Empress of the Seven Hills (34 page)

Trajan led the parade in his red cloak, vaulting off his black horse like a boy and bounding up the steps of the Temple of Jupiter with a grin to split the sun. Plotina unbent enough to smile in return, extending her hands in welcome. He moved with shouts of greeting to the governor of Germania, to the other officials who stood hopeful for his attention. He barely contained himself as the priest droned a blessing and sacrificed a bull, and when he waved to the crowd the screams drowned the blessing. He picked Sabina up in a bear hug, smearing her with bull’s blood, but she just laughed and kissed him on both cheeks and he dropped her into Hadrian’s arms with a shouted, “Here’s the man who’s been missing you, and after just a week too!”

Sabina smiled as Hadrian righted her. “Hello again.”

“Vibia Sabina.” He kissed her hand as formally as if they had not met for months—which they scarcely had. “You look considerably cleaner.”

“Yes, I stayed days in the bathhouse when I got back to civilization. You look very splendid yourself.” His formal armor suited him, and he had dismounted his big horse with a flourish not one whit overdone. No one sat a horse as magnificently as her husband, not even the Emperor. Maybe it was because horses adored Hadrian—even now, the big stallion was nibbling at his sleeve. “I’ve missed you,” she said, and surprised herself by meaning it. They might have met once a day
for a cup of wine or the occasional dinner, but their long conversations had withered away under his duties as legate and her hours with Vix.

A crinkle of surprise showed between his brows, but it quickly smoothed out as Plotina came forward. “Dear Publius.” She kissed his forehead possessively. “It’s been too long.”

“Much too long.” He took her arm. “Do I have you to thank for my new governorship?”

“Of course, dear boy.” The Empress waved politely to the troops below, getting a swell of applause. “I’d hoped to get you Syria. You aren’t disappointed?”

“Not at all. Pannonia will provide ample opportunities.”

“Pannonia?” Sabina lifted her eyebrows, turning to Hadrian. “You didn’t tell me!”

“Confirmed only yesterday,” Plotina said, sounding complacent. “Of course Publius must not leave until after the triumph in Rome. You must be at the Emperor’s side for that, he’ll have it no other way—”

Will he?
wondered Sabina. Hadrian might have ridden at the Emperor’s back in the parade, but he’d certainly not been singled out from the other legates. Even now Trajan was roaring and backslapping among his tribunes rather than standing, waving, and bowing with his wife and her protégé.

“Wave and smile, Sabina,” Plotina called to her. “It is expected.”

“I doubt the men care if I wave at them,” said Sabina. “They just want to be dismissed so they can go get drunk with their families.”

“Let us hope they spend the day in sober thanks for their victories,” said the Empress.

“You’re lucky if they’re sober for the victory itself,” Sabina snorted. “Much less the celebration after.”

“That dress is very bright.” Hadrian flicked a speck of dust from her shoulder. “And eagles are really better suited for a standard pole than a brooch.”

Trajan came bounding back, raising his arm to another wave of cheers. He spoke a few words of thanks that had the legionaries cuffing
their eyes, but not too many words—Trajan, Sabina had observed before, knew how to keep things brief. “Keep your battles short and your speeches shorter,” he often said. Hadrian, observing how well it worked for the Emperor, was now modifying his own speeches to suit.

“Your officials expect to speak with you,” Plotina said the moment Trajan rejoined her side. “Preparations for the celebratory banquet this evening—”

“I’ll be wanting to speak with them as well.” Trajan waved a good-natured hand. “They’re to invite the tribunes to join us this evening as well as the legates. Camp prefects and first centurions too.”

“Husband, surely not. They are very rough.”

“Gods’ bones, at least they’ll liven things up! And we’ll have someone else too—” Trajan spoke a brief word to his aide, who went dashing off into the throng. A few moments later he returned, dragging along a man in a red cloak with a lion’s mane over his hair and a standard pole in his hand.

“Caesar.” Vix dropped to one knee, but Trajan raised him with a wave.

“Here’s the man we have to thank for killing Decebalus! You’ll plant that head before the Senate house at the triumph, boy. With your own hand.”

“I believe the governor requires your attention,” Plotina sniffed.

“Oh, very well. You’ll come to that banquet tonight, Aquilifer—that’s an Imperial order.”

