The Emperor's Babe Read online

  and Alba said it wouldn’t be the same

  once I’d been elevated.

  The Betrayal

  Time to leave your mother, dear.

  You’re ready for a man.

  – HORACE

  First I heard of it was overheard

  when I came home unexpectedly early

  from the baths ’cos it was overcrowded

  and as usual they told me to come back later.

  As I dawdled up our street, busy

  with shoppers – tired of having to say Salve!

  and Bene, gratias at every step to neighbours

  who didn’t give a toss about how I felt,

  wondering if Alba could come out to play,

  glad that spring was here after a long winter

  when I’d had to wrap my feet in rags

  or else they’d fall off –

  I saw a fancy sedan parked up outside

  our shop and four bronzed sedan-bearers

  wearing white linen skirts with gold stripes,

  leaning against the wall, waiting.

  I ran the rest of the way, found the shop closed.

  I heard voices, put my ear to the door.

  ‘Sì, Mr Felix. Zuleika very obediens girl, sir.

  No problemata, she make very optima wife, sir.’

  ‘Glad to hear it, for when I saw her at the baths,

  she stole my heart. Indeed,

  she is so … exquisita, so … pulcherrima,

  such a delicious surprise in this, shall we say,

  less than dazzling little colonia.

  She reminds me of the girls back in Ægyptus,

  where I spent most of my teenage years,

  my father was governor there, you know,

  I liked the mysterious, dark ones

  from the south, who would oil my limbs,

  waft soundlessly around me leaving

  the lingering scent of musky sandalwood

  from Zanzibar in their wake.

  I have been looking for a wife for some time,

  and naturaliter, I wanted someone young,

  someone specialis, a rare flower.’

  ‘Sì, Mr Felix. Zuleika very specialis girl.

  Yes, always at home, quietly sewing,

  very placid, no back-chat.’

  ‘Good. I have enjoyed bachelorhood

  to its utmost, Anlamani, but the fiend loneliness

  has become a most unwelcome friend.

  I intend to make this my far-western base

  and I need to warm my home with a wife.

  I am a man of multiple interests: a senator,

  military man, businessman, I undertake

  trading missions for the government,

  and I’m a landowner,

  I’ve just bought Hertfordshire, you know.

  Yet I have never been interested

  in the plethora of simpering debutantes

  who are paraded in the cattle-market balls

  every season, mothers thrusting their powdered

  wrinkled cleavages at me, supposedly

  on behalf of their darling twittering daughters.

  My own dear mater died young, you know,

  she was so very benevola, I missed

  her terribly when I was a boy. I still do.

  Perhaps that is why it has taken me so long

  to tie the knot, so to speak.

  To form an attachment is to risk its loss,

  is it not? I have been looking for a nice,

  simplex, quiet, fidelis girl, a girl

  who will not betray me with affairs,

  who will not wear me out with horrid fights,

  unlike my pater’s subsequent three wives,

  who made my life hell, and his,

  who were of the hedonistic breed

  of aristocratic matronae, determined to compete

  with the husband in all spheres,

  ever boastful of their sexual shenanigans,

  humiliating the dear gentle man in public

  and prepared to argue until dawn on matters

  of politics, world affairs and the arts.

  Have you heard that women now dress up

  in male attire and compete in chariot races?

  It has got quite out of hand in the fatherland.

  Nor do I want one with cumbersome baggage.

  Is my load not heavy enough?

  I will of course see to an educatio for her,

  and lessons in elegantia, she is of the age

  where she will learn quickly.

  Do not worry about her dowry, it is of no

  consequentia to me, of course

  you will benefit greatly from this negotium.

  I think we can safely say that your business

  is due to expand considerably.’

  ‘You are very benignus gentleman, sir.

  Road has been uphill, almost vertical, for years.

  A boost to oeconomia most welcome, sir.’

  ‘Say no more. You have my patronage.’

  I looked through a large crack in the door

  (there were many) and saw an old man,

  much taller than my small father,

  who was so thin, that day his stoop resembling

  a frozen bow. The man was much fatter

  than Pops too, he was in a word: obesus.

