Call to Juno (A Tale of Ancient Rome #3) (23 page)

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Semni was fuming as she settled Thia into her cot. Arruns had refused to speak to her. Instead he’d turned on his heel, not waiting for her to catch up as he strode into the palace.

Cytheris was similarly unimpressed when she sighted Semni and Tas. She snatched the boy’s hand away from her. “Where have you been? Half the palace guard has been looking for you and the prince!”

At least Lady Caecilia had not judged Semni without hearing the full tale. The queen’s relief at seeing her eldest son safely home had soon been replaced with shock when she heard where he’d been. She had scanned Lady Tanchvil’s missive, her brow creasing in realization that the prince had once again been drawn to Aricia like iron filings to a lodestone. The dismay in her round hazel eyes was painful to watch.

After hugging her son, Lady Caecilia had then berated him and decreed his punishment. The boy was sent to bed with a sore bottom after Arruns dispensed a spanking. Despite showing bravery enough to traverse a forbidden room and the pitch black of a tunnel, the child’s courage failed him at the hard edge of the lictor’s hand. At each slap he’d sobbed. His mother had sat white faced and tense but did not rescind her sentence.

Semni patted and rubbed Thia’s back until the baby closed her eyes and was ready to be placed in her cradle. Then she lay down beside Nerie, who was fast asleep on her bed. He’d been fretful tonight. Usually content to have his place usurped by the princess at his mother’s breast, he’d been possessive, trying to push Thia away and sit on Semni’s lap alone.

Sleep eluded her. She was seething that Arruns had assumed her guilty. Even when he’d heard Tas’s admission, he’d not apologized.

She drew on her chiton and shoved her feet into slippers. Crossing pools of light and shadow in the torchlit hallways, she navigated her way to the barracks. She dragged the curtain open to Arruns’s cell door, then swept it closed behind her.

He was sharpening his dagger in the lamplight, the metal scraping rhythmically against whetstone. He stood when he saw her, frowning.

Semni launched herself at him, shoving him. “Why do you always think the worst of me?”

He staggered back a step, caught off balance by the surprise of her attack. Not waiting for a reply, she pummeled him on the chest with puny fists. “I went to retrieve Tas. I didn’t take him to the temple!”

The knife and whetstone clattered to the floor. He caught hold of both her wrists. She struggled against him but could do little but flail her elbows as she tried to free herself to hit him.

“What more can I do to convince you to trust me?” she hissed. “I stopped lying with other men to prove I could be faithful. I became a better mother to Nerie when you told me I was neglectful. I confessed to the master and mistress and risked being expelled for you.” His calm silence was infuriating. She wriggled her hands, resisting again. “Why don’t you answer me?”

He was gruff. “I believe you had no part in what happened today. That’s not why I’m angry with you. I saw you kissing Aricia’s cheek. I told you not to befriend her again. She means more to you than me if you choose to ignore my wish. She deserves no forgiveness.”

She gasped in frustration, the injustice scalding her. He was condemning her for a moment’s affection for a girl who was contrite. “No one should be blamed forever. And don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”

He held her fast, his fingers manacles. “If you are to be my wife, then you should obey me.”

“And I don’t want to be your wife if you don’t trust me!” She thrashed against him, then, maddened he would not let her go, she bent her head and sank her teeth into his hand.

Grunting in surprise, he released her, examining the bite mark. Semni ran to one end of the bench and grabbed the pitcher and threw it at him. He deftly caught it and placed it on the worktable. Infuriated, she reached for the ewer, ready to launch the next missile, but before she could grab it, he lunged and enveloped her in a bear hug, restraining her arms against her sides.

Her cheek pressed against the cloth of his uniform as she struggled against his strength. She was incensed he could so easily control her, conscious also that he could crush her ribs with the merest increase of pressure. “Let me go!”

He continued to pin her against him. “Are you going to stop trying to hurt me?”

