Assurances and Endurances
Lysicles
I went as I had intended unto Maltinus to ask of him how he gets
these letters to you. He explained to me that his is only the first
link on what is a long chain of exchanges over hundreds of leagues.
Despite this burdensome truth, I begged him to assure me of the
integrity of that first link. At this he divulged the existence
of a friend on the Palatine Hill who is named Bellator. He is the
personal recordkeeper of the Castellan of the Sacred Palace, and
therefore a man who is well positioned to see to it that my notes
are included among the official dispatches to Bithynia. I asked
Maltinus if Bellator would know of any reason why the letters should
be lost, and Maltinus could not say. But I requested of him to inquire
after the letters and attempt to verify to the best of his ability
that they were being delivered. This in turn raised a whole other
issue – that of your replies, assuming of course that they
are indeed being written and sent back my way. For I have yet to
receive any, and am dismayed by your silence. Every day, however,
dawns with it the renewed hope that your words shall finally reach
me. That it has been almost two years since I started writing to
you does not in the least diminish my expectancy.
I must imagine Maltinus perceives in my ardency to connect with
you a decidedly pathetic quality, one engendered as much by my unswerving
devotion to our shared and forever departed past as it is intensified
by the despair of my present hardships. More than once has that
good and compassionate soul attempted to dissuade me from continuing
to write to you, citing in the name of my best interests the need
to focus squarely on my future as a page and all the attendant disciplines
of body and mind such a life shall require. I can quite clearly
read through his entreaty the real message he no doubt increasingly
doubts he shall ever successfully impart – one which advises
me as delicately as he dares to be not so obstinate in my attitude
toward Gryllus. And although I understand and am touched by his
fatherly concern, wishing nothing more than to allay it, I am resolved
to be obstinate in order to protect the one thing I have left to
me: a living spirit that is my own. Thus I am content to give to
Gryllus my body, for such is his demand and my duty. And I am content
to mark my days here upon the Caelian Hill for as long as the Fates
command it, for I am hardly in a position to contest them. Yet I
shall certainly not be seen to enjoy these things, nor enjoy them
even when unwatched. This refusal to enjoy; this denial of the demand
to engage, is the one choice I have left to me, and only in choosing
for my spirit to be obstinate over willing do I assert that precious
free will to choose, and thus the fellow named Antinous who once
you knew survives. (I have little doubt, Lysicles, of your perfect
capacity to infer from this claim the many hours of silent and isolated
reflection I have occasioned here to arrive at such a ridiculous
but necessary philosophy. Would Arkamedes approve of it? I am scared
to know.)
Gryllus
returned, as like a lion to a village too powerless to assemble
a hunting party bent on the beast’s destruction, to feed from
me again, yet he restrained himself this time merely to words. He
remarked that I should be happy there would on this single occasion
be no expectation of my nakedness before him; no subjugation of
my flesh unto his. I gazed at him evenly and said, quite truthfully,
“I am indifferent to my body in relation to yours, and neither
clothes nor nakedness in your presence shall have any bearing on
my present being.” He had obviously expected such an answer
(for it was not substantially new from what I had said to him before),
and he chose not to be angered by it. “I understand, Antinous,”
he said. And then he revealed a pair of dice, and asked if I wished
to play some rounds with him. I said no, and he accepted my refusal.
“You are making our time together very awkward, Antinous,”
he told me softly. “Then perhaps it is best if we do not see
each other anymore,” I replied. He laughed at that, and commended
me on such a quick-witted reply.
There was a silence then, after which he looked at me with affection
and said: “Do you not sometimes wish for those happy days
we shared together? That felicity and warmth which prompted from
you such an authentic and voluntary kiss upon my lips?” I
replied to him that I no longer wished for those days. “And
what of your current days?” he asked. “Do you not hope
to see ended the despicable attention of those other boys in your
school who show you so little respect?” It was amazing to
me that he should have the audacity to ask such a question, and
I thought for a second before replying thusly: “I certainly
hope that their assaults shall one day end, yet despair of them
ever receiving the order to do so from the human power that may,
at his convenience, command it.” With this, it must have been
most clear to Gryllus that I have long known of his involvement.
“Perhaps that power,” he said, “is very much willing
to end the assaults, if that it becomes satisfied that you are worthy
of having them ended.” “And how shall I be deemed worthy?”
I asked him. He smiled at me and reclined upon his chair: “I
think you know the answer, Antinous.”
At last I was tired of his childish intrigue, and wished only
to tell him openly of my mind. “Had you taken me to Cyprias
on any other day than the General Inspection,” I began, “I
should have been happy to give my spirit unto you as you desire.
