by Kyle Onstott
“Run, Cleander, fetch him at once.”
While Cleander was gone, Antoninus paced the room. He could not forget the blond curls and the classic face of the youth who had kept him from falling. He must have him. At once! He burned for him. Those lips! By Elah-ga-baal what a man this blond stranger was! His delirious phantasies occupied his thoughts until Cleander returned with Gordius.
The charioteer walked across the floor, his heavy sandals ringing on the stones. He was short, squat, and muscular with a face prematurely aged by his broken nose and a body marred by scars.
He bowed. “You desired me, Great Caesar?”
“You know Rome, Gordius?”
“Every stone, from the Palatine to the Suburra.”
“Then you must find someone for me. I know not his name or who he is or where he lives. But, you must find him. Employ those whom you wish in the search. If you locate him, I will reward you amply but find him and find him today.”
“But whom shall I look for, Great Caesar? You say you know him not, neither his name nor where he lives.”
“Look for the most divinely beautiful youth in Rome. His age would be eighteen or nineteen, even twenty. He has hair as blond as summer wheat that curls all over his head and catches the light as if it were beaten gold. His eyes are as blue as the violets that sprang from Attys’s flood and regard one from under a veil of dark lashes. His face is more beautiful than anything Phidias ever imagined. His body is like that of Hercules,” Antoninus sighed and looked up at Gordius. “Alas, it is a poor description of him. No words can do him justice. I would have thought him a god come to earth but he has one tiny imperfection that proves he is mortal. On his left cheek, about an inch below his eye, there is a tiny brown mole, an absolute perfect pinpoint of darkness which adds to his beauty. Just now I recollect it.”
A strange look passed over Gordius’s face. Fright, surprise, and consternation mingled there for an instant but it was erased before Antoninus noticed it.
“Did you by any chance see, Great Caesar, if he wore a slave collar?”
“By the Sun, he did. It was there. I saw it. Do you know him, Gordius?”
“No. I but asked to find out if he were slave or free. It would narrow the search.”
“He is a slave. By the gods, I am fortunate. Now I can purchase him. Go, Gordius! The owner of such a slave must be proud to display him. Seek him in the baths, carrying the towels of some rich Roman. Seek him in the front rows of the Circus Maximus where he will be armed with a fan to keep the flies off his master. Seek him in the palaces of the Palatine where he will be the concubinus of some mewling Patrician sprig. Seek him wherever you can but seek him. Go, Gordius, go and when you return with him, I will fill your hands with so much gold you will not be able to carry it.”
“I shall try, great Caesar,” Gordius bowed low as if to hide his face. “I trust I can find him.”
Antoninus motioned to Cleander to open the door for Gordius. As the charioteer passed him, he drew several gold bracelets from his arm and tossed them to the man, who caught them and mumbled his thanks. After he had gone, Antoninus looked after him, puzzled.
“The man should have smiled, Cleander. The bracelets were worth a fortune. Instead he looked worried and unhappy.”
“Perhaps he fears you will order him killed if he does not succeed. Gordius is a slave, you know, the property of the Green Corporation.”
“So he is. Run after him, Cleander, and tell him his life is not forfeit if he fails. I could not hold it against him if he cannot do the impossible.”
He listened to Cleander’s soft footsteps running along the portico. No, he would not kill Gordius if he failed but surely if he did fail, Antoninus could not live. He could not pass another day until he had satisfied himself that this glorious person really existed. Would that Eros’s dart had penetrated the other’s heart also. Then he would seek Antoninus in the palace, for no power on earth could keep him away. In his musing, Antoninus spoke aloud.
“Regardless of what his tunic hides, I would abandon Zoticus for him. If he will but love me. I can buy what Zoticus has but I cannot buy love and even without knowing him I love him and I must have him, I must.”
He heard voices other than that of Cleander in the portico. A look of resentment spread over his face as his pleasant phantasy was interrupted. The door opened and Cleander bowed in his mother and grandmother. There was a girl with them, a girl a little older than he. Antoninus looked up in annoyance.
“Caesar does not grant an audience to strangers now.”
Julia Maesa took the girl’s hand and advanced to Antoninus. Her fare was set in a determined smile. “This young lady, my dear grandson, will soon be no stranger. She is Julia Cornelia Paula, the daughter of my good friend Julius Paulus and she is to be your wife.”
Antoninus stared at the girl. Without saying a word he came closer to her, so close that he could reach out and touch the finely pleated amethyst-colored silk of her stola. He circled her, sniffing and fingering the fabric of her dress.
“My wife? Get her out of here. She reeks of saffron and it is a perfume I detest. She stinks! And that gorgeous dress she wears—tell her to take it off and give it to me. Away with her, away!”
“But, Varius . . .” his grandmother laid a placatory hand on his arm.
“I am not Varius, Augusta. I am Antoninus. I am Caesar. Now, get the slut out of here before I order the guards at the door to drag her out. And as soon as you get her out of here, strip her and send the dress back to me. Get out! Get out! Get out!”
He undid the gold cord that held his robe and started lashing at them and wisely they beat a fast retreat. When the door had again closed, Antoninus started to laugh.
