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Автор Люк Девениш
Luke Devenish
PROLOGUE
THE PARTNER IN MY LABOURS
MY SOLACE IN THIS TIME OF WOES
IS IT WRONG YOU ARE NOT QUEEN?
THE CHILD WILL RULE
Luke Devenish
Nest of vipers
Beautiful scribe for Iphicles's words
The new prophecies of Cybele
The son with blood, by water's done, the truth is never seen.
The third is hooked by a harpy's look — the rarest of all birds.
The course is cooked by a slave-boy's stroke; the fruit is lost with babes.
The matron's words alone are heard, the addled heart is ringed.
The one near sea falls by a lie that comes from the gelding's tongue.
The doctor's lad will take the stairs, from darkness comes the wronged,
No eyes, no hands and vengeance done, but worthless is the prize.
One would-be queen knows hunger's pangs when Cerberus conducts her.
One brother's crime sees him dine at leisure of his bed.
One would-be queen is one-eyed too until the truth gives comforts.
When tiny shoes a cushion brings, the cuckoo's king rewarded.
Your work is done, it's time to leave — the sword is yours to pass.
Your mother lives within this queen: she who rules beyond you.
The end, the end, your mother says — to deception now depend.
So long asleep, now sleep once more, your Attis is Veiovis.
PROLOGUE
Portunalia
August, AD 65
Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus
Germanicus engages in a new series of reprisals against those he distrusts
The tar-soaked wick smoked for a moment, hovering above the brazier before it sizzled and spat and burst into flames. The choir on the terrace erupted into a hymn to Vulcan — the great god of fire — and we palace slaves, arranged along the walls and floors and terrace edges, muttered our rehearsed prayers.
The expressions of the guests who watched on from the banqueting hall ran from excitement to disgust to jaded indifference, but the eyes of the condemned who were staked to the poles in the garden widened at the lighting of this instrument of their doom. The wretches gave out looks of such dread that the sycophants among the dinner guests applauded the sight. Other guests took their cue, the squeamish among them feeling ill at what was next for the condemned, even though they clapped and cheered for its commencement.Our master heard nothing but approval in this noise, as he only ever did now. The thought of public opposition and loathing was more than he could bear. He basked in what he told himself was unconditional and undying love. He laughed at the cheers, sang along with the hymn and waved the long birch rod from which the tar-wick burned. Then he leaped from his dais with a howl, misjudging the distance and landing in the flowers. The dinner guests increased their clamour, as if our master were making a comedy for them — as if he weren't mad and obese and intoxicated at all.
The Christians writhed at their poles, staked in rows. Their imminent suffering was to be prolonged — they all knew it. Their deaths were meant for my master's entertainment. He had disliked past executions when the fun had been marred by the condemned bursting into thanks to their god, so these Christians were gagged. They would blaze in silence.