She squirmed, but resisting his iron embrace was tiring. She relaxed. She could hear his heart thudding, the beat slow and calming. “You can let me go. I promise to stop.”

He dropped his arms from around her, but as he shifted back, she clasped his forearms, a different emotion rising. “Hold me.”

He hesitated, but she encircled his neck. “Hold me,” she whispered into his ear, nipping the lobe. “I want you.” He inhaled and closed his eyes, his body tense, but he did not move away. She grazed her mouth across his, her teeth tugging at his lower lip. At her teasing, he groaned and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her to sit on the bench. She gasped at the force and speed of his embrace but as he slid his hands along her thighs under her chiton, she gripped his wrists. “Not yet. I want to see all of you,” she said, releasing him to unbuckle his belt and tug at the sides of his uniform. Impatient, he pulled his tunic over his head, throwing it to the floor in one fluid movement, then reached for her again, but she still held him at bay, her arm straight, one hand pressed against his chest.

Her eyes followed the coil of the serpent. It was narrow as it twisted around his massive neck, then gradually thickened as the scales wrapped around the musculature of his chest, waist, and abdomen, before tapering again around his hips down to his groin to disappear into his thatch. She smiled. His penis was erect and ready. The snake was not two headed but it had a tail.

“Don’t make me wait,” he growled, seizing the shoulder of her dress, ripping it in his haste. She smiled, wriggling out of the shift, her hair tumbling down her naked back and breasts. Then she wrapped her legs around his waist. As he pushed into her, her nails dug into the flesh of his back, and she dragged them downward, raking the scales of the snake. Arruns arched for a moment, then pumped harder. Semni tightened her legs around him, locking her ankles across each other, determined not to let him go until they had both finished, wanting his power and heat, waiting for the moment when his seed would flow into her.

His breathing was ragged. Hers also. Semni laid her head against his shoulder, his sweat coating her cheek. They said nothing, their body heat cooling. After a time, he carried her to the pallet so they could hold each other.

“I have heard of fighting tooth and nail,” he murmured. “I did not think making love would be the same.”

“Well, you promised me it would be worth waiting to see the other end of the snake. I wasn’t disappointed.”

He didn’t comment, but in the failing light of the oil lamp, she noticed him smile.

Thoughts of what she’d seen at the temple surfaced. If the red scourge spread, not even palace walls would protect those inside. And the prospect of starving now seemed real. She didn’t think she could bear to watch Nerie dying of either plague or famine: his little body skeletal, his belly bloated, his eyes dull. She couldn’t bear to lose Arruns either. “It was frightening to walk through the citadel tonight. The sickness is coming. Are you afraid of dying?”

Solemn, he turned on his side, observing her. “I try not to dwell on it. Instead I’m determined no man will kill me. I would prevent others taking you and Nerie, too. And the royal family.”

“Fists and daggers cannot battle hunger and disease. You could perish from a rash instead of a wound. Hunger may deprive you of the strength to defend yourself.”

His eyes flickered. “I have faith in the master.”

“Why do you believe in him so much? He’s a man like any other.”

“Perhaps, but his courage is without limit, and he’s wily. If anyone is to find a way to rescue this city, then it will be him. I owe him my life.”

“And he owes his life to you! The debt has been repaid.” She thought of how Arruns suppressed his frustration at his master not taking him to war. “Don’t you resent him for leaving you behind?”

He pressed his lips into a hard line. “He expects me to protect the queen and children. It’s not my place to question his decision. And now I’ve breached my promise to him by lying with you.”

His retreat into duty irritated her. “I don’t regret what we did. We should enjoy life while we can.” She ran her fingers along one corded vein on his forearm. “My milk is drying up. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to nurse Thia. I don’t think Lord Mastarna would be angry now. I know Lady Caecilia would understand.”

He engulfed her hand with his palm. “And what if you fall with child? You should’ve let me pull out of you like I did the first time. You know I don’t believe that another son should be born into war. What awaits him? A lingering death by starvation? A fevered ending by the scourge?”

