Chapter X Trajan
X
TRAJAN
“She’s an energetic woman,” Koska explained as to why he hadn’t yet gotten the information I needed from Fausta’s slave.
“I see.” We walked down the narrow backstreet toward Euphemia’s shop. “No time for pillow talk after?”
“I am trying, Tribune. But our meetings have been brief and mostly near public places. Not enough time to talk.”
“I understand.” I handed him some coin from the pocket of my tunic. “Get a room next time. Perhaps then you can keep her there for more than one round?”
His face colored pink. “I will ask her.”
“You like her, Koska?” I teased.
His blush darkened as he gave a nod, smiling.
“Good. Then it isn’t really work, is it? And the information you’re getting won’t hurt her mistress either, I can promise you that.”
“Yes, Tribune.” He stopped outside the shop as he usually did.
But as I walked up the steps, I realized there were chains looping through the door handle and a knot on the wood of the frame, keeping it closed.
The sign above the door that read pharmakopoles was also gone.
I stared for a moment at the bolted door and shutters latched across the open window, wondering if Euphemia had been discovered.
If she’d been caught by Caesar’s guards.
A jolt of fear coursed through me, knowing she held valuable secrets in her care. Ones that could get not only me killed, but my grandfather and allies as well.
“She left.”
I jerked my head to the prostitute who’d offered her wares to me last time. She wandered closer, scantily clad as always, a simpering smile on her face.
“I can tell you more for a denarius.”
“Hefty price for information.”
She grinned wider. “This information will be worth it.”
Reaching in my pocket, I pulled out a silver coin and held it up. “What do you know?”
Her gaze was on the coin like a dog to a bone. “Euphemia, Thea, and the big man who never talks closed up shop yesterday.”
“That isn’t enough information for this.” I held the coin up higher.
“All I know is some man, I don’t know his name, but he worked at the port, came around earlier that morning. Then soon after, she was packing up and boarding her windows.”
“Did she say she was coming back?”
“She talked to my madame and said she would. Asked her to keep a watch over her place so no busybodies came to try and take the shop. She owns the property like my madame does here. Doesn’t rent it from these bastard landlords.”
Something caused Euphemia to leave suddenly. “How do you know the man who came was from the port?”
She cackled, looking at the other woman next to her. “Smelled like fish, didn’t he?”
The other prostitute, petite and skinny, giggled then added, “He’s one of my regulars. Tends to visit me after he’s gone to Euphemia’s.”
Could likely be the man in charge of medicines to carry for long voyages. But instinct told me it was more than that.
I turned to Koska and spoke in a low voice, “See if you can get a good description from her and try to find this man. When you do, don’t talk to him.
Just bring me any details you can find. What merchant he works for, if he stays on port or travels with the goods his merchant imports or exports, where he lives, anything. ”
“I will find him.”
He followed me toward the women, where I placed a silver denarius in each of their hands, their mouths gaping wide.
“This isn’t for any services rendered so no need to share with your madame. But I need you to describe Euphemia’s visitor to my man here. And if anyone else comes around asking for information about us, you’ll forget you ever saw us.”
“It’ll be hard to forget a pretty face like yours, domine, but that denarius will make my memory vanish completely.”
“Make sure that it does.”
I handed over both coins to the women and left Koska with them, winding my way quickly back out of the Aventine. I always used backstreets and dressed as informally as I could to blend in, a thin blue belt around my waist to signify who I was.
Using a litter or my horse would draw undue attention.
But I also couldn’t be found wearing commoner clothes to attempt to hide my identity.
I was just as likely to see someone who knew me.
The only suspicious thing I was doing was being here in the first place.
And I could easily say I was visiting the brothel next door to Euphemia’s. No one would blink an eye at that.
As I passed through an open plaza where a public fountain stood, I saw a mother showing her young daughter how to wash a tunic. When she caught sight of me, she instantly wrapped an arm around her daughter’s shoulder and pulled her close.
Of course she was wary of a dragon in her neighborhood. Though I wasn’t draped in a blue toga, my height and appearance was enough. Dragons were much taller and larger than human men.
It was to be expected she might fear me. Even so, I wished it weren’t necessary.
