Challenge.

Was there something in Domitian’s gaze these days? Something besides the challenge? Something like . . . fear?

“Fear?” Hercules had hooted when he ventured to say as much. “Why would the Emperor of all Rome be afraid of you?”

Arius shrugged. “He’s got it in for me.”

“Oh, right. Millions of subjects to jerk around, and he spends all his time and energy torturing you. You’re getting vain in your old age, Barbarian.”

Arius supposed the dwarf was right. He doubted Domitian woke up nights dreaming of him, not the way he woke up dreaming of Domitian. Dreaming of Domitian’s ruddy, enigmatic face and his invisible challenges.

But was he imagining the look on the Emperor’s face every time he picked himself up off the sand next to the carcass of his latest opponent, and looked up at the Imperial dais?

Why are you still living? he imagined Domitian saying.

Because you want me to die, he said back.

What are you?

“Nobody,” Arius said aloud. “Nobody, Lord and God.” And bared his teeth.

THEA

YOU’RE moving up in the world, child!” Larcius bustled beaming into the atrium where I sat practicing a new song on my lyre. “I’ve been contacted by the Imperial chamberlain. You’re to sing at the Imperial banquet for the Emperor when he arrives in Brundisium next week! Not the only one of course. They’ve got fire jugglers in from Crete, and an orator from Thebes, and of course Cleopatra—”

“I’ll hardly be noticed if they’ve got Cleopatra.” She was a little golden dancer, the sensation of Brundisium, who commanded high prices for her dancing and even higher ones for her more intimate favors.

“They’ll slip you in between the fish and the cheese,” Larcius agreed. “Still, anyone with ears will know they’re hearing real music. What will you sing, child? I think ‘Cythera’s Eyes’ is a bit sentimental for the Emperor, what about ‘Goddess Fair’?”

“Too intellectual.” I smiled. “He’s a soldier, probably likes jolly straightforward tunes.”

“Something with a chorus, then. They’ll sing along if sufficiently drunk. You’re wasted on soldiers, child.”

I let Larcius pick all my music, and when the night came and he had changed it all twice over, Penelope finally shooed him away and let me prepare myself. In honor of the occasion I put away my trademark gray gown and chose a dress of black Indian silk checkered in gold around the hem. Gold bands in my coiled hair, gold bracelets above and below the elbows, kohl discreetly lining my eyes. The armor that turned me from Thea into the cool, serious, intellectual artist who was Athena. Sometimes I looked in the mirror and didn’t see myself at all. There had been a brown girl once who loved a gladiator, but she was long gone.

“Mother!” Rouge pots and perfume bottles vibrated dangerously on the table as Vix crashed through the door. He barreled through the choir singers, the lute players, the rest of Larcius’s stable who were readying themselves for evening engagements. “Mother, can I go to the dog fights? Last time a deerhound tore out a mastiff’s throat and there was blood ’n’ guts everywhere and—”