“He’d still cut your hand off if he felt like it,” Vix said. “Don’t you forget that.”
The Emperor halted his horse, lifting his face to the sky. He sat easy and erect in his saddle, reins looped through his brown fingers, massive spear with its glittering point behind his shoulder. His bare dark head rode taller than any of the guards at his side, his curly hair and purple cloak stirred in the warm air, and his broad chest expanded contentedly as he sniffed the morning breeze. “Hah,” Antinous heard him say to no one in particular. “Good hunting weather!”
The thought of losing a hand made Antinous flex his fingers rather gratefully, but he couldn’t help saying, “I don’t really blame him, you know. He had a perfect right to punish me if he wanted.”
Vix lifted a reddish brow. “You have no gift for grudges.”
“You have enough for the both of us,” Antinous teased.
The Emperor kicked his horse ahead, and his entourage fell in behind: guards, huntsmen, grooms, courtiers trying desperately to look as though they enjoyed all this muddy exertion. Antinous followed his father as he gave the nod to the other Praetorians enveloping the Emperor in a phalanx of spear points. The path climbed, tracking into the wooded hills, and when the Emperor kicked into a gallop, Antinous was only too glad to give his horse its head. To be outside again after droning tutors and stuffy rooms—Antinous inhaled it all, the smells of pines and animal musk, rocks and leaf mold and moss, overlaid by the sweat of the horses, the yammering of the dogs, the creak of leather and chinking sound of armor as the hounds began to cast for a scent.
“See that man over there?” Antinous gave a nod to where the Emperor had pulled up his stallion and leaned back in the saddle to address someone beside him. “The one next to the Emperor, patting his own hair back into place? He’s the one I stole the spear from.”
“Lucius Ceionius.” Vix snorted. “He’s a fool. Always playing a part. He told me he’s Actaeon the Hunter today—a stag-skin cloak for him, just like the myth, and those two slave girls he never goes anywhere without are supposed to be Huntresses of Artemis.”
“Just the thing to bring along on a bear hunt,” Antinous agreed. “Matched blondes in green silk and crescent moon embroidery.”
“Don’t know why, but the women adore him.” Vix looked grimly amused. “The man’s charmed his way through half the beds in Rome.”
“Including the Imperial couch?” Antinous laughed. “I can see him flirting with the Emperor all the way from here!”
“No. Even Lucius Ceionius wouldn’t go so far as the Emperor’s bed.”
“Why not?”
He felt his father looking at him. “He might parade his pretty profile if it gets him Hadrian’s favor, but he wants to be consul someday. Maybe even Imperial heir. He’ll never get that if he’s the Imperial bum-boy.”
“Of course not.” Antinous fiddled with his horse’s mane. In the paedogogium, of course, things had been different—you still counted as a boy there, free to go look for girls at the local whorehouses, or have a sweaty post-gymnasium fumble with one of your fellow students. Antinous had done both, but it all just made him more lonely. The brothel girls were hard-eyed, and the boys desperate to prove something.
Maybe I’m still a boy, then, Antinous thought. Because I am desperate to prove something. Prove he had Vix’s confidence, maybe—he looked at his father, so graceless on his horse but not caring a whit that he looked like a sack of millet in a saddle. Vix was so certain, sure of everything in his world. He could hold a sword and he could not ride a horse; he was a man of Rome and he had a master he hated and a wife he loved, and that was that. He didn’t care for the opinions of others, because certainty came so easy to him: in his loves, his hates, his place in the great scheme of things.
Not so much for me, Antinous thought.
One of the hounds gave voice, and the whole pack bolted off into the thicket. The Emperor raised his spear and gave a shout, cloak billowing as he kicked his stallion in pursuit, and the whole hunting party streamed after him. Antinous was grateful to kick his horse into the thick of things, shedding his momentary gloom. Over the cracking of branches and the thunder of hooves, he heard the roar of a bear and his blood began to pound.
