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Synopsis
From the author of Caligula comes a new stand-alone novel in the Damned Emperors series: Commodus.
AD 162. Rome is enjoying a period of stability and prosperity. The Empire's bounds are increasing, and two sons are born into the imperial succession for the first time in nearly a century. But all is not as it appears - cracks are beginning to show. The wars have rumbled on too long, and there are whispers of a sickness in the East.
Just 30 years later, the Empire will be caught up in civil war, the imperial dynasty ended and Rome burned.
One man tried to hold the fracturing state together. To Rome, he was their Emperor, their Hercules, their golden gladiator fighting off all foes, their Commodus. One woman tried to hold him together. To Commodus, she was simply Marcia.
Release date: June 13, 2019
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Print pages: 496
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Commodus
Simon Turney
I
FALLING INTO THE GRAVE
Rome, ad 162
I was having a nightmare, though I cannot for the life of me remember remotely what it was about. I lay wrapped in my blankets on the upper floor of our house in the Velabrum when it all began.
I was just four years old, though my mother thought me beyond my years already. It was the year of the consuls Rusticus and Plautius in the reign of the new glorious emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. It was spring, a strangely warm and sultry night despite days of storms over the nearby hills.
The Velabrum – my home – is a shallow valley between Rome’s greatest hills, the Capitoline and the Palatine, stretching from the forum to the river. In times past it had been a swamp, liable to flooding, but then the cloaca maxima, the great sewer of Rome, was built to drain the area. The cloaca runs beneath the Velabrum, its route defined by the valley’s course. But this was still not enough to prevent flooding and disaster and so, under the lunatic Nero, the ground level had been raised. Now, only the heaviest of floods would cross the bank.
In a region where most other buildings were wooden insulae reaching seven storeys towards the clouds, filled with the crying poor, beggars and thieves, our house was a small oasis of quality. A brick residence only two storeys high, level with the structures below the palace on the slopes of the Palatine. I remember it well, though that was the last year we lived there, for that spring the banks could not contain great Father Tiber.
A crash cut through the shroud of Morpheus and forced me to the waking world. My room was as dark as it ever got, for even in the middle of the night torches and lamps keep the shadows at bay in much of the city.
I sat up sharply, shivering, confused. For a moment I could not work out whether the noise had been part of my dream or from somewhere in the true world, but a second crash clarified the issue. It sounded as though the world was collapsing into Hades below and I stood, shaking. I thought there was silence then, but it was a trick of the senses. The crashes had been so loud they had driven out all other sound for precious moments. Then it came flooding back in. Screams, bellows, thunderous rumbles and bangs. I could tell the lights in the Velabrum were going out as the shade of gold leaching through the tatty window hangings grew weaker.
Slowly, with infinite trepidation, as though by delaying my investigation I could hold back events, I padded across the cold tiles to my window. I know. Tatty curtains and cold tiles. It sounds so poor now, but back then we were considered lucky – wealthy, even – for the emperor paid for our house and a small stipend allowed us to furnish it. I approached the window, and the noise outside crescendoed as the glow dimmed further. There was a roaring like that of some great, titanic subterranean lion. I flinched as I reached the curtains, hardly daring to touch them for fear of what lay behind.
I pulled them aside and stared into the vaults of Tartarus.
A great wave was washing along the Velabrum from the direction of the river. Even by what light remained, which was not much, I could see the flotsam borne by the crest of the wave. Not the remains of some broken vessel, though, but of homes and shops; splintered wood and chunks of plaster that had been swept along. Only the stronger buildings were surviving the crashing wave and the hungry waters it brought, and only the torches and lamps on the upper floors of those buildings continued to burn and illuminate the horror.
I watched in shock as the heavy stone covers over the drains down into the cloaca maxima were thrown into the air as though they were made of terracotta by a torrent of water that was simply too vast to be contained by the ancient watercourse.
Screams came from the men and women, children and grey-hairs who were caught up by the wave, until they were dashed against walls or pulled down beneath the churning water. The living struggled and splashed, the dead bobbed and eddied, carried here from parts of the city upstream. I took everything in within mere heartbeats.
Horror. Destruction. A fluid grave that claimed more lives with each passing moment. The spell of shock shattered at the sound of my name. Mother. She burst through the door into my room, wild-eyed and dishevelled, her short-sleeved woollen tunic unbelted and askew.
