Lady of the Eternal City (9 page)

“Poured concrete,” said Annia’s father, looking down at them both. “Coffered inside, with a central oculus. Do you know what an oculus is?”

Marcus nodded. “I study famous buildings,” he said, and sounded so pompous, Annia wanted to smack him.
Show-off.

The building site for the great temple was deserted: all scaffolding and marble dust, littered stone-cutting tools and stray boards, drapes flapping in a wind that had gone cool now that summer was done. “I saw to it the workmen had a day’s rest, as hard as they worked to finish the dome’s exterior,” Annia’s father said as they approached the scaffolded portico—which took quite a long time, because everyone in Rome seemed to have a respectful greeting for her father as he passed by. “See the roof? If it were a bright day, you’d see the gilding flash. I told the Emperor I would finance all that gilding, Annia, so I reckoned you should see it. If just so you know why I can no longer afford to dower you.” A fond tweak to her ear.

“Thank you for inviting me along, sir.” Marcus marched as stiff as a little old man as they made their way inside, and Annia glowered at him. She adored these afternoons with her father, especially now that he had finally come back from Britannia. A good many fathers would have had only a curt nod for a daughter, but Annia’s father was always willing to snatch an hour or so from his endless petitioners and Senate gatherings just to take her to the theatre for a pantomime or the Campus Martius to watch the chariots dash. She didn’t want to share this precious time with boring Marcus, who had been shoved off on them because his mother had another headache. As if he were so smart, knowing what an oculus was. Annia knew what an oculus was too; it was a hole in the roof!

“Titus Aurelius,” a sonorous voice hailed from behind, and Annia groaned inside.
Oh, Hades, not him!
The only person in the world more boring than her cousin.

Old Servianus came ducking through the scaffolding, raising a gnarled hand. He’d come back from Britannia recently, declaring his bones too old for the northern climes. “What he really means is that the Emperor doesn’t take his advice on anything,” Annia’s mother had hooted, “so why bother freezing in Vindolanda just to be ignored!”

“I came to inspect the temple,” Servianus went on, and heaved a sigh. “Corinthian columns! The Emperor insisted. In my day a plain Doric column . . .” As he droned on, Annia looked at the boy on whom Servianus was leaning like a staff. He wore a plain tunic like Marcus’s, and the same
bulla
amulet about his neck all boys wore, but there wasn’t anything else the same. This boy was taller, fair haired and stocky, at least nine—he laughed when Marcus offered him a little bow.

“Fortuna smiles upon me,” Servianus concluded at last. “I wished to call upon you, Titus Aurelius, to discuss the uniting of our families—and here we stand united under the roof of all the gods! A good omen.”

Annia’s father sounded amused. “Our families uniting?”

“A marriage. My grandson, Gnaeus Pedanius Fuscus Salinator”—a thump to the shoulder of the stocky fair-haired boy—“and your daughter.”

Annia’s eyes, which had begun to wander around the temple, snapped back to the stocky boy.

“My daughter is very young,” her father said mildly. “I hadn’t planned on marrying her off until she was, oh, at least eight years old. By ten she’d be too long in the tooth, of course. But eight seems a reasonable age.”

Servianus looked at him closely, but her father appeared perfectly serious. Only his eyes danced, the way they did when he laughed inside.

“A betrothal will suffice until they come of age.” Servianus waved a hand. “Settled now while the children are young and obedient—”

“Some more obedient than others,” her father murmured.

“In my day—”

“When
was
your day?” Annia piped up, even though she knew it was rude. Servianus reared back, and Annia’s father gave her that glance of quiet authority that could stop anyone dead in their tracks.

“Marcus,” he said, “why don’t you escort your cousins to see the portico?”

“Yes, sir.” Marcus rotated in place like a little legionary, and Annia found herself marched off on one side while Pedanius Fuscus slouched along on the other. They turned to face each other the moment they were outside among the scaffolding.

“Gnaeus Pedanius Fuscus,” she said, folding her arms across her chest.

“Salinator,” he corrected. “That goes on the end of my name.”

“Doesn’t
Salinator
mean brine?” she asked. “Why are you Gnaeus Pedanius Fuscus Brine-Face?”

He looked irritated. “It means salt. One of my ancestors instituted the tax upon salt.”

Annia thought there were more impressive things to be remembered for.
Brine-Face.
“Married,” she said instead, dubious. “Us?”

