Chapter Text
Book cover art for The Palatine Trilogy Book 1: The Unexpected Emperor by Ashley Brownawell------------------------------
## CHAPTER 1: The Sanctuary of the Subura
They met because of a spilled basket of dried valerian root and a shared understanding of pain.
Two months earlier, Claudius had been fleeing the madness of the Palatine Hill. His nephew, the Emperor Caligula, had spent the afternoon forcing the senate to worship his favorite horse, threatening execution for anyone who dared to look away. Claudius had escaped the palace under the cover of a commoner’s wool cloak, his nerves shattered, his right leg dragging heavily across the cobblestones of the Subura market.
Distracted by the phantom terrors of his nephew's court, Claudius had stumbled over a broken paving stone. He crashed into a low wooden table, sending jars of dried herbs and clay vials shattering into the dirt.
"I am... I am s-sorry," Claudius had stammered automatically, falling into his protective mask. His tongue thickened with his feigned, exaggerated stutter as he scrambled on his knees. "A clumsy... a clumsy fool. Forgive me."
"It is only clay and leaves," a soft voice replied.
Claudius looked up from the dirt.
A girl was kneeling across from him, picking up the unspilled bundles of willow bark. She was young, barely fourteen, with fair skin and striking blue eyes that framed a face surrounded by natural, tightly curled dark hair. She was petite, standing barely five feet two inches, but what caught Claudius's eye was the stiffness in her hands. Her fingers were swollen at the joints, moving with a deliberate, agonizing caution that he recognized instantly.
As she reached for a stray jar, her knee buckled with a sharp twinge of inflammation. She winced, her breath catching in her throat.
Without thinking, Claudius reached out, his own trembling, scarred hand steadying her small elbow. For a moment, they stayed like that on the dirty street—the hidden prince of Rome and the market girl, both bound by the betrayal of their own bodies. Luna didn't look at his limp with disgust, nor did she laugh at his shaking hands. She simply looked into his eyes and saw a fellow sufferer.
"Rheumatism," she had whispered, managing a small, resilient smile. "Since I was four. The damp winters are the worst."
"My legs... my tongue," Claudius had replied, his stutter suddenly vanishing in the quiet space between them. "They have never obeyed me."
From that afternoon, the apothecary stall became his sanctuary.
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Now, two months later, the Palatine Hill smelled of imported incense and old blood—a stark contrast to the roasting garlic and cheap fish sauce of the market. For Claudius, the palace remained a gilded cage where a single misplaced word could mean a death sentence.
"Look at him!" Caligula’s voice rang through the imperial banquet hall, sharp and erratic as a lightning strike. The young Emperor threw a handful of grapes at Claudius’s chest. "Our grand scholar, the royal idiot, drowning in his own wine! Tell us, uncle, did the Etruscans teach you how to drool, or did you master that yourself?"
The senators laughed. It was a nervous, desperate sound.
Claudius let his head loll to the side, allowing a thick string of saliva to escape his lip. He widened his eyes in a mask of vacant terror, nodding excessively. He dragged his right foot behind him as he stumbled backward, playing the mascot.
It was the only armor he had. If Caligula thought him a threat, the Praetorian Guard would have his head on a spike by midnight.
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An hour later, having slipped past the palace guards, Claudius was back in the Subura.
Luna was sitting on her low wooden stool, grinding dried willow bark in a stone mortar. The oil lamp caught the natural curls of her dark hair, casting a soft glow across her fair skin. When she looked up, her blue eyes immediately softened.
"You're late, Tiberius Claudius," she said softly, using his full name without a shred of the mockery he faced on the hill.
"He is a monster, Luna," Claudius whispered, looking at the doorway to ensure no imperial spies had followed him. "He grows more volatile by the hour. I play the idiot, I play the dog, but... but one day his blade will swing my way just for the amusement of it."
Luna reached out, her small, pale hand covering his large one. Her fingers were stiff from the inflammation, but her grip was remarkably warm and fierce.
"Then we must be invisible a little longer," she whispered, her blue eyes locked onto his. "Let them look at the hill and see a fool. I look at you, and I see the only man in Rome worth saving."
She tried to stand, but the pain in her joints made her hesitate. Claudius moved faster than he ever did in the palace, sitting on a crate beside her and taking the heavy stone pestle from her hands. He began to grind the herbs for her, his clumsy, shaking movements turning into a steady rhythm born of habit.
