The plan was elegant, brutal, and perfectly logical. And it made him feel like a monster.
JARVIS had analyzed Roman history, psychology, and law to craft it. It was a strategy built on fear and reward in equal measure. A true Roman solution.
Marcus stood over a map of the city's docklands, spread across a table in a hidden room deep within the palace. Lamplight cast flickering shadows on the faces of the only two people he trusted. Crixus, the gladiator turned watchman, and Marcia, the servant turned confidante.
He turned to Crixus, whose massive form seemed to fill the small room. "Your Vigiles are ready?"
Crixus's eyes gleamed with a feral light. He was a warrior who had been given a weapon, and he was eager to use it. "They are ready," he growled. "Men from the streets, not the pampered barracks. They know these alleys. They are loyal to the man who freed them, not to the vipers in the Senate."
"Good," Marcus said, his voice flat. He pointed to five locations on the map. "At midnight, you will conduct five raids. Silent. Swift. No grand battles. You are not targeting the workers. You are cutting the head from the snake."
He tapped the largest building, Geta's residence. "The five strike leaders. The ones who took Lucilla's money. The charge is treason. For conspiring with a foreign power—"
"They didn't," Crixus interrupted.
"They did now," Marcus snapped, his gaze like ice. "The charge is treason for attempting to starve the Roman people. Take them alive, if you can. But take them."
Crixus gave a grim, satisfied nod. He understood this language.
Marcus then looked at Marcia. "While he is doing that, I will be preparing. At dawn, I will go back to the docks. I will not negotiate. I will not plead. I will issue an Imperial Decree."
The plan was a two-pronged attack. The stick, then the carrot.
"I will grant a five percent pay raise," he continued. "Not the ten I offered, and certainly not the fifty they demanded. And I will announce a new festival day in honor of Ceres, the grain goddess, with a bonus of free wine for every man who works the docks. It will be a gift from their benevolent Emperor, not a concession to strikers. We are taking back control of the narrative."
Marcia watched him, her expression unreadable. She saw the cost of this plan in the hard lines of his face.
The scene cut to a dark, filth-strewn alley in the Subura, the sprawling slum district of Rome. Rain slicked the cobblestones. Crixus and twenty of his Vigiles moved like ghosts, their dark leather armor making no sound. They were not the Praetorian Guard in shining, ornate steel. They were street fighters, armed with short swords and weighted nets.
They reached the door of a tenement building. Geta's home.
Crixus didn't knock. He took a step back and kicked.
The wooden door exploded inward, ripped from its hinges. Crixus's massive silhouette filled the doorway, framed by the moonlit rain.
Geta was inside, drinking wine with two of his lieutenants, laughing. The arrogant smirk on his face dissolved into a mask of pure, abject terror. He scrambled for a knife on the table, but it was too late.
Crixus was on him in two long strides. There was no epic fight. There was only the swift, brutal application of overwhelming force. Crixus slammed the strike leader's head into the table, the crack of wood echoing in the small room.
The Vigiles swarmed in, and within seconds, Geta and his men were bound, gagged, and dragged out into the rain-swept darkness before the neighborhood even knew what was happening.
Dawn broke over the port of Ostia, the rising sun painting the sky in shades of blood and gold.
Marcus stood on a high wooden crate, the same spot where he had been humiliated just the day before. This time, he was flanked by a full cohort of Praetorian guards, their spears and polished shields forming a wall of gleaming, disciplined steel.
The thousands of dockworkers were gathered again. But the mood was different. The arrogant defiance was gone, replaced by a nervous, confused silence. Their leaders were missing. Rumors were spreading like wildfire.
Marcus's voice, cold and clear, boomed across the port, needing no amplification.
"The traitors who took bribes to starve your wives and children have been arrested!" he declared, his words hitting them like stones. "They will answer to Roman justice!"
A murmur of fear rippled through the crowd. This was not the weak, pleading man from yesterday. This was an Emperor.
"But your Emperor is not without mercy!" he shouted, his tone shifting just enough to offer a sliver of hope. "For your loyalty in the face of their treason, I grant you a raise in your pay! And to honor your hard work, I declare a new holiday, the festival of Ceres, with a bonus of free wine for every man who feeds our city!"
He didn't smile. He didn't wait for applause. He raised a single, commanding finger and pointed at the nearest, silent grain ship.
"Now," he ordered, his voice an iron command that tolerated no dissent. "Get back to work."
For a tense, silent second, ten thousand men stood frozen. The entire fate of Rome hung in that moment.
Then, one man near the front, then ten, then a hundred, turned and started walking towards the ships. The spell was broken. Within a minute, the entire crowd was moving, a river of humanity flowing back to their posts.
The strike was over. The grain would move.
Marcus watched as the first massive sack of grain was hoisted onto a worker's broad shoulder. He carried it down the gangplank, a simple act that felt like a monumental, hard-won victory.
He returned to his chambers, the adrenaline of the confrontation fading, leaving him feeling hollowed out and cold. He had won. He had played their brutal game and beaten them.
He looked down at his hand and saw a deep, bloody gash on his palm. He hadn't even felt it when he'd gripped a rusty nail on the crate. The sting of the wound was nothing compared to the sting in his conscience.
Marcia was there, waiting. She came to him with a bowl of water and wine-soaked linen. She said nothing as she gently took his hand and began to clean the wound.
"JARVIS," he whispered, a question meant only for himself, a ghost in the room. "Update."
He didn't need the laptop to know the answer. In his mind, he could almost hear the AI's calm, synthesized voice. Emperor survival probability... recalculated... 35%.
He had survived. He had saved the city from starvation. But to do it, he had to use fear, lies, and violence. He had to become a little bit of Commodus.
Marcia finished wrapping his hand in clean linen. She looked up, her dark eyes seeing the conflict raging inside him.
"You saved the city," she said softly, her voice a balm on his raw nerves. "A good ruler does what is necessary."
Her simple, unwavering support was the only thing that made him feel less like a monster. Their bond was no longer master and servant. It was something deeper. An alliance forged in fire and crisis.
Just then, the heavy doors to the chamber swung open. A palace herald, a stiff man in formal attire, entered and bowed low, his face an impassive mask. But he did not look at Marcus.
He looked directly at Marcia.
"The Lady Lucilla has summoned you," the herald announced, his voice echoing in the sudden, tense silence. "She wishes to discuss the new tapestries for her villa."
It wasn't an invitation. It was a threat, delivered on a silver platter.
Lucilla had lost the battle at the docks. So she was opening a new front. And she was aiming her first strike not at the Emperor, but at the heart of his new, fragile world.