The Emperor's Games

by The Emperor's Games (retail) (epub)

  “Pleasant evening,” Lucius said. “Did I tell you I saw old Porcus in the Forum? He’s trying to find a husband for that youngest daughter of his again. The last prospect bolted for Greece!” He launched into a lengthy, gossipy description of poor Porcus’s tribulations in attempting to buy respectability for his errant offspring. Lucius’s homely, freckled countenance presented an animated imitation of Porcus’s doleful one. “And the mystery is how she manages to be so depraved, because she’s got a face like the back end of a carriage horse and a figure to match!”

  Flavius chuckled and drifted off. Correus looked at Lucius consideringly. When he set himself so determinedly to be amusing, it was generally because there was something else that he didn’t wish to discuss. Correus looked around the garden. It was crowded with slaves and children. The ladies of the family made bright spots of color against the espaliered fruit trees and rose-colored brick walls. Lady Antonia began a move toward the dining room, trailing the thin wrap that was as much warmth as fashion allowed.

  Correus eyed his brother-in-law, amused. “You slither like a sacred snake. Let’s go dine.” He would catch up to Lucius Paulinus later. Lucius needn’t think he wouldn’t.

  Dinner was a crowded, noisy family gathering. The children threw food at each other at one table, and the adults commented proudly on their respective offsprings’ accomplishments at the other. Correus’s mother, Helva, did not dine with the family, but undoubtedly she would contrive to present herself later. Correus had been to see her already, and Ygerna, gritting her teeth, had made a dutiful visit. Helva had told her she looked thin and that she certainly hoped Ygerna would be able to carry the child a full term.

  The dining room was a pleasant area, open at one end to the evening breeze and looking out into a vista of trellised vines and a fountain where three marble dolphins danced on their tails. The mosaic floor suggested an appetizing meal of fruits and lobsters, and the walls were fashionably painted with legendary scenes and vistas supposedly conducive to good digestion. Correus was pleased to note a new one on the far wall: An unappetizing banquet table laden with dead game had been replaced by Europa and Zeus, in the form of a bull. The bull was white and muscular, with a little wreath of roses between his horns. Europa seemed to be enjoying herself. He thought that might have been his father Appius’s idea; it didn’t look like Lady Antonia’s sort of wall.

  Appius Julianus shared a couch with Lucius. To one side of them, Correus and Flavius were sprawled on their own couch, and on the other side, Appius’s wife, Antonia, and daughter, Julia, reclined, happily catching up on a week’s household news. On the fourth side of the table, conversation had ground to a halt, and Appius could see his daughters-in-law wildly trying to think of something to say to each other. It was a lost cause, Appius thought, mildly amused. Ygerna thought Aemelia was a featherhead but was willing to be polite, while Aemelia in turn couldn’t help thinking of Ygerna as something foreign and mysterious and therefore not quite safe. It was a Briton, after all, who had cut off Flavius’s fingers. It made conversation difficult.

  Appius felt a little sorry for Correus’s wife. He knew his son well enough to know that there would be little on Correus’s mind just now but the new campaign. The army had been Correus’s life before either Freita or Ygerna had entered it, just as it had been Appius’s. Although Correus was capable of giving his wife equal attention (something Appius had never been), she occasionally had to remind him to do so. Right now he had undoubtedly forgotten that Ygerna, nearly six months with child, was going to have to stay here while he was chasing pirates. That was going to be awkward.

  There was a shriek of fury from the children’s table, and a sharp admonition from one of the much-tried nurses in attendance. Very awkward, Appius thought, watching Julia out of the corner of his eye. The shriek undoubtedly came from Julia’s daughter, Paulilla, who was three, and the perpetrator, equally undoubtedly, was Felix. The other two babies at the table were too young to be the culprits.

  Julia half rose from her couch. “Felix! Now whatever did you do that for?” Paulilla’s tunic was liberally splattered with stewed pears, evidently a direct hit.

