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The great river was a teeming mass of black under the stars, waters rolling in small, barely-seen dances, lapping at the sandy shores, caressing the papyrus reeds. Every night, the river repeated the same dances, the same waves, the same glinting reflections of lamps and soft splashes of paddles. Every night across millennia, older than the oldest cities, perhaps older than the oldest gods.
Sometimes, staring out at it, sleepless in the middle of the night, Julia wondered how it would feel to be eternal. To endure across so many generations, rising and falling as grand kingdoms were birthed along its shores, rising and falling as grand kingdoms crumbled to dust. She wondered if it would tell her, if she knelt down next to it and cupped its waters to her ear. If it would have anything at all to tell her, or whether she would be just another mortal asking the same inane questions.
Just another soul that would soon be forgotten to the currents of time.
Maybe if it spoke to her, it would tell her this: what a foolish mortal she was, to think that she could understand the secrets of eternity. Had the Emperor Nero not, mere years ago, sent a mission of his best Praetorians to find the source of the Nile? Had the mission not ended in dismal failure? If even an Emperor’s best failed, who was she to think she would succeed? All she was was a poet, a mere entertainer.
Or, maybe, if it spoke to her, it would tell her this: what a laughable mortal she was, to be sitting on the banks of the greatest river that ever was and ever would be, and call herself an empire. The seven hills of Rome were mere hills. The mare nostrum merely fed by the river. And they who wandered through only flesh and bone, so fragile, so eager for death.
This is what it would tell her: that she was in a room filled with luxury, pillows of softest silk, chairs handcrafted by the most skilled of artisans, lamps flickering with flames tendered by the purest oil. She bowls of gold filled with fresh, indulgent fruit. Glasses of wine and breads with a thousand subtleties. On her skin, she wore robes with colours of which her ancestors could only have dreamed. Jewels with which she could buy kingdoms.
She was in that room, and that room was in a necropolis. A city that scarcely deserved to be called a city anymore. Oh, Thebes! Home of pharaohs! A fishing village! Had this not been the grandest city in the world, once? The pride of Egypt? And what was it now, but inns built on top of empty ruins...
And yet, the Nile endured. And endured. And endured. And would endure, while they played at empire over the bodies of empires built over the bodies of empires.
It rather made a drunken jest about a half-written poem seem trivial. Didn’t it? “The Emperor likes your poems.”
And where was he? Had he graced their dinner with his presence? Had he bothered to share wine with them? Had he been there to listen to Julia’s first recital of a poem that she had crafted specifically to cheer him up, to distract him using his favourite rhyming forms, to... Julia stopped herself before she started ranting about him. He was, after all, a long-standing friend. A good friend. He... “How many times have I heard you call him a fool?”
Sabina – Empress of Rome, Augusta, family of Trajan Optimus, generous benefactor of citizens – dismissed Julia’s very valid point with a wave of her hand, entirely too nonchalant for a woman who called Hadrian much worse (much, much worse) than a fool with alarming regularity. “Rome is peaceful and prosperous under his guidance.”
Sometimes, Sabina infuriated her. Sometimes, Julia even thought that Sabina and Hadrian deserved each other. It was a thought she knew she’d regret soon. She always did. As, sometimes, she regretted her way with words. “He barely loves you. How can he not be a fool?”
For a deadly second, Sabina’s gaze hardened. But the second passed, and Sabina merely sighed. “Come here.” Merely gestured for Julia to approach, patiently, wearily, until Julia allowed herself to be drawn in by the Empress’s hand. By the way the Empress ran her fingers across Julia’s cheek. “The Emperor sees the genius behind your words. He adores your poetry. That alone disqualifies him from being a fool.”
By the way the lamplight reflected deep in the Empress’s eyes.
“And besides,” Sabina continued, moving her fingers to Julia’s lips, “I like your poetry. Would you call me a fool?”
Julia... couldn’t speak. For all that she played the poet, the words escaped her. Deserted her in barren treachery, as they always did whenever that look crept into Sabina’s eyes. Sabina had always had the loveliest eyes in the Empire. And the loveliest voice, the most perfect whisper, low and resonant into Julia’s most hidden bones. And... the most perfect fingers, still tracing across her lips, still lingering. Promising. It was all Julia could do to whisper, “Never.”
She was so easily distracted. So easily breathless. Her anger, so easily forgotten. The Empress tasted of honey. “Good.”
*
The sky above the waters had turned a royal shade of blue, the shade of a sun god caught in the haze of waking up. The layers of air above the ground shrouded the buildings of Thebes in a dusty purple, a grey embrace punctured by the shadows of the palm trees bending lazily in anticipation of light. The river itself had turned into a dark shade of glass, a perfect mirror content in its calmness.
A small raft made its way slowly up the river outside the inn. A local family, father, mother, a handful of young children huddled against each other in the short space unencumbered by jars and crates. A family of traders, perhaps. Perhaps a family on the move. As she waited for the rest of Hadrian’s party to finish waking, Julia watched the family. She couldn’t help but feel an odd pang at the fact that she would never know. She’d never even know their names.
For a brief moment, the mother’s eyes met hers.
And then the horn sounded. “Come on, you drowsy wretches,” the Emperor’s voice itself rang out, “Memnon is waiting!”
*
Less than an hour from the Nile, from the remnant village of Thebes, an old and ancient king sat on a desert throne. A king known throughout Rome, who all the patricians and all the tribunes chattered of seeing, all competing to draw up a grander itinerary through the hallowed lands of Egypt (there was, of course, always at least one who would take the occasion to loudly proclaim that there was no adventure in Egypt these days, that any Roman traveller worthy of the name would find themselves much better enriched by spending a month shivering in a tent under an endless downpour in Segontium... and always another who would insist that there was no reason to go to either, for what would either have that couldn’t already be found in Rome?). A king who Julia had witnessed both Hadrian and Sabina talk excitedly about seeing for weeks.
Julia was excited too. She had no reason to deny the fact – she loved travelling, she loved visiting each and every one of the ancient sites in the Empire, and she loved, loved the sheer awe that each inspired in her. There was no feeling comparable to standing next to artistry that was hundreds of years older than her and running her hand carefully across the stones, feeling every dedicated detail that still withstood the eroding breath of time.
