Chapter 7: The Unpalatable Meal

The servant boy knelt, a silent statue of deference, his arms outstretched. On the silver tray, the roasted boar glistened under the lantern light, its skin a perfect, crisp brown. The goblet of wine was a pool of dark ruby, promising warmth and solace. The aroma, a rich blend of roasted meat, garlic, and herbs, filled the small tent. A day ago, it would have been an intoxicating welcome after a long day of stress. Now, it smelled like a tomb. Alex's heart hammered a frantic, irregular rhythm against his ribs. This was it. The 92% probability had just been served up on a silver platter. His throat went dry. Every cell in his 21st-century brain screamed at him to recoil, to knock the tray from the boy's hands, to shout for the guards. Poison! But he couldn't. His mind, supercharged with adrenaline, raced through the scenarios. If he accused the servant, the boy would be tortured and killed, revealing nothing. If he simply refused the meal, word would get back to Perennis within minutes. The Praetorian Prefect would know his first attempt had failed, but more importantly, he would know that the new emperor was suspicious. The next attempt would be subtler, more cunning, and Alex would be flying blind, having shown his hand. He was trapped. "Lyra," he breathed, his lips barely moving, his eyes fixed on the fatal meal. "Help me. What do I do? I can't eat it. I can't refuse it." "You are correct," Lyra's voice was a sliver of ice-cold logic in his ear. "Direct refusal is an admission of knowledge and signals weakness to your adversary. We must deflect. The solution must be both unchallengeable from a political standpoint and perfectly in character with the persona you have been meticulously constructing." "What's more in character than an emperor eating his dinner?" Alex subvocalized, a note of hysteria creeping into his tone. He could feel the servant boy beginning to tremble under the weight of the tray, confused and frightened by the emperor's long, unnerving silence. "Extreme piety," Lyra stated. "It is the one motivation a Roman, particularly a man like Perennis, cannot question without appearing impious himself. You will not simply refuse the meal. You will escalate your performance. You will declare a ritual fast." A fast. The idea was brilliant in its simplicity. It was dramatic, deeply religious, and perfectly aligned with the somber, thoughtful son he had been pretending to be. It was a shield forged from his own cover story. Alex drew a deep, shuddering breath and straightened his posture. He let the mask of the grieving son fall over his features, his expression shifting from stony silence to one of profound, soul-deep sorrow. He raised a hand, not in dismissal, but as if to ward off the worldly temptation of the food. "I cannot," he said, his voice thick with a theatrical anguish that surprised even himself. He looked from the food to the terrified servant boy, his eyes filled with a manufactured pain. "My heart is too heavy to feast. My spirit is in turmoil. My father's shade haunts my waking hours." He rose from his seat, beginning to pace the tent slowly, his hands clasped behind his back. He was performing now, not just for the servant, but for the invisible audience beyond the canvas walls to whom the boy would report his every word and gesture. "My father's spirit calls to me for a purer form of devotion," he announced, his voice ringing with conviction. "It is not enough to mourn him with words. I must purify myself before I dare to take up the full weight of the empire he built. I will observe a fast." He stopped and turned to face the servant, whose jaw was now agape. "For three days and three nights, no food shall pass my lips. Only water from the Danube, the river where he drew his last breath. It is a penance. A vigil. A way to cleanse my soul before I lead his legions and return his sacred body to Rome." The servant, utterly bewildered, began to lower the tray, ready to retreat with the rejected meal. "Wait," Alex commanded, his voice sharp. The most crucial part of the plan was yet to come. Refusing the food saved his life for a night, but it proved nothing. He needed to turn Perennis's weapon back on him, to transform this threat into an intelligence-gathering operation. He approached the kneeling boy and placed a hand over the silver tray in a solemn gesture of blessing. He could feel the heat radiating from the roasted meat. "This offering was brought before the son of a god, intended to nourish the body of the emperor. It cannot simply be discarded. It is now consecrated." The servant looked up at him, his eyes wide with incomprehension. "Do not let this gift go to waste," Alex continued, his mind racing to construct a plausible, almost mystical command. "Take this tray. Go to the furthest edge of the western camp perimeter. You will find stray dogs there, creatures that linger in the shadows. Distribute this consecrated meal among them." He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial, pious whisper. "Let it be an offering to the genii loci—the spirits of this land. We have fought and bled on their soil. This will appease them. It will grant my father's soul a safe and swift passage to the halls of the gods. Do you understand?" The order was bizarre, bordering on madness, yet it was so wrapped in the language of divine ritual that it was unassailable. The servant, caught between his fear of the emperor and the sheer strangeness of the command, could only nod dumbly. "It will be done, Caesar," he stammered. "Go, then. And speak of this to no one but your prefect. He should know of my pious decision." It was the final, critical instruction. A direct message to Perennis: I am fasting. Your attempt has failed, but I don't know it was an attempt. The servant rose, bowed clumsily, and backed out of the tent, carrying the tray with the reverence one might reserve for a holy relic. The moment the canvas flap fell shut, Alex's legs gave out. He sank onto his cot, his body trembling, a cold sweat drenching his tunic. His stomach growled, a vicious, ironic reminder of the hunger he had just sentenced himself to. He was safe, for now. He had dodged the bullet, or rather, the hemlock. But he had no definitive proof. He had only a theory, a high probability spat out by a machine from two thousand years in the future. Everything now hinged on the fate of a few starving, nameless animals. He sat in the silence of the tent, the sounds of the camp outside fading into a dull roar in his ears. He listened. He listened for a commotion, a shout, anything that might tell him the bait had been taken. He waited, his entire future, the fate of the Roman Empire, hanging in the balance. Every passing minute felt like an hour. The wait was the purest form of torture he had ever known.