  Felix looked thoughtful, green eyes considering. “To see if I could,” he said finally. “It was a catapult.” He held up his knife and pulled the blade back with his finger. Paulilla continued to shriek.

  “Pauli, that will do. Felix, dear, that’s very smart of you, but you mustn’t make catapults at the table.”

  “I really think we should let his nurse deal with him for now,” Ygerna said with considerably more calm than she felt. She had no intention of entering into a dinner-table competition with Julia for the privilege of disciplining Felix, but she was also of the opinion that Felix had a bit more coming to him for plastering his cousin with stewed pears than a compliment on his creativity.

  “An excellent suggestion,” Appius said. “That is the function of nurses. I am prepared to admire my grandchildren at dinner, but not to enforce their table manners.”

  “You have to understand Felix,” Julia said. There was a sharp note in her voice, and her eyes were unhappy. Felix looked at her curiously.

  “I’m trying to,” Ygerna replied pleasantly. Her Latin had the soft, clear accent of the educated classes and no discernible foreign traces, but Appius had the feeling that under it there lurked a stream of exotic British bad language. Correus, he noticed, looked aggravated but was eyeing Ygerna and Julia with the air of a man reluctant to step between two bowmen.

  Lucius Paulinus rose to the occasion. He caught his wife’s attention, and she bit her lip. “That is not your affair, Ju,” he said quietly.

  Julia looked ready to burst into tears, but she managed to control it. Lucius gave her a look that wasn’t without sympathy. A forceful young man, Paulinus, Appius thought, not for the first time.

  Ygerna appeared to be counting to ten.

  Felix looked from one woman to the other, dubious now, catching their tension.

  “Perhaps Felix would get Paulilla one of his tunics to wear,” Lucius Paulinus suggested gently. “Nurse, you might go with him, please.”

  Felix, aware now that he had stirred up more with his catapult than he had bargained for, put his napkin down and scurried out of the room. Paulilla stuck a finger in the pears on her tunic and licked it. Dinner proceeded.

  * * *

  “Now see here, Felix.” Correus swung the boy up into the chariot beside him and put the ponies into a gentle trot around the training track. “I thought this would be a good place to talk,” he said. “Just us.”

  “Can I drive?”

  “If you listen while I talk, yes. If you interrupt me to ask about ponies or catapults or why fish have scales, then no.”

  Felix thought it over. “How long do I have to listen?”

  “Until I say you can stop,” Correus said. “This is important. Don’t think I didn’t notice what was going on last night, because I did. You are not to shoot your cousin with a catapult anymore, but that’s not what I want to talk about. I hope you’re old enough to understand this, Felix. There’s going to be a war between your mother and Aunt Julia if we’re not careful.”

  “She’s not my mother,” Felix said firmly.

  “No, she’s not,” Correus agreed. “But neither is your aunt Julia. I’m your father, and Ygerna is my wife, and that makes her your mother in everything but blood. Your real mother died when you were born.”

  “On account of me?” Felix looked worried now, and Correus took the ponies’ reins in one hand and put an arm around his son. Death in childbirth was a fact of life, but there was no reason that Felix should think it was his fault when it hadn’t been.

  “No. You had nothing to do with it.” Felix seemed satisfied with that, to Correus’s relief. She was dying anyway, and they took you from her dead body. That was nothing to tell a child. “Now, see here. I’m going to have to go away for a while – to the Rhenus country, where your mother’s people come from – and
you and Ygerna are going to have to stay here until her baby is born and is old enough to travel.” And don’t you fight me about it, because I went through it last night with Ygerna and one of you is all I can stand.

  “She can stay,” Felix said helpfully. “I’ll go with you.”

  “You can’t,” Correus said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because there won’t be a house for you to live in, not till spring.”

  “I could sleep in your tent,” Felix suggested.

  “It’s not allowed.” Correus was beginning to feel a little harassed. “Now that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. While you’re here, I want you to be very careful how you behave around Ygerna and Aunt Julia. They both love you, you see, and they’re both afraid that you like the other one better. So you must be very careful not to take advantage of that and try to make them spoil you.”