The beast was already surrounded by a ring of spear points by the time Antinous’s horse came skidding into the wooded clearing. The she-bear was a storm of teeth and claws and rage, dark fur gleaming in the dappled light from the trees. The dogs seethed and snapped around her, snarling as they dodged the clawed swipes of those enormous paws. A cluster of huntsmen circled with spears and nets, eyes alert. The rest of the entourage circled and milled and laughed.
Poor bear, Antinous thought, and then his eyes went to the Emperor. His bearded face had a look of perfect, taut focus as he yanked his stallion to a halt and came vaulting to the mossy ground all in a single fluid motion. One powerful sling of his arm and his spear flew, true as a god’s arrow. Antinous’s breath caught as droplets of blood rained like rubies from the dark flank to the moss.
“Sweet gods,” Antinous breathed. “He’s good!”
His father sounded sour. “Just ask him.”
The beast roared, whirling on the Emperor. Two of the huntsmen shouted and jabbed with their own spears, goading her haunches, but Hadrian motioned them away. His eyes never left the bear; he put out his hand and it was filled by a new spear haft even as Antinous reached instinctively for his own. Hadrian went into a crouch, circling the beast as his hunting hounds snarled at his heels.
The bear came for the Emperor in a lumbering rush. He slid out of reach, lithe as a shadow, his spear point raking her muzzle. More blood, and the bear rose to her full height, roaring fury. Antinous saw the muscles in the Emperor’s arm bunch clear up to his shoulder as he flung his second spear, dead into the massive chest. The bear screamed at a higher pitch, and the spear haft splintered away as she came down in another rush. Hadrian had another spear and was circling again.
“He’ll get mauled!” Antinous felt his own heart hammering in his chest. “Aren’t you going to—”
“Jump in and spoil his kill? He’d have me flogged.”
A howl raked Antinous’s ears. One of the bitch hounds had danced too close; the bear caught her with a tremendous clawed swipe and sent her tumbling end over end. The bitch screamed piteously, blood flying bright, and Antinous saw the Emperor’s taut focus change to utter fury. Hadrian winged his spear straight into the bear’s ribs, then waded in with the sword at his waist as Antinous came flying out of his saddle and flung himself into the chaos, aiming for the wounded hound. “You she-demon,” he heard the Emperor snarl at the bear, “if you killed my dog—”
Antinous was already darting low for the screaming hound, as somewhere in the background Vix bellowed for the guards. Scooping up the bleeding bundle of fur, Antinous caught the rank breath of the bear, the rancid stench of matted pelt and old blood, and flung himself desperately out of the way, turning in time to see the Emperor bring his sword down like a wood ax. The bear’s great clawed paw sheared away. Hadrian’s sword punched forward again in a brutal lunge, and he buried the blade to the hilt in the great furred breast, giving a savage twist as his teeth bared in a feral hiss.
Antinous tried to still the bitch-hound’s thrashing as he darted back out of range. “Easy, girl—” A spot to lay her down, he just needed a space in the throng. She was whimpering and struggling in his arms. “Ssshh—”
The bear gave one last ear-shattering roar as Antinous laid the dog down on soft moss. He looked up to see the bear’s blood arc in a hot spray across the Emperor’s furious face, and then the beast fell. She made one final lash of her remaining paw and caught Hadrian square across the thigh. Antinous saw the Emperor’s leg slew to the wrong side and he yelled his agony through clenched teeth, but the dog was crying out too, and Antinous felt at her torn side through the mass of bloodied fur. Di
mly he heard his father shouting, rushing to finish off the bear—someone else saying, “Caesar, your leg—”
The dog’s lips peeled back from her teeth in pain but she never tried to bite Antinous even as he pinched the lips of her wounds together. “You’re a sweet thing, aren’t you? Don’t worry, we’ll get you patched up.” The bear hadn’t opened her belly down to the entrails, not quite. “Don’t struggle, sweet girl, don’t tear it open any worse—”
“A physician!” Vix shouted somewhere behind him. “A physician for the Emperor!”
