Juvenalia is coming in November. I don't have a preorder link yet, but I'll be sharing that as soon as I do. Juvenalia is the second book in the Valerius series, and we join Valerius and Atreus as their latest investigation brings them into contact with Rome's literati--and, finally, Nero himself!
The Juvenalia was the celebration in 59 AD of Nero's transition from youth to manhood. It was made up of games, theatrical performances, and, fortunately for the purpose of my story, poetry recitals. It gave me the opportunity to introduce not only two historical figures, Petronius and Lucan, but Nero himself.
Please note, the book is still in edits, so if there are any typos in the excerpt, they'll be gone by publication. For now, I hope you enjoy your sneak peek of Valerius meeting Nero.
It was late when Hursa found me in my tablinum. He’d clearly been asleep. He was blinking owlishly at the lamp he carried, and shuffling his bare feet over the tiles as though he didn’t have the strength to lift them. His yawns could have swallowed the universe.
Fulvia, having thrashed me soundly at latrunculi, had already gone to bed, and I was finishing my wine before intending to do the same. In the meantime, I was pushing the latrunculi pieces around the board pretending I was Caesar, dividing and conquering Gaul.
“Sir?” Hursa wrinkled his nose in my direction. “Petronius Arbiter is here, and he says something about you going with him?”
“Specific as always, Hursa,” I said. “What do you mean, I’m going somewhere with him?”
The man himself swept into the tablinum. “Valerius. The night is young, and so are you, and I have someone who wishes to meet you. Grab your cloak. We’re going to the Milvian Bridge.”
I blinked like Hursa. “We’re going to the what?”
“To the Milvian Bridge,” Petronius said, as though that didn’t raise a hundred more questions than it answered. “You there, fetch your master’s cloak.”
Hursa scuttled away.
“And why are we going to the Milvian Bridge?” I asked, more curious than annoyed despite the late hour. There was no use pretending, even to myself, that I’d ever subscribed to that idea about going to bed early so that I could wake at dawn to begin the day’s work of correspondence and politicking. The wheels of the empire turned just fine without me putting my shoulder to them, that was for sure, and I’d never turned down a mysterious midnight invitation in my life.
“Surely you know the Milvian Bridge, Valerius?” Petronius asked me as Hursa returned with my cloak and Juba loomed ominously out of the darkness.
“Of course I know it,” I said. I took my cloak from Hursa and headed toward the front door. Juba fell into step behind me and Petronius. “My father used to drag me along to look at it when I was a boy.” In response to Petronius’s blank look, I said, “My ancestor Marcus Aemilius Scaurus tore down the wooden bridge and rebuilt it in stone. My father hoped that seeing the works of my illustrious ancestor might inspire a similar devotion to public service and politics in me.”
“And did it?”
“Not in the slightest.” A gust of cold wind met me as I stepped outside into the portico, and I tugged my cloak around me. “I just don’t remember it as being particularly interesting, so I’m curious as to why we’re going there in the middle of the night.”
“Because things are always happening on the Milvian Bridge, Valerius,” Petronius said with a wink, clapping me on the back and ushering me towards a pair of waiting litters. “Always!”
He wasn’t wrong.
Saturnalia wasn’t for another few weeks but, when we finally arrived at the Milvian Bridge, it was apparent that nobody had told the people gathered there. It was the middle of the night, but the bridge was crowded. It was a festival atmosphere, complete with dancers and tumblers, and one man with a blue-painted face who was juggling flaming sticks. His audience tossed coins at his feet, and the dancers nearby threw him dirty looks. However light on their feet they were, and however tantalisingly close to entirely naked, who could compete with that?
The bridge had certainly changed since my father had dragged me here as a child, although he’d never brought me here after dark. Perhaps it had always been wild once the sun went down.
Petronius caught me by the elbow and led me through the crowd, and I looked back to check that Juba was following. Not because I felt unsafe, but because later when I was retelling the craziness of this excursion to the Milvian Bridge to any interested listeners—my womenfolk, Uncle Maro, or Atreus—I wanted someone who could verify it had actually happened. Juba, who always knew what I was thinking, raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement.
