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
