"A Forbidden History.The Hadrian enigma" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardiner George)

CHAPTER 2

An unexplained death among the Court's inner circle is sobering, Suetonius mused while the Praetorians stabled their horses at a ferry jetty by the Nile's shore. Such deaths often had cryptic features. There might be more to it than immediately met the eye.

The historical biographer had noticed as they cantered through the stony back streets of Hermopolis how the celebrants of Isis were still making a great din with their rites. Shaven-headed priests in leopard skin mantles, linen-garbed acolytes, and simple householders or workers in rags were loudly shaking tambourines or sistra, beating drums, and chanting, dancing, or mourning with cheerful abandon. It seemed the first day of The Isia's three days of commemoration would proceed long into the night.

Brazier cauldrons were burning at lane intersections, with countless torches and lamps illuminating the colonnades of food stalls, taverns, traders booths, artisan's cubicles, fortune-teller's tables, and whore-house doorways which lined the town's lanes. These people certainly know how to party, Suetonius thought.

What was it, he wondered, that made the sadness of the death of their god Osiris such a cheerful event? The season's desultory deluge threatened harvest disaster for many whose land lay above the river's customary levels. This should induce fear and trembling, not joy.

After stabling their horses at the jetty the Praetorians commandeered a river ferry captain to cross to the east bank prior to the approaching sunset. Coins were exchanged along with sharp words and manhandled swords.

During the bumpy journey across the river beneath fading light Suetonius asked the ferry captain how long the celebrations would continue into the night. As a swarthy Egyptian in soiled skirt and leather headpiece with all manner of talismans hanging on his neck and arms and ears, the ferryman's Greek was basic. He could only respond to the biographer in a jumble of words of the unfathomable local dialect with a single phrase in Greek, "A miracle! A miracle!"

Suetonius thought this a quaint response as no miracle was immediately evident, unless he was referring to the dubious capacity of his rustic wooden tub to survive a river crossing. A Praetorian based at Alexandria who understood the local dialect spoke up.

"Sir, the ferryman says there's been a miracle today. An important man has been sacrificed to the river. Such a sacrifice joins the gods, becomes godlike, they believe."

"An important man?" Suetonius asked doubtfully. "He becomes a god?"

"Yes, the victim becomes a manifestation of Osiris. He is now Osiris who resurrects in two days time. The river's temper is appeased. That's the drift of the man's words," the trooper said.

The biographer sunk into a thoughtfulness as the creaking tub flexed against the river's churn while its rowers thrashed at the flow. He wondered if the reputed sacrifice had anything to do with the passing of the emperor's favorite, Antinous. Surely not?

So Antinous was dead. The golden youth was no more.

Suetonius wistfully recalled his first sighting of the Favorite in the ninth year of Caesar's rule. It was when Hadrian and his cavalcade had returned from a lengthy tour of the Empire. Their journey had included a sojourn at that pivot of all Greek sentiment, the city of Athens in Achaea. Here Hadrian acquired a new consort in the form of the ephebe Antinous. Courtiers whispered Caesar was smitten by the young man.

Fired two years earlier from being Hadrian's secretary, Suetonius was awarded a small suite within the huge palace complex being constructed at The Villa Tiburtina twenty miles outside Rome. The entire Court withdrew to The Villa for Rome's summer. The biographer was encouraged by Hadrian to research his Lives of the Caesars in the Villa's new Library. Obliged to attend many of the daily rituals of palace life, his client's duty included attendance at assemblies, religious rites, dining occasions, public audiences, and the Villa's elaborate entertainments.

Hadrian and Sabina were always accompanied by their interminable human contubernium, their attached mass of courtiers and families. This Household included wheedling senators, consulting magistrates, clerks, supplicant clients, foreign emissaries, several seers, astrologers, priests, generals of the Legions, a cluster of personal friends of disparate genders, poets, architects, Horse Guards and Praetorians galore, assorted wives, extended families, three dozen fidgeting children of varying ages and relationships, and an array of servants or slaves on tap to provide creature comforts.

This retinue assembled in protocol array in the private garden of the Doric Atrium at The Villa at Tibur each morning. An augur performed the reading of auspices detected in a fresh-killed offering's liver. Prayers to the gods, for the people and senate of Rome, with a nod to Caesar and his wife, were obligatory.

Suetonius lingered at the edge of this seething mass of vassals to appear to participate without actually being involved. The Imperial couple are obliged to perform their daily duties in such populous company, sharing their dining, bathing, toilet, and enrobing, at each stage of duty from dawn to bedtime. Only secret state business, the discussion of diplomatic correspondence, or sexual relations are exempt from public attention, though suitably reliable slaves might attend in mute invisibility.

