Empress of the Seven Hills (45 page)

“Legates bring their wives sometimes. They go on ahead of the men, set up somewhere civilized. You could do the same.”

“Your legate wouldn’t allow it,” Mirah pointed out.

“It won’t be up to him. The detachment will answer to the Emperor. And the Emperor likes me.”

“Does he?”

I smiled into the dark. “The day I met you, I delivered a load of dispatches to him at the palace. He said he wanted to take Parthia, and I said he should take me and the Tenth with him to get it.” I felt foolishly happy that he had remembered. That he had taken a moment, in the middle of planning an invasion, to arrange my future along with the legion’s.

“Hmm.” Mirah moved against my shoulder. “Why does he want Parthia, anyway?”

“Something to do with their new king.” I stroked her hair where it lay across the pillow.

“What about him?”

“Who cares? The Emperor’s spent the last few years building roads and arches and columns in Rome. He’s bored.”

“No one,” Mirah declared, “should go to war because they’re bored.”

It seemed a good enough reason for me, but I had the sense not to say so.

“What did the Parthians do to deserve getting invaded?” she persisted. “Especially the ones whose crops will get trampled over by
your
big feet?”

“They aren’t so big.” Hoping to deflect her.

“They’re like boats,” she said, undeflected. “Why do you follow Emperor Trajan, Vix?”

That was easier to answer. “Because he’s splendid.”

“He’s just another Roman emperor who invades a helpless country for fun.”

“He isn’t!”

“Why not?” she persisted.

“You haven’t met him. When you do, you’ll see.”

“I don’t understand you Romans,” she said tartly. “You’ll forgive a man anything for a little charm. I’m sure the Emperor who ordered the siege of Masada was charming too.”

“Now you sound like Simon.” He’d gotten very fiery and indignant over the state of poor wronged Judaea the past few months. He certainly didn’t like being reminded of his days in the Tenth anymore.

“Well, doesn’t Uncle Simon have a point? Romans see something they want, and they take it. Whether it’s a cup of wine or a new province. And your charming Trajan is just the same.”

“Why all this raking over past sins?” I demanded. “Trajan didn’t siege Masada, so what does it matter?”

“But—”

I wrapped my arms around her, kissing the back of her neck. I kissed my way around to her ear, and she turned her face toward me in the dark.

“You really want me to come with you?” she whispered, lips brushing mine.

My fingers brushed her stomach, and I felt suddenly guilty. “I shouldn’t have asked. The baby—”

“I am
not
one of these wilting women who sit indoors for nine months and won’t lift so much as a cup,” Mirah said sternly. “I can ride in a wagon without any harm to little Hannibal Emmanuel. If you want me.”

“Oh, I want you all right…”

Two days later I had my orders from the Emperor, a case full of dispatches for the Tenth’s legate, and a new side-to-side centurion’s crest for my helmet. The day after that I loaded Mirah and her budding belly into a traveling train, promised I’d meet her in Antioch, bid farewell to my eighty new relatives, and started north.

“Good luck,” Simon said a little sourly. He’d never really approved
of Mirah marrying me. I suppose it’s difficult to watch your favorite niece wed a man you used to go whoring with.

“Syrus says that no man by fearing ever reaches the top,” Titus said more cheerfully. “Good thing you’re not afraid of anything, isn’t it, Slight?”

I hardly heard either of them; just ruffled a hand over my new centurion’s crest and set my eyes forward.

PLOTINA

“I don’t understand, Lady.”

“I think you do, Gnaeus Avidius.” Plotina pushed a slate across her desk at the lean praetor who managed Trajan’s newest building project. “My secretaries brought the discrepancy to my attention, and I checked the numbers myself. You have been skimming money from the building funds for the Emperor’s new forum.”

“Lady, I assure you—”

“Spare me the protestations of innocence.” Serenely, Plotina flicked a speck of dust from the surface of her desk. “New supplies ordered here, never delivered; an order of stone there, never quarried. Quite a few sesterces you’ve managed to pocket, Gnaeus Avidius.”

“Then someone in my pay is skimming. I assure you it isn’t me, and I will provide my own accounts to prove it if necessary.” The praetor picked up her slate, frowning. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Lady. I will apprehend the thief and have him removed at once.”

