by Sheila Finch
Still feeling the sting of Breca’s sharp words as if they had fallen on himself as well as Nero, he turned back to the villa. The day was winding down toward night, the birds flying home to roost. Coming toward him on the path he saw the Greek tutor with Catuarus and Lucia.
“A little late to start an outing?” he said.
Niko stopped. “The right time, I think.”
“We’re going to look at the first stars of evening, Father!” Catuarus said. Excitement shone in his eyes. “Niko will name them for us. He’s going to teach us where to look for them rising at different times in the year so we can navigate safely.”
“I know one already, the first star,” Lucia said. “It’s called the... the – What is its name, Niko?”
“What are you teaching these children? Certainly something more than Latin grammar.”
“I’m teaching the boy to be a king someday, with a king’s knowledge.”
He let them pass. Once, he would’ve shared with his son the same Celtic lore he’d learned as a boy. Now it took a Greek tutor to do it.
One man had remained under the colonnade after the other petitioners had left, a sallow-faced fellow with eyes of different colors, one brown, one amber. He should remember that. A sour stink to him. He couldn’t place the man. Too much of his memory was still ensnared in his clogged mind! Time would heal, Niko said – But he didn’t have time.
“A word with you?” The man put out a hand as if he would physically restrain him.
He stopped and stared into the man’s odd eyes. The man withdrew the hand.
“I have news,” the man said, his manner now respectful.
“Tell it.”
“Two young men – sons of a sheep-herder living up on the downs – were missing for several weeks. They’ve been found – at least, their bones have.”
He remembered the man now, a copper miner who lived just outside Noviomagus. A troublemaker. “A sorrow for the father, indeed. But what has this to do with me?”
“The knife that did the killing was found under one of the lads. Apparently, he struggled with his killer and fell on the knife that had taken his life.” The potter held a knife out for him to see, his expression half eager, half cunning. “Looks like a Roman dagger, doesn’t it? Perhaps from a legionary?”
Frowning, he looked down at the knife, the setting sun’s rays coloring the blade crimson. He’d seen that blade with the telltale nicks on its cutting edge before. It was dull, lacking luster from lying in the earth, but he recognized it instantly. A half remembered conversation when he was delirious with pain surfaced out of his clouded memory. A promise to avenge.
“Why bring this to me?”
“I thought you would want to know.”
If the man thought the killer was a Roman, he should take the knife to the centurion. It wouldn’t take too long to find the owner. But the man had brought it to him. That could only mean one thing: he suspected who the knife’s owner was, and who that man’s protector was. But to acknowledge that he understood this would put him in debt to a man who couldn’t be trusted. The man knew Gallus was his friend. Whatever he did at this point would be dangerous, for Gallus and for himself.
“It’s a legionary’s pugio. But there are many legionaries in Britannia, with many knives. Shall we examine all of them to find out who has lost his? And what if a thief stole it from its rightful owner – used it in a thwarted attempt at thievery with the young sheep-herders?”
The man refused to meet his gaze. He wasn’t fool enough to think the matter was closed. The copper miner expected to be paid for bringing the knife. But one payment would lead to many.
“I don’t pay for information.”
The miner lifted his head and gazed at Togidubnus. He very deliberately opened his fingers and dropped the knife on the newly laid mosaic floor of the anteroom.
“Clumsy of me,” the man said.
There was danger here in every word, every action. One misstep and Gallus’s life would be forfeit.
The copper miner left.
“I could ensure you aren’t bothered like that again, at least until you’re fully recovered,” Niko said.
He turned to see the Greek physician leaning against a pillar in the evening shadows, arms crossed, observing.
“Back so soon?”
“Clouds blew in from the sea, blocking the stars. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
“It’s my duty as their king.” He felt an illogical need to explain himself to the Greek. “I listen to all grievances. Sometimes, I act.”
“Our philosophers would approve. They’ve spent the last couple of hundred years thinking about how to govern.”
“I thought Rome had settled the question?”
“Only to Roman satisfaction. There are several forms government may take. Rome seems to favor the tyrannical.”
He was intrigued. The Greek physician was a strange man, but always thought-provoking. “And what path do you see that I should follow here?”
Niko gazed at him, his expression serious. “You may not have the chance to choose. But if you do, remember a king’s authority should be based on more than might.”
He shook his head. “You speak in riddles, friend.”
“The rock on which you build your kingdom must be the love of knowledge, not the sword.”
“I see how well that served Greece against the Roman Legions!”
But even as he mocked, he remembered the joy he’d known as a small boy, so proud to recognize that the tiny, grey eggs speckled with olive he’d found on the Downs belonged to the skylark pouring out her song high above. Yes, as a king to follow him, his son would do well to gather knowledge.
How odd to mean Catuarus, not Amminus in that thought! That wound in his soul would not be healing for a long time to come.
* * *
“There you are, Tiberius! You haven’t forgotten, I hope?”
Antonia dressed for an outing, fine cloak over her long white tunic, her hair piled high in elaborate curls that must’ve taken Delamira hours to accomplish, jewels at her ears and throat, stood in the doorway of his bedroom.
