by Lisa Henry
As a boy, Senna had stirred with pride. As a junior legate, he had burned with ambition. Caesar’s words left him cold these days. How could he love the greatness of Rome when the core of it was rotten?
And the Senate—Jupiter, the Senate was useless. Where were men like Cato and Cassius in these dark days? And Brutus? Rome needed a Brutus now more than ever. Every senator was a sycophant, but who the fuck was Senna to judge? He’d done his fair share of bowing and scraping. He was Nero’s creature through and through, and it wasn’t a moral victory if it left a bad taste in his mouth. That was the taste of his own hypocrisy. He’d laughed like everyone else when Nero had attacked the German slave.
No, not German. What was it?
Bructeri.
The determination on the slave’s face when he’d said it had made Senna’s stomach clench. Not German. Bructeri.
Bructeri, Senna thought, rolling onto his back to stare at the ceiling of his bedroom. Canis was still holding onto that, after everything, like it mattered. He still had pride.
Senna had been waiting for Canis for months.
He had known for a while that he’d need a pleasure slave to accomplish this. Nobody else got close enough to Nero. Usually the pleasure slaves fell into two distinct categories: those who preened, and those who cowered. They were either too loyal or too weak. Canis was perfect. He possessed a strength that was undiminished despite his humiliation—an iron will that, if turned to a proper purpose, could be indomitable.
Unless it occurred to the slave to try to buy his freedom by betraying Senna. How much of Senna’s faith in Canis was misplaced? He didn’t know. He couldn’t until this played out. He was afraid he’d misread a few shared glances as fellow feeling, afraid he wanted this so much that he’d chosen to misinterpret a slave’s misery as collusion.
He hadn’t slept the night before. Every small noise had him staring into the darkness, heart thumping, wondering if the Praetorians had come for him. But nothing.
It was all very well for Caesar to cross the Rubicon, and all very well for him to announce the die was cast, but Senna wasn’t that confident. Or maybe not that full of bluster. Maybe, Senna thought, maybe underneath everything, even the great Julius Caesar had been shitting himself.
Senna laughed despite everything.
Maybe you didn’t cross the Rubicon, exactly. Maybe you just threw yourself in and hoped to keep your head above water.
“Because he was supposed to defeat Vindex, not start his own fucking rebellion!”
Aenor kept his head down, watching through his hair as Nero paced the room. His purple robes swished back and forth across the mosaic tiles.
“And he did,” Tigellinus replied in a conciliatory tone.
“We sent Verginius to put down Vindex’s rebellion, and what happens?” Nero’s voice pitched higher. “Verginius’s troops proclaim him emperor!”
“Verginius won’t act against you,” Tigellinus said. “He hasn’t, and he won’t.”
“What if he gives his support to Galba? What if they march on Rome?”
Aenor dared to imagine a civil war that would tear Rome apart. Let it. He didn’t care, as long as the Teutoburg Forest was safe. If the legions rebelled, if they turned back to Rome, then it was better for the Bructeri. The legions would abandon the fringes of the empire first, and the Bructeri would be free. Aenor might not live to see that day, but he could believe in it.
His muscles ached from spending the past hour on his hands and knees on the floor of the balcony, but he held his position. Compared to his treatment last night in the grove, this was paradise. Nero was angry, but so far his anger had not been directed at his dog.
Nero began to pace again, back and forth across the floor. Aenor followed the progress of his sandals with a downcast gaze.
Tigellinus’s voice flowed as smooth as honey. “Galba has been declared an enemy of Rome by the Senate. Verginius won’t support him.”
“That means nothing! The Senate can’t be trusted either!”
“They can’t,” Tigellinus agreed, “but you are still the emperor. Nothing will change that.”
Aenor’s heart raced. I will change that. Novius Senna will put a knife in my hand, and I will change it.
“You are the emperor of Rome,” Tigellinus told Nero. “You are a god.”
Nero stopped pacing. He muttered something too low for Aenor’s ears, something weary, sullen.
