Empress of the Seven Hills

  “Picky bugger,” I heard a low voice grumble behind me as the men began erecting their tents for the third time. “Last month he was just one of us. He gets a pat on the back from the Emperor and he thinks that makes him a real centurion?”

  It wasn’t much to go on, but I wanted everything settled right off. “You—front, now,” I snapped. The other legionaries had formed a rough circle around me before the man reluctantly stepped forward, and my heart sank. The grumbler was Julius, and my old friend’s eyes over his beaked Caesar nose were resentful and unfriendly.

  So much the better, I told myself brutally. After today, the whole century will know you don’t make pets out of your former comrades.

  “Let’s cut this short,” I said, pitching my voice loud and stamping down the dread in my stomach. Boil grimaced from the ring around us, knowing what was coming, but the rest just looked wary.

  “What?” Julius’s voice was sullen, but there was an insolent edge to it. Of all the tentmates in my former contubernium, he’d been the most resentful about my promotion—but I hadn’t thought him as resentful as this.

  “That’s ‘What, Centurion,’” I barked. “We’re going to skip the part where you spend the next three days grumbling just loud enough for me to hear, Julius, and I pretend I’m deaf until you say something too rude to ignore, and then I have you beaten for insubordination. I’m just going to beat you tonight, and we’ll save everyone the time. Hit me back if you want; we used to share a tent and we’ve saved each other’s lives a few times, and I haven’t got the crest and the medals on now.”

  I had to hit Julius twice before he started swinging. He took me around the middle in a boar’s rush—he was strong, shorter than I was but much burlier, and that was good: The other legionaries would like it better if I had to fight hard. I let my friend give me a bloody nose and waited till I saw the satisfaction spread across his face before I applied the arm lock my father had once used to teach me my place. Julius’s face went down into the mud, and hard.

  “There,” I panted, getting up. “I don’t care we used to share a tent; I don’t care we used to fight side by side. I’m not going to hear one more word of complaint out of you for as long as you march in my century.” I picked up my lion skin and slung it around my shoulders. “And you, all of you—you know who I am? I’m the man who brought the Dacian king’s head to the Emperor. I’m the man who carried your eagle. And now I’m your centurion, you ragtag rat-bait turds, so step sharp and shut up.”

  “What’s a turd?” Demetra’s son asked me when I retreated to my tent and bedroll.

  “Something you should learn to say if you want people to stop thinking you’re a girl. Get me a rag?”

  He fumbled in my pack, coming up with a bundle of old cloth I kept for bandages. “Did you plan that?”

  I looked down at him, still wondering why he was here. Why I’d turned around in the grocer’s shop instead of leaving like I should have, and looked down at that pretty little face and said, “Get your things; you’re coming with me to Parthia.”

  I shouldn’t have offered. I should have at least asked Mirah first, if she’d mind taking in another woman’s child with one of her own already on the way. I didn’t know much about wives yet, but that was probably the sort of thing women liked being consulted about. I probably should have told her Demetra’s son existed to begin with… But I’d been on my best behavior, courting Mirah and marrying her and learning to live with her, and the time had never seemed quite right to tell her I was paying to raise another woman’s son.

  I should have planned in advance; done it better. But Mirah had already gone ahead to Antioch, and I couldn’t exactly wait for a reply. And that pretty little boy had been staring up at me with those huge brown eyes, and all I could think was that the world was going to munch him up and spit out his bones if someone didn’t toughen him up.

  So here he was, cross-legged and bright-eyed on a bedroll of his own in my tent.

  “Well?” he was pressing me eagerly. “You planned it! The fight an’ the speech an’—”

  “Down to the last insult.” I pressed the wad of rags against my nose, mopping the blood and wondering if Julius would ever be my friend again.

  Never mind. He wasn’t supposed to be my friend anymore—just one of my men.

  “Why’d you do it?” Antinous was asking, curious. “They’re all angry and grumbly now.”

  “But they won’t grumble tomorrow.”

  “They don’t like you.”

  “They don’t have to like me. They just have to respect me.”

