Marcus was overjoyed by the news. Aurelia was not.
She took her reluctance to her mother.
“Mata, I don't want to go to the circus, but Pata says I am to go on my birthday, whether I want to or not.”
Her mother drew her into her lap. “What your father says, must be, cam,” she said tenderly. “Oh, I know. You think the circus cruel. Well, just between us, so it is, but that is what keeps the people entertained.”
Aurelia frowned. “I don't understand why all that fighting and killing makes people happy. It should make them disgusted!”
Her mother smiled. “It should, perhaps, but it doesn't. People are bloodthirsty. It's the nature of simple folk. Blood excites them, and they love to be excited. It takes them out of their boring lives.”
“But we are not simple folk! Why do people like us enjoy the games? Pata loves the circus! It's not just because it's popular that he puts the spectacles on and goes to them, he likes them himself. I've heard him talking about what he's seen, and he gloats just like Marcus about the killing.”
Her mother looked about hastily and put her finger to her lips.
“Shhhh, cara! Don't criticize your father, or say belittling things about him! He is Caesar, and Caesar must not be questioned or spoken of disrespectfully! Your father shares in the people's tastes so that he will know how best to satisfy them.”
Aurelia sighed deeply. “So, I must go?”
Her mother nodded. Then she bent her head to whisper in her daughter's ear.
“When it gets too ugly, just close your eyes,” she said. “But don't turn away or cover your face. Appear to stare at the arena boldly. Pretend to look. Pull your païïa forward to shield your face. You can shut a lot of the worst of it out like that.”
“It's a pity we have no ear-lids,” said Aurelia. “I'm sure the sounds must be as horrible as the sights, and I can't shut them out.”
The day came, full of brilliant, hot sunshine like most Roman summer days. Marcus dressed carefully and presented himself to his father with his dark curly hair tamed with scented oil. He had told his body slave to give him his first, very light shave, just his upper lip where the dark down had begun to gather. His father noticed at once and a mild word of mockery nearly escaped him, but he stifled it. He was pleased to see that the boy realized he had to make a special effort for this extraordinary occasion.
“Are you ready, my boy? Come, then—let's be off.”
Aurelia took little extra trouble with her appearance. It was her mother who made her exchange her everyday paüa for one newer and more luxuriant, and change her sandals to gold ones.
“Don't you realize every eye will be on you? You must be a credit to your father.”
Ten minutes before they were due to leave, Aurelia slipped away to her courtyard to feed her fish, and while she was there, Julius arrived with Boots. He had heard it was her birthday, and had dared to bring her a gift—nothing that would attract attention, just a small decorated box of sweetmeats.
“Oh, Julius!” cried Aurelia. “Thank you! I'm sorry, I forgot to send a message. I can't have Boots today. I'm going to the circus with my father.”
Julius stared at her without speaking for a moment, and then turned to leave. On a sudden impulse, Aurelia touched his arm. She seldom touched him, and the warmth of her small hand sent darts of steel through his blood. He turned.
“I don't want to go, Julius! They're making me go. I wish…”
“What do you wish, Princess?”
She hung her head. “I wish you were coming with us.”
“Why do you wish that?” he asked in a low voice, after a moment when he wondered if he still had a voice.
“You're so experienced, and you know about the circus— about the animals—and … you could help me to—to get through it without crying and disgracing my father.”
She looked up at him. His heart was pierced. To think of it—this tender creature with her love of even the lowest forms of life—fish, birds, butterflies—why, he had seen her carry a spider to safety when it strayed across the floor where it might be trodden on! How would she bear the sights that her father was forcing on her? When Julius saw her again tomorrow, what would he see in those sweet innocent eyes so urgently, appealingly looking up into his? What wouldn't he give to shield her from those wild, bloody horrors!
But he was helpless.
Or was he?
“My lady,” he said hesitantly. “Your wish—in so small a matter as my coming with you—might get your father's consent.”
