Mistress of Rome

  I don’t need anything to win, you son of a bitch. It wasn’t the doctor he was talking to.

  The Emperor crawled into his head again. The cool look on his face at Arius’s last fight, when he’d ordered his guards to tie Arius’s left arm up behind him.

  Challenge.

  Was there something in Domitian’s gaze these days? Something besides the challenge? Something like . . . fear?

  “Fear?” Hercules had hooted when he ventured to say as much. “Why would the Emperor of all Rome be afraid of you?”

  Arius shrugged. “He’s got it in for me.”

  “Oh, right. Millions of subjects to jerk around, and he spends all his time and energy torturing you. You’re getting vain in your old age, Barbarian.”

  Arius supposed the dwarf was right. He doubted Domitian woke up nights dreaming of him, not the way he woke up dreaming of Domitian. Dreaming of Domitian’s ruddy, enigmatic face and his invisible challenges.

  But was he imagining the look on the Emperor’s face every time he picked himself up off the sand next to the carcass of his latest opponent, and looked up at the Imperial dais?

  Why are you still living? he imagined Domitian saying.

  Because you want me to die, he said back.

  What are you?

  “Nobody,” Arius said aloud. “Nobody, Lord and God.” And bared his teeth.

  THEA

  YOU’RE moving up in the world, child!” Larcius bustled beaming into the atrium where I sat practicing a new song on my lyre. “I’ve been contacted by the Imperial chamberlain. You’re to sing at the Imperial banquet for the Emperor when he arrives in Brundisium next week! Not the only one of course. They’ve got fire jugglers in from Crete, and an orator from Thebes, and of course Cleopatra—”

  “I’ll hardly be noticed if they’ve got Cleopatra.” She was a little golden dancer, the sensation of Brundisium, who commanded high prices for her dancing and even higher ones for her more intimate favors.

  “They’ll slip you in between the fish and the cheese,” Larcius agreed. “Still, anyone with ears will know they’re hearing real music. What will you sing, child? I think ‘Cythera’s Eyes’ is a bit sentimental for the Emperor, what about ‘Goddess Fair’?”

  “Too intellectual.” I smiled. “He’s a soldier, probably likes jolly straightforward tunes.”

  “Something with a chorus, then. They’ll sing along if sufficiently drunk. You’re wasted on soldiers, child.”

  I let Larcius pick all my music, and when the night came and he had changed it all twice over, Penelope finally shooed him away and let me prepare myself. In honor of the occasion I put away my trademark gray gown and chose a dress of black Indian silk checkered in gold around the hem. Gold bands in my coiled hair, gold bracelets above and below the elbows, kohl discreetly lining my eyes. The armor that turned me from Thea into the cool, serious, intellectual artist who was Athena. Sometimes I looked in the mirror and didn’t see myself at all. There had been a brown girl once who loved a gladiator, but she was long gone.

  “Mother!” Rouge pots and perfume bottles vibrated dangerously on the table as Vix crashed through the door. He barreled through the choir singers, the lute players, the rest of Larcius’s stable who were readying themselves for evening engagements. “Mother, can I go to the dog fights? Last time a deerhound tore out a mastiff’s throat and there was blood ’n’ guts everywhere and—”

  “You are certainly not going to the dog fights.”

  “Aw—”

  “No arguing!”

  Vix flopped down scowling next to my dressing table, and a bottle of rose water went smash. “You gonna see the Emperor?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’ll tell you all about it when I come back.”

  Vix shrugged. Gladiators, not Emperors, held his fascination. “Staying late?” he said hopefully.

  “Not too late.” I ruffled his hair. “You’d better be in bed by the time I get back, or I’ll beat you till you scream.”

  “Why are you so mean to me?” he complained. “I get beat on more than any of the others.”

  “The other children aren’t half as evil as you, Vercingetorix.”