“I want your child, Arruns. I don’t care if there is a war.”

He sat up. “We must not do this again. We must wait until you’re released from your duties as a wet nurse. And that will only happen when Lord Mastarna returns. I don’t want to betray his trust.”

She frowned, frustrated he should retreat back to observing an unfair vow. Determined to persuade him to change his mind, she rose and kneeled on the pallet, bending and running her tongue along the channel between the muscles of his chest and abdomen to his groin. She heard his sharp intake of breath as she grasped the snake’s tail, his body responding as she planned. “And this serpent? What does he want?”

“You are wicked.”

“No, I’m hungry. And so is the snake.”

CRISIS

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Caecilia, Veii, Spring, 396 BC

The stench hovered in a pall, death and ordure and smoke intertwined with the sadness of weird keening desolation. Caecilia gagged and pressed a kerchief saturated with her lily perfume to her nose as she sat beside Tarchon in the royal carriage.

Bodies were piled in the street, ready to be fed into pyres. The cadavers were stacked high, a grotesque fuel for fires that otherwise used dung for combustion. A city of the living was being turned into one of the dead. Exhausted, survivors tended the sick and dying, wondering if they would be next. Caecilia’s eyes pricked with tears to see how many of the corpses were those of children. The red scourge marked the young as its favorite victims.

People trudging along the pavement stopped when they saw their queen, bowing their heads as she passed. Some were emaciated, death’s heads instead of faces, their lips cracked, eyes bloodshot. All wore dark mourning clothes. The rainbow of blue and green and brown denoting class distinctions had disappeared. Everyone was equal now, unified by grief.

Caecilia signaled the driver to stop and called to Arruns to lift her down. He shook his head. “No, mistress.” She pursed her lips at his disobedience, but before she could insist, Tarchon restrained her. “He’s right, Caecilia. Even with twelve lictors, your safety can’t be assured.”

She shrugged him away. Since she’d declared her own war on Rome, there’d been no hostility toward her from the people. She only wished their acceptance did not go hand in hand with defeat. “I want to speak to them.”

“What are you going to say that will make a difference? There is no more food to give, no medicines to offer, no wood to provide. You come with empty hands. What use is royal sympathy?”

“At least they’ll see that I have not forgotten them or fear them. Unlike Feluske, who locks himself away. He may be a general, but he is spineless.”

“There’s good reason to fear the red scourge. I suffered from it and survived when I was a child in Tarchna. Can you claim the same protection?”

Caecilia shook her head. The thought she might contract the disease terrified her, but she couldn’t let fear keep her from her duty. And she believed Vel would feel the same. “Palace walls will not protect any of us from the sickness. Many are already stricken within. All I can do is hope that Queen Uni does not wish me to die just yet.” She extended her hand to Arruns. “Help me to the pavement.”

Tarchon grasped her shoulder. “I said no.”

His vehemence surprised her. She hesitated, debating whether to let her own obstinacy challenge his, but then she decided to heed him, her courage failing as she heard the hacking coughs among those standing nearby.

“Move on,” she ordered the driver. Once again, she pressed the kerchief to her nose. Raw sewage ran along the gutters, and she glimpsed side streets piled with human waste, flies hovering and rats scampering over it, while scabrous dogs, too diseased to be eaten by humans, slunk into alleyways. Caecilia prayed the cisterns would not be contaminated. If so, there would be thirst as well as hunger.

With the influx of peasants who’d fled from the brutality of the Romans, the city teemed with people. All sought accommodation now they were bereft of their land and their livelihood. Those without relatives were sleeping in the open, their makeshift shelters forming slums.

Caecilia felt helpless. There was a pull toward futility, only her belief in Uni sustaining her. And yet, why was the deity so cruel? Why had she seemingly forsaken her people? It had been over a month since Vel had left. At least with the arrival of spring, she knew he would be in Velzna at the congress. She tried not to think what would happen if he failed.