He gave a shrug. “Your father’s the richest man in Rome. Or one of them. And my grandfather says I’ll need a rich wife.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to be Emperor.” Pedanius said it as a fact. “My grandmother was Emperor Hadrian’s sister, so I’m his great-nephew.” He gave her a long superior blink. “You should be honored. Ugly girl like you—”

Annia just stuck her tongue out, but Marcus burst into speech. “Don’t say that.” He’d been standing there framed between two scaffolded columns, his gaze turning back and forth between them, and his face was flushed with indignation. “She’s not ugly!”

Pedanius Fuscus laughed, and he swung himself up to sit on the lowest level of scaffolding. “I can say whatever I want. I’m the next Emperor. My grandfather tells me that every day.”

“‘A mouse does not rely on just one hole,’” Marcus said, looking triumphant.

Annia and Pedanius both stared at him. “What’s that mean?” Pedanius asked, suspicious.

“It means, have another
plan
.”

Pedanius looked at him, feet swinging, eyes narrowed, already looking big and broad in his boy’s tunic. His sandaled foot lashed out and caught Marcus square in the chest, sending him stumbling.

“Apologize,” Pedanius said. “Or I’ll have you exiled someday.”

Marcus straightened. He looked down at his tunic and brushed at the muddy sandal print. He said nothing.

“Go on.” Pedanius grinned. “Apologize. Or maybe I’ll
execute
you once I’m Emperor.”

Marcus’s flush deepened. Annia started looking around. Her father and old Servianus were still inside the temple. All she could hear was the flap of drop cloths in the cold wind.

Pedanius hopped down from the scaffold and rested both hands on the column behind Marcus’s head, trapping him. “It’s treason to disobey the Emperor.”

Annia glanced down at the scattering of workman’s tools that had been left behind by some careless builder, and her eyes found a small wooden mallet.
“It’s astounding what a good craftsman can accomplish with just a mallet,”
her father had said once. She picked it up, hefted it, then brought it down in a sharp clip on Pedanius Fuscus’s hand where it rested on the column.

He yowled, snatching his hand back. Marcus let out a yelp too, probably from the yell right next to his ear. A few red drops landed bright in the pale stone dust under their feet as Pedanius danced up and down clutching his hand, and Annia saw that she’d broken his thumbnail in half.

Father had been right. It really
was
astounding, what you could accomplish with just a mallet. She tossed it to the floor at Pedanius’s feet. Marcus stared at her, wide-eyed, and so did her prospective husband. He was trying to stare daggers at her, but his eyes were too bright and wet to glare. He looked like he was about to start blubbering.

Annia reached out and grabbed Marcus’s hand. “You’re not Emperor yet,” she told the Emperor’s great-nephew. “And Marcus is my cousin, not yours. So you can’t tease him.”

She turned and towed Marcus back toward the temple’s entrance, but she heard Pedanius’s voice rise behind her. “I’m telling my grandfather.”

“Tell him a girl made you cry,” she said, turning back to see the tears of rage spill over his lashes. Probably no one had ever hit him before, just stood around telling him he’d one day be master of Rome. “Now you really are a Brine-Face,” she added for good measure, looking at the salty tracks on his cheeks, and dragged Marcus back into the temple.

Old Servianus was looking peevish. “—most definitely a matter to be considered in the future,” her father was saying graciously. “Your grandson is a fine boy, most worthy of consideration. Ah, Annia, did you forget to bring young Pedanius Fuscus with you?”

“He’s coming,” she said. “He hit his hand with a mallet.”

“That’s a lie,” Marcus whispered under his breath.

“Is not,” Annia whispered back. Brine-Face
did
hit his hand with a mallet. She just hadn’t mentioned that she’d been the one swinging it.

Pedanius came foot-dragging into the temple, glaring at Annia and Marcus. Annia gave the glare back as good as she got, but Marcus just returned it with a proud look. Annia couldn’t say which Brine-Face seemed to resent more.

Years later, she would still remember that meeting with such clarity—the half-built temple, the flapping drop cloths, the droning overhead—and wonder how the adults could have been so oblivious to the fact that their children had just become mortal enemies. “Mortal enemies,” Marcus scoffed when Annia said as much later. “Don’t be dramatic!”

“Am I wrong?” Because Marcus remembered that day with the same steel-edged clarity, and she knew Pedanius Fuscus did, too. Like it was important, more important than just a broken thumbnail and a few childish insults. And later when they were all grown, Marcus didn’t seem to find Annia’s idea quite so silly.

“I think the Fates were watching,” he confessed. “I think they tied a knot that day. His thread, yours, and mine.”

“Now who’s being dramatic?”

