by Lisa Henry
Senna followed torchlight down to the small stage surrounded by olive trees. He thought he smelled a sacrificial fire, and it took him a moment to realize what it was. His stomach turned, and he looked away again.
The torch had once been a human being, bound to a stake and painted with pitch. Set alight. The pain couldn’t have lasted long, but it was beyond Senna’s comprehension.
Where had Nero found this lust for cruelty? What had happened to the youth who had wept at the beauty of Lucan’s words, who had laughed and blushed at Petronius’s bawdy jokes? Who had written love songs for a slave girl? What had happened to all of them?
The stage was empty.
A boat floated adrift on the small lake dug out of the grounds. Gray clouds chased the sliver of the moon across the sky. The night felt colder than before, and Senna adjusted his toga to cover his arms.
He returned to the shelter of the buildings and spoke to a meek slave. She directed him to the passageway that led to the guards’ barracks. Senna found the German slave there, lying on the rough brick floor.
Senna squatted down beside him. He reached out his hand, intending to slide it down the boy’s flank, to feel the heat of his slick, bloodied skin, but pulled it back again. How could he look at this boy and still see a thing of beauty? Even now his cock stirred at the memory of the boy’s obedience. No, not obedience. Strength. The boy was strong.
He was close to Nero and he was strong. Senna only needed one more thing.
He stroked the boy’s pale cheek and leaned close to whisper in his ear.
“Do you hate him?”
Fingers brushed his cheek, as soft as the dusty caress of a moth’s wings.
“Do you hate him?”
Aenor struggled awake. The wound on his forehead had bled, and the blood had dried, gluing his eyes shut. His lashes ripped as he forced them open. Tears spilled, washing the grit from his eyes.
He last remembered the grove—that strange, nightmarish place filled with trees made of metal. The leaves had rattled like nails in a cup, and an unseen musician had plucked birdsong from the vibrating strings of a cithara. A cold parody of a forest.
This was somewhere different. A stone passageway, one of many that cut through the magical gardens of the Golden House. It was dark. In the distance, torchlight guttered. It was still night. The shape of a man loomed over him.
“Master, master, placet,” he murmured. He always said that. They always ignored it.
He hurt. He’d dreamed of bears, of his skin being ripped. His heartbeat quickened. Fear spiked his nerves. He worked his numb arms underneath him and pushed. The pain flashed white, radiating out from his shoulders and spine. He fell forward again, sucking in dust.
“Do you hate him?” the man asked again. He squatted beside Aenor, catching his chin between his thumb and forefinger and turning Aenor’s face toward his own.
Aenor squinted, and a Roman face swam into view. A well-made face with dark eyes, an aquiline Roman nose and a sharp jaw. Dark hair cut just long enough to curl at the ends. Another fucking Roman.
It took him a moment to realize it was the man from the afternoon, who had watched him being prepared by Tigellinus. There was a time Aenor would have burned with humiliation, but it was long gone. He was beyond shame. He was even usually beyond fear.
“I hate him,” he rasped. “Hate all of you.”
He braced for a blow that didn’t come. Instead, the Roman smiled.
“Good boy.” He released Aenor’s chin and patted his cheek gently.
Aenor trembled as his body remembered itself. Pain prickled his skin. He knew better than to move. Experience had taught him to stay still for as long as he could. Whatever was happening, stay still.
“I dreamed about a bear,” he said in a wondering tone. In Bructeri.
The Roman didn’t understand, but he lifted his hand to brush Aenor’s hair back from his forehead.
Aenor tried to remember the Latin. “Ursus.”
The Roman frowned and shook his head. “Not a bear.”
Aenor shuddered as it came back to him. No, not a bear. An emperor. A god. A man wearing claws.
It hurt.
Aenor groaned as the Roman drew him up onto his knees. His body trembled. He needed to lie still, to sleep, but the Roman wouldn’t let him. He whimpered as the man bent him forward so that his forehead touched the ground.
“This will hurt,” the Roman said, which was more acknowledgement than most of them gave it.
