Lady of the Eternal City

by Kate Quinn

  “I struck the Emperor.” Antinous downed the wine at a single swallow, not feeling the burn. He was still shaking, seeing the Emperor’s eyes bore into his. Emperor Hadrian, the dark creature of his father’s bitter stories. “Sweet gods, I struck the Emperor!”

  “Not wise,” Arius said mildly, and that was when Vix kicked the door in.

  “Father,” Antinous began, but Vix crossed the room in three long strides, and Antinous felt himself hauled up by the throat. His cup fell to the floor, and Mirah gave a sharp gasp.

  I shouldn’t have called him Father, Antinous thought disjointedly.

  “Mirah,” Vix said, his voice low as a whisper and barely recognizable. “Pack Antinous’s things. He is leaving.”

  Antinous’s heart lurched. “I am?”

  “The Emperor wants you out of his sight,” Vix said, “and I don’t even want you on the same damned island. I’m sending you back to Rome.”

  No, Antinous thought, but it was fair. Of course it was fair. You struck the Emperor, you stupid boy. So many years being the perfect son, and now you ruined it. Of course you’re being sent away.

  Dimly he heard Mirah retreating, heard his grandfather shepherding the girls back from where they peeked around the door—“Go bake bread with your grandmother, now.” Heard the door shutting, leaving Antinous alone with his father, who still held him by the throat and had eyes like black pits.

  “Vix—” Antinous rasped, but Vix shook him like a rat.

  “You idiot boy.”

  “I didn’t know! How could I know it was the Emperor? Just a bearded man—” Even now, Antinous didn’t have a very clear vision of Hadrian’s face, just his eyes. He’d been too frightened to see more.

  Vix’s hand dropped. Antinous slid down, misery welling in him like a new spring. His new black puppy nosed at his elbow, whining. If he hadn’t been so eager to show Vix the puppy—

  “You’re right,” Vix was saying. He sounded tired. “You didn’t know him for who he was. That’s my fault. I should have shown you at some point . . .”

  He seemed to lose the thought, sinking down on a stool and locking his fists together. He was shaking, Antinous saw in shock—his invincible, godlike father, shaking as though he’d been terrified out of his wits.

  “Would he truly have taken my hand off?” Antinous ventured.

  Vix let out a harsh little laugh. “Hell’s gates, don’t you remember any of the things I’ve told you over the years? What he’s capable of? I nearly lost you today. I nearly lost my—”

  He bit that off, staring down at the floor.

  Antinous felt a lump rise in his throat. “I’m sorry.”

  No answer.

  The lump turned into a stone. “Where are you sending me?” A void opened in front of him, the one he’d felt when Vix first took him in; the fear that if he wasn’t good enough, wasn’t clever enough, wasn’t obedient enough . . .

  “I’d send you to the Tenth Fidelis if I could.” Vix sounded listless. “A stint in the legions—that would knock the urge out of you to go round hitting strangers. But you’re too young.”

  Relief stabbed through Antinous like a spear. I don’t want to be a legionary, he thought—had been thinking in the back of his mind for a long time. But how did you say that to the consummate legion man?

  “The Tenth Fidelis can wait till you’re older,” Vix went on, and Antinous’s stomach clenched again. “For now it’ll have to be the paedogogium back in Rome. You can board at the school with the other boys your age; get some proper training; learn some manners. Keep your dog with you . . .”

  School. Antinous supposed it could be worse. “For how long?”

  “A year? Two? Who bloody knows?” Vix rose in a violent movement, reaching for the amphora. He poured wine out in a splash, hands still shaking, and downed it all at once.

  Antinous rose too, feeling the black puppy wind anxiously about his ankles. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, his voice still hoarse from the force of Vix’s grip. Vix had never lifted a hand to him in all his life. Had never needed to. And now . . . Antinous bent and picked up the puppy, hiding the tears that sprang to his eyes.

  “In a way I’m proud of you.” Vix still stood half turned away, staring into his cup. “You didn’t let even the Emperor of Rome call you a bum-boy.”