It made me think of one late afternoon after a decidedly bloody battle in Carthage when Julian and I spoke for the first time about a different kind of Rome. A new one that wasn’t riddled with war and death and fear.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world where armies weren’t constantly at war?” Julian asked.
“There will always be war.”
“True. But I’d rather fight for my people, to defend them, instead of fighting to enslave and ruin the lives of others.” He gestured toward the battlefield, bodies still burning from the circling deathriders’ fires. “What does all of this get us? What do we truly gain?”
“You’re thinking of your mother? She didn’t live a bad life though. You’d said her owners were kind people.”
He turned to me with that pensive stare of conviction only Julian could give and said, “Would it appease you knowing your mother had been enslaved and owned by kind people?”
He rarely spoke of his mother’s past. Until that moment, I’d never given true consideration to how I’d feel if it had been my mother.
“No,” I answered soberly. “It would not.”
It was the first time I looked beyond my own experience and thought of those beneath the yoke of the Roman Empire.
He wiped at the blood on his hands with a rag. “There must be something else, Trajan. Something besides misery and death.”
I walked faster through the busy streets, commoners going about their tasks of the day, buoyed by the memory.
Julian might be far away but my dearest friend’s goals had become mine.
And I wouldn’t let him down. Or our allies and all of those Romans who longed for a better Rome, even if they didn’t know it was possible, or necessary, or on the horizon.
Rounding another corner closer to home, I headed in the direction of Palatine Hill. Euphemia’s sudden departure was a bad sign. Something had spooked her. I needed to know who had and why.
Suddenly anxious to see Lela, to be sure she was safe, I quickened my pace. Right as I reached the last turn toward Palatine Hill, I caught sight of two praetorians in the red-and-black regalia of the emperor marching straight toward me.
“Tribune,” one of them called.
“Yes.” I slowed as they approached.
Wearing typically stern expressions and in full armor, they stopped in front of me. “Caesar requests your presence at the palace.”
“When?”
“Now.”
My dragon stirred. But rather than growl and hiss as he wakened, he spread a calm through my body and mind. My dragon was a hunter, and he knew when we were being hunted. He also kept me cool and poised when danger was near.
“Let us go then,” I said, walking ahead of them in the direction of the emperor’s palace.
Ignoring the stares of those we passed, I kept my chin up, my expression blank. It wasn’t always bad news when the emperor summoned you. Julian was summoned all of the time on important business. Though, he was Caesar’s nephew. I wasn’t.
Wishing I had some idea of what I was walking into, I pretended I wasn’t guilty of anything at all.
Even so, fear tried to snake its way in, flashing images of my grandfather beheaded on the emperor’s palace floor …
or Lela. The thought of her dead in a pool of her own blood at Caesar’s feet spiked a cold chill through my veins.
No. It couldn’t be.
I let my dragon senses take hold, needing the advantage to guide me in this encounter.
But I kept my claws and fangs back. Too much of the dragon showing as I entered the emperor’s palace would be seen as aggression toward Caesar.
I steeled myself for whatever I’d been summoned for and whatever I would find as we walked onto the white cobblestone drive closer to his home.
The praetorians followed behind me as I marched up the marble steps and past two other guards at the door. From here, I could hear a cry of someone in pain then the sharp crack of a whip. Another cry.
I didn’t have to ask or wait for the praetorians to lead me toward Caesar. The sounds were coming from his open courtyard, where he held his grand feasts and debauched orgies.
There were male voices conversing casually in between the sounds of the whip hitting its target.
Whoever it was. Preparing for the worst, I stepped out into the courtyard.
Noting there were several praetorians stationed in each corner—Caesar was paranoid and well guarded at all times since Julian’s betrayal and escape—I walked toward the two men standing at the center in front of the giant statue where their victim was chained.
I couldn’t see who it was from this angle.
The statue was grotesque—a giant sculpture of a dragon in half-skin and the likeness of Caesar with two dragon females in half-skin at his feet, looking up adoringly as he curled both hands around one of their horns, forcing them to worship him.
It was a flagrant message to all of those who came here.
That Emperor Igniculus was all-powerful, worthy of godlike worship.