“Did I ask you to take such steps?” Plotina looked up at the ceiling, ruminative. The molding in the corner was cracked—why hadn’t her steward repaired it? Honestly, did the Empress of Rome have to attend to
everything
herself? “The funds set aside for the forum are lavish. Some… leakage… is to be expected. I would be willing to let the matter slide, for a small consideration. Shall we say half?”

The praetor paused a moment, then rose and bowed. “I shall pretend
I didn’t hear that, Lady,” he said. “And I shall deal with the thief as I see fit. I do not permit thievery from any projects under my control.”

“Oh dear,” Plotina said as he stamped out. So many corrupt men in Rome; usually they were quite amiable to any suggestions from their Empress. But one did hit the occasional bump in the road. She drew a neat line through the name of Gnaeus Avidius on her slate. Perhaps he would serve better in a different post. A provincial post, say. Somewhere hot and diseased. His successor might prove easier to deal with.

“I always thought my task would be done once Dear Publius was consul,” she told her reflection in the mirror. “But it’s really just the beginning, isn’t it?” It was going to cost a great deal to ensure the post she had in mind for the Parthian invasion.

She kept that in mind, when she had the praetor banished to Africa on a convenient pretext. Difficult, really—one never liked to think of exiles, dying alone, diseased, and destitute.
Duty
, Plotina reminded herself. No matter what
some
people liked to hint about meddling and kingmaking—people like former Empress Marcella—it was all for Rome.

The next banishment was much easier. And the third hardly troubled her at all.

SABINA

Plotina’s voice was deep, Hadrian’s even deeper, and both were smug. The smugness wafted out of the triclinium in waves Sabina could almost see as she came down the stairs from her bedchamber. She paused a moment in the atrium, adjusting a lock of hair that had slipped its pins and listening to the conversation drifting through the half-opened doors.

“Chief of the Emperor’s personal staff!” Inside the triclinium, Hadrian rolled the words with relish. “I’d hoped for a legion, but this is better.”

“My dear Publius, I told you I would persuade the Emperor to give you something suitable.” Plotina’s low loud tones were accompanied by the
chink
of metal on metal as wine was poured. Emperor Trajan had dashed down to Ostia to review some promising troops, but the Empress had arrived for a private dinner to celebrate her protégé’s recent appointment. Private by Plotina’s standards, anyway: herself, Dear Publius, Sabina, Hadrian’s pallid sister whom he disliked and her boring husband Servianus whom he disliked even more, and twenty-two important men of Rome who would be required merely to look envious or promise Dear Publius their support.

“Congratulations on your appointment,” a quieter voice asserted. Titus—Sabina was glad she’d been able to squeeze him into Plotina’s ironclad guest list. Considering what she was about to do, it would be good to have one friend in the crowd. “May I ask what your plans are for the supply lines?”

But Plotina rode over Titus’s question. “My husband was stubborn, but several of his legates quite changed their minds and they persuaded him. Just as I told you they would. You must learn to trust me, dear boy.”

“I will never doubt you again.” Hadrian’s tone was gallant. “Cakes?”

“Not until Sabina arrives.
Vibia Sabina!
”

“A moment,” Sabina called back, blotting her damp palms against her skirt.

A brief inaudible grumble from Plotina, and then Sabina heard Hadrian’s voice again.

“I hadn’t dared hope for a staff position.” Her husband sounded lazy, satisfied, doubtless leaning back on one elbow on the cushions of the dining couch.

“Nonsense, my dear. Your organizational skills, your skill at managing subordinates—so wasted on just one legion. The Emperor may have the leadership of the army, but you will have the management.” Plotina sounded even smugger, if possible. Sabina wondered if the guests were rolling their eyes yet, or just resigning themselves to staying
silent and getting drunk. “It would be no exaggeration, Dear Publius, to call you the second man in the Empire just now.”

A maid hastening through the atrium with a tray of honeyed cakes caught sight of Sabina and stumbled. She rescued her balance and the platter, casting one astonished look over her shoulder at her mistress. Sabina laid a cautionary, conspiritorial finger to her lips and the maid gave a shake of her head and marched on into the triclinium.

“We will leave for Antioch well in advance of the Emperor,” Hadrian continued from the other side of the door. “He will count on me to assemble the eastern legions for him.”

“You should maintain a basis in Antioch for the duration of the invasion,” Plotina agreed. “Most convenient.”

