Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIX
The party was a careful reflection of power and taste; swan-shaped lanterns floated in the impluvium and a thousand lamps turned the ceiling to white sky. Rome’s wealthiest lounged on ivory couches. Julia raised her eyes to the dais where her brother sat.
Even now, she was shaking with rage.
Honorius’s guards had all but dragged her to the banquet hall. They’d made her wear the green silk she’d tried to slip out of the city in; rumpled and stained. And all her jewelry. Honorius meant to make an example of her. He’d put her on a couch just below the dais, where everyone could see her. “ I know you plotted against me,” he hissed. “Now everyone will know you failed at it. Make a scene and I’ll humiliate you further.”
Already she could feel every eye on her, flaying her bare.
At least Honorius was not having any more fun at this party than she was. Above on the dais, he looked pinched and annoyed in his ill-fitting purple toga. His taster sat next to him, a man with a bald pate, dutifully taking bites from every plate offered her brother.
It had taken a great deal of effort to make contact with the one person who wanted her brother dead as much as she did. Atticus, her father’s steward, his back still sliced to ruins. He had reassured her. Killing Honorius was necessary , he’d said in his hushed, pained whisper. Honorius would be a tyrant.
Atticus had known exactly which of her brother’s bed slaves had the spine to help. Artemisia—a slim, dark-haired girl from Dacia who was secretly married to one of the guards. She wanted freedom, and this was the way to get it.
Artemisia would serve at her brother’s table. The poison was slow-acting; her brother would take it at the banquet and be dead by sunup. No one the wiser. Julia drew a breath. But where was Artemisia? She ought to be here by now. Meanwhile Stilicho sat at the other end of the table, bolt upright when he ought to be lounging, while Olympius worried at a plate of cheese. Julia stared at his pale, spindly fingers, his little pile of cheese, and felt a blind hatred.
“My poor little pheasant. Drink this.” It was Verina, pressing a small flask into her hand. “It is, ah—a bit augmented ,” she said in a hushed tone. “To take the edge off.”
Julia took a sip and felt that peachy glow of the Blue Lotus take hold; another sip and she could see nimbus rainbows around every torch. “You shouldn’t be here. My brother—”
“Will what? Put me in chains?” Verina laughed. “I have more freedom than the rest of these spineless cowards. I couldn’t watch you waste away without a drop to drink.” She grinned. “It’s ridiculous how tragedy agrees with you. Soon every well-heeled trollop will be wearing her hair half-undone and smudging her kohl. By the way, if you’re wondering why Honorius is out of sorts, it’s not you. At least, not entirely.” She paused significantly. “He’s late.”
“Who is late?” Belatedly, Julia remembered who this party was for. “Oh. Him. ” She understood how Alaric of the Goths must feel at a party like this, which was surely a sign of how far her life had unraveled. “I don’t blame him. We’re all here to gawk at him like a caged leopard. It’s distasteful.”
“At least the buzzards will soon have someone to gawk at besides you,” Verina said. “They say he eats Roman babies for breakfast and bathes in Roman blood every night. Exciting, don’t you think?”
“I am sure the great Alaric will be like most men surrounded by legend. Reeking of gharum and garlic, and not nearly as tall as you imagined.” She took another sip from the flask. This evening—the rest of her life, short as that might be—would be entirely more manageable if she was tipsy.
Just then, the heavy ceremonial doors gave a clank and began to swing open. Julia froze, wineglass half raised to her lips.
The villain from the alleyway stood on the threshold. Julia recognized him down to her toes: the shoulder-length bronze of his hair; the proud, fierce planes of his face. He stood with an intimidating group of Gothic warriors at his back, a crimson cloak flung over one broad shoulder, gold torques snaking around his biceps. His presence was a physical force. Everyone —musicians and dancing girls, Senators and their wives, Honorius—fell silent at his entrance.
His eyes cut in her direction for the barest second, bright and clear as glacier water. If he recognized her, he didn’t betray it. Not a flicker.
“Well. King of the Goths, at long last. Have you any idea of the hour?” Honorius’s voice was a sharp stone cast into the silence.
“I was told this was my celebration, Emperor.” An unnervingly attractive smile spread across his face. “Thus the hour is mine, whenever I choose to arrive.”
“It is customary to bow to your emperor,” Olympius said with open hostility.
Alaric said nothing. But his eyes shifted to Olympius, and something murderous rose in them that made Julia break out in a cold sweat.