“Yes, Caesar.” Vix grinned, snapping off a salute.

“Good, good.” Trajan held his arm out for his wife. Just before they vanished into the hovering throng of well-wishers, he gave Sabina an approving glance over one shoulder and shouted, “I like the eagles!”

Sabina laughed. Hadrian made a motion to follow the Emperor, but Titus approached, tall and impressive in the toga he had donned the moment he could get out of his armor. He had always been skinny, but a summer’s marching had filled him out to a pleasant leanness. He looked like a handsome young man now, not an uncertain boy.

“Legate, I had just heard news of your governorship.” Titus’s eyes had a brief flick of horror to see Hadrian, Vix, and Sabina all converged together, but his polite mask never faltered.
You
will
make a good politician
, Sabina thought. “My congratulations, sir.”

Hadrian nodded his thanks, utterly ignoring Vix, who stood behind the eagle standard doing his best imitation of a post.

“At least on our march we had a chance to pass through Pannonia,” Titus continued, keeping his eyes scrupulously away from Vix. “Very fortunate, sir.”

“I’ve heard the Pannonians wear wolf-skin breeches and sacrifice to horned gods,” said Sabina, “but you can never be sure about these rumors. I certainly didn’t see any horned gods lying around when we were marching through to Dacia. And come to think of it, we heard the same sort of things about Dacians too, and they were all quite civilized. Solar discs and piped water rather than blood rituals and human sacrifices… I can’t wait to see how the Pannonians turn out on a closer acquaintance.”

“You will be accompanying the governor to Pannonia?” Titus addressed her as formally as if they had never shared a wineskin around a campfire in their lives.

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it,” said Sabina. “New provinces, new horizons. I can’t wait.”

Under the lion skin, Vix’s chin jerked.

“I see,” said Titus, and offered Hadrian another bow. “My congratulations once again, Governor.”

A second bow to Sabina, and a nod to Vix in which horror and amusement were blended just about equally. Sabina repressed a smile, but Vix was not smiling.

“You’re going to Pannonia—Lady?” he demanded, barely remembering the honorific.

“Of course.” She waved to someone nonexistent on the other side of the steps, angling them both away from Hadrian, who was perusing his pile of wax tablets again. “My father will probably send me three
scrolls on Pannonia’s recent history, a list of recommended reading, and a request that I please check up on the new aqueduct the Senate paid for and tell him if it’s being built on schedule. He says it’s been very useful having a daughter who travels—gives him an extra pair of eyes all over the Empire, as it were.”

“So you’ll be staying a while in Pannonia?” Vix lowered his voice. She could see his big hard fingers tightening on the standard pole.

“I don’t know.” She tucked a lock of hair behind one ear. “Most governorships last a few years.”

“Years—” His jaw hardened. “Never thought to ask me about that, did you? When you made your plans!”

“I
didn’t
make any plans,” she pointed out. “I only found out about Pannonia two minutes ago.”

“But you were going to stay with the Tenth!” he hissed, barely audible. “With me!”

“Never thought to ask
me
about that, did you?”

His fingers had fused around the standard pole. Sabina hoped he wouldn’t crack it in half. “You bitch,” he whispered.

“Why?” she asked, puzzled.

“I told you I loved you,” he said in a ferocious whisper. “I went spinning dreams about the future and now you tell me you’re just—”

“Is something amiss?” Hadrian’s voice slid coolly between them.

“Not at all.” Sabina turned her head toward him. “A moment, my dear.”

He frowned, turning to his aide with a list of instructions. She gave a bright social smile to Vix, fading to something truer as she angled herself between him and her husband.

“I love you, Vix,” she said frankly. “But whatever made you think I want to follow your stars, and not my own?”

He stared at her.

“I think you had best go now, Aquilifer.” Hadrian’s hand took possession of Sabina’s arm, and he looked at Vix with cool displeasure. “As little as you are used to ladies of good birth, you must be aware it is
rude to stare at them. Your time might better be served in finding a suitable costume for this evening’s banquet, since the Emperor seems so determined to have his… pets.”

Vix’s face had a hard stillness that Sabina recognized. He stared at Hadrian, expressionless, and his eyes were flat, murderous stones.