He reached for a robe to cover the nakedness he slept in. “What might I have forgotten?”
She sighed. “You forget so much since you were injured. This afternoon your temple in Noviomagus is to be consecrated.”
“But it’s not finished.” He remembered that much. The wound to his head still caused forgetfulness as well as headaches, even though many weeks had passed since the attack.
“Of course not. But you decided – after the priests consulted you – that it was far enough along to consecrate it.”
“Ah.” Yes, he did remember that now. The inner sanctuary, the high altar, the courtyard where the worshipers would gather were ready. He felt the urgency of having a functioning temple as soon as possible, even if the work wasn’t completed. Autumn would draw down to winter before very long. And Pudens, his lone supporter on the council, had advised haste to forestall more criticism.
“The children are ready to accompany us,” she said. “They wait for us outside.”
Antonia went away.
A temple to Minerva and Neptune. In Breca’s honor. That had been his plan long ago, in more innocent times. He closed his eyes against the troubling memories.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Antonia stopped in the courtyard to read the inscribed panel, newly installed, on a wall of the unfinished temple. Weeds sprouted in little points of gold and pale green along the foot of the wall. Afternoon sunlight illuminated the carved words:
NEPTVNO ET MINERVAE
TEMPLVM
PRO SALVTE DOMVS DIVINAE
EX AVCTOITATE TIBERI CLAVDI
TOGIDVBNI REG MAGN BRIT
COLLEGIVM FABRORVM ET QVI IN EO
SVNT DE SVO DEDERVNT DONANTE AREAM
PVDENTE PVDENTINIO FILIO
Collegium fabrorum –The Guild of Smiths. What had they contributed to the temple of Minerva and Ne
ptune other than a lot of useless advice Tiberius had complained about? At least it recognized Tiberius as “Great King.”
Catuarus was pointing to the inscribed words and reading them aloud for Lucia. The child clung to the boy’s side, suddenly shy in the midst of a crowd of strangers thronging the temple for its consecration. Lucia was too dependent on him for companionship, but there were no more Roman children her age or rank in Noviomagus since Caelius died, and Tiberius would never have allowed her to bring a young slave into the house as a companion for her daughter.
“Come.” She pulled her palla around her shoulders as a sudden breeze chilled her. “We must go in.”
Tiberius had gone ahead to confer with the priests. He was in a foul mood today and she was just as glad not to have to make conversation with him. A group of Regni men and their wives hurried past, next a Roman family with their servants. The lesser folk must stay outside in the chilly courtyard. The courtyard was filling with both Roman and Regni families, but among them were several Regni women alone. She couldn’t decide whether she found it scandalous for a woman to travel alone as Regni women often did, or whether she envied them a freedom denied to her. A little of both.
A hand touched her arm and a voice asked, “Here alone?”
Marcus’s tribune – Didius Something. She gazed pointedly at his fingers on her arm and he withdrew them.
“My husband is inside, Tribune.”
“Leaving his pretty little wife to fend for herself?”
There was something false-seeming about the man’s narrow face.
“Excuse me.” She took a step away.
She looked around for Niko and found him in the shadow of the opposite wall, his dark head bent to speak to a young, fair-haired legionary. Sensing her gaze, the Greek removed his hand from the younger man’s arm and stepped away. She waited as he came over to her.
“Neptune is an odd choice for the first great temple in Noviomagus, don’t you agree?”
“Consider that this is an island.” Niko shepherded the children through the main arch of the temple. “We are beholden to Neptune here more than to Jupiter.”
“I will never be truly at home here!”
Her chances of returning to her birth land were small and getting smaller with each passing year spent in this island. Yet the ache to go home remained. Just to be careful, she waved a priest over and gave him some small coins.
“Sacrifice for me to Minerva,” she said. “And Niko – for once teach the children the customs of Romans!”
A line of legionaries marched into the courtyard, berry-colored tunics, shiny mail cuirasses, bronze helmets suggesting several hours of work bringing them to this high parade standard. They were young men, hardly older than herself, but there were a few hardened faces among them. Some had faces as dark as Delamira’s. Mercenaries, she guessed, joining Rome’s legions to do better than they would have done in their own poor kingdoms. They passed through the doorway into the temple.
She ushered the children after the soldiers.
Gallus was inside, talking with a Regni man who wore his grey hair in long braids. The old legionary acted proud of himself today – new toga, shiny new sandals, and a gleaming new dagger in his belt. He reminded her of a rooster strutting across the courtyard in her father’s home, something she hadn’t thought of for a long time. Appropriate, considering his name! She’d hated the bird because it attacked her ankles She hadn’t seen much of Gallus for the last few months while he was in Noviomagus overseeing the building of the temple, which was just as well. If the gods allowed, he’d move into town permanently when it was finished. The thought of him in her new villa was not appealing.
Tiberius came out from an inner chamber with the long-robed priests, her tall husband towering over the shorter, fatter Romans, and the ceremony of consecration began.