“Emperor, if I may.” Stilicho came forward with arms outstretched. “You are well met no matter the hour, King of the Goths.”
Alaric’s expression didn’t change. But that flat gleam left his eyes and he stepped forward to meet Stilicho, who clasped his forearms and spoke low and hurried in his ear.
Julia caught her breath. It had been Alaric in that alley. The man who had terrorized all of northern Italy; who had chased the court into the swamp and driven her father into the ground. A man who commanded armies and starved cities and hung Romans he didn’t like on stakes, and who had stood in a muddy alley last night and toyed with her like a cat with a bit of string.
Her blood went cold at the thought of what he could have done to her.
* * *
It was that woman. The one from the alley. Amidst a crowd of smug-faced aristocrats, draped in jewels and silks, she was the only one he saw.
She was a courtesan. That was the only explanation for her lurking in alleys. And Honorius’s courtesan, of all unlikely things. She looked rumpled, as if Honorius had bedded her already. Alaric’s skin prickled. If she’d told the emperor where he’d been, there could be trouble.
“Bring this roof down around our ears and I will be extremely displeased,” Stilicho muttered darkly. “It sends a bad enough message that you’re late.”
“It sends just the message I meant to send.” Alaric relaxed into an easy swagger, careful not to look at the red-haired woman again. It took a surprising amount of willpower.
As he approached the dais, he took a swift inventory of the guards in the room. Most were clustered around the platform, protecting the boy emperor; a few were by the doors.
“So you are Alaric.” The son of Theodosius was pale as mutton fat; softer than his father. But the edge to his smirk said he was capable of cruelty. “The way my father described you, you were nine feet tall and breathed fire. Now here you are, and look at you.” Honorius gave a light little laugh. “Just a man.”
“It is men you should fear, Emperor. Not stories.”
Stilicho clapped him on the shoulder. “Come. You must regale us with tales of your time in my officers’ school.”
“Stilicho says you once killed a bear in the arena with your bare hands.” Honorius gave another of his high-pitched laughs. “I don’t believe it.”
Alaric’s jaw tightened. For a moment the banquet hall disappeared and he was back in that place, with the bear and the crowd and the summer heat rising thick off the sand. Unearthing that memory for this boy’s entertainment felt akin to pissing on the grave of his father.
But the old man expected nothing better of him than to lose his temper. Instead he could have this boy eating out of his hand if he wanted it. And then he could have anything.
So he flashed a smile for the son of Theodosius. “You are wise not to believe such a lie, Emperor,” he said. “I had a spear.”
The boy laughed and the entire court let out a collective exhale and he was in.
* * *
Of all the things she might have expected of Alaric of the Goths, Julia never thought he’d be charming .
He was trading war stories with Stilicho now. Teasing her brother—nobody ever teased Honorius—and flashing his teeth in a laugh that enthralled the banquet hall. Honorius was listening with rapt attention, and even Stilicho was beginning to unknit in his chair.
It set her teeth on edge, that someone so murderous could be that attractive. As if he had any right to exist without some disfiguring facial scar.
The scions of Rome had lost interest in her. Now they were watching Alaric. Some secretly—others brazenly—staring, ogling him, really. Most had lived through the sieges of Verona and Milan, when this man had been a figure of terror. Julia remembered the stories. The corpses tossed into the water supply. The dead prisoners lined up on stakes in full view of the walls. And always this man, King of the Goths, stalking the battle lines on his enormous black horse as if mayhem were his natural element. But now here he was, with his easy laugh and his flawless Latin and manners like a born aristocrat’s, and an entire court of his enemies looked ready to swear fealty. Julia didn’t trust this. Not an inch.
“Look at his etiquette.” Verina sounded slightly dazed.
Julia gave a bad-natured snort. “ That man is the reason we all live in a swamp.”
She had the uneasy feeling she was the only person who could see the violence simmering beneath the surface of Alaric’s charm. Behind his easy smile, he seemed to be contemplating snapping her brother in half and picking his teeth with the bones.
The great doors clanged open again, and Honorius rose from his couch. “An exchange of hostages,” he announced. “To guarantee our good intent.”
Soldiers appeared from behind the dais, flanking a group of Roman youths. Children from powerful families, clinging to the hands of nursemaids—children from families who had been at odds with her brother. While their parents dined, Honorius had sent soldiers to their homes to bring in their sons and daughters.
