Viper's Nest

by Rachel Ford

  Still, when he had a chance to get a word in, he asked the question that had been playing away at the back of his mind lately. “Hey, you and Tullius…did you guys ever figure that out?”

  He hadn’t heard from either man that they had. Then again, Luke had been in an awfully good mood lately. In Trygve’s experience, a sudden shift in demeanor like that probably got back to getting laid again. But, on the other hand, Luke was one of the worst political addicts he’d ever met. A favorable change in the political winds might just produce the same kind of high in him as getting lucky might in a normal human being. Depending on the answer he got, Tryg resolved to share these musings with his friend.

  But the look that flitted across Luke’s face put that idea to rest rather abruptly. It was a cross of pain and surprise. Or was it embarrassment? “I’m not sure.”

  “Oh.” Now, the Northman regretted asking. But he didn’t have any immediate topic change to segue into, however awkwardly.

  And for a moment, they sat in uncomfortable silence. Then, the southerner laughed abashedly. “It’s actually…well, one of the reasons I’m heading back today. I tried talking to him last week. He didn’t want to. But he agreed we’d talk about it this week.”

  “Ah.” Trygve searched his mind for something to say to that. But his own record in the relationship department was nothing short of abysmal. He had nothing in the way of advice or predictions. So he settled on, “Well, I hope it works out.”

  Lucretius nodded. “Me too. It’s funny…for a guy who hates politics as much as Tullius does, he spends more time worrying about it than I do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “About what happens, if someone finds out. I thought…well, to be honest, I thought he’d relax once the election was over. For a while, for a few weeks, it seemed like he had. But now…” The other man shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out.”

  The Northman nodded. “Damn. If I’d known, I would have given you two space to talk it through.”

  Luke smiled, a bittersweet smile. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it, Tryg. Something tells me – and I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am – that it’s not going to be a long conversation.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Trygve took the first opportunity he could without being obvious to leave the pair alone. He couldn’t help but notice how Tullius urged him to stay. When the Northman had suggested he’d take a walk along the border, the gladiator suggested they all go. When he insisted that he needed to clear his head anyway, and Luke demurred, his friend appealed to him to wait until after dinner.

  He shook his head though, gesturing toward Gunnar. “The sooner I get this fat bastard moving again, the better. I swear, he’s put on another ten pounds. Palace life will be the death of him.”

  It wasn’t as dire as all that, but it was as good an excuse as any. And the leopard did need his exercise. So they walked, covering the length of the border fence out past the orchards, and then the demarcation along the far end, and finally, as the sun was settling low in the sky, back along the opposite property line.

  Tullius greeted him when he returned, and his quiet manner told the Northman all he needed to know about how the conversation had gone. “Luke went home,” the other man said in a space. “But he wanted you to know, he’d be back for you tomorrow morning.”

  “Ah.”

  Quiet settled between the two, and then, abruptly, the gladiator added, “But come, dinner will be ready soon.”

  “I’m sorry, Tullius.”

  “What?”

  “About Luke.”

  The other man glanced down, and for a moment seemed fixated on his own sandals. “Well, there’s nothing to be sorry about, Northman. It had to be done. I knew that. We both knew that. You can’t be a politician in that city and be with a man.” He glanced up now and smiled. “So, let us think no more of what cannot be changed. Anyway, I imagine you’ve worked up quite an appetite. We should eat.”

  They did, once Trygve had had a chance to freshen up. He respected the other man’s wish to avoid the topic, though he could not agree with his reasoning. Maybe it was the ridiculousness of his own situation. But the truth was, the Northman was feeling quite optimistic, as if all the fairy stories of his youth might actually be possible.

  Cassia was done with Faustus. He knew that. She knew that. Hell, Faustus knew it. If that wasn’t a reason to believe in the impossible, he didn’t know what was.

  So the idea that love as genuine as that he’d witnessed between his friends could be forbidden? He couldn’t accept that. Not in a world where even sweet, forgiving Cassia could see Faustus for who he was. Not in a world where Trygve Bjarenson, fool and would be murderer, might actually have a prayer at love after all.

  In his mind, the worst was over. Luke had won his election. Certainly, there might be whispers and grumbling. But he’d won his election. And with the reforms that Cass and the new senate was implementing, the people wouldn’t care who their senator loved.

  But that was for Tullius and Luke to decide, not him. So he set his mind to polishing off a delightfully roasted leg of mutton and more wine than he probably should have drank in one sitting.

  They ate in silence for quite a while, Tullius apparently too preoccupied with his own thoughts to have much to say, and Trygve, understanding something of those thoughts, having no desire to plague him with small talk.

  It was the southerner who broke the quiet. “So, you have not left.”

  “What?”

  “When last you were here, you spoke of leaving – leaving the palace, leaving Stella altogether.”

  “Oh. Did I?” It seemed a lifetime ago now. He could scarcely remember.

  The gladiator laughed. “Well, I suppose that answers that, then. Am I to assume the situation in the palace has improved?”

  There was no point denying it, and the Northman didn’t try. On the contrary, he laughed. “You could say that, yes.”