In the forum, Caecilia noticed a scaffold with four bodies dangling from nooses, flies crawling over sightless eyes and protruding tongues.

“They’re thieves who stockpiled food and then sold it at extortionate prices in the black market,” said Tarchon. “I’m trying to see justice is served even though our world is disintegrating around us.”

Caecilia turned her head rather than view the criminals, always queasy at such sights. A crowd had collected. The people held out their hands, beseeching, their voices plaintive. This time she did not heed the prince’s restraining hand on her shoulder. She ordered the driver to stop and shrugged Tarchon away. Stepping down into the street, she walked to the platform where the town crier would normally stand to make proclamations. Arruns hurried after, signaling the lictors to form a cordon at its base. With a scowl, Tarchon joined her. “Mastarna will kill me if you’re harmed.”

Ignoring him, she held up her hands. She was surprised at how obediently the people ceased their pleading. A quiet descended, the only sound that of a flapping awning that had come loose on a deserted shop.

Caecilia scanned the host of the wretched who were now her subjects. “Veientanes, I see your suffering, and my heart bleeds for you. I see your children dying. I have faith, though, that King Vel Mastarna will relieve this city.”

A man, eyes hollow, called out, “But when? When will he come?”

“Only the gods know for sure, but I believe in my husband.”

A woman pushed through to the front. “The gods have forsaken us, Aemilia Caeciliana. And what offerings do we have to appease them? There are no animals to sacrifice, no wine to pour libations.”

“Then we must promise them a reward if they answer our prayers. And when the lucumo returns, and supplies once again flow, we will lavish gifts upon them.”

There was a silence again. The flapping of the awning seemed even louder. She scanned the weary faces, praying blank stares would not turn into glares, that skin and bone would not rise up and attack her. Then she remembered the ambition and cruelty of the enemy generals. “Do you wish to surrender?” she called. “Do you wish to relinquish Veientane land and kneel to the Romans? If so, then speak, but consider whether it’s better to die a citizen of Veii than a slave of Rome. Is it not better to live in hope of rescue than exist in despair forever?”

Tarchon leaned close. “Enough. There’s no point to this.”

She ignored him. “Tell me. Let me know your will. And if it’s to cede defeat, then I’ll ask Prince Tarchon to yield his spear to the enemy on behalf of Veii.”

There was a murmur, glances exchanged, bewilderment that they were being offered a choice. A man with skull-like features raised his fist into the air. “No surrender.” His call was repeated: “No surrender.” The phrase echoed, filling the air where only minutes before there’d been silence. The chanting continued. Caecilia felt relief sweep through her as fiercely as the elation on the day she’d declared war on Rome. Tarchon stood incredulous, surveying the mob before him. Again he spoke to her, but she could not hear his words above the noise. Smiling, she turned to him, expecting him to be buoyant, but instead he was glowering. He offered his forearm, leaning closer than before. “No argument. It’s time to go.”

Caecilia gulped in fresh air, staring down from the ramparts of the arx to the city below. Usually she found peace here, remembering a time when she would study the flight of hawks gliding on the updrafts. Now even the birds did not hover over Veii. Instead she gazed down on the sight of hundreds of black puffs wafting from funeral pyres, grim evidence of the despairing world beneath the vast, cloudless blue realm of the gods.

Tarchon stood beside her, his back to the city below. “You had no right to let them decide. Only the war council can determine whether we should capitulate. What would have happened if the people wanted to yield?”

“But they didn’t. I sensed it would be so.”

He sighed. “What has happened to you, Caecilia? No wonder Mastarna is exasperated with you. You’ve become reckless, whereas before you used to seek to control your fate. You encourage feats that have no surety, first wanting to march on Rome and now asking the people to believe Mastarna will save us.”

“Vel will succeed. This time he will convince the Twelve to bear arms.”

“Wishing won’t make it so.”