Aenor didn’t expect the Roman to grip his right wrist and ease his arm out to his side. He had been anticipating a different sort of pain. Then the man’s hands were on him, fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulders. Aenor whimpered, but each sharp stab of pain was shallower than the last.
“You were bound too long,” the Roman said. “The cuts will be less trouble to you in the morning than the stiffness, I think.”
His touch was firm.
Aenor moaned as feeling returned to his arm, pain sparking all the way to the ends of his twitching fingers, but he didn’t resist as the Roman began to work on his left arm. This was a healing pain. How long had it been since he’d felt a solicitous touch? Tears rose in his throat and stung his eyes.
The man’s touch moved to his spine, his fingers following the bumps, kneading the muscle on either side of the bone, until Aenor sighed. His breath slipped from him, shuddering.
“You are strong,” the Roman said.
Aenor wondered if the man would take his pleasure now. His fingers slipped over the curve of Aenor’s ass, and Aenor exhaled slowly. The touch, so different from the others, stirred a longing in him that made itself known despite his pain. It would hurt—it couldn’t not with the hard use he’d already had tonight—but maybe it wouldn’t hurt much. And if the man remained kind, Aenor wouldn’t mind. He could take pain. Everyone knew that.
But the man’s touch didn’t become any more insistent, didn’t try to open him. It moved to his flank instead, and ghosted over the skin there. Aenor turned his head and blinked up at the man in the gloom.
A Roman face and a gentle touch. Strange.
The Roman’s mouth quirked in a slight smile. “It’s all right. You can sit now.”
Aenor obeyed. He drew his legs up, hugged his knees, made himself small. Looked at the Roman from behind the tangles of his hair.
“Do all Germans wear their hair long?” the Roman asked.
“Not German,” Aenor said. “Bructeri.”
“You weren’t born a slave.” It wasn’t a question.
“Was free.” The word still snagged in his throat. “Made trade in Colonia.”
The Roman searched his face for a long, silent moment. At last he said, “Do you know what it means to cross the Rubicon?”
Aenor shook his head.
“When Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his troops, he was declaring war on the Republic. When we say to cross the Rubicon, we mean we have commenced on a course of action and cannot go back. Alea iacta est.”
He was silent, as though waiting for Aenor to grasp some significance not apparent through his basic understanding of Latin: prices and quantity and smiling flattery. You like this necklace, lady? Almost beautiful as your eyes. The silence was laden, but Aenor couldn’t pick the nuances from the Roman’s words. He frowned up into those dark eyes.
“Why do you tell this?” he asked.
The Roman smiled. “Because I think you might be exactly what I’m looking for. I think I’m about to test the water.”
Aenor didn’t understand. He wrinkled his nose.
The Roman leaned in close, his breath warm on Aenor’s face. “How much do you want to make them pay?”
Aenor’s stomach twisted. He pulled back, knocking his head against the wall. “Who?”
The Roman stood up, his handsome face suddenly shuttered.
Aenor saw his mistake. He raised a bloody hand. “Master, wait!”
The Roman was silent.
Aenor
had heard the gossip, seen the paranoia. He thought he knew what the man was asking. He kept his voice low. “You put a knife in my hand, I kill anyone. Nero, Tigellinus, I kill anyone.”
The Roman’s face was solemn. “Do you mean that?”
“Yes.”
He held the Roman’s gaze and waited.
“My name is Novius Senna,” the Roman said at last, “and you’re going to help me kill Nero.”
Aenor could hardly breathe. The Roman had given him his name, his trust. His life. He truly meant to do this thing.
Alea iacta est.
It was almost light when the Roman left him. The stars had vanished into the gray sky. A faint glow in the east heralded the dawn.
Aenor cleaned off the worst of the blood in the room where the slaves washed. The water in the tubs had been cold for hours, and Aenor shivered as he passed the wet cloth over his flesh. Rivulets of water ran off his skin, tinged pink with blood. Some of the wounds were deeper than others. The ones over his collarbone were still oozing blood.
