The Raven and the Rose (10 page)

The men looked at one another and then nodded individually, standing gingerly, as if testing their limbs.

“You might ask that question of me,” Larthia said huffily, arranging her clothing and patting her hair. “I feel as if I’ve been hit by a German phalanx.”
 

“I hit you,” Verrix replied evenly. “It was me or the runaway horse and wagon.”

“That slave should be flogged and his owner fined,” Larthia said peevishly. “Any man who can’t control an animal shouldn’t be left in charge of one.”

“Her ladyship is fine,” Verrix called to the crowd which was lingering to see if there were any injuries. “Go about your business.” He extended his hand to Larthia, who took it and tried to stand. Her left ankle gave way beneath her.

“I am not fine!” she barked at him. “I can’t walk, I think my leg is broken.”

He astonished her by squatting next to her and lifting the hem of her palla. He encircled her slim ankle with his supple brown fingers and manipulated the joint.

“It’s not broken,” he announced, as she gasped at his effrontery, looking around furtively to see who was witnessing this familiarity. To her relief the crowd was dissipating and only a few people were looking her way.

“Take your hands off me this instant,” she said between her teeth.

Verrix obeyed, rising in one smooth motion. “I merely wanted to see if the bone was splintered,” he said mildly. “I think it’s just a sprain.”

“Are you a physician now?” Larthia asked sarcastically, wincing as he withdrew his support and she tried to put her weight on the injured leg.

“I saw many such injuries during the rebellion,” he replied. “I think I know when a bone is broken, and yours isn’t.”

“Nevertheless, I cannot walk,” Larthia said, enunciating each word clearly as if he were slow witted.

“Then I will carry you,” he answered, and before she could protest he had scooped her up in his arms and was striding along the footpath in the direction of the Palatine hill.

“Leave the litter where it is, the street cleaners will get it later,” Verrix said to the two bearers. “Just follow me back to the house.”

They fell in behind him as Larthia had no choice but to let the big slave haul her bodily up to the Sejanus estate. She stared off into the distance with her arms around his neck, refusing to meet his eyes, as he carried her easily, not even winded. She tried not to dwell on the strength of his arms or the breadth of his shoulders under her hands, but since her only experience with men had been the feeble embraces of a bisexual old man, she could not help noting the difference. This was a YOUNG man, a young and virile man, and his constant proximity to her person was beginning to make her anxious.

Once inside the house, Verrix set Larthia on a couch in the tablinum and then brought a torch from a wall niche to examine her injured member more closely.

“Leave me alone!” Larthia snapped as he bent over her foot. Her nerves were raw, the prospect of another probing by this infuriating man increasing her tension. “I’ll send for my physician in the morning.”

“You should bathe the ankle in cold water,” Verrix said stubbornly. “It will reduce the swelling.”

“Then send Nestor for some,” Larthia replied wearily. She was achingly tired, her ankle was throbbing, and Verrix looked as if he had just arisen from a restful nap after carrying her uphill for more than a mile. She wanted to hit him.

Verrix went into the hall and she heard him talking to someone; he returned shortly with a basin. He elevated her foot onto a stool and then slipped the basin into place, easing her ankle into the water.

“Ah!” she gasped, yanking her foot out again and splashing water onto the tiled floor. “That’s freezing!”

“Yes, I know,” he said, seizing her foot and submerging it firmly. “Unless you want your ankle to look like a Jericho orange in the morning I suggest you leave it where it is.”

Larthia obeyed reluctantly, her expression mutinous.

“You’re enjoying this,” she said accusingly.

His disgusted expression indicated what he thought of that statement.

“It’s all your fault anyway,” she added childishly.

He stared at her.

“If you had been looking where we were going none of this would have happened.”

“The horse came around a bend in the road. If you have devised a method of seeing around corners I wish you would let me know about it,” Verrix replied.

“You’re supposed to be taking care of me!”

“I thought I was doing that,” he replied evenly. “You have lived in Rome far longer than I have. You know you should not be abroad in the streets late at night when deliveries are being made and the gangs roam at will.”
 

“I will not be trapped in this tomb of a house all my life!” Larthia burst out, then looked away from him irritably.

 
“Then go to see your sister during the day,” Verrix said reasonably.

“She is busy during the day. Don’t ask me with what, but they manage to keep her occupied.”

“It seems to me you have enough to do,” Verrix said. “Your late husband’s affairs are complex.”

Larthia snorted derisively.

“If you are lonely...” Verrix began.
 

“Don’t speak to me that way!” Larthia said tersely, suddenly conscious of the fact that she was confiding in a servant. “I don’t care if your uncle was a king or your grandfather a god, you will keep a civil tongue in your head when you address me!”

Verrix stiffened, as he always did when reminded of his servile status, but his expression revealed nothing. Then it changed from perfect blankness to startled consternation when Larthia burst into tears.

He waited a long moment, then said, “Is there anything I can do for you?”

She looked away from him and said, “You can go.”

He hesitated. “Are you certain you want me to leave?”

“Yes. Send Nestor to me when you do.”

Verrix went into the hall and then back to the slave quarters, where the slave master was giving directions on airing the bedding. The wooden frames were being stripped of their straw mattresses and woolen blankets. The mattresses would be replaced with fresh ones and the blankets washed. Nestor saw to it that this was done regularly; it was a point of pride with him that his slave dormitory was well maintained. He always supervised the process at night because he thought it was bad luck to change bedding during the daylight.
 

Nestor looked up impatiently when he saw the big Gaul standing in the doorway.

