Nobilissima (4 page)

“You can witness my signature here,” I said, pointing to the space below it.

Aurelia stared at the dark ink still drying on the fine ivory linen.

“No,” she said. “I can’t assist you in this deed, Placidia. I can’t be responsible for the death of another. Please don’t ask me.”

‘But Aurelia, there’s no choice. The Senate is right. The citizens are mad with rage at her treason and they’ll riot if we do nothing.”

“Her alleged treason,” argued Aurelia.

“It makes no difference. We can’t reason with the mob. We can only act quickly to calm them, and then we’ll have more time to negotiate with Alaric. If we lose control of the city, we’ll be too vulnerable.”

Aurelia put her head in her hands. “Don’t ask me, Placidia.”

“Very well,” I said. I struggled to keep my composure, shocked that Aurelia would deny me her support. I refused to look at her and called to the guard at the door.

“Come here to witness my signature.”

The guard crossed the room and signed the document. I folded it and sealed it with red wax and left my imprint, using a ring engraved with my initials. Then I stood and gave the guard the parchment.

“Take this to the audience chamber at once and give it to Senator Gardius - no one else, you understand?”

The guard nodded, saluting before leaving the room. It was done, too late for second thoughts. I felt as though time had stopped. I would have to live with that signature for the rest of my life, and Aurelia had refused to help me. That hurt me more than anything Serena had ever done to me.

“You may leave now,” I said to her.

“Placidia, please…” began Aurelia, but her voice faltered.

“I’ll leave if you won’t,” I said, going to the doors. Closing them behind me, I wandered through the hallways, and outside into the untended gardens. The sun was hot and I looked around for some shade. Crossing a wide stretch of dry grass, I followed a tiled path to an enclosed patio. It might have been beautiful once but now the hedges had withered and all the roses had shriveled, a hundred desiccated blooms littering the soil. Every drop of water was being used for cooking and drinking, not for irrigating flower gardens or lawns. An old oak tree cast shade on an ornate marble bench in one corner and I settled on the cool stone.

In the quietness of my refuge, I thought of my father. If he were alive, Rome would not be in mortal danger. There was so much he would have done to prevent it. He would never have allowed Olympius to accumulate so much power or Serena to veer into the dangerous waters of politics. The weaknesses of my brother would not have been so grievously exposed nor the promises to the Goth king broken so cruelly. I gathered up a handful of faded rose petals from the bench where they had fallen, and shredded them one by one. The faintest of fragrances was released into the air as the remnants floated to the ground.

I had no strength to move, but stayed alone and motionless as the late afternoon shadows lengthened across the garden. The sound of boots trampling through a nearby portico startled me, waking me as though from a trance. Minutes later, I heard a single, furious scream and knew that the soldiers had made the arrest. Standing, I smoothed out the creases in my gown. My father would have expected me to be strong and to do whatever was necessary to protect Rome. That was my duty now, and nothing would distract me from it.

Chapter 4

Two days later, Sylvia helped me into an ivory colored gown that was simple and unadorned, fastened only with a small emerald brooch that my father had given me. Gardius brought his carriage to the front doors of the palace and I stepped up to take a seat next to him. We traveled in silence to the Circus Maximus, where Serena was to be executed. Mobs of people lined the streets, shouting and waving their fists in the air. I heard the familiar chant of ‘death to Serena’ and wondered what they would be shouting in the following days after Serena was dead and the siege continued.

The morning was already heavy with the heat that would blanket the city for the rest of the day, but the stadium was full of people and there was an atmosphere of celebration. It was clear, though, that this was no peacetime event. The crowds hadn’t brought their customary baskets of food to sustain them during the spectacle, and there were no palace auxiliaries handing out bread and sweetmeats. A film of dust lay across the arena, which had lain unused since the beginning of the siege. And I noticed that there were armed guards everywhere, many more than would normally attend a public event of any kind.

