Hadrian disliked many things, though one would never know it. If there was a food he didn't care for it would vanish from the banquet table. If there was a sculpture that did not move him, it would be relocated to another villa, as though the marble Aphrodite had quietly stood up and walked away. He had certain tunics he liked to see Antinous wear and when Antinous tired of these fashions and bought something different, he noticed that those pieces had been discarded and replaced with the old style.

The rest of the hunting trip went by without incident. Hadrian even invited Suetonius to ride back with them to Rome. Antinous remembered the historian looking out the window and telling them of his latest work, a collective biography of Rome's first twelve Caesars. Hadrian asked him which Caesar was his favourite.

"I confess I've always had a weakness for Caligula. His father's troops nicknamed him 'little boots' when he was a boy because he dressed in miniature battle gear and drilled the soldiers even though he did not yet know the commands." He chuckled and smiled at Antinous. "He reminds me of you when you when you were little."

When they arrived at the villa in Rome, Hadrian refused supper and retired early. He was quiet and still in bed with his eyes wide open. Antinous caressed him but he did not stir.

The next morning Antinous decided to wear the tunic Hadrian liked best. It was white with gold fern leaves stitched around the collar and sleeves.

He stepped out into the peristyle. Commodus was there in a cerulean blue toga surrounded by slaves and handservants. Hadrian was with him. Like most mornings, the two gossiped about the senate, strategized about Judea, where tensions had eased, and ate pomegranates. Beside Hadrian he saw Suetonius scribbling on his parchment but when he lifted his head he realized it wasn't Suetonius at all. It was a man whose face Antinous did not recognize.

"Look who's finally awake," said Commodus. He threw a pomegranate seed at his head.

Slowly he lowered himself beside the Emperor on the stone bench.

"Now, now, growing boys need their rest," Hadrian said. "At least he's dressed." He stroked the soft wool of Antinous' tunic.

It was like every other morning at the villa and also completely different. No one introduced him to Suetonius' replacement and he was afraid to ask.

Later that afternoon, he tried to probe the servants. "Have you seen Suetonius? Is he ill."

They gave him a quizzical look and continued scrubbing the floors or peeling vegetables. He begged Orodes for news but his friend simply shrugged and went about the business of washing the blood out of Antinous' hunting attire.

None would answer him. It was as though Suetonius had never existed.

That afternoon he decided to take his carriage into the metropolis. He told Hadrian he was visiting a jeweller.

"Very well but do not leave your escort's sight."

"I won't."

He covered his head with a cloak to avoid being mobbed. The carriage stopped in the market opposite the many merchants. Here were the artisans and craftsman of Rome. Carpenters, masons and glass workers were all presenting their wares with calloused hands and blackened fingernails. The secrets of their craft had been passed down from generation to generation. Antinous glanced at his own soft, delicate hands, which would have been just as rough and filthy had he stayed in his homeland and worked his father's land.

He spoke to the jeweller, Priscus, about a ring in the shape of a snake with a sapphire in its gold fangs. "One hundred sestertii," the man said. Antinous browsed while his escort waited by the carriage.

The same jeweller had made him a beautiful bracelet for Saturnalia when he was thirteen. The Emperor had asked him to wear it and Antinous blushed when he realized he meant the bracelet and nothing else. They swam in the sea that night and made love on the shore under moonlight.

Priscus procured the rarest gemstones and chatted about their origins. Antinous loved his work but that wasn't what brought him there this time. No, he was there because of the jeweller's proximity to the path leading to Palatine Hill. He paid the man one hundred sestertii for the ring and an extra ten for his silence. When his escort's back was turned, he exited through the back of the shop and ran up the path to Sabina's domus.

He snuck past the entrance, which was flanked by climbing roses, whose fallen red petals pooled at the doorstep, and made his way to the garden walls. They were tall but the stone was cracked and he could easily scale them by sticking his feet in the small grooves for leverage. When he reached the top, he grabbed a tree branch and swooped down to the ground.

Sabina was working on an intricate piece of embroidery. Her hand, small and lively, moved in a practiced cross stitch. She was attended by her handmaiden. He hid behind the tree and waited for the woman to leave before approaching the young Empress.

Her garden was different than the trim, symmetrical design of Hadrian's villa. She let her flowers grow wild over the statues and pathways. Men liked to impose their will on nature, while women understood that they were part of it.