  “Don’t they?”

  “Not yet. They won’t respect me till we win a fight or two, but that’s all right. I wouldn’t either, in their place.”

  Demetra’s son blinked those curly lashes of his. God, he looked soft. “I’m going to teach you how to fight,” I told him. “Starting tomorrow before the march. Get some sleep.”

  “C’n I ride the horse tomorrow on the march?” He burrowed into his bedroll like a squirrel. “The wagon’s boring. ’Sides, you don’t ride the horse.”

  “Feel free. Don’t say I didn’t warn you when he bucks you off too.”

  His voice came in the dark as I was on the edge of sleep. “What do I call you?”

  I yawned, considering. He’d never had occasion to call me much of anything before. He had just stared wide-eyed on my periodic visits, mumbling a shy yes or no to my few questions.

  “Address me as Centurion in front of the men,” I said through the dark. “But for private, Vix will do well enough.”

  “Vix?” He said it shyly, as if I’d hit him for taking liberties.

  “You’d call me that if I were a brother.”

  “But you’re not my brother.”

  “I’m not your father either.” He’d rather have called me that, I could sense, but I wasn’t having it. “You had a father, not that you knew him, and it wasn’t me. But if I were a brother you’d call me Vix, and I’ve got a brother and sisters in Britannia not much older than you. So Vix will do.”

  “Vix,” he said dubiously through the dark.

  “Go to sleep, Antinous.” Now that he was mine, I’d have to start remembering his name.

  TITUS

  “Any advice?” Titus asked the bust of his father. It stared back: kindly, marble, silent, and Titus gave a long exhale. It had been a long time since he’d felt the need to consult his father’s stone face, but old habits were comforting. “I’ve never given a speech at the Rostra before,” he said. “I wish you could help me.”

  Silence.

  “No one can help me now, can they?” Titus said it softly, looking from the bust of his father to the empty niche right beside it—the niche where the funerary bust of his grandfather would be placed, after the funeral procession today. His grandfather was dead, and Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus was now head of the family. People would now be looking to him for advice, not the other way around.

  “Talking to statues again?” Ennia stood in the doorway, hands on skinny hips. “People will think you’re moon mad, and you the paterfamilias now.”

  He groaned. “Don’t say it.”

  “Not saying it don’t make it less true.” She came forward, adjusting the pleats of his black mourning toga. “They’re all waiting for you out there.”

  “Then wish me luck,” Titus said to both his mistress and his father, and drew a fold of black wool up over his head.

  The sky was steel gray and cold overhead, but a great many worthy citizens had still come to pay their respects to a former consul and distinguished statesman of Rome. Titus paced on foot with the masked mourners, matching his steps to the solemn blare of the bronze horns, looking straight ahead with impassive eyes because too great a show of grief would be improper. Behind him he could hear his half-sisters weeping, but that was fitting for women. A paterfamilias must be stone. He felt tears prick his eyes just once, when he met the gaze of Senator Marcus Norbanus limping st
urdily along to join the procession, flanked by his wife and daughter in black gowns, and the old man gave him the nod of an equal. I’m not your equal, Titus thought, I’m not anyone’s equal, I’m twenty-eight years old and an undistinguished public servant, and would you all stop looking at me like I’m important? But he was important now; he was head of the family with all attendant duties and responsibilities, and Titus answered Marcus’s nod with a grave one of his own and kept marching.

  If it had been his own choice, the funeral procession would have ended matters. He’d have installed his grandfather’s ashes in the crypt and gone thankfully home for the nine days of mourning, which he’d have spent installing his grandfather’s funeral bust in its niche and perhaps chatting to it now and then while he got used to his new role. But first there was the eulogy to be given, and for a man of his grandfather’s stature the eulogy must be given publicly, at the Rostra in the Forum Romanum where all Rome could hear.