She could only considered herself blessed beyond measure by the gods, to have had the chance to see so much.
And, this morning, the gods were blessing her once again. The party was, at last, in good spirits, none more so than the Emperor. Hadrian had woken earlier than all of them and had personally marched to every room to wake them with a rousing cheer. With the type of grin that Julia hadn’t seen on his face in weeks. For once, he had genuinely smiled at Sabina, and Sabina had genuinely smiled back. Even Livius, the one who had laughed at her poetry last night had welcomed Julia cordially, had sincerely agreed with her that it was good to finally see the Emperor excited.
It was good.
It was perfect.
“Julia!” Hadrian called out to her in the middle of their march towards the Colossi, dismissing in mid-sentence the local who had been paid a hefty sum to serve as their guide. “Tell us! Tell us the story!”
And she did.
Memon, King of the Aethiopians, was the son of the Goddess of Dawn and the Prince of Troy. After his birth, the Goddess took him to the ends of the world so that he could be raised by the Hesperides and taught the duty of care and the power of song in their golden orchards. He grew up to be a beloved king, renowned for his kindness and mercy, celebrated for his wisdom and humility.
When Troy fell under siege, Memnon responded to the city’s desperate cries for help. Raised an army from among his people and set march towards the battlefield. Before they reached the city, his army met that of Nestor’s, the aging Argonaut. The two armies clashed briefly, and both Memnon’s dearest friend, Aesop, and Nestor’s youngest son, Antilochos, were killed. In his grief, Nestor challenged Memnon to fight him personally, but Memnon, equally grieving, full of respect for Nestor’s great exploits, and unwilling to fight an elderly man more twice his age and already tired from the battle, declined. Enough blood had been spilled for one day, he had declared.
Thereafter, Memnon’s army continued towards Troy. Upon reaching the city, they threw themselves into the defence with resolute determination. They fought as boldly as they could, never once thinking of retreat. Then, in the heat of the battle, Menmon met Achilles. The two clashed swords immediately, and fought, evenly-matched, for hour after hour after hour, tireless, all the hopes of their men on their shoulders.
But all battles must end. As the night fell, Achilles finally overcame him. With a single thrust through the heart, Memnon fell, slain.
Upon hearing the news, and hearing of the care with which his armies had buried him and were standing guard by his tomb, the Goddess wept. She begged Zeus to bring back her son. Moved by her tears, Zeus granted Memnon what immortality he could. Every morning now, when the dawn rises over the Nile, the goddess embraces her son once again, and once again, he sings for her.
Every morning, he sings.
The party listened to Julia’s tale with rapt attention. The Emperor and the Empress especially so, both staring with intensely focused eyes. She enjoyed it. Immensely. Perhaps it was vain of her, but then she relished her vanity. Oh, the feeling of having an audience utterly in her sway...
“On the other hand,” but she knew it had to end. She had to break the spell and release her audience. She was not the Emperor, nor was she the Empress. Besides, they had reached the Colossi, and she could tell their guide was growing impatient. “I do hope that Jupiter does not try to make you sing every morning,” she addressed Hadrian directly, savouring the attention for one last moment before giving him a wink, “For your mother’s sake.”
Hadrian roared with laughter. The rest of the party laughed with him once they saw that he had taken the joke as good-natured (as she had intended – he was an old friend of hers, after all). Almost all of the party – she couldn’t help but notice that Livius only laughed one before stopping.
(And she couldn’t help but notice that Sabina laughed almost too loudly. When the laughter died down, Sabina gave her a look that made her shiver. She couldn’t tell whether it was a good shiver or a bad shiver.)
The story over, Julia deferred back to their guide, giving him a polite bow. “Quiet now!” He wasted no time in clapping his hands as loudly as he could. “Quiet! Memnon...” Tried to cast his own sway over the party, “Is ready to sing!”
The Colossi, those ancient statues of golden stone, were greater than Julia had imagined. Taller than five people on top of each other, the mountains rising behind them, they stared down at the Roman travellers. Stared down at the Emperor of Rome himself. And...
Stayed silent.
The party waited, but the Colossi stayed silent. The party waited and waited, but the Colossi stayed silent and stayed silent.
Silent.
After waiting and waiting and waiting some more, the party began to grow restless. The dawn turned into morning, and the sun rose high in the sky, chasing away the cooling breeze and bearing down with the weight of gods. But, the Colossi refused to sing.
Hadrian’s face slowly fell. Turned hard. Impassive. And Sabina... as impassive as she kept her own face, her disappointment was too great to not be evident.
*
All Roman emperors travelled, but none had travelled so far and wide as Hadrian. That was one of his attributes that Julia had appreciated from the moment her brother had first introduced her to him, and it was one that had them near-instant friends. He travelled as much as he could, and he saw the virtue in travelling.
In some ways, to be Roman was to travel. Rome was the greatest city the world had ever seen, undoubtedly, but their Empire was also the greatest. Their Empire held together lands of more types than anyone could count, cold and hot, wet and dry, mountains and valleys, islands and plains overflowing with life in all its forms, so many creatures who had to be seen to be believed.
And just as it held together, so held it together people. Including Julia’s – her grandfather, after all, had been King of the Commagene in Anatolia. She was, by blood, a princess. A Roman princess who wasn’t a princess of Rome. And being Roman meant that she had all the Empire to live in, all the Empire to see, and...
She was the princess of a kingdom that no longer existed.
And now, she stood in the middle of the necropolis of a kingdom that no longer existed. A kingdom that had been far, far grander than the tiny lands of the Commagene. Who had built a necropolis as large as the largest of the Commagene’s cities. Who’s kings had wielded wealth enough to buy all the riches of the Commagene, with armies larger than generations of Commagene combined, and...
Egypt was just as Roman as the Commagene.
Was just another Roman province.
Just a province.
Hadrian had wanted to travel through Egypt to attend the Opet Festival, to celebrate the flooding season and the fertility that it gave the land that fed Rome. The trip was also an occasion to visit Pelusium, where the great Pompey had been murdered by Ptolemy. To make a detour to Libya to indulge in some hunting, to stare down a lion in claw and fang. And after, of course, to ride the Nile.
