B007IIXYQY EBOK (163 page)

Within the Palace, Petronius took matters in hand, ordering everyone from the bedchamber except for Domitian’s childhood nurse, an aged Greek slave named Phyllis, the only person near to Domitian who cared to claim the body for burial. Petronius had already sent one messenger to the Senate to report that Domitian was dead; he now sent another to inform them of the feeling among the Guard. Then a Senate messenger was dispatched to him, bearing the alarming news that Nerva was missing.

Petronius knew the Guard must not learn of this; in order to settle matters decisively, he had already had his men take their oath to the new emperor. Curses on this day, he thought. They had to find Nerva quickly—otherwise city and Guard would be like oil awaiting the torch. They needed a ruler. Had Nerva fled in fright at the last moment, deciding on retirement after all? Petronius gave another brief speech to his men, declaring Nerva had been sighted on his way to the Curia, then repaired quickly to the prisons. It occurred to him that Julianus might have some better notion of what had become of their misplaced Emperor.

The Guard’s Commander found Julianus still in chains in the interrogation room. One of Petronius’ first orders had been for Julianus’ release, but in the general confusion it had not been carried out. Petronius stifled a cry of despair at the sight of him, thinking, the death-count will have to be put at two—surely this man’s beyond any physician’s help.

Petronius pressed wine on him, then assured Julianus when he thought him able to comprehend, “The tyrant has breathed his last. After the gods, we’ve you
to thank for it.” The Guard’s Commander was not surprised this brought faint response from a man more dead than alive. But he was
baffled by Julianus’ first coherent question—he wanted only to know if anyone had claimed the body of the woman Aurinia.

“What? Who?”
Petronius exclaimed. “How am I to know? You speak of the barbarian woman? But—she is alive. She was not even grievously wounded, they say.”

Petronius saw no shift in the barren look in Julianus’ eyes.

“Come, let me prove it!” Petronius said then, anxious to give reassurance because the matter seemed to trouble Julianus greatly. With the aid of two prison guards Petronius helped him stand; then they walked with him to the guard room a half-floor above. Petronius bid Julianus look out a window, in the direction of the Aventine Hill.

In the fierce sunlight at first Julianus saw nothing but an accumulation of red tile roofs broken by bouquets of green, and saffron haze mingled with sluggish cooking-smoke. Beyond the roof of the Palace kitchens, in the direction of the Circus, he discerned barely the white wall of the side of a small Temple of Hercules; on it, for two years now, devotees of Aristos had painted and stubbornly repainted the words
Aristos Rex.
Gradually he realized something new was painted there.

The words
Aurinia Regina
were written on the wall in tall, graceful red script.

“She lives!”
His exclamation was soft, private. A potent mix of feelings welled up in him—vaulting exultation, pride in her, a sense of limitless solace. He felt he had taken an Olympian draught—his own pain shrank to insignificance. Sunlight seemed to live in everything, the darkened doorways, the sagging shops, the proud rooftops. All seemed harmonious, gentle and right.

Auriane, how you have done it the gods alone know. You fulfilled your vow. You had no chance, yet you prevailed. Impossible creature!

Petronius was awkwardly silent, not understanding what this was about. He made Julianus take another draught of wine, then went on urgently, “We’ve got a ticklish difficulty before us, good sir. Nerva cannot be found. Do you think he’d turn from us at the last?”

Julianus looked fully at Petronius then, eyes keen and focused. “Absolutely not. My guess is he set out exactly when he was supposed to, at the eighth hour, and got ensnared in the mob in the Via Sacra.”

“Wonderful. That crowd won’t thin out until tomorrow. Every man of the City Cohorts is already in the streets—they can do no more.”