  “Why not?” It seemed like a useful opportunity.

  “Because it will make them both unhappy if they fight. And because I will smack you when you get to Germany if that’s what you’ve been doing.”

  “All right. Can I drive now?”

  “Have you been listening? Carefully?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t look like it, but Correus gave up. “Come on, then.

  Hold the reins… like so. Good. Now put your feet like this…”

  He moved Felix’s legs apart until they were braced at the correct angle to take the swaying of the chariot. “Can you hold them?” Felix nodded.

  “All right. Let’s go.” They made a sedate circle of the track, with Felix holding tightly to the reins, his green eyes dancing.

  A second chariot and a team of black ponies swept by them, drew rein, and waited until the red roans that Felix was driving caught up. Flavius lounged over the side of his chariot. “Race?”

  “Can I stay?” Felix bounced excitedly and tugged at Correus’s tunic.

  “All right, but put your helmet on or Diulius will never let us hear the end of it.” Diulius, the ex-Circus driver who had charge of the racing stable, had laid down the law about helmets in Correus’s and Flavius’s youth, and it had stuck. Correus adjusted his own, and Felix picked up a smaller version, made by the estate blacksmith, that lay on the floor of the chariot. He knotted the strap under his chin.

  The red ponies, smelling a race, began to dance sideways across the track. Correus pulled them in and lined them up with Flavius’s blacks by the starting pole. “Give us a signal!” he shouted to Diulius, who was tightening a harness strap on a third team outside the track.

  Diulius pulled a grimy scarf from around his neck, waved it once, and let it fall. The ponies shot forward. Diulius watched them with satisfaction. They rode and drove like centaurs, both of Appius’s sons. If they hadn’t, Diulius would never have let them put a finger on his precious stock, even if they’d been the emperor’s sons.

  The blacks shot out ahead, well locked into the inside position, and Flavius gave Correus a grin over his shoulder, then settled down to keep them there.

  Correus gave the red ponies their heads and inched up until he hung on Flavius’s chariot wheel. He’d driven those blacks; a team on their wheel made them nervous. They swept around the second turn into the long, straight side of the track. The blacks were almost but not quite in stride with each other. Flavius could feel it and was trying to distract their attention from the red team. Correus let his team drift just a hair closer. They careened into the third turn. Felix held onto the chariot rim with both hands, his eyes bright.

  Flavius shot Correus a quick look. He shook out the blacks’ reins, and they lengthened their stride with one last rush. Flavius pulled their heads around so that they shot across the front of the red ponies’ noses. Correus drew rein. Flavius had slowed him, but he had also given up the inside slot. Rounding the last turn, that would make a difference. Correus slipped the red ponies to the right and leaned forward. They thundered onto Flavius’s heels, then to wheel level, on the opposite side now, before he could move back to the fence. They rounded the last turn and came into the straight, nearly neck and neck. And there they hung as the starting pole flashed past.

  They drew rein and trotted the ponies around another half turn before they slowed to a walk. They pulled their helmets off and shook their Hair out, waiting to catch their breath.

  “I don’t know why I bother to race you,” Flavius said, mock-serious. “No challenge to it.”

  “I had extra weight in the chariot,” Correus said indignantly, “or I’d have taken you.”

  Flavius grinned. “Hah! I’ll swap you teams, put my wife in the chariot, and still walk all over you.”

  “Hah yourself. Diulius!” Correus shouted as the old trainer strolled over. “Who’s the better driver?”

  “Neither one of you’s fit to drive a goat cart,” Diulius said. “My old granny can outdrive you both.”

  They laughed, and Diulius grinned at them. “You could have gone into the Circus Maximus, either of you, and had all the old ladies tossin’ flowers. Master Correus, I want to borrow that slave of yours for a day or so. Three of the stable lads are down sick, and that Julius can handle about any team in the place. There’s a sale coming up, and half the ponies are going stale for lack of training.”