The trip had started so well.
Until Hermopolis.
Until...
Julia had always had conflicted feelings about Antinous. It went without saying that the boy was beautiful, and that he had fed Hadrian’s love of obscure gods more than anyone else ever had (more than Julia ever had, even if she had always loved obscure gods). But it was also obvious that it had driven the wedge between Hadrian and Sabina even deeper. That it had turned a respectful sort of neglect into an utter neglect, of her and of everything else in the Empire. And in the weeks since Hermopolis, Hadrian had refused to read a single letter about the affairs of the Empire. Had refused to give even a single order, other than that the trip must continue.
She wondered if he now regretted the order
“Everyone dies!” The Emperor shouted at the depths in front of him. “Everyone!”
His voice echoed down the long, narrow passageway that led down into the tomb, and slowly faded. No answer returned to him. The hieroglyphs on the walls, blue and golden with hints of ochre, stayed silent. Neither birds nor cobras moved, nor the figures with open palms and half-profiled faces.
“I should have you razed too!” Hadrian’s voice was only louder at the insult. “Burned! Demolished! Buried!” As the insult continued, ever more insulting. “What is the use of a necropolis? What is the use of the dead? I am the Emperor, and I say that he will live! I order it! He will live like a god! Better than us! So...” He faltered. “He was so much better than us. He...”
Behind the Emperor, the party that had descended into the pharaoh’s tomb hung back with deeply uncertain glances. The outburst had begun suddenly, the disappointment of the dawn welling so quietly that none of them had dared to approach the Emperor. And now, none of them dared to approach the Emperor.
“I should have you razed,” Hadrian continued and continued, voice shaking between fury and tears. “Who would dare assassinate the Emperor’s beloved? I should have every actus of this land razed. Salted! Like Carthage! What is the use of Egypt? There is only Rome! We never needed the Nile! We...” Shaking. “Salted! Carthage! Carthage!”
Julia could hear, out of the very corner of her hearing, the slightest, hushed whispers. Sabina had four of the party, both renowned for their influence, around her in deep debate. Livius had two others with him on the other side of the passageway, in equally deep whispers. Both shot Hadrian glances between words.
The Emperor’s breath ran ragged. “Carthage!”
Finally, one member of their party dared to step forward. One of the most junior, the son of a brother to a senator, barely twenty, still recovering from the sunburn he had suffered in their first days in Egypt. Dared to extend a comforting hand towards the Emperor. “Caesar—“
“Don’t touch me!” Only the very tips of the junior’s fingers had the chance to brush the Emperor’s shoulder before the junior was shoved backwards. Before the Emperor roared, face red, teeth barred, with such ferocity that even the whispering conspirators took a step back. “How dare you touch me? You impudent, you bastard, traitor, thief, son-of-a-whore! I will have you killed! No, crucified! You and your family! Do you think I don’t know how your uncle spends his fortune? Do you think I don’t know how he plots against me?”
The junior tripped over himself as he scrambled backwards. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t—“
“Take him away!” The Emperor roared one more time before faltering again. “Just... take him away. Be done with him. Just... be done.” Before staring at his party with terrible, bloodshot eyes. “What is the use? I am the Emperor, and yet... I am Roman, and yet... Please, won’t someone tell me what is the use?”
*
“What happened next?” Livius swayed on his feet. Lifted his wine cup higher in an attempt to balance himself, to stop his own giggling from folding in him in half. “Well...” From crashing to the floor in a manner that would make the entire room explode with laughter even more uproarious than it had since the feast began. “What happened next was... was...”
He couldn’t stop himself.
The laughter was overwhelming.
Even Julia found herself laughing. True, she disliked Livius more often than not, but she did have to give some credit for his comedy. The man had a knack for it. And, apparently, a knack for getting some of the most pompous personalities in Rome into deeply embarrassing situations. This latest involved a senior senator, a notoriously seedy public bath, and, somehow, a barrel of fermented apples.
Hadrian didn’t laugh.
The Emperor hadn’t laughed at all. Since the start of the feast, he had reclined on his lectus, occasionally taking a sip of water, occasionally chewing slowly on a piece of bread, but never smiling. Nor frowning. Nor showing much emotion at all, his face remaining blank and featureless, even as the stories got raunchier and rowdier and all the more hilarious for it.
It was a problem. A big problem – the point of having a feast tonight had been to cheer him up. To try and distract him out of his melancholy. They had splurged on supplies and had badgered even the weariest of their party into attending. They had put on their finest robes. Their finest jewels and most luxurious perfumes.
Julia had already spent too much of the evening distracted by the Empress, by the glitter of the lamplight in her eyes, the deep purple of her robe allowed to fall loosely off her shoulders, the divine elegance of her bracelets, a simple gold that would have been plebian on anyone else, the shape of her lips as she tasted the pomegranates...
And yet... Hadrian remained impassive.
“What happened next,” Livius finally recovered. Steadied himself with another generous swig of wine. “Was that he—“
“Enough.” The Emperor had only spoken softly, but the whole room fell silent at once. The musicians stopped. The cups were lowered. Food already in mouths came to a half-chewed halt. “You are ridiculous, Livius.” It wasn’t meant as fond. “What is it you want from me?”
Livius’s face turned pale. “Caesar, I—“
“Politics!” The Emperor slammed his hand down against his lectus. The sound must have been heard in Rome. “You have harassed a grieving man for days. What is it you need me to sign? What decisions are you incapable of taking without me?”
Some of the colour returned to Livius’s face. Some in the party finally let out a breath. “Caesar,” Livius managed to compose himself, “It’s Dacia, again. The Taifali have increased the frequency of their raids, and our scouts have reported several bands of Rugii, unusually far south. We will need take action.”
Hadrian sighed. “And what action would you have us take?”
“Pacification.” Livius said the word as if it was the easiest thing in the world. As if it was self-evident. “The time has never been riper to push our borders further. Perhaps an alliance with the Rugii, or the Lemovii, and we could reach the Mare Suebicum. Not even Trajan made it that far.”