‘Marcia, come. Hurry.’
Cold and unemotional as always, but I needed no further bidding. Mother’s word was law, her will iron, had been ever since her husband passed, or so people said. I had never known Marcus Aurelius Sabinianus Euhodius, my father, though his reputation still carried weight among those who had the slightest concern for freedfolk. Hurriedly straightening her hair, as though to be seen in such a state even during the midst of a disaster might somehow lower her standing, Mother dashed back out of the room into the dim stairway and descended. I paused at the top, watching her hurrying down, hastily knotting the belt around her waist. Down seemed like a bad idea. Down: towards the churning waters that so terrified me. But Mother was already there and lighting a lamp. By its golden glow I saw that the water had not begun to consume the chamber in earnest. Not yet, at least.
I hurried down and my heart rose into my throat. Water was already rushing beneath the door from the shop out front, and I could see it pouring over the windowsills beneath the bottom edge of the shutters, which were held fast with iron bars. An ominous creak made me realise the horrible truth. The door and the twin window shutters were all that was holding back the flood. The waters were even now pressing against the shutters, threatening to burst them. If the bars gave way, this room would fill like a bath in moments.
I stood rooted to the spot in panic. Why were we here? We were trapped downstairs, waiting until the water came in and stole our breath.
Then I realised in astonishment why we were here. Mother was rooting through the chests and racks in her little workshop, which doubled as our living area. In her arms she was gathering neatly folded garments of linen and wool and even silk, some threaded with gold, some dyed purple. Garments fit for a king. Fit for an emperor. Garments belonging to an emperor.
‘Hurry, girl. Take these.’
She thrust an armful of tunics at me and I took them, still in disbelief that we were rescuing her work in the face of impending doom.
‘Mama . . .’
‘Go upstairs. I will follow.’
I watched her for a moment, still frozen there.
‘God will preserve us. Go, child.’
I ran. Leaving my mother in that makeshift cistern, I ran up the stairs, hugging those priceless garments to my chest as though they contained all my mother’s love.
At the top I stood, heaving in breaths, watching the empty patch of the workshop visible from the top of the stairs in that golden glow. There was no sign of Mother, though occasionally her shadow moved into view, distorted by the rising waters that had consumed the floor. There was half a foot of lapping filth down there now, but I knew how much dangerous water was being held back from the room by just thin layers of wood and iron bars.
I stood clutching those precious bundles, willing Mother to hurry. Then there was an ominous creak, a splintering and a crash. The flood filled the ground floor of the house in an instant, a surging torrent of foaming darkness battering the walls and rushing up the staircase towards me. I felt my heart pounding, my eyes wide with shock.
Mother . . . I couldn’t see her.
Perhaps I should have turned and run; the water was rising towards my rooted feet so fast. But my mother was not there. The waters surged and churned, rising and consuming all, and Mother was gone.
I couldn’t leave her . . .
Suddenly a sodden bundle of clothes broke the surface of the water, a hand clutching each side. Step by step, Mother gradually appeared on the staircase, her face fixed on the vital imperial garments she was trying to keep above the filthy flood.
I nearly dropped my own burden to throw my arms around my dripping mother but had no such chance; she bustled past me, urging me on.
‘I wish we lived in one of the tall insulae,’ I said in wavering tones, eyeing the water already rolling out onto the landing.
‘No, you do not, Marcia,’ Mother replied, and I turned to follow her gaze. Through her bedroom window we had a clear view of one of the neighbouring wooden apartment blocks leaning further and further out towards the Capitol, its foundations undermined by the floodwater. It seemed to reach an impossible angle, where only God was keeping it erect, and then it fell. I realised, as I listened to the almighty crash, and the screams, that it was one of those blocks falling that had dragged me from sleep in the first place. I watched figures dropping from the upper floors as it fell, perhaps thrown clear, perhaps leaping in the hope that the water would break their fall. They were doomed. The doomed, falling into the grave.
‘Pray, Marcia. Pray for deliverance.’