  “You’re welcome to him,” Correus said. He looked thoughtful. “He takes to the chariots, does he? How good could he get?”

  Diulius thought. “Good as you. Better, if he wanted to work at it.”

  * * *

  “I told you, sir, I’d as soon let it go by.” Julius looked up from a polishing rag and a rusty pile of Correus’s field armor.

  “Well, you don’t have a choice,” Correus said. He felt like a mother robin throwing her chick out of the nest. “And nobody said anything about the auxiliaries.” He’d said plenty about the auxiliaries before, but the suggestion had met with no enthusiasm from its intended beneficiary. Since Correus had first bought Julius, he had intended to free the boy when he came of age and help him to some career. Julius had been of age for two years now, but the career had failed to materialize. Julius had seen as much as he wanted to of the army in Correus’s service. The idea of joining up personally to get a spear stuck in him held no charm.

  “Diulius tells me you’re a passable hand with a chariot team.”

  “Fair enough.” Julius looked suspicious.

  “Good. You’re his for the next year.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t want to be a slave all your life, do you?”

  “I dunno. Maybe.”

  “Horseshit. Go with Diulius. If you don’t like it after a year, we’ll think of something else.”

  “Who’ll you take to the Rhenus with you?”

  “Eumenes. I’ve got to do something with him. And if it comes to that, I’m not so delicate that I can’t polish my own armor. Just think about it for a year.” Julius was City-bred. The Circus would catch him if he gave it half a chance. Correus grinned. “Think about all the beautiful girls throwing money when you drive by. Think about what a top driver makes in a year.” It’ll keep you from thinking about my wife. He didn’t say that. Julius couldn’t help it, and it was making him miserable: another good reason to shove him out of the nest. “Think about a big house in Rome. Think about not having to spend the winter on the Rhenus this year.”

  Julius laughed. “Colder than a river sprite’s kiss. All right, I’m thinking, I’m thinking. Old Diulius thinks I could make the Circus, does he?”

  “He does. So you’ll try it?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not for a year.” It wouldn’t take more than that, Correus thought, looking at Julius’s thoughtful expression. He could see the Circus at the back of Julius’s mind now, growing solid… enticing. Rome was where Julius had been born. He was part of it. It would hold no horrors for him.

  * * *

  Having dealt with Felix and Julius, Correus went to hunt up his brother-in-law, Luci
us Paulinus. Correus found him finally, after a tour of house, gardens, and bath, sitting under a hayrick, watching four field slaves scythe grain. Lucius had a sheet of papyrus propped on a board in his lap, and he was drawing on it with a piece of charcoal. Correus peered over his shoulder.

  “I wish I could do that.”

  “You could, I expect,” Lucius said, “if you’d sit still long enough.”

  Correus sat down beside him in the shadow of the rick. “I’m not a gentleman of leisure, such as yourself.”

  Lucius Paulinus chuckled. He and Correus Julianus went back a long way. Each affected a profound horror at the other’s mode of life, and each had an affection for the other that went far deeper than the mere kinship formed when Lucius had married Correus’s half sister, Julia. “So now you’re chasing pirates,” Lucius said thoughtfully. He sketched a broad sweep of grain behind the M-shape of two slaves bent to their scythes. “It may be that all the pirates aren’t in the Rhenus mouth.”

  “So the emperor implied.”

  “Oh, did he?” Lucius sounded noncommittal. He never admitted out loud, even to Correus, who knew it perfectly well, that he was invaluable to Titus.

  “A clam has more conversation,” Correus said.

  Lucius put the charcoal and papyrus down and weighted it with a rock. He clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back in the hayrick. “I’m not being obscure on purpose,” he said seriously. “Last night at dinner – well, my wife and yours know enough to keep their tongues behind their teeth, and certainly so does Lady Antonia. But Aemelia has dandelions where most of us keep a brain. She’s the most indiscreet woman I ever met, and she’s too much about court these days.”