  Get hold of yourself, Titus told himself. You’ve given speeches before. But never a speech at the Rostra, where plebs would listen idly to critique his delivery and comment on his choice of phrase and wonder if he’d ever amount to anything in politics. Never a speech before so many of his colleagues and superiors, all of them actually listening for once instead of dozing in their seats or reading petitions during his payroll reports. Never a speech in front of a crowd like this. Titus swallowed as the funeral procession wound ceremonially into the forum, and he saw that every place was packed by attentive Roman citizens. The horns fell silent as he mounted the steps of the Rostra’s platform and turned to face his audience. Their upturned faces were just pink blurs. He blinked, hoping to bring his sight back into clarity, but then he saw frowns, saw anticipation, saw yawns and envy and outright sneers, and wished he could have the blurs back.

  Friendly faces too, though—a fellow quaestor or two, the architect who had designed Trajan’s baths, Senator Norbanus smiling encouragingly between his wife and daughter. Faustina, not Sabina; Sabina had already departed for Antioch, and doubtless hadn’t even heard yet of his grandfather’s death. You’ll get a letter from her within the month, Titus told himself, but he’d have traded the letter and both his hands to have her here now, standing in the crowd this morning looking up at him. She’d smile, she’d give a little nod of encouragement and melt the block of ice plugging his throat… he had a sudden flash of her soft mouth under his own, her even softer breast, and blinked it away hard. Dear gods, those were not thoughts to be having while he was supposed to be giving his grandfather’s funeral oration.

  The blurry pink faces were beginning to look impatient now. Titus cleared his throat, tucked one hand along the folds of his toga, lifted his head. What was the opening sentence again? He’d worked so hard on his speech, something grave and well composed to do his grandfather honor, and now he couldn’t remember a single word.

  His eyes, raking the crowd desperately, fell on Sabina’s little sister. Faustina stood taller than her mother and father, fair hair covered by a black veil, and she leaned forward a little with her brows raised as if she could drag the words out of his mouth. She gave a tiny encouraging nod.

  Titus cleared his throat.

  “Honored citizens of Rome.” His voice came out strong, unwavering. “Martial tells us ‘He mourns honestly who mourns without witnesses.’ But for a loss of a man such as my honored grandfather Gnaeus Arrius Antoninus, all Rome must mourn together…”

  Not a stumble from start to finish.

  VIX

  People liked to say Antioch was the Rome in the east, but I couldn’t see the resemblance. There might be colonnades and aqueducts and arenas all in marble, but it wasn’t anything like Rome. The men wore their hair long and colored their nails like women; Hebrew and Latin and more languages I didn’t even know made a spicy verbal mix in the streets, and I counted more whores in one forum than I ever saw in an entire Roman slum, or maybe that was just how all the women dressed.

  “My former aquilifer!” Trajan greeted me on his first inspection of the Tenth’s detachment, though he did less inspecting than making promises to all the cheering men of treasure and triumphs in the year to come. “The sea journey didn’t kill you?”

  “Nearly, Caesar.” I saluted.

  “Still wearing that lion skin you took off Decebalus, I see. Didn’t feel like handing it over to the next aquilifer?”

  “Over my dead body, Caesar.” The pelt was a little patchy now, but I still wore it over my red cloak, and when the First Spear centurion saw it he always frowned. “That’s nonapproved for a centurion’s wear,” he’d said many times. “Take it off.”

  “Yes, sir,” I always said, never obeying. I’d gotten that lion skin from Trajan’s own hand, the same hand now giving me a friendly clap on my shoulder as he congratulated me on my new rank, and after that the First Spear dropped the subject of my lion skin. He already loathed me, but I didn’t hate him at all—on the contrary, I was looking forward to many pleasurable months of needling him on my way to getting his job. Technically his rank meant “First File,” since he led the first century of the first cohort and came first of all the legion’s centurions—but I liked the sound of “First Spear” better. I planned on doing the job a lot more efficiently than the prick who currently held the title.