The heavy thump of the stone pestle was interrupted by a soft knock against the wicker screen at the front of the stall. Claudius instantly grew rigid, his hand dropping to the heavy bronze stylus he kept tucked into his tunic—the closest thing he had to a weapon.
"Peace, Tiberius," Luna murmured, her voice a cool balm against his rising panic. "It is only Syra."
An older woman stepped into the dim light of the oil lamp. Her face was lined with the hard years of a Subura washerwoman, her forearms raw and red because of her work. In her arms, she cradled a small boy whose skin was flushed with a terrifying, unnatural heat.
"Luna, please," Syra whispered, her voice trembling. "The fever took him when the sun went down. I'm unable to make a suitable sacrifice at the Temple of Febris and of course the palace physicians won't look at a plebeian child."
Luna did not hesitate. Despite the visible stiffness in her lower back, she forced herself up from the stool. She braced her weight against the wooden counter, her knuckles turning white as she fought through the flare of pain in her hips. She did not complain. She simply smiled at the frantic mother.
"Bring him here, Syra," Luna said gently. She pointed a small, stiff finger toward Claudius. "My friend will hold the lamp."
Claudius blinked, surprised to be drafted into service, but he stood immediately. He lifted the clay oil lamp, his hand shaking slightly, casting a flickering golden light over the small counter.
Watching Luna work was a revelation to the imperial prince. In the Palatine palace, power was measured by how many lives you could destroy with a single nod. Here, in this cramped stall, Luna’s power was measured by what she could heal.
With slow, deliberate movements, she reached for a jar of dried elderberry and a vial of vinegar. Because her fingers could not tightly grip the delicate glass stoppers, she used a small wooden lever she had carved herself to pry them loose. She blended the mixture with cool water, her swollen joints clicking softly in the quiet room.
"Bathe his forehead with this every hour," Luna instructed Syra, handing over a small clay flask. She also pushed a small linen bundle of willow bark across the counter. "And steep this in boiling water for him to drink when he wakes. It will quiet the fire in his blood."
Syra reached into her coarse linen tunic, pulling out a few battered copper coins. "It is all I have tonight..."
Luna gently pushed the woman’s hands away, closing Syra’s fingers back over the money. "Keep them. Buy him a cup of goat’s milk tomorrow. He will need his strength."
Tears welled in the older woman's eyes. She looked at Luna, then looked at Claudius, entirely unaware that the tall, stooped man holding the lamp was a grandson of Mark Antony and the uncle of the Emperor. "The gods bless you, little healer. You have the heart of a true Roman."
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When Syra left, the market outside had quieted into a low, nocturnal hum. Claudius set the lamp back down, looking at Luna with a profound sense of awe.
"You did not take her coin," Claudius noted softly, his voice thick with emotion. "In the palace, no one breathes without a bribe. My nephew drains the treasury to build golden statues of himself, while the people starve in the gutters."
"The market takes care of its own," Luna replied, sinking back onto her stool with a soft gasp of exhaustion. She rubbed her throbbing wrists, her blue eyes reflecting the steady flame of the lamp. "Syra’s husband protects this alley from thieves. The baker next door gives me day-old bread when my joints are too stiff to cook. We survive because we hold each other up, Tiberius."
She looked up at him, a fierce intensity cutting through her youth. "Your nephew thinks he owns Rome because he commands the legions. But he doesn't know the soul of this city. The palace is built on sand and fear. This market... this is the bedrock."
Claudius sat beside her once more, taking her swollen, aching hands into his own trembling palms. He massaged the inflamed joints with a gentle, practiced touch he had learned from his own lifetime of physical therapy.
As he looked at this fourteen-year-old market girl, a sudden, terrifyingly clear thought crystallized in his mind. For decades, Claudius had lived in absolute terror of the throne, praying the gods would let him die a forgotten scholar. But looking at Luna’s quiet strength, and the love the common people bore for her, a spark of ambition ignited deep within his chest.
If he could survive Caligula's madness, if he could someday take the imperial purple, he wouldn't just be saving his own life. He could bring the soul of the market to the Palatine Hill. He could make Luna his wife, casting aside the corrupt noble families who only sought to use him.
Together, the cripple and the healer could rebuild Rome from the bedrock up.
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