An eager smile spread over Aurelia's anxious face. She flashed away, and was gone for five minutes. This seemed a very long time to Julius, who used the interval to dismiss the four slaves who were now needed to manhandle the large cage containing the full-grown tiger. “Never mind, my friend,” he whispered to Boots as he was wheeled away. “Tomorrow you will see her.” He firmly believed the tiger loved these visits as much as he did.
“He says yes, you can come!” Aurelia cried before she was even in sight of him. She flew up to him and panted, “He says you will be able to tell me the fine points of the acts, if he's too busy with his other guests. Oh, now I don't mind nearly so much that I have to go! You'll tell me when I must close my eyes!”
“Close your eyes?”
“Yes, yes! When it's going to get too ugly! Only you mustn't say anything. We need a signal. I know! You will give a little cough—like this!” She cleared her throat.
“Yes, I see,” said Julius gravely.
“The Greatest Treat”
WHEN THE IMPERIAL CARRIAGE reached the great Colosseum, the Praetorian Guard—Caesar's personal sol-diers who accompanied him on every public appearance— formed a double line at the main entrance, and Caesar's party—including Marcus and his father, followed at a respectful distance by Julius—walked between them, acknowledging the applause of the crowd. It always made a spectacle special when the Emperor attended, but the people were delighted beyond measure to see that he had brought the Lady Aurelia with him this time.
“It's her first visit!” the crowd exclaimed among themselves. “How lucky we came today! Imagine how excited she must be, to see the circus for the very first time!” Many were remembering their own first visits. There was a general feeling of privilege and rejoicing, as if the daughter of Caesar were passing through a sort of initiation into the glorious state of being a full Roman citizen.
Caesar glanced continually from side to side, nodding acknowledgment of the crowds, and Marcus, trying to imitate him, twisted his head, grinning with pride and excitement and almost bouncing as he walked. His behavior seemed to shout, Look at me, look at me, walking with Caesar!
Aurelia, for her part, entered the Colosseum with calm, steady steps, her head, draped with a blue and silver palla, poised, the picture of youthful dignity. Julius, ten steps behind, kept the rich headscarf in sight and noticed that Aurelia's face never turned from the front. It was as if she despised the noisy crowds of common folk craning past the Praetorian Guards’ leather-clad shoulders for a glimpse of her. But Julius had seen her at other times, out in her carriage, Boots at her side, waving and smiling to the admiring crowd, and knew that this apparent haughtiness hid a quaking heart.
In the Imperial Box, under the merciful shade of the great canopy, Caesar arranged the seating. His place was dead center, between Marcus's father and another privileged senator. He put Aurelia next to Marcus, and, with a regal gesture, indicated the seat on her other side to Julius, who took it with a humble bow. Marcus was astonished and angry.
“What's he doing here, and seated next to you?” he demanded. “He's nothing but a slave!”
Aurelia tilted her chin proudly and replied out of the side of her mouth, “He's here because I asked for him to be, so mind your own business!”
“Well, I don't like it!”
She turned to face him.
“You've been shaved. You look absolutely silly with your top lip all bare. You think pretend
ing you've got a mustache can make you a man like Julius? You're nothing but a stupid boy.”
This unseemly conversation, luckily, couldn't be overheard because of the deafening roars of the vast crowd, which had begun as Caesar's party entered the box and didn't die down for long minutes. At last, when he considered he had received his due, Caesar rose and held up his arms. The cheering stopped as if cut off with a sword, and complete silence fell all over the arena.
The Emperor gazed around him slowly, so that each one of the thousands of spectators might imagine Caesar was looking personally at him.
“Welcome, Romans. Let the performance begin,” Caesar said in a voice that, through long practice, and the wonderful acoustics of the place, carried without shouting to the farthest benches.
A blare of trumpets sounded, Aurelia clenched her hands in her lap, Marcus jiggled with excitement, and the show began.
