After Aemilia had left us alone in the bedroom we were to share, my mother removed her veil and shook the creases from it with surprising viciousness.
“Lucius and Aemilia are very kind,” I ventured.
“A pity they did not show us some of this kindness when your father was banished,” my mother replied. I was startled. It was the first time that I had ever heard her speak about that time.
“They did not protect us then. No one in Rome did,” she added, then shut her lips tightly, as if she felt she had spoken too much.
“I thought you left Rome because of the troubles the year I was born?”
“No, your father was sent away before that. Some of the other doctors were jealous of his skill. They spoke ill of him to the Emperor Commodus. We were lucky he was not executed.” She sighed. “Rome is a dangerous place.”
We got ready for the night in silence. My mother unpacked our household gods and we said a quick prayer to them. It made me feel more at home, as if things were normal, and I decided I would do this every single night that I was away from home. Then I remembered that I would not be going home. If I married Publius, I would be staying in Rome. That thought sank like a heavy stone into my heart and lay there.
I lay awake. The room was the perfect temperature and the sheets a finer cotton than any we had ever slept on before. But it was hard to get used to the cooler air, and I ran over and over what my mother had said, trying to understand it. No one could stand up to imperial power, that was clear, so was it really fair to blame my father’s friends for not defending him against the old emperor? Now Septimius Severus was emperor and we were in favour. There was really nothing to worry about – was there?
“We must be careful,” my mother said aloud, into the darkness.
I turned over to face her. I could see only the outline of her face. The moonlight that came through the small window made everything look black and white.
“Why?”
“The Emperor’s sons have a. . . bad reputation. They say Caracalla is like a wild beast. First he had his poor young wife, Plautilla, sent into exile. Then he had her father murdered. Plautianus was a powerful man, and he was the Emperor’s friend from childhood, just as your father was. But Caracalla still had him put to death.”
Plautianus. I remembered the headless carved figure on the arch that I had pointed out. The head had been sheared off as if with an executioner’s axe. It seemed that if the Emperor wanted you dead, he did not just kill you – he killed all memory of you, too. No matter how powerful you might have been, he blasted you out of existence.
“But the Emperor will protect us, won’t he?” I was wide awake now.
“I hope so. . .” She sighed. “I should not trouble you with this. Forget I said it. Your father has all the hopes – that leaves me with all the fears.”
It was the first time, I realised, that I could remember her saying anything to me that was not either a reproof or an instruction. It was the first time she had spoken to me as an adult and an equal, rather than a child. And even though what she had said was worrying, the heavy stone in my heart lightened a little. Perhaps being a married woman in Rome would not be so bad after all – not if my family stayed close to me.
We woke early, and were soon on our way to Rome. I looked back at the villa, feeling sorry to have to leave it so soon. It was so comfortable that even though Aemilia and Lucius might be untrustworthy, it was impossible not to feel as if you could stay there forever. Everyone seemed happy. My father had once told me to look at the slaves to judge the worth of a place. “If the slaves seem happy,” he had said to me, “you can be sure that the household is a happy one.”
And then I thought of Nurse again. She had seemed happy, but she had still run away.
7.
The Greatest City in the World
We found Rome guarded by the dead. Tombs lined the roads that led into the city. Beggars ran alongside us or called from the tombs, where some of them seemed to live. I was shocked. There were poor people in Leptis Magna too, of course, but I had never seen so many diseased, so many starving, so many without limbs. We quickly ran out of small coins to give to them, and my father was in professional paradise.
“Look at that dislocation!” he exclaimed, peering out of the carriage. “I would have to spend years before I saw one of that kind in Leptis, and here I have seen three in the course of an hour! And look – terminal stage elephantiasis! What a place this is for a physician! There is nowhere like Rome!”
My mother and I exchanged a despairing glance, and she opened her travelling box to find some food to give to a dreadfully thin child who was reaching a pitiful little hand up to our carriage. My father was greedily following a clubfoot with his gaze. I sat, feeling miserable and not knowing where to look. It all seemed so sad, so dirty and poor. Where was the glorious Rome we had heard so much about?
As the streets grew narrower and the houses taller, I began to feel terrified simply by the city’s sheer size. By now, we would have reached the centre of Leptis Magna. And there were crowds everywhere – the roads were choked with carts and people walking and riders and soldiers. So many people!
