“Of course he won’t,” an older man said. He wore the purple-bordered toga of a senator and focused stately eyes in a condemning examination of Lucius. The senator looked vaguely familiar.
Lucius grimaced, but Ness smiled. An ally. She needed more of those. “Can you make the governor remove the Scipio family from the blacklist as well?”
The unfriendly looking senator went rigid. “And stop the course of justice?”
The man sounded like Aquilus. Mayhap the senator followed Stoicism too. “I doubt it’s justice. Probably just petty revenge for a misspoken word. Back in the old days, Caesar likely wouldn’t even have noticed.” She held her breath.
“I shall look into it,” the senator said with a grave air probably intended to elevate his own self-importance.
Ness turned, but just before she got to the curtained doorway, she looked back. “And Governor,” she rested her hand on the doorframe, body poised, “I don’t know how you earned your reputation. Your technique is pathetic.”
Then, Ness wove through now dark halls to the courtyard that horses and litters filled. Picking her away around the wooden frames of litters and the disgruntled bodies of tired slaves, she searched the shadows for anything bearing the Paterculi crest. Walking from the Palatine Hill to the Paterculi domus alone at night was too dangerous even for her.
After rounding yet another ornamental statue and tripping on the base of a fountain, she finally glimpsed Aquilus leaning up against the palace wall.
He brought his gaze up to her. “Back?” he asked, voice sounding surly.
“No thanks to you. I thought I’d have to risk the thugs.”
“What happened to your friend?”
“Who?” Ness bent and hiked her skirts up from the dust. The one advantage to this vow of civility was all the arguing time it saved.
“Don’t be conniving. I meant the governor.”
Straightening, she shook her foot to get a pebble out of her sandal.
“I forbid you to ever talk to that man again.”
Ness glanced over and saw Aquilus’ angry face. More anger? He had more need for a vow of civility than she. “You could be a little grateful. I was attempting to win support for your Germania plan.”
He balled his hands into fists. “At the expense of my wife’s virtue, I think not.”
So, the governor had put Aquilus in this mood. The wind picked up, blowing the scent of horse droppings through the air. Her stomach rebelled within her. If she retched right here on these marble stones would Aquilus guess she carried his child? She kicked a hitching post. No, more than likely he’d be so consumed with politics it would take him months to even notice that he’d created another human soul.
“He’s just lucky he didn’t try anything tonight,” Aquilus muttered.
“Oh, he tried.”
His face darkened. “What did you say?”
Ness rolled her eyes. “What do you think I said?”
“You seemed quite eager to leave me before.”
“Ecce! For a divorce and a Celtic man I loved, not a fling with a Roman war hero.” Now her own face felt hot.
“Such a better alternative.” Aquilus’ voice held sarcasm.
Was that relief on his face? He hadn’t seriously thought the worst? Ness glowered. Not trusting your wife was one thing, thinking her a complete imbecile was quite another.
“What did you say to him?” He kept his arms crossed, the muscles of his forearms still tensed.
Holding her chin high and willing her cheeks not to grow more scarlet, she spit out the words. “I told him I’ve no intention of bedding with any Roman—let alone him.”
Aquilus’ wry laugh broke the still of the entranceway.
Chapter 21
Ness,” Aquilus called up the corridor. The sun had not quite risen, but he’d been up for hours doing tedious administrative work until this missive arrived.
“Ness.” He shifted his hands over the parchment that bore both Senator Aurelius and Lucius’ seal.
The curtain across Ness’ doorway swished open. She stuck her head into the courtyard. Her golden hair fell loose, tumbling over her shoulders. A linen sheet wrapped around her bare shoulders.
“What?” She blinked sleep-filled eyes.
“Did you see Senator Aurelius last night?”
Ness grunted in the negative.
The rising sun had not yet dispelled the courtyard shadows and Mediterranean Sea mist still clung to the air. There, in the mist, she looked like she was in Britannia and memories from the early days of their marriage flashed through his wits.
