Mistress of Rome

  This time one of the lanista’s huge thugs came and did the punching. “Damaging your investment, aren’t you?” Arius inquired dizzily.

  “Oh, I’m beyond protecting my investment.” Gallus’s eyes were kohl-rimmed slits. “My investment’s already disappeared down the drain. Care to know why, Barbarian? Because the Emperor’s decided to make war on the Chatti. He’s leaving for Germania to join his legions, so who do you think will sponsor any games in September when he’s not here to see them? I doubt there will be any games at all. And that means that all through this summer when you drank yourself senseless, I lost money!”

  “Too bad,” Arius commiserated, and a hard palm split his lip.

  “You’ll still fight, boy. Maybe not in the Colosseum, maybe not with rose petals and silver coins showering down on your head, but believe me, you’ll fight. At every two-bit arena with mangy lions and old gladiators, at every molding row of stands where people will pack in to watch you die, you’ll fight. You’ll recoup all the money I lost on you. And outside the Colosseum where there’s no one to keep track of the rules, they don’t bother with rules at all, so when you die with your guts hanging down around your knees and a sword punched through your back, I’ll be there to watch. And I’ll smile, dear boy, because you’re a bloody waste of good air.”

  “Not as big a waste as you,” Arius said with dizzy cheer. “You rancid tub of lard.” He screwed his eyes firmly shut as Gallus’s thugs moved in.

  He slept on his stomach that night, his back laid open almost to the bone by a rope soaked in brine. As his good humor drained away into agony, he imagined a cool hand on his forehead and a warm alto voice soothing him to sleep.

  THE Colosseum stood empty that fall, and the gladiators of the big training schools kicked their heels back and took life easy. But fighting filled the streets, and in the thick of every fight was the Barbarian.

  There were crumbling arenas where the sand was threaded with weeds and the seats packed with the dregs of the slum districts, hard shifty-eyed men who applauded only when the blood spurted, and never called mercy for brave losers. But when the Barbarian hewed a giant Spaniard in two with a single stroke, they roared to their feet in a howling storm of approval and flooded into the arena like the sea.

  There were seedy taverns where the tables were cleared away so the knives could come out, and losers’ bodies were dumped in the Tiber. When the Barbarian jammed a pair of slender knives up the nose of an Italian sailor, he was bathed in wine and hoisted around the room on the backs of his fans.

  There were dark alleys in the slum districts where the arena was staked out with knives and street fighters killed each other over a few handfuls of copper coins. The Barbarian was pitted against three knife-wielding brothers from the Subura, and when all three lay still around his feet he turned and drove his sword through the foot of a complaining fan.

  He fought when his trident-mangled sword arm was muffled in a sling, when a knife hilt had broken two of his fingers, when a slash across his forehead blinded him with blood. He fought with half-healed bones and torn muscles, black bruises and torch burns. He fought with swords and shields, with knives and nets, even with his naked hands as he demonstrated one warm autumn afternoon when, to howling applause, he crushed a man’s windpipe with his thumbs.

  He was the hero of the mob, the favorite of the slums, and the plebs of Rome poured their money uncomplainingly into Gallus’s hand so they could pack into shaky stadiums and hang on his every move. They told their children he was a devil, they counted his scars and tabulated his kills; they howled and shivered and came back screaming for more. They whirled him, bloody and tired, to the taverns where he sat showered with wine and hung on by whores, lurking sour and murderous in his lonely corner and coming out of his lethargy only to lash at any fan who pressed too close.

  The black demon in Arius’s head ran joyously through a knee-deep river of blood and howled its happiness.

  Five

  THEA

  THE Empress?” Through the thicket of greenery in the conservatorium I heard the resonant voice of Senator Marcus Norbanus. “I have no idea if she’ll be reinstated, Lady Lepida.”

  “But you know everything about the Imperial family.” My mistress’s sweet tones. I was down on my knees scrubbing the tiles of the fountain, and I couldn’t see her face, but I could just picture the breathless way she looked up at her betrothed. “So tell me . . .”

