JUSTA GRATA HONORIA yawned and stretched, pushing the crumpled bedsheets away from her naked body. The sunlight of an early spring morning streamed into her bedroom from one of the tall windows. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the angle at which it entered changed and the beams made their way across the room until now, when they beat down onto her face. This meant that it was still morning, but only just.
The sunbeams probed her closed eyelids. Honoria opened them then immediately squeezed them shut again as the sunshine stirred the wine fumes lingering in her head to create stabs of pain that shot through her temples. Further sleep was impossible.
Not for the first time she made a silent resolution to have the bed moved.
She looked around. A wine jug lay on its side on a table beside the bed, the last of its contents dried to deep purple on the white stone tiles that covered the top. Another jug stood empty beside it. A couple of silver goblets were on the floor. The tabletop and the bedsheets were strewn with crumbs, the bones of chicken and a few squashed grapes.
Honoria sat up, letting the sheets fall away from her naked breasts, unconcerned that a young man lay in the bed beside her. He too was naked. He was perhaps nineteen or twenty, she could not remember. Handsome, short, and with a neatly trimmed beard and fashionable haircut. His sculpted and shaved muscular body told of regular visits to the gymnasium rather than hard toil in the fields.
Honoria allowed herself a smile of self-congratulation. She was at least ten years older than him. In Roman society, to be a woman of standing still unmarried at thirty-one made her practically an ancient spinster, to remain forever unwed. Even though she had not lost her looks, unlike many of her contemporaries, it was still an accomplishment that she could seduce a good-looking young man.
And slept on he did, even though the sunlight that had woken her also glared right into his face. This did not surprise Honoria. She doubted much got through that thick forehead of his. Marcus was not the brightest man of his age in Ravenna. He was very dull company. She had to drink herself silly to get down to his level and create some sort of rapport.
Then again, she thought, as a stab of bitterness turned her smile to a sneer, it may not just have been her looks and seductive wiles that had enticed this fellow into her bed. He was rich, son of one of the honestiores class. He was on the brink of a career in politics or the Army and looking for the fastest way to climb the steps of the Cursus Honorum. Even a man with his limited intelligence would know that sleeping with the sister of the Emperor of Rome could open all sorts of doors for a young, ambitious fellow like him.
While she enjoyed – indeed made the most of – the relative freedom that came from remaining unmarried, it was not from choice. Honoria had had many eligible suitors in her younger days. They had all disappeared when her brother had decreed that none of his sisters were to be married. It took levels of paranoia close to, and indeed sometimes slipping into, madness to survive at the top levels of Roman society, where everyone was your rival and the person you thought your best friend very probably had a knife for your back hidden in his toga. Marriage to a sister of the Emperor could provide legitimacy for a usurper’s claim to the Purple, so Valentinian, ever wary of possible rebellion, had forbidden it.
Honoria could have understood that – just about – but her brother had gone further and insisted she and her half-sisters also remain celibate. That had proved too much. She had had several affairs since her brother’s decree. With the others, she had done it more to spite her brother than to satisfy any urges of her own, but as the number of men willing to risk the danger of disobeying the Emperor just to be in her bed diminished, it was getting harder. She had begun to wonder, with a certain degree of dread, what the future held for her. Was she to become a dried-up old woman, clinging desperately to anyone from who she could secure shelter?
As if in answer to her thoughts, a loud crash came from downstairs, followed by the sound of angry voices and the frightened screams of the servants. Honoria stood up, wrapping herself in the bedsheets. The sound of running footsteps was already coming up the stairs.
‘Marcus!’ She turned, bent and shook the sleeping young man. ‘Marcus, wake up. You have to get out of here!’
Marcus awoke, his usual confused expression even more bewildered now.
‘What is it?’ he just had time to say before the sound of fists hammering on Honoria’s bedroom door began.
Honoria’s stomach lurched. She had no idea who was outside, but it could not be good. She had either been betrayed, or her brother was being overthrown and his usurper was rounding up the rest of the Imperial family. Either could well mean her death.
‘The door is locked,’ she said. ‘I will stall them. Get your clothes and climb out of the window.’
‘Yes.’ His sallow skin had turned pale.
He had only managed to sit up when the door was smashed open in a crash of splintering wood. Four soldiers rushed in. They wore the black cloaks with black and red insignia of the Emperor’s personal bodyguards from the Palitini field army.
Honoria saw the smirks on their faces as they rushed across the room, swords drawn, and hauled Marcus out of the bed. He started to resist but one of the soldiers dealt him a blow with his sword hilt, smashing the young man’s nose and spraying blood and snot over the white bedsheets.
Two more soldiers came into the room, kicking the splintered remains of the door off their hinges on their way through. Honoria faced them, clasping the bedsheets more tightly to her chest.