  “You wait till I’m big. Then you won’t whale on me anymore. I’ll be a big mean gladiator and then you’ll have to be nice to me.” He bounced around the dressing table swinging an imaginary sword, and I felt a pricking in my eyes. All he needed was a wooden practice blade and a dusty practice arena, a pair of gray eyes and a half-smiling salute . . . I stretched out an arm and pulled Vix in close, smelling the sea salt that meant he’d gone for an illicit swim in Brundisium’s harbor and exposed himself to half the diseases of Italy.

  He wriggled free, messing up my hair. “Quit kissing me.”

  “Only if you’re good.”

  “I’ll be good, I’ll be good.”

  “Likely story,” one of the slave women snorted.

  A hired litter took me to the palace in Brundisium where the Emperor had yesterday arrived. I’d never sung at the palace before, and I craned my eyes eagerly as I alighted. But as legends go, it was a disappointment. Domitian’s grief did not accord well with luxury: The mosaics were neglected, the statues dusty, and half the rooms unlit, so I scuttled after the Imperial steward tripping over my own feet in the dark. Shown into an empty anteroom curtained off from the banquet hall, I was left to wait. The fire jugglers were performing, tossing burning brands from hand to hand, and then the next course would be brought in.

  “Thea,” Cleopatra the little dancer greeted me. Golden curls danced on her shoulders, and her sinuous body was draped in scanty pink gauzes and spangles. “Can you lend me your earrings? One of mine just broke, and I can’t go before the Emperor with bare ears.”

  “Everything else is bare, why not the ears?” But I surrendered my gold drops with a smile. Cleopatra and I often crossed paths at banquets and dinner parties, and she was always friendly. “Just don’t leave them on some man’s bedside table this time.”

  “If I do, the Emperor will just buy me new ones.” She dimpled. “My mistress bribed the chamberlain to tell him I look just like Lady Julia. He’ll keep me after the banquet, just you wait.”

  “I’m sure he will,” I agreed.

  She winked. “Let’s peek!”

  At first I thought I wasn’t seeing right as I peered around the curtain into the triclinium. Just a dark hole. But I blinked, and then I saw that everything was black. Black marble walls, ebony dining couches heaped with black silk cushions, dark-skinned African slaves in black tunics ushering dishes in and out in ghostly silence.

  “Cheerful,” I observed. The conversational hum was subdued, the lamps flickered fitfully, and even the bright silks and jewels of the guests seemed muted by the black gloom.

  “At least you’ll match.” Cleopatra twitched a fold of my black dress, then craned her pretty neck past the folds of the curtain. “Is that the Emperor? On the first couch there, in the breastplate?”

  “No, that’s Prefect Norbanus.” Paulinus looked fit and healthy, wearing the signet ring and chain of his new office with ease. Power sat well on him—I couldn’t imagine that his new position had changed him from the sweet boy I’d known. I hadn’t seen him since he’d left so suddenly for Germania, in the campaign that had made his career.

  “So that’s the Emperor next to him? In the black tunic?” Cleopatra patted her curls. “Well, I’ll lift his eyes out of that wine cup!” She burst into the triclinium on cue, a phoenix flash of color and music in the blackness, arching and rippling and twisting. The Emperor’s dark eyes held only a flicker of interest as she fell at last into a graceful heap before his couch, but a flicker was enough.

  “You’re next,” the steward called me.

  I’d be a dull stick after Cleopatra’s antics—the Emperor barely looked up as I glided in with my lyre. But Paulinus gave me a friendly smile of recognition, and I remembered what pleasant company he’d always been. I gave a little extra bow to him and stepped up on
to my pedestal, waiting until the slaves were done serving the next course. Even the food was black: blue-black oysters from Britannia, black bread studded with olives, purple-black plums heaped in onyx bowls . . .

  I got a ripple of applause and started on my first song. Lively mindless music Larcius scorned, but this black party needed a little cheer. I sang for Paulinus, who liked a good tune, but he looked up at me only now and then. His brows were furrowed, and he bent all his attention on Domitian, talking in coaxing murmurs. Could they possibly be friends? Emperors didn’t have friends, especially not Domitian—even as far south as Brundisium we heard of his increasing conspiracy sweeps, the frequency of his treason trials. Of course, any intelligent ruler of Rome feared assassination: At least half of the previous ten Emperors had been murdered.

