It was a slow and painful walk from Postumianus’ office through the praetorium to the private quarters of the Emperor and his family. They walked past offices and anterooms and several audience chambers, through a large formal dining room and along several corridors, before they came to Severus’ private sanctuary, a small three-sided peristyle garden off the Imperial family’s bedrooms. A small fountain, adorned with two gilded leaping dolphins at the top, bubbled water into a basin below, and somehow, late-blooming roses and myrtles were everywhere, climbing the columns that supported the roof, bursting out of their terracotta pots.
There were traces of the Empress here, a gold comb she had left on the table, a thick blue shawl embroidered with tiny seed pearls, a copy of ‘Dialogues of Hermagoras of Amphipolis’ half-unrolled. Severus waved his hand, and a slave leapt forward and cleared it all away. While Cerebus settled his master comfortably on one of the two couches, Severus barked his orders.
“Make sure that we’re not disturbed under any circumstances, not even by my wife and certainly not by my sons, not even if the Caledonians are attacking Eboracum. I want something nicer than that awful Gaulish red Postumianus serves his visitors, and make sure it’s not chilled. This wretched island is already chilled enough. And when I say-” Severus looked around at the assembled slaves standing at attention – “we’re not to be disturbed, it means that if anyone stands around eavesdropping at the doors, they will be crucified and eviscerated, understand? Gaius Arrius!”
Arrius was startled out of his reverie. He immediately stood up straight.
“Yes, Augustus?”
“Sit down there! You’re tall enough!”
“Yes, Augustus.” Arrius found the other couch.
A silver tray appeared on the table as if by magic, with wine, water, two cups and a platter piled high with steaming pastry-wrapped sausages, and bowls of olives, dates, and dried figs. The minute it appeared, the food and wine tasted and the cups had been filled, Severus waved his hand.
“Now, all of you! Out! I want noone in here!”
The slaves absconded, except for Cerebus who withdrew to the far wall.
Severus focused his attention on Arrius.
“Your father can be proud of you, Gaius Arrius.”
“Thank you, Augustus.”
“An excellent service record, if rather longer than usual, three flawless campaigns, short-listed for quaestor Augustus – not so bad. For the son of a senator who completely lacks political ambition, that’s not bad at all. For the nephew of a man deeply implicated in Plautianus’ plot to overthrow me, well…” Severus gave Arrius a very intent look.
“Showing that kind of skill given the circumstances of your family history could be considered a very dangerous thing. Lethal, even. To you, to your future, and to your father. Tell me something, Gaius Arrius. But before you do, I want you to imagine that in this room, in this time, I am a simple legate, if you will, and you are my senior tribune. I want none of this awful, sycophantic ‘Augustus’ crap. And you, tribune, are in deep, deep trouble. More than you know. So tell me, and this time, I want the truth, not what you told Galba or what you wrote for the official Senate report, certainly not what you told that idiot Postumianus, but the simple, unadorned truth. I charged Antoninus with getting Cadaracus. What made you decide you could take that upon yourself, instead of the leading commander of the armies in Caledonia?”
Arrius sat for a long time, staring at the silver cup in front of him on the table. It showed the judgment of Paris, with a very effete-looking Paris handing an apple to Venus inscribed with ‘To the fairest.’ Stupid, really. There was nothing fair about the situation he found himself in. The sofa beneath him might as well be a bed of white-hot coals, lighting his funeral pyre.
“May I speak freely, sir?”
Severus gave an impatient sigh and shifted on his sofa, adjusting the throw wrapped around his legs. “I just told you, tribune. The truth. That’s all.”
“It will never end, sir. Cadaracus, some other crazed Caledonian hell-bent on scouring Romans from Caledonia – if I hadn’t captured him, they’d still be fighting us when you and I are dust in our tombs, sir. They don’t want us, and they never did. I thought…” Arrius swallowed, took a deep breath, and went on.
