The Exiled

by David Barbaree

  But since my exile began, I have defined myself by what I am not. I am not Roman.

  This begs the question: if I am not Roman, why did I resist joining against the Romans?

  Why indeed.

  *

  The doctor returns in the second hour to re-dress my wound. ‘The bleeding has lessened,’ he says. ‘You will live.’

  I ask about Manlius. ‘Will he live?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ the doctor says.

  *

  I hate the Romans as a rule. But every rule has exceptions.

  Manlius was assigned to watch Carenes and me twelve years ago. He replaced an old, toothless veteran from Germania, who had watched us since we first arrived in Italy. Manlius was a decorated centurion, fresh from some hard-fought war in the east, and bitter about the appointment. He thought it was beneath him – though this was only apparent from the occasional roll of his eyes. He would constantly pace with his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to murder his barbarian hostages should the need arise. My Latin was terrible then, his Aramaic – the lingua franca in Parthia – non-existent. He knew some Greek – enough to grunt instructions when he deemed it necessary. And we communicated like this – like animals, grunting and pointing – for years.

  It wasn’t until Carenes died that this changed. It happened gradually. After losing my companion, I begged Manlius to play Tables with me. He turned me down for two years. Two! Once he finally relented, and after I’d taught him the rules of the game, his competitive spirit took over. He became a man obsessed. Now we play every night. He improved, slowly, and so did our relationship. He used to supervise my afternoon walks from a distance, walking several paces behind me. Now we practically walk together, equals conversing in Latin (which I learned reluctantly). We speak of developments abroad, of Roman politics, which never cease to fascinate. We gossip about who is visiting whom after sunset.

  I hate the Romans. Maybe Manlius is an exception to the rule. But he isn’t a Roman Roman. Not really. His father was an Egyptian slave, freed at the age of fifty. Manlius was born and raised in Alexandria. He joined the legions at the age of seventeen. He’d served in Germania and Dacia, but had never been to Italy until he was assigned the undemanding task of watching the emperor’s Parthian hostages. In substance, he is as Roman as I am.

  To think of the wars he fought, the battlefields he’s seen, only to fall in the streets of Baiae. He deserves better.

  I am sorry, my friend, for dragging you into this.

  *

  It’s not until the sixth hour when Sinnaces returns home. He bursts into the room and runs to the side of my bed. I can tell by his lethargic eyes and red cheeks he is still feeling the effects of last night’s drink.

  ‘You’re alive,’ he says. ‘Thank the gods. I only just heard.’

  ‘Stabbed but alive,’ I say.

  The boy tries to take my hand. ‘What happened? Who stabbed you?’

  I push his hand away. ‘Shut up, boy. I’ll not confide in a drunk.’ I think of his father, Carenes, how he poured out Nero’s wine.

  I failed you, Carenes. I failed to keep your son true to his kin, to the land of his birth.

  But the rot was there before Carenes passed.

  ‘It’s good your father isn’t around to see the Roman you’re turning into.’

  Sinnaces stands; he has tears in his eyes.

  This is an argument we have had before, usually after he spends a night drinking with the other Roman boys. He reacts as he always does, like a child.

  ‘I am not a Roman.’

  ‘Answer me this, boy,’ I say. ‘If an animal looks like an elephant, lumbers like an elephant, and trumpets like an elephant. If it has tusks and thick grey hide and a swishing tail. Isn’t it fair to say that the animal is an elephant?’

  The elephant gapes. He has no reply.

  He leaves. The smell of stale wine lingers.

  Good riddance.

  I could have confided in Sinnaces. I could have asked for help. But I do not trust the boy. He would run to his Roman masters at the first sign of trouble. I do not need him. My assailants will fail. Their plan is too complicated, too overwrought with contingencies. And without me they won’t be bold enough to try.

  Domitilla

  19 August

  The Villa Piso, Baiae

  The last of our guests board their ships as the sun is rising. I watch from the balcony, waving at anyone who cares to look back. I force myself to smile as Titus would want. Father as well. The Flavians don’t have a care in the world. Show them.

