“Send Castor with some salve for Metrodona’s back. When he delivers it unexpectedly, I’ll know you will be free and heading for the woods.”
“All right. But how will you get free of Metrodona?”
“I’ll figure out a way.”
He smiled. She placed her fingertips on a clay foot votive. “Is this for the stable boy? How is he recovering?”
On an impulse, he ran his finger lightly over hers, tracing slowly down and around the curve of her thumb. It made no sense that such an innocent touch could cause him to nearly vibrate with desire for her, but it seemed to have the same effect on her, judging by the way her breath hitched. They both stared at their hands in silence as he continued stroking her skin.
“I will … I will find a way to get out there today,” he promised.
She shivered and pulled her hand away. “This afternoon, then,” she said in a shaky whisper and rushed out of the room.
* * *
By the time Tag bound the hurt gladiator’s leg and got him to his barrack room to rest, the morning training had ended. He stared at the sun over the trees, calculating how much time needed to pass before he could head out to the woods to see Lucia. Either way, it couldn’t come soon enough.
“Healer! Pontius wants to see you,” one of the men called, startling him. “He is in the weapons room.”
Whatever it was the overseer wanted, Tag hoped it wasn’t something that would take up the afternoon. He needed to see Lucia.
He entered the weapons chamber, momentarily blinded by the shift from the bright courtyard to the dark and dusty room. As his vision adjusted, shelves crowded with gladiator helmets came into view. When he blinked, he had the uneasy sense that all of the bronze heads — as one — had turned to look at him with silent menace.
“Who’s there?” Pontius called from the corner.
“It’s me, Tag.”
“How is Brutus?” the overseer asked as he inspected the dings on an old shield.
“Severe tear of the major back thigh muscle.”
Pontius growled irritably. “What is going on lately? Our injury rate is ridiculous. The latest rumor is that Spartacus himself has returned to the mountain and is punishing Pompeii.”
“What?” Tag laughed.
“His ghost, anyway,” Pontius said. “And that his fury at not being avenged is causing the mountain to shake.”
Tag shook his head. “That makes no sense. Spartacus and his men died in the fields of Lucania, not here!”
Pontius waggled his eyebrows. “Yesssss, but they never found his body, so some of the men believe he came back to Vesuvius to die.” He rolled his eyes. Every slave knew that Spartacus and his army of slaves — many of them from Pompeii and the Campanian region — had defeated at least two Roman legions from their Vesuvian stronghold. “Everybody’s uneasy. Haven’t you noticed all the overwhelming offerings to Hercules lately?” continued Pontius.
Tag had noticed — the niched shrine on the main barracks wall overflowed with flowers, fruits, small statuettes, coins, and other gifts to the muscular son of Zeus.
“The master has heard some of the talk,” continued Pontius. “He wants me to shackle all of the gladiators at night so they don’t get any ideas about running away and joining Spartacus’s ghost.”
Tag swallowed. “Is … is the master increasing the number of guards around the compound, then?” he asked. Gods.
“No, costs too much,” Pontius said, picking up an angled Thracian sword. He cut his eyes at Tag. “Any particular reason that’s a concern, boy?”
“No, no. Not at all.”
“Because it never ends well when a slave tries to run away.”
“I am aware.”
“Ye might even say new fighters have a greater chance of winning their freedom in the arena than slaves have surviving a run,” he continued, inspecting the tip of the sword with one eye. “Which is to say, barely any chance at all.”
“I know,” Tag said.
Pontius put the blade down and grinned at him. “Good.” He slammed the trunk lid, clasped Tag by the shoulder, and ushered him out of the room. “Now, take me to Brutus and let’s talk to him together about what he’s gotta do to heal that bum leg.”
Lucia leaned against Tag’s chest in the shade near their enclosure as he rhythmically stroked her arm. Normally, she found his touch soothing, but now she shifted once again.