But at the time, of course, they were all too young and ignorant to do anything but glare at each other. And Annia ended up glaring at Marcus too, because when Servianus finally dragged his sullen nephew away, Marcus gave Annia’s hand a squeeze and she realized they were still standing with fingers interlocked warm and damp.

“Don’t marry Pedanius Fuscus,” he said suddenly. “Marry me.”

“Oh,
Hades
,” she said in disgust, and wouldn’t talk to him all the way home.

VIX

Vindolanda, Northern Britannia

“Nothing like a good kill to clear the head,” the Emperor said happily, wiping his long knife across one sleeve. A doe lay at his feet, an arrow broken off in her haunch. Hadrian’s dogs had brought her down after a long chase across the rain-spotted hills, but they didn’t finish her off. They knew to down the prey, then pull back in a ring to let their master finish the job. I’d watched the doe look up at Hadrian with huge liquid eyes as he drew the knife across her throat. “You look grim, Tribune,” the Emperor observed, gesturing for the huntsmen to bind up the doe’s carcass. “You aren’t fond of these hunts of mine?”

“No, Caesar.” I didn’t much like killing animals. Not for sport, anyway.

“Is it in the killing of men, then, that you find your release?”

I eyed him. “Depends, Caesar.”

He laughed, still full of even-tempered good cheer in that way that made me uneasy. “We travel south soon, and then make the crossing to Hispania—as soon as the first segment of wall is done. Perhaps Fortuna will favor you there with your preferred choice of game, Tribune.”

I felt a pang of wistfulness, because I’d enjoyed these months in Britannia. Watching the wall rise was a daily fascination; the steep hills gave me the chance to condition my Praetorians on ruthless marches; and my family was close again. Mirah had spent the summer helping my mother with the supervision of the hillside villa, both of them chattering in Aramaic while Dinah and Chaya played inside with the endless red-haired babies my sisters had produced while I was gone.

I still slept away from Mirah, of course. Spent most of my nights at the fort working late on endless rosters and supply lists and
frumentarii
reports; rising early because Hadrian apparently never slept and was always off either hunting or interviewing petitioners by first light. But as often as I could, I returned to the house I’d left at eighteen and fought practice bouts with my father or shared a mug of mead with my stonemason younger brother, who spoke eagerly of the wall that he was helping to raise. It was making his fortune for him, that wall.

No, I wasn’t really in any hurry to move on. Not from my mother, who couldn’t quite stop reaching out to touch my cheek whenever she saw me, as though memorizing my face in case I was gone another fifteen years. Not from my father’s rock-silent, rock-steady presence. And I didn’t think Mirah would be so happy to journey on to Hispania, either. She’d turned to me in bed the last time I’d been able to stay, her voice diffident in the dark. “You know I’ve always been in favor of Judaea, Vix.” Her fingers found mine on the pillow and twined through them. “My family being there, and our people. But if Judaea sounds too strange to you . . . We could settle here. After all,
your
family is here. We could be happy.”

“Not our girls,” I said, trying to joke. “Did you hear Dinah complaining about the mud, and Chaya crying about hearing wolves? Proper little prigs, our daughters are turning into.”

“Because they’re
Roman
girls, and do we want them to keep growing up that way? They’d get used to the mud and the wolves.” Mirah’s fingers tightened. “They love your family—all right, your father terrifies them, but Antinous really shouldn’t have told them all those gladiator stories.” Voice softening, then. “It doesn’t have to be Judaea, Vix. If we could stay here—”

“I’ll think on it.”

“You’re always thinking,” she sighed, and I kissed her then to quiet her. But kisses never distracted my wife for long, and I could see the question in her eyes.

We could be happy here, Vix. So how—

“Tribune?” Hadrian asked, and I looked at his bearded face.

“Hispania next, Caesar,” I said woodenly. “I’ll begin laying preparations.”

“I know, I know.” His eyes sparkled, and he swung up into his saddle in one easy flowing motion. “You’d rather conquer the rest of this wet little island. My bloodthirsty dog of war!” He shook his head at me and set off at a thundering pace for Vindolanda.

It was my fault, what happened when we got back. A guard must be alert, and I was too absorbed in my own thoughts. Hadrian had swung off his horse in the courtyard before the
praetorium
, dealing with the rush of secretaries and scribes thronging to meet him, and I was ordering the horses away when I heard a voice calling.

“Vix!”

I looked up with an absent frown. A familiar honey-colored head was fighting its way toward me through the crush of the courtyard. “Antinous, what are you doing here?”

