Chrysanthos, Imperial Eunuch

Chrysanthos is an influential and elegant imperial eunuch who earlier refused to make Gaius Galen a eunuch at age 10 when his father brought him to Chrysanthos for the transformation. After 13 years Gaius and Chrysanthos, who will soon become a very important figure in Gaius’ complicated life, meet again at a party. Here is an excerpt of that from Chapter 11, Unhinged by Chrysanthos…

 

Chrysanthos turned to greet me, his arms spreading for an embrace we entered immediately. He smelled heavenly, perfumed in bliss. I hugged him deeply, my eyes suddenly swimming in tears of happiness mingled with anxiety. He patted my back and pulled away, his face two feet from mine.

 

"You have grown well into manhood, Gaius. Yet I easily recognize the boy of 10 I saw so long ago."

 

"And in you, Chrysanthos, the handsomeness I always recall is now richer with dignity." I released his shoulders and stepped back. "You look as wise as Moses, but without a beard." I didn’t know the emotion filling me but smiled, trapping a pair of tears on the ridge of my cheek. He wiped them away with a finger weighted by an emerald ring, then tousled my hair, just as he did when I was 10.

 

“I would never have expected to see you here among men as coarse as Scorpus,” I said.

 

“But I love Scorpus – I love all these people, most all of them.” Chrysanthos laughed, impossibly perfect teeth brightening his smile a magnitude. “Besides, I furnish horses for many of the teams. I have a string of stables in Cappadocia. But you must know that from the track.”

​

“You know where I am? I didn’t think you would,” I said, a reflexive smile showing my pleasure.

 

“I have always known where you are, Gaius, even when you were Wilder.” The lift of his greying eyebrow said that he knew much. I felt ashamed before this man.

 

But not a man, and not a woman: a eunuch, the third gender intentionally constructed to serve. Boys’ bodies prevented from reaching manhood, filling out instead with female attributes of smooth skin, fat deposits in hips and thighs, and high-pitched voice, plus the adopted mannerisms of the tribe of eunuchs that existed in another world within Constantinople. Chrysanthos’ face was somewhat Persian with a strong, contoured chin and a mouth fit for either sex. But the eyes, so dark, so kind, were shaded by lashes Messalina would be proud of. I had become lost in those eyes as a boy, looking up to this man I considered to be better than any man I knew then.

 

“But I also know you no longer prefer Wilder,” he said, squeezing my arm and smiling in approval.

 

“No, not now – and never to you, Chrysanthos. I am not Wilder.” Just saying the name to him embarrassed me for every stupid, violent thing I had ever done. “I am just trying to be Gaius Galen Licinius.”

 

“Your father’s name. But you are nothing like him.”

 

“I am The Younger, yes. But it is not my choice to be so subordinated. We do not speak.”

He laughed warmly. “He and I don’t speak either, these days. But associates of my master Tribonian have dealings with him.”

 

Tribonian, the quaestor who compiled the Roman laws into Justinian’s Codex, was one of the emperor’s most trusted advisors. Chrysanthos was in a high circle of power.

 

“I am humbled before you, Chrysanthos – the student proud of his mentor, who no doubt had a hand in the famous Codex.” In respect I touched the side of his head, long hair falling in curls tied with golden threads. I pulled my hand away. “Proud of you for that, and for leaving me whole.”

 

“I am also whole, Gaius. But I understand you,” he said, showing no offense. “I have always wondered that you might have misunderstood my part in our drama, and glad to learn now you did not. I could not share everything with my 10-year-old charge, of course. But I did not share your father’s desire, either.”

 

He paused for my reaction, spotting the shallow, rapid breathing I hid poorly trying to staunch the terrible memories rising within me. “Within the first day or two, I knew it was wrong for you. I stalled with your father, I kept you longer on purpose. I could have told him on the second day, instead I told him after the second week – to protect you from him. But I have to admit that the threat itself worked, perhaps too well. It seemed to set you on the path to becoming Wilder.”

 

I recalled being in the garden at his knee, adoring him, so completely different from my father, wishing he would take me as his son. Now 13 years later, here I stood rigid staring into his face. I couldn’t stop, couldn’t move mind or muscle.

 

“Gaius –” I think he grabbed my shoulder – “Gaius, my boy, come out of those old times,” he spoke this softly but with urgency. I couldn’t really see him, overcome with the sickening sensation of my father wanting to maim me. Was I 10 again? Was I Wilder. Who was I?