His ass was sore. Wincing, he squatted on the floor and wiped himself with the cloth. It came away smeared with blood. If he was still bleeding from there later, he would ask Sticchus for help. Sticchus was African, his skin as black as coal. Sometimes they linked their fingers together and marveled at the contrast. Sticchus liked to trace the pale blue veins on the inside of Aenor’s wrist.
I see in you, he liked to say, like glass.
Sticchus was a quiet, kind boy. He had cleaned Aenor’s wounds in the past.
Aenor wrung the wet cloth out and left it hanging over the edge of a tub. He found a tunic on the bench and pulled it on. It stuck to his back.
Aenor shivered, and left the room. He headed slowly toward the massive dining room with its concealed underground entrance and vaulted ceiling. Every time it was like descending into a Roman underworld.
There were still times when Aenor dreamed he could run, but it was impossible. Even if he could, even if he somehow made it over the wall with bare feet and no money, how far would he make it before somebody turned him in to the Vigiles or the Urban Cohort? He’d be flogged until he told the truth, and returned to Tigellinus.
Tigellinus was the second most powerful man in Rome, and Aenor had seen what he’d done to a slave who had tried to run. He kept the memory of it in his nightmares. Several of the younger boys had vomited. One had pissed himself.
Aenor was tired, hurt, scared. Sometimes those three things combined to smother his hate, but not anymore. He would die here, but maybe he still had choices.
That’s what Novius Senna had been offering, wasn’t it? A choice.
Aenor still wasn’t sure.
I kill anyone, he’d said, and Novius Senna hadn’t killed him, so that must have been the answer the Roman wanted.
He only knew that Tigellinus and Nero had made him a dog, and they deserved to get bitten.
The torches in the passageway leading to the dining room had burned low. One or two were guttering as Aenor passed them.
He left wet footprints across the tiles. His growling stomach drew him on into the dining room and the remains of last night’s dinner. And last night’s diners. Some of the guests were still snoring on their couches, twisted in the lengths of their wine-stained togas and curled around their companions, as the first fingers of morning light filtered in through the delicate fretwork of the ceiling.
Aenor moved slowly, his gaze flicking from table to table. There was very little left. The other slaves must have been through already.
Aenor stopped at a low table in front of a couch. He reached out a bruised arm for a corner of bread soggy with wine. It came apart in his fingers. He pushed it into his mouth and swallowed.
The dining room stank of wine and vomit.
Aenor shivered and moved on to the next table. Pain shot through his spine, and he held his breath until it passed.
“Canis!”
Aenor turned his head to see a slave boy rising from the couch. Hyacinthus. He pulled his tunic on over his slim body, and Aenor envied him the liquid movement. Hyacinthus was slender, delicate, and as pretty as a girl, with dark eyes, pale skin, and full lips. His honey-colored hair tumbled in curls around his shoulders.
Hyacinthus swung his hips as he walked toward Aenor. “What happened to you?”
Aenor looked down at his trembling body. His skin was covered in shallow scratches he couldn’t even feel. Sacred Veleda, he’d dreamed of bears, bronze claws, and a forest made of metal. He’d been caught in the nightmare until the Roman had woken him. Senna. That had been the start of an altogether stranger dream.
Do you hate him?
Hate all of you.
Maybe it was a dream. Maybe it was a test. It didn’t matter. He would die here anyway.
“What happened?” Hyacinthus asked.
Aenor shook his head.
The boy narrowed his eyes, and Aenor hunched over. Hyacinthus was a pretty boy, but jealous, vicious.
“He’s a god,” Hyacinthus had said once, his dark eyes shining. “I’ll be his next favorite.”
Aenor didn’t understand. Nero’s current favorite was Sporus. Why would anyone want to be like him? The slaves shivered when they whispered about him, hugging their thin arms to their chests. Sporus had been a pretty boy once. Nero had dressed him like a girl and fucked him, but it wasn’t enough. He’d castrated him, and then married him.
