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‘Maybe the goddesses sent her. Maybe they are still on our side.’
‘We can only hope,’ said Claudia.
The fire sizzled away to nothing, creating plumes of smoke that formed a cloudy protective cocoon around the battered half-sunken ship. Claudia could barely see the captain anymore as he staggered back and forth through the fog, counting the heads of his crew.
‘Jupiter on the attack, Salacia on the defence,’ she mused. ‘If the deities of the pantheon are making themselves visible to us mortals, working for or against us, that can only mean one thing…’ She turned to Gia, whose fearful expression mirrored her own. ‘The war of the gods will be fought on Earth.’
With a sudden groan and a violent lurch, the ship turned sideways, beginning to spin unnaturally.
‘What’s happening?’ Claudia called out in a shaken voice.
‘I don’t know!’ said the captain, skidding across the decks.
The world around them faded and blurred as they hurtled uncontrollably through the water, seemingly in no particular direction. Claudia felt sick and wobbly, like she did after a single glass of wine or when she was deep in a dream and lost the use of her legs. Just when she couldn’t bear the sensation any longer, the boat slowed down, cresting on a wave. When the clouds cleared, the goddess Salacia was gone, the sky above was blue and the seas were strangely calm.
The boat was no longer sinking and burning, its hole patched up with a shield of seaweed and shells. Strangest of all, they were gazing out at a familiar rugged coastline, crowded with boats, their sails emblazoned with the crests of Roman soldiers.
The passengers aboard the ship exploded into conversation, talking about the goddess and the wrath of the gods.
‘What’s happening, captain?’ asked Pliny the Elder.
The blue-cloaked captain consulted a map and scratched his head in confusion.
‘It’s not possible,’ he said. ‘It’s unnatural. We’re leagues ahead of where we ought to be.’
‘Where are we, good man?’
‘That’s the port of Civitavecchia,’ he said. ‘We… we’ve travelled hundreds of miles in minutes.’
Rome.
Roma.
Claudia was coming home.
2. THE OTHER EMPEROR
Claudia and Gia stood before the imperial palace on Palatine Hill, where the she-wolf Lupa had once nursed the human twins Romulus and Remus: the mythical founders of the Eternal City.
Gia issued a low whistle.
‘So, this is where you live?’ she said.
‘You’ve never dated a girl who had her own palace before?’ said Claudia, playfully.
She had spent most of her life here. Despite all of its garish, solid-gold grotesquery, this gilded mausoleum of empire was her home. She knew these old statues and murals like she knew the alphabet and the numerals. There was a familiarity to the place that comforted her.
‘Funnily enough, no. Only you,’ said Gia.
As they climbed the steps, Claudia followed a well-trodden path, touching a reassuring pillar with golden leaves and noting the piece of the mosaic that was missing on the floor of the portico.
‘In that case, welcome to my humble abode,’ she said, sweeping her arm in a hospitable gesture.
‘Yes, very humble,’ said Gia, dryly. ‘The solid gold cherubs are particularly spartan.’
But the palace was also haunted by history; not just Claudia’s memories of her parents and brother, but all of the emperors who had once walked these pillared halls. She couldn’t see them incarnate but she could feel their skin-tingling presence now, lurking in shadows, inhabiting the in-between, veil-thin places where the dead and living bumped hips.
There were many such in-betwixt places in an imperial palace, located next to the Theatre of Pompey where Caesar was slain, and the Colosseum where gladiators fought to their deaths.
