Truly, he should have known what would happen when he had shown a man such as Justinus the jar. And he would rise again, financially. He was too good a businessman to do otherwise.
Still Lucius looked up at me, clearly miserable. Though I did find some compassion for him, the man I had once loved, the thought still stirred in the depths of my mind that he looked completely pathetic.
But I did not like to see someone suffering so. I reached out a hand, patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “You can get more money, Lucius. The authorities will be alerted. Justinus will be caught.”
His eyes were rimmed with red. “The authorities cannot be told if I want to save my dignity.” I squinted at him, studying his face, trying to glean his meaning. Surely it might make him look a little foolish, if it was to get out that a slave had absconded with the jar, but worse things had happened to other, more noble citizens.
“Alba, do you not see?” Again he laughed, and again I wondered at his sanity.
What was I supposed to see?
I blinked as a thought tried to worm its way through my mind, tried to make itself known. And then I did see, very clearly.
Lucius. Justinus.
Justinus. Lucius.
The unnatural closeness between a man who thought of slaves as far beneath him, and his most loyal slave. The panic on Justinus’ face when I had caught him with Marina, and his insistence that I not tell my husband. The unaccounted for length of priceless blue silk in the account book, and the fine tunic that Justinus had been wearing on that same occasion. Something about that tunic had plucked at my memory, but I had not caught on to what, exactly. Then there were the other, unaccounted-for items in the accounts ledger. The ridiculously expensive ones, the ones that I had thought perhaps were future gifts for me.
How could I not have known?
I felt my lip curl in distaste. I had been made a fool of by my husband. How Justinus must have laughed behind my back! I now understood the mockery in the man’s tone every time he spoke to me.
My anger fled as quickly as it had come.
Was I really any better? I was certainly of the opinion that my gladiators were worth risking it all for far more than Justinus was, but Venus did not consult us, her people, before aiming her arrow.
I could be furious with Lucius for his naiveté, for his stupidity, as well as for the way he had treated me, but I could not judge him for his choice of lover, not when I was guilty of the same.
And truly, as I turned it over in my mind, Lucius watching anxiously for my reaction, I realized that Justinus’ disappearance had provided me the final thing that I needed to secure my freedom.
“You will not tell anyone, Alba?” I had never seen my husband, the man with the perpetually cruel edge to his temperament, in such a pathetic state. It did not suit him, did not look well on him. I no longer saw any vestige of the power that he wore like a fine tunic. I saw a broken man. It turned my stomach to know that I was about to break him further, but remembering his treatment of me made it easier, at least a bit.
“I will not tell.” I caught my husband’s eyes and stared at him, unwavering, while drawing a deep breath. The time had come. “I will not tell, but there are things that I want in return.”
Lucius reared back as if I had slapped him. “You would bargain with me now, when I am so low?” The way he spoke made me feel small, as if I could be crushed beneath a well-placed sandal, but I knew that he would do exactly the same if the situation was reversed.
“I came back to Rome to tell you that I will not be returning to you, not as your wife.” Emotions ran over his face like a stream of water, melting, changing, before settling on the ones so characteristic of him. Yes, here was the rage, the arrogance, filling every bit of him, inflating, as my words sunk in.
“What makes you think that you have a choice?” Slowly, forgetting his own woes in the face of the insult that I was heaping upon him, Lucius rose to his feet, leaving me kneeling on the floor. I knew that he would see this as a visual display of his power over me. “Your family gave you to me. I am your pater familias. You must do as I say. You have no choice.”
“But I do.” I spoke quietly, staring at my hands, which I had folded calmly in my lap. “I do have a choice.”
I looked up, watched his face as he began to understand. Slowly, he sank to the bed, bracing himself on his hands.
“You would do this to me? Disgrace me so? After I have provided for you all these years?” Ah, manipulation—just another tool at my cunning husband’s disposal.
I grieved for the good man that had been lost in the machinations of business.
“You need not be disgraced.” My voice was still soft, quiet, but it was also firm.
I would not give in. I could not.
“You are naive as always, Alba.” Again streams of tears began to fall down his face, but this time I was not as certain of their sincerity.
Still, I could not leave him suffering. It was not in my nature. Moving forward, I sat next to him on the bed, rubbing a hand over his back.
I sucked in a startled breath when he wrapped both arms around me tightly. Thinking at first that he simply needed comfort, I did not try to extricate myself from the embrace until he cupped one of my breasts in his hand.
“Lucius! Stop it!” I tried to push him away, but he was kissing my throat, my ear, while pushing me back onto the bed. I kicked out, and as I did the skirt of my tunic rose up. Panic coated my throat when I felt the cloth give way to reveal one of the two the sacks that held my jewels.
I fought doubly hard. If Lucius found that bag, I did not know what he would do. No amount of effort from me pushed him away. When he dropped a hand to insert it between my legs, I felt his fingers brush over the lumpy cloth.
He stilled, and I panted, trying to catch my breath. I had been so certain that Lucius would never hurt me, that he truly did love me, in his own way.
I had been wrong.