“What’s the matter, deliciae meae?” he asked sleepily. “You are as fidgety as a boxer before a fight.”
“The wedding is so close, Tag,” she said. “I can’t marry that old man. I just can’t!”
He stopped his stroking. “We should run,” he whispered.
She pushed herself away. “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it, because I will do it, Tag.”
His pupils looked huge. She had never seen him so serious. “I can’t bear to lose you,” he said. “I dream about running with you all the time.”
“I do more than dream,” she said quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“I have come up with a plan.”
“Tell me,” he said, leaning forward.
“I pack up a hoard of money and jewels and —”
“You have a hoard of money and jewels?”
“Well, maybe not a hoard. My mother put away some of her things for me, and in one of the compartments, I found a secret stash of coins and jewels. Anyway, you and I sneak out into the night and head to Nuceria. We don’t travel on the main road, because people might recognize me and turn us in. So we travel in the woods parallel to the road.”
“If you’re worried people might recognize you, shouldn’t we avoid Nuceria altogether?”
She understood his point — the gladiator schools from both cities were closely intertwined. She and her father often stayed with fellow lanistas in Nuceria and vice versa. “Nuceria is only our first stop. Once there, we purchase supplies and maybe even rent a donkey to travel on to Thurii.”
He made a noise in his throat. “Thurii? Why?”
“The city is not very important to Rome, so it’s mostly left alone. I don’t think it would occur to my father to look for me there. And although I would miss the mountain, Thurii is on the sea, like Pompeii.”
Tag swallowed, his eyes shining. “And then?”
“Well, we would use whatever money we have left to buy you medical supplies so you could set up shop as a healer. I am guessing they do not have a lot of options there.”
“Possibly. But what if I can’t make enough money right away? We could starve.”
“No, see, I would let it be known in the wealthy side of town that I could teach girls in both Latin and Greek. Richer families always want to act like their Roman counterparts, and once they hear that the higher classes in Rome educate their girls, they’ll see it as an opportunity for advancing their own households. More than likely, they would prefer a female tutor to the male tutor they hire for their boys.”
Tag nodded, smiling. “That’s good, yes. I could see this working.”
He could see this working. A swell of joy filled her chest. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I want to do this, Tag. With you.”
“I do too,” he breathed. “I’ve imagined running away before, but I couldn’t envision a life that made the risk worth it. But when I’m with you, I feel like I can do it — that we can do it. As long as we are together.”
She grinned. Her dark future had cracked open a little, revealing a small, tremulous light of hope.
“When?” he asked. “We need to act soon.”
“Within the next several days, when my father is most distracted with preparations for our trip to Rome.”
He nodded and kissed her again.
When the edge of the sun neared the tops of the pines, they knew it was time to return. They walked toward the broken wall holding hands. She noticed that he had begun to drag his feet. He stopped, scowling in the direction of the wall. “I hate this part,” he
murmured. He drew her into him.
“I don’t hear Minos barking, which means Metrodona hasn’t started calling for me yet,” she said, snaking her arms around his waist. “We have a little more time.”
“Did I tell you that you haunt my dreams?” he asked, kissing the top of her head.
“No. But I like the sound of that,” she said, burrowing into him.
“Tell me what you dream about,” he said. “I’ll even interpret it for you.”
She sighed, not wanting to tell him the dreams she had of her mother, of her desperate attempts to talk her out of killing herself. Nor did she want to reveal the dreams of the little sisters who looked like her, who begged for her help in hiding from her father. “Hide us, hide us!” they always cried. “He is coming for us!”
So she told him of her other nightmare. “In this dream, it’s daytime, but I am looking for you. The woods and forests begin to shake and shudder, and I try to run, but there is nowhere to go, and I begin to shake with the ground too. Suddenly, there is a great sound like thunder coming from deep in the earth and the world explodes in a burst of flame and ash. Then there’s nothing left.”
