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great chamber that overlooked the circus maximus.
    Running breathlessly, he pounded down the corridor in his soft, stinking leather shoes and hurtled through the door, throwing himself onto the low couch by a table covered in fruit and dining accoutrements.
    “ Perhaps I can appeal to them again? Severus might want to exile me? I could go and be governor of Hispania? I think I’d like Hispania. They make a lot of fish sauce there, and I like garum. Maybe I could build an estate and retire? Just grow olives or something? I could…”
    He stopped rambling in shock as his guard commander gave him a stinging slap across the face.
    “ You are the emperor of Rome for however long you have left. Have the grace to act like it!”
    Julianus stared. He hadn’t paid this man’s unit more than thirty million sesterces just to be treated like this: like a schoolboy.
    “ Don’t shout at me!” he burbled petulantly.
    Genialis shook his head in disgust.
    “ I took your money and the vow to protect you. If it weren’t for that, Caesar, I would see nothing worth protecting!”
    The prefect tossed his gladius into the air and caught it deftly by the blade, proffering the hilt to his master. The emperor stared at the weapon.
    “ No!”
    “ Do the honourable thing, Caesar, and I shall do what I can to protect your daughter and son-in-law. If they renounce their titles, Severus and the senate may let them live.”
    Repentinus, the only recently married son-in-law of Julianus, nodded vigorously.
    “ Caesar, you must save your daughter!”
    Again, Genialis’ lip curled in revulsion at the constant displays of cowardice and fear this family exhibited. Despite his oath to serve and protect them, he was rapidly becoming convinced that Severus, the ‘Lion of Leptis’, might just be exactly what Rome needed: a strong leader, unafraid and severe.
    Marcus Didius Julianus, master of the world, hugged the couch and wept like a little girl, his nose running, mucus matting his moustache.
    “ Get up!” Genialis snapped at him.
    The heap of toga, shuddering and whining, remained exactly where it was, the cowardly Repentinus gingerly embracing his father-in-law, ostensibly begging him to save the young princess. Genialis was in no doubt as to whose skin the young man was really interested in saving.
    “ Get up!” he barked again.
    Reaching down, he grasped the emperor by the throat, bunching the folds of the toga in his fist and hauling the man to his feet with a grunt. The waxy, pale Julianus, tears in his red-rimmed eyes and mucus in his beard, staggered, his knees quaking, the stink of urine about him.
    Genialis thrust the gladius into his unwilling hands and folded the emperor’s fingers around the hilt. Julianus stared down at the weapon and raised it hesitantly, gesturing at the prefect. Genialis sneered and simply batted it aside.
    “ Killing me would hardly help you, Caesar.”
    “ Perhaps I can appeal to the masses? To the army? I still have a fortune. They’re gathered in the circus maximus, you say? I could shower them with sesterces from here! They will hear me and they will love me and I’ll be safe and they’ll kill Severus and I’ll rule Rome and I’ll be safe forever and…”
    Another ringing slap stopped him chattering. He pulled away, the sword in his hand, and started toward the balcony before stopping dead again. His son-in-law was standing on the hem of his partially-undone toga, shivering, while the praetorian prefect glared at him with barely concealed loathing, his arms folded.
    “ Repentinus!” he barked, but the young man remained where he was, reached toward him, gripping the blade of the gladius in the emperor’s hand and gently pulled it from his grasp.
    “ Yes, yes” Julianus nodded. “I won’t need that, you’re right. I can buy them off. I will buy their love.”
    Repentinus nodded and turned.
    Genialis’ eyes widened as the young, cowering son-in-law drove the blade deep into the praetorian