Among this congregation Suetonius spied a young man close by Hadrian's side he had never seen in the retinue previously. The fellow followed the imperial couple at a slight distance to one side, attending the occasion yet somewhat abstractly remote from the action at hand. He was tall, though not quite as tall as Hadrian. He was solid bodied in a young athlete's slender-waisted, broad-shouldered, firmly muscled way. He was an utter contrast to the usual run of either decrepitly weedy or obscenely portly courtiers of the imperial retinue.

Further, unlike other males of this company where balded pates predominated, the young man had his own hair. That is except Hadrian himself, who retains a full growth of gray-tinged locks with a close-cropped beard.

The lad's shock of hair was of a strikingly light blond tone. This indeed was a novelty at Court except among the flaxen-locked Germans of the Horse Guards or the occasional Celtic slave. The lad's mop was the color of pale straw whose sheen glinted in the sunlight. Its fulsome bulk tousled around his crown and rolled down his nape in luxurious coils. They signified a young man who hadn't yet trimmed his hair or first beard as maturity's offering to Jupiter. His height, his powerful build, his copious hair, and his obvious youth, coupled with a very un-patrician sporty tan, made him stand out among the senior grizzlies who attend Caesar. Most of these are of the short, sallow, Italian or Aegean racial types, and are neither sporty, nor tanned, nor young.is His

To Suetonius's eye the newcomer was eighteen years of age or older and shone with visible health. Translucency of skin and a peachy flush at his cheeks were set beneath inquisitive blue-gray eyes. Despite the Latin world's prejudice against the pale eyes of barbarians, in Antinous they had an appealing impact. They searched deep into one's spirit with piercing, enquiring but a friendly intensity. A fresh scar across his left cheek was the sole physical blemish in this flawless animal.

Only the newest slaves at Court or students of the Imperial College on assignment as pages, with the occasional son or daughter of a senator, displayed such youth. Even guardsmen are all well into their mid-twenties by the time they are sufficiently proven to warrant duties for the emperor. Amid this motley crew gathered from around the Empire, the sculpted features of the Bithynian were conspicuous to all.

Antinous was attired in a simple white toga virilis without status markings, fully slung around his body in the proper manner above a tunic. It revealed muscular shoulders and a crisply defined chest line beneath its under-tunic. The toga's woolen swathe was clasped with a rustic bronze fibula brooch of Greek ethnic design, not Roman; the sole indication of the young man's breeding.

There was no ostentation – no bracelets of precious metal, no jewels, no kohl eye-liner in the eastern fashion, no clan or caste tattoos, no evident perfume wafting to engage attention, no overwrought hairstyle augmented with an elegant corona or pierced with inserted decors, and certainly no iron, silver, or gold finger or thumb rings certifying status. There was a solitary blue-stoned ring on one index finger.

This lack of baubles probably endeared him to Caesar's renown undecorated tastes. Hadrian himself displayed no unnecessary frippery.

A simple leather band restrained the lad's mane, accompanied by a thong around his neck with an attached bulla locket. In Rome this is the tell-tale sign of a freeborn youth, probably of good birth. It warns the ambitiously promiscuous to keep their damn distance or risk dire consequences at the hands of family!

Gossip whispered how Antinous's manner would be accompanied by the nauseating bravado of those unbearded, spoiled young men who were specially favored at Court by virtue of their youth. There were several readily known and barely tolerated. Yet with Antinous no beard was evident. Perhaps blond tones camouflage whiskers into an invisible downy fluff? As for a privileged swagger, the young man moved with calm discretion and polite modesty which belied the usual posturing of the Court's inner circle.

Suetonius noticed how the bustling retinue surrounding Hadrian unwittingly gave the young man a clear circle of space in unofficial acknowledgement of his status as Caesar's special intimate.

The lad's height was balanced with a slim, sinewy silhouette. Obviously well exercised after a lifetime invested at the palaestra in sports and military exercises, his rangy, slinky-hipped figure was typical of those statues of Olympic athletes in bronze or marble wrested impulsively by past emperors from cities across the Aegean or at Olympia itself. These trophies are now displayed in Rome's public gardens for all its citizens to savor.

Mostly nude, such works of the stonemason's craft exhibit the male form in its ideal magnificence. It was a form which Antinous's own chiseled appearance proved was no heroic myth or sculptor's erotic fantasy. It was a physique not often evident among Rome's melange of gnarled or decrepit denizens except perhaps among the junior military, some sporty patricians, or the arena's fleet-footed gladiators.

Antinous had a lithe and proportioned frame which proclaimed mature muscular power coupled with the animal dynamism of youth. This was a bearing assured to attract the attention of admirers of both genders.

His sharply-cut muscles, defined chest line, orbed abdominals, and triangular upper frame above lean loins and an athletic butt expressed the alpha male physique readily recognized by any sexually aware mortal. It proclaimed him as a vital font of virile fertility.

Here was a living, breathing Adonis, or a flesh-and-blood mirror of divine Apollo himself.

