by Lisa Henry
He slept some more, and woke up with a frightened jolt. His conscious mind had been so consumed by pain and injury that it hadn’t made the connection, but his unconscious mind had: if the Praetorians had left, he must have betrayed Senna. Because why would they leave before they got what they wanted?
Tears stung Aenor’s eyes.
He shifted.
Tuisto.
A wave of white pain broke over him, knocking the air out of his lungs and threatening to drown him. The noise he made sounded like it came from an animal. For some reason, that thought made him want to laugh. Canis.
Aenor got his hands under him and pushed himself up from the floor. The chains dragged over his flesh and rattled to the floor. For a moment he thought he could actually stand, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t get his left leg under his body. He dropped forward onto the floor again.
The trees will always know you, Veleda had once told him.
He lay on the concrete floor, and dreamed of home.
He would have preferred to die there.
Nero’s palace on the Quirinal Hill was empty. No guards, no slaves, nobody. Every nerve in Senna’s body was wound tightly. His footsteps echoed on the marble tiles. In the predawn gloom, the shadows stretched and loomed. All of the lamps had burned out.
“Novius Senna?” a soft voice called.
Senna, his heart clenching, looked up to see a slender figure in diaphanous robes approach.
“Sporus.” Senna tried not to flinch when the boy laid a hand on his arm.
“You’re supposed to be a dead man.”
Senna wondered at the tears on the boy’s face. “Where is Nero?”
“Gone.” Sporus smiled through his tears. “Fled. Tigellinus and the Praetorians have declared for Galba.”
“No!” Senna reached out to touch the wall before the ground slipped away from under his feet. The blood roared in his skull.
Listen, Lucius. Do you hear the ocean?
“No,” he said again. Not a denial. A plea.
His chest tightened, and he sucked in a painful breath. Sons of Dis! He’d left it too late to act. Fuck Nero for running before they could kill him, fuck Tigellinus for waiting so long to withdraw his support, and fuck Fortuna most of all for being a heartless bitch. Betrayer or not, he’d pulled Aenor into this for nothing.
Sporus adjusted his stola, his delicate hands fluttering like moths in the soft darkness. “He called out for Tigellinus, for the Praetorians.”
Senna sagged against the wall.
“The Senate has declared him an enemy of Rome.” Sporus twisted his shaking fingers together. “I don’t know how they all knew, but they did. Every room was empty. His friends and his slaves, all fled.”
Unthinkable.
Sporus was pale in the darkness, his eyes large. His voice trembled when he spoke. “He wanted to fall on his sword, but there was nobody to help him. He ran through the palace calling, ‘Have I neither friend nor foe?’ And then he was gone.”
Senna closed his eyes briefly. Nero had abandoned the city that had abandoned him, and Senna found that he no longer even cared. Jupiter. The world would be a very different place by dawn. Would he live to see it?
“Someone should warn Gavius Salinus he’s backed the wrong horse,” he said with a bitter smile.
“Salinus is a fool. He deserves what he gets.” Sporus raised his eyebrows at the look on Senna’s face. “What? You think because Nero cut off my balls that I don’t have a brain? That I don’t have eyes? I know why you came here tonight, Senna, when you should have stayed at home and fallen on your sword.”
“I came to find out who had betrayed me,” he said dully.
“You came to find out if you could believe in the man who believes in you.” Sporus brushed his curls back. “Canis didn’t betray you. One of the dancing boys overheard your treason.” Sporus shrugged his narrow shoulders. “But no matter. What was treasonous yesterday, today is honorable.”
“Not for all of us,” Senna said. He was beyond redemption.
“No,” Sporus agreed quietly.
“Why haven’t you fled?”
Sporus’s smile was brittle. “Where could I go?”
Just another creature Nero had ruined.
“Why haven’t you fled, Senna?”
“I can’t,” Senna said, thinking of Aenor’s wide, searching gaze. “He trusted me. He still might.”
“Our fates are written in the stars.”
It was cold comfort. Senna wondered which one of them the vengeful mob would rip apart first.