She was a little surprised at how silly the dream sounded when put into words. The sense of terror and despair always left her gasping for breath when she awoke.
He was silent for a moment. “I was sort of hoping you’d say you dreamt about me all the time too,” he said, laughing.
“Oh,” she said, reddening. “It’s just that —”
“I am teasing, Lucia. But you’ve been reading Strabo again, haven’t you? About that black mountain in Phrygia?”
She nodded.
“You have to stop reading that. The earth does not spew fire in Pompeii,” he reminded her. “We Etruscans were here way before the Romans crawled out of their mud huts by the Tiber, and there have never been any records, stories, or legends of anything like that happening here.”
“I know,” she said, sighing. “I know.” Reluctantly, she disentangled herself from him. “I should go —”
“Wait,” he said, reaching into a small, worn cloth bag tied to his rope belt. “Put your hand out,” he commanded. “I have something for you.”
She smiled and obeyed. He placed a small, round piece of terra-cotta in the middle of her palm.
Carved on the front was the serene face of a goddess, her hair piled high. The back was scored with etchings of wings. “It’s beautiful.”
“It is Turan, the Etruscan goddess of love,” he said quietly. “Like your Venus. She is known for helping lovers. For keeping them safe.”
She examined it curiously. “I thought it was Psyche at first, because of the wings,” she said.
“She is also like Psyche, the soul,” he whispered. “You hold my soul in your hands.”
She closed her fingers around the little clay votive. “I love you, Tag,” she whispered. And they lost themselves in each other again until they heard Metrodona call.
* * *
The next morning, in a shaded corner of the atrium, Lucia guiltily rolled up the Strabo scroll that Quintus had loaned her. Maybe Tag was right. Maybe she needed to stop reading about Strabo’s “earth-born” fire.
She was leaving with Tag, so she shouldn’t worry about Pompeii, right? Yet somehow she felt as if she were betraying her city if she didn’t continue trying to figure out what it all meant. Others had clearly grown uneasy too. The city was emptying out. Many part-time residents had returned early to Rome. Metrodona told her the marketplace was sparser than usual, as some farmers had started avoiding the city in case an earthquake hit. They felt safer out in the country.
Lucia again wondered what Pliny would have made of all these signs. But, she reminded herself sadly, she would never meet the man now. She hated that whenever she thought of Pliny, it was tinged with the shame of discovering what her best friend’s husband really thought of her.
Maybe if she studied something else for a while, those feelings would dissipate. She would need to start reading the old Greek masters if she was going to tutor students in Thurii. Her mind drifted to the only philosophical topic that she and Tag had ever discussed — the nature of freedom. What was freedom, anyway? To Tag, it was simple — freedom meant not being owned by another man.
But what did it mean to her? Creating a life she wanted with Tag was a form of freedom, wasn’t it? Choosing one’s own husband would have been a kind of freedom, but had any woman in the history of the world ever enjoyed such independence? She’d heard women in Egypt could own property and make their own marriage decisions, but those were likely just tall tales from the mysterious east. Metrodona swore that some of the women in lower classes also arranged their own marriages. But the poor were enslaved in other ways too, weren’t they? After all, they were bound to toil endlessly just to have enough food for the next day.
The rich seemed freest of all. They could choose where they wanted to live and how. But even they were tied to the need to eat, sleep, and clothe themselves. And if you had children, then you were tied to taking care of all their needs. So was anyone ever really free? Maybe only the dead achieved true freedom.
She was startled out of her thoughts when Cornelia was announced.
“Cornelia, what are you — gods, you’re huge!” Lucia blurted out as her very pregnant friend waddled toward her.
“Thank you, darling, I hadn’t noticed,” Cornelia said dryly. “Since you won’t come to me, you have forced me and my tremendous bulk to come to you.”
Metrodona cleared her throat, reminding Lucia of her duties as hostess.