Yet other than physical characteristics which shine for but a handful of years, plus sexually-charged contours of a similar ephemerality, one wondered what on earth could appeal to the sophisticated tastes of our imperial aesthete, Hadrian, beyond simple lechery? The young fellow was very appealing in a manly way, but so are many young people of health and shapeliness who may be accessible to an emperor's earthier gratification.

Other than the highly perishable attractions of the flesh, Suetonius wondered what Hadrian saw in the lad that justified such an intimate yet very public attachment? Hadrian had begun to exhibit Antinous at every opportunity in a manner which proclaimed the young man's role as a personal consort almost equal to the status of Vibia Sabina herself.

The biographer had difficulty believing the two men had a great deal in common intellectually or in genuine companionship.

Other than the lively excitements of the hunt, or the camaraderie of bivouacs with the Legions, or youth's wildness in immoderate drinking sessions at men's symposia, plus the bodily enticements of the boudoir while sexual novelty survived, what else could such a fellow offer? He wondered if Antinous possessed depths of character which evaded the biographer's immediate perception.

So there must indeed be something more to the relationship to sustain it than met the eye?

Yet Suetonius had to admit how, beyond his physical attributes, Antinous often conveyed something somewhat more interesting. At first he interpreted the boy's sculpted features to proclaim the petulant self-indulgent and feminized sensuality of a sybarite, or even a dissolute cinaedus in the renowned Bithynian style.

These characteristics were suggested by youthful full lips and heavy-lidded eyes cast downwards in pensive introspection. Suetonius interpreted this sulky demeanor to suggest bedroom interests which indicated the self-absorption and narcissism of the cinaedus's promiscuous lifestyle. Or so others suggested.

But he came to realize this was mere prejudice about the emperor's supposed plaything or catamite. This revelation happened when he first heard the fellow speak.

Antinous's seeming shyness of manner was belied by the calm, thorough, persuasive timbre of his voice. Its deep modulation expressed well-studied Latin with an Attic accent, true, but did so with cool assurance and a baritone which communicated intelligence, honesty, warmth, and audible manliness. The youth's voice projected a definite vir, not an indulgently frivolous cinaedus, let alone a shrill eunuch or pale hermaphrodite. At least to the ear and eye, if not in the privacy of the bedchamber, the fellow was striking in his masculinity.

Suetonius and the Praetorian escort were off-loaded downstream at a jetty adjacent to one of the guard-houses of the Imperial encampment stretching along the east bank. The city of tents sparkled with multiple braziers, torches, or lamps flickering among the date palms in the descending darkness.

The Praetorians led the biographer through a labyrinth of lanes of tents and marquees spreading along the river bank for a hundred paces. The camp conformed to proper Legion practice, with regular fire precautions and defensive barriers. Guards maintained watch at intersections or surveyed the site from low towers.

Suetonius was led to the forecourt of the Imperial complex itself, announced by its prominent military standards, Imperial insignia, and the enormous multi-poled proportions of Caesar's personal marquees.

A bronze lifesize statue of Hadrian stood on a pedestal to one side with an arm upheld in salute while nursing his staff of office in the crook of the other. Hadrian's familiar stance as a heroic commander whose bare-headed thick-cropped curls, close-shaved beard, and embossed cuirass decorated with victor's medallions, gave authority to his mute presence.

His cuirass displayed an image of the goddess Athena of Athens protecting the infants Romulus and Remus of Rome, with a portrait of Antinous's profile embossed on one of his hip lappets. This struck Suetonius as an intriguing statement of the emperor's priorities. It spoke of Greek culture nourishing Roman values while his Greek paramour observed from the close proximity of his hip.

The detachment reached the inner circle of protection for the emperor. He was now to be defended by his Horse Guards. This elite corps of cavalry from across the Roman world serves directly at the emperor's side. The officers are identified by their scarlet cloaks and a high scarlet crest on their helmets, as well as their ethnic variety. Their mixed races display the Empire's true diversity.

Three Horse Guards and two Scythian archers stood shiftily about while a senior officer was seated at a camp table sorting papyrus sheets. As he did so Suetonius became aware of the sound of muffled moans being emitted from within the tent complex. They were the cries of pain usually associated with some unfortunate person having information extracted by due legal process, meaning torture.

Hadrian is not known to wield torture to any degree, though his Prefect at Rome, Marcius Turbo, is readily disposed to its efficacy.

The Horse Guard officer arose to smartly salute. Suetonius and he recognized each other, though the biographer could not recall the German's name. The accompanying Praetorian stood to attention before the more-senior officer and informed him of the summons and delivery as instructed. The German turned and smiled warmly to the biographer.

"Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, I Scorilo, a Decurion of the Horse Guard, salute you."

At last someone was speaking to the biographer as a human being.

"I am instructed to escort you to the emperor's quarters. Senator Septicius Clarus and others of the Imperial Household await you."