The suggestion was met with nods around the room. A few cheers of approval. Julia... didn’t cheer. Didn’t nod. Just... felt that same strange feeling she always felt when they discussed the borders. Something in her stomach, between a knot and knowing. A feeling that made her look anywhere in the room but at the Empress, who she knew would be looking nowhere but her.
But, the suggestion had merit. The Dacian province had been troublesome for as long as Julia could remember, prone to raiding and banditry that at times was more frightening than annoying. And an alliance with those northern barbarians could prove to be extremely prosperous. Not to mention the benefits to Hadrian’s – to one of her dearest friends’ – reputation. Or to mention the benefits the barbarians in those lands would reap – to become citizens would to have the whole world at their fingertips.
After all, if the Commagene had never been annexed to Rome, where would Julia be now? She’d be a princess, but a princess of what? A minor backwater in the middle of nowhere? She didn’t regret the annexation. She... couldn’t. Wouldn’t. In any case, it had happened long before her birth. There was no use in regretting.
She wouldn’t regret.
“You and your pacifications...” The Emperor shook his head at Livius. “Why are you bothering me with them again? You know my answer.”
Livius steeled himself. “But—“
“The answer is no.” The Emperor’s cheeks began flushing red. A sign that everyone in the party recognised. Or should have recognised. “I am trying to build an empire that will last a thousand years, and you would have me jeopardise our legions because of a handful of barbarian raids? For a few barren swamps? Do you wish to see me lost in the Forum calling out for Varus?”
Livius should have backed down. The first droplets of spit had met Hadrian’s beard. The veins in the Emperor’s forehead were beginning to poke up from under the curls of his hair. Livius needed to back down. “Caesar—“
“Enough!” It was Sabina, this time, who jumped to her feet. Who roared at Livius with a fury that matched Hadrian’s worst. “For the sake of the gods, enough! You know the Emperor’s answer Livius, so why must insist on pushing?” She threw him a withering glare before he could answer her rhetorical question. “Enough. Our feast is over. Tomorrow, we pay Memnon another visit at dawn, so to your beds.” A few of the party half-stood from their chairs. “Now!”
The feast ended suddenly, and with a whimper. The party shuffled out, some fleeing before the Augusta could shout at them some more. A handful grabbed one last handful of food, one last gulp of wine. A handful grabbed each other, suggestive hands that had no intention of sleeping. Livius made a point of huffing as he marched out. Hadrian... gave the Empress an odd look, which wasn’t meant to be seen by anyone else, as he left. A look that seemed... relieved.
Before Julia could accept the fact that she felt relieved too, the room had emptied. Only her and Sabina remained.
“What am I supposed to do?” Sabina slumped back into her lectus. “Livius is right. The Emperor is too conservative.”
Julia’s relief was short-lived before that feeling returned to her stomach. “Rome has never been more stable than it is now. Why risk that?”
“Because we have never been more stable.” A couple of slaves hurried around them to begin cleaning the room. “If we have accomplished so much already with less, think of what we could accomplish now!”
What Julia wanted to say was: think of what they could accomplish with peace. With an empire growing into maturity. Why did their only accomplishments have to be conquest? What would come next after the Tailfali? After the Mare Suebicum? What would they do once they had subsumed every sea in the world? What then? What Julia said instead was, with all the eloquence of a poet: “Why?”
Sabina frowned at her. “I know you to be more ambitious than that, Julia.”
“Recklessness is not ambition.” Gods, they were going to have an argument. Julia didn’t want an argument. Not now. Not with Sabina, of all people. She was tired, she was drunk, she wanted to lay down in Sabina’s arms and stroke her hands and delight her with short stanzas that made no sense at all until their laughter drove their breaths away and they could finally settle down and let sleep into their lungs. “I know when enough is enough.”
“And you believe that I don’t?” Sabina arched an eyebrow at her. Laughed before Julia could deny intent to insult. “You’d be right. I don’t.” Sabina laughed again. “Why should I? I’m the Empress of Rome! What is the point of being an empress of an empire that wishes to rest on its laurels? What’s the point of being an empress if all I can do is sit around and soothe my idiot husband from his self-inflicted wounds?”
Julia couldn’t stop herself from flinching as the Empress took her hands. “Sabina...”
“Imagine,” as the Empress’s eyes shone, “what we could do.”
Sabina could be ruthless. Sabina could be merciless. At times, terrifying. And Julia loved it, despite herself. There was no one else who had ever promised her greater things, who had ever inspired in her grander dreams. The only moments when Julia felt that nothing was impossible were those moments when Sabina looked at her.
“Hadrian listens to you more than he listens to me,” Sabina dropped her voice into a plea when Julia said nothing, “You could talk to him. You could—“
Julia had to close her eyes. Had to stop seeing Sabina. “No.” Had to open her eyes again and make herself sound more convincing than that. “Sabina, no. I won’t be used as a battlefield between my friend and my lover.”
The Empress looked at her with that plea for a second longer before sighing. “No. Of course not.” She brought Julia’s forehead to hers in a gesture of peace. A reminder of the fondness that existed between them. “I wish I...” She added a small, sad smile. “You’re a much better person than I am, Julia.”
*
You uttered a sound, Memnon, for part of you is seated here,
when the son of Latona struck you with his fiery rays
The verses weren’t terrible. Short, to the point, but not terrible. Titus Petronius Secundus had potential. It was a shame he had to have spent his time in Egypt being a prefect instead of being a poet. But, at the same time, there was something touching about his inscription – curante Tito Attio Musa, by the care of the prefect of the Second Cohort of Thebes. Two friends, standing together in the desert hearing the Colossi sing.
For Julia, they had yet to sing.
Perhaps it was a question of timing. Secundus claimed to have visited the Colossi the day before the Ides of March – that was months away. Or perhaps... It couldn’t be a matter of dynasty – Secundus had served under Domitian, the last of the Flavians who had so definitely annexed the Commagene and who had so successfully stabilised the Empire. Nor could be a matter of timing – Secundus had visited in the first hour of day, and the time right now was... the first hour of day.
So why wouldn’t they sing?