It would seem she wasn’t the only one Honorius sought to bring to heel.
Bromios was among the hostages. A bruise was blossoming along his jaw. He caught her eye and gave a barely perceptible shake of the head. She kept her face blank as a still pond.
Honorius’s soldiers escorted the hostages to the other end of the room, and Alaric’s fur-clad warriors surrounded them. Julia could have told him these were worthless hostages. Honorius would not care a fig about them. The children of his enemies would provide no surety.
The great doors behind the dais clanked open again and another brace of Roman soldiers appeared, with the hostages from Alaric’s side. There were only two of them—pale youths. Identical twins, dressed in barbarian furs, their blond hair spiked up with animal fat; identical toothy necklaces gleamed about their necks. Julia watched them walk to the front of the room, utterly ignoring the soldiers, and assume a carelessly lethal slump against the wall near the dais. Just a few dozen strides from where she sat.
Alaric was still lounging on his couch, looking slightly bored. But the blue eyes narrowed, just slightly, and suddenly the lethal tension beneath his relaxed demeanor intensified.
He’d been surprised by those hostages too. Interesting.
“You look positively sick with nerves,” Verina whispered. “Was the wine too strong?”
“No. As a matter of fact, I haven’t had enough.” It would seem her brother was attempting to play Alaric of the Goths the same way he was playing her .
Suddenly she was very intent on what was happening on the dais.
* * *
The twins. Fuck.
How had Stilicho gotten hands on the twins? The boys didn’t seem hurt. Not limping or favoring a side. But their gait said they were armed. At the hip, in the boot, and Horsa had one up his sleeve. Alaric held back a curse.
Stilicho was watching him carefully. It was just like the old man to pull a trick like this. Far harder to hold ground in negotiations when the other side holds a knife to the neck of your closest. But if he betrayed his fear, he’d put the twins in danger.
So he shifted his attention back to the conversation as if it didn’t matter to him in the least. “And then he threw that spear from halfway across the arena,” Stilicho was saying. “It skewered the bear in the heart and the animal fell down dead.”
Honorius’s eyes went wide as dinner plates.
“It wasn’t so heroic as all that,” Alaric said lazily. “That bear was sick and starving and only half-grown.”
“Killing a bear of any size and condition is a feat for an adolescent boy. And I knew talent when I saw it.” Stilicho smiled indulgently. “I stood up and claimed him for my officers’ school.”
“And he regretted it ever since,” Alaric added, glancing casually across the banquet hall. Thorismund glowered by the servant’s passage, the slave girls giving him a wide berth. Riga had gotten hold of a leg of mutton and seemed completely absorbed in it. Both near enough to the twins to react to any trouble. Meanwhile, there were enough of his own with the hostages to hold the doors, if only for a few minutes. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
“I wonder, Alaric,” Honorius mused, “how you wound up in that arena in the first place.”
Alaric felt his skin tighten. The question brought with it the mines, the crushing darkness of those tunnels. The smell of blood and the raw sight of men’s whipped backs.
“I was a slave,” he said flatly. “I killed my master with a length of chain.”
“That is a serious crime. Murder. By all rights, you ought to have faced justice.”
“Perhaps you would have a different concept of justice , Emperor, if you had ever been a slave.”
A sudden, brittle silence. Stilicho spoke hastily, “Perhaps the time has come to discuss what we might achieve together. Alaric, Honorius stands ready to honor his father’s promises. And Honorius, with Alaric’s aid, you could unite the Empire again. Let us talk in peace.”
An ugly laugh rose up from the opposite side of the table. It was the one who’d told Alaric to bow. Olympius. He sat with his shoulders hunched over a platter of eel pie, hatred tangible as tar. “You’ll get no aid from the King of the Goths, Emperor,” Olympius said, setting his teeth into a slice of eel. “He turned on us.”
Stilicho looked at him coldly. “The landscape has changed, Olympius.”
“I see the same landscape as always. The one this man ravaged twice in three years. No other wades so deep in blood as this man.” Olympius’s mouth curved in an ugly smirk. “Goths do not stay loyal.”
Alaric felt his hand clench around his wine cup. So this was the wealthy advisor with his hands in all the pies. Stilicho’s enemy, husband to Honorius’s sister. “As if your people have anything to teach mine about loyalty.”
Olympius’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Watch your tongue, traitor.”
“Watch your own. Lest it strangle you.”