I stood now with Gardius in the shade of an arched tunnel waiting for the trumpets to herald my entry. My head ached. I hadn’t spoken to Aurelia since signing Serena’s death warrant but had stayed busy in meetings with Gardius and Marcus, listening to every detail of the military preparations for the defense of the city. At night, I barely slept, instead reading my books and thinking about Alaric’s next move.

The last of the senators arrived, paid their respects and went forward to take their seats. As the trumpets began to blare, Aurelia hurried past with her maid and I carefully averted my head to avoid making eye contact. At a nod from Gardius, I entered the arena and a roar of approval erupted in the stadium when I took my seat.

A platform had been erected in the center of the massive space. It held a scaffold and rope. Banners flew from tall poles on either side, their colorful fabric shimmering gently in the early morning breeze. Another roar signaled Serena’s entrance under guard by a unit of armed soldiers. They directed her to walk in front of the royal box. She did so with her shoulders back and her head high, her black hair tied up tightly, as always. Her white linen dress flowed behind her and she looked like a Greek sorceress. Surely she would whisper some incantation and disappear magically from our sight. It was impossible to imagine this proud woman offering her neck to the hangman’s noose.

With a start, I realized that Serena was standing just a few feet away, staring at me. Even now, there was time for her to apologize and accept my terms. The executioner would coil the rope and stow it back in its box. Men would dismantle the scaffold and the horrible nightmare would be over. Holding my breath, I waited for some sign from Serena. But instead, she threw back her head and laughed, pointing a finger at me.

“You dare to sit there and watch me die after I dedicated myself to caring for you as a mother would. You are no better than your wretched brother and you are nothing compared to your great father. I did all that was expected of me. I fulfilled my duties to him and to you.”

She leaned forward, her eyes boring into mine.

“My life is over, but yours will come to nothing. You will lose everyone you care for and your children will grow up to hate you. Misfortune will come to anyone who loves or trusts you. I curse you and your offspring, I curse you!”

Her voice rose to a scream and Senator Gardius jumped to his feet to give a signal for the soldiers to take her away. I gripped the gilt arms of my chair tightly. I didn’t believe in curses but I felt ready to faint. The noise in the arena was almost overwhelming, great waves of sound that echoed around the stadium as the spectators rose to their feet and jeered the condemned woman.

Instinctively, I grasped Gardius’ arm when Serena began to climb the steps to the wooden platform that held the scaffold. The executioner waited. He was a giant of a man and dwarfed even Serena’s majestic height. Holding the rope loosely in one hand, he spoke to her quietly. She knelt on the wooden boards and bowed her head slightly so that he could slip the noose around her neck, then he tied her hands behind her back and waited for a signal from the imperial box. I closed my eyes briefly and then raised my arm in a gesture to continue. A great shout of excitement went up from the crowd and the executioner tightened the rope around Serena’s neck, his huge hands twisting the cord slowly.

I wrenched my eyes away from the spectacle and caught sight of two white doves flying over the arena. They wheeled down towards the scaffold, and then flew directly towards me, circling over my head several times before flying away. I watched until they were tiny dots against the blue sky, and then forced myself to look again at the scaffold. The executioner’s work was almost done. Serena’s body drooped, and her head lolled forward. The mob shrieked and shouted in delight, cheering and waving their hands. Standing abruptly, I climbed the marble steps that led to the exit but hesitated at the top and glanced back. The executioner had slung one end of the rope over the scaffold and was pulling Serena’s body high in the air for all to see. Then he tied a knot, gathered up his things and walked away, while the body dangled, looking small and fragile in the centre of the vast arena.

Gardius caught up with me, puffing in the heat. “I’ll take you back to the palace, Nobilissima. I’m sorry that you had to endure that woman’s hysterics. But she is dead now, as she should be. Maybe now things will change.”

I shook my head. “Her death will make no difference,” I said quietly. “Rome is still in great danger.”