Aha, Suetonius thought, a friendly name at last. Clarus, his patron, to whom he owed his entire good fortune and utter allegiance after Caesar himself, will know what this is all about.

The decurion led Suetonius into the marquee complex. It dawned on him the muffled cries coming from somewhere deep in the labyrinth were not those of a torture victim but of someone sorrowfully sobbing. In fact it was a male person weeping in deep anguish.

As they progressed through chamber after chamber, sitting rooms, map rooms, shrine alcoves, armory stores, dining alcoves, small reception halls, and small courtyards, the sobbing grew louder. Suetonius realized the cries were being emitted by a voice he recognized.

The pained voice was that of Hadrian.

Scorilo guided Suetonius into a large reception chamber where several notables were gathered and where the moans were even more pronounced. They were heard from behind nearby drapes.

No one conversed. They stood in clusters staring distractedly at the shiny floor tiles beneath them. The cries had thoroughly intimidated them.

Suetonius spied Septicius Clarus seated at a table littered with uneaten food and empty wine goblets. The grouped individuals included some known to him and others unknown.

To one side hovered the Easterners dressed in chiton tunic and slung mantle whose primary language was Greek. These included the Governor of Pannonia, Flavius Arrianus of Bithynia, a personal friend of the emperor. Arrian is a wealthy Greek from Nicomedia. Accompanying him was Phlegon of Tralles, a freed slave historian whose extravagant literary fantasies were popular with Hadrian. Polemo of Smyrna, a sophist and master of heroic speeches, stood beside Aristobulus of Antioch, the court astrologer who had been in Suetonius's party that morning. It was probably Aristobulus who had revealed his whereabouts to the Praetorian messengers.

At another side stood the Latins. Flavius Titianus, Hadrian's appointed Governor of the province of Egypt; Julius Vestinus, a Gaul who was the current Secretary to the emperor; the eunuch Favorinus of Arles, a teacher of rhetoric; and Alcibiades of Nysa, Hadrian's chamberlain who was Greek but who too had been accorded Roman citizenship.

At the table with wine cups before them sat Suetonius's patron, Septicius Clarus accompanied by the Praetorian Tribune, Lucius Macedo, commander of the security forces for the Egypt tour. The Praetorian Prefect, Quintus Marcius Turbo, remained at Rome to maintain order at the seat of Empire.

Suetonius reflected on how this modest tented chamber in the desert wilds by the River Nile four hundred miles south of the city of Alexandria contained the cream of Hadrian's inner circle. Except three, that is. These three were his wife, Vibia Sabina the Augusta; his factotum Geta the Dacian; and the much-cherished freeborn Bithynian Antinous.

In another corner stood a man whose presence made the hair of Suetonius's neck rise on end.

'Pachrates' was a corrupted name in Greek for an Egyptian priest whose name in the local dialect was unpronounceable. Pachrates or Panchrates was a close translation into Greek. He was one of the shaven-bodied, kohl-eyed, leopard-skin swathed, linen-skirted priests of Egypt. The priest is reputed to work miracles, call upon demonic powers, inflict spells, and influence destiny, all for a fee. Preferably a large fee.

Pachrates is of an indiscernible age, seeming eternally old, even very ancient, as befits his profession. His features had his race's distinctive characteristics of a flattish nose, swarthy skin, thick lips, and dark eyes. His eyes penetrate his surroundings with incisive clarity, and project an icy chill. This had always disturbed Suetonius on the few occasions he saw him attending Hadrian's entourage. Yet he had heard how Hadrian and Antinous had found the priest's magical arts to be impressive, if not remarkable.

By Pachrates' side was a younger priest in similar vestments indicating high status. Both were bedecked in beaded chains, amulets, talismans, and bracelets depicting the Eye of Horus, the crucifix ankh, and other exotic symbols. Each wielded an impressive staff of ebony, gold, and ivory. They kept watchfully to themselves while the sobs echoed from within the nearby chamber.

Clarus and Macedo rose to greet Suetonius. He did not kiss Clarus' toga hem as he might at a morning patron's assembly; it might have seemed overly ostentatious in this company. Clarus took his arm in a friendly greeting anyhow. He whispered low to his ear.

"Welcome. Our men found you, yes? As you can hear, we have a crisis on our hands."

Suetonius nodded knowingly, eyes wide in apprehension.

"You've heard the news? Antinous is dead."

Macedo and Clarus looked deeply at the biographer as though he might know something about it.

"Great Caesar is supremely distressed."

This could readily be heard from the nearby chamber.

"I've only just learned of it," Suetonius lied. "May I ask in what manner?" he whispered. "Was it honorable?"

This question poses the primary issue in a Roman death. Is a death noble, is it honorable, is it worthy of the deceased's character? Is a death praiseworthy? Anything less is either an act of spite by the gods or a careless mismanagement of one's fate.

