest who inspected entrails for the purpose of divination—had been invited to the palace that night. Usually the soothsayers looked at the livers of sheep and chickens. Yet it was rumored that sometimes, in moments of dire need, they could make inquiries into the entrails of the most innocent. And who could be more innocent than an unborn human child?

  The deacons lifted Chloe’s body from the box and respectfully laid it inside the grave niche. Next they raised the marble slab and pressed it into place. Eventually it would be sealed with cement and inscribed with Chloe’s name. The words in peace were already written on the slab, alongside a depiction of a fish and an anchor.

  With the body interred, the mourners proceeded back to the surface. Everyone squinted as they emerged into the bright sunlight. Rex remained off to one side as Flavia and Sophronia earnestly thanked their bishop for coming out to preside at the funeral. An atrocity of this sort, they said, seemed to require the presence of the church’s foremost leader. Emperor Maxentius was already known to be cruel and vindictive, but this crime was a horror of an entirely new kind. The bishop assured the women he concurred with their feelings. Even Rex, though he did not share the Christian faith of his friends, felt a sense of moral outrage and pointed grief at what had been done to Chloe and her baby.

  After the bishop and his deacons left, Rex approached the two women and Alexamenos. He had never met Flavia’s mother before. Though the circumstances right now were less than ideal, he thought he should at least make her polite acquaintance. He introduced himself with all the respect and deference that a lady of her station deserved. She evidently knew who he was as well, for she greeted him warmly in return.

  Yet despite the pleasantries, Rex could tell his three Christian friends were still disturbed by the savagery of the crime. They talked quietly among themselves, visibly upset. None of them had ever seen this sort of thing up close. Rex had been around battle and bloodshed before—its suffering; its rawness; its cold, still death. He had even inflicted wounds on enemies in war, so he had a certain capacity to tolerate what he had just witnessed. But his friends had no stomach for it. Besides, what had happened here was far worse than warfare. Chloe was an innocent woman, not a soldier fighting under the accepted rules of combat. This wasn’t noble death on the battlefield. It was gross injustice. And what made it all the worse was that the highest representative of Roman law had committed the crime.

  “Maxentius has to be stopped,” Sophronia said, her voice quivering. “No matter who you are, you shouldn’t be able to kill a mother and slaughter her unborn child. It is bestial, and unworthy of a just society.” The others nodded along with her, and Rex joined them, for he wholeheartedly agreed. It was why he was here in Rome, working on behalf of Constantine, a ruler who wasn’t a tyrant like Maxentius. Replacing a bad emperor with a good one was the mission for which he had been sent.

  A mission, Rex realized, that could be aided by a powerful aristocrat like Lady Sabina Sophronia.

  As his three friends grieved for Chloe and mourned the evils of Maxentius, Rex debated whether he should enlist Sophronia in his cause. Her brother-in-law, the senator Ignatius, was already part of a strategic conspiracy to depose the sitting emperor in Rome. Would the wife of the city prefect also be interested in joining the plot? Rex decided to test the waters, saying just enough to see if she responded. If she was open, he would draw her further in.

  �
�It truly is bestial to do such a thing,” Rex said. “A man like that should be stopped somehow.”

  Sophronia sighed. “He is a terrible ruler. A tyrant if ever there was one.”

  “Have you ever considered what you could do about such a tyrant?”

  “The emperors are all-powerful,” Sophronia said glumly. “God raises them up, and only God can bring them low.”

  “That is your faith, I know. But do you think your God sometimes wants his servants to act as instruments of his will?”

  Sophronia gave Rex a thoughtful glance. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you know . . . sometimes people pray. Sometimes they use the

  law. And sometimes certain people even form conspiracies.”

  “Rex, do not say too much,” Alexamenos cautioned.

  “Yet say enough to make it matter,” Flavia chimed in.

  “All I am saying is, people are often motivated to take action when a ruler turns evil. Sometimes those people are far from us. Other times they are much closer than we suspect, perhaps even in our midst, and we could join them if only we knew. Not everyone is brave enough to join such a plot. Yet some are.” Rex locked eyes with Sophronia. “Are you that type of person, my lady?”

  The little foursome fell silent for a long moment. No one wanted to speak. At last Sophronia broke the stillness. “I am such a person,” she declared.

  “Then keep your ears open, Mother,” Flavia said quietly, “and be ready to act if the opportunity should arise.”

  The hint of treason had made everyone feel nervous. They instinctively glanced around the suburban cemetery, looking for anyone who might have overheard. Although they saw no one nearby, they all agreed it was time to go. Sophronia had come by carriage from the Aventine Hill, while the other three had proceeded by foot along the Appian Way, which ran straight from the Circus Maximus into the countryside. As they began to disperse to their respective destinations in the city, Sophronia pulled Rex aside before he could leave.

  “My daughter tells me you have saved her life many times. She says you are a man of courage and honor. As you can probably guess, Flavia means the world to me. When she slipped me that note and let me know she was alive, I can’t tell you the joy and relief I felt! It seems I have you to thank for that. And so”—Sophronia put her hand on Rex’s arm and gazed directly at him—“you have my profound gratitude and respect. I deeply appreciate all you have done.”