Nobilissima (2 page)

“I’m glad you’re awake, sweetheart. Senator Gardius is here already and wants to see you. I told him he’d have to wait for you to eat and dress, so he’s pacing around in the Ruby chamber and irritating the servants. You’ll have to hurry up. And there’s more. Serena sent a message saying she wants to see you in her rooms at the fourth hour.”

“I wonder what she wants with me?” I picked up a piece of bread, dipped it in honey and chewed on it. The bread was a little stale. Supplies were running low even in the royal kitchens.

Sylvia shrugged. “Her messenger didn’t say. You know what she’s like, always so secretive about things.”

“Have you heard any rumors about her from the servants?” I asked her. “A man in the street yesterday made some odd accusations against her and I don’t know what they meant.”

Sylvia stood up and tied her apron strings, then smoothed a few gray hairs into place. She looked uncharacteristically serious and the lines around her dark brown eyes seemed deeper than usual.

“You shouldn’t be taking any notice of rumors, young lady.”

“Well?”

“Well, I’ve heard it said that she’s collaborating with King Alaric to help him take the city.” Her cheeks reddened as she stumbled over the word ‘collaborating.’

“Collaborating with Alaric?” I choked on a crumb. “What would she gain from such an alliance? I find that hard to believe.”

“You asked me to tell you what I knew,” huffed Sylvia. “That’s what they are saying and many people think she’s capable of the worst. I know she is. She’s made your life miserable since you were just a young child, with her orders and rules and restrictions. It makes my blood boil to think of the way she treated you. There was your dear father trusting her on his deathbed to care for you and all she did was act like she was the noble lady and you were her servant.”

She picked up a small marble bust of my father from the table by the bed and dusted it with her apron, stroking each curve with tenderness before returning it to its place.

I took a sip of milk. Was it possible that Serena would negotiate with Alaric? She had every reason to hate Honorius, who had been complicit in the murder of her husband Stilicho, but it was a big step from loathing the Emperor to committing treason against Rome. As always, thoughts of my cousin made my head ache. She’d been my guardian when I was a child, and those years had been a constant challenge. Over time, my feelings towards her had hardened into a deep hatred that lay in my stomach like a ball of undigested food.

“You’re clenching your hands,” said Sylvia, reaching over to stroke my fingers. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything bad about Serena.”

“It’s not your fault. I need to find out more about this. Maybe Senator Gardius will know something.”

“Heavens! I’d nearly forgotten about him,” exclaimed Sylvia. “Get up, quickly now, and let’s get you dressed. I think you should wear the green silk today. It brings out the color of your eyes and I’ll tie up your hair with the emerald band to match. Lady Aurelia said she’d accompany you.”

Half an hour later, Aurelia and I greeted Senator Gardius in the room that had been used for meetings for the past few months. The palace was more secure than the Senate rooms down in the Forum, where gangs of men often gathered to protest against the siege. Several senators had been threatened at knifepoint, even though there was nothing they could do to resolve the situation.

The octagonal chamber with its ruby-colored marble walls was still cool in the early morning light. By noon, it would be stifling.

“Nobilissima.” Gardius bowed deeply, one arm folded across his ample stomach. “And lady Aurelia. I apologize for disturbing you, but I have some business to discuss with you urgently. And I’m also very concerned about the attack on your carriage yesterday.”

“Please take a seat,
Illustre
,” I replied, using the term of respect for the most senior senator in Rome. “I’m surprised you heard about the attack, as you call it. Do you have informants everywhere?”

I smiled to see his face redden with embarrassment. In truth, I was very fond of the elderly senator; he had been a favorite of my father’s and had always treated me with respect. I patted his arm to show that I was joking about his spies.

We sat on a comfortable bench near the window.

“What is that we need to discuss?” I asked him, while servants gave us cups of honey-sweetened lemon water to drink.