Mother placed her pile of garments on top of a chest and dropped to her knees, hands clasped to her breast, invoking the blessed Saviour to come to our aid. I was four: I believed what I was told to believe. And yet even then, despite having been raised in the faith of our Lord the resurrected Christ by my mother, in the face of all this I found that my faith was simply not strong enough. God would surely be of little use when faced with what I had witnessed outside. Still, driven by faith in my mother as much as faith in the Lord, I added my garments to her pile, dropped to my knees and pleaded.
Perhaps God spoke to Mother then, though I heard only screams and watery destruction, for she suddenly snapped out of her prayer, eyes full of purpose, and pointed to the rickety wooden ladder at the back of the landing.
‘The roof, Marcia.’
The water level was at the upper floor already and ankle-deep, and I needed little urging. I rose, unclasped my hands and followed her to the ladder.
‘I will go first,’ she said. I watched in astonishment as she gathered a pile of the garments and began to struggle up the rungs with one hand, clinging to her livelihood with the other. With a little effort she unbolted the wooden hatch at the top and clambered out onto the roof. I saw her struggle with her footing for a moment, and worried that she would fall. But then she steadied herself, placed her precious burden on the tiles and made sure it was secure, then motioned for me to climb. I did so, my own pile of garments forgotten. I clambered up the rungs and flopped out onto the roof, exhausted. Mother wasted no time in descending to retrieve my abandoned cargo.
The pitch of the roof was low, just enough to allow rainwater to gather in the runnel and drop into the barrel below, which was now, ironically, under several feet of water. Like other houses of this height, a hatch had been built into the roof to allow access, for the impoverished inhabitants of the towering insulae to each side had a habit of discarding their waste from high windows without care for whose roof it might coat. A broom stood close to the ladder for sweeping unmentionable mess from the tiles.
She re-emerged with the rest of the garments, muttering her thanks to Heaven for having been preserved from the floodwater with the best of her stock relatively intact. I was a touch sceptical. We may have escaped the rippling cistern of our ground floor, but we were now trapped on a roof. My gaze took in the full extent of the disaster around us. Perhaps half the towering insulae in our street had gone, turned to sediment and kindling in the churning waters below. It would have been impossible to tell where the usual course of the river was but for the circular roof of the Temple of Hercules Victor just protruding from the surface, which I knew to stand close to the riverbank. Each street was now a river in itself. Lights continued to burn in the high places, but the low-lying regions were lost, just a world of screams and shouts.
‘Woman!’
We turned. It was odd and perhaps even arrogant that we both assumed the voice to be aimed at us, but somehow it seemed naturally to be the case, for every other voice in Rome was raised in a scream while this one was deep, authoritative and, above all, calm.
A man stood upon the roof of the small bathhouse that nestled into the lower slope of the Palatine hill just behind our house. He was clad in the uniform of the urban cohorts, the branch of the military whose role was suppression of crime and preservation of public safety. Even as I realised that his uniform was dry, and that he must therefore have come from higher ground, I saw others of his unit clambering onto the roof behind him. Though the water had reached the upper floor of our house, parts of the bath complex still touched dry land thanks to the slope of the great hill.
‘Are you Marcia Aurelia Sabinianus?’ the man shouted.
My mother, her brow furrowed, nodded. Then, realising the man probably couldn’t see her nodding, she cleared her throat and responded, ‘I am she.’
‘We are here to rescue you. Are you injured?’
I stared in surprise. A party of the urban cohorts had come through all this for my mother?
‘No. I am fine.’
‘The emperor wishes you brought to the palace.’
The emperor? The emperor, in the midst of all this chaos, had thought to preserve my mother?
‘How do we escape?’ Mother asked, staring at the water all around.
‘Here.’
Four of the men were now skittering carefully across the tiles carrying a plank towards us. I realised then where they had come from. The far wall of the baths was being renovated. We’d heard the workmen at their task for several days, their scaffolding enclosing one end of the complex as they hammered and shouted and sang. The men of the cohort had climbed the scaffolding and brought a plank across the roof. I had not realised how close we were to the bathhouse until I saw them slide the timber out and slip it into place across the narrow street. It only just reached. One heavy shake would likely send it and anything on it down into the roiling waters below, but somehow the dangers seemed unimportant. The plank represented unexpected hope amid disaster.
‘Come across. We’ll anchor it as best we can from this end, but come slowly and carefully and hold tight as you go.’