Their temporary lodgings had a window facing the east. When he’d risen those early mornings to take over garrison shift, no matter how quietly he strapped on his chest-plate, Ness always woke. Then, when he leaned over the bed, his hands stretching the covers, she’d open her eyes and give him that disgruntled look. When he touched his mouth to hers, she’d reach for him. Wrapping her hands around his neck, she kissed him back, again and again.
When he finally had to pry himself away, she’d flop back on the mattress, her hands behind her head, golden hair surrounding her face. Those mornings he’d always wanted to stay, but then the centurions would have grumbled and the legates would have had his head.
Shaking his head, Aquilus banished the memories. “Are you certain? The senator wrote a joint letter with Lucius and mentioned my Germanian trade plan.”
Bringing up a fistful of the sheet, Ness stifled a yawn. The cloth slipped halfway down her shoulder. “I mentioned Germania to the governor. A senatorial person arrived at the end.”
He tried to keep his gaze on the letter rather than running down those shoulders, which the sheet cut off at such an intriguing point. “I go to see Lucius this morning.”
Ness groaned. “You call this morning?”
Aquilus flicked his gaze up to the familiarly dark sky.
“Last night you said you’d never work with the governor.” Ness’ blue eyes seemed even deeper now as the first pale sunrays struck her face. He attempted to keep his thoughts on her words rather than the engrossing question of whether what lay under her sheet was as bare as above.
“I said I wouldn’t let you work with him. Besides, Senator Aurelius wrote the letter.”
“Splendid,” Ness said through a groggy yawn. “I’m going back to bed.” She started to pull the curtain shut.
“Oh, and Ness.”
She turned back to him.
“Want these?” He held up the ring of household keys.
Her gaze riveted on them.
With a flick of his wrist, he tossed them toward her.
Ness snatched them out of the air. Then, she flipped her hair over her bare shoulder. “Not especially, but seeing as you’re offering.”
When Aquilus reached the Regia, Lucius leaned against a pillar outside. The morning sun splashed up onto the marble, outlining the dark circles under the man’s eyes.
Lucius straightened. “Hail and well met, Tribune. How is the morning treating you?”
The man acted like last night had never occurred. Aquilus grunted back his salve. “Germania?”
“You had some concerns for the province?” Lucius’ toga hung in rumpled knots as if he’d been trying to tie down a knapsack.
“Are you aware of the state of trade in your province? It’s enough to start a rebellion.”
“Trade is for the equestrian class.” Lucius swept his hand down derisively.
Idiot. “I disagree. Trade with its accompanying economic benefits promotes stable relations with the barbarians and serves as the foundation of good government.”
“Governor. Tribune,” a voice called from behind Aquilus.
Aquilus twisted. One glance and he had to steel his body to keep it obeying his commands. Aurelius, the Aurelius stood in the Regia.
The stern statue of Mars behind Aurelius’ back towered two times taller than a man. Black volcanic rock sealed the space around Aurelius, contrasting with t
he impenetrable blocks of marble roofing the vaulted ceiling. Aurelius bore his iron gaze into Lucius. “You will aid this man with his plan.”
Lucius sighed. “Yes, sir.”
Aurelius left like he had appeared. One could almost hear a horn fanfare marking his exit.
Lucius rolled his eyes and turned to Aquilus. “Pray, excuse me one moment.”
Aquilus scowled as Lucius left the room with a leisurely display of slowness.
As soon as Lucius passed the front archway, he broke into an unstately run, toga rapidly disintegrating into a bundle of cloth.
“Flavius!” Lucius burst into the nearby temporary lodgings and almost stumbled over two boxes, one waist-high stack of correspondence, and an upturned stool.
The secretary hunched over a low table, sorting through a stack of parchments that had probably been Lucius’ responsibility at one time.
“What scandal were you able to pin on him? You’ve had a whole morning. Out with it.”
“You’re not going to like this, sir,” the secretary said.
“Not going to like it? I don’t even like being awake at this hour. What’s Senator Aurelius do? Sleep all afternoon and then wake up mid-night just to pay visiting calls?”