  The Emperor was heavier than when I’d first seen him up close, at his niece Julia’s wedding. His hair was thinning across the top, but his cheeks still had a ruddy flush. His black synthesis was unembroidered; he wore only a seal ring for jewelry. His black plate was untouched and his goblet three quarters full. Not just an austere man; gloomy. But some whispered comment of Paulinus’s got a smile out of him, and his smile had charm.

  I finished my song, and there was a halfhearted little ripple of applause. Not a lively crowd, but I could hardly blame them. I adjusted the tuning of my lyre, and one of the senators addressed himself valiantly across the black plates at his Emperor.

  “Lord and God, we’ve heard a good many rumors from Judaea lately. More rebels in Jerusalem?”

  “Easy enough to crush, if there are.” The Emperor gave an indifferent shrug. “A limp-spirited people, Jews.”

  I’d heard worse than that in my life, certainly. But a demon seized me.

  “In your honor, Lord and God,” I said sweetly, bowing, and struck up the opening chords of a Hebrew song I’d learned in childhood.

  From the corner of my eye I saw the Emperor’s chin jerk, and I sang on. I caressed every word of Hebrew, letting the rich tones linger around this overheated black room as they had once lingered around the stones of Masada.

  Applause rippled out as the last note faded. I smiled right into the Emperor’s eyes.

  “Singer.” His voice cut suddenly through the applause.

  I bowed. “Lord and God.”

  “Your name?”

  “Athena, Caesar.”

  He looked at me long and hard, as a man of power can afford to look at a slave. He looked so long and hard that people began to whisper.

  I wondered if I’d signed my own death warrant.

  He extended his hand. “Come.”

  I came.

  “Sit.”

  I sat. On the couch of honor right beside him. Whispers rose to ripples.

  He sat back, eyes fixed on me unreadably. Black eyes, as black as the walls. “Talk.”

  And I talked.

  YOU sing well.” “Thank you, Caesar.”

  “I’m not praising you. I’m praising the voice the gods placed in your throat. ‘Athena’—why a Greek stage name for a Jew?”

  “My master felt that ‘Athena’ suited me. Serious, dignified.”

  “Yes, you are that.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I don’t like Jews.”

  “Hardly original, Caesar. No one does.”

  “My brother did. Titus. He had a Jewish mistress, Queen Berenice of Judaea.”

  “Ah, yes. ‘Titus the Golden and his Jewish whore.’ Or as the Jews see it, ‘Queen Berenice and her foreign gigolo.’ We always looked down on her for it.”

  “The Jews looked down on Titus?”

  “Of course. We, after all, are the Chosen People. He was only an Emperor.”

  “He was always the golden one.”

  “You were jealous of him?”

  “You presume too much. Wine?” He offered me his own cup.

  “Thank you, Caesar.”

  By midnight, the guests were staring openly. The Emperor hadn’t addressed a word to anyone but me in more than an hour. His voice was bland, unfathomable. My own came out in cool counterpoint. I hardly knew what I was saying. Over the conversation our eyes locked, unblinking.

  “ ‘Athena’—the Greek Minerva. Minerva is my household goddess.”

  “The goddess of wisdom? Very wise. War might always be around the corner for an Emperor, but wisdom’s harder to come by, Caesar.”

  “You should address me as ‘Lord and God.’ ”

  “Does everyone call you that?”

  “My niece Julia did not. She was an exception. Not you.”

  “I’ll call you ‘Lord and God’ if you want. But don’t you think it slows down the conversation?”

  “An Emperor is never in a hurry.”

  “As you wish. Lord and God.”

  “Are you laughing at me?”

  “Oh, no. Lord and God.”

  “I won’t be laughed at by a Jewish slave. You may address me as Caesar. Can you get through that without giggling?”

  “Yes, Caesar.”

  TWO hours after midnight. A troupe of weary jugglers came out again to entertain us. Slaves brought out a hastily prepared dish, little cakes enameled in black sugar. Behind a pillar in the anteroom, I saw the slaves gawking. Guests stirred uneasily, no one knowing if they should interrupt us or not. I didn’t know if I wanted them to.