“I know you don’t like me visiting you at the fort, but I had to show you.” Proudly Antinous presented me with a bright-eyed, big-eared ball of squirming black fur. “Your father gave him to me, said I could have my pick of the pups if Mirah didn’t mind! Isn’t he beautiful?”

I should have sent Antinous away. I’d been so firm on my rule that my family did not mix with the people I met as Praetorian. I should have sent Antinous home, and I was forming the suitable stern words even as I gave his new puppy’s ear a tweak, when Hadrian’s sudden laugh caught me off guard.

“Tribune, what a surprise.” The Emperor sounded knowing, and I turned, my arm still slung absently over Antinous’s lean young shoulder. “And here I thought you always turned up your nose at bum-boys. I don’t blame you for changing your mind; he’s a pretty one.”

I’d shrugged off far worse bits of spite than that during my years at Hadrian’s side. I doubt he even meant insult; the Emperor merely looked amused. But Antinous flushed a slow dark red, and my arm tightened too late around his shoulder as I saw the danger. Because my son had never seen the Emperor up close, and in the common breastplate and mud-splashed cloak he’d donned for the hunt, Hadrian was just another bearded huntsman. And my adopted son shoved his new puppy at me, took two furious strides forward before I could yank him back, and drove his fist into the Emperor’s nose.

I saw droplets of blood fly as Hadrian toppled astonished into the mud.

“He’s my
father
, you foul-mouthed bastard,” Antinous shouted, coming for him again. “And I’m no one’s bum-boy!”

Miraculously, I got him before the Praetorians descended, dropping the puppy and doubling an arm about his shoulder. “Antinous, no—” I yanked him back so hard he almost fell to the mud, thrusting him behind me as the guards closed in a sudden ring. “Stay back, it’s nothing to draw blades for!” But my hand fell instinctively to the hilt of my own
gladius
as I saw Hadrian uncoil from the ground.

“Caesar, are you hurt?” I heard Antinous give a sudden convulsive gulp behind me as he heard the title, as one of the Praetorians approached Hadrian to blot his nose with some hastily torn strip of cloth. The Emperor waved him aside. He touched his swelling nose delicately, and I saw his tongue dart out to taste blood. He looked up then, his eyes blasting me from notice and fastening on my son, and my surge of terror nearly welded my hand to the
gladius
hilt.

Because all that affable, inexplicable good temper of the past few months had dropped away like a pantomime mask.

Hadrian spoke softly, eyes never leaving Antinous. “I didn’t know you had a son.”

“Adopted,” I managed to say. Hoping he would be more merciful if he thought Antinous didn’t share my bad barbarian blood.

“He requires instruction,” the Emperor stated even more softly, “in polite behavior.”

“He does,” I choked out. “I will punish him—”

“No.”

The guards edged closer, swords unsheathed.

“Stand down,” I growled, “stand down!”

They inched back, eyes never wavering from Antinous. My son stood still as a statue behind me, the puppy whining nervously between his feet, and I felt a quiver of fear go through him. A quiver of a different kind seemed to go through Hadrian; he squeezed his eyes shut and brought a hand to his own face, giving his bleeding nose a vicious pinch. I saw more blood trickle down to his lips, and he said something strange. “Merciful,” he murmured, and his tongue lapped to taste blood again. “Merciful.”

When he lowered his hand he was smiling. It would have chilled my blood, if I hadn’t been so desperate for any sign my son would get out of this alive.

“In Londinium, I blinded a slave who annoyed me,” Hadrian told Antinous in a pleasant voice. “For striking me, boy, I could take your hand. So get out of my sight, before I give in to temptation.”

“I’m—” Antinous quavered, and his voice had broken three years ago to a light tenor, but it cracked now like a child’s. He looked like a child suddenly, my tall and handsome son. “I apologize, Caesar, most humbly. I did not recognize you—I wouldn’t—”

“No.” Hadrian was still smiling, but I didn’t believe this smile. This wasn’t the carefree grin he wore as he watched the progress of the wall, striding up and down outlining his giddy plans for a full eighty miles of stonework. This smile was just a poorly constructed copy. “You did not recognize me. For that, boy, I will allow you to take your leave.”

Antinous stood frozen, pinned by the twin points of Hadrian’s eyes, but I wasn’t. I pushed the puppy into my son’s arms and sent him toward the gates with a massive shove. “Go home,” I whispered, “and
stay there
.”

He gave me one wide-eyed look and fled.