‘How dare you break in here?’ she shouted, doing her best to channel her mounting dread into righteous anger. ‘I am the sister of the Emperor!’
The continued smirks of the soldiers told her this threat bore no weight to these men.
‘If only that were not true, Honoria.’
A new voice came from the doorway. A man of around thirty entered the room. He had the same wide eyes as Honoria. His black hair was cut short and curled along his forehead. He wore a metal cuirass, burnished to gleam like gold over his bright white tunic.
It was her brother: Placidus Valentinian, Caesar Augustus and ruler of the Roman Empire in the West.
For a few moments there was silence in the room as the Emperor stood, hands on hips, surveying what lay before him. Despite the anger that boiled within her, Honoria’s fear deepened. She could see her brother was pale with anger. His mouth was clamped shut and the muscles of his jaw stood out.
‘So the rumours are correct,’ he said at length. His voice was like flint.
‘What do you want us to do with him, Imperator?’ one of the soldiers holding Marcus said. Honoria saw the tendons of his sword arm ripple.
Valentinian made a gesture with his head. The soldiers dragged the naked young man across the room to him.
‘On your knees, dog,’ one of them said as they forced Marcus into a kneeling position.
Marcus hung his head. It was clear he had no illusions about how much trouble he was in.
‘Who are you, boy?’ Valentinian said in a harsh bark. ‘Speak while you still have a tongue in your head.’
‘I am Marcus Antonius Falco, Caesar,’ the naked young man said.
Valentinian nodded.
‘You come from a noble family, boy. One with a long history of service to Rome,’ he said. ‘But tell me something. What makes you think you are noble enough to sleep with the sister of the Emperor?’
His voice rose until it was a strangled shout. The young man flinched.
‘It was not my fault!’ Marcus said. His voice cracked into sobs. ‘She seduced me, lord! I think she must have used a love potion or other magic. I did not know my own mind.’
‘You despicable little shit!’ Honoria said. ‘You knew exactly what you were doing. And you had no problem accepting that comfortable commission in the Army I secured for you.’
‘Silence, Honoria,’ Valentinian said. ‘Both of you are to blame. Both have disobeyed my explicit command.’
‘Please, lord, don’t kill me,’ Marcus was openly crying now. For the first time he looked up at the Emperor. Tears mingled with the blood from his shattered nose. Drool dripped from his lower lip. ‘I am sorry for what I did. I did not mean to disobey you!’
‘Pull yourself together,’ the Emperor said, his face a mask of contempt. ‘You may be from a good family but that doesn’t mean you are worth killing. Take him away.’
Two of the soldiers hauled and shoved the broken Marcus out of the doorway. The clatter of them dragging him down the stairs followed.
‘What will you do with him?’ Honoria said, fear making her own voice crack a little.
‘Do you think I want the world knowing that my sister is a whore?’ Valentinian said. ‘He must be got rid of.’
‘You said he was not worth killing,’ Honoria said.
‘By me, yes. That would make me look petty. Or worse: a tyrant. You said you had acquired a commission for him in the Army? Good. That means I will find him a suitable posting as far away from here as possible. Somewhere where no gossiping tongues from Ravenna can reach him. Somewhere very far away and very dangerous. An outpost fort in Mauretania, perhaps. One at risk of being overrun by barbarian savages and with not enough men to defend it properly…’
‘And me?’ Honoria said. ‘Am I to be banished too?’
‘Banished?’ Valentinian was indignant. ‘You should be beheaded for treason. You disobeyed my direct command!’
‘An unjust command, Valentinian,’ Honoria said. She could feel her own tears now running down her cheeks. ‘How could you expect me to obey it?’
‘Is it unjust that I should ask my sister to not make a whore of herself?’ The Emperor’s voice was rising to a squeak again. ‘What’s worse is that you thought you could get away with it. Did you not think I would have spies within your household?’
‘You trust me so little?’ Honoria’s fear was turning to anger once again.
‘Grow up, sister,’ Valentinian said. ‘An Emperor must always be vigilant. It is through those closest to him treachery will gain its foothold. And was I not right to have you watched?’
‘Who betrayed me?’ Honoria said, thinking about the members of her household, wondering which one had been watching her all along, reporting her every move to her brother.
Valentinian shook his head.
‘So I am to be killed?’ Honoria said.
‘No,’ her brother said, though he spoke through clenched teeth as if muttering the word was a strain to him. ‘I’ve discussed it with Mother. You’re to be married. That should stave off any scandal that might arise from your behaviour.’
Honoria’s head whirled with relief, but also rage that her mother and her brother had taken it upon themselves to decide her fate.
‘Who am I to be married to?’ she said.
‘Flavius Bassus Herculanus.’
Honoria let out a wail of despair. She slumped down onto the bed.