“Yes, and I’ve always wanted to see Antioch.” Hadrian’s voice turned musing. Once, Sabina thought, he might have launched into an excited diatribe about Antioch’s famous temples and colonnades, wondering how they compared to Rome’s. Now his voice was pompous as he said, “I’m sure we have much to bring the Antiochenes. One hears they have none of the Roman virtues, and serious discipline is nonexistent—”

Sabina bent to fiddle needlessly with the lace on her sandal.
Stop stalling,
she told herself. A page boy paused with a decanter of barley water and gazed at his mistress for a wide-eyed moment before remembering himself.

“One hears the Antiochenes are disagreeable company.” The Empress’s nose wrinkled almost audibly on the other side of the door. “Slippery characters. It’s the eastern influence, of course. The men are depraved, and the women are worse. You must take good care to safeguard Sabina’s reputation; you know how she relishes adventure in such places.”

Oh, for gods’ sake.
Sabina rose, lifted her chin, and strode toward the door.

“I’m sure Sabina will be very useful to me,” Hadrian’s voice returned calmly. “We will have to maintain good relations with the Antiochenes, so I’m sure her particular brand of charm will not be wasted.”

“I’ll do my best!” Sabina put on her most dazzling smile as she floated into the triclinium. “Plotina, Titus, everyone—how lovely to see you all.”

Plotina froze in the act of reaching for a cake, as if she had been turned to stone inside her dark-blue
stola
. Titus’s eyebrows climbed slowly up his forehead. The other guests looked stunned. Hadrian, reclining on his own couch, had just lifted his cup to his lips when he glanced at Sabina to see what his guests were staring at. His mouthful of wine, Sabina was pleased to see, arced clear out across at least three feet of mosaic.

“What,” he said when he had stopped coughing, “is
that
?”

“You said we’ll need to maintain good relations with the Antiochenes.” Sabina blinked, innocent. “Don’t you like it? It’s the very latest fashion in Antioch. I always think it makes such a good impression to follow the local customs. Don’t you agree, Plotina?”

The thunderstruck eyes of Hadrian, Plotina, Titus, and a score of Rome’s most important senators, legates, officers, and officials traveled in unison from the kohl Sabina had painted in winged lines about her eyes to the heavy gold earrings that brushed her bare shoulders, to the copper snake armband coiled about one elbow, to the gown so tightly cut that her maid had had to stitch it around her body. The dress left one breast completely bare, and Sabina had painted the nipple with henna to match the designs stenciled on her hands and feet. Plotina averted her eyes with a little gasp. Titus quickly lifted his cup and took a gulp—hiding, Sabina was certain, a grin.

Hadrian’s voice was low. “What is the meaning of this?”

“We can’t have the Antiochenes thinking we Romans don’t know their ways, can we?” Sabina explained sweetly, turning a circle so they could see from all angles. The view from the left was particularly jaw-dropping. “They’re going to
love
me, Hadrian. And isn’t that why you married me? Because I’m so good at charming people of all places and stations?”

Hadrian opened his mouth. He closed it again. Plotina had flushed the color of a plum. “
Vibia Sabina
—” she began thunderously.

Sabina moved toward them with the rippling little steps that were
all her tight dress would allow, and saw Hadrian’s hovering secretary, the page boy with the wine, twelve servitors, and all twenty-four guests trying not to stare at her bare breast. She ignored them, reaching out to give Hadrian’s cheek a fond, wifely pat.

“Darling, you’re going to be so proud of me!”

“I’m sorry.” Sabina shook her head ruefully at Titus. “I invite you to a dinner party, and instead of a good meal all you get is a few stilted words and a lot of agonized silence.”

“One of the more memorable dinner parties of my career, Sabina—long on scandal, if short on conversation.”

She smiled. Hadrian stood rigid in the atrium, ushering out the last of his gleeful guests as Plotina murmured tortured courtesies at his side—but Sabina had seized Titus by the hand as he made motions toward leaving and dragged him out to the garden. “Let’s at least say a proper good-bye. I know
you’re
not in a rush to head out and tell everyone in Rome about my degenerate morals.”

“Isn’t that what you had in mind?” He eyed the dress, which she’d draped modestly with a shawl as soon as the dinner party limped to its conclusion and the rest of the guests were out of sight. “What are you up to, Vibia Sabina?”