"Sabina."

She turned her head a locked eyes with him, her expression cold as the ice blue palla that rested unceremoniously on her head.

"Where is he?" Antinous said softly.

"You dare ask me that question after what you've done?"

She was a woman of few words but knew how to make each one cut like a dagger.

He swallowed. He couldn't simply apologize. What he'd done was beyond apology.

"Suetonius has been dismissed from imperial service," she said finally. "He's left Rome and he won't be coming back."

Antinous was relieved. He thought Suetonius' fate might be much worse. But to Sabina, who would never again be able to see her lover, it made little difference. 

"Are you certain?"

"His papers are gone."

"I see."

Anyone who knew Suetonius knew that the man was his work. If his papers were gone then so was he.

"What can I do?" Antinous said. "Perhaps if I talk to—"

"You've done quite enough already."

Her eyes returned to the embroidery on her lap. The pattern included a thrush with open wings. It was difficult to capture an animal in motion but her design looked like it might fly from the silk.

Sabina was given to Hadrian in marriage when she was twelve. The same age Antinous was when the Emperor took him as his lover. Though cold, she was not a hardened woman, but a child frozen in time with a child's wants and dreams, fears and temper.

He heard the servants rustling inside. He had to leave before anyone saw him.

She lifted her head and looked straight through him. The only other woman to look at him that way was an oracle.

"Antinous, for your sake, I hope you never care for anyone as I have cared for Suetonius. The Emperor doesn't want me yet he banished the one I love. You are everything to him. Imagine what he would do to the person you love."

🌿

Antinous returned to the villa at dusk. The slaves prepared a hot bath for him before bed. A humid breeze from the Mediterranean swept in through the open window and a mosquito landed on his arm. When they dried him, he waved away the oil, his skin was too moist but the slaves had been instructed by the Emperor to use it. Everywhere. That meant Hadrian was feeling amorous. He hated that the slaves knew he would be making love before he did. It was humiliating. He liked to know what was expected of him when he was little but he had since grown to resent it.

Hadrian was waiting for him in bed, naked beneath the bed sheet, with his heavy knee drawn to his chest.

"Did you have a nice time in the metropolis today?"

Antinous nodded.

"You were gone for quite some time."

"Was I?"

"Your escort said he lost sight of you at the jeweller's and that you didn't return to the carriage for over an hour."

He climbed onto the bed submissively, his chiton riding up his thighs. His skin appeared to be dusted with gold in the lamplight.

"I was enamoured with many pieces." He nuzzled against the Emperor's knee. "You know how Priscus likes to talk."

"Did you buy anything?"

Antinous extended his hand. It was shaking.

Hadrian grabbed his wrist and pulled him near to examine the ring.

The sapphire in the snake's mouth was as blue as the Emperor's eye.

"Everywhere I am surrounded by traitors, but I know you are loyal. You would never lie to me."

He was unsure if this was a question.

Desperate to change the subject Antinous unlocked the fingers that dug into his wrist and moved to embrace him. "Let us talk of sweeter things," he said, kissing Hadrian's neck, "And act on sweeter impulses." He kissed his lips. "Do I not smell of lavender oil?"

He buried his nose in the boy's flesh. "Yes, you do."

The Emperor turned him around and pressed him face down on the bed. He was normally not so rough.

"What are you..."

The next thing he heard was the tear of his chiton. Antinous tried to raise his head to look into his eyes but Emperor had his hands around his neck and was already between his legs and mounting him from behind.

"Wait," he laughed anxiously. "I'm—I'm not ready."

"You're my consort. I decide when you're ready."

The boy cried out in pain and the Emperor pressed his face into the pillow to silence him.

The room was quiet but for the creaking of the bed frame.

Another mosquito landed on his hand as he clutched the corners of the pillow. His mother always told him not to blame them. They wouldn't bite if his blood weren't so sweet, she said.

Hadrian's body shuddered and he let out a long groan of pleasure when he was done. Antinous lifted his tear soaked face from the pillow, his bottom lip still quivering.

Hadrian held his chin. "Do not disobey me again."

🌿

He couldn't remember sleeping that night, only that Orodes came into the room to dress him when the sun rose.