“What is this?”
I lay still, quivering. He still had me pinned under his not inconsiderable weight. I could not move away, could not snatch the sacks from his hands.
He tugged until the cord of the visible sack broke away from the tie at my waist. I watched with fear painted on my face as he pried open the knot and peered inside. The range of emotions that washed over his face would have been comical had they not been so intense—astonishment, cunning, disgust, and finally rage.
“You would steal from me?” Clutching the sack tightly in fingers gone bloodless, he grabbed me by the shoulders and shook, hard. When he released me abruptly, he moved back at the same time. I felt relief to be free of him, until he slapped a hand across my cheek so hard that I saw stars. The blow had me tumbling off of the low bed and onto the marble floor.
Dazed, I pressed a cheek hot from the slap against the chilled stone. I heard Lucius laugh maniacally above my head, and the seeds of rage lodged themselves stubbornly in my belly and took root.
Slowly I pulled myself to a sitting position, my hand pressed to my injured cheek. I glared up at the man whom I no longer considered my husband.
“Everything is well! We can sell these, and we can rebuild. Why did I not think of this?” Looking as if he had completely taken leave of his senses, Lucius cradled the sack against his chest like an infant.
I rose to my knees. I felt the second sack that hung between my legs come loose.
“Those are mine,” I said slowly, deliberately. I scarcely recognized my own voice.
Lucius waved a hand carelessly at me, still making incoherent sounds at the sack of jewels. “Do you not see, Alba? This fixes everything. You will stay by my side, as my wife. We will raise this child together. Baldurus will never know of Justinus. It is perfect!” Reaching a hand into the sack, he withdrew the necklace that he had given me the first night he had forced me to lie with Caius. Cackling l
ike a bird of prey as he assessed the size of the stones, he turned to look at me, and I saw nothing of the man that I had once cared for.
Incredibly, he held his arms out for me as I rose slowly to my feet. “Come, Alba. Let us celebrate.”
When I simply stared, my hand still clutched to my cheek, he lurched forward and wrapped his fingers tightly around one of my wrists. He yanked, and I stumbled forward, but did not fall.
“Take your hands off of me.” I knew that if I was to scream, Caius and Marcus would be here within moments.
I did not scream. I simply repeated my words as Lucius laughed again.
“You are mine. My wife.” He tugged again, and I felt a lick of fear.
The fear gave way to pure satisfaction and relief when, with my free hand, I swung the second sack of jewels at my husband’s head. It connected with his skull with a satisfying crack, and he yelped and fell backward, clutching his hands to his head. I scrambled backward, feet planted, ready to swing the sack of heavy rocks a second time if need be.
I expected to see rage when he looked at me, and it was there, but coating it was pure bewilderment.
“Why?” I saw that he truly did not understand. It seemed that Justinus’ betrayal had scrambled his mind, but still I felt no pity. He was still in enough control of his faculties to manipulate.
I would not be caught in his web. I was done.
“Do not touch me again. I will kill you if I must.” A hollow noise echoed from his throat, partially a sound of disbelief and partially a laugh, but it faded when he saw the intent in my eyes.
“Alba. Why?” His words this time sounded true.
I still did not drop the sack that I clutched. “I have told you why.” Suddenly I was weary. I held out my hand for the other sack. “Give that to me.”
Lucius narrowed his eyes and clutched it to his chest. Trepidation forced me to shake, but I did my best to conceal it.
“All I have to do is scream, and you will be dead.” I was sad that it had come to this. “Give me the bag. You have no choice.”
My words, and their meaning, finally sank in. Slowly, reluctantly, Lucius placed the sack at the edge of the bed, though anger again suffused his face. It was not the rage of moments earlier, however, simply anger at having been bested.
“You will go to hell.” I shook my head at the petty words, for I did not believe them. Surely the gods would not punish me for finally finding joy.
Clutching the sacks tightly, one in each hand, I looked upon Lucius for one of the last times.
“You will tell whoever needs to know that I have died while at the coast for my health, a problem from the child.” I had thought of nothing but this over the interminable hours of travel back to Rome. “I will leave, and I will never return to the city. No one will ever know.”
“Are you forgetting that without you and that child, I have no patronage?” The bitterness now turned acidic, laying all the blame at my door—a petulant child. “And I now have no money, either. I will be out on the streets.”
I looked up at him, unblinking, until he again quieted. “I suspect that if you present yourself to Baldurus, a ravaged man, wrecked from the loss of your wife and your child, he will take pity on you.”
“But then I will have no wife. No one to get with child. Another problem.” Clearly, Lucius cared much more about the next steps in his life than about losing me and the babe, now that he knew he could potentially save face.
Knowing my husband as I did, I had anticipated this question. “You will marry one of Baldurus’ daughters.” Never mind that the oldest was nearly fifteen years younger than Lucius. Large age differences were common in Roman marriages.
I saw a spark begin in Lucius’ eye. It told me all that I needed to know.
I no longer belonged here.
“Where will you go?” I think he was simply curious, more than he actually cared.