“I thought that we already have enough trouble along our borders, and it will get far worse before it gets better, if it ever does. If I could make some small contribution to making life in northern Britannia just that tiny bit easier by ridding us of Cadaracus, then I owed it to Galba, to my men, to my legion, and finally, to my Emperor, to do what I could to help.”
A lifted eyebrow was Severus’ only reaction. “Very noble of you. As I said, you do your father proud. But you’re forgetting something rather important. It wasn’t your job to do.”
Arrius stiffened. That gnawing, aching pain in the pit of his stomach grew tighter. He was wound up tighter than one of the XX Valeria’s catapults.
“Sir…I….”
Severus lifted his hand. “The truth, Gaius Arrius. I want the truth.”
A pair of very blue eyes stared right back at the Emperor. “I should think, sir, that you already know the truth of that.”
“That my own first-born flesh and blood is a useless, mindless, worthless piece of horseshit? Yes, I’m quite aware of it. That he’s just clever enough to realize that any man and particularly any soldier has his price, and it’s never more than he can afford to pay? Oh, I know. That he thinks he can do better than his own father? I know that, too. He wants me dead. He knows everything there is to know about ruling an empire, about commanding an army, about maneuvering your way through intrigue – ah…he fucking thinks he knows it all, and noone in his retinue sees fit to tell him any differently, because they don’t have testicles that large. I know it all. But he’s my son. When you some day have a son of your own, you’ll understand. I made him. I made him what he is, and what he is is an abomination, just like his brother, but an abomination nonetheless.” Severus tossed back a draught of wine.
“A monster for which the Empire will pay, sir.” Arrius wasn’t even aware of what he had said until after the fact, and then fervently wished he had held his tongue.
“Ah!” Severus laughed. “Now you can speak freely, you can say precisely what you think?” He held up his hand when he saw the horrified expression on Arrius’ face. “No, no…you’re not saying something I don’t already know. A year ago, even two years ago, I might have had you killed for that. Now…don’t worry. Me, I don’t fucking care any longer. I’m dying, Gaius Arrius, and I know it, and that’s all I care about. You know it, too. Damn it, everyone knows. It’s just not happening nearly fast enough. Well, if I can take my own sweet time dying, then all those slavering dogs can wait for it. Mithras knows I’ll be dead for a long time.” He reached for a pastry. There was a long pause, while he chewed. Then, around a mouthful of Lucanian sausage, he continued.
“Now, imagine, tribune…” a spray of pastry crumbs littered the front of Severus’ tunic, and were instantly brushed off. “Imagine if I had a young man like you for my son and my successor, what a state of affairs for Rome, eh? An able military commander, a good education, not too much trouble in your background, except for that nasty piece of business known as your first wife…you could be just about the best thing that ever happened to Rome since the venerable Marcus Aurelius! Do you know – sometimes, I’ve rather wished you were my son.”
Arrius was speechless. One long, breathless moment later, he managed to bleat; “Sir?”
“Well, tribune, you’re not…my son. Quite frankly, Antoninus is part of the problem. In fact, he’s all your problem, and certainly, your biggest problem. You see…” Severus unwrapped the throw around his legs and sat up, facing Arrius. He sat there, rigidly upright, a small, frail old man, his tightly curled head of hair nearly white by now, nearly obscured by the heavy woolen folds of his tunic, and yet, Arrius could see the man he once had been, the man who had commanded an army to march to Rome, and gained an empire. An empire, Arrius suddenly realized with a start, that Severus very well might not even have wanted to begin with, but there it was for the taking. He could almost hear Severus say, in that rapid, guttural Punic accent, that it was a filthy job, but someone had to do it.
“You see, Gaius Arrius…Antoninus wants you dead, yesterday if not before. As long as there are young men like you around, young men who do have some sense in their heads, men who know the meaning of moderation and of waiting for the right moment, men who are everything that he is not, young men like you are a threat. You show him up for what he is, but even more for what he isn’t and you are.” Severus reached for his wine cup. “Ah…finally something decent to drink! There’s far too much of that horrible Gaulish swill around these days. When has anything good ever come out of Gaul? Even their wine stinks!” He pointed at the wine cup. “Have a drink, tribune. I’m obviously not trying to poison you.”
