Caracalla strolled over to me, and looked over the edge. He spat. It vanished into the distance. He looked at me and smiled, or bared his teeth. I noticed his knuckles were badly bruised.
“No way down but to jump,” he said. “Or be thrown.”
“Or fly, sir,” I said, and regretted it at once.
“Indeed,” he said, and gave me a considering gaze. “But only if you are an eagle. Are you an eagle, little girl?”
I glanced back at the wheeling eagle. Eagles were the bird of Jupiter – the bird of the Emperor. They played the air like a skilled general playing the enemy, waiting for the perfect moment to strike their prey, with back-breaking force.
Just as I thought that, the eagle, seeming to read my mind, swooped and vanished into the shadows. I winced, even though I did not see the victim. No, I was certainly no eagle.
“No, sir,” I murmured, and wanted to add, but didn’t: I will be lucky if I get out of here without being a roast chicken.
I turned back to where my father, Julia Domna and the Emperor were conversing. My mother stood a little back, her eyes modestly cast down. I remembered what I had heard of Julia Domna: that she was from a family of immense wealth in distant Syria, priests of Heliogabalus, a god of the sun. She was as tall as the Emperor and I thought they looked at each other with respect.
The Emperor was talking about Britain. I had heard of Britain. It was the last province, a cold island at the end of the Empire. It had some wealth, but it was full of warring, uncivilised tribes with ugly sounding names.
“The Caledonians and the Maetae have overwhelmed the Antonine Wall,” the Emperor was saying. “Well, we can’t allow this – the borders of the Empire must be secured. The army in Britain want support, and my sons are ready for a campaign, to prove themselves as leaders of men.”
He looked sharply at Caracalla as he said this. Caracalla smiled, but it did not reach his eyes.
My father nodded politely.
“But my health is not good, so of course, I thought of you as a personal physician. At least I know you will not poison me, eh, Quintus?” He laughed. My father laughed too, although I was not sure how funny anyone found it.
“I can assure you—” my father began, but the Emperor waved him silent.
“Don’t assure me, Quintus, I despise broken promises.” The Emperor laughed again, but this time no one else did. “Simply use your genius to keep me in good health, and you will find it worth your while. We were boys together. You have no son. You have a daughter whom I have no objection to settling well – even if a senator’s son is a high prize for a doctor’s daughter.”
I froze as all attention turned to me.
“And so we will be departing as soon as the gods allow,” the Emperor went on. “You may first conclude the marriage. I have arranged for her and Publius to meet at his house. One should always meet before one is married.”
“Departing?” my father said.
“For Britain. As my personal physician, I will need you by my side throughout the campaign against the Caledonians.”
I had always admired my father. I admired his wisdom, his clever mind and surgeon’s fingers. Sometimes his cures seemed almost magical. But I never admired him more than at that moment, when he pulled hope out of his worst disappointment. He had finally, after years of scheming and string-pulling, arrived at the one place in the world that he wanted to be – Rome. When the Emperor said he was to go at once to Britain his expression broke, like a reflection in a still pool when a stone is thrown into it. But he only lost control for a second. Then he pulled himself together, drew himself up tall and behaved as if nothing could please him more than to go to the freezing, bleak barbarian land that made Leptis Magna look as magnificent as Rome.
“I shall be honoured to serve my emperor, even to the very ends of the Empire,” he said, and bowed.
“We are glad to hear it, are we not?” The Emperor glanced at his sons.
“Very glad,” Geta said.
Caracalla just smiled. However, as we prepared to leave the garden, he said lazily: “Hey, doctor – what would you advise for this little bruise of mine?”
He raised his clenched fist up to my father’s face, so fast that my father flinched back. It was the fist with the bruised knuckles I had noticed before.
My father recovered quickly. Putting on his professional manner in a way that terrified me but also made me proud, he coolly took Caracalla’s hand and turned it back and forth, observing it as if it were no more than anyone else’s hand. There was a short silence.
“I advise, my lord, that you stop hitting your slaves,” my father said quietly, releasing Caracalla’s hand. “All the philosophers are against mindless violence.”
There was a horrifying pause in which I felt as if my entire stomach had plummeted to the Circus Maximus below and been trampled on by maddened horses. Then the Emperor burst out into a roar of approving laughter.
“Very good, Quintus, very good!” he said, slapping my father on the