“Oh. Yes. Welcome, Cornelia. Please, come and sit. Metrodona, have the cook send us some watered wine,” she instructed. “Make sure he uses the cool water from the well.”
Cornelia sat heavily on a pillowed stone bench next to her. “Ah, thank you, that sounds lovely.”
They stared at each other in silence for a long moment. Cornelia finally said, “I have missed you, Lucia. Why have you not given me a chance to apologize after that dreadful night?”
Gods, how could she explain how ashamed she’d felt? “Why should you apologize? You did nothing wrong.”
Cornelia rubbed her belly. “I owe you an apology for tricking you about Pliny. Once I saw that’s who you thought was coming, I should’ve explained. But I was afraid you wouldn’t come if I told you it was Quintus. And I was right, wasn’t I? You wouldn’t have.”
“Probably not,” agreed Lucia.
“I wanted you to do something to get out of marrying Vitulus and moving to Rome,” Cornelia said. “And trying for Quintus just seemed too perfect. After all, the gods put him in your path — in your own home — for a reason, didn’t they?”
Lucia looked down at her hands, unable to admit to Cornelia that she was doing something about her horrible impending marriage. She was going to run away with Tag. “Why did you never tell me Antyllus hates me so much?” she asked instead.
Cornelia released a breath. “He doesn’t hate you, Lucia. He just doesn’t like what your father does.”
“Has he always felt that way?”
She nodded, looking away.
“Is he …” Lucia paused, trying to figure out how to delicately ask the next question. “He is not that difficult with you, is he?”
Cornelia shook her head, staring at the clear water of the impluvium. “I wish you could see the Antyllus that I know.”
“Has he ever forbidden you from seeing me?” Lucia asked.
Cornelia laughed. “He tried. Once. He didn’t try again.”
Lucia’s throat tightened. Cornelia had risked her beloved husband’s disapproval to stay friends with her, even though he considered her way below their social station. Until that moment, she had not contemplated what would happen to their friendship if she ran away with a slave, but it came pounding home now. She would never see Cornelia again. She would never hold her friend’s baby. Her eyes filled.
“What?” Cornelia asked, leaning forward. “
Why are you crying?”
“Because you are such a good friend. And … and when I go away, I will miss you.”
“Well, you will just have to make sure your husband allows you to visit often. Your father lives here, which should help, right?”
Lucia nodded and smiled through her tears.
“But I haven’t given up on Quintus yet. Has he shown more interest?”
She shrugged noncommittally. It wouldn’t matter if he had.
Cornelia shook her head in frustration. By the time the wine arrived, they had moved on to discussions about her birthing room. After a while, Lucia asked the question that had been haunting her ever since she learned the truth about her mother. “Cornelia, have you thought about what will happen if you have a girl?”
Cornelia put down her cup. “The midwife says I’m carrying a boy. I urinated on bags of wheat and barley and only the barley sprouted, so definitely a boy.”
“But if the midwife is wrong …”
“If the midwife is wrong, then I will enjoy having a little girl.”
“But what will Antyllus do?”
She laughed. “Well, he will be impatient to try again for a son, that’s what!”
“No, I mean … do you think Antyllus would insist that you expose the child if it was a girl?”
Cornelia’s eyes widened and she made the sign of protection against evil. “We’ve never discussed it, but no! Gods, he would never force me to do such a horrible thing! Why are you asking?”
Lucia considered telling her what she had learned about her mother, but then realized that the story would only make Cornelia more anxious. At this stage in her pregnancy, it would be cruel to add to her fears and worries. So Lucia smiled and dismissed the topic with a wave of her hand. “Of course he wouldn’t. Antyllus is a good man, despite his disdain for me.”
Cornelia slapped at her playfully. “Stop it! Now,” she said, lowering her voice, “tell me about you. Are you still seeing your amazing kisser?”
Lucia prayed a blush wouldn’t creep up her neck. She should have been more worried about her smile.
“And you still won’t tell me who he is?”
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