“Yes, sir.” It was good; as good as anything Iolanthe served her clients.
“The fact is, young man, I should hate you, for no other reason than my son loathes your guts. You’re the last of your line, a very, very long line of Romans – not provincials, but Romans. The kind of Romans that hardly exist any more. Mithras knows, I’ve always hated and detested those arrogant, stuck-up sons of whores, with their snobby affected speech and their snooty long noses stuck up in the air whenever we uncouth Africans walked by. Gods, I hated them! Why, I don’t know. They certainly snubbed me enough in my youth.”
Cerberus stepped forward and refilled their wine cups.
“If I may ask, sir…”
“Put me out of my misery, tribune.”
Arrius found himself hating the diffident tone in his voice. This was not like him at all, but then, this was not the Emperor he knew, either. It was certainly not the Emperor who was worshipped from Eboracum to Berenice.
“What was it about the Arrii that made us different?”
Severus munched on a handful of dates as he thought about his answer. “When I came to Rome as a greenhorn senator in the days of Marcus Aurelius, Gaius Arrius, everyone was laughing at me behind my back. I’m sure they had plenty of reasons. I was too short, too provincial, I spoke with a horrid Punic accent whenever I opened my mouth in any language – and you’ll know that now, I make that a matter of pride – and I was…altogether too much of Lepcis Magna and not nearly properly ‘Roman’ enough. So…they laughed at me. They snubbed both me and my wife Paccia Marciana at dinner parties. They all made unflattering remarks about how my venerable grandfather would have been ashamed of me. Oh–” Severus waved his hand. “It was…discouraging, to say the least. But one man didn’t, the former proconsul of Bithynia, your grandfather. He gave me all sorts of advice on my career, introduced
me to people who might be able to help my along the way, and generally went out of his way to help. His sons, too, when they were old enough to join the Senate. Even
your obnoxious uncle Quintus was–kind and that was partly the reason I let him kill himself off before I had to do it for him. I’m a sentimental fool, I know. Your father, when he joined the law courts some years later around the time of my praetorship, did the same. The Arrii saw something in me that most of those conceited so-called ‘Romans’ never did, so they became among the few conceited Romans I didn’t–hate.”
The Emperor removed a few date pits and dropped them on the platter, while Arrius sipped his wine, digesting that information.
“In other words, Gaius Arrius, there is old friendship between us, and also, you yourself are either far too good or not nearly bad enough to kill off. I haven’t quite made up my mind about that.” Severus grinned. There was a good deal of respect in that grin, Arrius noted, and also something else, some far-off distant memory that he had no part of, but maybe his own father did. He returned the grin.
“Then,” Severus went on, “there is that noisome pest I call my first-born son. Antoninus wants you dead. He might not be able to do anything about it yet, so long as I’m still alive, but once I’m dead, there will be noone around to restrain him. His mother certainly can’t. She’s been trying since he was a baby. He’ll likely murder his brother first of all, after Castor and Euodus have received their due, and then he’ll start on the list of all those people who’ve ‘insulted’ him through the years, and near the top of that list is your name. He never forgets an insult. Do you think your being quaestor Augustus is going stop him and his twisted plans for you?”
“In fact, sir, I think it will likely make me much more of a target. My father mentioned it in his last letter.” Arrius replied. He was beginning to get an inkling of where Severus was going with this, and he didn’t like it.
“Very astute, tribune. Your father managed to survive Commodus and the civil war after, even the purge of the Senate after Plautianus’ downfall – he knows a thing or two about surviving. And once you’re dead, your father and his fortune will follow, and that will likely be the end of the Arrii.” Severus sighed. “Contrary to popular belief, tribune, I don’t want all of you dead. Especially those of you who are born soldiers, and you, tribune, are a born soldier. Less than a century dead in three years of campaigning, and then getting me Cadaracus. That’s quite impressive.”
“Yes, sir.” Arrius echoed the sigh. Well, he wasn’t dead. Yet.
