The Golden Dice - A Tale of Ancient Rome (27 page)

Anxious to return and calm the argument, Caecilia stopped in the garden arcade and drew both boys to her. “It’s time for you to go to bed.” She looked up at Perca. “Where are Tas and Aricia?”

“
She was waiting for the little master to finish his lessons, my lady.”

Caecilia heard another sharp spike in Tarchon’s temper. Larce clung to her. “I want to stay with you. I don’t like it when Apa is angry.”

She gave him a squeeze. “It’s nothing for you to worry about. Now go with Perca. I promise I’ll come and kiss you goodnight.”

Finally conceding defeat Arnth gave her a wet kiss and padded away, but Larce dallied, laying his head against his mother’s stomach. “Is baby sleeping?”

She held his face in her hands and kissed his forehead. “Yes, and you should be too.”

Hurrying back to the atrium, Caecilia heard the hysteria in Tarchon’s voice. “I refuse to go. I want to stay in the city.”

“
Of course you’re going. You’re one of my officers. We leave at nightfall tomorrow. I plan to move through enemy lines under cover of darkness.”

“
No, I’m staying to join Kurvenas’ army.”

Mastarna must have thought it a joke. He looked across to Caecilia as she approached. “Do you know what he is talking about?”

“
I think Tarchon should tell you.” She placed her arm around Vel’s waist, making her allegiance clear.

The younger man swallowed hard as though needing to take a deep breath to survive the coming wave of his father’s ire. “Because Sethre Kurvenas is now my pupil. I wish to ride into battle with him under the king’s standard.”

The force of Mastarna’s bellow startled Caecilia even though she expected his fury. “By sacred Nortia, what idiot thing have you done now?”

“
He is my beloved. I will not be parted from him.”

Mastarna lurched towards him but his wife clutched the back of his robes. “Stop, Vel. Don’t hurt him.”

“
Hurt him? I should thrash him.”

Tarchon flinched but said nothing.

Mastarna also fell silent, but Caecilia could see the muscles in his neck cording. He walked to the winged terracotta demon on the atrium’s wellhead, pushed with his arms against it as though summoning dark forces. Taking a deep breath, he turned back to face Tarchon. “You, a mentor? Do you really think Kurvenas would want a fickle weakling with a pretty face and too many emotions to tutor his son on citizenry and warfare? You leave a trail of debt roundels at every gaming table. You are always wide-eyed and jittery on some elixir. You have only survived this far in war because I surround you with the stronger and the braver.”

Tarchon reddened. “You lie. I am no coward.”

“
Perhaps. But you have little skill at fighting. And you have not yet held high office. And I doubt very much if you ever will. You’ll never be qualified to take on a pupil.”

To Caecilia’s surprise Tarchon stepped towards Mastarna, showing the courage he proclaimed. “Ah but you have, haven’t you, Father. Zilath before thirty and a great general for more than a decade. Is that why Vipinas is letting you take his son as a beloved?” He cocked his head towards Caecilia. “What does she say about that? She who still struggles with Arnth Ulthes being your lover when you were fifteen?”

Caecilia floundered for a moment, a gap between hearing and comprehending. It was a day to resurrect past hurts. And to revive lost loves: Artile for Tarchon. Mastarna for his dead family. Mastarna and a long-dead zilath. The image of Tarchon brushing Sethre’s lips returned. Vel had kissed Ulthes that way to bid him a farewell to the Beyond. The memory was still painful. A hurt that never truly healed. The knowledge that her husband had been another man’s beloved was hard to reconcile with the Roman in her. And yet, with Vel’s reassurance that he loved only her, she had toiled to put such prejudices aside. Placing them like linen in a chest. Yet such a box could be reopened, the garments shook out, the weave reexamined and worn again. Was she now to envy a callow youth? Was what Tarchon said the truth?

Mastarna crossed to her, lowering himself on one knee beside her, taking her hand. “Take no heed of him, he’s just making trouble.”

Tarchon laughed. “Don’t believe him. The arrangement Vipinas makes with your husband to mentor Caile is no different than that Mastarna’s own father made with Ulthes. The politics behind any such liaison is the same. To seal alliances. Mastarna should be honest with you.”

Vel gripped her hand. “The bond with the House of Vipinas was forged long ago without the need for me to become his grandson’s lover. Besides he will soon sport a full beard. He is my squire only. Just as all the others before him. He will lead my second horse into battle. I don’t plan to bed him. You believe that, don’t you?”

Her gaze traveled between her husband and her stepson. She’d never known Vel to lie to her. Never known him to be unfaithful. She slid her hand into his. “Yes.”

Tarchon snorted. “Then you’re a fool.”

Wounded by his cruelty, Caecilia fought back tears. And in that moment she knew the companion she once needed no longer existed. Cytheris had warned Rome’s present world would be unlike what was remembered. The same could be said of Tarchon’s friendship. There was no going back to that time. “Why do you try to torment me?”

The chill of his answer confirmed he was prepared to cut deeper. “Because you are as bad as him. You both seek to deprive me! But I won’t let you. I will go to Kurvenas tonight. I will pay homage to him. Perhaps he will see the benefit of our houses forming a union through my mentoring his son.”

Before Caecilia could stop him Mastarna stood and took one long stride and seized Tarchon’s tunic in both hands, dragging the man to him with an ease that was frightening. “Don’t you understand? When Kurvenas hears that you’re bedding his son he is going to kill you. And then he is going to want revenge. Against our house. Against my children. Against my wife!”