  They promenaded to the other end of the conservatorium, but I could still hear every word. Marcus Norbanus may have been nearly fifty, but he had a fine clear voice, trained to carry to the farthest corners of the Senate house. “I’ve counseled for reconciliation. The Empress is popular, and with her reputation for virtue, no one believes her guilty of adultery except the Emperor.”

  “What about Lady Julia? They say there’s trouble between her and her husband—will they separate, too?”

  “No,” Marcus said briefly. “Julia is . . . odd, shall we say. Fragile. She needs a protector. She looked to me for a time, after her father died, but I’m too old.”

  “You’re in your prime!” Lepida’s laughter made nothing of his fo rty-six years.

  “No, I’m old.” Suddenly his voice turned serious. “Do you want to marry me, Lady Lepida?”

  That was too much for my curiosity. I lifted my hands out of the fountain and peered cautiously through the greenery. I saw my mistress’s rich black hair, and Marcus’s aquiline face brought down nearly on a level with hers by his crooked shoulder. Like his royal grandfather Augustus, he was not tall.

  “You don’t have to marry me, you know,” he said as Lepida opened her lovely mouth. “I’m old, I’m hunched, and I’m set in my ways. No, don’t interrupt. I spend half my time at the Senate, and the other half in the library. I write treatises, I despise parties, and I have a son two years your senior. Certainly I’m no match for a pretty young girl.”

  “I did wonder, Marcus . . . why remarry now?” Lepida’s tone was demure, but I knew she was dying for an answer. “After so many years divorced?”

  “I prefer to be alone.” Marcus shrugged his crooked shoulder. “And even if I didn’t, not many women would have a reclusive old wreck like me.” I wondered if he had ever felt bitter about that, in his youth. Or even now.

  “But with your rank, your education, your lineage—”

  “Ah, yes, my lineage.” A note of dry amusement entered his fine voice. “My imperial blood may have been come by illicitly, but I am the last surviving grandson of Emperor Augustus. Emperor Titus regarded me as harmless, but his brother has a more suspicious nature. Domitian likes to inconvenience me, and there are few ways to inconvenience a bachelor like forcing him to marry.” He gave a courtly bow. “Especially to a beautiful girl like yourself, who is better suited for a young man.”

  I read neatly through that bit of flattery. What better way to keep a suspected rival down than to humiliate him—and what would humiliate a proud and austere senator like being saddled with a giddy child for a wife? Many middle-aged men might take brides of fi fteen, regardless of Rome’s snickering, but not a man like Senator Norbanus. No one snickered at Senator Norbanus, but thanks to an Emperor’s spite, they would now.

  Lepida, of course, missed the subtext. “So the Emperor chose me for you?” I could hear her nursing this bit of Imperial favor to her bosom. “Well, if he wants it—”

  “No.” Marcus’s voice turned serious. “If you’d prefer another—and I’d understand if you did—then I’ll refuse the match.”

  “You’d defy the Emperor?” Her eyes were very blue against the white palla she’d wrapped around herself in the fall chill. “For me?”

  I took my eye away from the greenery. Poor Marcus Norbanus. Even a grandson of the shrewd Emperor Augustus could fall prey to a pair of sincere blue eyes. I busied myself quickly with the fountain tiles. Quintus Pollio was holding another banquet for the gladiators in a week’s time, and there was already plenty to do.

>   LEPIDA

  YOU know, I’ve made up my mind about Marcus,” I told Thea in the bathhouse, stretching myself out on the marble massage slab. “I think I’ll marry him after all.”

  “My lady?” Thea’s fingers kneaded my back. She might be gawky, ugly, sly, and rude, but she did have magic hands.

  “Marcus. He may be old, but that just makes him easier to manage. I’ll have him eating out of my hand in no time.”

  “Hmm.” Thea sounded polite as usual, but I was never certain she wasn’t making faces behind my back.