“So, then.” Severus leaned back. “Now, we have the problem of what to do with you to keep you alive. I have an idea about that, but not an idea Postumianus needed to know about, which is why I brought you here.” He sniffed. “The man is worse than Castor about getting his sticky hands into everything he can manage. Never mind.”
“Too good to kill, your father’s only son and the last of your line, and if I don’t do something about it now before I die, then rest assured Antoninus will. What to do with you, what to do…” Severus’ fingers began drumming on the back of the sofa. “Well, young man, you have friends. Hard to believe, with your terrible service record.” He gave Arrius the benefit of a teasing grin, but Arrius was not the least bit comforted. He shifted in his seat, and had to stop his foot tapping on the floor.
“Two things have happened to help me decide. The first, Gaius Arrius, was a letter from your father.”
This was news to Arrius. “A letter, sir? I wasn’t aware that he wrote you.” Now, he was especially nervous. He had no way to hide it and nowhere to go.
“Contrary to what you might believe, tribune, you don’t need to know everything. Some things, only fathers should know. Marcus Arrius wrote to me not as a senator of Rome, but as a concerned father, and that’s how I chose to read it. If I had my way, you could have remained in Britannia for another year or until we finally do decide to withdraw our troops, and from what you’ve said in your report, we just might. But – he asked me to send you home, so I agreed.”
“Sir, are you saying that my release from the Army is his doing?” Arrius scratched his head. “I thought it was your decision, or at least that’s what Galba told me.”
“Because,” Severus answered testily, “that’s what I told Galba to say.” He looked Arrius in the eye. “This brings me to the second thing. Galba sent me another letter, or rather, a report of all that’s been happening in Western Britannia while the rest of you were in Caledonia. Quite a lot, it seems. Raids on the western coast, stealing two legion winter supply ships – poor Galba has no end of trouble, and right at the moment when his senior tribune is recalled to Rome. Fortuna works in devious ways, doesn’t she?”
Arrius’ stomach suddenly felt as if it had taken a crashing leap out of his chest to the floor and landed there with a nauseating thud. He could hardly breathe. Oh, no. Please, Mithras, no. Please, Jupiter, or any god at all, no. No! No! No! He was to return to Rome! He was! He knew it!
Severus seemed completely unaware of what was happening on the other side of the table. He eyed a fig, prodded it with a finger to make sure it wasn’t too dry, and then ate it with obvious relish.
“Well, if someone with Galba’s experience is having such a headache in his hinterland, then something should be done about it, eh? So. A Hibernian pirate, who has no problems accepting his large Roman payoff, and no qualms about wreaking havoc and spreading panic up and down the western coast from Mona to west of Isca all the same, either. Taking those supply ships, now…that was daring. I have to admire that kind of audacity. Apparently, Galba had ordered a private stash of some exceptional Burdigala vintage, and off it went to Hibernia, instead. Too bad, having to settle for Falernian, when you were hoping for Burdigala’s finest. I haven’t been impressed, but then again, I’m not a Gaul. They should keep their rotten fucking grape juice to themselves, instead of letting the rest of us suffer through it!”
The figs were disappearing from the platter, one by one. Arrius was hugely relieved he hadn’t been offered any. They would only stick in his throat and die there, or else, he would just die here.
The fountain bubbled and splashed away in the background. It was the only sound in the peristyle, unless it was the usual noises of the praetorium further away.
