Mistress of Rome

  SO it’s to be a family parade,” Flavia groaned. “Which means triumphs and rose petals and trumpets and those ghastly games. I’ve been Imperially summoned back to the city,” she explained as I looked blank. “Me and my husband and the boys. My uncle must feel the masses need a little pomp and spectacle. Maybe they grumbled too loudly about his last levy.”

  “But Paulinus says he’s very popular.”

  “Oh, with the army; they think the world of him. But the Roman plebs just want a tax cut and lots of chariot races. Therefore, if one raises the taxes one must spend elsewhere. Usually on pomp and spectacle.” Flavia gave a small, dry smile. “I’m only a featherbrained Christian, my dear, but I do know how these things work.”

  I was starting to learn, myself.

  “Well, the boys will be happy,” Flavia said. “I’m afraid to say they simply adore the Colosseum. Maybe I can leave them with their father and plead a headache before the blood really starts to flow. That’s what Julia and I always did. Oh, dear, I do miss her.” Flavia sighed, rather sadly. But she looked up at me and smiled again. “I’ll miss you, too, Athena. You’ve been marvelous company.”

  “Why don’t you call me Thea, Lady Flavia?” My hand strayed up to the lump of jet—Domitian’s eye—that sat at my throat. “I’m going to Rome, too.”

  And I would be seeing the games.

  ROME

  UNDER the Colosseum, Arius could already hear the crowd. “Feisty today, aren’t they?” Hercules observed. The dog, curled up on Arius’s cloak, snored oblivious.

  Methodically Arius stripped down and readied himself. The blue kilt. The greaves. The mail sleeve for his fighting arm, embossed all over with what some wealthy fan had imagined were barbaric symbols. At the familiar routine, the demon woke and stretched inside him, not snapping at the leash as in the old days but still looking around with a certain interest. Arius stretched, reaching for his sword. A sword with beautiful balance and a special left-handed grip, forged just for him. Being the best had its privileges.

  “It’s time.” Hercules reached for his own sword, a miniature copy of Arius’s.

  The cheering was louder. Dust sifted down from the ceiling as they wound through the dim passages. Just outside the cages of doomed Christians, Gallus cornered them.

  “Ah, so glad I caught you. Good luck today, good luck. You do know you have two fights today, don’t you, dear boy? Yes, just wanted to be sure. And in case there are any other surprises, well, don’t be surprised!” Gallus patted Hercules on his diminutive head, ran a hand along Arius’s bare arm, and disappeared with a wink of jewels.

  Hercules looked after him. “Is it just me, or has that bastard got something up his sleeve?”

  “It’s just you.” Arius turned his head up, catching the sound of the applause again. In the cage behind him, the Christians moaned and crossed themselves.

  Today, he thought, today’s important—and wondered why.

  THEA

  A SPLENDID parade. How could it not be? I sat in my curtained litter in the back, but I still saw it all, peeking through the black silk curtains.

  Rose petals. Banners. Trumpeters—a modest number, since it was no military triumph we were celebrating, but simply the festival of Volturnalia. Praetorians, rank by rank in their red and gold. Paulinus, back from the German front and looking very noble on a black horse, much cheered. Flavia and her husband in litters, smiling and bowing as only royalty can smile and bow. Emperor Domitian himself in a gold chariot, flanked by Flavia’s proud sons. The younger boy was Vix’s age. Then there was me, in a silver litter with the curtains fluttering just enough to let them catch a glimpse of a purple silk gown, a flash of silver and amethysts, a bare white ankle on black velvet cushions . . .

  My head ached.

  I kept seeing Larcius, as I’d last seen him. A fond kiss good-bye, as I left for Tivoli. Never dreaming the Emperor would swat him aside like a fly, simply to get possession of me. Why? He certainly didn’t need to; could have bought me outright—but a man like Domitian would always rather swat than buy. I wrote to another praetor in Brundisium who had once been fond of my singing, begging for details of Larcius’s death, and he replied in a brief stilted letter. Larcius had been convicted of treason in a mockery of a trial—but as Domitian said, he had been allowed to commit suicide. He’d hosted a final dinner party for all those friends not afraid to be tainted by his association, but really it would have been a farewell to his musicians. I could see it easily: Larcius in the place of honor with Penelope at his side, listening to his choirboys, his lute players, his singers perform one last time. He would have given each performance its due, stopping afterward for a final kind word, a few coins, perhaps a last criticism. Behind the curtain the slaves would all have been weeping wrecks, but they would have performed their best for him. Bidding his guests farewell, he had apparently retired into his bedroom, where he had climbed into a perfumed bath and cut his wrists.