“What is it?” he asked.

“The mistress wants to see you,” Verrix replied.

“Where is she?”

“In the tablinum. She met with an accident in the street and is bathing her foot.”

“An accident?” Nestor inquired, raising one gray eyebrow, his lips pursed.

“A runaway horse smashed her litter, but she escaped unhurt. I carried her back here.”

Nestor looked at the younger man intently for a moment and then said, “Go inside and help remove the old mattresses. I’ll attend to the mistress.”

Verrix obeyed and Nestor hurried along the corridor leading from the slave quarters to the front of the house. When he entered the tablinum he found Larthia wiping her eyes with the hem of her diploidion and frowning down at her elevated foot.

“Are you quite all right, mistress?” he asked, although the answer was obviously in the negative.

“I am not. I want you to summon that Greek physician from the Via Sacra near the Diana fountain, first thing in the morning. What is his name?”

“His name is Paris, mistress. He was the house slave of Senator Pilatus Dolabella and was freed in the will when the Senator died.”

“Yes, yes, that’s the one. I remember that he healed my father’s wrist the time he broke it.”
 

“He is very skilled, mistress, I will certainly get him for you as soon as the sun rises. Will there be anything else?”

“I’ll need some help to get to my bedroom. I can’t walk unassisted.”

“Shall I summon Verrix?” Nestor asked.

“No!” Larthia said sharply, and then, in a milder tone, “I am not heavy. I think you can manage.”

“Has Verrix offended in some way, mistress?” Nestor asked. “I will speak to him...”

“It’s not necessary to speak to him, Nestor, as if that would have any effect,” Larthia said dryly, rising with difficulty and putting her arm across the old man’s frail shoulders. “Verrix just has a tendency to take charge and I don’t want him taking charge of me again tonight.”

She hobbled toward the door as the servant assisted her; they headed in tandem toward her room.

* * *

Verrix finished turning the beds in the dormitory and then retired to his room. He lay down on his bed, identical to the ones he had just changed, and stared out his tiny window at the stars blooming in the sky.

He slept poorly in this house. Often he dreamed he was back in Gaul with his tribe, swimming in the icy rivers, making camp in open fields, moving from place to place as the spirit and the harvests directed his people. Then he would awaken in this cell and remember his slavery, his isolation, and his bitter fate.

He hated being at the beck and call of his conquerors, but he was beginning to feel a little sorry for Larthia, Lady Sejana. Scarred by the early death of her mother, bartered by her grasping father, hideously neglected by her frequently absent and always inattentive husband, confused and unhappy as a result: these things he had learned about her from listening to the other servants. Added to that fund of information was what he had observed for himself. She could not pass a beggar without tossing a coin, she was as solicitous of fussy old Nestor as if he were her father, and that evening on the way to the Atrium Vestae she had given up her litter to a sick child who needed assistance in getting home. This did not make her the good goddess, certainly, but neither was she the self centered shrew that she appeared to be at first glance.

Verrix rolled over and lay with his cheek pressed to the raw woolen blanket, his eyes closed. He had not expected these stirrings of sympathy for Larthia. At the bottom of everything, she WAS lonely, and he knew very well what that did to the human
animus
. And she was very pretty, very young, and alone in the male dominated Roman world. But he could not fall into the trap of harboring tender feelings for the lady of the estate. That would lead to disaster.
 

As Larthia constantly reminded him, he was a slave in this house. In the patriarchal Roman society he had come to know, male citizens could sleep with whoever and whatever they wanted, with impunity. But Roman women were indoctrinated from birth with the necessity of chastity and fidelity, with the importance of upholding their place in society; the typical Roman matron would rather climb into the bath and open her veins than have it known she was indulging in a relationship with a slave.

But of course Larthia was not the typical Roman matron, was she?

Verrix sat up and crossed his arms on his upraised knees. What was he thinking? She had felt soft and yielding in his arms, she had smelled like gillyflowers and crushed verbena, she had clung to him as if he were a raft in a churning sea. None of that meant that she was responding to him as a man; he was transportation in a crisis, nothing more.

He had to remember that.

He lay back down and willed himself to go to sleep.

Chapter 4

Marcus lingered in the gray dawn, watching the path along which Julia would come. A thin mist hovered over the spring; the Porta Capena loomed in the background. As the sun broke through the clouds the mist lifted and began to dissolve.
 

He had prepared well for this moment. Through careful questioning he had learned that the Vestals performed this duty on foot and alone, except for a single guard. The litter used for city travel, and the lictor which preceded it, were absent during this most sacred and ancient rite, the drawing of water for the altar of Vesta. The ceremony harked back to the foundation of the colony of Alba Longa, and it was thought fitting to perform it in the most primitive way. The participant walked to the spring and back and hauled the water by hand. The trip presented a rare opportunity to find Julia outside the temple and well away from the city crowds, and Marcus planned to make the most of it.

It wasn’t long before he heard footsteps on the path and he moved out of sight. He waited until Julia’s lighter tread had passed and then seized her companion, bringing his forearm across the man’s throat and pressing backward just enough to seal off his windpipe. The slave struggled like a gaffed fish and then passed out, slipping bonelessly to the grass.

Julia turned, puzzled by the slight sounds behind her, then gasped in horror and dropped the container she was carrying when she saw her guard lying unconscious on the ground.

“Don’t be alarmed,” Marcus said quickly. “He’ll come around in a short while and he’ll be fine. He might have a slight headache, that’s all.”

Julia stared at him, unable to reply.

“Do you remember me?” he asked.