Colosseum (25 page)

Verus is gasping, hardly a breath left in his body. The lanistalooks him up and down: “What are you in such a hurry to find, young champion?”

Verus is crimson, from exertion and embarrassment.

“I'm looking for Priscus, my lord. Priscus my brother…”

He pronounces the last two words with great pride.

Ircius continues to stare as the Briton heaves and gasps, as if drawing his very soul out of his lungs. Without the slightest change of expression, the lanista drily answers: “Priscus? He's gone.”

Verus's chest abruptly stops heaving.

“I sold him this morning to a school in Capua,” he goes on. “He left a short time ago.”

The expression of hopeful anticipation on the Briton's face disintegrates in an instant. “What? He's g… gone?”

Ircius smiles. “Yes. I
sold
him,” he says, emphasizing his power to dispose of his possessions as he thinks fit. “A very good deal it was too,” he adds smugly.

Verus's spirits plummet into an abyss, where dark slime licks at his body, like black bile about to swallow him whole.

Ircius passes a hand across his chin: “Tell you the truth, he didn't seem all that displeased. Like he was itching to see the world beyond these walls.”

He
wanted
to go, thinks Verus.

It is over.

Now it is truly over.

The lanistaslaps a hand on the gladiator's muscle-bound shoulder: “Cheer up, lad! Now the Gaul's gone you can finally earn your place here among the gods of the Ludus Argentum! Verus the Invincible!”

His laughter is like a hailstorm of
ice
on the Briton's soul.

But his fellow inmates take the master's words seriously.

Deadly seriously. “Verus the Invincible!” they roar in unison.

Verus feels his heart shrivel and crumble to pieces.

The sun has suddenly set, before it has even risen.

The warrior of fire no longer has the man of ice watching his back. He is the loneliest bastard in the whole damned Empire.

In the great hall the light is smooth as velvet, a softness it reveals only in Rome.

Emperor Titus walks gracefully around the enormous model of the Amphitheater at the center of the room. It has been made using four different types of wood: cedar for the frame, polished walnut for the inlays, rosewood for the arches and Oriental ebony to emphasize the imposing buttresses. The master of the world imagines the glory, the shouts of a grateful populace, eyes wide open to drink in the dream. Titus claps his hands at his back, moving barefoot across the decorated floor. A few grains of dust, fine sand carried on the wind, remain stuck to his dry heels, immovable as promises.

His heart weighs heavy in his chest: the works continue but they are behind schedule. The plague has given his kingdom a beating, she and destiny could not care less about deadlines.

It is late. Everything is late.

And Titus feels anxiety gallop through him like a herd of rampaging oxen. He tires at nothing; for those in command, thoughts alone can exhaust muscles and joints.

The Emperor bends down and brushes the arena with the palm of his hand. A trusted freedman has filled it with a thin layer of extremely fine sand. The monarch wonders whether the grains teasing his toes came from here or whether the wind carried them from far away, perhaps from the great land of Africa, where the strangest of beasts will come from.

Titus is both general and choreographer of the great and violent spectacle that Rome awaits more keenly than a downpour after an endless drought. At length he has spoken with senators and dispatched fixers and recruiters to the corners of the Empire, hunting down the strangest attractions in existence.

On a low table, next to the colossal model, sits a silver carafe. Time has rusted it, but the water within is cool. Titus's throat is parched by doubts. A breath of wind upsets the papers on his desk, documents bearing preposterous figures: the calculations of the amount of timber used to build the supports for the velarium, meticulously recorded by a middle-aged scribe, become muddled with the list of construction orders for the month of February. The Emperor knows it all, wants to be aware of every detail, down the most mundane. He watches over the birth of the stone titan like a fretful wet-nurse.

He is ready to defend his creation from the games of the powerful and the ravages of time. Titus does not speak of it to anybody, but he knows: the Amphitheater will be forever.

Like the Pyramids of Giza, or the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

An eighth wonder of the world will bear his name. And that of his father, Vespasian.