“Still your talk. Both of you,” Honorius said. “All this talk of honor and homelands and promises. Any more of this and I’ll stab out my own eye.” He glared at Olympius. “You have a lot of opinions for a man who’s never been to war. And you , Stilicho—you created this monster and you have yet to make peace with it.” He turned to Alaric. “So let us leave this conversation to the two at this table with the power to agree on something.”
Despite himself, Alaric laughed. The steel in the boy was a surprise. Who would have thought he’d be pleased to see the ghost of that sour old fanatic Theodosius.
“Your move, Honorius,” he said quietly. “Tell me how you plan to buy me.”
* * *
Julia slouched on the sofa, chewing absently on a piece of fattened fowl.
Where was Artemisia? It had been hours . The second course had come and gone, along with a troupe of lithe acrobats and a recitation of Virgil. Through it all, Alaric and her brother passed treaty terms back and forth. They were talking infrastructure now, grain tributes and conscription. Julia listened intently. Being near Alaric was like sitting next to lightning forced still. He spoke quietly, but Julia didn’t miss the way everyone fell silent to hear him.
Alaric did realize that strip of land along the Danube that Honorius was trying to foist on him was a war zone, did he not? Accepting settlement there would simply be putting his people between Rome and the Huns. Not that he had asked her .
She had a bad feeling about what might happen when Alaric finally realized Honorius would never give him what he wanted.
“The hostages seem terribly bored,” Verina said, nodding at those strange twins. “That one looks like he’s about to fall asleep.” They didn’t look sleepy to her . They occupied space the way Alaric did, lounging casually, inches from putting a dagger in someone’s throat.
Suddenly two pairs of eyes were on her. Their faces were young, but their eyes seemed ancient, corpse-pale and empty of pity. The farther one laid a finger on his lips; a solemn warning. The closer bared his teeth and pulled his finger across his own throat.
Julia shuddered and looked away.
* * *
“That is all very well,” Honorius was saying. “But I’m afraid no matter where you settle, our terms must include conscription.”
“My people have already paid in blood. Choose another currency.”
“We’ve offered you terms that include a tribute, in grain or gold. Surely you understand that I cannot simply break off a chunk of the Empire and hand it to you, absent any terms at all.”
“I don’t see why not,” Alaric said mildly. “This is land taken from my people to begin with. All I ask is an allotment of it back.” He would not bargain away his people’s freedom to save his own skin. But the twins were a knife to his neck.
A glossy-haired girl appeared with a cup of wine on a tray. Her eyes fell to Alaric and she halted in her steps. The look she gave him was one of recognition. She was dark for a Tervingii, but Alaric would have to be blind not to recognize one of his own.
Honorius’s cup had emptied and Alaric signaled the slave girl to refill it. A silent acknowledgment.
“Be reasonable, Alaric,” Stilicho broke in. “You are asking us to allow a hostile force to settle en masse within our borders. The Senate will never stand for it.”
“The Senate cannot afford to make an enemy of me, old man.” Alaric let the friendly pretense drop away and the words came hard and flat as millstones. “Give my people land they can live on, and do not crush them with taxes or spend their lives in conscription. In exchange, I offer you peace in the east. A peace I intend to keep.”
“Strong words for a king with no kingdom.” Olympius’s words dripped contempt. “He threatens us, Honorius. He is the reason we don’t have peace in the east to begin with. He threatens to pillage if we do not deal to his liking.”
“Gentlemen, please.” Stilicho’s warm, calming voice rolled over the sudden tension. “We are all willing to fight and die for our subjects, and for that we need each other’s strength. That is why—”
“Tell the truth, Stilicho,” Olympius snapped. “You’ve been in league with Alaric for years. Secretly splitting the spoils of war.” He leaned into Honorius’s ear. “Haven’t you noticed how many times Alaric escaped Stilicho’s justice? In Thrace, in the hills of Verona, and again on the plains of Milan? Suspicious, don’t you think?” His mouth curved like a scythe.
Honorius held quiet. One raised finger from him, and they’d be dragged off to molder in a cell. Alaric watched the emperor, waiting to see in which direction the boy would sway.
In the silence, Honorius’s taster turned purple, blood foaming at his mouth.
* * *
Julia watched in horror as the taster slumped forward on the table, his face foaming into his plate of fattened fowl.
This wasn’t the plan.
Artemisia had put the poison in the wine . Julia had told her to put it in the water ; the taster would taste the wine but not the water that went in after. And she’d used the wrong dosage. How could this have gone so wrong?
