For weeks, Rome had been colder than anything Baecr could remember in his forty years, and his morning walks across the Tiber from the Trastevere side brought a now familiar sight of ice crusting the banks of the river Tiber.  Beyond the city walls, his father’s slaves were no doubt helping to keep fresh water flowing along the aqueduct running from the snow-crested hills to the east.

An office on the Palatine Hill. It is late afternoon, winter. Rome has been cold. There is a promise of snow in the air. On his way, he saw ice along the Tiber. He’s heard the aqueducts are freezing, the slaves havve been sent up to pick the ice. He wonders whether his father has contributed his own slaves to the effort. He’ll see his father tomorrow. He sighs.

 

An office on the Palatine Hill. It is late afternoon, winter. Rome has been cold. There is a promise of snow in the air. On his way, he saw ice along the Tiber. He’s heard the aqueducts are freezing, the slaves have been sent up to pick the ice. He wonders whether his father has contributed his own slaves to the effort. He’ll see his father tomorrow. He sighs. 

 

Cold water flowing down from the looming mountains, deep blue against the horizon. The poor are cold.  A sharp contrast with the palace, which is warm. Underfloor heating. The people inside are content. Everyone except him. The room is a miniature Alexandria since Claudius was an avid reader. Tracts of Greek and Roman literature. Caesar’s account of Britain. Introduce the fact that Rome is currently waging war in Britain. He moves to the window, and looks out on Rome seeing the Forum and beyond. 

 

Voices draw his attention to the gardens spread out below the window. He sees the Emperor Nero, young and naive, walking down towards the Forum with several Batavari bodyguards, possibly off to see his mother, Agrippina. He knows Nero’s relationship with Agrippina is strained. . 

 

Exacerbated by the pain in his shoulder, the scene irritates him since he regards the German Batavari as immigrant barbarians. He thinks it is his job as a Praetorian Guard to protect Nero, although he also appreciates the irony of this notion. Also he knows he doesn’t care much about Nero..

 

In reality he works at the palace as a liaison between the Batavri and the main Praetorian legion based outside the city walls in the Castra Praetoria. This is the only thing he can do; a nothing role. He’s been in his office, a library for all intents and purposes since it used to belong to Claudius before his death two years before, possibly murdered by Agrippina, his then wife. 

 

 

 

 

For weeks the city had been colder than living memory could recall, with ice crusting the banks of the Tiber and aqueducts freezing. The shivering poor kept indoors whenever their time and labour allowed, while in contrast to such plebeian trevails, the luxury in the palace up on the Palatine Hill happily defied the weather. In gilded rooms warm air rose from underfloor furnaces, creating a comfortable cocoon untouched by the cold that bit into the world beyond.

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Most within the palace were therefore relatively content with their lot. One man however proved the exception. Appearing a little hunched as he clutched his right arm, he had left his small office on a lower floor. From there he climbed a series of stairs until he reached a modest-sized room with a low ceiling and white-washed walls lined with tall wooden bookcases. The shelves in the bookcases held rolls of scrolls, some old, others new, smelling collectively of dust and secrets.

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He didn’t care for the dust or secrets but the isolation of the room served a useful purpose. Being a private man, it was somewhere he could find the privacy to suffer alone an infrequent but intense pain in his right shoulder, beneath a raised scar no wider than a sword's blade. He had grown used to permanent discomfort and limited movement in the same arm, but very occasionally it felt like a rod of forge-red iron had been thrust deep into his flesh, not far removed from the truth of the matter.