  “I—”

  “That’s good.” His father spoke tightly, still not turning. “It’s good to know you’ll draw that line where it needs to be drawn, when you’ll be on your own in the paedogogium. There are plenty of opportunists in Rome who will take advantage of a good-looking boy like you, if you let them.”

  Antinous cleared his throat. “I’ll help Mirah pack.”

  But his father swung around, shoving another stool across the floor with one foot. Antinous sank down as if struck, and so did Vix. For a moment Vix just rubbed his callused hand across the base of the wine cup in a slow, aimless motion. “There have been women, I know. Men, too,” he said finally. “You had the women, and the men had you.”

  Antinous felt a crimson flush mounting his cheeks. “Everyone does it—”

  “Boys, maybe. But you’re almost a man. And you’re going out of my reach, where I can’t protect you as you turn into one.” Vix’s hands gripped the wine cup so tight it nearly shattered. “Don’t let anyone use you, once you’re out there on your own in the Eternal City. You’re young and you’re handsome, and they’ll try. There are men in Rome who like nothing better than a handsome boy too innocent to guard his own arsehole. And once you’re a man grown, if you’re letting men spread your cheeks—well, you’ll be laughed at for a useless bum-boy and a whore. You’ll be shamed.” A short laugh. “Listen to me ramble. I don’t need to tell you this; you’re the one who defended your own honor today.”

  “Nobody calls the legionaries bum-boys,” Antinous managed to say. “And you’ve told me plenty of them like to . . .”

  His father waved that aside. “If you’re in the legions, it’s different.”

  “Mirah wouldn’t say so. She says it’s all sin.”

  “That’s what her god says, not—”

  “Isn’t he your god too?” Antinous knew the answer; he was just being evasive. His father might murmur the prayers along with Mirah because it made her happy, but Vix believed in luck, in fortune, in Rome, and in himself. Not in any particular God, Mirah’s or any other.

  Vix shrugged. “Mirah’s god might be mine by birth and blood, but it’s Rome we live in.” Confirming every one of Antinous’s thoughts. “As long as we’re in Rome and not Judaea, Rome’s rules govern us. Not Mirah’s god. And a man’s honor and what he does to keep it or lose it—that’s something Rome’s rules govern, too.”

  But why? Antinous clamped his lips, feeling stubborn. Why does Rome say some things you want are allowed, and some are not? Who made the rules? That was what he really wanted to know. Why?

  “You’re right when you say the legions are different,” his father continued. A man who rarely wondered why. “Plenty of times there aren’t enough women to go round, so no one cares if you’d rather bugger your contubernium mate than go without altogether. But when you’ve got wider options, people aren’t so forgiving. You can’t be anybody’s mount, or the world will despise you—that’s just the way it is.” He looked at Antinous. “I’m glad you wouldn’t let the Emperor shame you today. I don’t ever want to see you used and belittled. Not you.”

  It was his father who looked shamed, Antinous thought. Shamed and shaken and gazing at him with anxious eyes, begging Antinous to understand.

  “I understand,” he mumbled at last, and averted his gaze.

  “Good,” Vix said. “End of lecture.” He poured more wine for them both. Antinous gripped his cup, still feeling his cheeks glow hot.

  “I’m sorry,” Vix said gruffly, noting his blushes. “I—it’s the sort of thing
you have to say, when your boy strikes out on his own. Especially when he strikes out a year or two earlier than you ever thought he’d have to go . . .”

  Antinous’s throat filled. “You’ll miss me?” he managed to ask. Because he didn’t think Mirah would, not really. Much as she loved him, he didn’t share her blood or her faith: He had too much dilution through his life from the Roman gods worshipped everywhere else. He couldn’t do as his father did and just murmur the prayers to make Mirah happy; Vix didn’t mind doing it, but Antinous did, and he knew it made Mirah feel as though she’d failed in raising him. No, she won’t miss me much. And he didn’t really think his sisters would, either. They loved him, but they had their mother, their mother’s prayers, their own secretive girlish games just for two. They had no need of Antinous.

  No one did.

  “Of course I’ll miss you!” Vix sounded baffled. “What kind of question is that? I’ll be counting the days till you rejoin the family.”