A group of youths with drums and cymbals cavorted along the bridge. An actor in a painted tragedy mask performed a speech from a play. The cold night air was alive with the sounds of shouting and laughter, and the river below us reflected the torchlight back.
Petronius drew me across the bridge, like a moth to some bright display. Compared to some of the cheerful tableaux taking place on the bridge, the group of men that Petronius headed for appeared at first to be very drab and unexciting. There were five or six men, wearing tunics and cloaks. Not a single one of them was near-naked or juggling fire. None of them looked particularly friendly either. There were no welcoming smiles waiting for us, and for a moment I wondered if Petronius even knew these men. Then my gaze dropped to the hobnailed boots that every one of the men wore, and I realised exactly who they were: Praetorians. They weren’t in uniform, but there was no disguising those military-issued boots. And if the Praetorian Guard was here, or at least a small group of them, then—
The soldiers stepped aside as we approached, revealing a youth who had been leaning on the side of the bridge.
“Petronius!” he exclaimed, delight evident in his tone. And for some reason it was still there when he greeted me as well. “And Aemilius Valerius!”
It was Nero, the emperor of Rome. He was a young man of average height. He was a little plump—as anyone would be, with the epicurean delights of an empire at their fingertips at every meal—his nose was a fraction too large for his face, his brow was pronounced, and his hair and his beard were more red than brown. He was a few years younger than I was, barely on the cusp of his twenties, and he carried the weight of an empire on his shoulders. Yet his smile was warm and genuine, and bestowed real handsomeness on his otherwise heavy countenance.
He and Petronius embraced, slapping each other on the back, as hearty as only old friends could be. And then, barely before I could process it, Nero was pulling me in for an embrace as well. I had met him a few times before, and even dined at the palace several months back, but this was a level of familiarity I had not been expecting. I supposed I had passed Petronius’s tests after all.
“Valerius!” Nero said and slapped me soundly on the back. “It is good to see you again.”
“You too, sir.” I was aware that the Praetorians were watching us very closely, and I was fairly sure that if I slapped him back too vigorously, I’d find myself stabbed in the gut and then pitched over the side of the bridge into the Tiber.
Nero snorted. “Sir? Are we not friends, Valerius?” He slung an arm around my shoulders and said to Petronius, “The man uncovers a conspiracy against me, provides me all the evidence I need to finally banish my mother dearest, is brought into my inner circle, and still thinks we are not friends, Petro!”
Petronius grinned at me, and at the very-probably gormless expression on my face.
Nero laughed in my ear and then released me. “Valerius, you are a better friend to me than half the men I’ve known since childhood!”
I wasn’t sure that was high praise, given the circles Nero moved in. Or rather, the circles that turned around a man born to power as Nero was. It was probably why he liked his artists so much. I was sure they were just as prone to intrigue and treachery as the politicians and courtiers who surrounded the emperor on the Palatine Hill, but what was the worst any of them could do? Write a nasty poem about him?
“You honour me,” I said, because even in my surprise at Nero’s warm welcome, I hadn’t completely forgotten my manners.
“Rufio,” Nero said to one of the Praetorians. “Some wine?”
A request, not a demand. It was a small detail to notice, but I thought that it spoke volumes about Nero and the man he was. He was popular with the people for a reason.
The wine that Rufio fetched was nothing special, but Nero looked delighted at his first taste of it. I realised we were drinking exactly the same as everyone else on the bridge was, and that was what pleased the emperor, and that was why he came here. To be normal. Well, as normal as anyone in this crowd of actors and acrobats and fire-jugglers and exhibitionists could be. But then, what was more normal than a twenty-year-old man, newly emancipated from an overbearing parent, throwing his money around on cheap wine and cheaper thrills? Nero hadn’t come to the Milvian Bridge to be the emperor; he’d come to have some pointless, drunken fun.
And it turned out I was an expert in pointless, drunken fun.
Fun fact: You can visit the Milvian Bridge! It's changed a bit since Roman times, but it's still there.
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