That day's program opened, as usual, with a parade around the circus ring. The gladiators led it, and it was just as Marcus had described, only no words of his could have done justice to their dazzling splendor. Their glittering brass helmets and breastplates shone like pure gold; the short swords they brandished also caught the brassy sunshine with twinkles of light that flashed in the eyes of the crowd. Behind them came a parade of animals and lesser fighting men. The old bear was led in last on his chain. He was greeted with affectionate laughter and applause, and was prodded to rise to his hind feet and give something like a bow to acknowledge his public. Caesar smiled, and leaned forward to speak to his daughter.
“No harm will come to that old fellow,” he said jovially. “You may safely give your heart to him.”
Julius was watching keenly. He knew from Caius, who had become a sort of friend, that there was to be something special today. A tiger—the rarest of wild beasts even in Rome, unknown in any provincial town—was to appear for the first time, and he knew this could only be his charge's twin, the one Caius had called Brute. This “novice” did not appear in the parade, of course. He would be kept as a special event, a sensation, probably late in the program. It was hard not to look at the fighting men parading before them and wonder which of them was destined to face the ferocious beast in the ring before the show was over.
Now the gladiators and the animals, having circled the ring, lined up before Caesar's box, and the gladiators raised their swords and cried out in unison: “Hail, Caesar! We who are about to die, salute you!”
A shiver ran all the way down Aurelia's back and her breath stopped in her throat. We who are about to die … “Are they all going to die, then?” she whispered to Julius.
“No, no! Of course not. It's just a form of address to honor Caesar. Gladiators are far too valuable to all be killed off at every performance. Many will win their bouts or get the thumbs-up from Caesar so they can fight another day.”
Aurelia knew about the thumbs-up—and the thumbs-down. It was something Marcus spoke of, and, though it was daring, he used this Caesarean signal in his games with the princess when he wanted to show off to her. Thumbs-up meant a reprieve, a pause in the game, a sign of something well done. Thumbs-down, in their play, meant almost anything too rude to say, but Aurelia knew what it meant here. It meant death.
Now she nodded wisely.
“Oh, that's good. I hope Pata will give the thumbs-up to all of them!”
Julius said nothing. No circus had ever been held when all the fighting men survived—the crowd wouldn't be satisfied without a few killings. His stomach was beginning to churn. Aurelia, at his side, was now bright-eyed, caught up in the excitement. Perhaps, after all, she would not hate it. It was so easy to catch this … sickness of loving the circus. He had it himself, and the only difference between him and the crowd in all its cruel bloodlust was that he knew it. He knew it was a sickness, that his fascination for it was unwholesome, even depraved. But it held him nonetheless. He didn't want this beautiful, pure, and secretly beloved girl at his side to catch it. Looking at her face, her very wide-open eyes gazing at the gorgeous spectacle of men and beasts before her, he feared for her in a new way, and longed to snatch her up in his arms and carry her away before she caught the plague of cruelty, of the thrill of bloodletting.
But on that score, he need not have worried. The first fights and skirmishes put a swift end to any excitement and pleasure Aurelia might have felt.
Her mother's eye-shutting ploy came into play almost immediately. To launch the entertainment, two tall, splendid gladiators were set to fight, one armed with a sword and the other with a net and a trident—a fork with spiked tines and a long handle. They circled each other, with much crouching and thrusting, and the swordsman got in several swipes that just missed his opponent. But when he was enmeshed in the cunningly flung heavy net, and the brass spikes rang against his helmet and felled him, struggling and threshing, to the sand, after only a few minutes of battle, Caesar did not even bother to rise. He turned down his thumb lazily from his seat, and the net-wielding fighter kneeled beside the one on the ground and cut his throat with a short dagger.
Julius, caught up in events, forgot to cough. But Aurelia's eyes had shut automatically. She did not open them again until a slight pressure on her upper arm told her that she might look again. The arena was cleared and the blood was being raked over by a small army of slaves.
