Empress of Geta [Joseph Quinn]

I

One Year Later

It is in moments of great distress that Lucretia remembers the day she made her most reckless decision—the day she chose to accept the imperial palace's invitation to dine, single and unbetrothed, in the shadow of her father's death.

Back then, people had swarmed around her like vultures circling a fresh carcass, eager to sink their claws into her father's vast fortune. They cloaked their intentions in offers of protection and support, but all had ulterior motives.

She had been young, grieving, and naive enough to believe it was up to her alone to protect what her father had built. And she had known—clearly, even then—that the only people too powerful to covet her wealth were the Emperors themselves.

Now, the golden throne room of the imperial palace glitters with excess, frescoes stretch across the high domed ceilings, depicting Jupiter triumphant and Venus adored, their eternal beauty mocking the chaos below. Sitting stiffly on the throne beside Emperors Caracalla and Geta, Lucretia wonders if she had been foolish or simply desperate, the weight of her crown pressing down on her temples, a reminder of the choices she'd made and the chains she now bore.

Her husband beside her, draped in ivory robes embroidered with gold, a goblet of wine dangling from his fingers, stares at Lucretia and smiles at something whispered by the young dancer entertaining him. At his brother Caracalla's feet, a slave poured fragrant oils into a small tub, the sickly-sweet aroma permeating the room. He says it tickles and giggles foolishly, while a monkey toys with his ginger hair, standing on his shoulder. Servants hover nearby, fanning them all with peacock feathers.

Lucretia doesn't care anymore. The sight of Geta's lovers had once twisted her stomach in knots to the point of vomit, but now it only fueled the cold fire in her chest. Her focus was elsewhere: the trembling group of petitioners kneeling before them.

"Your Majesty," a man says, his voice cracking. His clothes are worn, his face gaunt. "The drought has left our lands barren. We have no grain, no water—our children are starving. Please, I beg of you—"

Geta waves the man off with a lazy flick of his hand.

"Your plight bores me. Starvation is the gods' punishment for weakness."  The man pales, his lips trembling as he dares to look up.

"Your Majesty, I—"

"I said, silence." Geta snarls, slamming his goblet onto the armrest of his throne. Wine splatters onto the dancer and polished marble, making Caracalla giggle. Geta stands up and raises an accusing index finger. "Take these wretches away." He calls the soldiers. "If they can't pay their taxes, they can join the slaves in the mines-"

"Wait." Lucretia speaks up, her voice calm but firm.  Her husband turns to her, his expression a mixture of annoyance and something else.

"Oh?" He tilts his head looking down at her. The silence dawns in the throne room, so that even Caracalla and the whispering entourage quiet down. Geta walks slightly her way, as if making sure he didn't hear wrong. But he is teasing her, and Lucretia grips the arms of her throne. Geta calls at his entourage over his shoulder: "Listen up, everyone. My Empress wishes to speak."

Lucretia ignores the mocking laughter coming from the corner of the room, as well as the shrilling giggle of her brother in law and his monkey. She ignores all of them and rises from her throne.

She does so in the way she was once taught once upon a time, when she was expected to, some day, become the wife of Lucius Verus. She raises dignified, like an Empress.

The soft rustle of her dark blue silk gown is the only sound in the vast hall and everyone has eyes only for her.

Her gaze locks onto the man kneeling before her, then swept to the others behind him—women clutching hollow-eyed children, old men barely able to kneel.