The Dragon Book by Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann

ahead of the city cohorts for an hour, had tasted ten times as sweet as any he drank now, and all his old friends had turned into toadying dogs who flattered him clumsily. The lion got loose and ate the giraffe, and then he had to get rid of the hippo after it started spraying shit everywhere, which began to feel like an omen. He’d actually picked up a book the other day: sure sign of desperation.
    He tried even more dissipation: an orgy of two days and nights where no one was allowed to sleep, but it turned out that even he had limits, and sometime in the second night, he had found them. He spent the next three days lying in a dark room with his head pounding fit to burst. It was August, and the house felt like a baking oven. His sheets were soaked through with sweat, and he still couldn’t bear to move.
    He finally crawled out of his bed and let his slaves scrub and scrape him and put him into a robe—of Persian silk embroidered with gold, because he didn’t own anything less gaudy anymore—and then he went out into the courtyard and collapsed on a divan underneath some orange trees. “No, Jupiter smite you all, get away from me and be quiet,” he snarled at the slaves.
    The lion lifted its head and snarled at him, in turn. Antony threw the wine jug at the animal and let himself collapse back against the divan, throwing an arm up over his eyes.
    He slept again a while, and woke to someone nudging his leg. “I told you mange-ridden dogs to leave me the hell alone,” he muttered.
    The nudging withdrew for a moment. Then it came back again. “Sons of Dis, I’m going to have you flogged until you—” Antony began, rearing up, and stopped.
    “Is there anything more to eat?” the dragon asked.
    He stared at it. Its head was about level with his, and it blinked at him with enormous green eyes, slit-pupiled. It was mostly green, like the last one, except with blue spines. He looked past it into the courtyard. Bits and chunks of shell were littering the courtyard all over, and the lion—“Where the hell is the lion?” Antony said.
    “I was hungry,” the dragon said unapologetically.
    “You ate the lion?” Antony said, still half-dazed, and he stared at the dragon again. “You ate the lion ,” he repeated, in dawning wonder.
    “Yes, and I would like some more food now,” the dragon said.
    “Hecate’s teats, you can have anything you want,” Antony said, already imagining the glorious spectacle of his next party. “Maracles!” he yelled. “Damn you, you lazy, sodding bastard of a slave, fetch me some goats here! How the hell can you talk?” he demanded of the dragon.
    “ You can,” the dragon pointed out, as if that explained anything.
    Antony thought about it and shrugged. Maybe it did. He reached out tentatively to pat the dragon’s neck. It felt sleek and soft as leather. “What a magnificent creature you are,” he said. “We’ll call you—Vincitatus.”

     
    IT turned out that Vincitatus was a female, according to the very nervous master of Antony’s stables, when the man could be dragged in to look at her. She obstinately refused to have her name changed, however, so Vincitatus it was, and Vici for short. She also demanded three goats a day, a side helping of something sweet, and jewelry, which didn’t make her all that different from most of the other women of Antony’s acquaintance. Everyone was terrified of her. Half of Antony’s slaves ran away. Tradesmen wouldn’t come to the house after he had them in to the courtyard, and neither would most of his friends.
    It was magnificent.
    Vici regarded the latest fleeing tradesman disapprovingly. “I didn’t like that necklace anyway,” she said. “Antony, I want to go flying.”
    “I’ve told you, my most darling one, some idiot guard with a bow will shoot you,” he said, peeling an orange; he had to do it for himself, since the house slaves had been bolting in packs until he promised they didn’t have to come to her. “Don’t