Clarus leaned forward to murmur in his ear.

"The boy was found at the Nile's edge this morning tangled in the reeds. He has apparently drowned. Some fishermen came across him, they say, underneath their boat as they were setting out from their moorings. The tide stream had swept him to the river bank. They raised the alarm. We have them under guard until we sort out what has happened. They will meet torture to test their truthfulness."

It was Suetonius's turn to lean forward to ask the most obvious question. "So how did Antinous come to be in the river in the first place?"

Both Clarus and Macedo glanced towards each other knowingly.

"That might be your chore to find out," Macedo confided.

The sobbing from within ceased. Moments passed in frozen silence as those in the marquee eyed its entrance. Eventually Geta, Hadrian's personal assistant, emerged from within.

"Gentlemen," Geta uttered softly in his barbarian-intonated Latin, "Caesar awaits your company. This moment now might be opportune. Caesar is, is, is… composed."

Geta is not Hadrian's secretary nor major-domo, let alone a servant or slave. He fulfills a more important but undefined role. He turned and strode back to the chamber entrance. The four patiently followed.

Beyond a veiled vestibule lay a larger inner chamber where only a single multi-lamp candelabra cast illumination across a dim space. Incense burned in a brazier emitting its lazily wafting coils into the dark cavern. Remote in the gloom, Hadrian was seated upon a chair, doubled over, holding his sides with crossed arms and swaying rhythmically. He was dressed in a crumpled under-tunic furled in a purple cloak trimmed with gilded eaglets.

His hair was disheveled, his feet bare. He was quietly snuffling into the cloak's folds. He had put aside his sobbing for a while. Even in the somber light the five intruders could see he was pale, with red rings beneath his eyes.

Across the chamber within range of the faint glow lay a large open divan. It was enveloped from above by a sheath of gossamer mosquito netting. Water was being finely sprayed onto the nets by a beefy Nubian slave who was simultaneously wafting a voluminous ostrich feather fan at the filmy drape. The fan's faint breeze on the dank net aimed to cool the air around the bed beneath. In the dry, warm Egyptian climate this is sometimes an effective way to cool a sleeping person.

Lying face upwards on the divan was a well-proportioned young man. He was utterly naked as though lazily indulging himself in the hot room of a public bath house. It was Antinous.

He was immobile, yellowingly pallid, crinkle-skinned from water exposure, and quite visibly dead. Even at his distance from the screened bed, Suetonius detected how river parasites may already have devoured the eyeballs beneath the young man's lids and nibbled at the edges of his extremities. His pallor was unusually waxen and drawn.

A depression in the divan indicated where Hadrian had been lying beside his friend, probably weeping. To one side on the tiled floor lay an ornate set of ceremonial armors and weapons. The white enamel inlays of the workmanship reminded Suetonius how their owner had been the Bithynian lad. It was his formal horse parade uniform as a Companion of the Hunt, Caesar's hunting team. Antinous was a championship horseman.

Geta and the four stood before their ruler in silent respect. Hadrian took some time to concede the group's presence. Geta took the initiative.

"May I speak, Caesar? Senator Septicius Clarus, Suetonius Tranquillus, Secretary Vestinus, and Tribune Macedo, are present as instructed," he offered in a low voice.

"I see that, Dacian!" the emperor hissed back.

Geta bowed courteously and moved back a step from the group, undismayed by the reproach.

Hadrian grudgingly looked to the five. He paused to recall his motive for their attendance. He spoke hesitantly. They each wondered at what might transpire.

"Gentlemen, you see before you my hurt. Antinous is no more."

He waved tiredly toward the bed where the Nubian continued to fan the sprayed netting. The five hung their heads in respectful solemnity.

"I don't know what has happened," the emperor continued. "All that is evident is he drowned in the river sometime last night or this morning. Perhaps it is a misadventure? Perhaps a youngster's high-spirited lark? Perhaps something more? No one seems to be able to tell me. No one!"

He glanced accusingly at Geta, who stood with head low.

Hadrian rose slowly from his seat, grasping his purple cloak tightly around him. The warm night air flowing through the marquee's overhead vent into the open sky required little additional clothing, yet he distractedly held the cloak close about him. A sea of stars blanketed the black heaven above. Caesar trod slowly in the direction of the divan. The five paced quietly behind.

"It is my instruction to you, gentlemen, to investigate this matter," he muttered as they approached the bed with its immobile figure. As he turned towards the group his voice firmed and rose in greater authority.

"It is my instruction you will explore every avenue of enquiry. It is my demand you will interrogate every person who has been associated with my companion in recent days.

You will check and correlate his movements, his actions, and his conversations with others. You will deduce the precise details of what has happened in the life of my friend, who are his friends, who are his enemies, or if any have reason to engage in foul play."