Julia had started circling the base of the Colossi in the hope that she might find some clue as to their silence. Very quickly, she had found herself utterly distracted by the inscriptions, desiring only to read them in their own right and read more of them. There were dozens! Covering decades! In Latin and in Greek! Men and women!
Dionysia’s worship. Many a time will she hear.
Dionysia had visited the Colossi mere years ago. Less than a decade! How many times had Memnon sung for her? Many? Her worship must have been devout, even among the pious. How had she worshipped? Or perhaps she was simply so beautiful that Memnon was driven to delight her (on the other hand, Julia could scarcely imagine anyone more beautiful than Sabina, and yet...). Who was she? Eight years ago wasn’t long, she could still be alive. Julia should find her. The stories she’d tell!
Memnon understood and did not speak at all.
But Celer then came back again to the place he had been,
after having spent two days elsewhere.
Arriving, he heard the voice of the god.
Who was this Celer, who claimed to be a strategos in the seventh year of Hadrian Caesar? It would not be difficult for someone in Julia’s position to find him. She already had a face in mind. Perhaps he held the answers to the Colossi’s silence – they must simply visit somewhere else for a couple of days (instead of just one day), and then return. Or perhaps, it was simply too late – Celer claimed he had not come to hear Memnon, but had visited by accident. Did Memnon curse those who came with nothing else in mind?
I saw and I wondered.
Maybe they were looking at the wrong thing. Of course, the Colossi would stay silent if the people in front of them were blinded by false sights. Who would want an audience that spent the show looking at the at the make of the poet’s sandal instead of at the poet’s art? Who, indeed (the thought made Julia recall some of her previous performances with no small measure of bitterness). But then... what were they supposed to be looking at? What were they missing?
Were they looking at the Colossi the wrong way?
The inscriptions continued by the dozen. Julia continued to circle around the Colossi, and circle, and circle. Some of the inscriptions were carved by steadier hands than others. Some bore no signature. Some were straightforward to a point (Julia would have to make sure she intercepted any stonecarvers Sabina sought to employ before they could reach the Colossi – as much as she loved the Empress and her many talents, her attempts at verse had always been... straightforward). Some went into detail about their travels down the Nile.
And some exclaimed joy in the singing of the Colossi. A joy that, the more she read the inscriptions, the more determined Julia became to find the way to make the Colossi sing. To cheer up Hadrian, for her own sake, and most of all, for the Empress. She wanted to see that joy on her face. Needed to see, and to wonder.
(There was also one inscription that made her stop, one from a man who wrote that his family could not be there to hear the singing. She stopped, she traced her fingers across the words as gently as she could, and she gave the gods a silent prayer for the man.)
“Careful.” Julia turned a corner of the Colossi and came face to face with Livius. The sweat gathered over the signs of a sunburn on his forehead. His pale blue eyes squinted in the desert light. Squinted at the sight of her. “If Memnon refuses to sing because you are disturbing him, the Emperor—“
“Memnon is a singer, Livius,” she shot back before he had the chance to finish his empty threat. Julia would have to do something far worse than bother the Colossi for Hadrian to punish her severely. She hoped. She had known him for long enough that she knew the rhythm of his anger, didn’t she? “And I am a poet. One artist will always recognise another.”
Livius had a nephew who dabbled in the musical arts. As had Livius himself, on occasion, in his youth. He couldn’t tell her that artists were, to quote one of the most stupendously boring members of the imperial entourage (who thankfully had ‘urgent business’ involving certain debts that prevented him from joining them in Egypt), insufferable.
Instead, to Julia’s amusement, he couldn’t open his mouth again without being interrupted. By Sabina, this time. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
He straightened himself at the sight of Empress without hesitation. Bowed, impeccably dutiful. “As you wish, Augusta.”
As he turned and marched away, Julia offered the Empress her best impression of the Empress telling him off and him stomping away. She wasn’t the best of actresses, but that only made the caricature more exaggerated and, therefore, funnier. Once they had both finished stifling their teenage giggles, Sabina beamed at Julia. “You’re in a good mood this morning.”
“Naturally.” How couldn’t she be? She was in a part of the Empire that was still new to her, with verses that were still new to her, with the promises of experiences that would be entirely new to her! Not to mention that Sabina was smiling at her. “Today cannot be worse than yesterday!”
And yet, Memnon refused to sing.
*
“When I say everything,” the silence that had clung to the party as they returned to the inn had shattered in moments on the shores of the Nile, “I mean everything!”
There wasn’t a soul in Thebes that couldn’t hear the Emperor shout.
That couldn’t feel the earth tremble with his rage. “Everything!”
The inn shivered with the force of the doors slamming behind Hadrian. The birds in the nearest trees fled. And the party... was left outside. In a silence that was quickly reimposing itself on them. With all their plans for the day cancelled, by direct, emphatic, and impossible to misinterpret order of Caesar.
*
When Hadrian flew into one of his rages, the best thing to do, perhaps the only thing to do, was to escape. He wasn’t a bad man – and certainly had more qualities than most, from his generosity, his excellent taste in arts, his restraint faced with the lust of Mars that affected all emperors – but his anger could be extreme like no one else’s. Particularly when mixed with one of his unpredictably sporadic bouts of melancholy. But the last few weeks... Julia had never seen such abject grief swirling with his fires.
Escaping was the only thing to do.
Besides, it was nice to escape from the party for a few hours. Nice, even, to have a moment away from the Empress, as much as she adored her. A moment just for herself, and her own peculiar strain of melancholy.
And the crowds of the Theban marketplace.
For a city that had been reduced to a mere fishing village, Thebes had a market that could rival any of the great Italian cities. Row after row of stalls, filled with more types of goods than Julia could count in enormous quantities. Vendors and travellers and browsers and urchins and militiamen bustling and jostling each other as they haggled and shouted and chased and devoured.
If Julia wanted, she could jewellery made of the finest Egyptian stones. She could buy textiles. Slaves. Artworks. Tents guaranteed to make it through the thickest sandstorms! She could buy authentically pharaonic jars (all the more authentic because half of the vendors in the same row were selling identical authentic jars). A sword that was left behind by none other than Julius Caesar, the very same sword he used to slay Cleopatra (they all knew the famous story of the famous swordfight, didn’t they?). She could hire a guide who swore to all the gods of all the peoples in the Empire that he knew a secret tomb that no one else had yet to discover!