‘My daughter goes first,’ Mother said with an air of command.
‘All right. Come on.’
Mother gestured for me to cross. Heart pounding, skin prickling with nerves at the danger all around, I slid slowly down the roof towards the plank and grabbed tight to the tiles as I neared the edge. I rose to my feet and clambered onto the end of the shaky board. I began to cross.
‘Hands and knees, girl,’ the soldier bellowed. ‘Hands and knees.’
Though I was fairly sure I could cross safely enough on foot, I did as I was told and dropped to my knees, crawling slowly along the plank. It wobbled and bowed precariously even under my negligible weight. If I can identify three moments that are responsible for my lifelong fear of water, they are looking out of my window at the Tiber rushing towards me, fearing Mother pulled down into the depths, and staring at the boiling currents below that plank. I was shaking like a leaf as I reached the far end and was lifted bodily to safety by muscular, hairy, tattooed arms. The men of the urban cohorts held me safe as Mother took her turn. She gathered up the huge pile of garments and placed them on the plank, least important at the bottom, and began to edge them forward.
‘Leave the clothes!’ the Guard officer shouted in disbelief.
‘These are the emperor’s tunics. Only he can give that command.’
And so, my mother edged slowly forward across the plank, nudging the pile carefully ahead of her with each shuffling movement. When she lost control for a moment and the top tunic of deep aquamarine and silver thread fluttered down into the water, her cry of anguish was akin to any of the screams of loss that night. Indeed, she fought so hard to regain control of the pile of clothes that she almost fell herself.
A few heartbeats later she was across. With the staunch support of the men of the cohort, we crossed the roof and began to clamber down the scaffolding ladders. One of the soldiers tried to take my mother’s burden, but she would not relinquish her precious clothing even to him and hugged it jealously to her all the way across and down that nerve-wracking escape. I had never felt more grateful than when we stood on the solid ground of the Palatine slope, not far above the level of the floodwaters. Following Mother’s example and earning us both black looks of disapproval from the soldiers all the way up the steps of the Scalae Caci, I prayed to God on high for the safety and peace of the city and its inhabitants.
We were led past the temples of the Great Mother, of Victory, of Apollo Palatinus, and into the sprawling complex of the imperial palace. As we passed each of those three great pagan shrines, Mother made the sign of the cross and gave them a wide berth, as though their idolatry could somehow infect her. For my part, I was always more than a little fascinated with the gods of our fellow Romans and the ways they kept. They seemed to me, for all their oddness, exotic and enticing. I could never have said as much to Mother, mind, or I would have spent my life in penance.
Finally, we were shown into the palace itself and escorted by the eight men of the urban cohorts past pairs of Praetorian guardsmen and through corridors of rich marble and bright paint, lorded over by busts of great men both past and present. Busts that I reached out and brushed my fingers across the base of whenever Mother’s eyes were not upon me. I suppose for most plebs it would have been a thing of astonishment to see such gilded luxury. I, of course, had been in the palace as often as any senator or general, attending to the apparel-based needs of the emperor, yet I still felt awed by the imperial grandeur. At the end of one corridor, my trailing fingers found an unstable plinth, and the bust of some ancient dignitary rocked gently. Mother said nothing. She did not need to. Her glare carried more warning than any words and I kept my arms by my sides from then on.
Eventually we reached a wide chamber painted with images of fantastic creatures and trompe l’œil that made it appear as though we were standing in some grand park overlooking a lake of swans. We were motioned to silence as we entered, and instantly I understood why.
The two emperors stood over a desk spread with a map of the city, accompanied by men in togas and men in armour. Two senior officers, almost certainly the Praetorian prefect and the commander of the urban cohorts, several men of high public office, even a priest.
The great Marcus Aurelius, successor of Divine Antoninus and Emperor of Rome now for over a year, was involved in deep, muttered debate with one of the politicians, while my mother’s master, the co-emperor and adoptive brother of Aurelius, was busily haranguing the Praetorian prefect.
‘I want him found and brought here to answer to me, personally,’ Lucius Verus snapped.
Aurelius turned, drawn from his low conversation by the shout, his intelligent grey eyes filled with worry.
‘Who?’
‘Statius Priscus,’ Verus replied. ‘That fool.’