Marcus had jumped to his feet at the climax of the fight, and now sank down again beside Aurelia. He grinned at her gleefully.
“Well? How did you like that?” he exclaimed triumphantly.
Aurelia turned to him as coolly as she could for the pounding of her heart.
“It went on too long.”
“Too long? Rubbish! They hardly got started! That's why Caesar condemned the loser, for not fighting hard enough. If a gladiator gives a good account of himself and pleases the crowd, even if he falls, Caesar often spares him, but that one was just no good.”
“I thought he fought very … bravely,” said Aurelia. She turned her head to the front quickly because at the word bravely her eyes started to sting. He had fought bravely. It wasn't fair when the net reached so wide, and a sword's reach was so short—he didn't stand a chance. She had wanted the swordsman to win because it wasn't fair. And now he was dead. He was dead. Dead, like her fish lying belly-up in the water. How could a brave, handsome young man be as dead as that?
She felt the beginnings of nausea in her stomach. But the afternoon's entertainment was only just starting.
The organizers of the show knew their business. No two following acts were the same, lest the crowd grow bored. The next was an animal act. The camels, six of them, first paraded in stately fashion around the ring, led by keepers. They wore beautifully colored woollen coverings over their humps, and headstalls with tassels of dark red, green, and blue trailing almost to the ground. They held their strange heads up proudly, looking both exotic and somehow kindly.
“I've never seen those animals before!” said Aurelia to Julius. He told her their name and that they came from the deserts across the sea. He had learned about them by now. “See their big foot pads? They don't sink into the sand and can go for many leagues without drinking. They store water in those humps. And they can be ridden.”
“How clever our gods are, to make such useful creatures! They look so strong and peaceful. Their drivers must love them the way we love our horses!”
Julius looked at her. “Yes. You may hear me cough soon,” he said.
Her face froze. “Oh, Julius!” she breathed. “They are not going to be killed—are they? Please tell me they're not!”
“If it's your father's wish.”
Aurelia stared at him for only a moment more. Then she turned, leaned across Marcus and the senator, her hand clutching the rail in front of them, and cried out to her father: “Pata! Julius says those sweet lovely creatures are going to be killed if you wish it! You don't wish it, do you? You couldn't, they're so gentle and fine!”
Caesar's dark skin flushed darker still, an
d he scowled and looked away from her. He didn't deign to answer. Everyone in the Imperial Box became quiet and attentive. This was something to gossip about later—the princess daring to question the Emperor.
Caesar was angry, though he chose not to show it. He hadn't expected Aurelia to show her girlish weakness by pleading like this for any of the participants, and certainly not for mere disposable animals. He was ashamed of her. She sensed his unspoken displeasure and fell back into her place, cowed, her hands limp at her sides, her mouth open.
Marcus found himself feeling sorry for her.
“Listen, Relia, don't get upset. The show's hardly started yet. There'll be lots of worse things than a few camels getting chewed up. Wait till the lions come on!” He dared to give her hand a quick squeeze as it lay on the seat between them. “Be brave! You'll soon get used to it.” He dropped his voice more than ever, and whispered, “I didn't like it at first, either, but now I love it, and so will you.”
Aurelia, staring down into the arena, her eyes half blind with tears, saw the men who had been leading the camels stop the procession and strip the rugs and bridles from their backs and heads. They withdrew from the ring, carrying the caparisons. There was a pause while the animals, left alone, stood or turned in circles uneasily. The crowd, sensing excitement to come, fell perfectly silent.
Suddenly there was a clang, and a pack of hyenas was let loose from one of the side gates. They came running in, their hideous heads low, snuffing the ground, and in a moment their leader let out a snarling squeal and leaped up on the nearest camel, sinking its teeth in its shaggy neck.
Aurelia kept her eyes screwed shut for a full ten minutes, gripping the seat beside her with both hands so that her father should not see their trembling. But she didn't drop her head or turn it away more than just a fraction so that if the Emperor should look at her, he would not see her eyes.