And that was just the first couple of rows. There was more! Miniatures of the Colossi! Makeup in colours that would have thrilled the Colosseum! A cohort of dancers, perhaps, to make the evening truly unforgettable? A sketch of herself, comically exaggerated, drawn on papyrus that would last for generations (that one, Julia had to admit, was tempting – never let it be said that she couldn’t laugh at herself!)? What about food – a treat of special honey-roasted sparrow, found nowhere else in the Empire? Freshly picked dates? Secret family recipe palm juice? Only in Thebes, guaranteed!
Julia loved it.
“Fear the night.” The fourth stone carver Julia approached, and the first to tell her he originally hailed from Thebes, gestured dramatically as he told her the old stories. “For those are the hours of death. Men lose their sight and evil slithers across the earth between them. All those who die while Aten rests will be lost forever, vanished as if they had never been born.”
The stone carver, an old man who spoke and moved with a strength far younger than his age, had also been the first to tell her about the Colossi. To really tell her, not merely repeating the same trite statements that she already knew. And what he had to say was... that Memnon was not Memnon.
“It is said that Akhenaten enforced this law with such force that children would cry whenever a shadow passed over their heads,” the carver continued. Julia was enthralled by the stories. “If his father had seen what he had done in the name of Aten, he would have been horrified.”
His father, Memnon who wasn’t Memnon, but was instead Amenhotep. Amenhotep the Magnificent. And Akhenaten, his son, who had taken the god Aten that Amenhotep had cherished and turned it into a cult that waged a merciless war against his own kingdom’s traditions. A son who the stone carver only dared whisper about, glancing furtively between words to make sure no one was listening, such was the disgrace of his reign. Such was the power of the damnatio memoriae, even a millennia later.
The stone carver assured Julia that only a small handful remained in Egypt who still passed on the terrible story, all as old as him. That even the most learned scholars in Alexandria would not recognise the name, would tell her of a succession directly from Amenhotep to Tutankhamun. Perhaps Julia would have to try.
But, first, she would have to hire the stone carver. There were dozens of inscriptions already on the statue, and she was determined to add one of her own. Perhaps two, if Hadrian wished to commission one for himself (proposing the idea to him would raise his spirits, wouldn’t it?). Maybe even a third, if Sabina could convince her (and Julia would make sure that Sabina had to work to convince her).
Julia had already begun composing the lines in her mind. She’d talk about Thebes, the great city that deserved more than a village. She’d talk about the warmth of the sun. And the singing, of course the singing, that she knew she would hear tomorrow. That she had to hear tomorrow.
She had to.
It was strange, she told herself as she left the carver and plunged back into the bustling chaos of the marketplace, that she could have been so sure that the Colossi were Memnon. Why had she thought that? Because that was what everyone said? Because Memnon was king of the Aethiopians and this was the nearest she had ever been to Aethiopia? Why couldn’t she have imagined that this was Egypt and it would be an Egyptian statue?
Did she believe the stone carver’s stories?
The idea of a pharaoh who had been so utterly erased seemed absurd. As did the idea of a pharaoh so distinctly un-pharaonic. And to think that of a world where there was only one god... and a god who vanished at night... Absurd seemed like an understatement. She had no doubt that if she was to keep wandering around the market, she could find a dozen vendors a dozen new stories of a dozen new pharaohs.
Not to mention that the idea that a statue of a pharaoh deemed magnificent, in a kingdom that was the greatest of its time, could be so utterly forgotten...
How would she feel if she visited Samosata and saw a statue of her grandfather turned into a statue of a hero from the Punic Wars?
*
The sun passed over from rising to falling, the day from morning to afternoon. The time drew near that Julia needed to leave the market. She had seen every vendor, inspected every ware, purchased a handful of small indulgences, a handful of small gifts. It was the problem with escapes: they could only be ephemeral.
Ephemeral, and all too prone to being ended before their due.
Livius ran into her, or she ran into, whichever way they wanted to portion the blame, just as she was convincing herself to exit the marketplace. Blinked at her with a surprise that she hadn’t known he was capable of expressing. Eventually composed himself. “Julia.”
She hoped she hadn’t been blinking at him. “Livius.”
He blinked at her one more time, before asking with a sincerity that was even more surprising. “Have you enjoyed your shopping?”
“I have,” was all Julia intended to reply, before impulsively deciding that she could be sincere too. Or, at least polite. “I recommend the honey-roasted duck.”
He nodded. “Thank you for the recommendation.”
And she nodded back. “You’re welcome.”
They said nothing else. Stared at each other warily for a moment’s heartbeat before she stepped to the left to let him pass and he stepped to the left to let her pass. Before she stepped to the right and he stepped to the right. Before... Before Livius held up his hand. “Julia.” Before he looked at her wearily. “I did want to apologise for earlier. I had no intention of casting accusations towards you.”
Julia let her eyes close for a second. “I know you have the Emperor’s best intentions at heart.” At least Livius wasn’t that unbearable when he wasn’t drinking. Which made him even more unbearable because it meant she knew what he was hiding. “As I know that you consider me a bad influence over the Empress.”
He blinked at her once. “You’re wrong.” His mask of politeness began to drop, in the worst way possible. He could have said anything to her and could have said it with any other tone. Anything but plain matter-of-factness. “The Empress has far too strong a sense of duty to allow herself to be influenced by someone like you.”
The only thing Julia could do was scoff. She had to give him some reaction other than silence. “Hadrian listens to me.””
“He does,” Livius continued with the same plainness, “but only in matters of poetry. The truth is, I only consider you to be a bad influence over a single person: yourself.”
She... couldn’t scoff again. “What does that mean?”
“Tell me, Julia Balbilla, Princess of the Commagene,” he looked at her, and looked too deeply, “Are you truly proud to be Roman?”
*
The moment Julia reached the inn, she knew something was wrong. The crowd gathered outside was bigger than it should have been. Held too many recognisable faces, as if... as if the whole travelling party had gathered outside and was staring at the inn’s unremarkable walls.