At long last, Severus seemed to notice Arrius. “I’m sorry, tribune. My mind seems to run around a bit these days. That Hibernian…a king, I hear, well, that Hibernian is fast becoming a vast thorn in far too many sides, including mine. On the other hand, there’s you. You need to…disappear. More to the point…you need a reason, no matter how spurious, to do so, at least long enough to put Antoninus off the scent. If he really wants to be Emperor that bad, he’ll find plenty else to occupy his time besides scouring the Empire looking for you. Why anyone would want this thankless job that badly is beyond me, but plenty of fools do. So…you get yourself to Hibernia, and kill that pestilence with the unpronounceable name, once and for all. Galba will be thrilled. You look the part; you speak the language, and Briton, Caledonian and Greek besides. None of our Hibernian emissaries have met you, so Galba says, so noone will know you for what you are. And once the dust from my funeral pyre settles down, you can come back, if not to the Senate, because you won’t survive that for long, then…somewhere else. It’s the best I could do. I’ll have a letter sent off to your father letting him know that some secret maneuver came up, and that you’ll be home eventually. If you’re lucky. I rather think you will be lucky. ” Severus emptied his wine cup and banged it on the table with finality and an Imperial-sized burp.
By now, Arrius’ stomach had divorced his body altogether. Every emotion he had ever had was boiling and bubbling and churning in his mind. He was dangerously close to losing his temper. This could not, should not be happening to him. He was to go home! He was!
“Sir, surely you must have someone else who could do the job of killing Ciarán mac Broccan far better than I, someone more expendable? Someone who wouldn’t-” Arrius searched for the word – “be missed?” His hands were knotted so hard in his lap, he wondered if he would ever be able to unclench them.
Severus leaned back on his sofa, and wrapped the throw around his legs again, perfectly at ease.
“Of course we do, tribune, or rather, Galba does. There’s a man your former frumentarius uses, half-Hibernian, name of Bestia? I’m sure Bestia could kill off that pirate, for a price. The problem, though, is that Bestia is not that smart. He might kill that man, but he probably wouldn’t survive. You almost certainly would. And unlike Bestia, you would be much cheaper.” Severus turned his head and looked Arrius right in the face. “Because you, Gaius Arrius, would do it for free, and you would do it for me.”
Arrius finally lost his temper. “But sir, I…”
The Emperor lifted his hand. “Shut up, tribune. You want to live? Then go to Hibernia, take care of that whatever his name was, and come home to a nice, quiet, comfortable life. I’ll release you from the Senate, and I’ll let you keep your senatorial rank. That goes without saying.” He motioned for Cerebus to refill his wine cup.
“Or…go home. Become quaestor Augustus, receive your posting, wherever it is, and one night, right at the moment when you’re feeling comfortable and safe and some luscious slave is waiting in your bed, there will be…a scorpion or a snake in your bed along with her, or hemlock in your wine, or just a good old-fashioned knife in the dark, and that, tribune, will be the end of you, the end of your father, and the end of the Arrii. Your choice. It’s always a shame to let a good man go to waste.”
“But I can’t make that choice!” spluttered Arrius, before he remembered himself enough to add “sir.”
“Horseshit, tribune. There’s always a choice.” Severus had gone very still. Not once did he look away.
“But sir! I…”
“Go on, man, go on. You might as well let it out before it eats you.”
Arrius was fighting for control, fighting for air to breathe, fighting to find the right words. He got to his feet, sat down again, raked his fingers through his hair, and took a deep breath, and then another. He was so agitated; he bounced up from the sofa. If he remained sitting any longer, that sofa would burst into flame.
“Sir! All my life, I’ve served the Emperor, I’ve served Rome, and I’ve served you. I’ve tried to be a good son to my father, a good commander to my men, and a good tribune to my legate. I have tried all my fucking, miserable life to be a good and proper Roman, sir, and I’m done and finished with being good! I’ve had it! Enough!” He took another deep breath. “Very well! Enough! I’ll go! I’ll go!” He sat down again, his blue eyes blazing. “Just don’t ever ask me…” by now, his voice was almost a snarl – “to be…good!
“Nothing great was ever accomplished,” Severus’ voice was ice-cold now, “by being good.” He waved his hand, and settled himself back on the sofa again. “You can go, tribune. May the Gods be with you when you do.” The ‘legate’ was gone, and the Emperor had returned.
There was nothing left for Arrius to say. He saluted smartly, his temper under control now, if only just. As Cerebus showed him the door, he looked back at Severus, swathed in purple wool, picking over a dish of olives as peacefully as he had just calmly destroyed his life and his future.