“She looked like a rabbit, my dear Cleander—a startled pink and white rabbit. And she stank under her reek of saffron, a sickly smell of woman which nauseates me. Oh, how ugly she was but what a pretty dress. I must have it. Run after her and demand it. I would don it tonight in case Gordius finds my man of gold. Go, Cleander, go.”
12
“I won’t marry the cursed wench and there is nothing you can do to make me. She stinks!”
Antoninus’s little whip was constantly flicking away at Julia Maesa’s multitude of treasures—antique Greek Tanagra figurines, delicate vases of opalescent murrhine glass, portrait of the family in tinted wax, and vials of costly perfumes. “So there!” He stamped his foot to emphasize the point.
“You will marry her! There will be no more discussing the matter. You shall marry her and that’s an end to it. It will be an occasion for a donative to all Rome and it will make you popular. Besides, the Augustan law requires that you marry.”
“The Augustan law! Pouf! Who was Augustus? A Caesar. Well, I am Caesar and I’ll make another law which says that I am already married to Zoticus. I do not intend to marry any woman. With her clothes off, she would look like unbaked dough, white and disgustingly soft. How could I stomach her after the smooth hardness of Zoticus. Disgusting! Do you hear me? I am Caesar.”
Julia Maesa walked across the floor and took the whip from his hands. Lifting her knee, she placed the ivory shaft across it and broke it. The pieces she flung on the floor. Antoninus started to howl with rage but she grabbed him by both shoulders.
“No more noise out of you! For once you will do as you are told. You marry Julia Cornelia Paula. You say you are Caesar. Did you ever hear of Caligula?”
“Of course! He was Caesar too!”
“And he had his throat slit by a soldier; and Claudius was poisoned by a dish of mushrooms fed him by Agrippina; Nero was stabbed by a slave; Domitian was stabbed in the groin; and Commodus was strangled by a wrestler. They were all Caesars. Need I say any more?”
“Are you threatening to murder me, grandmother? Tell me, what would you use, poison or a knife blade?”
“Either if necessary but neither if you behave yourself.” She looked at him grimly. “But if you think you are Caesar, think again. You are n
othing but a painted doll to hang clothes on.” She hit her chest with her clenched hand. “I am Caesar! I rule Rome and I rule you too. Don’t forget it. I put you where you are and I can take it away. I can be indulgent in many things, but not in this. This girl is what we need. We are upstarts, Varius. Nobodies—descended from a priestly house of Emesa who were called kings by courtesy only.”
“But Priests of Elah-ga-baal.” Antoninus was not ready to dismiss his birth so lightly.
“And what is Elah-ga-baal in Rome? Nothing but a dirty black stone. Listen! This girl is a Cornelia of the great Cornelian gens—Roman patricians when we Emesenes didn’t even have a clay pot to pass water in. She’s stupid—too stupid to interfere in politics but sufficiently pretty to appear at public functions as an Augusta. In other words, she is a complete nonentity except for her name and that will connect us with the great of Rome.” Her voice lowered and became conciliatory. “You don’t have to live with her, Varius, or sleep with her.” She started to laugh, “By Venus, neither one of you would know what to do with the other. But marry her you shall.”
His grandmother’s laugh banished Antoninus’s rage. His moods were always ephemeral. From a blind, screaming tantrum, he could pass into affectionate docility in a moment. He flung his arms around his grandmother and laid his head on her ample bosom.
“She need not be disappointed on her wedding night, dear grandmother. I’ll allow her a taste of Zoticus.”
The old lady frowned. “She may still be a virgin, if there is such a thing in Rome. He’d kill her, as he almost . . .” Her words trailed off. She had almost said Soaemias, but caught herself in time.
Antoninus did not notice. “But how she’d love it! Oh, by all means, grandmother, let us have the ceremony soon, and I shall go now to design a new robe to wear and new jewels to wear with it, but tell this Cornelia not to scent herself with saffron.” He kissed his grandmother and danced through the door.
A small litter of light cedarwood, upholstered in yellow silk with a frivolous canopy of the same material, was waiting outside her door. Before entering it, Antoninus stroked the legs of the two Nubian litter bearers, and when he had sufficiently titillated them to produce the effect he desired, he stretched out on the litter and ordered them back to his apartments. Distances were so great in the Golden House that Antoninus never walked, especially as he had insisted that his own rooms be as far removed from those of his family as possible.
As he was carried along through the oppressively ornate and seemingly endless corridors and open porticoes, his thoughts were already with the new robes and jewels he would have made for his wedding night. But, Antoninus’s thoughts never dwelt long on one subject, and particularly in these days when they were wont to revert time and time again to the beautiful face under the blond curls which he had seen the first day he had entered Rome. Two weeks had passed and in spite of Gordius’s searching, no trace of the sun-crowned Apollo had been found. Gordius reported to him every morning but always with the same negative answer. He had combed the baths, the Circus and the servants’ quarters of the big palaces on the Palatine. He had, or so he said, sent men into the eating places and the wine shops of the Suburra, searched the brothels, both male and female, with no results. Gordius took the gold Antoninus always gave him but he had produced no results.
