by Kyle Onstott
“I have found him, Gordius. Call the stretcher bearers. Have him moved, but gently.”
“To the infirmary?”
“No, to the palace.”
Gordius turned to issue the necessary orders which sent attendants running. As they waited, the blond head still on Antoninus’s lap, Gordius knelt beside the two.
“I lied to you, great Caesar. I knew whom you wanted but I lied when I pretended I could not find him.”
“But why, Gordius, when you knew I wanted him so much?”
“Because, great Caesar, I wanted him too. You see, I love him.” Gordius reached out a grimy hand and laid it beside the Antonine’s on the driver’s face.
Antoninus looked up to see tears in the big man’s eyes. “Your tears have saved you, Gordius. I know that you love him. What is his name?”
“Hierocles, great Caesar.”
“Hierocles.” Antoninus spoke the name and the eyelids of the driver opened slowly. “Hierocles, there are two people here who love you—the driver Gordius and myself. Perhaps you cannot make the choice now but you belong to one of us. Which one shall it be? I would not claim you if your heart is somewhere else. I could take you and I could force you to love me under threat of death. But that is not what I want. From the moment I saw you on the day I entered Rome, I have wanted you Hierocles. I think I love you.”
The eyelids opened wide and the glazed blue eyes looked up at Antoninus. They saw, but they saw but dimly. “And I you. But a slave cannot aspire to Caesar.”
“No, Hierocles, but a Caesar can aspire to a slave. Now, speak no more, conserve your strength.”
“Gordius! Do not harm him, great Caesar. He loves me well but I do not love him.” The eyelids closed. Antoninus reached a trembling hand under Hierocles’s leather cuirass. He felt the warm flesh, soaked in sweat, but his eager fingers told him that the heart was still beating. “Oh, Elah-ga-baal, save him for me. Do not let me lose him just as I have found him.”
The stretcher bearers had arrived but Antoninus would allow nobody but himself and Gordius to place Hierocles on the litter. Gordius, after a moment’s hesitation, said: “I shall go to the Praetorians and give myself up, great Caesar. Do with me as you see fit. I am not worthy to be his lover or your subject.”
Antoninus smiled wanly. The thousands of spectators in the Circus were cheering him as he walked along but he heard them not. He turned to Gordius.
“I cannot punish you, Gordius. I would have had any other man crucified who betrayed me as you did and yet I know why you did it. Your tears told the truth. You loved him. I would not have wanted to lose him either. I would have done the same thing so I cannot blame you for doing what I would have done. You are free, Gordius.”
“Then may I return and prepare for the next race?”
“Hardly. My new Praefect of Sports does not indulge in chariot racing himself. That is only for slaves.”
“But I . . .”
“You are no longer a slave, Gordius, nor are you a chariot driver. Rome will miss you for you have driven the Greens to victory many times. I need a Praefect of Sports. I need men I can trust. Even though I take away from you that which you love most, it is not I who take it away. You heard what he said.” He nodded at the figure on the stretcher.
“That he did not love me. I knew that, great Caesar. I knew he never loved me, but I loved him.”
“Then methinks you are punished enough. No, Gordius, report to the Praetorians if you must but report as my Praefect of Sports. This,” he stripped off a plain gold ring from his finger and handed it to the driver, “this makes you a freedman and a Roman knight. Go in peace, Gordius, and be my friend.”
They had reached the entrance to the stables which opened on to the Circus. Gordius took the ring and slipped it on his little finger. He knelt before Antoninus and kissed the torn hem of his tunic.
“Today, great Caesar, you have won a lover in Hierocles. Since the day he first saw you, he has spoken of nobody but you. He is capable of great love, Caesar, for he has never loved before. Do not accept his love and then make sport of it. Yes, great Caesar, you have today won a lover worthy of you and in your great joy, do not forget, you have also won a friend, the humble Gordius.”