She stepped between them, fast. “Hardly a pet,” she said lightly, and dropped a congratulatory hand over Vix’s on the standard pole. “A hero of Rome, as we saw ourselves. And likely to be an even greater one, someday.”

“I doubt that,” said Hadrian. “I doubt that highly.”

Vix stared at him over her head for another long moment, the man in the lion skin and the man in the breastplate, and there was something in their gaze that excluded her.

Sabina squeezed Vix’s hand over the standard, warningly.

Another suspended breath, and then the murder banked in his gaze. He jerked his hand from under Sabina’s and turned in a swirl of red cloak, gone into the crowds. Sabina could see the eagle on its long pole marking a swift, brutal path through the throng of revelers.

“I wish you would not flirt with common soldiers,” Hadrian frowned.

“I might say the same to you.” Sabina made an effort to speak lightly. “Besides, I’ve known Vix for years. One of my father’s household guards, you know… Why did you suddenly look so black and furious at him?”

“I dislike his type, that is all.” Hadrian flicked a hand as if flicking Vix from his attention.
Back to what place in the mental files?
Sabina wondered.

“Flirt with the governor of Upper Germania this evening instead.” Hadrian took her arm, following in the wake of Trajan and Plotina. “I will need the governor’s support when I reach Pannonia.”

“Do you think they really wear wolf skins there?”

“I devoutly hope not. Don’t wear yellow tonight.” His eyes swept her. “Or those eagles.”

VIX

That bitch.

That cool, calm, collected, two-faced whore.

I stamped back to the fort in a white rage, kicking everything that got in my path.
Fight me
, I hoped,
somebody pick a fight
—but the whole bloody Tenth was in a good mood and no one was drunk enough yet for fights. I saw a centurion hugging his woman in one arm and his son in the other, the boy wearing his father’s helmet—I saw a cluster of shouting swaggering legionaries push toward the nearest tavern and get sidetracked by a pair of admiring girls tossing flowers at them from an upper window—I saw everybody happy, everybody but the bloody hero.

A horribly cheery clerk greeted me at the
principia
. “The new aquilifer? I’ve heard of you. Yes, you can leave the eagle with me.”

I surrendered her over. She’d live in the chapel now with a permanent guard, keeping her haughty watch over the bust of the Emperor and everything else that the legion held precious. I’d carry her out only if we did a route march or went on campaign again. I looked up at her as she was planted in place, and she stared arrogantly down at me.

Sabina had worn an eagle brooch on each shoulder, with the same proud tilt to their gold heads. Why had she done that?

“Are you the one who killed Decebalus?” the clerk asked, and recoiled at my snarl.

I shoved out of the
principia
, still glowering. I didn’t want to get drunk, I didn’t want a celebration; I just wanted another fight. No, what I wanted was another
war
, something long and savage and preferably bloody. My feet took me halfway to my old quarters, but I stopped and realized that they weren’t my quarters anymore. I didn’t have a
contubernium
now, just an eagle with the double pay and double danger that came with it. I had no idea where the aquilifer slept when at home in the fort.

I contemplated going back to the clerk, but one more look at his cheery face and I’d probably break it, and then that bastard Hadrian would have me flogged. I had another wave of rage as I thought of his cold black gaze, meeting my eyes over Sabina’s sleek head. He’d probably screw her tonight—one of his yearly visits. Turn her over and pretend she was a boy, and then they’d go swanning off to Pannonia together. “
How interesting
,” I mimicked, and got a puzzled look from the gate guard as I slammed through. “What are you looking at!”

“Nothing,” he said hastily. “You’re lucky, that’s all. Having the day to celebrate. Someone had to draw sentry duty, and wouldn’t you know it’s me—”

“Fuck you,” I growled. A whole city celebrating, and I had nowhere to go. Nowhere to go for years, probably—what other action would the Tenth see, now that Dacia was quiet? Guard duty at the fort, and the occasional route march so we didn’t get rusty. There’d be the triumph first, and I’d even get to go to Rome to march in it with the eagle over my head, but after that it would be back to Mog, to sit in the fort and
rot
. Had it really seemed possible, just this morning, that I’d be a centurion soon, that I’d even do the impossible and get my own legion someday? What a joke. I was going to rot here in Mog for the next twenty years. I’d taken the oath and signed those years over, and now they yawned before me like a grave.