“Back to the coast.”
He narrowed his eyes as he took that in. “You are forgetting that I own that house.” Jutting his chin forward, he clenched and unclenched his hands, a tick that I had often observed in him while in the middle of a business discussion.
He was mistaken. This was not a discussion at all.
“No.” I raised my own chin, looking, I was sure, much more calm than I felt. “You do not.”
Again Lucius reacted as if I had struck him. “And if I do not agree to any of this?” His voice was nasty, and I wondered how I had ever found it melodic or attractive.
“You do not have a choice.” I firmly repeated the words I had said moments earlier, hoping that this time they would sink in. “I will tell Baldurus both that the child I carry is not yours, and that you were fooled because you opened your heart to a slave.” I regarded him calmly. “Both are things that he will not want to attach his name to, I am certain.”
Lucius opened his mouth, then closed it again. I realized as he worked his lips like a stunned fish that this was the longest verbal exchange that we had had in years.
Finally, understanding that he really did have no choice, he snapped, “I suppose you expect me to give you money, too, to live on after you’ve frittered away the money from the jewels. Too bad. I have none.” He laughed harshly.
“No.” I was using the word more than I ever had. “We will be fine without it.”
“How do you think you will support yourself, silly woman? It costs money to live.” He laughed, angrily amused with his silly young wife, until it sunk in. “We?”
“We.” My gut clenched again. I was scared. This was the most important part. “You will take the money that Caius and Marcus have earned in the arena, and you will accept it as payment for their freedom.”
The change in Lucius’ demeanor was very nearly comical. Rage that his slaves had touched his wife, disbelief that his wife had disobeyed him and been with a gladiator. Panic at the thought of losing his champion, and the next best warrior.
“You must be mad.” He ran a shaking hand through hair that was already disheveled. “They are using you to obtain their freedom. You understand that, do you not? Once they are free, they will leave you.”
I did not listen. I knew the truth in my heart.
“And the money they have saved could not possibly be enough to buy their freedom.” My fingers began to itch as he spoke so carelessly of my men, as if they were commodities.
“They will give you what they have, and you will consider the balance as services rendered,” I said. “Stud fees, if you will.” Now I rose to my own feet, aware that Lucius would see it as me putting myself on his level. In a way, I was. I would not be mistreated by this man, not ever again.
He grimaced as he ran over everything in his head, and came to the conclusion that he truly did not have a choice. I had roped him in, or rather, he had done it himself.
I had merely handed him the rope.
“And what of Hilaria?” His voice was barely more than a whisper now. “She has paid for their services.”
I thought of the scene that had just occurred with the woman, and knew that Lucius would have no more trouble with her. But if I told that to Lucius, he would want to know why.
It was best to pretend that the encounter had never happened.
“Use the money from Caius and Marcus to repay her, and tell her that they escaped and ran away to join the Spartacan camp in the mountains.” We had heard the newest development of the rebel slaves as we passed through the city on our way there. This would provide a story for Hilaria to latch on to, as well. “Then finalize your dealing with Baldurus. You will be fine.”
There was a long moment of silence in the room, silence in which I stood, still and firm while Lucius looked around him with wild eyes. A sigh of extreme self-pity escaped his lips before he spoke, but under the theatrics, the question that he asked seemed very real.
“
Do you hate me so very much?” Lucius turned away as he asked, and I felt a trickle of pity begin to work its way through me. No, I did not hate him, but I no longer loved him, cared about him, or respected him.
“I do not hate you.” This was all that I could find to say. After a long, awkward moment, I stepped forward, walking around him and heading toward the entrance of his room.
With one hand caught in the curtain, I turned to say one last thing. “You will present Caius and Marcus with the palm leaves representing their freedom in the ludus below, in front of their peers. They are warriors who have bought their freedom, and they deserve an honorable release from their vow to you.” I pushed through the curtain and left the room without looking back.
Lucius trailed after me like a small boy. A small, angry boy. “What of the slaves? What do I tell them?”
“I do not care.”
“What of Drusilla? Will you keep her?” These words were a knife in my tender side.
No one could keep Drusilla, not any longer. I did not feel like telling him, however, he who had treated her so poorly, as he did all slaves save Justinus.
“Yes. She is mine.” This, at least, was truth.
And having said it, I walked briskly away, through the large hall, toward the door that led outside. I did not stop to look at the things surrounding me, did not pause to indulge in bittersweet remembrances. I did not want to take anything more with me than I had. The rest of the things here were just that—things.
What I would leave the ludus with was so much more.
EPILOGUE
The gladiators assembled in the training yard of the ludus quickly, curious, I was certain, about why they had been so hastily called. They murmured amongst themselves, whispering, wondering.
Why was their domina in the yard? Why was Dominus about to make an appearance?
Where were Caius and Marcus?
Stiffly, my husband strode to the edge of the balcony where I had spent so many hours watching my gladiators. After surveying the scene below him for several long minutes, he disappeared from view, and I knew that he was making the long walk down the stairs and through the iron gate.
My Wicked Gladiators Page 27