He left the palace and hurried through the streets. He had to get to the Golden House while there was still time. Before the city erupted. Before the entire empire did.
He needed to find Aenor. He needed to believe.
You should write more about love and less about war, he’d told Lucan once.
Lucan’s laughter was like music. What if I don’t believe in love?
Senna had seen the way Lucan looked at Junia. Of course he believed in love: impractical, impossible love. Senna never had. He still didn’t know if he did. But he’d trusted Aenor with his life, and he needed to know if Aenor was still alive. He needed to save him.
If Aenor wasn’t dead, if Senna could get to him before Nero’s enemies began to divide up the spoils, then maybe the Bructeri slave had half a chance. Aenor belonged to Tigellinus, but Tigellinus would be busy distancing himself from Nero’s crimes now, when once he had encouraged them; he wouldn’t make a fuss over a missing pleasure slave. Nobody would. If Senna could get to Aenor, it might be possible to get him out of Rome. Get him back to Germania Inferior, where he could safely hate all Romans.
Hate all of you, the beaten slave had managed, and Senna had thought, Jupiter, you’re perfect!
Now wasn’t the time for regret.
He had to get to Aenor before it was too late.
Before the mob took to the streets.
Before they realized Nero was gone and turned their rage elsewhere, on his statues, his monuments, his decadent palaces. On his friends.
On his slaves.
Senna kept one hand on his gladius and quickened his pace.
Chains slithered over his skin.
Fingers touched his face, and Aenor jerked away.
“Do you hate me?”
A dream. It had to be a dream, because they were both dead men. Aenor squinted up at Senna and wondered if Rome had stolen everything from him, even his afterlife. Where were the trees? Where were his ancestors? He didn’t want to go underground to Tartarus, where Sticchus said the souls of the dead were tortured forever.
He swiped his tongue over his bleeding lip. “Ferryman got us, Senna?”
“Not yet,” Senna said.
If it was a dream, it wouldn’t have hurt so much when Senna hauled him up.
“We have to move,” Senna told him. “Come on, we have to move.”
It wasn’t the underworld, then, Aenor thought. It wasn’t really Tartarus. With Senna’s arms under his, he could almost stand, but his left leg wouldn’t move properly. Something was wrong there. There were places that burned, places that bled, and places he couldn’t feel at all. He was afraid to try to count his fingers and toes.
Senna held him upright, helped dress him in his baggy slave’s tunic.
“We not dead yet?” Aenor asked.
“Not yet,” Senna repeated, the narrow, hard line of his mouth curling into something that was almost a grin.
Strong. Senna was strong. Aenor swayed against him. It was dark, and pain ripped through him, and was that still whimpering he could hear? Was Senna sure this wasn’t Tartarus? How could he be sure? Aenor wasn’t. He shook his head, his hair lashing his face. Tuisto, the whimpering.
It suddenly occurred to Aenor who it was. “Hyacinthus!”
The torches guttered in the dark passage, throwing ragged shadows across the walls. This was Tartarus. Definitely it was. The deepest, darkest corners of it where things with wings and c
laws tormented the spirits of the dead. The places where the sunlight never reached.
Hyacinthus lay curled up on the floor of the next room, whimpering. He wasn’t pretty anymore. He showed Aenor and Senna his burned face for a moment before he buried it in his hands and shook with sobs.
“Get up,” Aenor said. “Up!”
“Don’t kill me!” Hyacinthus sobbed into his hands. “Don’t kill me! Canis, Novius Senna, please!”
“If you can walk, walk,” Senna told the boy. “If you can’t, stay here and die.”
The crying boy climbed to his feet.
“Not blame,” Aenor said into Senna’s ear. “Just a boy.”
“Just a boy,” Senna growled.
Aenor saw concern in the Roman’s dark eyes. For him, for a Bructeri. Maybe this wasn’t the afterlife, but it was the strangest dream Aenor had ever known.
“Nero has fled,” Senna said. “I don’t know who controls the city now, but you can bet they’re no friend of mine. If we can get to my house, you’ll be safe. But if I need to let you go, can you walk?”