Sporus lived in the Golden House. He dressed like an empress, covered in jewels, and was pampered by a retinue of slaves. Castrated and humiliated, all because he’d had the misfortune to look like Nero’s previous wife, the one he’d kicked down the stairs. Sporus was even called Sabina now. Aenor had seen him once, thin and delicate with a boy’s sweet voice that would never break, and wondered which one of them the bitch goddess Fortuna hated the most.
“What happened, Canis?” Hyacinthus curled his lip.
Aenor angled his body away from Hyacinthus’s gaze, looking for more food. “Bear,” he said.
Hyacinthus’s lovely face split with a smile. “That was you? I heard about that.”
Aenor shuffled away. Hyacinthus was a child. Twelve or thirteen at the most. If he was pretty enough not to be brutalized, good for him. If he took pleasure in Aenor’s pain, it was only because he was too young and too naïve to imagine that it’d only take a single misstep to find himself in the same position. They weren’t rivals. Hyacinthus thought they were, but he was a child. If he was lucky, he would never know what it was like for Aenor.
Aenor swallowed painfully and shivered at the memory of the forest from the night before. A cold dead forest, made from metal. It had seemed like the sort of place where he would die. A Bructeri, bound by ropes and torn by bronze claws, on his knees in that metal mockery of a sacred place. A parody, a travesty.
He’d been proud once. He’d been free once.
Now he was lower than a dog.
“Hungry,” he said in a low voice, and Hyacinthus’s soft laughter brought him out in gooseflesh.
“Here you are,” Hyacinthus said.
Aenor turned.
Hyacinthus held a stuffed vineleaf in his palm. It was squashed, oily, but Aenor was too hungry to care. He stepped toward Hyacinthus and the boy turned his wrist and dropped the vineleaf. It broke open when it hit the floor, spilling spiced meat onto the tiles.
“Dogs eat off the floor,” Hyacinthus said, his eyes bright. “Get on your knees, Bructeri cur.”
If he did, Aenor didn’t know how he’d ever get up again. He stared at the vineleaf for a long moment. His hunger won out in the end.
As Hyacinthus watched with a delighted smile, Aenor went down onto his hands and knees.
Hyacinthus thought he was humiliated, but Hyacinthus didn’t know.
Aenor ate off the floor like a dog, but he thought of dark eyes, an aquiline nose, a handsome face and a frightening question: Do you hate him?
Yes.
Nero, Tigellinus, every man who ha
d used him, the guards, Ratface, Squinteye, the legionaries who had captured him outside Castra Vetera.
All of them.
He wanted to kill them.
Maybe Senna would give him the chance.
Senna lay on his bed and read, listening with half an ear to the sounds of children playing in the atrium. They weren’t his children. His marriage at seventeen had ended in divorce shortly afterward when Lucia’s father had seen a better opportunity. Eleven months later she’d died in childbirth trying to deliver her second husband’s son and heir. Senna thought he’d never seen anything as miserable as her slender form on the funeral pyre, her dead baby cradled in her arms.
The children in the atrium belonged to the household slaves. They were slaves themselves. They played in the atrium because Senna didn’t care, or pretended not to care. He liked to hear the sound of laughter filtering through the house, even though Felix, his secretary, always shooed the children away when he found them there.
Get away with you, little monkeys! If the master finds you here, he will have you whipped!
Lies.
Senna was one of the most hated men in Rome, except in the walls of his own house. He’d been born in this house, grown up in it. He was himself here. His slaves knew his true face.
He lay on his bed and read though Book Seven of Julius Caesar’s Commentarii de Bello Gallico, where Vercingetorix of the Arverni first rebelled against Rome, and was later defeated at Alesia. Senna had read it a hundred times. Caesar’s words were devoured by every Roman schoolboy and, later, every junior legate sitting in a remote, dreary fort, dreaming of glory. Caesar’s strategy at Alesia had been desperate. The Roman forces had besieged the town, building fortifications around it. Then, knowing that reinforcements were coming and unable to risk being attacked from behind, they had built a second wall, enclosing themselves within it. A wheel within a wheel.
If Caesar was a man who knew when his back was against the wall, it was because he’d built the wall himself. There was no retreat from Alesia. It was do or die. Caesar did.