  Our newly anointed emperor insisted on a party. A lavish one. The time for grieving is over, Titus wrote from Rome. We need to show the world that we are moving on. I understood the logic. Even so, I am still grieving. I miss Father. I miss his bad jokes and endless complaining, his tongue always firmly in cheek. I miss the way he would pat my hand when I was upset, ever since I was a little girl. ‘We will fix it,’ he would say. And he usually would.

  I wasn’t ready for a party. But Caesar insisted.

  It’s strange having a brother for an emperor. It wasn’t the same when Father took the purple. Father had always been the head of our household, the paterfamilias, the emperor of our family. His ascension merely meant that his dominion grew. And I was used to Father’s constant rise, from soldier to general, from civil official to senator. His rise to the Principate was stunning, but also understandable.

  It’s different with Titus. We were never equals – he is the firstborn son after all. But Titus always loved and respected me. He valued my opinion. He would listen to me and take my counsel. He was my older brother, not a king.

  Everything changed when Father died. I realized this too late and Titus is still punishing me for it.

  It happened in Rome. I called on Titus in the throne room, while he was meeting with Ulpius and admiral Pliny, as they were discussing how to handle my sister Vespasia. This was before her sudden, fervent devotion to the Cult of Isis, during her vigil at the deathbed of Caecina, her former lover and accomplice in Marcellus’s plot to take the throne. Vespasia and Caecina had been having an affair for months. She cared for him. She loved him – or so she said. After the plot was exposed and Titus nearly cut Caecina in two, she refused to leave Caecina’s bedside as he slowly died. This was a problem, according to Titus. It undermined the Principate. Titus wanted to send her away, to a remote island, such as Pandateria, as Augustus did his daughter. A similar punishment for a similar crime: promiscuity.

  Or so Titus said.

  What he really meant was they both were guilty of embarrassing Caesar. I spoke up. I told Titus that he couldn’t send Vespasia away. Or, as Titus later put it, I had the temerity to tell the emperor that there was something he – Caesar, master of all – could not do. Titus was furious. He ordered the room cleared. Once we were alone, he explained, through gritted teeth, the perception of Caesar being scolded by his younger sister – by a woman – was damaging. Possibly irreparable. ‘I looked like Nero cowering before his mother.’

  The next day Titus ‘suggested’ I visit Baiae for the remainder of the summer. The message was clear: stay away from politics. You are Caesar’s sister, not his advisor. It’s infuriating, how quickly he forgot my role in exposing Marcellus’s plot. He would be dead if it weren’t for me.

  ‘Domitilla.’

  Lost in thought, I had missed Senator Cocceius Nerva passing below the balcony. He has stopped and is staring up at me.

  ‘The consummate hostess,’ he says, ‘saying goodbye to every last guest, no matter the hour.’

  I force a smile. One does not smile naturally in conversation with Cocceius Nerva.

  Nerva’s face is dominated by a large, imposing nose. He has cold, black eyes and a tiny, non-existent chin.

  Towering over Nerva is the Batavian, the legend of the wild beast hunts. His Tyrrhenian-blue eyes are aimed at the pier.

  There was a time when I couldn’t stop the Batavian from lavishing attention on me
. Earlier this year, an assassin broke into the Imperial palace. He was sent to kill me; and he would have, I think, if not for the Batavian. Somehow the Batavian heard my screams and intervened just in time. My shawl was torn in the attack. The Batavian stole a piece of it and, out of the green silk, fashioned a mask that he wore in the arena. After each of his victories, he would bow in my direction and kiss the mask. All of Rome was gossiping about the love affair between the emperor’s daughter and the slave in the hunts. I sent word that I wanted this to stop.

  And he did.

  There are times I feel a pang of disappointment. His attention was flattering; and it felt different from the senators who saw me as a means to a political end. But it’s for the best. If Vespasia was nearly sent away for an affair with a patrician, I cannot imagine Titus’s response if I were caught with a famous slave.

  ‘I had meant to talk to you during the party,’ Nerva says. ‘But I could never track you down.’