  “Even if he’s old and ugly and hunchbacked, he’s still a senator,” I continued. “And royal. Well, sort of royal. And I don’t have to stay married to him forever—he’ll just be my stepping-stone. Once I’m Lepida Pollia the beautiful senator’s wife, moving about in all the patrician circles with governors and generals to choose from, well, I can take my pick, can’t I?” Propping my chin in my hand. “Oh, I’m just full of plans. I can see everything unrolling out in front of me, exactly the way I want—more on the left shoulder.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Be gentle. I’m still feeling bruised.” What bruises, though! Two nights ago Father had hosted another banquet for the gladiators, and the Barbarian had once again been the guest of honor . . . I had the slaves mix Father’s wine twice as strong as usual, and he never noticed when I slipped off the couch into the dark garden, where the Barbarian stood swaying on his feet and looking up at the cold distant moon.

  “A lovely moon,” I’d whispered, and I kissed him . . .

  “I finally got him,” I said to Thea with satisfaction, and turned on my side on the massage slab so she could reach under my arm.

  “My lady usually gets what she wants,” Thea observed. I twisted for a look at her, frowning, but she looked as blank as ever. And she had a point, didn’t she? I usually did get what I wanted, and I wanted the Barbarian. In the dark garden his hands had landed on my shoulders, perhaps to push me away, but his fingers dug into my flesh and his teeth had drawn blood from my lip.

  “It was all terribly thrilling.” I lifted my arm so Thea could massage my side. “He’s such a brute. He’d have dragged me off and had his way with me, if his lanista hadn’t come out just afterward.” Too bad . . .

  “Sandalwood oil or jasmine, my lady?”

  “Jasmine. I wonder what Father would do if he found out—” I giggled, arching my back. “He’d be furious. But really, what’s the difference between what I want and what all those patrician ladies want?”

  Of course it would be an enormous scandal—a young girl of good birth, seduced by a gladiator. But didn’t that all just make it more thrilling?

  “And really, why should absolutely everything go to Marcus?” I mused aloud. “Why shouldn’t I get something? I know enough to act scared on the wedding night, and bring a little bag of chicken blood to the bed like all the brides do, in case the husband’s too drunk to perform. But this way I’d have something else to bring to bed. Something to think about while I’ve got boring old Marcus draped all over me.” I closed my eyes as Thea dabbed jasmine oil behind my ears. “I’d have a pair of big strong arms to think about instead of—”

  “My lady,” Thea interrupted me—interrupted me! “I don’t want to hear about it.”

  “You don’t?” My eyes snapped open. “Why is that, Thea? You’re no Vestal Virgin. I’ve heard you panting under my father often enough.”

  “I’m sorry, my lady. I spoke out of turn.” She busied herself among the perfume vials and massage oils. “Would you like your robe, now?”

  “I know why you don’t want to hear about it, Thea.” I smiled, feeling a little thrill of satisfaction inside. Finally something had cracked behind that long blank face of hers. “Because you’re jealous. Yes, you are. You’ve got a little crush on the brave, savage Barbarian, haven’t you? Were you hiding behind a bush last night, watching when he kissed me? Were you just aching and wishing it was you?” I uncoiled languorously, rearing up so close I could feel Thea’s breath on my face. “Shall I tell you what it’s like, Thea? To be crushed by those hard arms, yanked off the ground by those callused hands, scraped by that rough jaw—”

  Her face was like wood, but her eyes hated me.

  “Poor little Thea,” I smiled. “I’ll give you a few coppers next time we go shopping, and you can buy one of those garish little portraits the vendors hawk by the Colosseum. Hang it around your neck on a ribbon, and sleep with it under your pillow—”

  “Will that be all, my lady?”

  “Yes, you can go. I’m quite finished with you.” For now, at least. Once I had the Barbarian in my bed, I’d make her watch.

  GALLUS had begun letting Arius out in the evenings. He tried running, but these days he was recognized before he got ten steps. No use. Easier just to get drunk.

  “Water,” he bit out, ducking through the door of the Golden Cockerel, a flood of his fans banging raucously after him. “Wine. Food.” He flipped a coin at the tavernkeeper.

  “No, no, everything for the Barbarian is free! Such a splendid fight this afternoon! When you disemboweled the Greek—”

  “Forget the food.” Arius flung himself down at the corner table. “Just wine.”

  Drink and fight. Blood and wine. Drink the blood, dear boy, spill the wine; it’s all the same thing. He stared into the mug.