“A god,” Tigellinus repeated in a soothing tone.
In the expectant silence, a chill ran down Aenor’s spine. He kept his head down as the emperor approached. He exhaled, his resistance shuddering from him.
Being fucked by a god was no different than being fucked by anyone else. Aenor, his ankles kicked apart, braced his weight on his arms and rocked back and forth with Nero’s thrusts. Turning his head slightly, he could see through the balustrade to the gardens below. He fixed his gaze on the group of boys dancing on the south-facing slope of the meadow: slender, delicate boys wrapped in gauze and sunlight. They went through their paces as the instructor praised or castigated them accordingly. Musicians and drummers sitting on the grass accompanied them. The breeze brought faint strains of music to the balcony.
Aenor didn’t need any practice to be a dog.
He envied the boys. It had been too long since he had turned in circles in the sun. And not pretty circles, not with drums and pipes, not with instruction; just moved in the sunlight for the pleasure of it. If he closed his eyes, he might almost feel it, but he was afraid he would find himself trapped in sensation instead of memory. He didn’t want that. It had taken long enough to learn not to feel.
Nero wrapped a hand in Aenor’s hair and pulled his head back. “I am a god!”
Aenor’s breath rasped in his throat.
“Of course, Imperator,” Tigellinus said smoothly.
Aenor grimaced as Nero snapped his hips. The emperor’s cock wasn’t the largest thing he’d taken since being sold to Tigellinus, but it stung after the night before. He was still tender enough that he was afraid he’d bleed.
“Verginius won’t turn against me!” Nero released Aenor’s hair and dug his fingers into his hips.
Aenor dropped his head down, his hair brushing the tiles. A few times, his body had responded to this, but not today. The first time it had happened, Aenor had been horrified. The man using him had been gentle, and the couch had been soft, and he had lain on his stomach like the man had indicated and parted his legs when the man touched him. The man had penetrated him, and then drawn him up so that Aenor was straddling the cradle of his thighs. He’d kept his eyes closed so he didn’t have to see the rest of the room, didn’t have to be seen, and maybe it was the same retreat into sensation that scared him today, but that night it had done something else. Every nerve in his body had spiked as the man fucked him, sometimes thrusting back and forth, sometimes rolling his hips, sometimes reaching around to touch Aenor’s cock. Aenor had come as the man fucked him, clenching his muscles hard around the man’s cock, shaking and gasping and whimpering.
Hating himself.
To be forced was bad enough. To like it was disgusting.
His self-loathing had lasted no more than a month, until the next man who made him come. In the end, Aenor thought, it was no different than enjoying the scraps that fell off the tables.
Aenor lifted his head to look out into the gardens. The dancing boys trailed colored scarves through the air in arcs over their heads. Aenor let his gaze slide over them, to the hazy city beyond the walls.
Somewhere out there was the Roman Senate, whose toga-clad members called Galba an enemy of the people but maybe secretly wanted him to win. Somewhere out there were conspirators that Nero, although he called himself a god, feared with the true dread of a mortal man. And somewhere out there was one conspirator Aenor could name: Novius Senna.
Senna was feared as much as Tigellinus, in his own way. He was feared and flattered, and the palace slaves whispered that he carried a pu
rse of silver coins with him so that the men he visited could pay the ferryman.
What ferryman? Aenor had asked Sticchus. Where do they go?
He’d never heard anything as strange. Not until the night before, when one of the most dangerous men in Rome had passed a gentle hand over his aching body and asked him in a quiet voice how much he hated Nero.
Each painful thrust reminded him exactly how much.
Aenor watched the boys dancing on the grass. He braced himself as Nero’s thrusts grew faster. Nero began to grunt. Sweat dropped onto Aenor’s naked back, and he grimaced and shuddered.
“Take it, dog,” Nero grunted.
Tigellinus laughed.
The indignity, Aenor told himself, burned as much as the pain of the assault. Maybe it was even true. It was a day without claws. The worst pain was the ghost of last night’s: his aching muscles, his stinging scratches, and his bruised hands and knees. He could endure this because he’d endured worse. He had his memories of sunlight and his dreams of revenge to sustain him.