His voice had returned to its natural command as the Great Caesar of the civilized world.

"You will assemble whatever evidence is necessary to establish the time of death and the manner of his death. But the purpose of your enquiry is to inform me of the reason why Antinous of Bithynia has died.

Has there been an ulterior motive for his end? Was his death noble? Was his death base? Did he die a hero's death? Or has his life been usurped by dark forces? Was it by his own hand, or by another's? And you will report back to me with this information in the form of your testimonials, documents, or reasons within two days. Two days only. This is my command."

As Hadrian communicated his commission Suetonius drew closer to the nets suspended over the figure on the bed. He looked closely at the details of the young man's once-fine body and sculpted features. Antinous had certainly been handsome and even in death it was evident. At least until now. But in the balmy night's air, regardless of the watered nets and the most imperious of an emperor's commands, natural corruption would proceed swiftly.

Soon bloating would be evident. His features would distend, split, erupt, corrupt, and disintegrate before his companion's eyes. Even an emperor cannot command otherwise.

While he listened to Hadrian's instruction Suetonius noted and memorized certain interesting features of the figure. The particularly severe shaggy cut of the youth's hair, the meager outline of a beard with sideburns showing he was no longer a strapping meirakion youth, the many scratches around his midriff, a slashed incision evident in his left wrist, and rose-colored blemishes of various sizes at several places across his throat.

Suetonius had never noticed blemishes of any sort on Antinous previously. His skin possessed the clarity of youthful health. He wondered if, in this desert climate, the first blooms of decay were already underway.

Hadrian paused at the bedside to part an opening in the dank netting. He now resumed a Caesar's authority.

"Hear me then, and act accordingly! Item One: This commission will be formalized under Imperial seal immediately by my secretary. That's for you to attend to, Vestinus.

Item Two: Septicius Clarus, you have served me at an earlier time as my Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, my right hand second-in-command. Your record of service had been exemplary, despite serious accusations by the empress Vibia Sabina resulting in your dismissal. It is my will that you assume responsibility as magistrate for this commission to endow it with legal authority.

Three: You will have unrestricted monetary and resources made available to you. That's for you, Vestinus and Macedo, to effect immediately.

Four: Suetonius Tranquillus, in acknowledging your learned experience at the Bar of Rome, I appoint you to the duty of Special Inspector of this commission. Also, as my former Chief Secretary, it is my will you retain records of this enquiry and report your results to me within two days.

Five: Clarus and Suetonius, a fee of one hundred thousand sesterces will be paid to each of you to perform this commission. This fee will only be paid if you deliver as contracted within the two day limit, at one hour before sunrise precisely.

If you fail to meet this deadline I will re-open the charge against you of the offence of laesa-majestas against the empress, a treason and capital offence. Your lives may be forfeit. The investigation starts immediately. That means now gentlemen!"

Hadrian dropped his cloak to the floor and parted the nets to look closely at his deceased companion on the bed. The group sensed he was forcefully suppressing a hidden torment deep within.

"However, there are two people you cannot interview. They are myself, your Caesar, and Caesar's wife, Vibia Sabina Augusta.

You are permitted to interrogate any member of the Court, Guard, or Sabina's retinue as you see fit, but neither I nor the empress. Sabina is above your station and commission. Besides, you already have that history with her which is impolitic, as you both know. To date we have been lenient about that matter, but be warned."

All five of the group bowed in acknowledgement, possibly with discomfort. Suetonius and Clarus both knew what Hadrian was referring to, so both stomachs churned.

A gleam appeared at one eye. A tear was forming. He grew haggard.

"Clarus and Suetonius, you will want to know why I depend on you after all these years. It is because I trust you, and I trust your forensic skills. Especially, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, I trust your capacity for explorative detail, just as you have done in your Lives of the Caesars. You appear to seek no favors from anyone, while both of you nowadays are independent from the factions of influence of Court. This may be an essential factor in enquiring into the death of my companion. I rely on you and that independence."

Suetonius coughed modestly at this unexpected flattery and its generosity, with its unofficial title of "Special Inspector". A hundred thousand sesterces would also be a timely contribution to his ramshackle finances, he thought, despite the two-day timeframe and its threat of a fatal indictment. Nevertheless he gathered his wits sufficiently to submit a request of his own.

"My Lord Caesar," Suetonius braved, "may we have access to the body for a physician to inspect to determine the nature or time of death?"

Hadrian's face fell.

"No, not at all!" he declared.

This is a man who knows death very intimately. Yet the notion of an autopsy of his beloved repelled him.

"It is enough we burn the dead, isn't it? In this case I will invite Egyptians to embalm Antinous in their special way so his body and name survive forever. He will live as a pharaoh does, or as King Alexander of Macedon survives in his sarcophagus at Alexandria. The priest Pachrates of Memphis awaits me outside accompanied by the leading master in the land of this art. Antinous will remain incorrupt for all eternity. I command it!"