Remembering the bad-tempered rooster made her homesick again. There had to be some way she could go back to Italia for a brief visit. Surely the emperor would allow her that? He might’ve been dangerous for her at one time, as Niko warned her so often, but that was years ago! Lucia had been hardly more than an infant in Niko’s arms, and now she was in her eighth year and growing tall.
She remembered what had happened to Tiberius’s son at Nero’s court. Well, they wouldn’t have to stay in Rome itself. She could look for Gracila in Pompeii. There certainly was nothing left for her in Pyrgi, yet the longing for sunlit hills plunging wildly down rocky slopes to the blue sea and a climate where it didn’t rain every other day wouldn’t go away.
The incense the priests were burning stung her eyes. Their chanting made her sleepy. Niko put out a hand to steady her when she swayed on her feet. She didn’t care about the gods, in any case; they hadn’t done much for her when she’d needed them. But it was never wise to openly question their power. She should ask Severus to be sure he planned a prominent alcove in the new villa where the household gods could be displayed and honored.
“Where are they?”
She blinked at the boy beside her. He rarely spoke directly to her. “Who?”
“My mother. My aunt and uncle,” Catuarus said. “I don’t see them. Niko, can you see them?”
A sudden flurry of wings startled her. In honor of Minerva, the priests had released a captured owl. It flapped past her head and out the temple’s great door to land on an unfinished wall in the crowded courtyard. It paused there, blinking in the sunlight.
“That’s a good omen,” Niko murmured. “It didn’t leave Minerva’s temple right away.”
The owl launched itself off the wall and vanished beyond it.
She shuddered, the nightbird’s presence threatening somehow. “Whose custom is that? I thought we sacrificed birds in Roman temples.”
“Nobody kills Minerva’s owls,” Niko said.
“We’re lucky they don’t release fish for Neptune!”
“Where are they? I can’t find them,” the boy persisted.
She gazed at him, a younger version of his father, his hair a darker red but almost as tall.
“Well, perhaps –” she began.
She saw Marcus Favonius, splendid in his centurion’s white ceremonial robe, his hair curled and gleaming with oil, standing by the altar, surrounded by his favored legionaries. His tribune stood beside him. The man was staring at her. Catching her gaze, the tribune opened his mouth and his tongue came out. Shocked, she looked quickly away.
Tiberius had invited all the important families in Noviomagus to a feast after the ceremony, in the newly finished banqueting room at the villa. Marcus too. Would they come, or would it be a repeat of the embarrassment of that Yule celebration so long ago? Would that rude tribune come too? He’d have to watch his manners in her own home with her husband present.
It was hard trying to concentrate on the ceremony. The priests droned on.
The ceremony ended at last and people drifted out of the temple. She waited inside with Niko and the children for Tiberius who was talking to Marcus. At least, Marcus was talking and Tiberius was listening. Probably urging him to continue the work that had got him almost killed. Tiberius was right about that: No one wanted to pay more tax than they had to, and insisting on compliance with a harsh law was causing unrest, possibly threatening rebellion at some point. If Tiberius accepted that role, he would be in danger.
Tiberius came down the shallow steps from the altar and took her arm, putting his other arm around his son’s shoulder. His face looked old to her today, and set in solemn lines, not the satisfied expression she would’ve expected on this occasion. Building the temple meant as much to him as enlarging the villa meant to her. It was the strangeness of the Celt in him, always mournful, unsatisfied, one foot in the past. Time had showed her that he was a good man, but no matter how long her life with him might be, she knew she’d never completely understand him. And it wasn’t in her to love him.
They walked in silence through the temple courtyard to the street where a small carriage waited for Ant
onia and the children. A boy held the horse’s reins, another held the grey stallion with a long mane that Tiberius purchased from Gaulish horse-traders at the last fair to replace the lost Stormfellow. Catuarus climbed in and held out a hand. Niko lifted Lucia up.
Tiberius helped her into the carriage. “The guests will reach the villa before you do.”
She frowned at him. “You’re not coming?”
“I ride out immediately with the centurion and a party of legionaries. The tribune will have control while we’re gone.”
“Tiberius! Surely it can wait for one day, at least?”
He shook his head. “This is becoming a dangerous rebellion along the border with the Belgae. It needs to be stopped, fast, before the winter weather sets in.”
“Are you well enough to do this? This is different from collecting taxes.”
“My duty as a Roman citizen includes helping Rome keep the peace.”
“But you’re not dressed for a battle.”
“I have my sword. I’ll borrow the rest from the garrison.”
They gazed at each other for a long moment, so much unsaid dividing them.
She sighed. “Guard yourself, Tiberius.”
He gave the horse a light slap and the carriage moved forward..
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The legionary riding ahead of him through the sleeting rain didn’t have a chance. Togidubnus heard the battle yell. He saw the flash of blue-daubed skin as the Celt dropped out of the tree and sliced open the Roman’s neck. The man’s startled scream. Bright blood gushed, splashing the terrified horse as its rider slid down its side to the mud. The attacker too hit the ground, curled his body and rolled away into the thick ferns under the trees. The horse galloped away.