It was enough.
The chair was painted gold. It cost more than Senna had expected, but what did he need money for anyway? This chair would match the artificial grove in the grounds of the Golden House, and Nero would sit on it just because it looked good. That was all that had to happen, and that was worth the cost.
The chair had been delivered to Senna’s house in the late afternoon. It had sat in the atrium, gleaming in the sunlight, until Senna had it moved to the formal dining room. The formal dining room hadn’t been used in years, not since both his parents had been alive. Senna had memories of it from his childhood: lamplight, laugher, musicians, and dancers. All in the past now. Ashes and dust, like everything.
Senna sat on one of the dusty couches and stared at the chair. He forced himself to breathe deeply, to look at it until it was just a piece of furniture. Not a thing of momentous implications. Not an instrument of assassination.
“Master?” Felix appeared in the doorway. “Lacus is here.”
His accountant.
“Send him away.”
“Master?” Felix adopted a tone that managed to sound conciliatory and dissenting at the same time.
“Tell him to come back next week.”
Felix slipped away.
The chair was exactly what Senna had asked for: a solid piece with a high back and wide armrests. It wasn’t the sort of thing Caesar would have carried with him on campaign, but that hardly mattered. Caesar and Vercingetorix were incidental. If Canis had been from Africa, it would have been Scipio and Hannibal. It didn’t matter to Senna, and it wouldn’t matter to Nero either. Not if it gave him the chance to play conquering hero.
Senna knelt on the floor in front of the chair, and imagined a man sitting on it. Just below where the man’s feet would rest was a panel decorated with laurel leaves. His hand trembling, Senna pushed at the panel.
The mechanism didn’t even creak as the panel retracted and exposed the cavity underneath.
Senna’s heart beat faster.
Fuck. This was it. This was it. He had the slave, and now he had the means of getting a weapon into the slave’s hands as he knelt at Nero’s feet.
Senna slid his fingers under the lip of wood below the panel. He found the catch and slid the panel back into place. He inspected it carefully, but it was flawless.
Perfect.
He hit it again.
Slid it back into place with trembling fingers.
Hit it again.
He hit it again before he realized Felix was standing in the doorway, watching. Felix was clever. Senna had no doubt that Felix had seen the mechanism in the chair and made an educated guess as to its purpose.
Senna’s stomach clenched.
In the silence, Felix moved forward into the room. “Lacus will be here next week.” The older man’s gaze was piercing. “Will you, master?”
Senna rose to his feet. “You didn’t see anything here, Felix.”
“Of course.”
Senna dropped his gaze first. Felix had been his father’s secretary. He’d been in the household since before Senna was born. That was a long time. Too long, probably, for a man who had deserved something more.
“Your manumission,” Senna began.
“No!” Felix held up his hand. “Don’t, master!”
Senna smiled slightly. Felix knew exactly what he was going to say. It was common practice for favored slaves to be freed in their masters’ wills. It was the least Senna could do for Felix. He reached out and clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder. It was more stooped than he remembered. When had Felix become an old man? “I won’t.”
Felix lifted a trembling hand to Senna’s and grasped it briefly. He cleared his throat. “I’ll keep the others out of here, master.”
“Thank you.”
Felix frowned at the chair. “Do you have someone you can trust to do this, master?”
Jupiter, trust Felix to get straight to the heart of the matter. Senna tried for a smile. “I think so.”
Felix nodded. “I hope so, master. If you must do this, do it right.”
“Yes,” Senna managed, clenching his fists.
Felix left the room.
Senna closed his eyes briefly.
All that talk about crossing the Rubicon, when it wasn’t the Rubicon lapping at his toes at all. It was the Styx.
Tonight he would make an offering to the household Lares, and in the morning he would send Felix to the Temple of Jupiter to buy a calf for the priests to sacrifice.