“So what do you want to do, Tarchon? Vel appointed you as regent. Are you going to lead Veii into submission?”

His hesitation was alarming. “Lusinies and Feluske are thinking of asking for a truce. We did not foresee a plague. We have no idea how long before help will arrive—or if it will come at all. At this rate, the Romans may force entry into a city full of weakened soldiers and citizens riddled with disease.”

She balled her fists. “You know Rome is not going to treat. Peace will come with subjugation.” Her voice rose. “Vel directed that I sit on any war council. Why wasn’t I consulted? Are you and the generals excluding me?”

He reddened, indignant. “We have not gone behind your back. The matter was raised informally.”

She regretted her accusation. “I’m sorry. Forgive me. It’s just that I’m so fearful. Don’t you think I worry that Vel might already be dead? That I must watch my children waste away? Or that our people will perish? Sometimes I wonder if it might be best that I surrender myself to Rome . . . but I am too much of a coward.”

Tarchon put his arm around her. “You have always been brave, Caecilia. Foolish sometimes, and too stubborn, but definitely brave.”

She pulled away. If anything, his sculpted features were even more beautiful in their gauntness. “And who would have thought you would grow sensible. So sober and wise.”

“It’s easy to be temperate when there’s not enough wine to get drunk, nor Catha leaves to take the edge off my worries.”

“You joke, but what I say is true. Vel would be proud of you. And you are seeing to your duties diligently.”

“There is little work to do. It’s no use trying to extract taxes from a populace who is destitute. And what use is a treasury full of gold and jewels that cannot be eaten?”

“Vel will come. Then the coin in those coffers will once again prove useful.”

“What we need is more grain to ration.” He pointed toward the countryside beyond the plateaued city. “We need our farmland to be harvested.”

Caecilia also studied the greening furrowed fields beyond. It made her bitter knowing the crops that would burgeon there were destined for Roman bellies. They reminded her, too, that the stone walls of Veii had become her prison. One day she’d hoped to visit the sea in Tarchna to understand the life Vel had once led. She’d wished to meet his kin, the Atelinas family of his mother, who were also Tarchon’s cousins. “Do you miss your relatives in Tarchna?”

Tarchon appeared quizzical at the sudden change of topic. “I barely remember my brothers, Caecilia, and my mother and father are dead. Veii has been my home for nearly twenty years. And who wouldn’t welcome living in the house of the richest man in Veii compared to struggling on a meager inheritance as the youngest of seven brothers? Even now Mastarna is earning wealth although he has no way to receive the money. His Tarchnan captains still sail his fleet of ships to trade with Carthage and Athens. And he owns interests in tin and iron mines in the Tolfa Hills. Mastarna adopted me to give me a better life. I don’t regret moving here despite Veii being under siege.”

“He also adopted you to place a barrier between you and Artile. As your uncle, he should never have touched you.”

Tarchon reddened. She regretted speaking. Neither of them wanted to remember the priest who’d manipulated them.

“I don’t want to think about that part of my life. Artile broke all the rules when he took me to his bed when I was a child. I should’ve become the beloved of a warrior statesman when I was fifteen or sixteen.” Tarchon clasped her hand. “Do you think Karcuna might actually agree to let me be Sethre’s mentor?”

She nodded. “I think so. When he sees how you have taken your responsibilities seriously.”

“You once disapproved of such arrangements. What has changed your mind?”

Caecilia smiled. When she’d first come to Veii, she’d been blinkered and ignorant, seeing only faults in its society. Roman virtues were all she knew. But now she understood Vel’s own mentor had taught him to be a great soldier, patron, and statesman. If Tarchon could prove his worth, then he was entitled to the same chance with Sethre. And he was an able teacher. She spoke and read the Rasennan language because of him. And he’d opened her eyes to her own unfounded prejudices. Protected her, too. Rome would demand she despise him but she’d said farewell to that legacy of intolerance. She squeezed his hand and kissed his cheek. “You.”