night was filled with terrors. Domitianus Caesar, Lord and God, emperor and high priest of Rome, sat alone in his bed chamber—his refuge, his inner sanctum, where few ever penetrated. Because he feared the dark, tiers of lamps made the room almost as bright as day. A bluebottle struggled between his thumb and forefinger, waving its small legs. He raised a needle-sharp stylus and ran it through. More flies buzzed inside a baited jar, waiting execution.
When he was a boy, ignored, despised by everyone, Domitian would while away whole days brooding over hurts and resentments. Lately he had begun to do it again. The Helmsman of the World had sunk into a misery of fear.
Parthenius scratched at the door and eased it open—the nightly ritual of bringing the emperor his wine and a few choice tidbits left over from dinner on a silver tray.
“Master, I congratulate you on tonight’s performance. Who but your divinity could have conceived such a stratagem?”
“I!” Domitian swept his arm across the tray, sending flask and dishes clattering to the floor. The boy with the small head, Earinus, who had been asleep in the corner, sat up and blinked.
“My plan? You fat turd, this was your plan! Frighten the senators into betraying themselves, you said, with all that childish mumbo-jumbo. Well, you see how well we succeeded. One word from Nerva quelled it in an instant, and we learned nothing. Instead of exposing them, these philosophers and republicans and atheists, we only drive them deeper underground. You know what happened to Epaphroditus, your predecessor. He gave me bad advice. He was younger and smarter than you are, Parthenius. I loved him.” Domitian smiled; his teeth caught the candle light and glittered like knives.
Parthenius, his several chins quivering, stooped to gather the dishes. He had raised self-abasement to an art. “Cocceius Nerva could be removed, Master. It only takes a word.”
“And seven more will spring up in his place. I’m fighting a hydra. They all hate me.”
“No matter, you saw their fear, Lord of the World. Recall the words of Caligula, ‘Let them hate, as long as they fear.’”
“Yes, and look what happened to him, you donkey!” The Lord of the World squinched his tired eyes, then opened them again.
Parthenius’ smile never faltered, though the pain in his belly was excruciating.
“Don’t stand there, grinning like an ape, pour me more wine, and put a drop of laudanum in it. You know I don’t—don’t sleep well lately.”
“Of course, Master.” Parthenius extended a pudgy hand with the goblet. “Will you require anything else tonight?”
“Ah, what would I do without you, my friend. Who else can I trust? Come here, kiss me.”
The chamberlain bent awkwardly to comply, and Domitian struck him across the mouth with his open hand. “Get away, you disgust me, you’re too fat.”
Parthenius, his face a frozen mask, bowed himself out the door and sagged against the corridor wall. With a perfumed handkerchief from his sleeve he dabbed at the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. He remembered that Epaphroditus had been summoned one night to Domitian’s bedroom. The emperor had made love with him, had dined with him, sent him away with every sign of affection, and the next day signed an order for the man’s crucifixion. Parthenius sighed as the spasm of pain passed off. He smoothed his gown, took a deep breath, and went unsteadily down the hall.
Ever since Augustus Caesar had made himself Rome’s first emperor a century ago, it was the freedmen of the imperial household who made the wheels of government turn. Senators and magistrates, for all their wealth and pretensions, were really no more than the ornamental detritus of the vanished Republic, honored in inverse proportion to their relevance, or terrorized, depending on the emperor’s whim.
But the imperial freedmen, too, lived lives of constant dread. Without family, without inherited wealth or status,