  “Minerva. You’re not shagging her, are you?”

  Trygve frowned at him. “Frigg, no. Of course not.”

  “Oh.” The other man’s expression relaxed. “Because, you know what they’d do to you if they found out you were shagging an empress, right?”

  He brushed this aside with a wave of his hand, though. He didn’t know and had no desire to know. “We’re not…involved like that.” Tullius nodded, and he couldn’t help but add, “Unfortunately.”

  The gladiator shook his head. “You’re courting trouble, Tryg. She’s married – and her husband is emperor. If he found out –”

  “I can handle myself. Anyway, I told you…”

  Tullius snorted, though. “What? You think he’ll challenge you to hand-to-hand combat, or some contest of arms? You think you’ll rescue your empress, is that it? This isn’t your North, with its ideas of honor and nobility.

  “This is the South. He’ll send as many guards as it takes to subdue you, and they’ll take you alive. They’ll scourge you until the skin hangs from your back like a beggar’s rags. They’ll break your bones and –”

  “Frigg,” he interrupted, “enough. Nothing’s happening. I told you that.” He took a long drink of wine. “Things are better because she’s not sleeping with Faustus, okay? That’s the extent of my good news.” He scowled at his friend. “But if you want to talk about cocked up relationships, let’s get back to you and Luke. You want to talk about someone feeling like they have to rescue someone? Let’s talk about you trying to play the hero with Luke. Trying to save him from himself.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “Yeah? Well I don’t want to talk about Cass either.”

  The other man considered this for a moment, then nodded. “Fine.”

  “Fine,” he repeated. They ate for a while longer in silence. His thoughts now took on a more morose aspect. He hadn’t meant to sound as angry as it had all come out. But the truth was, the leaps Tullius’s mind had taken at his joy made him fee
l rather a fool. He really had been celebrating the tiniest of victories, hadn’t he? He’d been pinning his hopes on the meagerest of changes. And they’d made him inordinately, ridiculously happy.

  Now, he was less happy and sullener. And Tullius didn’t engage him a second time, so the meal passed much as it began: in silence.

  They each turned in early, and breakfast was a subdued affair. Though the disagreement of the night before seemed forgotten, neither was in a talkative mood.

  Still, Trygve exerted himself before he left, promising to bring a good mead on his next visit. “Something to put hair on that depilated southern chest.”

  Tullius snorted. “Big talk from a man too scared to wear a toga.”

  They parted on good terms, though the gladiator returned to the domus as Luke’s carriage pulled into the yard.

  For his part, the senator’s face was pale, with dark ruts under his eyes. Trygve supposed he hadn’t slept much the night before. They exchanged the usual pleasantries, after which neither spoke much.

  It wasn’t until they’d almost reached the city that Luke broke the silence. “Northman, I have a favor to ask.”

  “Of course. What do you need?”

  “I need you to get a message to the Empress. I’m going to do something she might not like. No. She definitely won’t like. But I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, and it has to be done, and the timing is good.”

  Trygve frowned. “What are you talking about, Luke?”

  The other man had been avoiding his gaze so far, but now he locked eyes with the Northman. “I’m going to own my homosexuality. Publicly.”

  Trygve blinked. “Wait, what?”

  “You heard me, Tryg. Tullius – he’s an ass and a fool. But he’s not wrong. Sooner or later, someone will find out. Not about me and him, not now. That’s over. But I am who I am. I can’t change that.

  “And sooner or later, no matter how careful I am, someone’s going to find out.”

  The Northman wasn’t sure he concurred, but he couldn’t deny the possibility either. “Maybe. But we can deal with that when it happens, can’t we?”

  The other man shook his head. “No. If I treat it like a dirty secret, something I’m ashamed of, then it is. If I hide it, it becomes a weapon, something that can be used against me.”

  “It’ll still be used against you.”

  “Yes. Oh, I’m no fool. I know that well enough. But I’m not up for re-election for four years now. In four years, I’ll have a record to run on. And that will be old news.

  “And now – well, my being a homosexual is not so great a deal in the scheme of things compared to trying to murder an empress, is it?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “So the time is right to get it over with. It’s better than it will ever be.”

  “I don’t know…” Trygve thought of all the plans Cass had – all the plans Luke had – and how this one, irrelevant fact would be used to the fullest extent to thwart them. “But Luke, consider…if you do this, there’s no taking it back. And there’s no guarantee…well, that it’ll change anything. With Tullius, I mean. Even if you’re willing to go public, he might not be.”

  The younger man smiled, a sad kind of smile. “Oh, I’m well aware of that. That’s not why I’m doing it. I won’t lie, the thought has crossed my mind that maybe he’ll reconsider when it’s not a secret that can ruin me anymore.

  “But I’m not doing it for Tullius, Tryg. I’m not doing it for our relationship. I’m doing it for me.

  “I don’t want this hung over my head for the rest of my life. I don’t think I would ever give in to blackmail. I’d like to think I know myself better than that. But the truth is, it’s not that simple.

