Stan Pedro Pascal ✨

But when, at last, the floor underfoot sloped upwards and turned to stairs, Hanno found that he had emerged not into a slaughterhouse, but into the soft, warm candlelight and velvet drapery of the imperial palace. Viggo handed him off to an elegant but harried house slave, no word, but a sneer of knowing disdain. 

Hanno gave him nothing back. He knew that he would kill that man one day. He could be patient.

The slave had the high, soft voice and smooth hands of a eunuch. “I should have liked a day to school you in the proper etiquette,” he said, unhappy, as they moved quickly through more corridors, more twists and turns. Hanno felt like he had no sense at all of where he was in the City; he could have been miles outside it were it not for the two-headed crest of the Emperors that adorned the walls. “But there is little time. I shall tell you the basics. You must look neither Caesar in the eye, nor address them unbidden. Your little trick at Senator Thraex’s has the court all a-gossip, but you must keep your station henceforth. I know you understand Latin,” he said curtly, when Hanno made no response. “You will do as you are commanded, no more or less.”

Still Hanno said nothing. 

Perhaps the eunuch wanted to shock some kind of reaction out of him. “Emperor Geta will direct the proceedings,” he said, cold. “Emperor Caracalla likes to be fucked as a woman. You will be expected to perform.”

“...Macrinus sends me here to fight.”

The eunuch looked him over. “I see they did not bathe you at the stables,” he sniffed. “Your musk is not unpleasant, at least.”

“You have me mistaken.”

They stopped abruptly, before a fresco that Hanno could not make out in the low light. He could tell, at least, it was ostentatious. A door was cut through the wall that gave gently when pushed. The house slave gave him a shallow bow, almost a mockery, and indicated that he should enter. “Do not misunderstand,” he said, quieter even than before. His superiority dropped away from a moment; this felt like a freely given warning. “This may seem a private audience, but the Praetorian Guard have many ears and quick swords. Perform your duty well, and you will leave here a man entire. Do not make poor decisions, Poet.”

The Emperors had called him that.