“Yes,” Aenor said, although he thought it was probably a lie.
“Yes,” Senna agreed with a rueful smile. He knew it was a lie as well. He turned his head.
The kiss tasted like blood. Aenor’s eyes stung with tears.
Senna smiled again. “We can do this, Aenor. Do you believe that?”
“Yes.” Tuisto, was that another lie? Aenor screwed up his face. “Maybe?”
Senna nodded.
“I don’t,” Aenor said.
“Don’t what?”
“What you say before.” Aenor sucked in a painful breath. “Don’t hate you, Senna. Hate every fucking Roman ever, but not you.”
“That’s what I hoped.” Senna’s voice cracked. “Are you ready for this?”
Aenor met his gaze. “Yes.”
They plunged outside into the night.
Through the gardens.
Through a passage that went under a wall.
Into the city streets.
Fear gripped him.
This, this was Tartarus: a black, brick maze of shadowed streets and alleys, of looming shapes and distant noises like thunder. To the west—was it the west?—he could see the glow of lights behind the rooftops. Was it fire? He couldn’t tell how far away it was, how big it was. The city was vast, endless, a nightmare.
The night was beginning to soften into dawn. The sliver of a moon was wreathed in black clouds. Its faint light illuminated the giant statue of Nero at the entrance to the Golden House, gleaming dully against the planes of his cold face.
Aenor shivered as they passed.
Every step hurt.
He put one foot in front of the other and concentrated on not falling. It was only Senna holding him up, keeping him from stumbling, from being overtaken by the darkness.
“Stop!” Senna pulled him into the black sanctuary of a darkened portico. Aenor sagged against a wall, Hyacinthus whimpering beside him.
“Quiet,” Senna cautioned, drawing his gladius from under his cloak.
A group of men swept down the street, carrying torches and swords.
The three of them waited in the darkness until they were gone, then Senna urged them into the street again.
“Quickly,” he said. “As quickly as you can.”
Aenor gritted his teeth and limped on.
The city was endless. He was going to die. He was probably already dead.
Senna saw the group of five men standing in his street. It was no accident. Standing in his street, waiting by his portico. He knew exactly what this was. He’d expected it ever since Cenchreae. He deserved it. He couldn’t even begrudge it. Fuck, he wanted to. He’d walked into Nero’s palace tonight with a death sentence on his head, then the Golden House, and he’d just lugged Aenor up the fucking Caelian Hill. He’d been stupid enough to think that was enough, that maybe they could both be safe.
Stupid, because it was never enough. Nothing short of his death could even begin to redress his crimes. Senna knew it, and so did these men.
One of them approached. “Novius Senna?”
Senna saw a man of middle years, with a beard and a paunch, and a toga with a wide purple band: a senator.
Should I know you? Sons of Dis, you know me, don’t you?
“Were you out to help yourself to the tyrant’s legacy?” the man said, nodding at Aenor and Hyacinthus.
“Were you out for a stroll?” Senna asked.
He wouldn’t beg. He would never fucking beg. He’d made his choice. He’d known the consequences. It was no use bleating about the injustice of it now because there was none: Junia was safe and that was such a miracle that he had no right to hope for anything more.
“Nero’s dead,” the senator sneered. “He killed himself.”
Good.
“Let me pass.”
“You don’t remember me!” The senator laughed, and the harsh barking sound caused a murmur to go through the other men. The senator gestured at them. “He doesn’t remember me!”
Jupiter Optimus Maximus, give me more time.
“You walked into my uncle’s house one morning,” the senator said. “Do you remember what you said to him?”
Senna could guess.
“He was a better man than you!”
“I don’t doubt it,” Senna said. Aenor trembled against him, and a warm, slick patch of blood soaked into his tunic. “Let me get these slaves into my house, and you will have my full attention.”
“No!” Aenor hissed, tightening his grip on Senna’s arm. “No!”
The senator shook his head. “Are you asking for mercy, Novius Senna? You? You didn’t allow my uncle any. You didn’t allow Marcinus any, or the great Corbulo.”