13
Hierocles was carried back to the Palace in Antoninus’s own litter, borne through the endless halls to Antoninus’s apartments and gently bedded in Antoninus’s bed. The tall ebony doors were closed and bolted within and sentries posted outside to see that nobody approached. “Allow no one to enter unless authorized by Caesar!” That was Antoninus’s command.
Zoticus protested, pleaded and threatened outside the ebony doors but the guards had had strict orders. For two weeks, the only persons to pass through the doors were the priests of Asclepius with their healing nostrums and the Greek surgeon who was attached to the court. Antoninus did not show himself either in the palace, the Senate or in the hall of justice. A hastily signed decree gave Julia Maesa and Soaemias full authority to represent him in the Senate and once having done that, he cast the government of Rome from his shoulders and devoted all his thoughts, actions, and endeavours to saving the chariot driver, Hierocles.
Until he was certain that Hierocles would recover he never left his bedside day or night except when, exhausted from lack of sleep, he would doze on a cot alongside the bed, delegating Cleander to watch while he dozed. He never rested for long, but was up again assiduously attending to the wants of his Hierocles. He nursed him, fed him, kept cold compresses of snow on his head and when there was nothing else to do, sat silently beside him, loving him, feasting his eyes on him and fanning him to keep off the stray flies. No Caesar was ever waited on with such loving care as the charioteer Hierocles received from his Caesar.
Fortunately Hierocles was not seriously injured. There was an egg-sized lump on the back of his head, where he had struck the masonry, divers cuts and bruises on his legs and body, and two deep gashes on his wrists where the leather reins had cut into the flesh. He had not had time to slash the reins with the dagger that every charioteer carried in his belt for such an emergency, and as a result of being dragged by the frightened horses his wrists and upper arms were torn and mangled. The Greek physician had washed the wounds in vinegar and his skilful hands had patted and patched the flesh together. The priests of Asclepius then bound them with folds of much washed linen and a special healing ointment, all while Hierocles was in blissful unconsciousness. From his death-like coma, he had slipped into a fevered delirium, during which he talked incessantly while Antoninus sat beside him, greedily piecing together the stray bits of information which Hierocles disclosed, and thrilling to the sound of his name occasionally mentioned in the boy’s wanderings.
“Mama! Mama! Why don’t you come to me? Why don’t you come and comfort your little Hierocles as you always do? I need you, mama mea and I want you. And bring the young Antoninus with you, mama, because I want him too. Oh, Antoninus, I saw you today. For one brief heartbeat, our eyes looked into each other’s and I loved you. I loved you. Yes, mama, I loved him. Don’t you know who Antoninus is, mama? He is Caesar. Go fetch him and bring him here. Tell him Hierocles calls for him and he will come.”
Antoninus sat quietly by and marveled at this love which had come so simultaneously to both of them. Tenderly he would lean over and wipe the strings of drool from Hierocles’s lips, smooth the sweat-damp tendrils from the forehead and wash the livid cheeks with snow-cooled rose water. Oftimes he would slip his hand gently between the damp curls and the hot pillow and try to comfort the boy with quiet, reassuring words.
“Your Antoninus is here, Hierocles. Were you to call from the ends of the earth he would hear and come to you. Were you to call even from the fields of asphodel on the other side of the Styx, your Antoninus would hear and come to you. Could you but open wide your eyes and see, you would see Antoninus sitting here by your bed, as anxious as any peasant wife about her husband. Yes, Hierocles, I am here.”
But the ears
of the charioteer did not hear. His lips would twitch and he would rave on.
“Alas, you are good to me, Gordius, but I cannot return this love you so greatly desire. No, Gordius, I could not love a man like you but I could love a boy, some soft-skinned handsome stripling whom I could master but I would have to be the aggressor, not the pliant recipient you wish me to be, Gordius. Oh, Antoninus, my Caesar. I could love you, Caesar. I do love you. Caesar! Great Caesar! What would you say if you were told that a slave loved you? Me, a Carian slave, a charioteer, something to make the crowd cheer when I win and something to be carted to the Putrid Pits when I die. Gordius, I cannot do it, I cannot . . .”