“Most likely.” The secretary scratched his thin nose.
Lucius scowled. “The tribune?”
“He’s spotless.”
“How spotless? I don’t need him to have hired assassins. I could work with an unscrupulous business deal.”
“As resplendent as freshly washed marble.” His secretary shifted the parchments.
“What do you have on him?”
“Nothing.” The secretary sounded irritated in a sniffling way.
“You can’t have nothing!” Lucius roared and the sniveling secretary jumped. “You’ve had a whole morning. Even freshly washed marble has a few squashed flies.”
“Not this one. I swear the tribune has spent his whole life fighting nobly on the frontier or back in Rome completing endless, empire-serving work. He even gives money to widows.”
“Widows?” Lucius brought his chin up. “Any scandal there?”
“Not everyone has your,” the secretary coughed, “vices. Besides, they are old, over sixty.”
“Unbelievable.” Lucius started pacing. “The one person whose transgressions would be my salvation lives an ascetic life. He and Senator Aurelius will have a fine virtue-fest at my expense.”
“I did tell you swiping Germanian trade revenue could have potential downsides.”
Lucius curled his lip. “What am I supposed to do, live like a plebeian? It’s not my fault I don’t have an inherited fortune.”
The secretary almost rolled his eyes.
Lucius glared at him. “Think man! I need to discredit the tribune.”
“I did discover a small matter about his wife.” The secretary shifted a bit of parchment to sit straighter on top of another. “She’s a Celt and they have a tumultuous relationship. An infamous dinner party occurred last month and there’s a rumor about her and a barbarian lover. Supposedly the tribune kills you if you relate it.”
“Discover? All of Rome knows that.” Lucius wrinkled his nose. As if a savage would have better technique than he. “I don’t need gossip tidbits to embarrass his mother. I need something to sink him, get him, if not exiled, at least sickeningly out of favor.”
“Actually, his mother’s dead, father too, several years back.” The secretary shifted the bit of parchment back to its original position. “He’s the sole heir to an ample estate.”
“How ample?”
“You’d have to sack a few provinces to rival it.” The secretary bent over his stylus.
Lucius groaned. “Now I don’t just want him exiled. I want his estates confiscated and given to me. Can’t you throw around a few bribes?”
“Believe me, I did, sir. Either he learned the art of subterfuge at the age of two or he really has lived an impeccably conscientious life.”
“Revolting!” Lucius sent the large insect on his foot airborne. “There’s nothing for it then. I’ll have to invite him back to Germania.”
The secretary lowered thin eyebrows. “Invite him to the thick of the trouble?”
“I can’t have him in Rome trading impeccably clean records with Aurelius and touting that trade plan of his.”
“What if he discovers your dishonest dealings in Germania?”
“Dishonest? Why don’t we say expedient?” Lucius laughed.
“Or your plot with Legate Vocula to rebel against Rome?”
Lucius dug his eyebrows down. “You’re not supposed to know about that.”
“Do you truly think it’s a wise idea to join Legate Vocula in this treason?”
“Hold your tongue.” Lucius slammed his hand on the secretary’s table. One table leg broke and the secretary tumbled over his stool. Now he had to buy a new table. Lucius reached down and gave the secretary a hand up. “What’s the tribune like? That is unless your research proved as pathetic as your scandal collecting.”
“He’s incredibly rich but works incessantly. Lives a very modest lifestyle all considered, so Stoic to the core.”
“Splendid. Now I have to live up to Stoicism to earn his trust. Why couldn’t he have been a desperate boor wanting money?”
The secretary sniffed and righted his stool. “Because desperate boors generally don’t want to overhaul the entire Germanian trade system.”
“Insolence, Flavius. Remember our talk? I didn’t have to honor a plebeian with the illustrious post of secretary to the governor.”
The secretary scratched his nose. “I seem to remember you reaping some benefit from the arrangement.”
Lucius made a surly face. “I didn’t know she was that old, or your mother, or the consul’s concubine.”