A shiver runs down his spine as he pours the water into a glazed terracotta cup, without drinking so much as a sip. All of the precious liquid is poured onto the sand. Another cup and another until the sand, saturated, can hold no more and the floor of the model is filled with make-believe waves, the breeze from the window gently rippling the surface.

Not a drop leaks from the wood. The seals are watertight, the sculptor did his job well.

Titus immerses his hand in the water that has invaded the arena. Eternal fingers in the wet sand.

He smiles, the master of the world, before pulling the release lever, hidden between two staggered buttresses next to the southern entrance.

And the magic takes its course.

The water drains out of the model, flowing through the tubes fashioned by the master's chisel, where the bevel has crafted the wood into the concave smoothness of a river bed. Tiny holes have been sealed with hammered lead and tar, turning the tree trunk into a perfectly watertight channel. The water trickles out of the miniature Amphitheater and falls noiselessly to the floor.

It splashes the Emperor's bare feet but does not tarnish the Emperor's smile, so pleased that he looks almost childlike. He cannot stop grinning at the wonder that has been created, his fingers in the damp sand, on his lips a word to be uttered in hushed voices, until the moment comes to leave everyone speechless: “Naumachia…yes, mock sea-battles.”

The applause at Titus's back rumbles like an August thunderstorm, resounding and brazen as its author.

Anyone else would give a start at being caught playing with an imitation world while the universe—the real universe—awaits a mere nod of his head to do his bidding. But Titus is not
anyone else
, he is the Lord of the Earth in its entirety, and he will set the fucking pace as he sees fit.

He turns around slowly, wiping his hands on his purple robes as though they were any old rags. With a wreath of laurel leaves atop his head he would be the perfect picture: the god of calm, right at the eye of the storm.

Finally, he sees the man who took the trouble to applaud his wonder emerge from the darkness of the corridor that leads to the great hall. The cape he wears, properly tanned Iberian leather with polished bronze inlays that shine like mirrors, marks him out as important.

The applause over, Titus's unexpected guest hints at making a bow. A very handsome man, his flowing blond locks speak of the sea. His cruel, square jaw makes the Lord of the Empire's head spin. The martial bearing of one who has grown up in the army of the damned Eagle.

He is the one who disappeared with Julia onto the balcony during the party. The one on whom the imperial firstborn has lavished her coquetry, her smiles and much else besides. The one who gave a damned good fucking to the daughter of the man standing right in front of him: Emperor Titus.

While Verus, glory of the Ludus Argentum, received the kiss of Persephone, goddess of the underworld, as he removed his adversary's head for the entertainment of the lords, his peers.

This is the man who now dares to applaud the wonder.

“Welcome, Domitian. Welcome, brother,” says Titus.

Brother.

Domitian smiles, examining the magnificent model from close up.

“Wonderful toy. Let us hope the real thing works like this, otherwise you can imagine the laughter on inauguration day…”

Domitian is being an asshole, as usual.

The Emperor would very much like to answer him back, but here comes yet
another
unexpected guest, trotting through the great hall.

Where the fuck are the servants who are supposed to announce visitors?

The Emperor scratches his head, transferring a few grains of wet sand to his hair. So flat and lifeless it is not even a distant relative of Domitian's.

And yet.

“Father, Uncle…” says Julia dutifully as she enters, not forgetting her manners.

After all she is daughter of the Emperor. If it were not for her habit of screwing every musclebound male that happened to stroll into their home, she would be quite perfect. But it is well known that perfection is not for this world, not even between the sweaty pleats of Queen Rome.

Julia spies the model of the house of games and applauds excitedly.

“I cannot wait for inauguration day! It will be a magnificent spectacle, will it not, Father?”

As she speaks she throws a languid gaze to her uncle that leaves little or nothing to the imagination.

Domitian licks his lips.

Titus sighs and wipes his hands on the purple tunic again.

