Page 21 of Firebird
“Who am I, then?” I asked on a trembling voice.
“In Rome, you are no one. A slave. One of many.”
My entire body shook with both fear and fury, a commingling of emotions that kept me speechless. For what could I say? He was right. I’d lost everything. And everyone. I was alone and nothing more than what my Roman master allowed me to be.
Finally, he let me go. “Follow me.”
V
JULIAN
This was not good. Or smart. And yet, here I was, strolling down the hill toward the forum with Malina a few steps behind me.
It chafed to force her to make the long walk, but taking her on horseback would only draw more attention. She’d draw plenty on her own without a patrician of my status trotting around the city with his new slave on the back of his horse with him.
When we entered the outskirts of the city, I slowed, wanting her close. Needing her close. Thankfully, the forum wasn’t that far. I’d bought my home specifically because it was closer to the business end where I coulddiscover news of the battles and the senators quickly and where I could meet friends discreetly.
Though I trusted my servants absolutely, the emperor had spies everywhere. I didn’t trust that my neighbors within sight of my home might not be watching who was coming and going.
The forum was the best place for covert meetings. Ones that wouldn’t seem planned or suspicious in any way. That was my hope this morning. To meet a certain friend and exchange some information without incident.
But now, I had Malina with me. And the quest to find and buy her caregiver from the Celtic clan. Her friend may not have even survived the journey in the slavers’ nets. They weren’t always gentle when carrying their cargo in their talons. If she was an older human, she would have to be tough as bones to have survived.
We took the long path through a row of apartments. This part of Rome wasn’t as filthy as others, but I reached back and grabbed Malina’s forearm, keeping her close anyway. When I glanced over my shoulder, she was staring wide-eyed at the people bustling here and there, then her gaze caught the graffiti along one long wall.
I followed her gaze. The graffiti was always of one mind. Vulgar, with many large, exaggerated phalluses. There was a depiction of the emperor in half-skin, standing on top of the Colosseum breathing fire to the sky, his erect penis larger and longer than his tail. There were others of various Roman senators and generals doing foul things.
My attention caught on one scene. It was a caricature of me, wearing my military uniform with the red tunic, my sandaled foot on a dead man, a Celt by the blue woad on his face. Beyond him was a line of dead Celts that went all the way until the wall was broken by a doorway to another apartment. My gut clenched.
This was recent, for I’d only returned home last night. Of course, the news may have carried to Rome sooner. The praeco liked to send one of his lackeys to the battlefields to get his news out quickly.
Malina stared at the depiction of me. I steeled myself and faced forward, tugging her closer and focusing on the boisterous crowd growing louder as we approached the forum.
The forum was an assault to the senses, as always. The vendors crying out their wares, customers haggling, a bull bellowing, the clopping of hooves on stone, and sheep bleating. Then there were the smells—a mingling of musky bodies, both man and beast, the sweeter scent of fruit and baked bread, and the definite whiff of decay on the wind. But it may be the sights most of all that had Malina’s green eyes so wide and round.
A push of people wound through the makeshift paths of food carts, animal pens, slave pens, and past the Curia—the centered building where the senators met and decided the fate of all Romans. Acid burned in my belly.
But it was the sight lining both sides of the Curia that held Malina’s attention.
She leaned close to me, her scent locking me in place. “What is that?”
I stared at the heads in various stages of rot—some mere skeletons barely hanging on to the pikes they’d been thrust upon.
“To the left is the Wall of Victory. Emperor Igniculus likes the kings of his enemies posted there.” I noted the most recent on the end, blue woad covering his face, his reddish-brown hair floating in the wind, tongue hanging from his gaping mouth.
“You’re running out of room,” she murmured quietly.
It was true. The wall’s residents extended to the corner of the forum and kept going. There was little space left where the wall ended at another building, the granary.
“The emperor will simply build another one for his heads,” I told her without emotion. “He won’t give those up.”
“And the other side?”
To the right of the Curia was a longer row of victims’ heads. Manywere dragon heads, some skulls in half-skin, their horns shorn white to the bone by the wind and elements slowly peeling away the flesh. Traitors had been executed in various stages of shifting.
“That is the Wall of Traitors. Romans who have betrayed the emperor.”
“How long has he been collecting traitors?”