Aurelius nodded his understanding and turned back to his own conversation, leaving Lucius Verus to snap at the officer. ‘It is Priscus’ responsibility to monitor the river and waterworks and to be aware of any issues. A good curator alvei Tiberis should know everything, right down to how many fish there are in the river. He should certainly damn well know when there’s a flood coming that’s big enough to drown a city!’
‘Majesty, we have checked the curator’s house and the major-domo says he is at his villa on the slope of Mount Lepinus near Norba.’
‘What?’
‘Apparently there was some drainage issue he needed to attend to.’
The emperor’s face passed through a number of expressions before settling into a deep, purpling anger.
‘Have him sent for with all haste and we shall see how humorous he thinks the irony of attending to his estate’s drainage while the city slowly drowns in his absence. Hot irons might await.’
The emperor Aurelius, never a man to miss a thing, cast a warning glance at his brother. Verus subsided under that wise gaze. ‘Send for him,’ the elder brother amended, ‘but when the crisis is over. For now, we need to concentrate all our efforts on making sure the dry regions remain secure. The waters could rise still, and whole regions remain at risk. Have every man available barricading the streets –’ he reached over the map and jabbed repeatedly with his finger ‘– here, here, here and here.’
Lucius Verus turned, his temper cooled, and his gaze fell upon us, standing unobtrusive and quiet in the corner of the room. ‘Marcia? Good, they found you in time. I hear horror stories of what is happening in the Velabrum. No matter how many times we institute building codes, landlords cut corners and the result is invariably disaster. At least you are not hurt, nor your charming daughter.’
Mother bowed respectfully, which proved to be difficult with an armful of folded clothes. Verus realised then what she was holding.
‘Jove above and all his bolts of thunder, tell me you did not risk life and limb to bring me my tunics?’
My mother had the grace to look a little sheepish, but Verus chuckled with genuine fondness. His hair and beard gleamed gold in the lamplight and his face creased naturally into a smile. ‘Marcia, you are a marvel.’ He gestured to the officer beside us. ‘Libo, I want these ladies taken care of.’ He winked at my mother before addressing the officer once more. ‘I go to war with Parthia within the month, and it does not do for an emperor to face the King of Kings in drab apparel.’ He chuckled again. ‘Quarter them with the boys for now, until we can settle more permanent arrangements.’
And that was our dismissal. We were escorted from the imperial presence, but even that brief moment had given me an insight into the world of the emperors. These were no Neronian fools or Tiberian tyrants. These men were the best of Romanitas, leading their people and caring for the city as the patres patriae – the fathers of Rome. Despite everything we had endured and witnessed that night, I left sure that Rome was in good hands.
I lost track of our route through the palace. We had been many times before to attend upon Verus, but often in the same areas: either the public halls or his private apartments. The part of the palace to which we were now led, with windows that looked out upon the great Circus Maximus, was reserved for the imperial family and important guests and relations. Somewhere along the line, the soldiers passed us off to a palace functionary who escorted us the rest of the way, full of his own self-importance and without thought to ask my mother whether he could help her with her burden as the soldiers had done.
Our journey’s end turned out to be a room painted with exotic wildlife, lit low with oil lamps. Two babes lay in beds that cost more than our entire household. Both were blond, with curly hair, and both, despite the lateness of the hour, were awake. One was crying while the other examined the cot’s headboard with an air of fascination. I know now that they were both less than a year old at the time. A nurse with a ruddy complexion and the figure of a well-fed matron was busy trying to settle the crying child.
‘This,’ announced our escort, ‘is Hestia. She will take care of you for now. When I have had rooms made ready, I will send for you.’
I could see my mother’s eyes narrow at being spoken to in this manner by a slave, no matter how powerful that slave might think he was. Hestia turned to us and I liked her immediately. Her face radiated sympathy and friendliness. She opened her mouth to speak but, as she did so, another door swung open without warning and a woman entered. I recognised the empress Faustina. Hers was a face I had seen in the palace from time to time, though I had never been personally involved with her. She was tall and elegant, even as heavily pregnant as she clearly was now. She carried her unborn child with her arms beneath the bump supporting some of the weight, and her face reflected her discomfort. My mother said later that she thought that, after bearing twelve children, the empress should be more at ease than she was.