“I’ll get to that,” said Gardius, “but first tell me more of the incident yesterday. I see a cut on your cheek, Nobilissima, and I’m very concerned for your safety. I don’t know what we would do if anything were to happen to you or to your dear friend. May I ask why you were outside the palace grounds?”

I stood and paced a few steps. “I needed to understand what the blockade is doing to the city. I’d heard awful things but it’s even worse than I imagined.”

“I know, I know,” Gardius murmured. He tugged at a lock of gray hair that fell over his eyes. He wore his hair longer and his toga shorter than was the fashion. The overall impression of a dumpy, unkempt man with little regard for the trends of the time concealed the fact that he had a quick intellect and had so far done an admirable job of holding an increasingly fractured Senate together.

“My brother believes that Alaric will give up if we hold out for long enough,” I said. “You don’t think he will?”

Gardius sighed. “No, I don’t. Alaric was promised money and land in return for his services, and the he has in turn promised those things to his people. They won’t give up on that dream now. They have been chased from their homeland by other tribes from the east and have nowhere else to go. I can’t understand why the Emperor doesn’t see that.”

“There is much that the Emperor doesn’t wish to see,” said Aurelia. “And his Provost, Olympius, convinces him of much that isn’t true.”

“If Olympius will not counsel the Emperor to offer Alaric what he wants, the Goth will have no choice. He will attack Rome,” said Gardius. “A deluge is about to break over our heads, I fear.”

I nodded my agreement and stared out of the window for a few seconds. Then I turned back to Gardius.

“The men who threw the stones thought that my carriage held Serena,” I said. “They called her a witch and said she’s conspiring with Alaric to give him the city. Have you heard this?”

“Yes, I have,” he answered.

“But it’s inconceivable that she would do such a thing.”

“I’m surprised to hear you, of all people, defending her,” said Gardius looking uncomfortable. “She hasn’t been good to you.”

“No, she hasn’t, but what’s done is done.”

“You’re too forgiving, Placidia,” said Aurelia, always quick to take my side in everything.

“The Senate is of the opinion that action has to be taken against her,” said Gardius and then he hurried on. “In fact, Nobilissima, this is the business I came to discuss.”

He dropped his eyes as he spoke and I sensed that he was ashamed of what he was about to ask. An uncomfortable silence stretched out between us, and then the old senator looked up at me. “The
clarissimi
have issued an order for her arrest.”

The
clarissimi
represented a select group of the most senior senators in Rome. For Serena to have come to their attention was a sign that the rumors of conspiracy had spread far more widely than I’d realized.

“For her arrest?” Aurelia gasped.

The senator was quiet and he gazed up at the vaulted ceiling of the room before speaking, as though seeking an answer among the painted figures of pagan gods.

“Yes,” he said. “At the very least.”

Before I could question him further, there was a noise in the hallway outside and Gardius jumped to his feet.

“That will be the others,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind. I called an emergency meeting and Marcus is going to give us an update on the state of the garrisons. I’m afraid there’ll be no good news.”

Two guards pulled open the great double doors. Several senators entered and bowed deeply to me. Only when I gave permission did they stand up straight. One of them gave Gardius a parchment, which he unfolded and read. Perspiration beaded his forehead and he glanced at me several times before folding the parchment and giving it back to his colleague.

I began to ask him what it was, but stopped when Marcus strode into the room. Although he moved with purpose, I could see the fatigue in his eyes and the tension in his shoulders. He summoned a smile for me and Aurelia, and a salute for Gardius. Aurelia blushed. She and Marcus liked each other very much but they didn’t speak openly of their feelings. I’d have to encourage them, if their relationship were to progress at all.

“If everyone’s here, I’d like to get started,” said Marcus. “With your permission, Nobilissima?”

I nodded and he spread a map out on the table near a window. We all gathered round and listened as he described the state of the barracks that protected the city. A number of soldiers had fled, he told us, to join Alaric’s troops, taking with them whatever weapons and food they could carry.

