Viper's Nest

by Rachel Ford

  The Northman stuck with the story he and Cass had agreed on: she’d summoned him shortly after he’d left, since Faustus had passed out.

  When he said no more on the matter, the emperor laughed. “Oh yes, I remember. My little prank on Cass. I had you both going, didn’t I? I only wish I’d kept my head long enough to remember it.”

  Trygve didn’t try to feign amusement. Instead, he concentrated on hiding the hatred he felt. He must have been successful, because Faustus changed the topic. “Anyway, enough of that. Godsdammit, my head is splitting. Where is that fool of a doctor?

  “Go and find him, Northman. And tell him I’ll crucify him if he isn’t here in the quarter hour. I’ll nail him to the cross myself.”

  The emperor’s mood didn’t improve, but Trygve was able to get away by midmorning. “Yes, get out of my sight. Minerva knows, I don’t need your bellowing.”

  Trygve bowed. “Forgive me, my lord.”

  Faustus waved him away. “Get out.” But as he reached the doors, the other man added, “Oh, and, uh, Northman?”

  Trygve grimaced but tried to sound unaffected. “Yes, my lord?”

  “Now that the wedding is done, I’ll be heading back to the coast. Tell Cass, will you?”

  Trygve promised to do so, inwardly cursing the other man for his cowardice on top of everything else. So that’s how it’s going to be? Skulk away like a rat, as if nothing ever happened? He’d sworn off his regicidal tendencies, and that was for the best. But his fingers itched to lock around the other man’s neck, and squeeze.

  Instead, he took his leave and went to find Cass.

  She was waiting for him, and she greeted him with a warmth that rather surprised him – not the less so in light of her subdued attitude that morning. She shut the door as soon as he’d entered, and pressed her body against his. “Tryg.”

  He threw a furtive glance around the room. “Are we…?”

  “Alone? Yes.”

  “Oh.” He relaxed a pinch at that. Of course they were alone. She wouldn’t have been here, her arms wrapped around him, her lips hovering above his. “I…”

  She leaned in to kiss him, and he forgot what he was going to say. He forgot everything for a long time – their strange parting, his message from Faustus. Everything, but the feel of her skin against his, her breath on his neck, her kiss on his mouth.

  “I had breakfast brought up,” she said. “I thought you would be hungry. I know I am.”

  He cleared his throat, trying to force something useful from his brain. “Uh…right. Food.”

  She grinned. “Unless…you had something else in mind?”

  They spent those first few days of Faustus’s absence in a kind of haze of stolen moments. For the first time in her life, Cassia took to locking her chamber doors on a regular basis.

  Trygve would stash an extra pair of clothes in her room, so he wouldn’t be caught in the same clothes he’d been wearing the day before.

  Outside of their mornings and evenings, they had to be more restrained of course. They could hope for nothing more than covert glances, lingering touches – and stolen kisses in the carriage with the shades drawn.

  It wasn’t enough, and yet it was so much more than she’d hoped, that Cassia felt that she might be able to live like this after all. It would be more difficult once Faustus got back. They’d have to be more careful about Tryg’s comings and goings. They’d have to take more care to hide their caresses and smiles.

  But people had been carrying on affairs since the beginning of time, hadn’t they? Minerva knew, Faustus had managed plenty of his own under her nose before she finally got wise to him. And that was only because he’d stopped caring that she might find out.

  Oh, she wasn’t proud of it. She felt like a rat sometimes, sneaking about in the shadows. But she had him in her arms, in her bed, in her life. She’d crossed that line, and she could never uncross it. Not now.

  There was one line, though, she hadn’t crossed. Trygve had told her he loved her. He hadn’t brought it up since, nor did she.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t love him in return. Minerva knew – even if it had taken her way too long to figure out – she did.

  But no matter how much they might pretend otherwise in their stolen moments of passion, she was still a married woman. She wasn’t free to give her heart and her hand to anyone else. No matter how much she might wish otherwise.