They didn't talk about the bruises on his neck but the slave made an herbal remedy with Arnica and rubbed the ointment into his skin. He remembered with shame when they first met on his travels to Rome. He left Orodes hungry on the upper deck of the ship while he dined below with the sailors. He was so proud then that he was the Emperor's favourite.

"What is the occasion?" he asked as the slave pinned a cloak to the shoulder of his tunic with a broach.

Hadrian decided they would attend the Flavian. Perhaps he was feeling guilty and wanted to put the events of the previous night behind them.

He thought they might be going to see the gladiators. Antinous always begged the Emperor to take him. Hadrian considered his love for the gladiators a moral failing. It was low entertainment for the masses and not befitting men of reason.

Whenever he criticized the masses, Antinous wondered if Hadrian realized he was criticizing him too and the slaves he longed to free. As good as his intentions may be, the man could not move past his Patrician prejudices.

Hadrian's carriage led the imperial procession to the Flavian to attend the games. Foot races, chariot races, wrestling, jumping, the javelin and discus throw. Though the Romans were influenced by the Greek Panhellenic Games, their approach was markedly different. In Athens, all citizens could participate in the games. It was an opportunity to celebrate athleticism and the male form. In Rome, only the best and most practiced could participate. And only the winners were celebrated. Antinous considered Rome's games low entertainment like the gladiators, but he wouldn't dare tell Hadrian that.

In the amphitheatre, nobles, including Commodus and his guest Remus, flanked the Emperor in the box to the left. Senators and the ambitious young Romulus were in the box to his right.

The day was hot and Antinous took his place beside the Emperor on the canopy-covered dais. He could see that the boy was forlorn and ordered a slave to fan him and bring him water and grapes. Antinous raised the gold chalice to his lips and watched the charioteers fly by in a cloud of dust.

He sat in the most coveted seat in the arena, with all the comforts a boy could dream of, yet he longed for his first experience at the Falvian, in the beating sun, squished among the masses, shouting and cheering. He missed the sweet meat, sticky between his fingers, but most of all he missed sharing the company of a friend.

"Antinous, are you even paying attention?"

When a winner was declared, the athlete would approach the Emperor's box and Hadrian would place a laurel wreath on his head. Each would be rewarded with gold and kind word from their ruler but the men seemed more excited for a kind word from his infamous beloved stretched out so seductively behind him.

"Won't you honour them with me? The victors are hoping to meet you and kiss your hand."

"Why would they want to meet me? I'm only a consort."

Hadrian took a deep breath but did not punish him for his insolence. He hated it when Antinous was in one of his moods, even more so when he was the cause of it.

"Please," he said, placing the laurel in his lap.

Next were the footraces. The men's heads were down at the starting line. Some made a mark in the dust for good luck. Most of the runners wore sandals with studs on the bottom for traction but one went barefoot in the Greek style.

A trumpet sounded and they were off. For a brief moment there seemed to be no distance between them, they ran in a straight line like a rake over the earth. Then the barefoot man pulled ahead. He was impossibly fast, as though he possessed the winged feet of Hermes. He kicked up the dust as he ran, obstructing Antinous' view, but the sun shone down upon him and his golden curls caught the light.

His heart beat faster.

It can't be, he thought to himself. It can't be him. My eyes are playing tricks on me.

He noticed Hadrian was watching him and he quickly stared into his chalice.

The arena cheered.

A winner was declared.

It was the man with the golden hair. Standing still, with his fist in the air and a roguish grin, Antinous could deny it no longer.

He tried to look away, to conceal his features in shadow.

Hadrian greeted the athlete as he approached the box panting with a sheen of sweat on his skin, curls damp at his temples.

It was undeniably Leonides.

He was about to kneel when his eyes looked past the Emperor to the boy resting on the dais.

"Antinous!"

A/N: LEO IS BACK *happy dance*

What do you think Antinous' reaction will be?

Do you think he will listen to Sabina's warning and not risk falling in love?

What will Leo's reaction be to seeing seventeen-year-old Antinous?

Unfortunately, this marks the exit of Suetonius. But the book he mentions in this chapter is real. It's called The Twelve Caesars and apparently it's a pretty racy read filled with gossip. The ancient Roman tea has been spilled ☕️

Next chapter we'll see Antinous and Leo interact for the first time in five years...   

If you liked this chapter please Vote ⭐️!