  His smooth olive-skinned face wore

  the haughty expression of a true patrician,

  his thinning brown hair was cut

  in the fashionable pudding-bowl haircut,

  his orange-and-white-striped toga

  was of sumptuous linen that fell in elegant folds,

  he wore several gold rings with bright stones

  and when my eyes moved slowly down

  I saw his legs: thin, hairy and bandy.

  At which point my own took me rapidly

  down the street, not even stopping at Alba’s,

  no words could form yet.

  I ran until I reached the sloping banks

  of the River Fleet, far away from the docks,

  and then I screamed at the water

  until my throat was sore and my spittle

  had dried up, not caring

  that all the fishermen thereabouts

  stopped mending their nets and stared.

  I stayed for hours and when it was dark,

  the beach deserted, I stripped off, threw

  my tatty green dress on to pebbles,

  walked into the cold water and swam far out,

  shivering. It was what I needed,

  to calm me down. I had done it before.

  When I turned round, the city was lit up

  with lamps, and torches flickered in windows

  and doorways of houses on the hills.

  1 knew I had to accept my fate. I could throw

  countless tantrums, I was an expert,

  but it would go ahead, regardless.

  The man’s voice carried such utter imperium,

  and he expressed such an awful desire for me.

  I swam towards the lights, forcing myself

  to conquer the cold water,

  before my body seized up with cramp.

  And what about Mater dearest?

  Dad would have sent her on an errand.

  I thought of how she spat out words

  like the gristle of fetid beef, hating

  her adopted language, even now:

  Zuks! Fetch Khu-kh-umba! Cabb-age!

  Hasp-ara-gush!

  She’d wave an arm at Dad,

  her underarm loose like soggy papyrus.

  More! More! – finger and thumb rubbing

  together in a greedy money-making gesture.

  Nubia good! He’d turn away, serve

  another customer, joke with them,

  while she scowled, pulled her voluminous

  black robes over her head, slumped

  into a corner, still as a sack of potatoes.

&nbsp
; As a kid, I’d crawl into her covers,

  make my breath hers.

  A sweet tooth had taken the rest away,

  her cheeks were dried out and grooved,

  she had given birth when most wombs

  nourished ghosts, walked with stillborns

  riding her back. She dragged me down streets,

  I flew like her robes in fierce wind.

  Darling Catullus came three years later,

  a miracle on account of his sperm bag.

  I hadn’t been left to die outside the city walls

  exactly, but, aged three, I knew who

  would inherit the key to the Kingdom of Pops.

  I have suffer so too you will have suffer.

  Her eyes were nigrosine, whites browned,

  liquefying only when she rocked Catullus

  to sleep with softly sung Nubian ditties –

  cross-legged on the mat which served

  as couch and mattress behind the counter

  of our first vegetable shop in Milk Street.

  Ulcers sprouted in my mouth, sleepless,

  Dad lanced them, I bit my tongue

  so’s not to awaken the Baby Jesus,

  was desperate to run into the night for ever,

  to find the river and disappear in it,

  I was swimming in the dead of it,

  my frozen limbs struggled up the beach,

  my dress instantly soaked. I ran back

  through the deserted streets,

  feeling my blood warm up, my joints

  becoming fluid again, the only sound

  was of my sandalled feet on hardened earth,

  my harsh panting breaths. I called for Alba,

  she heard from the back where they slept,

  but she came quickly to the door,

  took one look at me, ran back inside, returned

  to wrap me up in her grey blanket

  that scratched my wet skin like thistles.

  She made me sit down, just the two of us,

  few dared walk around after dark.

  She rubbed my back. ‘Zeeks. Wassup?’

  The Betrothal

  His pupils

  are soaked in desire,

  float in a crisp January sky,

  show no mercy,

  even as mine plead

  innocence.

  A small gold link

  to my heart

  lies in the damp crevice

  of his supplicant palm,

  spiders crawl

  up his forearm,

  I am level

  with his beige linen

  abdomen, black leather girdle,

  slung low.

  ‘The Ægyptians,’ he proclaims,

  ‘discovered a most delicate nerve

  on the finger anularius,

  the only one, indeed,

  with a direct line

  to our greatest gift:

  The Human Heart.

