Tales of Ancient Rome Read Online Free Page B

corner, hoping her sister was still there.
    And there was her room. Somehow, during her dizzy fall, she must have got turned around and confused.
    There was Livia, lying on her back on the bed, her grey, thin face surrounded by lustrous black hair as she rested among the blankets and pillows. She looked so peaceful.
    Lucilla smiled sadly. Best not disturb her now. She’d come back and see her soon.
     
    The man who bought an Empire
     
    Lamp-light glinted off the cuirass of burnished bronze with its protective medusa head, honorific scorpion emblem and winged horses and off the tip of the gladius in the man’s hand. Breath clouded in the chilly night air and condensation formed on the red-painted walls.
    Titus Flavius Genialis leaned around the corner of the corridor and glanced left and right sharply before pulling back to safety.
    “ No one. The passage is clear, Caesar, but we must hurry.”
    Behind him, the emperor Marcus Didius Julianus flattened against the wall, wild-eyed and breathing heavily. His normally intricately-combed and curled black beard hung loose and ragged, much like his hair. His normally swarthy, handsome features were strangely pale and glistening, the result of such desperate nerves. His toga was muddy and covered in dust from the many hiding places they had been forced to utilise on the way through the enormous Palatine palace complex.
    “ Where now, prefect?”
    Genialis shrugged.
    “ Rome crawls with your enemies, Caesar. The circus maximus throngs with the soldiers of Severus; his agents are abroad across the forum and the Capitol. Most of the praetorian cohorts are already shouting his name. There is nowhere to go but to your chambers and prepare for death.”
    The emperor stared at the commander of his praetorian guard. Behind them, Julianus’ son in law shuddered like the inveterate coward he was.
    “ I thought you were helping me escape!”
    Genialis sighed.
    “ I would give my life if it would save yours, Caesar, but there is simply no escape. Rome belongs to Severus now. All that is left for you is to decide the manner of your end.”
    “ There is a way. There must be a way. We can leave the palace by the servants’ quarters. Make our way down the hill past the Magna Mater temple dressed as common folk and head to the docks. We can be in Ostia by dawn and then take ship to anywhere we want.”
    Genialis’ lip curled. It galled him in the extreme to be laying his life on the line for such a man but, regardless of what anyone said about the praetorian guard, he had only been prefect for a month and was damned if he would be remembered for turning on his rightful emperor in a time of trouble. When it was over and Severus came, he would decide whether Genialis should live or die, but for now the rightful emperor of Rome should stand proud as the office he held demanded.
    “ Nero fled his palace in disguise. It gave him little extra time, and think how eternity remembers him. Come, Caesar.”
    The praetorian commander ducked around the corner and ran lightly down the beautiful mosaic floor, his white cloak billowing behind him.
    The ruler of the world’s greatest Empire peered nervously around the corner, reluctant to follow this man who claimed to be leading him to his end, but equally sure of the fatal nature of cowering alone in these corridors. Severus’ supporters were already in the Palatine complex somewhere and could be here at any moment.
    He felt an embarrassing warm trickle and cursed his nerves.
    More than thirty million sesterces he had paid the guard to secure this throne and here he was, after little more than two months under the purple, fleeing through his own palace from the rabble of a barely-literate African thug. Where had the majesty and glory of the Empire gone? Where had justice gone?
    Ignoring the warm yellow pool gathering in his boot, he waved his son-in-law on with him and rounded the corner to see his praetorian prefect ahead, holding open the door to the