The Death of Antinous || bxb ✔︎

AERE PERENNIUS

"His view of you must have changed since your many military accomplishments."

"I doubt he knows, much less cares about what I've done on the battlefield."

Antinous, who had never met Leonides' father, touched the papers tearfully. "You must make things right between you."

Leonides was beginning to suspect that they were no longer speaking about the senator.

He led him to the divan, where they sat without saying a word. Light streamed in from the ocular window above illuminating the tapestries and yellow parchment so that the room glowed like a brazier. After a long and awkward silence Antinous found the courage to speak.

"My mother died."

"Oh, Antinous." Without thinking Leonides threw his arms around the boy and embraced him tightly. Then he let go, remembering that the affections of soldiers were rough and that a palace consort was used to more refined displays of affection. He took his hand instead.

"I promised her I would come home. She died thinking I had broken my promise."

Leonides felt so foolish for his petty complaints about his father. Why did he always say the wrong thing?

"Perhaps she died waiting for you with a heart full of hope?"

The boy hung his head. This wasn't the right thing to say either. He had to be more careful. A misplaced word or the slightest shift in tone could cut Antinous to the quick. He'd never met anyone who felt so deeply. His feelings ran deeper than a river. One could drown in them. He could only imagine how much he was suffering now. He decided to stick to the facts. 

"When did it happen?"

"Three years ago."

This made little sense. He thought he must have misheard him.

"And you've only learned of it now? Why did your family wait so long to tell you?"

It turned out he was concealing a wound much deeper than grief. Betrayal.

"Hadrian received the letter three years ago and chose to hide it from me. He only confessed to it now because I wanted to visit my mother on the tour."

Leonides was horrified. "How could he keep this from you?"

"He loves me," Antinous was quick to explain. "He didn't want to see me suffer."

"That is monstrous." An opinion, not a fact, but no less valid. 

"You would question your Caesar?" he said sharply.

Antinous was angry with Hadrian but could not bring himself to blame the Emperor. This did not surprise him. He'd seen many men in Judea whipped to ribbons by their squadron leader, only to die protecting them on the battlefield the next day.

"I question a man who denies a boy the right to mourn his mother as she descends into Hades, yes."

He also questioned a man who would take a child from his mother in the first place, and a man who would take a child to his bed. He bit his tongue.

"You would have told me the truth, I suppose."

"Antinous, I am not Hadrian or even my father. I'm simply not clever enough to spin a web of lies."

Finally, a smile.

"It's true, he's quite stupid," Livia quipped from the doorway.

"Leave us!"

He had more privacy living in the barracks with thirty men than he did sharing a palatial domus with his little sister.

Antinous was slowly emerging from his dark mood and winked at Livia conspiratorially.