  Then, that wasn’t true. At least, it wasn’t the whole story. She wasn’t free yet. But she could be free. And that’s what scared her.

  Because in her heart of hearts, every objection, every cost to the empire, seemed to pale in comparison to that one, simple truth: she could be free. She could divorce Faustus. And if he’d have her, she could marry Trygve Bjarneson.

  The willingness, the readiness, with which her mind and heart seized on that fact terrified her in a way almost nothing could. Because divorcing Faustus meant plunging the empire into the same straits it had been before she’d married him.

  It meant repaying the debts Faustus’s father had settled from the imperial treasury. The empire was in a more stable situation now. It wouldn’t bankrupt Stella.

  But it would mean the end of her rebuilding projects, for several years at least. And if she bailed now, after all she and the Senate had promised, she might never win back her majority. She might lose the power to rebuild – not just now, but ever.

  And still, when those words returned unbidden to her memory – I love you, Cassia – it took every scrap of willpower to stop her from grabbing the nearest quill and drafting a divorcement decree there and then.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Theirs was not the only positive development on the relationship front. At first, Tullius had been furious at Luke for having risked everything. They’d had a fight that had sent the senator back from the countryside looking more dejected than ever.

  But then, two days later, the gladiator had shown up at Luke’s house. Trygve didn’t know all the details, but he did know Luke was absent from the Forum the next day, and all smiles the day after.

  It didn’t take much to figure out that he and Tullius were back together, but this time it was no secret. The Northman was happy for them. Tullius had been stubborn, pigheaded, and damned foolish. Luke hadn’t been much better. He’d risked throwing his entire career away for love.

  A year ago, Trygve would have thought them imbeciles. Then again, a year ago Trygve never would have imagined he’d have been the other man in any relationship. And that realization made him rather philosophical. Love, he decided, made fools of the wisest. Nothing else could explain it.

  This development, of course, was not long kept from the rumor mill. And the appearance of Tullius, the arena’s beloved Bull, Stella’s Victor and champion of the games, made it all the more astonishing and salacious.

  The character of gladiators as a whole was a new and oddly popular topic of discussion. The consensus seemed to be that there was something not quite right about men who would let blood for sport or gold. Moral turpitude runs with the breed. It has to. Are we surprised now to see it rear its ugly head again? the moralists would wonder.

  I always knew there was something wrong with that Tullius, the more imperious gossips would decree. You can tell just by looking at some men. I always said so: something’s not right about him.

  Others would worry about what kind of example this was setting. What about our sons? This man is supposed to be a hero. How many of us have watched him in the arenas? How many of us have brought our children to watch his victories? And now, for him to flaunt his perversions like this?

  A few times, the Northman had to stifle a laugh. He was only called on it once, though. It was at a dinner party – one he was impatient to depart, to get Cass back to her rooms. A stern-faced patrician called Publius the Elder was opining something of the latter objection when he’d laughed. At that laughter, the old man stared at him over the bridge of an upturned nose. “Does the degradation of our so
ciety amuse you, Northman?”

  “Forgive me, sir,” he returned, as contritely as he was able while still fighting a grin. He didn’t mean to draw attention to himself, and much less so to embarrass Cass. He’d been caught off guard by the absurdity of the comments. But he hadn’t been looking to get into it with anyone.

  The apology didn’t quite satisfy Publius, though. He turned to Cassia, declaring, “It’s a curiosity to be sure, Empress. But you might want to teach it manners when it’s out in public.”

  Trygve forgot his contrition. “I was saying, forgive me, sir, but I thought you were making a joke. I cannot fathom a moral code where witnessing murders is a matter to boast about, but consensual relationships a cause for moralistic handwringing.”

  Publius sputtered something about ignorant savages from the North and their unsolicited opinions. Still, after that exchange, Trygve found he was free to snicker when he felt like it without fear of interrogation.

