The Golden Dice - A Tale of Ancient Rome (23 page)

Camillus’ eyes met hers again. “Good.” Then he faced Marcus. “The legions are mustering in the Campus tomorrow. Report there at daybreak to swear an oath of allegiance to Rome. Also to pledge loyalty to me as your general for this campaign. I expect much of you. Do not fail me.”

Marcus saluted, back straight, eyes steady. “I won’t, sir.”

As he turned to go, Camillus looked towards the buckets in the leaky study. Once again he bestowed a smile upon her. “Perhaps you should be more careful not to walk through puddles, Pinna. Your sandals are wet.”

She curtsied, nonplussed to realize he must see her only as a woman. There was no indelible mark upon her, no brand upon her skin to declare to him that she was a whore.

*

Once the visitor left, the majordomo emerged like a cockroach from under a cupboard. For the second time that day Marcus ordered him to leave, causing the manservant’s face to settle into disapproval, although there was a touch of comedy in the way he continued to observe Pinna as he left the atrium.

Marcus pushed her into the side room again. “How dare you say you are my concubine!”

Her confidence buoyed from surviving the encounter with Camillus, she stood her ground. “Why not? He will take more heed of me now if I tell him your secret.”

He grabbed both her forearms and shook her. “The general wants me as a leader of one of his squadrons. This could have been the best day of my life except for you! I should beat you and send you away!”

Hearing the anger in his voice, panic rose that she had pressed him too hard. She sank to her knees. “Please, my lord. Take me with you. I have nowhere else to go. I will kill myself rather than return to the lupanaria.”

He released her, standing over her as he raked his fingers through his cowlick. “Why do you think life with the army would be any easier? Military camps are dirty and dangerous.”

“
Because I’m not afraid of hard work or of living in wind and harsh weather. I was born on a farm and learned how to labor as soon as I was taught to walk.”

“
There is death and disease.”

She sat back on her heels. “I already face them. After every man I worry that signs of the pox will appear. And then, in time …” The memory of Fusca’s suffering returned. Suddenly the possibility that he might refuse overwhelmed her; her intention to suicide real. She could not go back to the brothel, could not continue living in that bleak world. She covered her face with her hands and wept.

Marcus paced the room, watching her weep before standing over her again. “You do understand, don’t you,” he finally said, “that when an enemy overruns the camp they don’t spare the women. After they finish with them, their death is brutal.”

Sensing he was relenting, Pinna wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “But we will not be defeated, my lord. Not with Furius Camillus in command.”

He frowned, rubbing the scar at the corner of his eye.

“
You see, like you, I want to follow him.”

“
Why, so you can expose me?”

“
No. Because he is like a flame.”

Marcus sat down on the bed, legs apart, a hand on each knee, and examined her. And in that moment she knew he had finally noticed her just as his general had before him.

“
Is it really true that you were once a daughter of a soldier, a citizen of Rome?”

“
Yes, my lord, I am freeborn. A warrior’s child. And I want all to see me as such again.”

“
A concubine still bears a stain on her reputation.”

“
Ah, but it is faint compared to that of a whore’s, my lord. I might not be able to wear the stola of a matron, or woolen fillets in my hair, but no one will disrespect me for being a de facto wife.”

Again he raked his fingers through his hair. He sighed. “If I take you there must be no tears or complaining.”

Relief coursed through her. “Thank you, my lord, thank you.” She kissed his feet, her lips brushing the soft fine leather of his sandals. “You will hear no complaints from me—ever!”

“
And you will keep your side of the bargain?”

“
Always.”

“
Very well.” He rose, clasping her hands and drawing her to stand. “I will send a messenger to your pimp that he is to release you. How much must I pay him to cover your debt?”

Pinna had not thought that far. How much was her life worth? Less than the cost of an iron buckle. Less than two weights of Claudian bronze. “I am sure he will not haggle with you, my lord. He would not dare.”

He was still holding her hands. She tried to slip away but Marcus held them tight. “And if the general agrees to Drusus joining his cavalry, what then? Would you still want to be my army wife?”

Her eagerness dimmed. Slowly easing her fingers from his, she met his eyes, her voice soft. “There is no going back for me now, my lord.”

Once again he studied her. She bowed her head. The words were true. She could find strength to face his friend. She had none left, though, to remain a whore.

The sliver of silence passed. Marcus drew a small bronze weight from his purse and handed it to her. “Buy yourself a clean tunic and palla. I can’t have my concubine looking bedraggled.” Then he walked to the doorway. “And you can sleep in the stables tonight so my parents don’t find you. Tomorrow you can join the caravan that follows Camillus’ army.”

“
I will be there before dawn!”

He drew the curtain aside, but before he moved through to the atrium he turned and shook his head, as though disbelieving he’d been persuaded to her scheme. “Oh, and Pinna,” he said, glancing at her feet, “throw out those wet sandals. You better buy yourself some shoes.”

Glossary

Cast

His palm was warm. Caecilia placed her hand over his. “Be patient.”

The babe stirred. She guided his calloused fingers to feel it.

Mastarna laughed. “He is determined to gain our attention.”

“
I keep telling you, he might be a girl.”

Lying behind her on their bed, his arms around her, Vel kept his hand steady, waiting for another movement.

Caecilia shifted to face him. “You would not be disappointed if I bore a daughter?”

