The Miserable Emperor

Jamie Li

It was a gloomy morning of year 476.A.D. The atmosphere of the palace was dignified and quiet. Little Romulus sat upright on a throne. The ministers, standing in two rows, were to welcome General Odovacac to court. He was almost numb, for his father Orestes has been dead for three days, and now he owned nothing, not even a parent, although the parent treated him badly and strictly and even put him onto the most dangerous position. Finally, he was free from father’s rigorous discipline, but he didn’t know what it means. He was angry but scared, but he was too weak to resist Odovacac, and when a person was at the deepest degree of fear and hesitation, he could neither scream nor fight.

The general walked up to the palace with a big belly and four-square steps. With every step he took, his boots crackled, and his sword dangled from his waist. He looked straight and walked toward Romulus, his eyes very cold. Cold sweat rolled down Romulus’s face as he tried to think about what he had done wrong again, but his mind went blank.

“My majesty, everybody. Traitor Orestes of Roman empire has been executed. His govern wasn’t righteous, and now he has gotten the deserved punishment----As for now, your highness, are you aware of your mistakes?”

Romulus couldn’t answer.

The general snorted coldly: “the emperor helped a villain do evil and took the position that doesn’t belong to him. I hereby depose the emperor and expel him from the city. The position of our new ruler is to be determined. Perhaps there isn’t a need to have one anymore. Those who refuse, behead.”

The word was like a clap of thunder, breaking the intense atmosphere. Everybody knew how mad the general was, but they didn’t realize the biggest disaster had come so quick.

An angry voice broke out: “You shall not do that!”

Romulus knew that person. He was too a powerful warlord from a powerful family whose generations had been high officials of the empire. He owned large piece of lands far from the city, and many soldiers too. But still, Odovacac is more powerful than him now.

“Your Majesty has only been on the throne for a short time, and it wasn’t his fault to obey his father. Now it’s not the time to talk about abolishing him.”

“The glory belongs to the brave Germans, and they brought new strength to this miserable land and deserve the power. You don’t want to be the enemy of the strong Germans, represented by me, do you?”

The two angry men both drew out the swords. The noise alerted the guards outside, and they rushed inside and surrounded the resister. In the shadow of the weapons, the ministers exclaimed loudly. The resister was angrier, realizing all the guards were now Odovacac’s own soldiers those days. But the thing that irritated him the most was the cowardness of all these ministers. Odovacac wouldn’t be able to kill all the men on the palace and all the men in the world! And now, killing only one resister was way too easy for Odovacac. He smiled in tears and walked out of the palace without a sword in his eyes, and the guards were frightened and waited for Odovacac’s orders.

Odovacac laughed out loud and signaled them out of the way---he was not interested in the powerful resister today.

The resister walked straight away ‘He’s afraid, even if he’s mad, to kill me is to be an enemy of my family and the world. The prestige of my family cannot be ignored…’

But again, the prestige could do nothing except save his own life. He became very sad. Perhaps he was sad about the fate of Romulus; perhaps he was sad about the fall of such a great empire; perhaps he was sad about all the people who lived on this land…

Romulus’s final hope now diminished. He was dragged from his throne, stripped of his crown, and stripped of his ornate imperial robe. He cried out, but his cry was covered up by the sobs of the ministers, the laugh of Odovacac…His fear and pain were at the climax point. He was sad he lost the throne, although he knew it didn’t belong to him as from the start. In a trance he saw the first day of his disaster, the first day of his life as a puppet on the throne. It was too a cold morning, during which he was wake up by Orestes and dragged off the warm bed by two servants. In a haze of sleep, he was dressed up in a strange attire, with heavy golden cap and boots and very thick layers of togas and fancy mantles that didn’t fit him at all. He wasn’t even able to walk in such cage-like clothing. Then they dragged him into a big hall, in which many small bottles were laid on the table. They squeezed some of the roman perfumes and blushers and oils out of the bottle and rouged him roughly. They even used tiny brushes to spread something on his eyes. He fell asleep at that moment, but when he woke up again, his eyelids were heavy, and his whole face skin, including lips, seemed not to feel the air flow anymore. He could almost see the embarrassing white and red on his face. Later they said that wearing make-ups could show the emperor’s nobility. All pharaohs and ancient kings did that… He was unwittingly put on the throne and sobbed that day, more unwilling to see the menacing adults, not even his father.

All these could be ended now. He begged Odovacac for mercy and life as he was escorted away by two tall soldiers down the steps.

But all this, after all, no longer mattered, when a simple gharry drove him into the wilderness, he was no longer afraid. He had known that far in the east, another Rome was still there, and he hoped to visit that only place where dreams hadn’t been disillusioned. But he could do nothing except keep the golden coins as a gift from Odovacac and be lonely forever.