  “This chamber—why all the black, Caesar?”

  “It frightens my guests.”

  “You want to frighten your guests?”

  “It’s useful. I judge people on how well they handle fear.”

  “But everyone is afraid of an Emperor.”

  “You aren’t.”

  “I passed your test, then?”

  “For the time being. Should I reward you?”

  “My friend Cleopatra would tell me to ask for jewels.”

  “I don’t give women jewels.”

  “I don’t want jewels, anyway.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “Strings for my lyre. The imported kind, from the gut of a Cretan bull. They’re the best.”

  “I’ll send some tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, Caesar.”

  “The first time I’ve ever given a woman bull guts.”

  “At least it’s original.”

  Four hours after midnight. The banquet should have ended long ago. Everyone yawned and dozed on their couches. Slaves drooped against the walls, trying to keep their eyes open. Musicians sawed tiredly at their instruments, recycling music heard at the beginning of the night. More people gathered in the anteroom behind the black curtains: I saw that Larcius had arrived with a worried Penelope. But no one dared to leave.

  “My niece Julia. I suppose you’ve heard of her death?”

  “It’s a great loss, Caesar. Rome’s loss.”

  “Don’t mouth platitudes at me.”

  “I’m not. I saw her once. She looked kind.”

  “When did you see her?”

  “At her wedding. I was fifteen.”

  “I don’t remember her wedding.”

  “Well, it was a short marriage.”

  “She was very . . . she had a delightful giggle, when she did giggle, which wasn’t often. Shouldn’t have died. My astrologer Nessus said she wasn’t supposed to die so young. He’s never failed me before.”

  “One hears she wanted to be a Vestal Virgin.”

  “Spiteful dried-up old priestesses. She’d have been wasted on them.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “She was—she was a great comfort to me. And now everyone keeps shoving blond girls at me, as if she had been my mistress. Filthy-minded fools.”

  “People like to talk, Caesar. What’s the use of having an Emperor if you can’t make up filthy rumors about him?”

  “Did any of your former masters sell you for impertinence?”

  “No, I’m usually very tactful. But you did tell me to talk.”

  “So I did. I can’t think what got into me. I don’t u
sually like loose talk. And anyone who slanders my niece’s memory, I’ll hang.”

  “Then you’ll execute a good many harmless gossips.”

  “Traitors.”

  “Innocents.”

  “They’re all innocent when they’re dead.”

  “It’s no use arguing with you, is it?”

  “Correct.”

  Dawn. Most of the guests had gone to sleep on their dining couches. The others, glaze-eyed and crumpled, nibbled at drying oysters in curdling sauces. A pageboy in a black tunic dozed on his feet, head drooping over the wine flagon. Even Larcius nodded in the anteroom.

  The Emperor rose. His guests came to attention with a start. As soon as he took his black Flavian gaze off me, I realized how exhausted I was.

  “A delightful evening,” Domitian said carelessly to the room at large. Without so much as a glance toward me, he was gone.

  All the eyes turned to me then. Wondering what he saw in me. Because while it wouldn’t have been uncommon for the Emperor to take a fancy to a singer at a party, it was uncommon that he hadn’t simply set me aside for later with a word. It wasn’t like Domitian to keep important guests waiting while he talked to slave girls. It wasn’t like Domitian to talk to any girls at length. He had no great use for women outside his bed; everyone knew that.

  But he had talked to me half the night as if no one else in the world existed, and suddenly everyone was crowding around me with sleepy but shining eyes.

  “—my dear Athena—”

  “—such a delightful performance—”

  “—one of the great artists of our city—”

  “Now that’s enough.” Larcius bustled to my side. “It’s been a long night. Home at once, child.”

  A well-manicured hand tapped my shoulder, and I turned. An imperial freedman, marked with the official purple insignia. “Lady Athena?” he said in an educated drawl.

  The room was avidly silent. I was Lady Athena now, was I?

  He bent and whispered in my ear for a moment. I nodded. He bowed very low, a bow reserved for the Emperor—or those closest to him.