“
No, provided she doesn’t have her mother’s temperament.”

“
Or her father’s temper.”

He ran his fingers along her arm. “I would welcome a little girl, and would be heartbroken if I was to lose her.” Then kissed her forehead. “Or you.”

Caecilia caressed his battered face, the scar that ran from nose to mouth and the curve of his lips. He kissed her fingers as she did so. There had been another wife before her. Another son and a daughter. All lost to him. A burden she could never share other than to offer comfort. They had lost a child also. In the time after Tas and before Larce. One terrible winter there had been no infant for Vel to claim. She’d been left to sorrow alone until he returned. The loss was as tangible as if she’d labored and held her baby. She always wondered if it was a son or daughter she might have suckled for it had been too soon to tell. Experiencing this grief, she finally glimpsed the torment of Vel’s first wife. She prayed she would never suffer the curse of watching children die before her eyes as had Seianta.

“
Here.” She directed him once again to the baby moving within her. His delight filled her with happiness. She had borne three sons to him, but her husband had never had the chance to see her with her belly like a gourd nor feel the first wondrous awakenings as their babe made its presence known within the womb.

Mastarna nuzzled the birthmark upon Caecilia’s throat. As a young girl the blemish had worried her but now it went unnoticed when she gazed into the hand mirror. Her father said the stain meant her life would not be smooth. Mastarna claimed it meant their marriage would be blessed. So far both had been correct.

“
Your skin is so soft.” His fingers traced the faint natal line from her navel to the shadow of her mound.

“
Again?” She laughed and held his wrist. “We’ve been in bed all afternoon. No wonder I’m buffeted black and blue by this baby. She is complaining that she must share her space so often with her father.”

“
Then she must understand that I am entitled to stake my claim before her.”

Caecilia hesitated, wanting to have him but resisting. She had promised the boys she would play with them and Mastarna had business to which he needed to attend. He had been home for over a year. At the beginning it was strange to have him as a constant within the family. Soon their sons grew used to having their father around them, squealing at his horseplay or standing with quivering lower lips when his deep voice chastised them. The novelty of him sharing her bed had faded but his presence was now an expectation. There was disappointment when he did not arrive from his post at the north of the city to hug his sons, share her dining couch and make love. His attendance at the king’s war councils had become a boon.

When she had fallen with child she’d worried that his desire for her would fade as her slender waist thickened. Yet as she grew large and her breasts heavy, his need did not diminish. Vel even soothed her doubts that he would no longer want her in the last months before the birth: “It will give me more of you to hold.”

She stroked his hair. “You’ll be late for your meeting with Vipinas.”

Mastarna sighed. “I suppose you’re right. He has become more irritable since stepping down as zilath.” He kissed her, then rose, breaking the fit of their bodies.

Caecilia stepped down from the bed onto the footstool and called to the slave girl outside the chamber. Both Arruns and Cytheris had been granted the afternoon to attend to their own devices. She guessed that they also welcomed their master and mistress spending so much time together.

The heavy red curtain between the garden and chamber had been drawn back letting light and warmth fill the room. Caecilia could see the ancient grapevine, fresh with spring greenery, entwining the columns of the arcade, and hear the water splashing in the fountain. Slaves were trimming the laurel hedges and cleaning the large banqueting hall, their industry emphasizing the luxury of lying abed in daylight. Caecilia had heard their hushed giggling at spying their owners in lovemaking but had not cared. Her Roman modesty had long ago been cast aside.

Caecilia held up her arms as the servant helped her don her chiton. The sheer linen slid like liquid over her skin. “What do you want to speak to Vipinas about?”

“
His grandson. I’ve offered to take Caile on as my squire.” Mastarna pulled on his tunic before sitting down to lace up his boots.

Surprised, Caecilia paused in choosing a string of pearls from her jewelery casket. “But you already have one, a boy from your clan.”

“
He is ready to ride his own horse into battle.”

“
Then why not another from your tribe?”

Mastarna gestured the maid to leave. Caecilia frowned, wondering what it was that he did not want to be overheard.

She grew nervous, too, when he became attentive, standing behind her to try and fasten the necklace with his soldier’s fingers. “You know I’ve always fostered an alliance with the House of Vipinas. He has helped us in the past.”

She swung around to face him. “And yet the old man was prepared to see Kurvenas step into royal shoes.”

Irritated with fiddling with the clasp, Vel dumped the pearls into her palm. “I’m not denying he’s a canny politician, but it doesn’t hurt to have old Vipinas as my friend. That’s why I am happy to help him with his predicament.”

“
Predicament?”

He grimaced. “You know very well what I’m talking about—Ramutha.”

Caecilia sighed, not wanting to revisit the well-worn argument over her friend’s infidelity with Vipinas’ grandson Caile. The scandal had not been as great as she’d expected. Another example of the liberal mindedness of her adopted people. Ramutha Tetnies gave birth to her daughter, Metli, and called on neither her husband nor her young lover to claim her. Thefarie Ulthes was not pleased though. The living proof of his wife’s indiscretion challenged his manhood. Bruised pride and hurt marred his features every time Caecilia saw him. At least the child was a girl. It would have been unbearable for him if Ramutha bore a son only to find it was not of his blood. The nobleman longed for an heir, a young warrior to inherit both his name and armor. He still wanted his wife for that purpose but there was no doubt a rift had formed between them.