  And so with this ring, I thee betroth,

  Zuleika,

  cherished daughter

  of our man from Nubia, Anlamani.’

  He takes my limp hand,

  fills

  the trembling gold

  and withdraws

  ever so,

  ever so,

  ever so

  slowly, to applause, but

  I flick my hand down,

  so that Cupid’s cute

  little handiwork

  tinkles on the ground,

  amidst gasps.

  My eyes lock his in

  then,

  and smile.

  He has just made

  of my greatest gift

  an exile.

  Osmosis

  I

  A straw mat, an earth floor,

  snow that blew in as we lay, three

  in a row, my vigilant Dad shaking

  pools of water off the cowhide blanket,

  for our poor wooden shop offered

  little protection from the storms of winter.

  II

  He and Mum, way back when,

  the family heirloom, he whispered,

  was a human chain belonging to the King of Meroe,

  with no breakages for generations,

  their own mother, his concubine.

  Is my mother also my aunt?

  Am I your daughter and niece?

  Am I my own cousin?

  III

  Dad looked hurt. They shared

  the same profile, I thought tribal.

  ‘There are some things,

  you can only share with your own.

  When you’re a slave you dream

  of either owning slaves or freeing them.’

  IV

  A famine, plague or flood

  (the story always changed), the king

  died, the palace was in chaos,

  they fled 200ks to Khartoum in a caravan,

  exporting sacks of sorghum,

  lentils and melons.

  V

  They travelled for a year

  before they reached, slept in forests

  or inns, sold amethysts and chrisoliths

  stolen from the palace, she resisted

  every step onwards, yearned

  for the city of Meroe, and safety.

  VI

  They bypassed Rome

  and its many Ethiops, too congested

  they were told, but they heard

  of Londinium, way out in the wild west,

  a sea to cross, a man

  could make millions of denarii.

  VII

  I shivered behind his itchy shawl,

  he mumbled in his sleep, bristling

  with plans, flames burnt

  under his clothes, I slid my fingers

  into hot armpits, he squeezed, I felt

  him draw the ice from my veins.

  VIII

  Breasts bursting with milk

  for the coming Son of Christ

  pushed against my back, stealing

  my heat, knuckles poked into my spine,

  until I melted into sleep and awoke,

  not knowing where I began.

  Till Death Do Us

  I

  The white stucco villas of Cheapside

  are usually out of bounds to scallywags

  like me and Alba. Guards shoo us away.

  (She has not been invited.) Today

  they bow as if I were the emperor’s wife,

  when my horse-drawn carriage, if you please,

  arrives at a villa with its very own latrina.

  and enough rooms to fill the Forum.

  Janus-faced gits! I am the same girl

  I was last week. Or am I?

  II

  A lady uses powdered horn to enamel

  her teeth, dontcha know, and powdered

  mouse brains keep her breath sweet.

  I am pampered by maids, an ornatrix is weaving

  Indian hair into my own, six pads – Vestal-stylee.

  They are painting me white with chalk,

  my lips and cheeks with the lees of red wine,

  Don’t talk! Black ash is dabbed on to my eyes,

  Keep still! I’m the It Girl of Londinium, yeah!

  Alba would crack up.

  III

  A girl sits in a silk-embroidered loincloth,

  all tarted up with a wedding to go to.

  A lemon tunic, a heavy saffron cloak,

  a bright yellow veil are all draped over her,

  then a wreath of myrtle and orange blossom,

  and around her neck, a metal collar. Here, Fido!

  A lady never leaves her cubiculum,

  without putting on the slap. Jove forbid,

  I should ever again be seen au naturel.

  Someone watches me in the mirror.

  IV

  The haruspex ripped out the guts of a pig,

  blood ran down his arm on to the pretty floor.

  U
bi tu Felix, ego Zuleika: then Felix kissed me.

  and the room whirled with dancing girls

  exposing their breasts and guests

  poured red wine into each other’s mouths,

  clowns juggled knives and dwarf acrobats

  did cartwheels and I entered the statue

  of Minerva in the corner, alabaster and wise.