Chapter 32: The Old Guard

The public humiliation at the temple was only the first shot in Lucilla's new campaign. The whispers about the "hollow emperor" grew louder in the city, fueled by the eyewitness accounts of his religious stumble. Having successfully attacked his spiritual legitimacy, Lucilla now moved to dismantle his personal history, brick by brick. She began a subtle, brilliant parade of ghosts from his past, each one a walking, talking memory test designed to expose the stranger she knew was wearing her brother's face. Her methods were cunningly indirect. She would orchestrate a series of "chance" encounters, always in a semi-public setting within the palace, where it would be impossible for Alex to refuse an audience without appearing paranoid or rude. The first ghost was a stooped, elderly man with sharp, intelligent eyes named Aulus Cornelius Fronto, a famous orator who had been one of Commodus's childhood tutors in rhetoric. Fronto had, according to Perennis's briefing, despised the real Commodus, viewing him as a brutish, intellectually lazy pupil who cared more for oiled muscles than for elegant prose. Lucilla brought the old man to the palace library, where Alex was reviewing trade reports. "Brother," she said, her voice filled with false sweetness. "Look who has come to pay his respects. Dear Fronto. He was so pleased to hear of your newfound dedication to your studies." The old tutor bowed stiffly. "Caesar. It is a delight to see you have finally found an appreciation for the written word." His greeting was a backhanded compliment, a test from the very first sentence. He then launched into a complex philosophical debate on the nature of civic duty as described by Cicero versus the stoic ideals of Seneca. It was a subject Alex was passably familiar with from his own 21st-century education, and he managed to hold his own, arguing his points with a clarity and logic that clearly surprised the old man. But he knew he was playing a part, offering reasoned arguments where the real Commodus would have offered a bored grunt or a brutish retort. When the conversation ended, Fronto left looking deeply perplexed. Alex later heard from one of Perennis's spies what the old tutor had said to Lucilla in the hallway. "His mind is as sharp as a trained philosopher's, Augusta. He has a grasp of logic I never thought possible. But his spirit... it feels like a stranger's. The passionate, angry boy I knew is gone, replaced by... a thinking machine." Lucilla's smile at the report, the spy noted, was triumphant. The next ghost was of a completely different sort. A few days later, Lucilla arranged for an old military comrade of Commodus's to be granted a private audience. His name was Gaius Lentulus, a boorish but fiercely loyal centurion who had been one of the young emperor's favorite drinking and gambling partners before he left for the Danube. Lentulus lumbered into the study, his face split by a huge, gap-toothed grin, expecting to be greeted with the rough camaraderie of old. "Lucius, you old dog!" he boomed, forgoing all formal titles. "By the gods, it's good to see you! Do you remember that night in Ostia, after the chariot races? The one with the twin sisters from Syria and the stolen senator's wig? I haven't laughed so hard in my life!" Alex was trapped. He had a vague, one-line summary of the incident from Lyra's data, but none of the emotional texture, none of the specific, bawdy details that would make the memory real. He was forced to play along, offering a weak, awkward smile. "Ah, Lentulus. Yes... a wild night, as I recall," he said, his voice lacking any genuine enthusiasm. "My memory of it is... hazy. The burdens of state have a way of clouding such frivolous things." The centurion's grin faltered. He tried again, recounting another story of shared debauchery, but Alex could only respond with polite, distant affirmations. The easy, vulgar chemistry that had defined his relationship with the real Commodus was completely absent. Lentulus left the audience looking confused and deeply disappointed. He was later heard grumbling to his fellow officers in the barracks that the Emperor had "lost his fire," that all the fun had been "drained right out of him." Each of these encounters was another small victory for Lucilla, another piece of evidence for her growing narrative. But her masterstroke, her most dangerous and personal attack, was yet to come. She declared that she was concerned for her brother's physical well-being. "You spend all your time with scrolls and senators," she told him in front of several members of the court. "You are neglecting your body, the temple of your Herculean spirit." Therefore, she announced, she had taken the liberty of assigning the finest physical trainer in Rome to the palace gymnasium, to personally oversee the Emperor's daily exercise. The man she had chosen was Narcissus. The name sent a jolt of cold fear through Alex. Narcissus. The hulking, undefeated gladiator from the temple dedication. The man who, according to every historical record, was not just Commodus's trainer and closest friend, but his eventual murderer. She was forcing Alex into daily, intimate proximity with the man destined to strangle him in his bath. It was a psychological masterstroke of pure sadism. The first training session was a quiet, private hell. The palace gymnasium was a vast, airy space with mosaic floors and walls lined with racks of weights, wooden swords, and other instruments of exercise and combat. Narcissus was waiting for him. The gladiator was a man of few words, his scarred face an unreadable mask. He moved with the quiet confidence of a man for whom violence was a language he spoke more fluently than Latin. "Caesar," he greeted Alex with a simple nod. He gestured towards a rack of wooden practice swords. "We will begin with basic forms. To see what you have forgotten." Alex took a sword, its weight feeling both alien and familiar in his hand. The body he inhabited had muscle memory, a physical knowledge he did not consciously possess. As Narcissus called out commands, Alex found his arms and legs moving, executing blocks, parries, and thrusts. But it felt wrong. He was a passenger in his own body, his mind recoiling from the inherent violence of the movements. They began to spar, the wooden swords clacking together in the silent hall. Narcissus was not aggressive. He was testing, probing, his movements economical and precise. Alex found himself fighting defensively, his instincts always to retreat, to block, to avoid the killing blow. Within minutes, Narcissus executed a quick, fluid disarming maneuver. The wooden sword flew from Alex's hand and clattered across the floor. They began again. And again, Narcissus disarmed him with contemptuous ease. Finally, the gladiator lowered his own sword. They stood in the center of the gymnasium, sweating, their breath clouding in the cool morning air. "You have not changed, Caesar," Narcissus said, his voice a low, thoughtful rumble. "And yet, you have changed completely." Alex froze, his heart pounding. "What do you mean, Narcissus?" The gladiator looked at the sword in his own hand, then at Alex's empty ones. "Your body still knows the movements. The strength is there in your shoulders. The form of your stance is perfect. I can feel the memory of a hundred bouts in the way you hold your shield." He then met Alex's eyes, and his gaze was unsettlingly astute. "But the intent is gone," Narcissus stated, not as an accusation, but as a simple fact. "The fire. The killing instinct. It is absent. You hold your sword like a man who is afraid of what it can do. The old you held it like a man who couldn't wait to find out." The observation struck Alex harder than any physical blow. He had been so focused on faking memories, on mimicking knowledge, that he had completely forgotten something more fundamental, more primal: his own nature. He wasn't a killer. He wasn't a warrior. He was a project manager from Austin, Texas. Lucilla didn't need to prove he had the wrong memories. She was proving he had the wrong soul. As he stood there, metaphorically and literally disarmed, exposed by the one man who understood violence better than anyone in the world, he realized his sister's ghost hunt was getting closer to the terrible truth than he had ever thought possible.