“Hang the physician,” came a deep snarl. “My dog—”
“Lean on me, Caesar.” Lucius Ceionius, unctuous voice pushing against the edge of Antinous’s attention as he probed the dog’s side with tender fingers. If he could stop the bleeding—
“He should lean on me!” Young Pedanius Fuscus sounded indignant. “I’m Caesar’s great-nephew, he should lean on me—”
Antinous barely glanced up as the Emperor limped up beside him: tall, bearded, white-faced, bloody. He was upright, leaning hard on a spear haft, one leg bleeding and bent at a strange angle. “My dog,” he said hoarsely. “Is she—”
“I need a bandage.” Antinous’s fingers were slippery with blood. “Rest easy, sweet girl—”
Huntsmen milled and fussed, but the Emperor just yanked the Imperial purple cloak off his own shoulders. Antinous wadded up the priceless dyed wool and wrapped it tight around the dog. She whimpered, trembling under his hands, and Hadrian gave a tremulous breath. “Easy, easy,” the Emperor crooned, sinking down on his uninjured knee to stroke her blood-flecked muzzle. She whined and tried to wash his hand. Antinous looked full into the Emperor’s face for the first time, and was astounded to see tears in those deep-set eyes. Hadrian looked back at him, not trying to hide them. “What can I do?” he said simply.
“See if you can calm her, Caesar,” Antinous said. “I’ve got to tie this off.”
“How bad is it?” Hadrian’s big hands cradled the dog’s head, holding her still.
“The claws didn’t open her belly. If she doesn’t bleed too much—”
“Make it tighter, then!”
Antinous swaddled the dog in more Imperial purple, then mopped the lesser scrapes. Finally he sat back on his heels, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “If she can be stitched up, I believe she’ll live.”
“You believe?” The Emperor of Rome sounded anxious as a mother.
“My dog got mauled much the same way as a pup—a pack of street curs rather than a bear. He was trotting about in no time after I had him stitched.” The Emperor looked so agonized, Antinous almost touched his arm to reassure him. He barely stopped himself—this was the same man who’d once threatened to cut his hand off, after all. He gave a smile instead, as comforting as he knew how. “With a little care and luck she should live, Caesar.”
Hadrian dashed at his eyes. He’d been all icy calm facing the bear, Antinous thought, but now he looked as though he were about to collapse. “She’s my favorite,” the Emperor confessed, stroking the bitch-hound’s ear.
“A brave girl,” Antinous said softly. The Emperor’s eyes softened in return, and then the rest of the hunting party began to descend.
“Caesar, your leg!” But the Emperor waved them all away, and the improvised litter too as the huntsmen brought it forward.
“I can ride. The litter is hers.” The Emperor turned toward Antinous, but he was already lifting the whimpering hound and settling her into the cushions. He straightened to see those Imperial eyes studying him. “Do I know you, young man?”
Antinous felt his heart thud.
“Caesar!” His father called hastily from the other side of the litter. “If that leg isn’t set soon, this is the last hunting you’ll ever do.”
But the Emperor ignored Vix. “I do know you.” The Emperor swept Antinous with eyes no longer teary. “Our tribune’s son with the quick fist.”
Antinous gave the most graceful bow he could manage while covered in dog blood and mud. “I had hoped that would be forgotten, Caesar,” he managed to say. “Allow me to offer my sincere apologies for being such an overhasty youth.”
“And I offer you thanks for tending my dog.” The Emperor gave a nod that turned into a hiss of pain. “Vercingetorix, if your son would like a post, he may have it. Perhaps among the huntsmen. And I think I may have overstated when I said I could ride . . .”
A great rise of noise and chaos then. The dog in her Imperial bandaging was carried ahead at double speed, Antinous was glad to see. He’d sneak down to the kennels later to check on her. The Imperial entourage trailed behind more slowly, the bear’s carcass dragged along on a sledge. Young Pedanius Fuscus was bouncing along beside the Emperor’s makeshift litter like a puppy: “You should have let me put a spear into it, Caesar, I’d have killed it before it struck you!” The Emperor paid him no heed, lying back on his elbows with lips clamped tight in pain and his broken leg stripped and purpling before him. Antinous hoped it would heal straight. It would be a great crime for as magnificent a hunter as the Emperor of Rome never to ride again—never to fling a spear again with that splendid strength.