“We must somehow draw them off from about the Curia,” Julianus said, and Petronius found himself relieved by the return of that durable confidence. “What, other than earthquake or threat of fire, would…I have it!—the woman Aurinia. Their curiosity of the moment. She killed Aristos, and I’ll wager they haven’t yet tired of gaping at her. Petronius, send someone you trust to the
Ludus Magnus
and have them accompany her to a place where she can be seen—a second-story window so she’ll be safe. Tell the people that…that she will make a prophecy for the new reign. Yes. And Petronius, make certain she knows the request comes from me—and tell her I am well. It is our one chance.”

Petronius slowly grinned. “It doesn’t say much for the intelligence of the mob—but what does? Let us try it.”

Nerva hauled himself from his crevice and dazedly looked about. His litter had been set alight, and what the fire had not burned had been vandalized—its poles had been broken off for use as weapons; cushions and documents spilled out onto the street. One of his Cappadocians lay dead on the cobblestones, run through by one of the poles; the rest had fled. His toga looked like it had been used to scour the street. But the crowd, for some unknown reason, was slowly receding, leaving overturned carts, mountains of broken wares, and himself among the wreckage in its wake. Who, or what, had inspired them to move on? he considered in brief bewilderment. Then he hastened to take advantage of the situation.

His vision blurred; his stomach lurched. But he knew from the mob’s cries that Domitian was dead. He must hurry. He loosened his toga and threw a portion of it over his head to conceal himself—he was ashamed to let these people who cried his name in adoration see him skulking about looking like a rag-picker. Then he rummaged about in the wreckage of his litter and, to his great relief, found the copy of the speech he was to make to the Senate. Miraculously, it was still legible.

He wondered if he should stop at a street fountain to wash the mud out of his hair. No—he could not risk taking the time. He would have to hope his colleagues maintained their sense of humor.

Perhaps I’ll start a fashion. Young fops will take to slapping mud on their hair before sauntering out to their night’s revels. Odder customs have begun over less.

All that night and through the next day the victory-fest careened on. In every street and in the forums the people set up ladders, brought rope, and pulled down Domitian’s many golden statues, and all the votive shields engraved with his likeness. Where they found his name chiseled into monuments, they defaced them with hammers. The people took one imperial statue graced with a particularly smug expression and used it in a playful mockery of a triumphal procession—dressing it in rags, they set it facing backward in a debris cart drawn by four asses harnessed abreast, then paraded it down the Via Sacra while the people pelted it with filth.

On the eve of the second day a herald appeared on the steps of the Curia to inform them of the acts of the Senate since Domitian’s death. Once Nerva was safely proclaimed, the Senators unleashed their fury on Domitian. First they handed down the
damnatio memoriae
—Domitian’s memory was officially damned for all the ages. His name was not to appear on documents of state, and was to be erased from public buildings all over the Empire. Statues erected to him in the forums of every city, from Britannia to Egypt, were to be taken down. All the acts and laws of his reign were abolished. The month he renamed “Domitianus” became “October” once more. Senate and people would carry on as though he had never lived.

When Nerva delivered his first speech as Emperor, he pledged that the time of bloody tyrants was done; in his reign no Senator would be put to death. All property seized by Domitian would be returned; the men and women he sent into exile would be brought home. An amnesty was declared and the prisons were thrown open. Nerva promised to impose no laws without first consulting the Senators. And he would permit no one in the Empire to deify him while he lived—not even foreign kings would be made to address him as Lord and God.

For many, this peacefulness would last all their lives. Domitia Longina lived on happily for another thirty years in her quarter of the Flavian Palace, immersed in books and literary friends. She never married again—though she quietly took a succession of younger and younger lovers, plucked from the pantomime stage and theater dressing rooms. She never fully lost her adoration of this freedom that for so long seemed impossible. Carinus when he reached the ripe age of twenty-five became her chief chamberlain. Veiento was never punished for his long career of prosecuting the innocent, and Nerva was criticized in his case for not being harsh enough. But the people were gratified that at least the notorious informer was driven from public life. He dared not linger in Rome, however, for fear of being set upon by the relations of his victims, and within the month he slunk off to his villa in Praeneste, where he lived on for a time in obscurity and disgrace.