The sand refuses to be brushed off.

“Of course it will, my flower. It will host some truly astonishing spectacles. Exotic animals will fight each other—gazelles, lions, rhinoceros and bears, even a few buffaloes, all decked out for war!—but let's not spoil the surprise for you, dear. Tell me though, what brings you to these parts?'

The girl springs forward a step, moving closer to her uncle. She would very much like to take his hand, or simply just caress his arm, but she cannot. Even in the rotten heart of the Eternal City, appearances carry a certain weight. So she limits herself to letting out a small sigh within earshot of him, secretly devouring him out of the corner of her eye.

“Boredom, more than anything,” she says. “The new handmaidens spent all morning styling my hair for the banquet this evening only to then tell me, a few moments ago, that it was canceled—such a shame!”

Titus feels a twinge in his liver. It was he who gave the order to put off the party: for some time now he has started to really feel the effects of drink. Maybe the thoughts and strains of the last few days. Or perhaps the fact that he is no longer twenty years old and his body is begging for a rest. The bottom line is that, although generally an obliging sort of man, he is not prepared to watch the rabble having a good time while he looks on, suffering from constipation and swollen joints. So, no party this evening, you bunch of good-for-nothings.

“I am sure the servants' work will not have been in vain, my child. You uncle was just telling me that he would be most pleased to dine with you. A warrior has little to do in peacetime, and now the barbarians have stopped tormenting our frontiers, our consul here seems to be bored of fighting nothing but the powerful pheasants from the imperial kitchens. Is that not right, brother? What say you? Care for an ally for your night time incursion into the field of roasted fowl?”

Domitian smiles. Titus knows he can be a genuine pain in the ass when he wants to be, but he is the Emperor after all. And
nobody
contradicts the Emperor, by the gods. Not even his beloved younger brother.

“If you wished to bestow on me a little of your precious time, dear niece, it would be a great honor for this old soldier to eat in your company.”

Julia holds back a little yelp of satisfaction: “I accept with infinite pleasure. I will run straight to Lucilla and choose something fitting for the occasion.” Which, translated from court language, basically means: “Of course, Uncle. I can't wait to get fucked as if there were no tomorrow on top of the dining table in your beautiful villa at the top of the hill, after having gorged ourselves and gotten blind, stinking drunk, of course.”

Julia vanishes with a squeak of sandals.

The two men are left alone.

They stare at one another a long while. Titus's eyes are tired. Damned tired.

“Why do you not marry her?” hisses the Emperor to his brother.

“Who are you talking about?” answers the son of the She-wolf.

Titus sighs. “Do you think I am blind? Please, do not insult my intelligence.”

Domitian holds his tongue.

“At the very least you would avoid making a laughing stock of our blood…”

That damned smile stays firmly on Domitian's face. “I do not know what you mean, brother. And then you should know, my heart belongs to Domitia.”

Titus knows it only too well. Domitia Longina is Domitian's wife, the sort of noblewoman that could give a man a hard-on at seventy. As beautiful as only a poisonous serpent can be, Titus makes love to her once a week—unbeknownst to his brother, or perhaps not, who knows—and
afterwards
, she does nothing but sing the praises of her cuckolded husband. Titus wonders why he still wastes time with her. The point is, nobody else makes him feel quite so dirty. Perhaps that is why he fucks her with such ardor.

The Emperor would feel more at ease if Domitian divorced her and married Julia, partly for reasons of dynastic straightforwardness, and partly because it would let him indulge his whims without having to hide away like a thief. But Domitian is stubborn, and this question of bedfellows is so complicated that it requires discretion.

A lot of discretion.

Titus does not even touch on it. The question he really wants to get to the bottom of in this moment is that regarding Julia, and with this in mind he looks the other straight in the eye and says his piece: “You may brag all you want, brother, but if you think you can get rid of my daughter so quickly, you are wrong. That girl is worse than an infectious disease. You will find her hanging onto you for the rest of eternity…”