  Antioch was stuffed, crowded, bursting with Romans. I’d thought Mog was full in the weeks before the Dacian campaign, but the Dacian campaign had only been three and a half legions, and this was a full seven, plus a vexillatio or two reinforcing from the legions in the west, like ours from the Tenth. There wasn’t a spare room to be rented anywhere in Antioch by the time the year ended, and I was glad I’d sent Mirah ahead of me to secure us living quarters. Once I stopped kissing her hello, Mirah put her hands over my eyes and walked me blindfolded and stumbling into a cozy little set of rooms that stayed our home for the rest of the winter. My century settled into their barracks for the winter business of dicing, drinking, keeping weapons sharp, and waiting for the mountain passes to open up, and I settled in with Mirah.

  “Vix!” Her voice floated in from the kitchen. “Come get your helmet out of the wash basin!”

  “What’s it doing in the wash basin to begin with?” I ventured into the tiny snug kitchen, where Mirah had lifted a leg of lamb from the brick oven and stood muttering over it. “Why is my helmet full of water?”

  “It stank, so I washed it,” she said absently. Her belly was rounded now beneath her apron. “I don’t even want to think about all the times you boiled soup in it over a campfire. What exactly does helmet soup taste like?”

  “You don’t want to know.” I emptied my helmet out, drying it off on the hem of my tunic. “This needs a polish.” I looked over at Antinous, where he sat playing with a carved wooden horse. “How about it, sprat? You can put a better shine on metal by now than most of my men.”

  He zoomed off after the polishing rags. Mirah thumped the top of his head gently as he flew past. “Be sure to get it done before sundown! Polishing armor counts as work, Antinous. You know we don’t do any work on Shabbat.”

  “You’re supposed to eat a proper meal on Shabbat too.” I looked over her shoulder at the lamb, which was a little black in places. “That doesn’t look like a meal. Are you still learning how to manage that Antiochene oven?”

  “Right now it’s managing me,” she muttered.

  “Maybe we should get your mother out here—”

  Mirah hit me with a spoon, chestnut hair gleaming in the orange light from the brick oven. “Out!”

  I kissed her wide mouth. “Yes, Lady.”

  I could hear her singing as I thumped out of the kitchen, a sort of cheery tuneless chant punctuated by the banging of pans and the occasional burst of swearing. Mirah always pretended to cover her ears whenever I swore in her presence, but she had grown quick to mumble legionary curses whenever she dropped a pot on her foot in the kitchen. Antinous was picking it up too. “Why can’t I say ‘rat-bitten bas
tard’? Mirah said it to the baker yesterday when he tried to cheat us on bread!”

  “I don’t care if you say it. If you’re going to swear, swear like a man. Just don’t swear around my wife.”

  “I heard that,” Mirah had said without turning. She’d looked at first questioning and then dismayed when I first arrived in Antioch and presented her with a seven-year-old child. “Who’s this pretty little girl?” she’d asked, and Antinous scowled and ruffled his curls with one paw and said, “I’m a boy.”

  “I probably should have told you about him earlier,” I’d begun with a deep breath, and by the end of it Mirah was just a little cross with me. Cross enough that she would have rearranged my face with the nearest blunt object, if I hadn’t danced nimbly behind a chair and done some fast talking. Most wives, it seems, would rather be asked first if they mind raising a child not their own—and they’d rather be asked before the child in question is being led through the door. But Antinous followed Mirah about so anxiously, so desperately eager to please, smiling so radiantly whenever she praised him, that she soon thawed. “He’ll be a good big brother to little Emmanuel,” she said, rubbing the bulge of her stomach. “I wonder if they’ll look like each other?”

  “When are you going to believe me when I tell you he isn’t my son? Like I said before, Antinous’s mother birthed him before she even met me. His father was some Bithynian clerk; died before I even got to Mog in the first place.”

  “So you say, but no man pays to raise a son who isn’t his own. Besides, he looks like you.” Mirah eyed Antinous, prowling about his new home in the long-strided swagger he’d started copying from me.

  “He doesn’t look a thing like me,” I scoffed. “Far too pretty. He takes after his mother.”

  “So his mother was pretty?” Mirah said, ominous. “Prettier than me?”

  “I’d better check on the men,” I said hastily, and ducked out. I didn’t have to be married long to know that was an argument I wasn’t ever going to win.