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Claudia sensed the nervousness in the air, the quick glances from soldier to soldier. The military was apprehensive about the meeting. A Persian invasion was possible, they were thinking; and for all Claudia knew, they might be right.
The royal cavalcade came to a standstill, though the musicians continued playing. One of the royal attendants stepped up to wipe the rotten gunk clean before the prince stepped out.
He postured with a dramatic swirl of his brown fur cloak, surrounded by women with palm fans and flowers.
Soldiers filed up on either side of him, then in front and behind, boxing him into a protective formation. Their armour was bronzed, and they wore strips of fabric beneath their plates.
Each step was in sync, timed to fit with the jubilant music, full of leaping flutes and sweeping strings.
‘Shah Prince Darius, his most high majesty,’ announced a squat man in a tall hat, ‘son of Kamran, the King of kings, and Queen Malekeh. Commander of the Savaran, Chief of Warriors.’
Claudia felt her heart pounding again, but not with desire. It was more from the strangeness of the situation, and from the enormous expectation of such a momentous event.
‘Empress Claudia Imperia Caesaria,’ announced Hieronymus, ‘daughter of Tiberius, heir to the Julio-Claudian dynasty, ruler of the Roman Empire and all of its territories, imperator of the Roman army and navy, ordained by the Senate and the goddess Victoria.’
The Persian warriors parted, revealing her long-awaited prince.
All those years she’d spent waiting to meet this man, and now here he was, walking right towards her.
He was even broader than he’d appeared in her goddess-eye shield, with a swaggering gait and a face that caused a stir among the crowd: the kind of man who inspired sculptors and painters, with razor-sharp features and a dark, long-lashed gaze.
‘Empress Claudia,’ he said, standing in front of her.
When she held out her hand for him to kiss, he did so without expression, his face serious and solemn.
‘Prince Darius. It is my great pleasure to receive you in Rome,’ she said, in her most regal voice.
Darius stared at her unabashedly. He was much taller than her, casting her in shadow, and his gaze was both impassive and strangely penetrating, his head tilted slightly to one side, appraising her like a statue.
‘How are you finding Rome?’ she asked.
‘I have only just arrived,’ he said. ‘It has yet to make an impression on me.’
‘Not a fan of marble columns?’ said Claudia lightly.
‘Persepolis is the city of a hundred pillars.’
His advisor – the small man in the tallest hat – elbowed him.
‘But Rome is… impressively large,’ he said.
He wasn’t giving her much to work with.
‘You haven’t been to Rome before, or so I’m told?’ she said. ‘Are the accommodations to your liking, at least?’
Darius looked up at the palace many emperors had built, her childhood home with its golden leaves and painted pillars, its grandiose statues and fountains and gardens.
‘It is… pleasant enough.’
Claudia’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Merely pleasant?’
A ripple passed through the crowd of senators and advisors who served as her buffer.
‘Yes. I find it to be… quite adequate.’
Claudia’s left eye twitched.
‘What do you find to be lacking, exactly?’ she said.