“They were of Germanic origin, of course,” he said. “Their defections leave us short-handed at almost every garrison.”

For decades now, and encouraged by my father, the army had enlisted men from the north. Offering pay and board, military service provided a better life for them than a nomadic existence on the icy plains of Germania. Many had risen through to the ranks to hold senior positions, and Stilicho himself, the greatest commander in recent history, was half Vandal; the ultimate proof that German birth was no impediment to success. But their loyalties were being tested now that Rome and the Goths were in conflict with each other.

“I have two units coming south from Milan,” said Marcus. “The latest news is that they’re stalled near Florenza. Alaric’s men are blocking the highway there.”

He straightened up and ran a hand through his dark hair. He towered above Gardius and the other senators, who looked at him with expressions of concern.

“If it comes to a battle with Alaric’s troops,” he concluded, “we’ll be outnumbered a hundred to one.”

I felt my stomach contract. “It’s worse than I thought,” I said. “But there is no sign yet that Alaric will attack. We still have some time.”

Marcus shook his head. “Perhaps not as much time as we’d like. Our scouts tell us that Alaric’s brother-in-law, Ataulf, is on the move, heading east from Gallia with a large contingent of soldiers.”

Everyone began to talk at once but silence fell when my cousin, Serena, entered the chamber. She was dressed in a scarlet stola pinned at the shoulders with rubies the size of walnuts. Her black hair was pinned up in elaborate curls, accentuating her height. It was the necklace she wore that caught everyone’s attention. A thick rope of exquisite gems sparkled and shimmered around her neck, throwing darts of colored light across the room. Aurelia gasped and grabbed at my arm.

“Those jewels belong to Vesta and the Temple of the Vestal Virgins,” she whispered, and I looked at her, not understanding. “They’ve hung around the neck of the statue of Vesta for as long as anyone remembers. Even after the Temple was deconsecrated and abandoned, no one dared to move them. They’ve been there forever.”

A buzz of noise began to fill the room, as though a swarm of bees had been let loose. Everyone looked and pointed until finally Gardius stepped forward and asked Serena where she had obtained the necklace.

“Many citizens claim that we’re suffering this siege because we’ve abandoned the pagan gods,” she said. “So I took the jewels from Vesta to show them that she’s nothing more than a stone statue. She’s not a goddess with divine powers and no thunderbolt has come from the sky to kill me. I wanted to show them the error of their ways.” 

She shot a glance at me and I stared back, unblinking. My father had made Christianity the official religion of the country and had banned paganism, but I knew that many people, including my beloved maid, Sylvia, still worshiped their old gods in secret. Serena was tireless in her crusade to uncover any hint of heresy in the palace, but I’d protected Sylvia from any harm so far.

Serena caressed the stones at her neck and there was silence in the room until one of the senators crossed himself and whispered “amen.” I gazed at my cousin in disbelief. Her act of violating a pagan monument unnerved me more than I thought it should. I wasn’t superstitious and regarded such irrational credulity to be a weakness of the pagans. But the blatant theft from an old divinity seemed more than just imprudent. It was dangerous, a spark that could ignite a fire.

Serena looked at me again and her voice whipped across the room, ice cold. “Placidia, I sent a message for you to come to my rooms this morning and yet I find you here.”

“The Nobilissima Placidia and I have been in conference this past hour,” said Gardius. “We have serious matters to discuss.”

Serena swung around to look at the senator, like a cobra seeking its prey. “Really? I’d have thought you’d talk with me about anything of importance. I’m the Emperor’s cousin, as you know.”

Gardius coughed and reddened before speaking. “Galla Placidia is the imperial representative in Rome and we’ll consult with her on all our actions.”

Serena’s white skin blanched a shade lighter and her eyes narrowed. “I object…” she began, but Gardius held up his hand for silence. She gasped at the rudeness of his gesture but said nothing.