He wondered what sort of gods Canis worshipped and how different they were from his own. He wondered if they could be prevailed upon to work together to bring about Nero’s death. Maybe. Senna didn’t believe there were any gods in any corner of the world who would not welcome the death of the tyrant.
Nero’s Golden House contained over three hundred rooms. Sometimes it felt like being trapped in a labyrinth. Every new turn around a corner led deeper into the maze, into the lair of the beast. Senna knew how to unpick an invisible thread and follow it straight to the monsters. He knew his way through the Golden House.
Senna was trusted. Senna was loyal.
Not liked, though, not by Tigellinus. Whether that was because Senna was a friend from Nero’s past, because he was a patrician, or simply because Tigellinus was wary of anyone else who had Nero’s favor, Senna didn’t know. He pretended not to notice the man’s animosity, just like he pretended not to notice a lot of things: the close presence of the Praetorians, the mood swings of the emperor, and every vicious, bloody thing he had ever seen in the Golden House.
Senna fixed a smile on his face as a slave ushered him toward the dining couch.
Sometimes, on nights like these, it was almost possible to pretend he was among friends. He laughed and joked with Nero and Tigellinus, and played the part of a man flattered and delighted to be included in their company. Friends. Then, when Tigellinus rose to leave early, Senna teased him like he would have teased Lucan or Titus or, years ago now, Nero.
Senna grinned. “Stay, Tigellinus! Don’t be an old woman!”
Nero laughed, and Tigellinus smiled, but Senna knew better than to think he’d taken the insult in good humor.
“I have work to see to, Novius Senna,” Tigellinus said, “but I won’t forget you.”
Nero laughed harder at that.
Senna didn’t miss the threat. It was visceral. It tightened around his chest and settled in the pit of his stomach.
He wondered if Nero noticed how often Tigellinus excused himself these days. Senna had dined for three nights straight at the Golden House, and Tigellinus had left early each time. There was a time when Tigellinus and Nero had been inseparable. There were rumors that Tigellinus was finding it harder and harder to keep the Praetorians in line. When unrest reached them, the tide had already turned. The Praetorians had murdered Caligula, had elevated Claudius to the purple. It wasn’t unthinkable that it could happen again. There must have been fac
tions in the city actively pushing for it. Did Nero even see how precarious it had all become, sheltered in his Golden House, distracted with the hundreds of cruel amusements Tigellinus encouraged?
Senna tried his hardest not to think about those, and forced himself to relax. This was a private room, an open-ended gallery that overlooked the gardens. The torches that flickered all around them weren’t monstrous tonight.
Senna watched the light gleaming on a silver blade resting on the table and turned his head to stare at the legs of the Praetorian guard who was standing close enough to touch. If he reached for the blade, would the man let it happen? He couldn’t be sure and couldn’t risk it.
Nero’s laughter faded into a crooked smile.
With Tigellinus gone, it was almost like old times. In the dim light, the years slipped away from both of them, and sharing a dining couch with Nero was the most natural thing in the world. Any moment now, and Titus would tell a joke that would make Junia laugh, and then Lucan would dazzle the room with a piece of poetry that fell perfectly formed from his lips.
Back when the world had still been colored with hope. Before Nero had gone mad.
Senna looked up as the girl glided through the room. No, not the girl. Sporus.
Sporus, the fabric of his gown sighing around him, leaned close to Nero and murmured something.
“Go and wait for me, Sabina.” Nero clasped the boy’s hand and pressed a kiss to it.
The boy nodded, his long hair falling around his face. He gently disentangled his fingers from Nero’s and slipped away again.
“I want the German,” Senna said, watching Sporus descend the steps into the garden, his delicate hands holding the hem of his gown off the ground. Sporus, for all his artificial femininity, didn’t make Senna’s blood run hot. Canis did. All that power and strength, the planes and lines of a young man’s musculature forced into submission. Senna tilted his cup and swallowed a mouthful of wine. “Canis. I want to fuck him.”
He needed to talk to the slave, but it wasn’t a lie. Jupiter, it wasn’t a lie.
Nero beamed at him.
