Empress of the Seven Hills (50 page)

“Don’t know.” He turned the block over, optimistic. “I could make blocks, for the new baby?”

“You’re a gem, Antinous.” Mirah massaged the bulk under her apron. “Ooof, he’s kicking like a mule.”

“Sounds like it hurts.” I winced.

“Not a bit; it’s thrilling. Just means the baby will be big and strong.” She patted her stomach again, proudly. “Hannibal might be a good name for this one.”

“I thought I’d name him after Trajan,” I suggested. “Or one of his names, anyway. Marcus Ulpius Trajan—”

“No son of mine is being named Ulpius!” Mirah reached around her own bulk to unlace her shoes. Her belly might be up under her chin, but she carried it with all her usual quick energy. No graceless waddling for my wife: Heat, sand, spiders, and hardship hadn’t managed to slow her down, and neither did carrying a child.

“What about Marcus, then?” I pulled her feet into my lap. “That’s not a bad name for a boy. And I knew another Marcus besides Trajan, a senator who gave me my start in the legions in the first place. That’s a good pair of men for any boy to be named after.”

“I don’t know if I want to name a child of mine after a Roman emperor.” Mirah winced pleasurably as my fingers began to massage her little arched feet. “I know you adore Trajan, Vix, but have you even heard what’s happening outside Parthia?”

“Of course I have. I get all Titus’s letters, don’t I, and he always knows everything going on.” Titus had some new public office back in
Rome and was apparently much relied upon. The bugger had gone and gotten important on me, but his letters read just the same as ever. He still quoted philosophers I hadn’t read and told me I was a savage for drinking unwatered wine.

“All this unrest with the Jews he talked about in his last letter,” Mirah was saying. “In Cyrenaica, Cyprus, Alexandria. Grumbling everywhere, and according to Titus, all Trajan does is send troops in to squash things.”

“Stops the grumbling, doesn’t it?”

“For now.” Mirah groaned as my thumbs pressed her heels. “All your precious Emperor wants is the rest of the world to stand still and not bother him so he can go conquering on till the end of time. That’s who you want our son to be?”

“A man like Trajan? Yes.”

“Trajan has his head in the sand, and so do you,” Mirah said. “You’re both living in a dream, out here on the edge of the world. People have their own troubles all over Rome. And even Trajan can’t squash trouble just by sending troops down to step on it.”

“It’s worked so far.”

Mirah gave me the one-sided flick of a smile that meant she thought I was a fool but would let me get away with it. I liked provoking that smile sometimes, just for fun.

“We don’t have to name the baby after Trajan,” I conceded. “You’re the one pushing him out, so I reckon you can be the one to name him.” Maybe that would soften her up for the inevitable fight about the
brit
ceremony. I was all for tradition; Mirah and I kept Shabbat at the end of every week when I wasn’t away fighting, and I said the prayers with her for a half a dozen more religious festivals throughout the year. But ancient ceremony or no, nobody was getting anywhere near my son’s groin with a knife when he was only eight days old.

Little Dinah abandoned her wooden horse and came crawling over, latching onto my sandal. I leaned down and lifted her up with one hand,
balancing her on Mirah’s stomach. “Feel that, little girl? That’s your brother kicking.”

“He’s trying to kick his way out,” Mirah complained happily. “Thank God this baby will be born in a bed.”

As things turned out, it wasn’t.

After the Saturnalia celebrations, I hauled my men up for drills. I bellowed at Boil for a while for letting the century get rusty just because we were wintered up, and then I let everyone pair off and go through their paces while I tossed Antinous my
gladius
. “Let’s see if you’re as rusty as the men,” I said. “Drill number five.”

“Been practicing,” he assured me, and I stood back with folded arms and watched him swing through the patterns. His wide brown eyes were narrowed in concentration as he swung the sword. Too heavy a weapon for a boy his age, but he’d grow into it. I’d been even younger when my father started training me. Antinous was nine now, still pretty-faced, but he fought his good looks as hard as he could. He nurtured his scrapes devotedly, hoping they’d turn into scars, and he’d stolen my dagger so he could shear his curly hair down to a half inch. “Let’s see them call me a girl now,” he’d said, showing me his ragged scalp.

“I must say, he’s gotten tougher,” Mirah approved. “He used to wilt like a plucked flower when the other children teased him for looking so pretty. Now he just starts swinging.”