  That was by design, not chance. I have decided that I do not like Nerva, and have no interest in talking with him. But, as Caesar’s sister, I am expected to be polite, especially to senators.

  ‘Well,’ I say, ‘here I am.’

  ‘I was hoping to ask you about Julius Calenus. Have you had any luck in locating him?’

  Julius Calenus is a down-on-his-luck ex-soldier; a tough, capable, no-nonsense sort of man, who was adept at carrying out tasks that require such qualities. Nerva and I both relied on him. For protection, for information, to send a message. Unfortunately, he went missing in May. I felt responsible for Calenus. I wanted to know what became of him. So I have been searching for him, in Rome at first, and now across all of Italy. Nerva was dismissive when I first asked about Calenus. ‘Look for him in a canteen,’ he said. What, I wonder, has prompted the change of heart?

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Julius Calenus remains missing.’

  ‘I understand you have sent your maid across half of Italy asking for him.’

  ‘You are never short of information, are you?’

  Nerva’s smile is cold. ‘Never. But I am willing to share information with you and Caesar, should you ask. Your father relied on me for a time, before he turned to other men. It’s of no benefit to your family to cast me aside.’

  Nerva was once a close advisor to Father when he first rose to power. But his importance diminished over the years. And now Titus has no use for Nerva. Did Nerva bring up Calenus merely to brag about his spies? Nerva may have spies everywhere, but he clearly has not heard I’ve been relegated to Imperial hostess. If his aim is to use me to get closer to Titus, he will be disappointed.

  I ignore his offer and nod my head at the sea. ‘I hope your journey home is smooth.’

  Nerva bows. If he’s frustrated with my response, he does not show it.

  He and the Batavian continue down the pier.

  The Batavian does not look back.

  My maid Jacasta takes me by the arm. ‘That is the last of your guests, Mistress. Let us get you to bed. You need to rest.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Not yet. I will pray first.’

  *

  Our family’s shrine is a dark, private room on the eastern wing of the Imperial villa. At this hour, it’s empty and silent, save for the muffled cries of gulls that leak through the stone. The main wall is decorated with a painting, centred around a man dressed in a toga, with folds of fabric over his head, like a priest before a sacrifice. The man represents our family’s guardian spirit but looks remarkably like Father – by design, I suppose, as painters are wont to please their patron. The figure has Father’s stout neck and shoulders, his full cheeks and half-knowing smile. He is holding a knife, red with sacrificial blood. He is surrounded by four Lares, the gods charged with protecting our household. They resemble boys, in short tunics, dancing, smiling, waving a horn overflowing with wine. The paint is fading and streaked with smoke. Beneath there is a shelf of bronze statues of the gods, Hercules, Minerva, and Isis, flanked by two burning oil lamps.

  Jacasta and I cover our heads with our shawls before entering. She hands me a cake of spelt to offer up to the gods. I kneel before the altar and reach forward, to place my hand on Minerva –

  Then the room – the entire earth – is shaking.

  My hand misses its mark and I fall forward. My forearms slam against the floor.

  Somewhere in the villa glass shatters; a man screams out in pain.

  The earth continues to shake. It feels like a horse-drawn cart traversing a road riddled with pot-holes.

  The bronze statues begin to topple.

  The oil lamps tip over and smash on the floor; their flames extinguish.

  I can feel Jacasta’s weight on my shoulders, shielding me, keeping me safe.

  And it’s over. The earth is quiet again.

  The silence is as menacing as the earthquake.

  ‘Are you alright, mistress?’ Jacasta asks.

  ‘Fine,’ I say, my heart racing. I run my hands over each limb. ‘And you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Unharmed.’

  ‘Check on the staff. Make sure no one was hurt.’

  Jacasta, muttering to herself, adds today’s earthquake to this year’s growing list of evil prodigies.

  I grab her wrist. ‘We can debate omens another time. Go.’

  She nods, then leaves.

  I stare up at the painting, at the man that looks like Father but isn’t Father. His knowing half-smile remains unchanged.

  For the second time today, I wish he were here.

