Chapter Five
CHAPTER FIVE
So this is what fear is.
Real fear. Julia felt as if she was floating above herself, watching the guards march a stiff-backed woman to her quarters, cloaked in middling wool. Walking as if going to her death.
The guards escorted her into the palace and locked her in her chambers. Julia paced to keep from collapsing in fear. They had Cornelius. She could only hope Bromios had escaped.
Perhaps they’d rounded up that villain who’d nearly accosted her in the alley. Perhaps she could blame it all on him. She could say he’d kidnapped her—that Cornelius had happened by and rescued her—in the middle of the night, alone without his entourage, in a part of town he had no reason to go to—no. It would never work.
What would her fate be? A messy public garroting? Rape before that, since it was against policy to execute virgins, and technically she still was one. Julia sagged onto the couch. Stop thinking such things. It doesn’t help.
Perhaps if she took a nap, she’d wake up and find this was all a bad dream.
She slept for hours, until a crashing at the door woke her. Her brother’s soldiers. Honorius had summoned her.
* * *
Of all the terrible punishments, Julia never imagined Honorius would subject her to the Games. How diabolical.
She had always, always hated the Games.
Honorius wasn’t even here yet. Julia slumped in the Imperial box, wilting in the afternoon heat. She wanted it over with. The public sentencing, the garroting, the exile. Surely that would not be as bad as this horrid anticipation. She pulled the hood of her fine embroidered cloak up over her hair as the weight of twenty thousand gazes settled upon her. The whispers hit her like a wave.
She would not let them see her rattled.
Down in the arena, someone had tied a man to a stake, his paunch hanging white and pillowy over the rim of his loincloth. Three lionesses paced around him in eerie silence, underfed but gloriously lethal. One raised a paw in a leisurely swipe. A red line opened in the man’s ample stomach. A loop of glistening pink innard fell out.
Suddenly her stomach was doing its best to claw its way up her throat.
A trumpet blast made her start. A stream of wine pourers and fan bearers entered the box, followed by Honorius in a snowy-white toga lined in Imperial purple. The crowd roared and Honorius held up a hand in acknowledgment.
“Dear Julia. Forgive my lateness.” His lips curled in a cold smile as he settled into his chair. “I hope you are enjoying the special games I arranged for you.”
The man below was still alive; shrieking like wind through a keyhole. Julia maintained a careful, tight-lipped mask. “It’s hardly a mystery how I feel about these things.”
“Perhaps I see your point. The man knows he’s going to die. The least he could do is refrain from being dramatic about it.” Honorius raised a finger and one of the slaves handed around chilled wine. “Have some refreshment. This heat is vile.”
Thank the gods. Now at least, there was wine. Julia took a cup, trying to seem unbothered. Under no circumstance could she show fear, or concern about her friends. He would hurt them only to hurt her.
“And what about the next act?” Julia asked, as if this was all some light amusement. “Am I to be thrown to the beasts before the whole city?”
“Give me some credit. I am not so uncivilized as that. Besides, if you died in the arena, you’d miss my banquet tonight.” Those words struck her with an unreasoning fear. What would happen at this banquet? Honorius gave her a direct look. “I’m in a bind, Julia. My advisors are warring over their place as the true power behind the throne. But I wish to be the power behind my own throne. Stilicho has the army, and armies can be bribed, but Father depleted the treasury to fight his endless wars. Olympius is very rich. I need that money to turn the army’s loyalty to me . Then I will be untouchable.” He frowned. “You almost ruined that for me.”
Below, the man had finally met his fate. Slaves removed his body and tried to beat the lionesses back into their cages. One took a swipe at a slave that sent him screaming and reeling across the arena; the crowd howled its delight. A troupe of men with rakes turned over the bloody sand.
There was a fanfare, and a man stepped through the doors of life, holding a long spear. A heavy helmet hid his face.
“I hope you enjoy this next act, Julia. At first I thought lions, but there were lionesses in the act just preceding. Then I thought bears, but bears are terribly slow and boring. And then I had an inspiration.” Honorius glanced idly at her. “I hardly need remind you of the symbolism.”