“Arrest him!” Olympius rose to his feet, pointing furiously at Alaric. “Did you see that signal he gave the slave girl? Arrest him. He tried to poison the emperor!”
Chaos erupted. At the far end of the room, the great double doors slammed shut, and the room descended into panic. Amidst the mayhem, Alaric rose to his feet, and Julia saw his next move as if he had already done it. He would take her brother hostage.
She had a better idea. The enemy of her enemy would be her friend, whether he liked it or not.
“Isn’t this exciting ?” Verina’s eyes had gone bright with bloodthirst.
“Verina, go under the table and don’t come out until this is over.” Julia took one last, long gulp of her wine—she was not drunk enough for this—and snatched up a silver table knife.
Then she ran up the dais steps, dodging the soldiers.
* * *
Alaric lunged, shoving the table out of the way. The guards were rushing up the stairs but they wouldn’t reach Honorius before he did.
Suddenly the redheaded courtesan planted herself in his path. Stupid. He could have cut through her like wind through a curtain. But her interference had had its intended result. In a blink, the centurions had the boy surrounded. His chance lost.
She pushed sharp-edged metal into his hand. “I presume you know what to do with this.”
Alaric looked down at her and smiled. He damn well did.
He hauled her close and put the knife to her throat. He could feel every curve of her through the gown she wore; the scent of roses and wine filled his senses. Lust thundered through him, strong and fierce as battle fury, threatened his concentration.
In less than an instant, they were both surrounded by a ring of steel.
Alaric shifted his gaze to Honorius, the boy’s mutton-fat face white with shock. “Best call off your guards,” he said quietly. “Else someone might get hurt.”
Stilicho roared across the dais. “Of all the stupid things you could possibly do at a time like this, Alaric—”
Honorius waved a hand. “Take her. You’ve no idea the trouble she causes.”
Alaric gave a bored shrug. “If that’s the way you want it—”
He applied a little pressure with the knife. Just enough to make the woman flinch. The boy’s jaw tightened and Alaric wondered what he’d do if Honorius didn’t make his guards back off. Cut this woman’s throat in the middle of the banquet hall? Fuck.
Then, to his immense relief, Honorius gave the nod. His centurions backed off down the dais. “Make them throw their blades in that pool with the asinine swans in it.” Alaric indicated the lamplit impluvium . “And then stand facing the far wall. Now. ”
Stilicho gave the orders. Then came the clank of sword belts being unfastened, metal hitting water. The silence that followed was immediate and breakable as glass.
Stilicho broke it. “You are not a villain, Alaric. You do not kill defenseless women.”
“On the contrary. I believe the world would be vastly improved with one less silly Roman wench in it.” There was no point in negotiating now. He’d never get his homeland on the terms he wanted. Threat was all he had. The woman, meanwhile, was resting her entire weight on his foot now. Which was outrageous, considering this had all been her idea. It was petty revenge that made him pull her closer, his breath fanning against the concubine’s throat. “Imagine this beautiful woman is your city, Honorius, and this knife is my army.” His breath raised her skin in tiny pebbles. “You’ve allowed me to bring fifty of my best men up to your gates. Gates that are rotting and undermanned. If I don’t make it out of this palace alive, my men outside will ravage this city like a dog ravaging a carcass. And my army will sweep over the mountains within the week and wreak their revenge.”
“No, they won’t,” Olympius spat. “Your people are starving and fractured, and hardly in shape to stand against us.”
Alaric grinned. “You’re right, they are hungry. They’d rip the meat off your bones the quickest, Olympius.” By all the gods, if they wanted a barbarian, he would give them one. He dragged the blade up the woman’s neck, lightly tracing her skin from collarbone to jawline, fascinated by the color that rose high and fevered on her cheekbones. “My knife is at your throat, Honorius. Just like this.” The woman’s pulse danced like a trapped butterfly beneath her skin.
“You will have safe passage,” Stilicho said quietly. “I guarantee that. Let her go.”
“I don’t think so.” Alaric tightened his arm around the concubine’s ribs, drawing her down the steps. “She comes with me. If anyone looks at us wrong, I’ll slit her throat myself.”
“You’ll be dead in a day, barbarian,” Olympius spat.
“I doubt that.” He laughed—pure, reckless bravado—as his own men surrounded him. “I hardly need a weapon to grind you down, Honorius. Surrender your arms and hide.”