But you have proven incapable of allowing me the dignity of a choice,
and as such I must recoil from you.” He stared at me for a
long time before replying, “It is not I who denies you the
choice, Antinous. You are by your very position forbidden to choose.
Though not a slave, you are an orphan less than a page, and as such
considerably limited in your options.”
“With regard to my duties as a page,” I said, “I
fulfill them to the minimum standard, the result being that our
meetings here are rendered to you as awkward. Yet if you wish of
me to engage my spirit, you must acknowledge it first to be mine,
to dispense with as I – not you – see fit. You may compel
my body to your will, but not my soul. That, Gryllus, must be earned.”
He considered me then with a bemused expression: “And how
shall I earn it, O young one?”
“First and foremost by the willingness to allow it a choice.”
“But you have one, Antinous. At this very moment, you are
presented with the opportunity to choose me as your willing provider
and forevermore live according to the luxury of my estate.”
“And if I choose not to?” I inquired. He stared at
me for a long time before replying, “Then nothing shall change
here, and I regret that the abuse of Carisias shall continue.”
I held my tongue, lest it spit venom at him.
“You do not appreciate how much is being offered to you,
Antinous, nor how much you stand to lose in its refusal. You do
not yet know your place.” I looked at him then without fear:
“My place, Gryllus, is to stand firm against any tyranny over
my soul. My body is destined to serve and to that I am resigned.
But unless the one it serves recognizes in me a soul that deserves
men’s good esteem, then I am adamant it shall not go along
willingly with my body. If you wish from me my willing soul, you
must afford for it the solemnity of a voluntary choice.” There
was a long pause, until at last, with a harsh, impatient anger behind
his words, he replied, “Do you think it shall be any better
in the Imperial Household? Do you believe with such naivety that
there shall not be intrigue and manipulations, monstrous men and
hungry hounds in the vast and reeking swamp of sycophants that surround
the Emperor? The palace is a hornet’s nest, boy, and you shall
be treated there by your Imperial master with far less respect than
should I.”
I looked at the face of Gryllus then; at the hollowness of those
eyes it padded. I placed it at the theatre beside me, at a table
across from me, in a bed above me. I pictured the years upon it,
and upon my own face in a looking glass. And I resolved that his
was a face I could see before me at the moment of my violent death.
Gryllus, I was sure, had it in him the power and potential to kill
me for some random and petty offense, some unexpected whim, some
indiscriminate reason less than honourable. Not now, while I remained
beauteous before him and represented the challenge of ultimate conquest.
But later, when I was become a man, and he had grown weary of me.
And I knew further that Hadrian was a lover of all things Greek
– not only its art and literature and philosophy and culture,
but its venerable erotic tradition as well. (Was it not Gryllus,
in fact, who had told me the story of the man’s quarrel with
Trajan?). I thought of my readings; of Plato’s Symposium.
The youths therein from whom the men took their pleasure were not
left like refuse in a ditch when those generous philosophers were
done of them, but rather converted into friends and confidants,
respected for their maturing sensibilities long after they had left
the bed of their elder. This was the Greek way. The Roman way, it
seemed to me, was far less than this, and the luster of its Cupid-adorned
drinking cups was dulled in the neglectful tarnish of ambition that
always looked elsewhere and beyond, impatient of the present dialogue.
Given, then, the shiver of my instinct, heaped upon for confirmation
and warmth with the thick and woolen reality of a choice between
what was Greek and what was Roman in the approach to my body and
my soul, the decision was quite clear, and thus I declared it to
him: “It is known to me,” I said, “that Hadrian
is a man enamoured with life. Peace and Happiness are the slogans
he stamps upon his coins. I must believe that a man such as this
is well disposed to administer a household of similar disposition.
And if, within it, I am stung by the occasional hornet, I daresay
it shall be better than the sole and fatal stab of a scorpion.”
With that he had my answer, and thus hardened forever against
me. He left then, and I have not seen nor heard from him since that
day almost three weeks ago. The assaults of Carisias have not diminished,
but neither have they intensified. All continues as it was, and
I am left to wonder at the strange and sinister machinations that
Gryllus is concocting beyond the nearest knolls of my knowledge
and the farthest frontiers of my foresight. I must assume he is
arranging to keep me from the next General Inspection – if
not to have me for himself, then simply to foil my aspirations out
of spite. Or is he accessing whatever contacts he has at the palace,
working to influence the particular office into which I’m
directed, the better then to torment me by it? I have no idea; no
possible means to investigate after my suspicions. I am left with
little else to do but mark each hour as it occurs, pray that this
thread of difficult days ends, not severed, but woven into one of
thicker weight and more artful braid. In the meantime I endure,
and go now to give again this parchment into the unverifiable assurances
of Maltinus.
Deeply, Lysicles, do I love you. A.
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