His father’s growl sounded in his ear. “That’s what you call keeping out of sight?”
“I wasn’t about to stand there and watch a dog die.” Antinous scrubbed his blood-dried hands up and down his tunic. “He cried.”
“Who?”
“The Emperor,” Antinous repeated softly, and couldn’t help smiling. He would never in his wildest dreams have thought to see Emperor Hadrian, his father’s dark-souled rival, in tears over the fate of a dog.
“He might tear up over his hounds and horses, but he can see men die without batting an eye.” Vix’s sourness jarred Antinous instead of amusing him as it usually did. “Be glad he didn’t decide to take offense at the sight of you.”
“Yes, sir,” Antinous said, and found himself thinking that his father’s long-despised master might be a cold and frightening man . . . But not a monster through and through. Not if he could shed tears for a dog.
CHAPTER 6
SABINA
A.D. 124, Autumn
Athens
“The Mysteries of Eleusis?” Sabina blinked. She’d been expecting to hear that they were returning to Rome. Hadrian had been gone from the Eternal City a full four years, after all, and with his recent hunting injury—
“We will make time to attend the Eleusinian rites before returning home.” Hadrian was writing three things at once, as he so often did, wax tablets piled about his desk in stacks. “I will not miss this chance for enlightenment.”
Sabina looked down at her lap to hide a smile. How like Hadrian to just add enlightenment to his list of things to do. Build wall, redesign legionary training, open soul to mysteries of world. “An acolyte’s role is arduous,” she pointed out instead, looking at the crutch he still needed to walk.
“I will take an attendant to lean on. You may take one as well.”
“You’re allowing me along?” That was a surprise.
“Don’t be too happy,” he warned dryly. “Julia Balbilla will be accompanying you.”
“Gods, no!” Julia Balbilla was the newest member of Sabina’s entourage, a carefully preserved society matron who was possibly the most tiresome woman in the Empire. “Why her?”
“Because she’s one of the richest women in Athens, and her insufferable family is funding half the temples and bridges I’ve been trying to get built, that’s why.”
“All very well and good, but you didn’t have to stay and listen to her read her own poetry at the last dinner party!”
“Of course I didn’t. There are some advantages to being Emperor.” Hadrian leaned back in his chair with a smile, looking so very human for once that Sabina beamed at him.
“Thank you,” she said. “For taking me to Eleusis. Even if I
must spend it listening to Balbilla recite insipid little verses about starlight.”
“I remembered how much you enjoyed the rites at Delphi.” Hadrian sounded reminiscent for once. “You chewed on laurel leaves with the Pythia and said some extremely silly things.”
“It was that foul drink the priests gave me. It made my head ache horribly, and had me examining the backs of my hands for hours. Hopefully Eleusis will be more exciting.”
“Is that why you wish to go?” he said with a faint cock of his head. “Not for enlightenment, but for mere excitement?”
“An empress’s life is a smooth and public thing,” she said, careful not to sound petulant. “Rather short on excitement.”
“May you find it, then.”
And here she was, in Athens where the rites traditionally began. Standing under a full autumn moon surrounded by eager fellow acolytes who did not see her purple stola or care what it meant—and Sabina felt more sheer anticipation than she’d felt in a good many long and predictable years.
“What’s that old gander going on about?” Vix hissed at her shoulder.
“The hierophant is exhorting the people of Athens. Calling upon those eligible to follow him in the Mysteries of Eleusis.” As the old priest raised his white-robed arms to the night sky, Sabina translated his formal words. “‘Whoever hath clean hands, a pure soul, and an intelligible tongue—’ That means you have to speak Greek.”
“So why am I here?” Vix must be too baffled to remember he wasn’t talking to her anymore. “I can’t speak Greek, I’ve got more blood on my hands than in my veins, and God knows I’m not pure of soul or heart or anything else. Neither or you. For that matter, neither is the Emperor—”
Next time, Sabina decided, she would ask Hadrian to pick his companions for a religious ecstasy more carefully. People of sensitivity, or at least curiosity. Not large annoyed people vibrating with irritation. “Ssshhh!”