As Antoninus sat beside the bed, during the long watches of the night, while Cleander slept, his hand often itched to slip under the sheet and discover what it might encounter. At length, when he had tortured himself sufficiently with dread and curiosity, he resolved to make the crucial test. It must be made sometime—it was inevitable. Better to make it while Hierocles was in his delirium than to wait until he was conscious. Antoninus checked to see that Cleander was sleeping soundly and then tiptoed across the room to bring all the lamps together around the bed.
With an unsteady hand on the sheet, he hesitated then, prepared to encounter even the worst, he closed his eyes and flung back the sheet exposing the charioteer’s nude body. For a moment he was afraid to open his eyes, but when he did, he was glad he had taken the fateful step. His fears had been groundless. It was all too evident that Hierocles would never compete with Zoticus. Here was no phenomenon that would be heralded from Mesopotamia to Britain. Yet, on the other hand, what he saw needed no apologia. This Hierocles could well be an object of envy among all men, were one to rule out such rare exceptions as Zoticus, Quadratus, Maxentius, Hellenus and some of the pleasure legion which Eubulus had already recruited.
As he looked, Antoninus became aware that there was more to real love than he had ever before realized. He understood now, that, regardless of what the down-flung sheet had disclosed, it would have made no difference.
On the third night, the fever left Hierocles. His sheets became wet with sweat and the fevered ravings stopped. He slept naturally throughout the remainder of the night. Antoninus noticed the change, and when he had called the waiting priests of Asclepius to confirm his discovery, they assured him that the danger was past. Now the wrists would heal and Hierocles would live. In his utter exhaustion, Antoninus slept but awoke as the first streaks of the morning sun glowed behind the purple linen curtains of the room.
Hierocles opened his eyes slowly and dimly saw the Antonine’s face bending over his own. Their eyes met momentarily and then Hierocles closed his tightly only to reopen them immediately. His gaze wandered from the face above him to the walls of grained marble, the furniture of gilded bronze, the pillars of alabaster that framed the softly moving curtains and then back to the silken sheet that covered him. Once again, he looked up at Antoninus.
“You are Caesar?” There was a trembling panic of fright and disbelief in his voice as he tried to lift himself up by his bandaged arms but the pain caused him to fall back on the bed.
“The world calls me that, Hierocles.”
“But, if you are Caesar, I do not know the correct way to address you. Oh, this must be another dream such as I have been having. I thought that in my dream, Caesar carne to me and that his hands were cool as he placed them on my forehead but that his lips were hot as he pressed them against my own. Where am I? Why do I dream thus?”
Antoninus supported Hierocles’s head a few inches above the pillow. “You dream thus, dear Hierocles, because you love Caesar. You confessed it in your dreams. But fear not, you do not, cannot, love Caesar half as much as Caesar loves you.”
“Then I am not dreaming?” the blue eyes questioned in wonder. “This is not a dream, that Caesar leans over me and that I am in Caesar’s palace. But again, I say I know not how to address Caesar. I fear I shall say the wrong words and you will condemn me for the ignorant slave that I am.”
“Were I not Caesar, Hierocles, and were you not a slave, but we were simply two people, one not bepurpled and the other not beslaved, how would you address me?”
Open-eyed, his gaze steady now, Hierocles considered the question for some time without his eyes leaving those that looked at him. Once or twice, his lips formed soundless words but no voice gave them meaning. Tears appeared in the corners of his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. When he did speak, he spoke with effort.
“I would address you as beloved.”
Now it was Antoninus’s turn to weep and he buried his face on Hierocles’s chest. He was crying from sheer joy—the miracle had happened. Now, he knew for a certainty that this love of his was returned. There were conscious words—not the ravings of delirium.
