Swords Around the Throne

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It was the hour of the beast hunts.

Across the oval of bright sand, four long-horned bulls from southern Gaul charged and veered, as a pair of men on horseback and two more on foot lunged with spears and javelins. Above them, the amphitheatre rose in tier upon tier of seats, and the voices and laughter of twenty thousand spectators merged into a low steady drone. The bulls were wounded; the sand was scarred and streaked with red, and the rich stink of animal sweat and fresh blood reached the spectators. But many of them paid only partial attention to what was happening. This was not the main attraction of the day, after all.

For now, men hunted beasts. Soon, beasts would be hunting men.

A little below and to the left of the imperial podium, an unremarkable-looking middle-aged man sat alone in the crowd. He was dressed plainly, and wore no ornament besides the red leather belt that marked him as one of the emperor’s functionaries. His bland face showed no expression; his greying brown hair was styled in an ugly and unfashionable bowl cut. For all of his power, and his growing reputation in the imperial offices, Julius Nigrinus, Tribune of Notaries, was still a forgettable figure, and deliberately so.

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