  I had not a shred of doubt that Penelope had held his hand till the end, then taken the knife and joined him.

  What will happen to the household? I wrote the praetor, frantic for Vix.

  “Traitors’ wills are nullified, and their possessions forfeit to the Imperium,” came the reply. “Praetor Larcius’s brother purchased the bulk of his estate back from the Imperial auctioneers, except the musicians. Please don’t write to me again, Lady Athena.”

  So much for the pleasant household that had turned me from a prostitute to an artist, given me and my son happiness. Larcius’s brusque brother did not care for music, but he would surely have bought Vix along with the rest of the household slaves. Big strong boys were valuable; stable hands until they grew, and then guards or litter-bearers. At least my son was safe . . . until he began making trouble.

  Which meant he wouldn’t be safe for long.

  Oh God, who knew when I would see him again?

  “Lady Athena.” The guard repeated himself, impatient. The litter had stopped; curtains swept aside. Incense. Priests. More trumpets. More cheering. I got down—and saw the Colosseum. A vast charnel house, blocking the sun.

  When I stumbled, Ganymede leaped forward, steadying me. Dear Ganymede. My appointed body slave now . . . and Nessus somewhere behind us in the crowd of freedmen, following wherever Ganymede went.

  “All right,” I murmured, and stepped out. Up the marble steps, never mind the headache—walk. Right behind Lady Flavia, no doubt planning herself a headache before the main show. The two boys behind, hopping with excitement. Then Paulinus with a girl in red on his arm. Behind the Emperor with the wife he hated at his side—the Empress, tall and dark and all emeralds, gazing through me. Up through a marble hall to the Imperial box. Didn’t think. Didn’t think. Especially not about Vix, who might now be yowling under a beating from his new owner, not understanding that he could be sold on the slave market in a heartbeat.

  The arena stretched in front of my eyes, all clean white sand. Not clean for long. No gladiators yet—they’d be below, waiting, praying. Arius would be there, but as many times as I’d tried to picture that in the past weeks—seeing him again, fighting in this arena, almost close enough to touch—blind panic closed around my head like a vise.

  I turned my eyes away from the spreading oval of sand, rushing at a seat in the back. Ganymede stood behind me like a post. Hand on my shoulder, comforting. Before me sat Domitian, the boys on one side, his wife on the other; Flavia on the edge where she could sneak out, Paulinus—

  “Athena,” someone said. “What a surprise.”

  Lepida Pollia, Paulinus’s guest, was seated right beside me.

  MARCUS Norbanus had a grudging liking for the chariot races, since his cousin and friend Diana often dragged him to the Circus Maximus, but he didn’t often attend the games. “A barbaric spectacle unenlightened by taste and informed by need,” he sometimes said, and wondered at the sight of the mob bending to decrees they had howled objection to four days previous. Yet he did sometimes come, gener
ally bringing a slave to hold his scrolls and quills so that he could work between the big fights, which he watched coolly. “Go to the games,” Marcus said dryly, “to see Rome at its purest.” As he went to the Barbarian’s latest fight, he expected nothing more surprising than the usual victory and the mob’s usual hysteria.

  “Dominus.” His steward spoke low-voiced in his ear. “I’ve just received word that Lady Lepida received an invitation to the Imperial box.”

  “That’s of little importance,” Marcus shrugged.

  “Yes, sir, but she took Lady Vibia Sabina with her this morning—”

  “To the games?”

  “Yes, Dominus. And since she could not take Lady Sabina to the Imperial box—”

  Rage boiled in Marcus’s middle as he made his way to the high-walled section where the patrician women sat. A frail seven-year-old girl, taken to the games and then abandoned among strangers. He found his daughter crammed in a corner behind a cluster of Lepida’s fashionable friends, dressed in her best and utterly forgotten as the painted women giggled and slopped wine and called down to the gladiators. Marcus made his apologies in a cutting voice and extricated his daughter. “Can we go h-home?” she hiccupped. She had a wine stain on her dress from where someone had dropped a goblet on her.