  Antinous smiled then. Something he couldn’t have imagined doing, this wretched afternoon.

  “You know, I’m almost jealous?” Vix reached out, covering Antinous’s hand with his rough one. “I’ve never hit that bastard Hadrian, no matter how many insults he’s heaped on my head. But he calls you a bum-boy, and you damn near break his nose.” Squeezing Antinous’s fingers, so hard they hurt. “A fist like that, you won’t need me guarding your back in Rome.”

  “Still wish I had you,” Antinous said. The puppy yelped and spilled to the ground as Vix rose, yanking Antinous up into a crushing embrace.

  “Hell’s gates, boy. You don’t take care of yourself, I will storm into the next world just to beat your shade black and blue—”

  Antinous scrubbed at his stinging eyes. “I promise I won’t fail you. I won’t disappoint you—”

  “You won’t. You couldn’t.” Vix pulled back, gripping him by the shoulders and giving him one of those fierce looks. The kind that made Antinous feel tall as a mountain. “Just keep out of trouble, don’t hit any more emperors, kill anyone who calls you a bum-boy or hurts your dog”—looking down at the puppy gazing up huge-eared and anxious—“and stick to bedding girls because you can do whatever you want between the sheets with a girl, and it’s all a deal simpler. That’s my last bit of fatherly advice.”

  More than enough, Antinous thought with a twist of shame in his stomach. Because he could think of having a girl soft and sweet-smelling in his arms, and enjoy the thought—but there were other times too, like the clerk on the ship to Gesoriacum who had turned him with rough passion against a wall, and that had been something else entirely.

  You want to know why I really hit the Emperor, Father? Because it’s what you’d do if someone called you a bum-boy. Not what I’d do. I did it because you’d expect me to be insulted.

  And he’d never in all the world be able to say so.

  ANNIA

  Rome

  It was a very big party: women in jewels and bright silks pretending they liked each other; senators in wreaths pretending they were listening to each other; slaves with silver decanters and golden platters pretending they weren’t eavesdropping on everyone. Annia could see her mother, all emeralds and turquoise silks and a belly round as a melon, happy and laughing and not pretending anything at all, and there was her father ignoring a pair of hovering senators so he could talk with cousin Marcus, who hung on his every word. Good thing Marcus was occupied; he’d be sure to tattle if he saw Annia now. She’d broken something again, and she had absolutely no intention of getting caught.

  Annia scouted the room. Everyone seemed to be watching the choir of boys hired from the paedogogium to sing Greek songs, the group of them arrayed like young gods in their silk tunics and oiled limbs. The boys were all tall and well-built, but one was more beautiful than a god—he had hair the color of honey and a sweet tenor voice. The women, Annia saw with a giggle, looked like they wanted to eat him. So did a lot of the men. Either way, nobody was looking at her.

  Perfect.

  Applause burst out, and Annia swept the pieces of the glass dish into her skirt hem and trotted out into the gardens. Live peacocks wandered arrogantly through the hedges, and she kept her distance because she’d already tried to ride a peacock once and the results had not been good. She skirted the couples kissing in dark alcoves, finally finding a laurel bush under which she began to sweep the broken bits of glass.

  “What are you doing, little monkey?”

  Annia whirled. “Nothing.” It was the boy from the paedogogium, the beautiful one with the fair hair. “Why aren’t you singing?”

  “That was the last song.” He looked amused. “You’re hiding something.”

  “Am not.” Annia shoved the last bit of glass under the bush with her foot. It clinked.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t tell.” He smiled. He had a beautiful smile, the kind that crinkled his eyes and put deep dimples in his cheeks. But there was something false about it.

  “Why are you sad?” Annia asked suddenly.

  “Why should I be sad?” He squatted down so he was level with her height. “I’m at a beautiful party in the most illustrious city in the world, talking to the most beautiful girl in the house. I have no reason to be sad.”

  “You’re sad,” Annia stated. It was in his eyes, brown eyes that looked just a little wistful even over that dimpled smile. “Why?”

  “Perhaps I’m lonely.” He sounded thoughtful. “In a way, I think I’ve always been a little lonely.”

