S.J.A. Turney: Tales of Ancient Rome

But the visits still came. Livia never explained why she came or how she could live like she did, but Lucilla didn’t care. It was enough even to see her beautiful sister on those rare occasions. Even if it was rapidly dragging her toward her own demise, her weakening heart now making it dangerous for her even to leave the interior of the villa. Eventually, if she died, her sister would join her and they would be together in the beyond, living in the light of Sol Invictus.

Too cold. The temperature just appeared to be dropping all the time. It had merely been chilly earlier, but Lucilla would swear she could see ice on the shutters, reflecting the moonlight shining through the crack in the shutters. Frost seemed to be forming on her blanket.

She gave a deep sigh and sank back into her blankets, feeling the welcome pull of sleep at last.

It was then she knew that Livia was in the room. Shuddering, she sat up rigid to see the pale figure in her grey tunic, with the long, lustrous black tresses of her hair hanging low, touched and speckled with the frost.

Lucilla smiled. It had been long months since her last visit. She straightened her night tunic and raised her eyebrows questioningly. Livia never spoke, of course. She couldn’t. But Lucilla instinctively knew what her sister was wanting or trying to say.

Livia curled a beckoning finger, and Lucilla frowned. This was new. She’d never left the bed before. A surge of dangerous excitement ran through her cold, frail figure. Could Livia be taking her to show her the den where she spent her time? Gingerly, wincing at the freezing marble of the floor, Lucilla swung out her legs and climbed from the bed, swaying slightly for a moment, before she got herself under control. Her legs were so weak she had to shuffle toward the figure in the doorway, holding out her hand to the wall to steady herself.

Livia smiled that sad smile of hers, but this time, actually walking toward her, it didn’t drive Lucilla’s spirits down into that icy river of loss once more. Instead she felt the electric thrill of discovery. She would, she knew instinctively, find out about her sister this time. She had to. It felt right.

As she approached the open doorway of her room, the corridor dark beyond, Livia beckoned once more and then slipped around the corner out of sight.

A sense of urgency overtaking her, unwilling to let her sister out of her sight for fear she might lose her entirely, Lucilla let go of the wall and tottered quickly to the doorway, her feet slapping on the freezing floor.

The move was too quick for her frail body and as she reached the door jamb, dizziness overcame her and she slumped, her mind fogging with confusion and pain, her body cold and aching. It was almost half a minute before she pulled herself up, peering off around the corner, hoping her sister was still there.

And there was her room. Somehow, during her dizzy fall, she must have got turned around and confused.

There was Livia, lying on her back on the bed, her grey, thin face surrounded by lustrous black hair as she rested among the blankets and pillows. She looked so peaceful.

Lucilla smiled sadly. Best not disturb her now. She’d come back and see her soon.

Lamp-light glinted off the cuirass of burnished bronze with its protective medusa head, honorific scorpion emblem and winged horses and off the tip of the gladius in the man’s hand. Breath clouded in the chilly night air and condensation formed on the red-painted walls.

Titus Flavius Genialis leaned around the corner of the corridor and glanced left and right sharply before pulling back to safety.

“No one. The passage is clear, Caesar, but we must hurry.”

Behind him, the emperor Marcus Didius Julianus flattened against the wall, wild-eyed and breathing heavily. His normally intricately-combed and curled black beard hung loose and ragged, much like his hair. His normally swarthy, handsome features were strangely pale and glistening, the result of such desperate nerves. His toga was muddy and covered in dust from the many hiding places they had been forced to utilise on the way through the enormous Palatine palace complex.

“Where now, prefect?”

Genialis shrugged.

“Rome crawls with your enemies, Caesar. The circus maximus throngs with the soldiers of Severus; his agents are abroad across the forum and the Capitol. Most of the praetorian cohorts are already shouting his name. There is nowhere to go but to your chambers and prepare for death.”

The emperor stared at the commander of his praetorian guard. Behind them, Julianus’ son in law shuddered like the inveterate coward he was.

“I thought you were helping me escape!”

Genialis sighed.

“I would give my life if it would save yours, Caesar, but there is simply no escape. Rome belongs to Severus now. All that is left for you is to decide the manner of your end.”

“There is a way. There must be a way. We can leave the palace by the servants’ quarters. Make our way down the hill past the Magna Mater temple dressed as common folk and head to the docks. We can be in Ostia by dawn and then take ship to anywhere we want.”

Genialis’ lip curled. It galled him in the extreme to be laying his life on the line for such a man but, regardless of what anyone said about the praetorian guard, he had only been prefect for a month and was damned if he would be remembered for turning on his rightful emperor in a time of trouble. When it was over and Severus came, he would decide whether Genialis should live or die, but for now the rightful emperor of Rome should stand proud as the office he held demanded.

“Nero fled his palace in disguise. It gave him little extra time, and think how eternity remembers him. Come, Caesar.”

The praetorian commander ducked around the corner and ran lightly down the beautiful mosaic floor, his white cloak billowing behind him.

The ruler of the world’s greatest Empire peered nervously around the corner, reluctant to follow this man who claimed to be leading him to his end, but equally sure of the fatal nature of cowering alone in these corridors. Severus’ supporters were already in the Palatine complex somewhere and could be here at any moment.

He felt an embarrassing warm trickle and cursed his nerves.

More than thirty million sesterces he had paid the guard to secure this throne and here he was, after little more than two months under the purple, fleeing through his own palace from the rabble of a barely-literate African thug. Where had the majesty and glory of the Empire gone? Where had justice gone?

Ignoring the warm yellow pool gathering in his boot, he waved his son-in-law on with him and rounded the corner to see his praetorian prefect ahead, holding open the door to the great chamber that overlooked the circus maximus.

Running breathlessly, he pounded down the corridor in his soft, stinking leather shoes and hurtled through the door, throwing himself onto the low couch by a table covered in fruit and dining accoutrements.

“Perhaps I can appeal to them again? Severus might want to exile me? I could go and be governor of Hispania? I think I’d like Hispania. They make a lot of fish sauce there, and I like garum. Maybe I could build an estate and retire? Just grow olives or something? I could…”

He stopped rambling in shock as his guard commander gave him a stinging slap across the face.

“You are the emperor of Rome for however long you have left. Have the grace to act like it!”

Julianus stared. He hadn’t paid this man’s unit more than thirty million sesterces just to be treated like this: like a schoolboy.

“Don’t shout at me!” he burbled petulantly.

Genialis shook his head in disgust.

“I took your money and the vow to protect you. If it weren’t for that, Caesar, I would see nothing worth protecting!”