  Cass made a point to include the senator and Tullius in her dinner parties, both the formal and informal. This had a twofold effect. The first was to extend an unofficial imperial protection to the couple. They were the empress’s friends, and to come at either of them beyond a whisper was to come at Cassia.

  The second was less critical but no less enjoyable to the Northman. It meant he was more regularly in company with the other men. And as they were friends, he was able to take a more relaxed public role – not as Cass’s unusually close bodyguard, but as the friend of Tullius and Lucretius. He sat as a guest as often as not now, and since they sat near Cass, so did he.

  He’d been very careful, so far, to keep his distance in public. He didn’t want a careless gaze or an ill-timed touch to spawn rumors that would damage her. So he’d been a consummate professional in public, keeping his distance, averting his gaze, and treating her with the respectful disinterest of a good servant.

  But there was something about this gradual shift in situation that threatened to overthrow his good sense. It was one thing to be a hidden lover, a paramour behind closed doors. But to sit beside her every night, to laugh and exchange pleasantries and smiles? To be so near he could lean over and kiss her?

  And yet, so far away.

  Frigg, it was maddening. He loved it. He hated it. He wouldn’t have given up this new freedom, this new nearness, for anything. And yet how many times had he had to stop himself a moment before a reckless word slipped out? How many times had he held back an ill-considered touch, or checked an intimate smile?

  Still, as careful as he’d been, it hadn’t escaped Tullius’s notice. Despite their social obligations putting them in much more frequent contact, they rarely had the chance to converse in private. For his own part, when Trygve wasn’t working, he had something – or rather, someone – else on his mind. And though Cass urged him to take time off as he saw fit, his head was far too full of her to take her up on it.

  And even when the Northman did find himself with time on his hands, the gladiator was otherwise occupied – with Luke, of course. So while they saw each other frequently, the simultaneously saw little of one another. It was a curious paradox of Stellan social life, that the more engaged one became in it, the less one got out of it.

  Still, one night about a month after the gladiator had become a regular at Cass’s table, he found a moment. The empress had excused herself for the evening and bid her guests a good night. Trygve followed, ostensibly to fulfill his contractual duties.

  Of course, there were other, far more pleasing reasons on the Northman’s mind, and he fell to whispering to Cass as soon as they were out of sight of the main halls. They stopped first to find Gunnar. The big cat needed his evening walk, and he followed dutifully.

  Autumn had come to the gardens where they took their walks, and the leaves were changing colors and falling away here and there. For a while, his arm wrapped around her, they talked in low, amorous whispers and watched the stars overhead.

  Trygve was pretty sure he nearly jumped out of his skin when a voice – Tullius’s voice – broke the stillness of the night. “Oh, forgive me. I didn’t realize you were here.”

  “Frigg,” the Northman snapped. He’d reached instinctively for the blade that hung at his side, but relaxed as he registered the other speaker as his friend. “What are you doing here?”

  Cass had jumped too, and she pulled away from him quickly.

  “Sorry,” the other man apologized. “Luke is still talking with some of the other senators. And…well, you know I’ve no love of politics. Much as I admire his work. But I didn’t mean to intrude.”

  “I should take Gunnar back,” Cassia said, her tone adopting an awkward kind of formality.

  “Right,” Trygve said. “Uh, thank you, Empress. He’s always more comfortable when you, uh, walk him.”

  “Of course. Have a good night, Trygve.”

  The snow leopard glanced between his master and his de facto mistress when she called him but seemed to have little difficulty deciding whom to follow. The palace, and his plush couch, beckoned.

  Another time, the Northman might have been amused by how soft his once fierce tundra cat had grown. Now, he was too busy trying to regain some kind of control over the situation. He didn’t know how much Tullius had seen or heard. The southerner knew his feelings for Cass already. But he’d never mentioned that they’d progressed beyond feelings. That knowledge could compromise her reputation too much to be shared, even with his closest friends.