  Marcus hesitated. He’d like nothing better than to take his daughter home, but crowds of plebs were pressing excitedly through every entrance, feverish with excitement. Even with the Norbanus slaves to beat a path, it would take a stifled, sweating hour to make their way home—and nothing brought on Sabina’s fits like crowds. “We’ll leave after the Barbarian’s fight when the crowd quiets,” he decided. “Until then, you can sit quietly and rest, Vibia Sabina.”

  But there was no quiet to be found in his box.

  “Ow—leggo, leggo—”

  “Quintus?” Marcus entered, brows raised, and saw his steward struggling with a slave boy.

  “Pardon, Dominus, I caught this one trying to sneak in—” a sudden howl as the boy twisted and got his teeth into the steward’s wrist, darting for the entrance, but Marcus’s hand shot out and caught the back of the young neck.

  “So,” he said mildly, “what are you? A slave, I think. Who is your master?”

  The boy made a good break, but Marcus had anticipated it and dug a grip in the rough tunic. The boy scowled again: he was perhaps a year older than Sabina, russet-haired and sunburned. Sabina gazed at him, wide-eyed.

  “Where do you come from? Tell me, boy,” Marcus ordered as he saw the young jaw jut, “or I’ll turn you over to the magistrates.”

  “Brundisium.” Sulkily.

  “So far? Did your master bring you?”

  “My master’s dead. I hitched a cart to Misenum, then kept going on.” The boy shrugged. “All the roads come here.”

  “All roads lead to Rome,” Marcus agreed. Sabina giggled at his side.

  The slave boy looked sullen. “I just wanted to see the Great City.”

  “I see. And you could not start with the chariot races?”

  “Those are for pussies!”

  Sabina surprised Marcus by giggling again. “Father,” she tugged his sleeve, “can he stay?”

  “If he has the stomach for it.” Marcus found his daughter a low stool well back from any view of the arena and nodded at the boy. “Keep out of the way and keep quiet, but watch if you like.”

  “Can I?” The boy bowed for the first time, grinning. “You got a good view, Dominus. I didn’t miss the gladiators, did I? Took me forever to sneak in—”

  “Quiet,” said Marcus, amused.

  “Sorry, Dominus.” The boy ducked a bow again, not sounding terribly sorry, and settled by the rail.

  “What’s your name?” Sabina ventured.

  “Vix.” He looked down at the little silken presence at his elbow. “Vercingetorix, actually, but that’s kind of a mouthful.”

  “After the Gallic chieftain?” Sabina glanced at Marcus. Just last week her tutors had reviewed Vercingetorix in their account of Gaul’s conquest.

  “He was my father.” Bragging.

  “He died over a hundred years ago.”

  “He was my grandfather,” Vix amended.

  “You really ran all the way from Brundisium?”

  “Yeah, I used to belong to this old guy, but he died, and I didn’t want to go to the slave market.”

  Sabina’s eyes widened. Vix expanded under her gaze.

  “It was rough getting out of Brundisium. I stole a chariot, right? And the driver comes after me with a whip—”

  Marcus looked at the two children: his daughter; tiny, quiet, clean, and pearled, and the slave boy, filthy, foul-mouthed, grinning, and mendacious. Dear gods, he thought. My daughter’s made a friend.

  THEA

  IUGULA!” Lepida shouted down at a gladiator begging mercy, her eager profile flushed pink, and for a horrid moment I had a feeling that I should be standing at her back with a peacock-feather fan. A wave of sickness caught at my throat.

  Lepida settled back, fanning herself pleasantly as blood spurted on the sand. “Still no taste for the games, Thea?”

  In the arena a Moroccan was beheading a Gaul. “No,” I said. “I’m merely bored.” Closing my eyes.

  “Bored? But it’s so thrilling!” All around us in the stands people were on their feet, waving, shouting, shrieking. Flavia’s two sons were fascinated. Domitian watched with an expert’s detached eye. Paulinus’s gaze wandered restlessly, looking anywhere but at Lepida. His hand rested on her armrest, a bare half inch from hers as if afraid she’d burn him.