The emperor was adamant and dismissive, so one prefers not to exceed the limits of protocol in furthering such enquiries, Suetonius contemplated. Pity though. What a wasted opportunity. But Hadrian was understandably emotional, which is an unexpected novelty in a supreme ruler.

Suetonius also wondered if Caesar had some other motive perhaps. Was there something he did not wish to share about the lad's demise?

Another notion entered the Special Inspector's mind. He took the liberty to interject before the group of five was dismissed beyond recall.

"My Lord, if I may? Do you recommend an avenue of approach, or propose key witnesses who should be the subject of interview?"

Suetonius sensed Geta the Dacian freeze at his enquiry.

Hadrian turned slowly toward his former secretary as his brow darkened. It was an expression Suetonius had not seen in the emperor's eyes for almost a decade, and one he would rather not perceive too often aimed in his direction. Had he over-stepped the mark?

"Special Inspector Suetonius, I said you will not interview Caesar himself," Hadrian spat in a whisper. "Nevertheless I rely on your good services as my investigator and feel obliged to offer what little guidance I can to your commission.

Geta here, my worthy factotum, is an intimate of this Household and party to its inner workings. Perhaps Geta will possess perceptions of which I am not familiar? Likewise my Chief Secretary, Julius Vestinus here, or my Chamberlain Alcibiades outside, will have an understanding of those who may be persons-of-interest to you? Others come to mind too.

My friend Arrian of Bithynia could possess details of value? He knew my companion well. You are fortunate that almost anyone who has been involved with my Antinous travels in this Imperial Progress along the Nile. But for myself I would like to know more about Antinous's own personal household.

His young fellow-Bithynian Lysias, for example? Or the woman, Thais of Cyrene? I am sure Julia Balbilla too, the travelling companion of my wife, will have an opinion worth hearing. Explore broadly, Special Inspector. But return in no more than two days at one hour before sunrise, or forfeit your sesterces. Then Turbo's agents will seek you out. There is no where in the Empire to hide from my chief-of-security Turbo."

Suetonius sensed it was Macedo's turn to stiffen.

"Enough!" Hadrian called. "Away with you! I must have privacy."

His voice cracked with bottomless despair as he dismissed the group. He turned to the divan and, with a bodily surge forward, tore apart the watered nets, tugged off his cloak and tunic, and fell naked onto the bed beside the cadaver. Sobs welled up from deep within him in an intensity which compelled the five to urgently withdraw.

As they were shuffling backwards in deference to his might-and-majesty, the emperor grasped the flaccid figure and lay gently kissing Antinous's gray lips. Again, his pitiful moans began to arise within the chamber. The Nubian silently continued the rhythmic fanning and spraying.

The five drew back bowing continuously as they retreated. The Imperial audience had concluded. They had received their commission. It was time to act, there was no time to waste. One hundred thousand sesterces were at stake as well as Caesar's patronage. Otherwise two heads were at risk.

In the vestibule between the bedchamber and the reception room where others of Caesar's retinue waited, Clarus halted the group.

"He weeps as does a woman," he whispered gruffly, "and this in a man who commands Legions from Britain to Parthia. What to make of it all?"

Vestinus spoke.

"Whatever your sentiments, it is our duty to fulfill his instruction," he murmured. "You don't have long to complete this work, my friends."

Suetonius responded conspiratorially but firmly.

"Vestinus, I will need your best scribes skilled in speed notation in both Latin and Greek. They will be assigned to us for the duration. Bring papyrus, wax pads, and writing styluses. We must record everything in detail as we proceed for comparative analysis.

Macedo, I will need your most intelligent agents for investigative work, and access to troops, horses, couriers, and services when required.

Vestinus, tell Chamberlain Alcibiades I will require immediate access to workspace within the Imperial complex with living quarters attached. It must be well provisioned for a team of investigators for several days. Intelligent slaves to service this team would be useful, too.

Clarus, you and I must determine a list of associates of the deceased to be interviewed. Who to interrogate, in what order, and who to ignore in such a brief time span."

Praetorian commander Macedo volunteered the style of services a security specialist would likely consider necessary.

"Will you require torturers? I have three public slaves skilled at the arena at Leptis Magna. They work as a team. They possess extensive experience in all manner of interrogations and terminations. They come highly recommended."

"Thank you for your kind thoughts Lucius Macedo," Suetonius opined as sweetly as he could muster, "but not only would the sight of instruments of torture put the fear of Hades into our subjects and freeze their tongues with fright, but almost all will be citizens of Rome and so legally beyond such persuasion. Besides, as we well know, if you break a few bones and knock out a few teeth you can easily persuade people to confess to being Jupiter Himself."

