A tall woman, soft and rounded, with a gentle face, Faustina was a little heavy around the hips. The finest cosmetic artists of the Roman Empire strove to make her more beautiful, yet after each public occasion she washed the makeup off her face as soon as she could.
In the luxurious Roman mansion she called home, she enjoyed raising her three girls and two boys. However, its rooms, like her heart, often felt empty, because her husband was so seldom home.
She well knew that the vital importance of his duties far outweighed his duty to her, but she missed him.
Although her outward demeanor was calm and steady, her emotions roared within her like strong winds through a labyrinth.
In her large studio-library, on a sweltering afternoon, she wiped the sweat from her face with a silk scarf as she unhappily regarded the Senator who stood ignoring her as he looked at himself in a mirror.
Senator Tullius was shorter than her. His face was handsome, yet it always seemed to Faustina to be too big for his head. Watching him inspect his grey curls while he pinched a bump on his cheek between thumb and forefinger, she thought about the rumor that he’d had his nose broken and reset to make it look less like a hatchet.
“Don’t you ever sweat?” she asked him.
“No, I do not. I’m leaving now, Faustina. This mirror of yours needs cleaning. Keep me in your thoughts.”
She laughed bitterly. “Would that I could avoid thinking of you.”
“Whatever opinion you may have of me, Faustina, you must allow me to take care of you, to protect you and the twin boys.”
Anger welled up in her throat. “You have no right to speak to me as if you were my husband.”
“And am I not, in a way?”
Marcus’ voice burst into the room. “I thought I smelled Tullius!” he exclaimed cheerfully, bounding through the door.
Faustina froze in fear that her husband had heard her conversation with this oily little man. She felt her voice shake as she tried for a light tone: “The Senator always smells that way.”
“The same peppermint oil which makes him wealthy makes him smell good too. What more could a man hope for?”
That aroma is much more familiar to me than I’d like, she thought bleakly.
“Princeps Juventutis,” intoned Tullius, addressing Marcus, using the traditional titles for an Emperor-to-be, “Imperator Destinatus, be assured that your wife has me well in hand.”
“Senator!” he grinned. “I always tell her that she must do so.”
Faustina blanched. How she wished she really did have the Senator under her control.
Marcus allowed his lanky frame to tumble into an upholstered chair. Noting his easy, lazy demeanor, Faustina realized that few people had an inkling of what an intelligent and focused man he was.
He asked Tullius, “You love those titles that you call me, don’t you? Prince of Youth? Well, I’m hardly a youth any more.”
“You have a right to the title. It’s traditional. So is ‘Destined to be Emperor.’”
“I could care less about titles, Tullius. My attention is totally focused on taking care of an Empire under siege. Nonetheless, I appreciate your efforts to honor – what? I suppose it’s my office-to-be. Yet when I take the throne officially, my duties are hardly going to change very much. I shall still be at the battlefront. So when do you think my brother Severus Valerius is going to join me there?”
“As I told you, I’ve made progress with him. We shall see. I must go.” As Tullius strutted toward the doorway, Marcus said “Vale, Senator.”
“Vale, Marcus Aurelius.” He backed out the door with a flourish.
Faustina exhaled with relief, then turned to her husband. She was angry. He didn’t even know how much she was in the grip of Tullius. How fervently she wished he had prevented it! Yet she couldn’t even speak to him of it directly. She was too ashamed.
“Marcus, you must arrange to be home more often. I really need you here.”
“I’d love to, Faustina, yet these constant affairs of state won’t allow it. There are awful matters I have to deal with. Forkbeards who are ready to overrun us and take all we have. Our boys – how are they? They look well enough.”
“You’re not here often enough to know. As usual, Titus is sickly, Commodus is strong.”
“Titus must take after me. The poor sprout. Make sure everything possible is done for him. And have them ready to go riding in the morning.”
“Tomorrow? But you’re leaving tomorrow afternoon. Why not be with them today?”
“Today it’s the Council of the Treasury and the Council of the Granaries. Also Tarquin’s Council.”
“Too busy to raise your boys properly, yet not too busy for meeting after meeting. And Tarquin’s Council! Marcus, I can’t believe that you’re meeting with those vile men who dishonor King Tarquin by using his name.”
“I know, Faustina my dear. I have to keep reminding myself that all is directed by the divine logos that oversees everything. It may be a paradox, yet it’s my destiny to deal with dishonorable men and to treat myself and them with honor, for the good of Rome.”
“Marcus, you’re exasperating. You and your words. What a philosopher.”
“Faustina, you know me. We’ve been friends since I was fourteen and you were, what? Ten? I have to rely on you to keep things under control here when I can’t be with you and the boys. You also have to keep the Senators and the so-called great men in check. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you for that.”
“Marcus, the boys need you. And I miss your warmth. Your touch.”
“Please don’t. You know I love you. Just help me keep the peace in the Capitol when I’m not here. I’m always grateful for the way you manage all these competing men.”
She sighed. “I shall never fail my duty to you as the Emperor-to-be, Marcus. I just wish you could be more of a husband to me.”
After Marcus left the next evening – always too soon, she thought – she walked onto the balcony and looked out over the sprawling city with its teeming streets and sidewalks. Sweat dripped from her forehead and she didn’t bother to wipe it off. She could hear the boys arguing in the garden and felt sick at heart at how vulnerable they were. She couldn’t manage her husband, nor could she manage Tullius. Marcus had always been a law unto himself, and Tullius had her in thrall with the shameful information he held over her. Blackmailer!
Yet if she couldn’t control the two principal men in her life, there were other men that held sway in Rome, men that were not immune to her influence. She was, after all, the wife of the Emperor-in-waiting. She knew what men desired, and she knew she could control them by giving it to them and withholding it from them.
Whatever it took to make the Capitol a place that was safe for her husband and her children, she would do.