  “You think any of those senators who were executed for plotting to murder Cassia ever envisioned themselves there? You think Governor Caius – wherever he is now – imagined this is how his life would play out? You think he thought he’d be the type of man to try to murder an empress?

  “I don’t. We think we’re the good guys. We all do. We think we’ll do what’s right, whatever the cost.

  “And then we’re put to the test, and we bend here and we bend there. Just a little at first. But then it becomes habit, and before you know it, we’ve bent so much we’re broken. I don’t want anyone to have the kind of leverage over me that’ll make me start compromising – not now, not ever. I don’t want to put myself to that test. Because I think I’d pass. But so does everyone, don’t they?”

  The Northman felt his cheeks color at the other man’s words. He knew the truth of them only too well, didn’t he? He’d been the one, of the two of them, to make the ethical compromises, hadn’t he? He’d started on the ethical high ground. Oh, he didn’t doubt that. He’d started with legitimate grievances, and a good cause. But he’d been the one to justify what he shouldn’t have, a little at a time, day after day. Until he’d found himself so far from that high ground, so far from decency or right, that he would have murdered the very people he’d set out to save.

  “Trygve?” he heard Luke’s voice, and realized he’d gotten lost in his own reflections.

  “What?”

  “I said, will you talk to her? Tell her that’s my plan – and I won’t change my mind. But if she prefers that I resign instead, so she can run someone else, someone who won’t have that blemish on their record…well, I will. No fuss, no argument. I’ll just go. Tell her that, will you?”

  The Northman agreed, trying once more to persuade his friend to reconsider. He made no headway, though, nor had he expected to. Hell, he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to make him reconsider. He didn’t want Luke to end up hated or ostracized. But he didn’t want to see him – to see anyone – wind up where he’d been, either.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Cass greeted him with smiles that for a time pushed everything else out of Trygve’s mind. She hoped his stay away was a good one, and she would swear the sun did him good. “And Gunnar too. Look at his coat – it’s so bright.”

  The big cat flopped to the ground, rolling over and chirping at her. It was his way of demanding a belly rub, and the empress obliged. The Northman laughed. “He’s got no manners at all. Yelling at an Empress? Shame on you, Fatty.”

  The leopard ignored him, and Cass laughed. “Oh, I don’t mind him yelling at all. It’s been so quiet here without you – both of you.” She glanced up and smiled again. “I’ve missed you.”

  He found himself smiling too. “I missed you too, Cass.”

  He might have kept staring into her eyes, lost to everything else, if the cat hadn’t chirped again and drawn her attention. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she teased. “Was I neglecting you? Poor Mister Gunnar.”

  Soon enough, though, the reunions wound to an end. The Northman remembered and relayed his message. Cass considered it with a quiet frown. “Do you think he’s quite made up his mind?”

  “I do.”

  “I see. And did he give a timeframe?”

  “No, but I believe he means to do it soon – either to resign, or to make his announcement.”

  “I see. Give me some time to think about it, and I’ll give you your answer.”

  She took the rest of the afternoon, but by evening she had the promised decision. “I think it will be ugly. The conservatives, they’ll do everything they can to make a mess out of this. They’ll try to turn this into a moral panic. They’ll try to make everyone forget that a few months ago their wing of the senate was trying to kill people.”

  The Northman nodded slowly, and felt his heart sink a little. She wasn’t wrong. Still, to ask Luke to step down, after all he’d sacrificed to get here? After he’d given up – and perhaps lost – his relationship with Tullius? Maybe it was the right call, politically. But it still felt wrong. “So I should tell him to resign?”

  Cassia blinked. “What? No. No, I know it will be a mess. But…I think we’ll weather it alright. We’ll stay on topic – we have the votes to get done what
we needed done. And luckily, we have years before the next election. Luke will prove himself a more than able representative between then and now. And the electorate will forget their moral outrage in time.”

  She smiled, reaching out a hand to his and squeezing it. “Tell him to go ahead, to go public however he means to. He will have my full support.”

  Trygve relayed the message, and Lucretius accepted it with palpable relief. He did not, he said, have firm plans for when or how he’d take the next step. But it would be soon.

  As it happened, the revelation came two days later on the Senate floor. The discussion was straightforward enough: a measure mandating survivor benefits for wives of men killed on the job. The conservatives opposed it, naturally, as putting an undue burden on employers. The progressives argued that death was itself an undue burden on the employee specifically and his family secondarily, and the requirement would provide long overdue incentive to improve working conditions.

  It was at this juncture that Luke offered a point of clarification. “Members of the Senate, I would move to amend the language of the statute to read ‘surviving spouse or partner’ rather than ‘surviving wife.’ As we know, there are increasingly large numbers of households where both spouses are employed. And as a gay man myself, I would hope we would recognize the suffering of a loss of every spouse no matter the gender of the partners involved.”

  He got his way: the senate amended the language at his request. Still, had he torched the Forum in broad daylight, it might have caused less of a kerfuffle.

  It was all anyone talked about for days. Cass made a show of being seen with Senator Lucretius as much as possible. He dined at the palace several nights in a row as the empress’s personal guest. And the rest of her guests did their best to keep their whispers and stares to a minimum.