  “Why?” she asked, genuinely curious. Because Annia couldn’t remember ever being lonely. She had her father telling her what an Ionian column was; her mother telling her what a good sister she was going to be when the baby arrived; the housekeeper telling her to stop climbing trees before she broke her neck; Marcus droning the latest verse from his tutor. There were too many people in Annia’s life ever to get lonely. “Why?” she asked again.

  “I’m new to the paedogogium, only here a month, and everyone but me seems to know the career they hope to take. I don’t believe in my mother’s god or want my father’s career, and I can’t say that to either of them. I have more would-be lovers than I ever have friends. And I have no one to tell any of this to but”—touching the tip of Annia’s nose gently—“you. So I think I should know your name, little monkey.”

  “Annia Galeria Faustina.”

  “Antinous,” he said, and rose to give her a graceful bow, his fair hair shining in the lamplight.

  “Don’t be lonely,” Annia instructed him. “Be my friend.” And she seized him by the hand and dragged him, laughing, to meet her father.

  SABINA

  Hadrian’s Wall

  “What are you doing here, Vibia Sabina?” the Emperor asked.

  “I wanted to see it by moonlight.” Half the truth.

  “It is quite a sight, isn’t it?” The Emperor came to stand beside Sabina, arms folded across his chest. He wore the legionary dress he affected when staying at any fort—Sabina had steered him gently, there, pointing out how the legions liked it, and she couldn’t deny it suited him, tall and imposing as he was. Sabina had a cloak of wolf pelts, soft gray fur pinned at the shoulder with a silver circle brooch, and she’d taken off her horrid braided wig. The muffled clank of their Praetorians came from behind as the guards shifted their feet, but in the soft blackness of the night it might have been just the Emperor and the Empress, looking at the white ribbon of the wall.

  “Did it come out as you’d hoped?” There had been a lengthy ceremony this afternoon where the engineers had formally presented the short finished segment. Hadrian had clambered over everything, asked questions about everything, and finally pronounced himself pleased. But now he was frowning.

  “I wish they could have built more.”

  “You only gave them three months! Even just a mile or two of finished wall is impressive on that schedul
e.” A waxing moon swelled in the scatter of stars overhead, turning the grassy hills as dark as pitch—but flung across the stretch of black, a broad band of white stone gleamed. “That was a good idea to have it plastered and whitewashed. It looks twice as impressive.”

  “Thank you, my dear.”

  Sabina looked at him in surprise. She could not remember the last time he had called her “my dear.” Since the night in Londinium where she had advised him to wear the mask of a good man even if he could not be one, he seemed to have been regarding her rather closely, as though watching for signs of meddling. Advice is one thing, Sabina thought, but given sparingly. So she had stepped back and kept to her duties: attending the dedication of an altar to Neptune and another to Oceanus; presiding over the discharge ceremonies of old legionaries; keeping up her correspondence with Rome. Doing her duty, and doing it faultlessly. Hadrian gave no praise, but . . .

  My dear.

  “So—” Her husband rocked back on his heels, staring at the moon-drenched stretch of stone. “Do you think my wall is just a foolish expense, as so many others do?”

  “On the contrary. You didn’t just build it to control trade across the border, or to give the legions something to do.”

  “Didn’t I?”

  “Publius Aelius Hadrian always has multiple motivations,” she teased, but very lightly. He used to like her teasing, but his skin was thinner as Emperor. “You want to be sure that later Emperors don’t undo this policy of yours.”

  “And which policy would that be?”

  “Your belief that the Empire is big enough as it stands.” She nodded out at the wall. “You said you wished to enclose our territories in borders, so future emperors will hesitate to go beyond. With something as permanent as this wall marking the boundary, they will not.”

  “Most people consider it a fault, that I have no wish to go beyond.”

  “Most people are fools. It was a bitter thing to force down everyone’s throat, giving up Syria and Parthia and the other territories Trajan conquered . . . but that didn’t mean it was wrong. We could never have held those territories. Even Trajan knew that, at the end.” She had loved her great-uncle, but his blind love of victory had to be counted a fault, at least when it led him to overreach. “Nobody wanted to hear you say the Empire was getting too big, but it was.”