Had Antoninus been able to locate the fellow, he might have forgotten him after one brief session but the mere fact that he had been thwarted in his desires to see this golden boy, to know him and satisfy himself with him, magnified his desire until it had become an obsession. Even Zoticus had been almost forgotten. In spite of Zoticus’s endowments, Antoninus was beginning to tire of him. Yes, he loved him. But Zoticus was becoming tiresome. Perhaps he could dispense with him. Well, not entirely, because he knew that as long as he lived there would be times when nobody but Zoticus could satisfy him and, of course, Zoticus was the incarnation of Elah-ga-baal. But . . . he could send Zoticus off to Bithynia—he was supposed to be Pro-Consul of Bithynia anyway. No . . . Bithynia was too far away. Well, he would think about it later. It someone could only locate the Sun-boy. Perhaps he would rival Zoticus. Oh, what did it matter? He was tired of colossi.
The bearers put the litter down in front of the twin ebony doors that marked Antoninus’s apartment. At a knock they swung open, and Antoninus walked the few steps inside the room and waited for the doors to close.
There were to be ten races this afternoon—bitterly fought contests between the Greens and the Blues. It was the one sport that Antoninus loved and the only one. Not for him were the gladiatorial contests and the killing of wild beasts. He loathed the sight of blood, and when he was forced to attend such displays, he concentrated his eyes on the food which he insisted be served him. He was bitterly criticized for it for the Romans loved their games, but they loved their races too and in that he would join wholeheartedly. He found himself sitting excitedly on the edge of his ivory chair when the first chariots were lined up. Although the leathern helmets which the drivers wore hid their faces, he knew that one of the drivers for the Greens was Gordius. He could tell by the short, squat body, the immense arms and the profusion of scars. Gordius was the only one he could identify—the others were merely so many hairy or hairless arms and legs, all bulging with muscles and all exciting to look at.
The first race started and they had made six complete circles of the spina. There were four more golden bails to be dropped on the metae at each end. Two of the chariots had already been eliminated. One had smashed a wheel and had been ground into splinters as the others passed over it. The driver, now a mass of bloody pulp, had been removed. The other chariot had crashed up against the centre spina but the driver had managed to cut himself loose and jump out unhurt to cling to the stone masonry with his fingers until rescued.
Antoninus sank back in his chair as the chariots thundered past. He noted that Gordius still held the lead and the sight of Gordius brought his mind once more, as it did so often, to the Sun-boy. He watched the chariots round the spina and saw another golden ball drop. They raced up the other side where he could not see them, but his eyes were on the next tum, prepared to meet them as they came into view. They came, Gordius still leading by a nose, but the chariot of the Blues was gaining on him. Another driver, the long green streamers flying from his helmet, gained on the Blue, coming up abreast of him, with the intention of cutting him off before the turn so that Gordius would have an unobstructed field. Gordius turned his head slightly, saw his ally of the Greens coming to his rescue and forged ahead. Just as they were passing the imperial podium, the Green and the Blue locked wheels.
The cheer that mounted in Antoninus’s throat was cut short by the deafening crash. There was a tangle of horses, a maelstrom of turning wheels and splitting wood and one of the chariot wheels flew up spinning in the air, nearly landing in the imperial box. Antoninus ducked instinctively as he saw the spinning wheel, laid his head on the wide marble railing and covered it with his arms. The wheel fell short of the box and clattered to the ground, but what Antoninus saw as he looked down was far more important to him than the danger he had just escaped. The driver of the Greens had been thrown from his chariot and had landed head first against the imperial pulvinar, his feet high up on the rounded curbstone, his head, bared of its helmet, rolling in the sand and his yellow curls glistening in the sunshine. It was! By all the gods of Rome and Greece and Egypt and by holy Elah-ga-baal, it was the Sun-boy, he whom Antoninus had been seeking for the past month.
He stared in thrilled bewilderment for a second, unable to move, then quickly, without even a word to Zoticus or Cleander, he leaped out of his chair and ran out of the door at the rear of his box. He glanced around the marble paved vestibulum, ignoring the door he had always used, seeking a smaller one which he knew led downward to another door that opened out onto the sand of the Circus. It was through this that drivers summoned to the imperial box could enter.
Antoninus raced down the narrow stone stairs,
pulled the huge bolt which fastened the lower door and stepped out into the sunshine of the Circus. Without a thought of the chariots which might be rounding the meta at any moment, he ran alongside the pulvinar to where the figure of the Sun-boy was lying and knelt beside it on the sand.
Immediately the Circus became more alive than it had ever been before. The oncoming chariots were flagged, the drivers pulling hard on their mounts to stop them. Various attendants raced to the splintered wreckage and surrounded Antoninus who had now managed to pillow the charioteer’s head on his lap and was wiping away the sweat and blood with a section of his tunic which he had torn off. The racing chariots had ground to a stop not far off and Gordius jumped out and ran over to Antoninus. His first look was at the figure on the ground. He saw that the driver was breathing. Only then did he look at Antoninus.
“You have found him, great Caesar.” Gordius spoke as a man facing certain death.