Empress of the Seven Hills

by Kate Quinn

  I looked down the chained line. Perhaps twenty prisoners. Old and young, men and women, identical in their bent shoulders and shuffling feet. Only one stood straight, a big man gazing around him with blank eyes. Even from the stands I could see the whip marks latticing his bare back.

  “Father, when does Belleraphon’s bout come up? I’m dying to see what he can do against that Thracian—”

  The guards gave the blunt sword to the man with the scars. He hefted it a moment in his shackled hands, gave it a swing. No hacking for him; he killed the man who had gone before him in one efficient thrust. I winced.

  The arena guard reached for the sword and the big scarred man fell a step back, holding the blade up between them. The guard gestured, holding out an impatient hand, and then it all went to hell.

  “Hand it over,” the guard said.

  He stood spraddle-legged on the hot sand, heaving air into his parched lungs. The sun scorched down on his naked shoulders and he could feel every separate grain beneath his bare, hardened feet. Sweat stung his wrists and ankles under the rusty cuffs of his chains. His hands had welded around the sword hilt.

  “Hand over that sword,” the guard ordered. “You’re holding up the show.”

  He stared back glassy-eyed.

  “Hand—over—that—sword.” Extending an imperious hand.

  He cut it off.

  The guard screamed. The slick of blood gleamed bright in the midday sun. The other guards rushed.

  He had not held a sword in over ten years. Much too long, he would have said, to remember anything. But it came back. Fueled by rage it came back fast—the sweet weight of the hilt in his hand, the bite of blade into bone, the black demon’s fury that filmed the eyes and whispered in the ear.

  Kill them, it said. Kill them all.

  He met the first guard in a savage joyful rush, swords meeting with a dull screech. He bore down with every muscle, feeling his body arch like a good bow, and saw the sudden leap of fear in the guard’s eyes as he felt the strength on the other end of the blade. These Romans with their plumes and pride and shiny breastplates, they didn’t think a slave could be strong. In two more thrusts he reduced the guard to a heap of twitching meat on the sand.

  More Romans, bright blurs in their feathered crests. A guard fell writhing as dull iron chewed through his hamstrings. A liquid scream.

  He savored it. Lunged for another bronze breastplate. The blade slid neatly through the armhole. Another shield falling, another scream.

  Not enough, the demon voice whispered. Not enough.

  He felt distant pain along his back as a blade cut deep, and smiled, turning to chop down savagely. A slave’s toughest flesh was on his back, but they didn’t know that—these men whose vineyards were tended by captive warriors from Gaul and their beds warmed by sullen Thracian slave girls. They didn’t know anything. He cut the guard down, tasting blood in his rough beard.

  Not enough.

  The sky whirled and turned white as something struck the back of his head. He staggered, turned, raised his blade, felt his entire arm go numb as a guard smashed an iron shield boss against his elbow. Distantly he watched the sword drop from his fingers, falling to hands and knees as a sword hilt crashed against his skull. Sweat trickled into his eyes. Acid, bitter. He sighed as the armored boots buffeted his sides, as the black demon in his head turned back in on itself like a snake devouring its own tail. A familiar road. One he had trodden all his years under whips and chains. With a sword in his hand, everything had been so simple.

  Not enough. Never enough.

  Over the sound of his own cracking bones, he heard a roar. A vast, impersonal roar like the crashing of the sea. For the first time he turned his eyes outward and saw them: spectators, packed tier upon tier in their thousands. Senators in purple-bordered togas. Matrons in bright silk stolas. Priests in white robes. So many… did the world hold so many people? He saw a boy’s face leap out at him from the front tier, crazily distinct, a boy in a fine toga shouting through a mouthful of figs—and clapping.

  They were all clapping. The great arena resounded with applause.

  Through dimming eyes, he made out the Imperial balcony. He was close enough to see a fair-haired girl with a white appalled face, one of the Imperial nieces… close enough to see the Emperor, his ruddy cheeks, his purple cloak, his amused gaze… close enough to see the Imperial hand rise carelessly.

  Holding out a hand in the sign of mercy.

  Why? he thought. Why?

  Then the world disappeared.

  Lepida chattered on as I undressed her for bed that night—not about the games, of course; all that death and blood was old news. Her father had mentioned a certain senator, a man who might be a possible husband for her, and that was all she could talk about. “Senator Marcus Norbanus, his name is, and he’s terribly old—” I hardly heard a word.

  The slave with the scarred back. A Briton, a Gaul? He had fought so savagely, swinging his sword like Goliath, ignoring his own wounds. He’d been snarling even when they brought him down, not caring if he lived or died as long as he took a few with him.

  “Thea, be careful with those pearls. They’re worth three of you.”

  I’d seen a hundred slaves like him, served beside them and avoided them. They drank too much, they scowled at their masters and were flogged for troublemakers and did as little work as they could get away with. Men to avoid in quiet corners of the house, if no one was near enough to hear you struggling. Thugs.

  So why did I weep suddenly when they brought him down in the arena? I hadn’t wept when I was sold to Lepida. I hadn’t even wept when I watched the gladiators and the poor bewildered animals slaughtered before my eyes. Why had I wept for a thug?

  I didn’t even know his name.

  “Well, I don’t think Emperor Domitian is terribly handsome, but it’s hard to tell from a distance, isn’t it?” Lepida frowned at a chipped nail. “I do wish we could have some handsome dashing Emperor instead of these stolid middle-aged men.”

  The Emperor. Why had he bothered to save a half-dead slave? The crowd had clapped for his death as much as for the show he put on. Why save him?

  “Go away, Thea. I don’t want you anymore. You’re quite stupid tonight.”

  “As you wish,” I said in Greek, blowing out her lamp. “You cheap, snide little shrew.”

  I weaved my way down the hall, leaning against the shadowed pillars for balance, trying not to think of my blue bowl. Not good to bleed myself twice in one day, but oh, I wanted to.

  “Ah, Thea. Just what I need.”

  I stared blurrily at the two Quintus Pollios who beckoned me into the bedchamber and onto the silver sleeping couch. I closed my eyes, stifling a yawn and hoping I wouldn’t fall asleep in the middle of his huffing and puffing. Slave girls aren’t expected to be enthusiastic, but they are expected to be cheerful. I patted his shoulder as he labored over me. His lips peeled back from his teeth like a mule’s during the act of… well, whatever you want to call it.

  “What a good girl you are, Thea.” Sleepily patting my flank. “Run along, now.”

  I shook down my tunic and slipped out the door. Likely tomorrow he’d slip me a copper.

  PART I

  JULIA

  In the Temple of Vesta

  Yesterday, Titus Flavius Domitianus was just my brusque and rather strange uncle. Today he is Lord and God, Pontifex Maximus, Emperor of Rome. Like my father and grandfather before him, he is master of the world. And I am afraid.

  But he has been kind to me. He says I will marry my cousin Gaius soon, and he promised me splendid games for the celebration. I couldn’t tell him that I hate the games. He means to be kind. He says his Empress will fit me for my wedding gown. She is very beautiful in her green silk and emeralds, and they whisper that he’s mad with love for her. They also whisper that she hates him—but people like to whisper.

  I stare at the flame until there are two flames.

  I’m afraid. I’m always a
fraid. Shadows under the bed, shapes in the dark, voices in the air.

  My uncle watched a thousand men die in the arena today—and he saved just one. He hates the rest of the family—but is kind to me.

  What does my uncle want? Does anyone know?

  Vesta, goddess of hearth and home, watch over me. I need you, now.