A door opened and five wolves came bounding out, tongues lolling. The man began to run, the crowd howling. A wolf nipped at his heels; he gave an unbalanced swipe with the spear. The oversize helmet tumbled into the sand.
Cornelius.
Julia’s hands clenched. “Honorius, please. Don’t do this.” Her throat was a desert; no amount of wine would help. “It was all my idea. He didn’t even know. Show mercy.”
“This is mercy, Julia,” Honorius said mildly. “By all rights, you both should be dead. Many will believe me weak for sparing your life. Perhaps even Alaric will, which is why I’ve waylaid all his spies.” He glanced at her, gray eyes hard beyond his years. “But I will not be the emperor who executed his own sister just weeks into his reign. Father would roll in his grave. You will not make me regret that decision, will you?”
A sob broke in her throat. “No, Honorius.”
“I think it prudent that we move up the date of your wedding. Say, to the kalends.”
A week away. Julia felt her options narrowing to a single terrifying point.
“Are you watching? I went to great effort to arrange this for you. Praxis, make her watch.” The burly slave put a hand on either side of her head, pointing her gaze down at the scene below. “Watch,” her brother said in her ear. “Watch everything .”
* * *
Her rooms were empty when she returned. Her women had vanished. Julia knew why. She was a sinking ship, to be abandoned or die.
She stalked on trembling legs through the soaring rooms. Past the marble-edged pool. Past the perfumed gardens, tall braziers staining the mosaics in light. She fell to her knees beside a low silken sofa, pressing her hands to her eyes as if she could tear them out.
Cornelius had died screaming, his throat ripped open, his blood soaking the sand.
My fault. All my fault. She rose and her hand closed around the long, iron stem of a brazier; sent it tumbling, glowing coals skittering across the floor. A priceless vase went next. Red Hercules fighting the hydra against a background of black, sailing into the marble wall. Julia felt exactly like the vase. Like a thousand sharp, tiny pieces of something that used to be whole.
There was wine on the side table. Her slaves had abandoned her, but at least the wine had stayed loyal. Julia poured herself a cup and flung it at the wall. The sticky mess at her feet was gory and expansive. She’d never be able to look at anything red again.
She drank the next cup, though. And the one after that, and the one after.
* * *
After drinking the rest of the wine, she went to the bath.
Everyone knew there was a proper order to the baths, cold then tepid then hot. Julia wanted scalding always, first to last. Her grand, columned private caldarium was big enough for a hundred and all for her. She sat alone in the hot water, steam rising up to drift among the columns, filled with a sort of weightless calm. The kind that only came after she’d cried herself dry and broken everything within reach that would shatter.
If Agathe was here, she would offer a massage. Scented oils. It was just as well. Julia didn’t want to be petted and soothed. Didn’t want to emerge from this bath the same. Cornelius was dead and she was the reason; that was real, and she couldn’t drown it or drink it away.
If she had been born a man, she’d have inherited an Empire. Instead Honorius had given her away like so much cheap currency. She was nothing but a latrones piece, pretty and powerless, to be moved or sacrificed at the player’s whim. The thought made her curl her hands around the beveled edges of the bath in anger, fingers pressed white into stone.
It was time she became a player.
* * *
Her attendants hadn’t taken the linen, but they had taken the silk— all of it. Her wardrobe, her shoes, the golden statue of Cleopatra her mother had given her. Not the latrones board—it was too heavy to carry—but they had stripped the silken sheets from the bed. Thieves. They hadn’t taken her jewelry, only because she’d been wearing it. Julia opened her jewelry cabinet and probed for the compartment, heard the click of the little latch—and a hidden door gave way.
Julia thrust fingers in and gave a sigh of relief. It was still there. Her little golden box.
All emperors had them, and everyone in the Imperial family if they had any intelligence. Insurance in case everything went to hell. Julia opened the box with trembling hands, and saw the little green bottle inside. Aconite, distilled to its most potent state. A drop would kill an ox.
Cornelius and red, rending death filled her sight. It had to be done. She wanted to feed this spark of fury until it became fire and burned to ash everything in her that was soft or scared.
And she knew exactly who she could call on for help.