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Well, the first thing I notice is that you definitely put a lot of hard work, sweat, and research into this project. I’ve read quite a few books about ancient Greece, Rome, Britain, etc.
The personalities of the characters are very defined, and even use a lot of the language they would of used (they were very vulgar people, weren’t they? :) )
One of the phrases I found :
“Now…don’t worry. Me, I don’t fucking care any longer. I’m dying, Gaius Arrius, and I know it, and that’s all I care about.”
Just doesn’t seem right to me. It sounds…odd. Don’t take my word for it, of course, but I think maybe it should be altered slightly.
But all in all, I would definitely read the full book if it was published. It’s well articulated, perfect use of a variety of vocabulary.
Well done!
This was my second time reading your work, and each time my appreciation for the story line grows. I write historical fiction, as well, and found that your work does a good job of mixing the necessary facts with fiction to create a believable work.
In the first bit Arrius is walking to the private chambers of the emperor, but in the 3rd he’s back home. Why the scene shift?
I’m about 35% through this piece and compared to your other posting with Arrius and his rental lady, (which I gave you 9’s on) this piece lacks the pop and flow that you captured in the other. To give it more immediacy, you might just cut everything but the conversation with the emperor and expand that into more of a dialog driven scene. Your dialog is pretty damned good and you seamlessly slip a lot of detail into it. The other thing that I question was why Arrius was so mad about this conversation with the emperor? This is classic friends in high places. It would almost be better to send Arrius of as a punishment for wrong-dong, but that probably creates more problems for you than it solves. That may be too bad though. A man smart enough to rise to that rank would recognize the life-line that was being tossed to him. If his eyes were on succession to the throne his anger might make more sense, this appears to be the major flaw with the work.
““That my own first-born flesh” This whole bit runs to long with the emperor on this rant. Although, being royalty he can certinaly go on for as long as he wants, this kind of conversation would be a little more immediate with flashing eyes, subtle scorn, and possibly understanding. This is the flexing of power and along with that goes the flexing of sphincters.
” nearly white by now, nearly obscured ” nearly too many
“it was a filthy job, but someone had to do it” over-used cliche.
“munched on a handful of dates” dates are pretty big to be munching by the handful.
“too much of Lepcis Magn” you might want to explain the undersireable ways that he was like Lepcis
The grin they exchange is a good bit. Co-conspiritors.
“The figs were disappearing from the platter, one by one.” Se they aren’t eaten by the handful.
“Imperial-sized burp” centurians burp, emperors belch
Why was he so pissed about going home?
“and I’ll let you keep your senatorial rank” if he does this and a stipend is paid wouldn’t the emporers son be able to easily find him?
This piece made me think I was reading history and I had to remind myself that it is fiction. A directory of names and positions could be helpful. The voice is strong. Would the Emperor live in the same house with his wife and family. Some of them had more than one family. The format needs work. The dialogue showed a strong Augustus. The sentence, “The minute it appeared, the food . . . could be made clearer. When you write noone, do you mean none? “They never want us and they…I thought” is unclear. Who thought? It is unclear as to who is speaking at “That my own first-born…” Did people say “fucking” way back then? Ancient profanity. Otherwise the words flow well.
This latest shows the same adept skill at diabolical conversation as in the previous excerpt I looked at. The characters both grow here, with the chessmanship and at the same time the tiredness and regrets of the emperor coming through in his machinations. Additionally, I got the distinct feeling he wasn’t really all THAT upset with the way his son turned out. He may have found himself looking somewhat in the mirror, but only somewhat. I empathize with the tribune; he just wants to go home after a long, long tour in the hinterlands. He’s been a good servant, a patriot, and an all-around dependable guy, and that is the very thing that makes him a threat. Sad. One warning: I hope you’re not getting into a trench of chapter after chapter of stageplay-like dialogues. That’s what I’ve seen so far, but I haven’t seen much. In case you haven’t considered it (which I would find incredible considering the level of care I’ve seen in the work), just try to mix it up a bit.
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