21.

Emperor’s End

Standing there on the rubbish heap in Eboracum, a thousand thoughts swirled around my head. I knew in my heart that Avitoria had poisoned Theodora. I also knew the punishment for slaves who killed their owner: every slave in the household would be put to death. The girls who were hoping for their freedom tonight would be executed instead, though they had committed no crime.

For the Roman philosophers, there was no question of the right action. I should tell at once. But I was not a Roman philosopher. I was only a girl from the provinces.

I could not do it. I could not tell what I knew.

Yet I knew it was my duty to.

I still had not decided when I stepped down from the rubbish heap, the cosmetic pot clutched in my hand. In the light of dawn, I found myself facing Avitoria. Her eyes went to the glinting pot in my hand. I saw her expression shift. Did she guess what I knew? Should I confront her? I was still so stunned by what I had discovered that I doubted myself. Perhaps I was wrong.

So it was Avitoria who spoke first – and changed everything.

“You have to go,” she blurted out. I saw now that she had tears streaking her face.

“Go, where?” I said blankly.

“Anywhere, away from here!”

“I don’t understand,” I began. “Where is Arcturus?”

“Oh, I didn’t wait for him. I just ran! The Emperor is dead, and Caracalla is killing everyone who was his friend,” she said.

“What? Where is my father?” I gasped.

She hesitated.

“Your father had to escape. He says he will meet you outside the walls of Eboracum. He spoke of a healing spring, east of here. The waters there are sacred to Sulis. He says he will meet you there.”

Then Avitoria was pulling me away from the house. It did not cross my mind to disbelieve her – there was truth in her voice and I knew in my heart it was exactly what Caracalla would do. He hungered like a wolf for power, and once he had it, he would destroy everything that might challenge that power. Geta would be lucky to survive the night, I knew – it would depend on if his mother could protect him. The palace was gone, lost to me. It had vanished like a dream. This was what my dream had foretold: not my death, but the death of Leptis Magna’s most powerful son, the Emperor Septimius Severus.

Avitoria pushed me out into the street, and we went stumbling together, hand in hand, along it. The snow had all turned to dirty water now, and ran along the gutters, down towards the drains. The sun was rising. Soon there would be nowhere for me to hide. My only hope now was to meet my father. We would be penniless, beggars in a foreign land, but at least we would be alive. I stopped as I saw the gates and the guards in front of them.

“How do I get out of the city?” I said, in panic.

“You can cross the river,” Avitoria said.

I realised she was right. In many places there were no walls, there was just the river. There had been laws against building fortified cities, in case they were occupied by enemies who held them against the Empire. Now the enemy was the Empire, I realised. Gaps between emperors loomed like chasms for the ordinary people like us. They were dangerous times.

I could hear cries and clashing swords in the distance. There was confusion, and people were shouting. Some were shouting for Caracalla, others for Geta.

“Go now,” Avitoria hissed at me. “While they are all distracted.”

She took her own cloak from her shoulders, and pushed it into my hands. It was thick, rough, heavy wool.

“You’ll need it more than me. Go!” She squeezed me into a brief, hard hug, then pushed me away.

I knew I had no time to say anything else to her. I ran. I ducked down beside a cart that had stopped by the river, and dropped down to the riverbank. It was muddy and clammy and cold as a frog’s back.

I remembered, then, how I had tried to swim from the shipwreck. My clothes had dragged me down. I tucked my skirts up and stepped into the river, keeping to the shadows. The shock of the cold was like a sword’s blow to my legs. I had to bite my lip to stop myself shouting out. Then I waded out into the water, pushing ice away with my hands.

My legs ached with pain. I could not stop myself shivering and my teeth chattering. I thought I would die of the cold, but I kept wading, and finally, I pulled myself out onto the bank. My legs were like red lumps of marble. I forced myself to rub some blood back into my legs, though all I wanted was to lie down and sleep forever. Then I began walking, clumsily at first, and finally, as my aching legs woke up, running.

I did not take the road. I knew that if anyone came searching for me, it would be the roads they would search first. Instead, I pushed through undergrowth, flinching at every noise for terror I would wake a wild beast. I did not dare to go too far from the road in case I was lost in the marshes.

That night I spent huddled under a bush, drifting in and out of sleep. If it had not been for Avitoria’s cloak, I think I would have frozen to death. When I woke, I peered out onto the road. Day was dawning and there was no sound of violence from the city. No one seemed to be coming after me, but nor could I see my father.

With no idea what I should do next, I began walking again – away from the city, north, hoping to find the spring. I kept imagining that I heard hoofbeats following me, racing soldiers. I was so frightened that I left the road again, and headed out into the countryside. My legs were humming with exhaustion and I felt light-headed. Snow began to fall again, first lightly and then more and more. The world whirled white ahead of me. I could see nothing, my eyelashes clogged up with ice.

As I stumbled through the snow, I seemed to dream that my mother was walking next to me. I knew it was just a dream, but I let myself enjoy it all the same. I closed my eyes and heard the swish of her dress, the sound of her voice, the distant pleasant home-like sounds of Leptis Magna—

My eyes flew open and I just caught myself as I fell forward. I had been walking in my sleep and I seemed to have climbed a hill. Night was falling and I had caught myself just before I fell face-forward into the snow. I sat down and went to clutch my knees with bruised fingers. That was when I realised I was still holding the snake pot. I knotted it into a corner of the cloak.

I could see far from here. It looked as if the sun was rising in the distance, but I realised that was impossible, for it was setting in the west. I stared at the red light below me, staining the low cloud like blood. It was not the sun. It was a funeral pyre. Soldiers surrounded it, their armour glinting. Golden eagle standards blazed against the bone-fire flames, and the fire cast monstrous shadows onto the snow. Swords clashed on shields, and voices roared. The fire crumpled into ash, and collapsed, like Troy falling into destruction.

As I watched, an eagle circled the burning funeral pyre three times, then lifted into the sky, bathed in gold from the sunset.

“Farewell, Septimius Severus,” I whispered to myself. “Now you are a god.”