‘Bassus Herculanus! The senator? He’s twice my age!’
‘He’s very well respected,’ her brother said.
‘He’s boring!’ Honoria said. ‘He’s practically senile!’
‘Once you are married to a decent man like him,’ Valentinian said, folding his arms, ‘it will stop tongues wagging. Who would suspect the wife of such an upstanding member of the Senate to be up to no good?’
‘And what happened to your fear that traitors could use my marriage to usurp you?’ Honoria said.
‘Bassus is a good, reliable man,’ her brother said with a shrug. ‘He has neither the brains nor the ambition for betrayal. And at his age I can’t see you having any children.’
He smirked.
‘In fact, I can’t see him doing much at all in that area,’ he said. ‘So get used to the idea. Mother says it is the best way to proceed.’
‘You always do what Mother tells you to,’ Honoria said, her voice bitter. ‘She just wants everyone miserable like her.’
‘Mother is not miserable,’ Valentinian said. ‘She is the most powerful woman in the Empire. She lacks no comforts.’
‘She has not been happy since the end of her first marriage,’ Honoria said. ‘You know that! It’s her bitterness that she can never regain that happiness which drives her to make all our lives a misery.’
‘What do you mean?’ Valentinian said. ‘Our parents were happy together.’
‘No they weren’t, Valentinian,’ Honoria said. ‘Don’t you remember the constant shouting? The awkward silences? Our mother only ever loved her first husband and she’s yearned for those days ever since. Now she can’t bear to see me happy and must condemn me to a marriage every bit as miserable as her second one was.’
‘How can you spout such nonsense!’ said the Emperor. ‘Our mother was abducted by a barbarian. She was forced into marriage with him. You think she was happy? God saved her – saved Rome – by making the fruit of that union die before he was three.’
‘Leaving no one in your way to the Purple,’ Honoria said. ‘Mother speaks of her days among the barbarians with nothing but fondness.’
‘If you believe that you are like a foolish little girl,’ Valentinian said. ‘Mooning over dreams of the rugged barbarian king who will come and take you away from the family that knows best for you. Our mother was raped! Held hostage by the Visigoths. She was young and did not know her own mind, so when King Adolf told her she should marry him what else could she do?’
‘She was happy! I know she was,’ Honoria cried.
Her brother tutted and shook his head.
‘You’re marrying Bassus Herculanus and that’s all there is to it.’ Turning to the soldiers, he added, ‘We’re going. Leave enough men to guard the house, in case my sister gets any notions of running away.’
They began filing out of the room again. Two of the soldiers made no attempt to hide their blatant stares as they tried to take in as much of Honoria’s naked flesh as they could.
‘You should have killed me,’ Honoria screamed after them. ‘At least beheading would have been quick. Instead you condemn me to years of slow death!’
She threw herself onto the bed, great sobs wracking her body. Utter despair filled her heart. Death really was preferable. Marriage to Bassus would be worse than being in prison. It was a form of prison. As the wife of a senator she would be virtually imprisoned within his house: by the invisible walls polite society put up, with their expectations for how a noble family should behave. Her future was a dark one. Year after year, slowly losing her mind to boredom in the stuffy, judgemental household of that old man.
After a time her sobs lessened and she sat up, suddenly aware that someone was watching her. She looked around and saw that Julia, the old servant woman who looked after her bedchamber, was standing in the ruined doorway, an expression of sadness and pity on her face.
Honoria’s heart softened and she smiled through her tears. Julia was her oldest and most faithful servant and knew more about her than anyone in the world.
‘Oh, Julia,’ Honoria said with a sad smile. ‘What’s to become of us?’
‘You should not have said such things about your mother, mistress,’ the old woman said. ‘It’s true, perhaps that she was happy when she was with Adolf of the Visigoths but she is Roman through and through. She only wants the best for you. It was she who talked your brother out of having you executed when he found out you disobeyed him.’
‘She did?’ Honoria said. ‘How do you—’
She stopped, eyes narrowing. How could the old woman know that? Surely Julia, her oldest and most trusted companion, could not be the spy her brother had mentioned?
Then again, she was perfect for the task…
‘Leave me,’ Honoria said, her voice cold.
The old servant hesitated, then disappeared from the doorway.
Honoria got up and crossed to her dressing table, which stood on the other side of the bedroom. She knew that if she wanted to escape the living death of marriage to Bassus she had to get away from Ravenna and the Roman Empire entirely. While she remained, there were too many prying eyes and her brother was all-powerful.
With new resolve in her heart Honoria took off one of her rings. She took a piece of parchment from a drawer in the table and began to write on it.
If her mother had found happiness with a barbarian king then why could not she? All she needed to do was find someone trustworthy who could deliver this letter for her…