  Paulinus and Lepida? Nothing shocked me anymore. Poor Paulinus.

  Poor Gaul. Dragged off flopping by his heels.

  “Well!” Lepida ate a stuffed grape leaf, sucking her pretty fingers. “I can’t wait to see what’s next. What is next, Paulinus?” She traced his wrist with a scarlet-lacquered nail, and he jerked. “Oh, of course. The Barbarian.” She smiled at me.

  I stretched my mouth into a blind smile. “And how is your husband, Lady Lepida? Shouldn’t you be sitting with him?” Words tumbled off my lips, any words. “Don’t tell me you’ve run through his money already.”

  Lepida opened her mouth, but then there was a flutter of orange silk and a jangle of gold bracelets as Flavia rose. “Oh dear,” she murmured. “I feel quite faint—the heat—you’ll excuse me, Uncle? Boys, be good—” She disappeared.

  “Do you feel all right, Thea?” Lepida’s soft, solicitous tones. “You don’t look at all well. Perhaps you should go home, too. Hmmm—where is your home, these days?”

  “The palace.” I had the pleasure of watching her face tighten and prepared a cutting little speech, but it died in my throat. Because the crowd’s murmuring rose to a roar, and for the first time in a week the agony of worry for my son was drowned out as his father strode out onto the sand.

  Arius.

  I didn’t realize my lips were silently shaping his name over and over, not until Ganymede touched my shoulder and made an inquiring noise. I smiled jerkily at him, but couldn’t take my eyes off the gladiator who had once been my lover—passing so close to the Imperial box that I could count the scars on his back.

  Dwarfed by that vast space, just as I remembered. Deaf to the applause, just as I remembered. More lines in the set brown mask of his face. But still tall and unstooped. Still refusing to strut or smile. Still beautiful.

  God, he was so beautiful.

  He didn’t bow to the Emperor. Just jerked his head in a gesture reminding me abruptly of Vix. Then he turned away and lifted his sword, and I felt the old iron hand clamp around my lungs.

  He fought a Thracian. The face was a blur in my eyes. All I could see was a pair of wicked little Thracian swords flashing in the sun and I couldn’t breathe, especially when a curved blade clipped into Arius’s leg and came out covered in blood. But then somehow one of those wicked curved swords went flying and Arius came forward in a fluid lunge. He fought more calmly now, his movements
more connected, the arc of his blade more controlled. The Thracian fell screaming with a half-severed foot, speedily finished off with a thrust through the heart. I went through the motions of clapping.

  “What a bore,” Lepida pouted. “If he’d lose just once—”

  Arius yanked off his helmet, raking his fingers through his hair and through my heart, too. He tossed his sword over to the arena guard, strode forward, and jerked his head at the Emperor again. Domitian, playing dice and playing mind games with two courtiers, wasn’t even paying attention to the arena. But Arius paused, drawing out an odd moment, and Domitian looked at him. I saw the tension in the back of the Emperor’s neck and remembered: Even my wife’s afraid under that marble face of hers. But you aren’t. You and one other—you know who? He’s not even a human being. Just a slave, another animal like you. A gladiator; the one they call the Barbarian.

  At last Arius tore his eyes away and turned toward the Gate of Life. I’d forgotten the exact dip and sway of his shoulders. Imagine forgetting that.

  The murmurs in the stands changed to laughter as a trapdoor opened in the arena floor, and a tiny black-bearded figure skipped out. A dwarf, dressed like a miniature Arius. A comic performer. I didn’t think I could ever laugh again.

  Arius stopped a moment, bending his head toward the dwarf. He grinned at some joke, and my insides melted like a candle. So he’d found a friend. He needed friends.

  He slapped the dwarf’s shoulder, setting off again for the Gate of Life. But just as I began to relax, four arena guards stepped down and seized Arius. Another trapdoor opened in the floor and out came a half dozen green-kilted Brigantians with swords in hand.

  WHILE the midday executions had been dragging on, the slave boy had been engrossed in telling Sabina about his adventures on the way to Rome, which apparently featured flying horses, three-headed dogs, and a gang of forty thieves. As soon as the Barbarian appeared, Marcus noticed, the boy fell raptly silent.

  “Whoa. Oh, whoa.” Sitting back with a whistle when the fight was done. “Whoa.”