Senna had faced Parthian hordes and been less afraid than he was at this moment. Behind the man he could see a faint chink of light at his front door. His household slaves were watching. He hoped they weren’t foolish enough to try to intervene.
“I’m not asking for me.”
The senator stared at him for a long time, and finally nodded. “They can go, but you will stay.”
“That door,” Senna said, pointing.
Hyacinthus stumbled toward the light.
“No,” Aenor said again.
Senna lifted a hand to touch Aenor’s hair. It was matted with blood and dirt tonight, but still beautiful. Always beautiful. “You need to walk away now, Aenor, while you still can.”
Aenor shook his head. “No. We die together, remember? Your plan!”
Senna wasn’t sure if he could trust himself to talk. It had never been his plan that the other man would matter. One look and I knew, Lucan had said. Fuck.
“Go inside, Aenor,” Senna said.
“But you came,” Aenor said, his voice cracking. “Not finished, not yet.”
“Aenor.” Senna turned Aenor’s face toward his own and lowered his voice. “Fuck. Don’t make me cry in front of these men, please.”
“Please, Senna,” Aenor whispered. “We go together? Anywhere. Your ferry, even.”
Senna shook his head. “If there is a place where our underworlds meet, I’ll find it. I’ll wait for you there, but you’re not coming with me tonight. I won’t allow it.”
Aenor’s eyes shone with tears. “I don’t hate you, Senna.”
“I know.” Senna kissed Aenor, and fuck whatever the watching men thought. He’d earned this, surely. This one last kiss that tasted like blood and tears. He held it for as long as he could, and then he pushed Aenor away. Gently, so gently. “Go inside, Aenor.”
“Please,” Aenor said, his tears falling.
“Go.” Senna looked away before he cried as well, because he didn’t want the world to think he’d faced his death with tears in his eyes. He wasn’t afraid to die—he was afraid of a lot of things, but never that—but that’s the way the story would be told.
Senna heard every one of Aenor’s dragging footsteps as he labored toward the por
tico.
Senna unfastened his cloak and let it drop into the street. It had been a long time since he’d held his gladius with any intention of using it. He shifted it from hand to hand, testing the weight of it, and looked up at the men, unsurprised to discover they had also drawn weapons. “How do you want to do this?”
“You’re filth,” the senator said in a low voice.
“That’s not what I asked you.” Senna’s blood ran hot, sparking every nerve and prickling his skin. He knew this. Back against the wall, gladius in his hand, he fucking knew this. He knew how it would end as well, but he didn’t mind. He had found his feet again. “If you won’t let me open my veins in private in the civilized manner, how do you want to do this? Do you want a fight?”
The men exchanged wary glances.
Senna shifted his blade into his left hand, bringing his right arm up as though he were carrying a shield. A legacy of his military training. “If you want a fight, say the word.”
None of them said anything.
Behind them, Aenor turned back.
Don’t look, Senna willed him. Keep going.
“I didn’t come to fight you, Novius Senna,” the senator said at last.
Senna extended his left arm. He let his gladius drop to the street. The metal rang on the stones. Senna drew a deep breath.
“Do it, then,” Senna said.
Aenor cried out, and Senna saw Felix and one of his other household slaves helping him toward the portico. In the east, the dawn glowed.
As the men advanced on him, Senna smiled.
It was good.
It wasn’t the plan, but it was good.
It wouldn’t hurt for long.
Axios.
No.
Aenor didn’t know where he found the strength to pull himself free. Didn’t matter. He found it, held onto it, and used it to propel himself back toward Senna. Some hot, hard emotion erupted in his guts, and Aenor thought it was anger. He had sacrificed enough to Rome and her cold-faced gods. Enough.
He didn’t want Senna to wait for him in the dark Roman underworld. Didn’t ever want to meet him there. Didn’t Senna know that the afterlife should be green? If they went together, they wouldn’t take the ferry. Aenor would show Senna a different place, where the only coins were made out of golden sunlight lying scattered on a forest floor. No paying any ferryman, no underground. It would be green. It would be summer. The air would smell like pine.