It only took a moment more for the reason to become evident: shouting. Inside, two voices, both screaming at each other like lightning.
Two voices that Julia knew instantly, but that she didn’t want to know.
That she knew she would have to face, sooner rather than later.
“It’s the Emperor,” the wife of one of the senators whispered to Julia, “and the Empress.”
*
Red sky turned waters red, the falling sun leaving a blinding streak across the surface, like a flame inverted. The scarce clouds in the sky, that had been a fluffy shade of white an hour ago, turned into grey. The palms hanging along the shores, from green to black, silhouettes against the Nile.
The sunset had come too soon. It always did in autumn, even in the heat of the desert, a portent of the coming winter. Julia had never dealt well with winter – she had been born in Rome, raised in Athens, became an adult in Alexandria. She craved the heat and the sun, the crowds of a metropolis and the smell of saltwater in the air.
But, at the same time, she craved being anywhere else than those great cities. She craved a life on the roads, always somewhere new, always leaving the old behind. It was very Roman of her, wasn’t it?
Wasn’t it?
“I should have him assassinated.” Sabina grabbed a pebble from the shoreline. Turned it over in her fingers. A small pebble, barely bigger than a diamond cut for a ring, smooth in its lumpy misshapenness. “Like Claudius. A plate of mushrooms, prepared into delicacy by my best slave. It would be easy.”
“Please don’t.” Julia caught the pebble as the Empress tossed it towards her, the stone making a languid arc through the evening air. “I have no desire to see you assassinated.”
Of all the Empresses of Rome, why on Earth would Sabina choose Agrippina as a role model? Julia knew for a fact that Sabina had never talked about her so positively before. As she knew that Sabina had no children by Hadrian to manoeuvre. On the other hand, there were times when Julia had the impression that she knew very little about the Empress. That the Empress was too skilled at keeping the subtext hidden between the lines. “I am far subtler than Agrippina.”
For a second, Julia wasn’t sure whether Sabina was serious or not. “And you have no desire to return to those times of instability.”
The Empress watched as Julia flung the stone into the Nile, as far as she could. Kept her eyes on the water until the ripples faded. “You’re right, unfortunately.” She gave Julia a bitter half-smile. “You always are.”
Julia returned the half-smile with a short bow. An acknowledgment of being acknowledged. Her famous inability to influence the Empress, on full display.
“I am Augusta, and that means that I must be responsible,” Sabina sighed. “I must fulfill my duties. I must do what is best for Rome. And Hadrian Caesar is my husband, so I must also fulfill my duties towards him. I must do what is best for our marriage. I must, because it is my duty, and because it is my duty, I must. Isn’t duty a wonderful word?”
It was. It was one of the things that Julia loved so much about Sabina – that she fulfilled her duties like no else ever did, with a diligence that no one could miss, with an intelligence that matched any bureaucrat in the Empire. She was never lazy. She was never ill-prepared. Never out of her depth. There was a reason why Hadrian hadn’t divorced her, despite the state of their marriage. There was a reason why Sabina was the most decorated Empress since Livia, why her face adorned almost as many coins as Hadrian’s. “I’d rather stay a poet.”
Sabina snorted. “I think I’d rather that too.” She sighed again. Slumped her head back against one of the palm trees and watched the blazing sky. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet. As unregal as Julia had ever heard her. “You think so much about the past, Julia. When we become the past ourselves, do you think that they will remember my duty?”
Yes. Julia had absolutely no doubts. “I do.”
“If I were to die,” Sabina’s voice went even quieter, “and you were to write my eulogy, what would you write about?”
“I would write that you were the most brilliant women in Rome.” In all the world, even, and all of history. “Brilliant and beautiful, like no one else. I would write that you were remarkably easy to fall in love with. That even a stubborn statue would have no choice in the end but to sing for you.”
“Do you ever wonder,” Sabina whispered so softly that the words were almost lost in the reeds, almost carried away by the calm current of the Nile, “if I only keep you by my side because you flatter me?”
She didn’t. She had spent long enough at the heights of Rome to have seen how power shapes desire and long enough to have begun craving what small powers over her audiences she could grab. There were many who accumulated lovers and assistants for no other purpose than to be told at every waking moment that they were right and they weren’t wrong, but never the Empress. “No.”
“Yet, here you flatter me again.” Sabina gave Julia another one of small smiles. Searched the soil for another misshapen pebble. When she found one, she threw as far as she could, reaching further than Julia had managed. “What a mess this trip has been. What an awful mess.”
“There is still time.” Julia waited for the ripples on the Nile to fade. Pushed herself to her feet, brushing the sand off her robes. Decided that she would have to do what little she could with the power she had. “I may flatter you, but I am not a liar. Tomorrow at dawn, the Colossi will sing. I promise you.”
*
The stars were legion and the dead restless. Under the weightless sky, the hills of the ancient necropolis towered dark against the shining fires above, and the valleys cut deep in the distance through the endless desert. The wind, colder than it had any right to be in such a boiling land, kicked up dust, sand whirling around itself. The silence reigned under the pale glow of the moon.
Julia’s knees had never come so close to betraying her. Her tongue had never felt so dry. The tremble in her spine so present. And yet, when she finally opened her mouth, she surprised herself with the force of her voice. “Who are you?”
The Colossi, so tall above her, sitting at the gates of the necropolis with a dignity that endured across millennia despite the bitter erosion of the sand, stared down at her and said nothing.
Julia found herself holding her breath as she waited for an answer that didn’t come. An answer that she knew she might never hear, a question that she didn’t know was the right one to ask. If the Colossi were Memnon, would he be insulted? Would his mother, Eos, condemn her? She could see herself already, denied the pleasure of another dawn, forced to wander the calm shadow of the desert night until her feet became sand themselves, until she lost all memory of the cities she had left behind her, and the cities lost all memory of her.
She could imagine Aten, too, that rumour of an erased god. The sun had already set, he had already gone to his rest. These were the hours of dread, and she had chosen to march alone into the city of the dead. If she closed her eyes, forfeited her sight, would she feel the sands shift beneath her? Would she feel the slither around her ankles?