“Anyway, Tribune Paterculi’s the type that loves the old days and wants to wear out his body in public service then retire to that quintessential Italian farm like Cincinnatus. You could earn his trust by convincing him you’re like that.”
Lucius snorted. “I dallied with his wife last night. I’ll have to find another way to earn his trust then eliminate him.”
An entire half-hour had passed. Aquilus drummed his fingers against the Regia’s walls.
“Salve.” Sweaty and dust-stained with his toga wrapped like a hangman’s noose, Lucius turned around the corner.
Aquilus said nothing.
For a moment, Lucius eyed Aquilus. “Are you sure you want to restructure Germania trade?”
Aquilus nodded less impatiently than he felt.
“I leave for the province next month. Come with me and I’ll connect you to the resources you need.”
Aquilus’ eyes widened.
Lucius swept his hand through the sky. “No thanks needed. Did not Seneca say, ‘Trade is that endless chain of causation whereby things change hands; the formula by which the world goes on’?”
Aquilus didn’t bother to groan. “That was Zeno, and he was speaking of fate, not trade.”
Lucius shrugged as if to say, five hundred years and one word off, closer than I normally get.
Ness counted the canisters once more before clanking the storage room lock in place. Clamping the wax tablet against the wall, she scratched down the numbers of what was needed. A few more rugs for the servant quarters might be nice too.
She swung the keys as she entered the house. Her sandal touched shining atrium tile, and a satisfied smile crept to her lips. Moving toward the tablinum, she pushed the door open. Aquilus sat inside.
He’d thought to dispose of Eric or Wryn like so much refuse. Had Aquilus chosen which one? Had he thought, ‘Oh, I’ll just get rid of Eric because he screams too much?’ Ness kept her gaze averted as she moved to the money box inside. The dark wood box jutted up to Aquilus’ table, and his stool stood only a handbreadth away. She dug her newly-acquired keys into the lock and tried not to look at him.
“Ness.” Aquilus nudged a parchment acros
s the table.
Hand clenched, she jerked her gaze up.
“It’s Juvenal’s eighth satire, about a nobility based on character rather than blood. I think you’d like it.”
She eyed Aquilus. She had attended all his political functions, practiced civility, and not mentioned divorce once for the last month, but that didn’t mean she’d ever forgive him.
“I have the first seven too,” he gestured to the shelves behind her, “but the fourth one’s atrocious.”
Aquilus had been willing to sell his own sons, but her village had no library to rival his. Ness closed her fingers on the end of the parchment.
He looked at her. “I wanted to say thank you.”
Ness froze, balanced in an awkward squat.
“For getting me the Germanian connection.”
She glared at the red tile beneath her feet.
“Ness, I know you’re angry with me. If we talked about what happened and why I did what I did with Cassius—”
“No.” She pronounced it like a bell clap.
Aquilus leaned forward, elbows on the table. His eyes held a pensive light as he studied her.
The tightness of knotted muscles stretched through his shoulders. Back when they were first married, she’d work her hands across those ridges, watch as the tension gave way to her touch, feel the hardness of his back through a tunic that was always damp from Roman heat. Now they lived as enemies. Ness swallowed the sticky lump forming in her throat.
Aquilus’ posture opened as he extended his hand. He touched her shoulder. “Ness, if you listen to my side, I can explain. I’m not a hydra.”
No, for even that monstrous serpent with poisoned breath likely loved its hydra snake babes. Despite that, she had to hug her arms closer to steel herself not to move into the space he made. The stickiness in her throat spread to her nose and eyes.
Aquilus didn’t make it easier for her, didn’t remove his hand. “I have good reasons for what I do.”
Ness shook her head, but his eyes enchanted her. They made her want to forget that he upheld a repressive Roman mold of living, that he had as little inclination for children as skill with them, and that Cedric still waited for her. They made her want to remember how it felt when Aquilus held her and loved her; the times when he made her laugh instead of cry and smile instead of shout.
For Life or Until (Love and Warfare Series Book 1) Page 28