Tarchon fought him off. “I don’t believe that. All the principes would rise against him just as they did with Tulumnes.”

Mastarna clouted him across the head. The younger man reeled back, clutching his face, bent double with pain.

Caecilia cried out. She’d never seen her husband strike a man in anger even when goaded by conspirators. Fearing he would strike again, she pushed herself between them. “Stop this, Vel. Stop.”

Tarchon straightened, the welt upon his cheek marring his honey-hued skin. And yet his defiance was astounding, proving the depth of his passion for Sethre. “You can beat me as much as you want, I won’t give him up.”

Mastarna broke from Caecilia and stood behind the large reception table, forcing space and marble to check his fury. The rain was harder now, small splashes exploding as the drops struck the surface of the atrium pool, the sound of drumming competing with that of confrontation. “How long has this been going on?”

“
Since before the Troy Game.”

Mastarna groaned. “That long? How have you kept it secret?”

“
We’ve been using the tunnels beneath the city and bribed those slaves that saw us.”

“
Bribery? As if that has ever silenced rumor! Then I can take no further chances. You’re forbidden to leave this house until we ride out. Arruns will guard you until then. I can’t risk you putting all of us in any more danger.”

Tarchon thumped the other side of the table. “You hypocrite, as if you haven’t imperiled the lives of all around you when it suited. Dice are not the only things with which you gamble. You’ve shown no compunction in taunting Kurvenas and his clan members in the past. So why don’t you stay here to watch over your wife and children if you fear I’ve unleashed disaster. Or is your desire for glory greater than your love for your family?”

Mastarna stiffened and cast an anguished look at Caecilia.

She hesitated, tempted to use Tarchon’s accusation to try and bind her husband to stay. Instead, she joined Vel behind the table, saying nothing, her support evident.

Tarchon grimaced. “I see you have truly become his creature.”

Mastarna placed his arms around her shoulders. “No. She is my wife and understands her duty.”

With defeated shoulders, Tarchon turned his back to them and walked to where the rain streamed in a column from the roof opening. Puddles were forming on the floor where the wind was scattering the drips beyond the edges of the ornate bronze reservoir. He stretched out his hands to collect some water then splashed it on his face. When he turned Caecilia saw he had not succeeded in hiding his tears.

“
Please, at least let me see him one more time before I go.”

She also found herself on the brink of crying, but Mastarna did not hesitate to show his disgust. As he strode from the room he gave his edict. “No farewells. Do you understand me? It’s over.”

Melancholic at the unwanted ending, Caecilia lingered. “I’m sorry, Tarchon.”

His voice was hopeful. “Then at least send word to him for me.”

She shook her head. “It is better this way. Trust me.”

He turned back to watch the rain. “Know then that I will never forgive you.”

Caecilia walked towards her children’s bedroom. As she did so she noticed Arruns had arrived to stand in the shadows, silently keeping guard over his master’s adopted son.

Glossary

Cast

This time Semni knew she was truly in trouble. More than when she discovered she was with child. More than when her husband divorced her.

There was a sick feeling within her. Her world had changed as surely as the seed within her had grown into a baby that could not be ignored.

It had been a week since her sister had ejected her from her cozy home, and Semni’s stomach was hurting. She’d not known that hunger could cause pain. She was exhausted too. Huddling under eaves or in the lee of buildings during chill spring nights made it difficult to sleep.

And Nerie gave her no respite. He was grizzling again, wriggling within his swaddling. It seemed he was always caked in ordure. Always needed changing. His fitful sleeping and demands to be fed frayed her nerves.

If not for him she would be a potter. If not for him she would be happy. Instead here she was trudging the steep hill to the windy heights of the citadel to beg mercy from the great protectress.

Catching her breath, she stood beside the stone altar within the sacred precincts and stared up at the facade of Uni’s temple. Above her, antefixes with the face of the grim Medusa glared at her, and a parade of brightly painted gods adorned the roof ridge. She knew that some of these had been sculpted by her father. What would he think of her now? She cringed at the thought.

At first she believed all would be well with Nerie’s arrival. Old Velthur had been delighted. Dewlap quivering, he bragged about his virility, the broadness of his grin prolonged and hearty. After a few months, though, his smile had vanished. To Semni’s dismay the dark hair on Nerie’s head fell out to reveal blondness. And so her curiosity was cured. Her son’s father was the fair northern Rasennan who’d worn a ram’s head mask at the Winter Feast.

Thrown out by Velthur, and with the whip marks of her beating needing salving, she knocked on her sister’s door. It was winter. The coldest that Semni could remember, with snowdrifts choking the pavements and ice forming on the surface of cisterns and cracking drainpipes. Despite having three children of her own to feed, her sister convinced her husband to grant Semni and her baby refuge. In return for this kindness the girl was expected to help the fuller in his business of scouring and cleaning woolen clothes.

Semni sat down on a stone step of the vast temple portico. Nerie’s whining had increased in volume. Sighing, she slid her chiton from her shoulder and pressed the six-month-old to the teat. Once he was settled, she stretched out one hand to examine her fingers. They were sore and red from working for the fuller. More so than when she’d used slurry and clay upon the flywheel. Wringing cloth saturated with a cleansing fluid of urine had caused the irritation. There were also tiny scratches from where she’d carded wool by skin of hedgehog. At least she was not expected, as were the slave boys, to tread and stamp the clothes free of dirt in vats full of the liquid. And yet coarsened hands and the lingering smell of piss were better than destitution.

It was the fuller’s fault, too, that she was hungry and homeless.