“You don’t mind mopping up his bloody noses and scraped knees?”

“Of course not. It’s a hard world; every boy should know how to defend himself. Especially one who looks like that.”

But Antinous didn’t really look much like a girl anymore. He was a skinny, scrappy, scabby-kneed little soldier who swung my sword like a veteran. “Again, twice as slow,” I called out. “You’re already fast, now we build your stamina—”

That was when the ground started to swing under my feet. For a moment I wondered if I was drunk, but the other men were reeling too, and I heard shouts of alarm. The earth bucked and I dropped to my knees, hearing the splinter of glass somewhere. I clutched at the ground with both fists, trying to hang on to the cobbles, and my men were all doing the same. I heard the crash of masonry, of stones falling. It was an age before the ground stilled.

“What,” I breathed, looking up, “was that?” At my side, Antinous was looking up cautiously. He’d dropped to the ground in a ball but kept a firm grip on my sword.

“Just an earthquake,” one of my scouts volunteered. He was on his feet already, dusting his hands off. The rest of us stayed huddled where we were, staring warily at the ground. “The earth trembles. Quite common where I come from, near Pompeii. No one pays attention to them back home, unless it’s a big one.”

“Not too comforting,” I shot back. “Considering that Pompeii’s just a heap of ash and rubble!” Warily I stood up. I wanted to stay down and possibly mutter a prayer or two, as little Antinous and half my men were doing, but a centurion had to set an example.

Another roar of falling stone sounded. “Now the buildings start falling down,” the Pompeiian added cheerfully. “My father was a builder—he said earthquakes were always good for the building trade, since half the houses fall down and have to be rebuilt. Centurion, where are you going?”

I was sprinting for a horse, and Antinous was right on my heels.

The Emperor, I heard later, narrowly escaped dying. A roof caved in on him, but he managed to jump out of a window, though one of his visiting consuls was crushed by a falling beam. A great many others were killed too in the collapsed wreckage: dignitaries from Rome, Antiochene officials, visiting embassies. I heard screams from people trapped in their fallen houses, but I never stopped.

Until I rounded a corner and saw that nothing was left of the tenement where I’d left Mirah and our daughter but a heap of rubble.

SABINA

Sabina’s reed sandals made no sound on the path, but Hadrian spoke without turning to face her. “How did you like Egypt?”

“Beautiful.” She halted beside him where he stood in the shade of a laurel tree, hands clasped behind his back as he stared at the glassy surface of the little spring. “I took a barge down the Nile like Queen Cleopatra. And I stayed in Alexandria, Bubastis, Karnak—”

“Yes, Plotina sent me word of your… exploits.”

“For such a virtuous woman, Plotina has a fevered imagination.”

Hadrian’s eyes lifted from the pool at his feet and traveled deliberately over Sabina from top to toe. “Aren’t you cold?” He eyed the thin linen shift stopping well short of her ankles, the ankh pendant looped about her throat, the golden tan she’d picked up riding a camel to see the great pyramids where the old pharaohs had been buried.

“The cold feels lovely after Egypt.”

“You should still cover yourself like a decent woman. And what’s
that
?”

“This is Neferu.” Sabina scratched the slim neck of the cat in her arms. Hadrian’s ever-present pair of hunting hounds whined, and the cat stretched her elongated body and hissed at them. She had sleek dark fur, a haughty triangular face, and huge ears pierced with gold hoop earrings.

Hadrian ran a hand down Neferu’s long back; she purred and arched into his fingers. Horses and dogs adored Hadrian, Sabina had noticed often enough—she wasn’t surprised that cats did too. “I’ll never understand why the Egyptians put earrings on their cats,” he observed.

“Neferu’s a sacred cat. A gift from the priest at the Temple of Bastet when I stayed for the rites in Bubastis.”

Hadrian’s brows contracted. “More orgies and strange rituals?”

“Actually, I was trapped for two weeks when the Nile flooded unexpectedly, and I pitched in to help gather the harvest before it could
spoil. The priests invited me to their rites afterward, in thanks.” Sabina lifted scornful brows. “And since when is any god
you
haven’t heard of automatically worshipped with an orgy? You didn’t use to be so provincial, Hadrian.”