  Once she’d gone, he demanded again, “What the hell are you doing here, Tullius? You can’t be sneaking around the grounds at night. I might have killed you.”

  “I wasn’t quite honest earlier.”

  “What?”

  “About why I was here. It wasn’t because of Luke. I figured you’d be here. I didn’t realize you wouldn’t be alone.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Tryg, you don’t need to worry. I’d never say anything about – well, about what I saw.”

  “There was nothing to see,” the Northman lied.

  “Good. That’s what I was going to say: I found my friend walking his murder panther. That’s it.”

  Trygve eyed the other man. He still didn’t know what he was doing here, but this was Tullius, after all: his friend, Tullius, who had saved his life and offered him a home when he’d had none. “Snow leopard.”

  “Whatever.” The other man brushed this aside with a wave of his hand and a grin. “Now, this is an interesting turn of events, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “It wasn’t so long ago you found me in a compromising situation in the gardens. Now…” He shrugged, grinning again.

  “I thought you didn’t see anything?”

  “Of course. But come on, Tryg. You have to admit, it’s funny.”

  The Northman considered for a moment, and then nodded. “I suppose so. Frigg has a sense of humor.”

  “Frigg, Minerva: whoever it is, they’re kind of an asshole.”

  This provoked a laugh, as much from astonishment as amusement, from him. “Disrespect your own gods how you see fit, Southman. But leave Frigg out of it.”

  The other man laughed too, but then grew serious. “Tryg, there’s a reason I came to find you. I’m not very good at this political speech. But I’m not surprised that you and Cassia…that is, that certain developments might have happened. It’s been pretty obvious.”

  “Obvious?” Trygve frowned. Obvious was not what he wanted.

  “To me and Luke? Yes. But, we know you. We knew what you were going through before, when Faustus…that is, when matters were settled differently. And now that certain changes have taken place, yes, to us, it was obvious.”

  He snorted. “I don’t know. You sound like a politician to me.”

  “What I’m saying is, I don’t mean that it’s obvious to everyone else. Just, that you – and she – don’t need to be worried about anything that I might have – but didn’t – see here tonight. We
already knew. And your secret is always safe with us.”

  That was reassuring, and though he hadn’t really doubted it, he still relaxed another degree. Now, though, he felt stupid for being so jumpy a minute ago. “Then what the hell are you doing creeping around the gardens? Just to tell me you suspect something – something that may or may not be happening?”

  “Now who’s the politician?” Trygve saw by the distant torchlight that Tullius was smiling, but there wasn’t much mirth otherwise in his tone or expression. “I’m sorry about – well, ‘creeping’ about. But I had to talk to you.”

  “Why?” He felt that same unease creep back into his mind.

  “What do you know about Faustus, Tryg?”

  “Faustus?” He blinked. He hadn’t really known what to expect, but this wasn’t it. “Well, he’s…he’s Cass’s husband.”

  “Right, but what else?”

  “He’s, uh, insanely wealthy. Owns a big chunk of Stella. A bunch of properties and factories and mines. Which is why he’s so opposed to the changes she’s making for wages and working conditions.” He shook his head now. “But what are you getting at? What does that have to do with anything?”

  The gladiator took a few steps forward, until they stood about an arm’s length apart. He scrutinized Trygve’s face for a long moment in silence. Then he said, “How well do you trust Cassia?”

  “Completely.”

  It seemed the wrong answer. The other man nodded resolutely, but his tone was flat. “I see. Well, good.”

  “What’s wrong, Tullius? What are you getting at?”

  “Do you love her, Tryg?”

  “Of course.” He shook his head. “But Frigg, what does that have to do with anything?”

  “I just…hope you’re right, my friend. I hope she’s as trustworthy as you think.”

  This, finally, was too much for the Northman, who loosed a litany of swears and demanded a straight answer forthwith.

  Tullius did not at first oblige. But when he did speak again, his tone was guarded. “I will tell you. But first, tell me this: how involved is Cassia in her husband’s business affairs?”