  Gaius

  19 August

  The office of admiral Pliny Secundus, Misenum

  Uncle Pliny’s office is a mess, though I’m not sure it’s any worse than before the earthquake. In the corner, beside an overturned table, Spartacus is cleaning up a bowl of cuttlefish juice, which they use as ink. A black pool has spilled across the floor. Uncle Pliny is standing over Spartacus’s shoulder, pointing, giving advice on how best to clean it. Spartacus is waving Uncle Pliny away.

  ‘Tell me, Gaius,’ he says as I walk in, without looking up. ‘What did you observe before the earth shook?’

  ‘Very little, Uncle,’ I say. ‘I was in my room, reading.’

  ‘You have no observations about the wind? Or the state of the sea?’

  I shake my head.

  He scratches his beard. ‘The Babylonians believed earthquakes are produced by the influence of the stars. But the evidence is not there. I have theorized that the wind will become pent up in fissures in the earth, and the earth trembling is the wind trying to escape. That is why before an earthquake, the sea and heavens are quiet. Usually. But this morning . . .’

  Spartacus looks up and completes his master’s thought. ‘The sea was choppy. The wind moderate.’

  Uncle Pliny shakes his head. ‘Thus, my theory remains only that.’ He sighs; but, as it often does, his disappointment quickly dissolves. ‘Have you checked on your mother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She is fine. Physically.’

  Uncle Pliny smiles, knowingly. ‘I’m sure she had quite the fright. But her nerves will recover.’ He turns his gaze to the floor. ‘Ah, bravo, Spartacus. Bravo.’

  Spartacus has scooped up and rescued half the spilled ink using two wax tablets, pushing them together to capture the black liquid.

  Uncle Pliny asks: ‘And what about you, young Gaius? What do you have planned today?’

  ‘I will continue with Livy,’ I say, ‘taking notes. Now that I know you and Mother are alright.’

  Uncle Pliny frowns; he moves towards me. When he’s close, within arm’s reach, he towers over me, not only vertically, but horizontally, with his burly shoulders and foam white whiskers. ‘Every young man should know Livy,’ he says. ‘A noble endeavour, certainly. But that is a task to better yourself. What do you plan to do for your country? For your emperor?’

  ‘You mean today?’

  I look past Uncle Pliny at Spartacus, who knows my uncl
e better than anyone. Spartacus understands my predicament, but he merely shrugs.

  To Uncle Pliny, I say, ‘Is this about what happened last night?’

  Uncle Pliny continues to stare at me. His expression doesn’t change.

  ‘I could call on Sinnaces,’ I say, reluctantly. This is the last thing I want to do, but there is no point delaying the inevitable. ‘I could see what he knows about the attack on Barlaas. Or the expected emissaries from King Pacorus.’

  Uncle Pliny smiles. ‘A fine idea. Sinnaces is a fiend for the baths, I understand.’

  I’ve seen Sinnaces at the baths before, in the exercise room, trying but never quite succeeding in befriending Domitian and his friends, as they wrestle and fight and carry on.

  ‘Uncle,’ I say, timidly, not wanting to disappoint him, but equally dreading the baths. ‘You know what the baths are like, with Domitian and his ilk. Maybe I could try a different tack?’

  Uncle Pliny points his fat finger at me. ‘You think you know hardship? When I was your age, Nero was Princeps. Compared to Nero, Domitian is a philosopher king. You have to deal with a bully. I had to deal with a tyrant.’

  What does one say to that?

  With a sigh, I say, ‘I will do my best.’

  ‘I do not doubt it.’

  *

  Since the days of Augustus, all Parthian hostages have had their household provided for by the emperor. A house in Rome, another in Baiae, and a fleet of slaves as befits the station of foreign royalty. They may be barbarian hostages, Uncle Pliny says, but their presence is a great honour for Caesar, a demonstration of his power.

  An Imperial slave answers the door. She is an old woman, with a bent back and stringy black hair. Zosimus and I step into the atrium and she leaves to fetch Sinnaces.

  I can hear Barlaas’s voice somewhere deep in the house, hollering insults at someone.

  ‘Gaius.’ Sinnaces looks confused as he walks into the atrium. ‘This is unexpected.’