The pharaohs too, might damn her. Some of their tombs were said to be cursed. That any thief who dared enter would suffer agonies beyond measure. Would those ancient kings think her impetuous? To be facing them by herself, to be standing in front of Amenhotep and demand that he give her answers? Would they summon their armies buried in the hills and valleys, corpses granted the will to hunt her down?
If not the pharaohs, maybe those damned thieves. Flesh rotting with pestilence, mouths reeking of blood, eyes gouged out in madness, they would come after her, being unable to enter the tombs. A new plunder, with no curse to stop them.
Coming here, Julia realised far too late, may have been a bad idea.
Yet, she steadied herself. Forced herself to be brave. Sabina would not let herself be overcome by fear. The guide that Julia had hired was still there, mere footsteps away, a flaming torch and dagger ready should they be necessary. And so far, she was still alive. Could still feel her heart beating inside her chest. “If you are not Memnon, then who are you?”
The Colossi stared down at her.
Gods, could she feel her heart. “Amenhotep?”
The Colossi stared down at her. Unmoving. Unblinking. Faintly, Julia felt the breeze stir, felt a whisp of wind brush against her hair. Or was it her imagination?
“If you are Amenhotep, Magnificent Pharaoh of Egypt,” she offered the Colossi a bow, “then this is your kingdom, and I must pay homage.”
The Colossi stared down at her. The desert sands did not swallow her. The dead armies did not rise to take her to the killing fields. No snakes flicked out their tongues to taste her.
“You have withstood so many years, so many winds and so many robbers come to plunder your temples.” Hundreds of years. How many thousands upon thousands upon thousands of peoples had passed by the Colossi in those years? “The necropolis behind you has crumbled into ruins, and so has Thebes ahead of you. Egypt has risen and fallen, the last of pharaohs long since passed. And yet, you still stand.”
The Colossi stared down at her.
“How much longer will you endure?” Hundreds of years? Thousands? “I think forever, like the sun. I see in you what I cannot see even in the Emperors of Rome: immortality. You will stand and you will live, even as the rest of us vanish, and our children, and their children.”
Stared down at her.
“Amenhotep.” But, homage wouldn’t be enough. Homage was to be remembered, but not to live. “My dear friend, Memnon.” She almost lost her nerve then, terrified by her own gentle teasing. “Will you show Rome that you still live?”
Stared.
“I ask you not as a favour, but as a trade.” Perhaps she should ask it as a favour. Perhaps even as an order – her friend was the Emperor, her lover the Empress. Hadrian’s fury could compel many. His words bore weight like no others. What statue would be impertinent enough to defy him? “Between my vanished kingdom and yours.”
Impertinence too, was something that she could have done. The borders of Rome were always ripe for rebellion. She could be like the Sicarii, like Buddug, like Arminius. Or she could be like Agrippina, or perhaps like Cleopatra. If not a rebel, a praetorian. Or...
Or she could be a poet. “I have little to offer you.” A poet who was so easily intimated by politics, who knew little of strategy, whose only talent was words that would never among the best of the Empire. Her kingdom had folded before Rome, and so would she. And her, worst than her forefathers, for she loved Rome. She knew she would be forgotten after her death. She knew that it was inevitable. She... She knew. “So let me offer what little I can: my words. A song from the Commagene that no one else will hear.”
A fragment of a Lullaby, that had been sung to her once as a child, that she only vaguely remembered. That she had no children of her own to pass on to. The Colossi would live far longer than her. Would greet travellers from all over the world when her name had slipped into the dust. Their song would be passed on, and hers, at their will.
So, she knelt down before the Colossi. Moved her lips to their stone. Whispered that old lullaby, so that no one else would hear, and gave them her fate. Her memory.
*
When Julia reached the inn, she knew that she wouldn’t sleep. The night was already too old. Too many hours had passed, the tapestry of stars shifting towards the dawn, as if... as if they were as ephemeral as her. It was, she decided, a sign of their mercy, that they only taunted mortals with their permanence when mortals were too asleep to notice.
Stepping back through the inn only took moments. She did her best to be quiet, to not wake any other, to not be caught. She didn’t fear having to give explanations for being dressed for the desert, sneaking around by herself in the middle of the night, but she did fear... having to talk. To someone. To anyone.
Wasn’t that ironic? That she was a poet and now craved silence.
That she needed to lose herself in her sleep when she needed to see the dawn.
She closed the door of the room quietly behind her. Slipped off her sandals, hung up her cloak. Walked on the tips of her toes over to the bed. Sabina didn’t stir. Continued on in her peaceful dreams.
Julia envied her. No one would ever forget her name. No one ever should. Julia devoted herself to her. If the gods would grant her the power to be one of those immortal poets, she would use it only for Sabina. Only for Sabina and for the Commagene. Only for the Commagene. For...
Gods. How was she supposed to know? She...
She didn’t.
But, she did love Sabina, for what it was worth, even if that might never be enough. So, she leaned over, brushed the Empress’s hair out of her peaceful eyes, and gave her forehead a silent kiss.
*
The sky greeted the dawn with that royal shade of blue, the soil with its deep purple haze, and the waters of the Nile with the finest mirror in the world, so that the sunrise would stir every soul along its shores. The early birds began their hymns. The traders their voyages.
Outside the inn, the Emperor’s party gathered.
*
Julia looked up at the Colossi for the fourth time in three days. Those ancient of golden stone, towering above all. The sight of them still inspired awe in her. Would always inspire awe in her, even if she were to spend all day at their feet for decades. Would inspire poetry in her – she could already feel the verses swirling around her heart.
She stared up at them, and they stared down at her.
Silently.
If her heart danced with poetry, the rest of the party was more restless. Waking early had only made the sour mood of yesterday fester. Had only made the rings around Hadrian’s eyes deeper, and the edges of his mouth thinner. And Sabina’s eyes, the most beautiful, the most brilliant eyes that Julia had ever seen, stayed impassive.
“Please,” Julia found herself whispering, even as the first in the party began to mutter among themselves, began to turn away, “Amenhotep.”
The Colossi stared down at her.
The Colossi...
sang.