Emperor by Colin Thubron

Author:Colin Thubron [Thubron, Colin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
Published: 1978-07-04T04:00:00+00:00

Part Two

To Rome

I

The Empress Fausta to her cousin Marina.

Hostiglia, 14 September

We move through a ghostly country. The peasants have all fled and the land is covered in mist so that we cannot see more than half a mile ahead. This is the Po valley, which is famous for wheat and whose houses are the weirdest you ever saw, standing on piles. Livilla and I have opened both windows of our carriage, and stare out into whiteness. I confess it’s a little frightening. The flooded river moves in sickles of light over the plain. We see it dimly as we advance into the haze — slabs of grey sheen, and lagoons where half-drowned trees stand.

Two or three times a day Gaius rides by with his staff. The rest of the time we rely for news on the commander of my guard, a bloodless little man, very courteous. This news is all good. Aquileia has surrendered, Hostiglia has surrendered. Gaius says everyone surrenders to him except me. I ignore this jibe.

We’re travelling very light. The whole court retinue is much reduced. I left most of my servants and wardrobe behind at Verona, and was glad to shed my eunuchs, who were gossiping like turkeys. It’s interesting how little baggage one needs. In any case I have recently been affecting a stark simplicity of dress, since Livilla covers herself in jewels. She was very upset at our leaving so much behind. But she has now dyed her hair with a most flamboyant spumo, and is recovered. When she gazes out of the window she is not looking at scenery. No, I’m afraid she has a yearning for the Summoenium [prostitution] and flirts continually with my coarser officers. I think she literally pestered her poor, dear Cornelius to death.

So we continue south. Our carriage idles, to keep pace with the men. We go in the centre of the army among the court baggage, while behind us roll the siege engines: wall-borers and wild-asses and battering-rams all drawn by oxen. You’ve never seen such an array. The rattle of their wooden wheels is terrible over the paving-slabs and the oxen moan and bellow with the misery of it. But in front of us the cohorts move in an eerie silence. Their armour glimmers oddly in the haze. They are like a march of ghosts, but tall and savage ones, strong as trees.

Gaius and I spent last night together. He was overcome by a grim abstraction. He feels we’re marching into an intangible wall. The clouding of the Sun disquiets him even more than its presence. I don’t know how to help him, or what to say. He is brooding, too, over the death of Verinus, our best prefect, and asked me about the Christian doctrine of the resurrected body. But you know how ignorant I am about these things. What was it, Marina, do you know?

How I hate myself when I am with him sometimes! I find my patience sapping. The way he flails about among abstractions! One moment he fills me with awe, the next I am exasperated.

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