Tribune Macedo was responsible for policing and security issues for the Egypt tour. He linked into the Empire-wide network of spies and informers maintained by his superior, Prefect Marcius Turbo at Rome. Turbo has proven to be a master of the espionage and political manipulation arts, Suetonius recalled, and his informers reached far across the Empire on behalf of his ruler, Hadrian.

A very useful thought popped into Suetonius's mind.

"Vestinus and Macedo, we should have a personal attendant for our more human enquiries as well. Someone who knows something of the local culture and languages, because we don't do we?

There is a young lass called Surisca who is on the staff at the House of the Blue Lotuses across the river at Hermopolis. She's no slave; she's a Syri from Antioch who has fluent Greek, Aramaic, some Latin, and the local Egyptian dialect too. She is very familiar with Egyptian customs and ways, very familiar indeed, which might be a useful skill for us.

Have someone hire her fulltime for several days. Pay any price, don't bargain. Deliver her to the quarters you will be providing. And soon! Tell her to dress for public wear, not her professional duties. And you might arrange it tonight, as a priority, if the moon is bright enough to permit travel on the river."

Vestinus and the others looked askance at the biographer in that querulous way people do, ever so politely, when they have a query they're reluctant to articulate to a person's face. But the Chief Secretary realized how Caesar's instruction was immutable, and Suetonius was to receive whatever he requested. Clarus simply smiled wanly at his client's audacity.

The Special Inspector turned to Geta who had followed the other four from the chamber.

"Geta of Dacia, you will already know much more about this affair than we ourselves will have the opportunity to explore. You are close to the Imperial Household. You are cognizant of the details of Lord Caesar's relationship with Antinous of Bithynia. You observe the daily interactions of the Household, and must be aware of the political ebb and flow of things?"

"Yes, yes, Special Inspector," he replied in gravel-accented Latin.

Suetonius recalled how Geta's abduction from Dacia as a child after Trajan's victory almost twenty-five years earlier remained evident in his pronunciation. The Dacian spoke in the short, terse statements of his native tongue, a primitive barbarian language of the Getae peoples, which gave his spoken words a fierce strength and surprising power. Suetonius continued.

"Geta, my good fellow, perhaps Clarus, Vestinus, and I should sit with you to explore your views of Antinous's place in the Household, once the basic arrangements are in order with our colleagues? Is that possible?"

The biographer-cum-investigator tried to be as unthreatening as possible. He used his most persuasive bargainer's smile which risked displaying his three missing lower teeth.

Hadrian conceded Geta would be a storehouse of gossip from inside the Imperial Household who would already know things which could take months of enquiry to discern. He will know who is friend to whom, who is doing what with who, and who seeks benefit, lust, influence, or sheer revenge.

He might also know something of Antinous's own activities or ambitions in the hothouse of Court intrigue and ever-shifting amorous dalliances.

"I am at your disposal," Geta offered with a faintly sly glance. Something about the gesture communicated uncertainty within Suetonius.

"I suppose our first chore, gentlemen, will be to construct a consistent pattern of enquiry with our subjects?" Suetonius offered. "You know, an interrogative grid we apply to each interview for a parallel comparison of actions, timescales, and opinions of this matter."

Clarus, ever the pragmatist, interjected. "But what particular matter, Suetonius? A river accident? A suicide? A murder? Or some other phenomenon?"

Vestinus, Macedo, and Geta looked to the biographer.

"All four, my good Clarus," he responded. "At heart Caesar wants us to identify why his companion died, not simply merely how or by what method. Why is more demanding than how, is it not? Of course the who will be an important facet of the why, agreed?"

The five nodded affirmatively at Suetonius, but with expressions of uncertainty.

"And Macedo might do us the favor of delivering to us the fishermen who discovered the body of the Bithynian. Preferably undamaged, all in one piece, please Lucius. Their testimony might be of greater use that way."

Tribune Macedo grimaced weakly, saluted the group in his brisk military fashion, and they entered the reception chamber where the other members of the Court patiently awaited Hadrian's pleasure.

But Suetonius still had Geta the Dacian on his mind. Geta was something of a mystery to him, despite his role at Hadrian's side over many years.

The Special Inspector recalled how ten years earlier he had reason to take testimony from a commander of cavalry in the Balkans – the Roman officer Tiberius Claudius Maximus – who knew a great deal about Geta's early years.

This officer who, in Trajan's campaign against the murderous Decebelus, king of Dacia, fifteen years even earlier, had been an explorator of cavalry auxiliaries, was obliged to provide an archive record of how Geta had been captured. During that Dacian campaign, Maximus had witnessed the Decebelus's death. He then delivered the king's son as a war hostage into Rome's protection under Hadrian's personal aegis.

Tiberius Claudius Maximus's recollections were a dark tale which conveyed a great deal about the character of the young Dacian. It was a chilling story which had remained in Suetonius's memory ever since.

Those events of twenty-five years ago now returned to haunt him.