“Oh—” A restless movement set his heavy jowls wobbling. “Never liked that palace. Everyone’s getting ready to bolt. Don’t think I don’t know it! Alienus betrayed me, and now all my own guards are looking to do the same. I liked Alienus . . .”

He subsided, muttering, but then he reached out and ran a heavy ringed hand down Boreas’s scarred foreleg. Boreas pawed the straw, but didn’t kick. “Horses don’t betray you,” Vitellius said, wistful.

“They’ve been abandoned.” Diana picked up the bridle that had fallen out of her surprised hand. “The faction director, he just left them all—”

“Yes, I filled their haynets when I got here,” said the Emperor of Rome. “They were hungry.”

Diana pulled the bridle between her hands. Vitellius picked up the wineskin, squeezed a reluctant drop into his mouth, tossed it aside again. His eyes were bloodshot, moving everywhere, but the massive bloated body was still. “You should flee, Caesar,” Diana said. “You could hide, maybe even get out of the city. You could abdicate for Vespasian.”

“Tried that. Didn’t go so well.” He picked up a piece of straw and twirled it between his fingers. “Anyway, an emperor doesn’t flee.”

“An emperor doesn’t hide in a stable either!” Diana couldn’t help but feel a flash of disgust. Galba had been an old man, but he died on his feet barking orders. Otho had taken his own life with flair and grace once his cause was lost. “An emperor faces his enemies head-on!”

Vitellius’s bloodshot eyes moved tiredly across hers. “Well, I’m not much of an emperor.”

She had no words for that.

“I ever tell you I curried horses for the Blues once? Proud to do it, too.” Vitellius lumbered upright, heaving his bulk out of the straw. He held out his big hands and Boreas came to him, nuzzling the Emperor of Rome for treats. “Gods,” Vitellius said, stroking the heavy head. “I do love horses. And I love my Blues.”

Diana looked away.

“Take them.” Vitellius gave Boreas a last pat. “I shouldn’t have taken them from you. That race you drove—girl, on the last lap they lifted off the ground and flew. What a thing to see! They won’t run like that for me. Maybe not for anyone.”

“Caesar—”

“Take them!” He pushed roughly past her out of the stall, gathering the purple folds of his robe. “There’s a mob that wants me, and I want to be drunk when they get here.”

“But Caesar—” She was running after him, trying to find the words to rouse him, when a tall figure came through the stable doors in a few long strides.