“Then never address me otherwise, Hierocles. I do not know—I do not understand what has happened to me. Only this. I know with a certainty that of all things I hold most precious, you are the most precious of all. From the first fleeting moment I saw you, I have thought and dreamed and desired nothing else but you. Since, you have been here I have let my eyes look at nothing but you, and I have never tired of what I saw. Yes, carissimus, this love I have for you is a wondrous thing.”
Hierocles moved his head back and forth across the pillow, shaking it from side to side in doubt and negation.
“But tell me not this, beloved, if you do not mean it. I had rather get up and crawl away from here now, knowing I would never see you again, if I thought your protestations were not true. You are Caesar, great Caesar, mighty Caesar, and I am a slave, a charioteer, purchased on the block for less money than one of the horses I drive. You have the power to command my love and I must needs accept on your terms whether it be for a night, a week or a month, But, beloved, that is not what I desire.”
“Nor I, carissimus.”
“All my life I have longed for love but now, if I find it only to lose it, I shall be more miserable than before. Believe me in one thing, beloved, believe me. I do not love Caesar, with all that that love might bring me, I love you, and I ask for nothing more.”
Antoninus’s cheek rested softly against the other’s. Then he raised his head and without taking his eyes from Hierocles’s, he slipped from his chair and knelt on the floor beside the bed. His hand slipped under the sheets.
“Here in Rome, it is the custom that when one man gives a pledge to another, he grasps the other’s hand to make the pledge binding. In the east, where I come from, we have yet another way of binding a pledge. ’Tis very ancient and even the Hebrews used it, and it is mentioned in their holy book where their patriarch Israel made his son Joseph to swear with his hand upon his private parts. Even our Latin word testiculi and testes also mean to testify or swear for that was the ancient significance of these organs whereby men swore their most solemn oaths. As I cannot take your poor hand in its bandages, carissimus, I shall use the ancient pledge of the east and swear on something far more sacred to me than your fingers. On this!” Antoninus clutched Hierocles under the sheets. “And my covenant with you, carissimus, is this, that if we ever separate through any fault of mine, I pray that my god, Elah-ga-baal, will strike me dead.”
“Then pray the same for me, and that will be my covenant with you, beloved,” Hierocles smiled up at Antoninus and he lifted his head as far off the pillow as he could to kiss the lips above him, “but, oh beloved, if you continue this pledge much longer, I cannot answer for what is going to happen.”
Antoninus took his hand away. “As I perceive, and that will be a pleasure we shall defer . . .”
“But why and for how long?”
“Until you are better. You are too weak now. The fever has but left you and I would not want to bring it back.”
“And now I hunger for food.”
“Which is a good sign.”
Antoninus clapped his hands and Cleander rose from his cot and came across the room, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He saw at once that H
ierocles had regained consciousness and he ran to the side of the bed, to kneel there alongside Antoninus.
“He has awakened?”
“Not only awakened, Cleander, but now I know he loves me as much as I love him.”
“Praise be to Roman Elagabalus and Grecian Zeus!”
Antoninus indicated Cleander with a nod of his head to Hierocles.
“My slave, Cleander.” He prodded Cleander with his elbow. “Run to the kitchen and have them prepare a meal for Hierocles—something soft and nourishing that will stay his hunger but not put too much of a strain on him. Go, Cleander and hurry the lazy cooks. Watch them while they prepare the food and taste it yourself.”
Cleander got up from his knees and ran to the door. Antoninus arose and drew a chair closer to the bed. For a long time they were content merely to look at each other. There were a million words that each wanted to say—there was so much for each to know—all the details of their separate lives up until this moment to be discussed, compared and understood but these words were not necessary now. It was enough that each pair of eyes should behold the beloved features of the other, that Antoninus’s fingertips should rest for a fleeting second on Hierocles’s cheek and entwine themselves in his hair, and that the warm smile each one gave the other should be answered.