He gave her a cold glance but returned his eyes to the spring. Sabina tickled Neferu’s chin, gazing about. The Gardens of Daphne were famous: a walled gorge a few miles from Antioch, studded with laurel and cypress groves even in the winter, artful cascades of water spilling between the sculpted banks. Sabina could hear soft voices and pattering footsteps as Antiochene couples idled the winding paths. But Hadrian stood alone, staring into the spring.

“The steward says you spend a great deal of time here,” she said. “The few hours you’re not working.”

He ignored her. “
Will I go to Egypt someday?
” he whispered, not to Sabina, and tossed a small coin into the spring. He crouched down, watching intently as the water’s calm surface rippled.

“So what is the all-seeing Castallian Fount telling you this time?” Sabina put just a touch of mockery into her voice.

“The ripples tell me I will visit Egypt.” Hadrian’s eyes never blinked as he watched the pool smooth to glass again. “But not for some years, which is a pity. I would like to see the Nile in flood. And I’ve long thought the style of their buildings interesting. The hypostyle hall I’ve heard about, in the Temple of Amun at Karnak—I may add such a hall to my villa, when I finally build it.”

He had not spoken so civilly to Sabina in more than a year.
Then again, I’ve hardly spent more than two weeks of that year in his company.
If her husband would rather sit hunched over his ambitions than travel the world, Sabina had no intention of following suit. She rather thought she might go to Epidaurus next. The Asclepeion was famous; people came from all over the world to be healed there of their ills.
I could work in the dream hall with the sacred snakes; see if the priests are really bilking the pilgrims out of their money for false cures. If they are, I’ll write Trajan in a heartbeat and put a stop to it…

“I haven’t heard you talk about your villa in a long time,” Sabina said finally. If Hadrian could be civil, she was more than happy to follow suit. “Are you finally going to begin building?”

“When I have the funds. When I am Emperor.”

Sabina nudged away the hounds who were now sniffing at Neferu’s dangling tail. “Still nursing impossible hopes, I see.”

“Impossible?” Hadrian looked over his shoulder with that superior expression that always made her fingers itch. “The Castallian Fount assures me it is inevitable.”

“It’s a pool of water.” Sabina’s voice was blunt. “You are dreaming if you think Trajan will make you his heir.”

“What do you know about it? My efforts have been invaluable to his campaign; without me his legions would have no supplies—”

“Yes, and I’m sure he’ll give you a clap on the back and another consulship when he’s done. But not the Empire.”

“Plotina assures me—”

“Plotina isn’t here to whisper in Trajan’s ear. I am, though. Even off in Egypt, I wrote Trajan letters every month, and I’ll bet he reads mine with more pleasure than Plotina’s. Unlike her, I make him laugh. What do you think we laugh about? Or rather, who?”

Hadrian whipped about with his hunter’s speed, raising one hand. Neferu lifted her pointed face from Sabina’s arm and hissed.

“Hit me if you like,” Sabina said. “I’ll show Trajan the bruise. I’m to dine with him this evening. He invited me. Did he invite you?”

Hadrian lowered his hand. His face was expressionless. “You will regret this, Vibia Sabina.”

“When you’re Emperor?” Sabina turned, skirting the dogs, and glided away. “You talk to your puddle about that, and I’ll talk to the Emperor. Let’s see which of us has better luck.”

VIX

It was two days before I found them.

I tore at the heap of stones with my bare hands. Boil pitched in silently beside me, his voice subdued as he organized my men into teams. They worked at my side, joining forces to shift some chunk of rock too big to move alone. Antinous mutely moved whatever stones were small enough for him to lift. I ignored them all, digging frantically through the heap of stone and wood and brick that had been a tenement building. Four stories had all come crashing down, and dear God, my Mirah had been on the bottom. I found the still and battered body of a woman, and my heart hammered, but it was an old woman; her hair only looked red because it was bloody. The woman’s daughters wailed, and I realized there were more people digging through the wreckage, neighbors of mine who had lived in the rooms above or beside me, looking for their buried families. All through the city, people were digging and calling for husbands, sisters, children. There were looters all through the city too, men combing the wreckage for valuables. I saw a young man eagerly searching the pockets of a woman with a crushed leg lying in the street—sifting through her clothes, ignoring her whimpers of agony. I came up silently behind the young man and snapped his neck between my hands. Antinous stared at me, but I couldn’t find a word to say.