‘Hestia, would you kindly keep the boys quiet?’ the empress snapped. ‘I find it difficult enough drifting to sleep in perfect quiet, let alone with Lucius howling like that.’
‘That is Titus, Majesty,’ Hestia said with a smile.
‘Whichever,’ snorted the empress, ‘kindly keep him from howling like some monster from Aenean legend.’ She turned and noticed us for the first time. ‘You, you’re Verus’ woman, yes?’ Mother bowed her confirmation. ‘Good,’ the empress added. ‘Your girl looks quiet and sensible. Let her look after them.’
And with that, the empress Faustina spun and departed, the door clunking shut behind her.
‘Don’t mind her,’ Hestia said indulgently once the empress was out of earshot. ‘She’s actually very nice, but this pregnancy tests her and makes her waspish.’
Mother smiled and put down her pile of garments. ‘These are the empress’ twins?’ she asked, peering at the two boys.
‘They are,’ nodded Hestia, and my eyes widened at the realisation. I was in the presence of the twin sons of Marcus Aurelius, heirs to the empire. Titus Aurelius Fulvus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus. Titus Fulvus, then, was the one wailing and noisy, while Lucius Commodus was the one playing with the carving. Presumably both boys had been calmly asleep earlier, but the noise outside was loud even from here as the city panicked and died, ravaged by Father Tiber.
I took a hesitant step towards the beds, glancing across at the nurse, but I had no need to fear. I had been commanded by the empress, after all. Hestia gave me a nod and a flash of her smile, and I crossed to the beds. As I reached the foot and stood between them, the strangest thing happened. Both children turned to look at me and the hair at the nape of my neck rose, my skin turning to gooseflesh. Fulvus stopped crying in an instant and peered at me as though inspecting the very soul of which I was made. Commodus looked deep into my eyes, gave a strange little giggle, and then wet himself.
Hestia laughed. ‘They like you. I rarely see them so calm, even with the empress. Particularly with the empress,’ she corrected conspiratorially, with a sly glance flicked at the door.
I smiled and brushed off the strange encounter, but something in my soul seemed to have clicked into place.
I was in the house of the emperors, and there I would stay.
II
INTELLIGENCE AND PRECOCIOUSNESS
Rome, ad 164
I turned seven in the autumn of the year of the consuls Macrinus and Celsus, with no fuss, and a tunic of fine green cotton and a grey braided belt made by my mother for a gift, which complemented my dark hair and olive skin. It had been common for the emperor, or more likely one of his lackeys, to give Mother and I gifts on our birthdays, being his freedwomen, but the glorious Lucius Verus was no longer in Rome to do so.
The emperor had gone east with the legions to deal with that ageless enemy, Parthia, and his absence left us without a patron, at risk from the less scrupulous powers of the court. In the month the jovial and attentive Verus had stayed in Rome following that dreadful flood, I had been introduced to his ice-white, haughty betrothed, Lucilla, the cold and humourless daughter of Marcus Aurelius and so now niece and wife-to-be at once to Verus, and had found her to be unfriendly, ambitious, and as bitter as an artichoke. I would say it was because she did not like Christians, which clearly she did not, but since her snobbery and snide attitude seemed to be aimed at the world as a whole I did not feel particularly victimised. All I knew was that the prospect of acquiring the empress Lucilla as a mistress was not an encouraging one. When Verus took her east with him, we were not the only figures in the court to heave a sigh of relief. He left her partway, at Ephesus, safely out of reach of the war but close enough for marriage when she reached the appropriate age in a few short months. Despite her absence, the loss of our patron left a bitter taste.
The senior emperor, Marcus Aurelius, remained in Rome, where he became embroiled in a legal dispute over the will of his aunt Vibia Matidia. He argued his case as ably as any of the great advocates, yet it was taking its toll on the great man in private, making him look weary and wan as he trod the halls of the Palatine.
My life had changed utterly following the flood. At the behest of the emperor, Mother and I had been given apartments in the palace close to those of the imperial family and, despite Verus’ absence, my mother received many lucrative commissions from other members of the imperial family, including the emperor himself. And while Mother worked her magic, I was enrolled with tutors. It was a little strange for me, since I was essentially dropped into the imperial children’s educational path at their level, which, bearing in mind the difference in our ages – the twins were now three and
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