  “Careful,” someone whispered nearby. “Just last week he broke someone’s jaw for getting too close—”

  Drink and fight. Take it, swallow it, choke on it; it’s all you get.

  The mug made a fine crash against the opposite wall. His fans cheered and followed suit, nine more mugs shattering to the sound of drunken applause. He could have pitched them all out into the darkening street.

  Then a section of brown tunic and a neat work-hardened hand blocked his vision. “Arius.”

  He knew the sound of her voice before it had finished his name. “Get out,” he said quietly.

  “For God’s sake, I’ve spent half the night tracking you down. My mistress won’t let me back in the house until I’ve found you. The least you could do is be civil.”

  He curled his fingers around the wine jug.

  “I have a message to deliver.” Thea’s voice was toneless. “My mistress wants you to meet her in the Gardens of Lucullus tomorrow at midnight. She’s already bribed your lanista. You understand? Good.”

  For the first time he looked up, but she was already vanishing into the throng. He saw her briefly at the door, buffeted by a crowd of drunks as she slipped out into the street. He half-rose from his bench.

  “Better hole up here for a while, Barbarian.” The tavernkeeper thumped down another brimming mug. “Looks like the first of the winter storms is on its way. Only the pickpockets and the murderers are out tonight.”

  A crowd of plebs flooded in, struggling out of their cloaks and swearing. Arius grabbed his cloak, making for the door. A cluster of fans rose to follow him, but he rounded on them.

  “You follow me,” he said, “and I’ll kill you.”

  Some followed anyway, but he knocked a few heads together, tossed a third man into the hearth, and while he was yelping and putting out his blazing hair Arius ducked out the door.

  It wasn’t raining yet, but it soon would be. He could smell it when he lifted his nose up to the iron-colored sky. The wind blew cold for the first time in months, and he shook back his hood. The first rain since . . . how long? He’d missed it.

  He found Thea halfway down a tenement side street. Walking tall and straight, arms swinging easily at her sides. He caught up in a few strides. “Stupid,” he said roughly. “Stupid to walk alone in this part of the city.”

  “My mistress is expecting me.” She looked straight ahead, ignoring the dust that a spiteful breeze blew up against her face. “Lady Lepida Pollia doesn’t wait.”

  “It’s going to rain.”

  “No matter. I like rain.”

  They walked along in silence.
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  “You fought well today, Barbarian.”

  He shook the dust out of his eyes; the wind was picking up. More silence. They rounded a corner, ducked into a new gust.

  “Who are you killing?” Thea’s voice was barely audible over the pulse of the wind. “You don’t kill for the fun of it. Or the applause. Or the money. So who are you really killing when you put your sword through all those Greeks and Thracians and Gauls?”

  Gallus. The Emperor. The crowd. “Everyone.”

  “Even me?”

  “Just—just once.”

  “Only once? Oh.”

  “The Amazon. Remember? She had—she had dark eyes—desperate, but not—and your eyes, they—” He stuttered to a halt, struggling for words. “Never mind.”

  “You killed her.”

  “She wanted it.”

  “What if I wanted it?” Thea halted in the blustering wind, tipping her head back. “Right now. Would you finish me off? I’ve been trying for years, a bowl at a time, but it’s obvious I’m getting nowhere.” She held out her hands, palm up. The scars along her wrists gleamed white. “Would you kill me, please?”

  “What?”

  “Here, I’ll even start it for you.” In one swift movement she stooped, dislodged a sharp stone from the road, and raked it down her wrist. Blood welled, sickeningly vivid in the gray light. “Finish it.”

  “No.” He looked at her, looked and couldn’t look away. He wasn’t any good with words. “No.”

  For a moment she gazed back at him, her dark eyes as savagely miserable as the Amazon’s. Then she pulled her bleeding arm close, cradling it against her breast like a baby, and pulled away. As she turned, her sandal strap broke and she tripped.

  He caught her before he even realized she was falling, lifting her off her feet in both arms before she could sprawl across the hard stones. She caught at his shoulder, her work-hardened hand curling against the nape of his bare neck and leaking blood. He clutched her awkwardly off the ground as the wind tore at her hair, and he wanted her so badly.