“Keep him out of my sight,” Hadrian said, and the cordiality dropped from his voice. He was allowing a pair of slaves to fuss over the nose, bringing a basin of water. “You have no idea how hard I find it, Vercingetorix, to extend mercy to those who hurt me.”

I felt a tiny hot thread of anger weaving through my fright, now that Antinous was safely gone. “He didn’t recognize you, Caesar!”

“Then you’ve raised a son as ignorant and barbaric as yourself, Vercingetorix.” Hadrian laughed, glancing in the direction Antinous had gone. “But he’s pretty, I’ll say that. Pretty as an old man’s dream.”

The fear left me then, and I inhaled pure red rage. It filled me, swamped me, and I took two fast steps forward until I stood nose to nose with the Emperor of Rome.

Lay a finger on my son, and I’ll kill you.
I didn’t say it because it would get me killed, but I shoved it out my eyes, all my pent-up threats. Then I turned and began to stalk away, shaking with the effort to keep my hands off that Imperial throat.

But Hadrian must have made some gesture, because two of my own Praetorians caught me by the arms. “Let go of me,” I said contemptuously, batting a hand off my shoulder, but they seized me again. If I’d had Boil with me they wouldn’t have dared; my second would have my back over any Emperor—but these were boot-licking Praetorians, and they wrenched me around to face the Emperor.

“Release him,” Hadrian said, and the hands holding my arms disappeared. “Remove yourselves.” The guards and the secretaries and the rest of the entourage retreated out of earshot, although they were all gaping. Hadrian stepped closer, his face quite serene.

“I exhibit mercy,” he said, “and you glare threats at me?”

“You threatened my son,” I snarled. “My
son
—”

The dagger flashed in the Emperor’s hand before I could react, sharp point coming to lodge just under my chin. My muscles bunched, but I willed myself stone-still. Hadrian was no career soldier; I could have beaten him with shield and
gladius
—but he was the finest hunter I’d ever seen. I knew how efficiently he could cut a throat.

“Vercingetorix,” Hadrian said calmly, and the knife’s point traced a small circle just under my chin. “You are useful to me, and so I allow you a certain latitude. But my tolerance is not infinite.”

“Yes, yes, now you threaten me,” I snarled, still not moving. “We both know how this dance plays out, Caesar. You tell me to curb my tongue and do what I’m told, or you’ll cut
my
hand off.”

He regarded me, pitying. “Oh, Vercingetorix. If I truly wanted to punish you, I wouldn’t mutilate you. I’d just bugger you instead.”

His knife tip sank a fraction deeper, and I felt a drop of blood slide down my neck. I looked past his unblinking gaze, saw the Imperial entourage whispering among themselves and straining to hear what their Emperor was saying. But no one was close enough, and for an instant I wondered if I’d heard wrong. I looked back to Hadrian, saw his placid, peaceful smile, and I knew I hadn’t heard wrong.

And I was suddenly terrified.

“You see, I know what would happen if I threatened to take your hand off, as I threatened to take your son’s. You’d just bundle up the bleeding stump and hit me with it.” His knife traced slowly from my chin along the line of my jaw, toward the corner of my eye. That eye began to water, but I didn’t dare blink with the point pricking my lid. “But you’re proud. All warriors are.” The knife traced back down my neck. “I could crack that pride in half, and do you know how I’d do it? I’d have you stripped and spread-eagled, and maybe it would take six Praetorians to keep you still, and maybe it would take a dozen, but they’d hold you down for me. I don’t like my bedmates scarred and crude, and I don’t like them unwilling, either. I prefer them handsome and eager, and for an emperor, there are plenty like that. But I’d use you till you bled, Vercingetorix. I’d make you my whore while everyone watched.”

My mind flashed utterly white, like the moment when a savage streak of lightning dazzles the eyes. The lightning passes but you’re left on the ground, screaming in terror. And my mind was screaming, clutching the blank whiteness, trying not to fit images to his unspeakable words.

“I’d make you take up your duties afterward,” Hadrian went on placidly. “Make you stand watch in that lion skin you won for bravery in Dacia, while every soldier in Rome snickers because I used Vercingetorix the Red like a dog uses a bitch. And I’d smile every time I looked you in the eye, and I don’t think you’d be holding my gaze with your head thrown back, not like you are now. You’d look away. And I’d like to see that, Vercingetorix. I’d like to see that very much. But it would break you, or at least, it would if I did it properly. And you’re useful to me whole.”

The knife disappeared from my neck, but my raw skin quivered where the point had lingered. I felt sick and cold and violated. There were no words. None at all.