Faustina and the Barbarians Read Online Free PDF Page A

Ravenna, brother to the young but rapidly developing Arcadius, Emperor in the East, with his still largely undepleted resources to call upon, than a puppet in Rome who would oversee its final ruination.
    After setting my household in order and arranging things for my lovely new African employee, I took myself to the horse-fair in Ostia and picked myself out a magnificent Arab stallion who I immediately christened Bucephalus. As soon as he saw me, I had him eating out of my hand. The magnetism I exert over the male sex doesn’t stop with homo erectus, my dear.
    While most of our Italian roads are now in a sad state of repair, the Via Flaminia, being used by the court and government, was still in good condition and Bucephalus and I found ourselves within sight of Ravenna’s walls in eight days. But it was another three days before I could get to see the Emperor. As each year passes, our Emperors, the heirs of the great Julius himself, wrap themselves in ever deeper layers of court ritual and bureaucracy, more like perfumed Persian potentates than austere sons of Romulus and Remus. Of course, it was all started by my great-great-great grandfather Maximian’s co-Emperor Diocletan well over a century ago, and he, at least, had good reason for it. It did surround the Emperor’s office with a much-needed layer of mystique, a protective envelope of awe. And it worked, for them and their successors. But no amount of gilded glory, clouds of incense or rustling purple silks can imbue that stupidus Honorius with a trace of mystery. Not only is he completely un-martial and physically unimposing, though not entirely unattractive, there isn’t a wisp of intellect or artistic sensibility or any other redeeming virtue between his dullard’s temples. This young man, the son of the brilliant Theodosius, consists of nothing but vanity and milksoppish piety in regards to the Christian god; his only concern, apart from more and more of his bloody doves, is to preserve his own pampered skin.
    The doves. You may have heard about his obsession with these damned birds, nothing more than pigeons in togas. He spends most of his time within a string of dovecots, feeding the pesky, perpetually shitting airborne vermin. While he feeds and waters and grooms them, his bishops, eunuchs, and other corrupt courtesans run our rapidly diminishing Western Empire into the ground. My first thought on being ushered into his presence was to kill this wastrel myself.
    He was sitting on an ivory throne, clad in loose purple linen against the heat, and wearing the diadem. He was also wearing a selection of his dovish favourites, who paraded up and down his arms pecking greedily at the seeds cupped in his palms and lining his lap. Comically languid though his manner was, I could feel that my presence made an impression upon him, as, of course, I’d intended.  
    I didn’t want to speak of the plot before his bishops and courtiers, who, surrounding the ornate, dove-infested ivory throne, made no attempt to hide their admiration of my charms, and I managed to get him to agree to confer with me alone.
    “Let’s stroll in the garden,” he said.
    We did so, the bishops, eunuchs and perfumed jackals trailing reluctantly at a distance.
    “Publius Clodianus and other senators in Rome, in league with Valamir and other Gothic chiefs, are planning to assassinate you, Imperator.”
    “ Imperator? There’s an old-fashioned term. Don’t hear that very often. It’s all ‘Serene Lord and Master of the World’ now.’”
    “I’m an old-fashioned girl when it comes to the old Imperial observances, Imperator.”
    “And a very attractive one. I’ll pardon this breach of protocol, if you dine with me this evening. I’m entertaining a delegation from Britain. All very tiresome. They want help again against some Germanic tribes called ‘Saxons’, and then there’s some others... ‘Picts’ or something, and God knows who else. Oh yes, ‘Irish Pirates.’ I do believe