On the day following the assassination, Junilla boarded up her great house on the Viminal Hill, locked her jewelry in strongboxes, sent her slaves to her villas at Terracina and Baiae, donned pitiful rags, and then made a determined attempt to join the Christiani. She did this more from fear of Julianus’ vengeance than from a true attraction to the esoteric new mystery cult. She knew that, because of past persecutions, the shy, secretive Christiani had knowledge of places of concealment unknown to the City Cohorts, where she hoped she might escape Julianus’ wrath. But matters became tense when Martha, the proud, grim freedwoman who was their leader, learned Junilla had arranged a predawn tryst with the Cyclops in the back of the abandoned government grain storage tower that served as the sect’s current meeting place. When it also came out that Junilla had lied and not given away all her worldly possessions, but only cleverly hid them from sight, the Christiani drove her out, fearing she was sent to spy on them.

But by that time she feared Marcus Julianus no more, for he had departed the city with great honor. Junilla observed it all with amazement and disdain. He was higher than anyone in the Emperor’s esteem and could have persecuted her in any way he pleased, but never once did he seek to make a move against her. Not only did he seem to forget or forgive all she had done to him; he also spurned the greatest offices the Emperor could bestow. The man, as ever, was a fool.

On the third day following Nerva’s accession, Auriane nudged herself from a sleep that felt like a welcome death. She sat up, expectant, seized with an urgent melancholy that left her with a strong sense that her time in this place was done. Dawn furtively infiltrated the chamber. She put her hands on her belly in an instinctive attempt to comfort the child within. The tumult outside had faded many hours ago. Now she heard the school guards’ harsh voices, growing louder as they approached her cell.

She was up like a cat. A guard noisily slid back the bolt of the door. A secretary from the Prefect’s staff stood behind him with bored formality, a rolled document in his hand. In back of them was Sunia, looking elated and a little lost. Auriane thought it odd she wore a rough weather cloak; where was Sunia going at this hour?

The secretary intoned in colorless voice, “Aurinia, greetings.” As he spoke on, she felt something quietly inevitable in his words, like the quickening of dawn.

“We come to inform you that by the order of Emperor Nerva, you have been manumitted. By his hand you are granted the status of one born free—an honor not given to many. Here are your proof of status and manumission documents, signed by the Emperor Nerva himself, before witnesses.” He added with faintest contempt, “You, Aurinia, are now a citizen of Rome.”

A citizen of Rome? She stared at him, feeling fastened to earth only by her body’s pain. Sunia tried to catch her glance with a reserved smile of amusement, but Auriane kept her face impassive, suddenly not caring to let this man know what an arrogant gift she felt this was.

The secretary motioned her forward. “It is unlawful for you to be held here, and you must go.”

“What of Sunia?”

Sunia answered with veiled eyes, the flicker of a conspiratorial smile. She is hiding something, Auriane realized. “I’m free as well. Well, not quite. At this moment I belong to Marcus Julianus, who bought me from the school in order to manumit me. It’s not complete—there are papers to be written still.”

“And…Coniaric…and Thorgild?”

“He has done the same for them. And also for…” But Sunia stopped; the anticipatory smile returned to her face.
What mischief is this
? Auriane wondered. “Thorgild comes with us,” Sunia continued, “but Coniaric has chosen to stay—he plans to sign on as a free fighter. He thinks the arena will make him celebrated and dependent on no one. It does not surprise me.”

Auriane sadly nodded. She had noticed for some time that the spirits of this place had filled Coniaric with a new soul.

The guard met Sunia’s knowing smile, then said to Auriane, “There’s a woman here who would speak with you, sent from the Palace.” He turned and motioned for the woman to be brought forward.

“A woman?” Auriane said, perplexed. She knew no woman in this place other than Sunia. She looked questioningly at Sunia, whose smile only broadened.

Night shadows lurked on in the passage; as Auriane looked, the form of a woman, small and proud, her head gracefully draped in a palla, separated from the gloom.