Chapter 5

As I’d predicted, Serena’s death did nothing to change the situation. Tensions eased briefly inside the gates, as the citizens celebrated the death of the ‘witch’, but within a few days, the brutal reality of the siege, the food shortages and the lack of water drove gangs of men to riot in the streets again. Marcus barely slept, constantly juggling his units between keeping the peace and building extra reinforcements on the battlements and the many gates in the city walls.

In spite of the frantic activity outside the palace, I felt as though time inside had come to a halt, the announcements from the clock servant coming so slowly that I wondered if he’d forgotten to do his job.

One morning, however, my steward arrived in my rooms, breathless and sweating, with news that the Emperor’s advisor, Provost Olympius, had just arrived in Rome. “He’s staying in the East wing of the palace,” the man said. “I thought you’d want to know.”

I thanked him and paced around my room for a few minutes. I called for Sylvia to come to me and then told my lictor I needed an escort to the East wing.

“I’m going to visit the Provost,” I told him.

He hesitated. “The Provost of the Sacred Chamber?”

“Who else carries the title of Provost?”

“No one, Nobilissima. I just thought…”

He didn’t finish the sentence but called for two guards to accompany us.

“Is this a good idea?” asked Sylvia.

“Maybe not, but I have to make an attempt to reason with him,” I replied while we walked the passageways to the other side of the palace.

Six members of the elite
brucellarii
,
the Emperor’s private bodyguards, secured the entry to the apartments where Olympius was staying. Looking hot and uncomfortable in their boots and plumed helmets, they stood to attention at the tall, dark doors leading to the inner rooms. Olympius’s chamberlain asked me to wait for a few minutes.

Hoping for a breeze, I went to a window, but the air outside was still and warm. The lawns below were dry and unkempt. Only a fly buzzing at a corner of the window showed any sign of life. I turned back to see the chamberlain, who was staring at a point on the wall above my head, pretending I wasn’t there. I caught Sylvia’s eye and smiled. The Provost’s retinue had no desire to enter into conversation with me; I’d never hidden my dislike of their lord and master.

I thought about how to best approach Olympius. Open confrontation with him had never achieved the result I wanted. But I couldn’t bear to flatter him, as everyone else did, even though I knew the dangers of crossing him. Too many had died on his orders, some for the most minor of transgressions. Yet the Emperor didn’t seem to see him for what he was.

There had been a time when my brother and I had been best friends, taking our Greek lessons together, playing hide and seek, teasing the servants, and running wild in the palace gardens. Honorius had taught me how to ride, patiently leading my pony in endless circles and feeding it tidbits from the kitchen.

Then Olympius, the son of a courtier, had come to live at the palace. He’d taken Honorius away from me, persuading him that playing with a girl was a sign of weakness. The two of them had spent their time learning swordplay and archery and Honorius had shut me out completely.
Late that summer, Olympius had killed my pony. He’d said it was an accident but I knew he’d done it deliberately. I still felt sick when I thought of that day. I’d found my beautiful pony, tied to a post by one leg, which had fractured when she tried to escape. Honorius had come running at the sound of my screams, and thrust his sword into the pony’s chest to put her out of her misery. Blood streamed from the wound, her front legs buckled, and her soft brown eyes clouded over while I watched in horror. I could never forgive Olympius.

“The Provost will see you now, Nobilissima,” announced the chamberlain. “Please enter.”

At a nod from him, the guards at the door lifted their spears and stepped aside to allow us to pass.

I heard the doors slam shut behind us and looked around the Provost’s chambers. Like mine, they showed signs of neglect. I doubted Olympius would linger for long in Rome, far from the luxuries of the palace in Ravenna.

A door at the far end of the room opened and Olympius strode towards me. His face was thin and gray, and he had long-fingered hands, which were usually pressed together in front of him as though in prayer. He was tall and looked down on me with eyes as black as hollow pits. I shivered, chilled as always by his mere presence.