by Rachel Ford
They didn’t make it to the feast. They barely made it out of her study, to the bedroom. He was gentle tonight in a way he hadn’t been in longer than she could remember. His kisses were tender, his caresses passionate, his lovemaking generous. And before he surrendered to sleep, he told her, “I love you, Cass.”
She loved him too and told him so.
And then morning came.
She woke first. For a minute, she watched him in the gentle light of sunrise. He was handsome, her Faustus. He was older, now, than he had been when they’d first met. He’d lost the boyish charm to his features. But there was a maturity in its place that she rather preferred.
Still, nature called, and quietly, carefully, so as not to wake him, she rolled out of bed and headed for the chamber pot.
He stirred, muttering, “Come back.”
She smiled and was about to answer that she’d be back soon, when he said, “Paula, it’s too early to get up.”
The smile vanished. “It’s not Paula,” she said, and her tone was cold.
“Cas?” Faustus started to a sitting position and glanced around him. Catching her eye, he smiled. “There you are.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” she answered. “It’s just your wife. Not your whore.”
Chapter Nine
Faustus had gone shortly after that. He’d made his apologies, and when that hadn’t worked, he’d tried to laugh it off. Whatever headway the first attempt had made was lost with this last volley.
Cassia knew who Paula was. She was patrician born, a daughter of house Lucius. She had entered the world with little but a name, but as a woman had turned uncommon beauty and sharp wit to her advantage. She was wealthy as a princess, now.
She was not a prostitute, exactly. She was what might be called a kept woman, except that, in her particular case, she was kept by a handful of men, and kept on heavy retainers.
Faustus was one of several. And Paula was, in turn, one of several for Faustus. She’d been the first, though, and he’d never quite lost his appetite for her.
Cassia almost hated the woman, but she couldn’t. Not really. Paula Lucia was not the problem. The problem was Faustus. The problem was that every difficulty, every disagreement, every moment of anger between them ended with drink or women.
She could hate Paula all she wanted, but even if she’d never been born, it wouldn’t change a thing.
So Cassia did not hate Paula. Weeping in her room after he’d gone, though, she did hate Faustus. She hated him with the passion of a fool, who had believed his sweet lies, who had surrendered to promises she knew were empty. She hated him for still having the power to render her an imbecile.
And she hated herself, for being so weak and stupid.
She hated herself and she hated him until right before midday, when Faustus appeared at her door.
“What?” she asked, her tone icy as the Northern sea.
“Can I come in?”
“No.” She stood with the door half closed, her foot against it to prevent his entry.
He nodded. “Alright then. But I wanted you to know. I broke it off,” he said. “With Paula, I mean.”
She snorted. “For how long? Until tonight? Until we next argue?”
“For good.”
There was a measure of contrition in the greens of his eyes that made her stomach tremble. She wanted to believe him so much it hurt. But this wasn’t the first time she’d heard these words. “Like last time?”
“No. I mean it, this time. And not just her. All of them. If you’ll give me a chance, Cass, I want to make it right between us.”
She felt her resolve slipping. “Why should I believe you this time?”
“Because…” He lifted a hand to her face, the rough skin of his fingertips tracing its way down her cheek. “I love you, Cass. We were good together. We can be again.”
Trygve found Tullius’ villa even more to his liking on further inspection. The baths were a strange but particularly welcome discovery. In his home country, baths were handled in a small, cramped tub with buckets of heated water. Or, worse, they were a matter of soaping oneself down from a bowl of water or in a stream.
Here, a great tiled pool was filled with heated water, ready and waiting for the bather. Trygve let himself sink beneath the surface and savored the sensation of the week’s grime floating away. It was only when he emerged, looking altogether a new man with the filth removed, that he realized just how badly he’d been in need of a cleaning.
Sleep, though, was the overwhelming preoccupation of his first days. He spent three days more or less dead to the world, waking only long enough to eat, answer calls of nature and welcome Gunnar back to the land of the conscious. The snow leopard seemed dazed, and it took a while for him to find his feet. But he was, as the Bull and Rufus had predicted, otherwise none the worse for his ordeal.
On the second day, Trygve woke sometime after breakfast to the sound of voices raised in laughter. By time he emerged, though, Tullius was alone. “Did I hear someone else?” he asked.
“Oh, yes. That would be Lucretius. A neighbor of mine.”
“Ah.”
“We didn’t wake you, I hope?”
“No, not at all.”
“Good.” Tullius surveyed him for a minute. “How are you? And how’s that snow leopard?”
“Tired,” Trygve said. “And tired. I think he’s worse than I am. You don’t mind if I bring something back with me, for him to eat? He barely made his way to the garden and back to – well, you know.”
His host laughed. “Do as you please, Northman. Far be it from me to argue with a snow leopard.”
Sating his own appetite and then providing for Gunnar’s breakfast, Trygve slept again.
He woke earlier the next day, not long after the sun had risen. For a space, he sat at his desk, trying to put quill to paper. He didn’t get very far.
My sister Ingrid,
I write because I would have you know that I am well, and safe. I have found, for the time being, a kind of safe harbor. How long it will remain open, I do not know. But for now, I am well.
I regret the manner of our parting, Ingrid.
That was all he’d put down before he snorted at the missive and took it to the nearest torch. He watched it light, and crumble into ash. Regret? What manner of softspeak was that? He really had become a politician somewhere along the way, hadn’t he?
Regret? No, that didn’t begin to encompass it. He missed his home. He missed the tundra and the fjords, he missed the family he’d never see again, his sisters and even – in his lowest moments – his father.
But regret? Frigg, regret was only the beginning. He’d raised his sword to Ingie. He’d betrayed her. He didn’t repent trying to kill their father. The manner in which he’d done it? Yes. That could have been better done.
But Bjarne had been willing to sell his sister off against her will, to give her to a stranger. He knew Ingie well enough to know what that would have done to her. It would have broken his sister’s spirit. It would have killed her, one day at a time.
No, Bjarne would have stolen his sister’s life. He did not regret trying to take his instead. He should have done it differently, man to man. He should have challenged him instead of relying on poison. It had seemed the easier way, to do it without risking the hatred of his sisters. But in hindsight, that had been folly. Still, his motives had been good.
And yet…in the end, somehow, he’d let fear and desperation drive him to the point where he’d raised a sword against Ingie when she’d come to save their father. He’d let his own self-interest make him the very thing he’d meant to kill.
No, regret didn’t do what he felt justice. And for a long moment, staring at the ashes of that half-letter, he wondered if he should have fought so hard to survive the tournament after all. What did he have to live for? He had no one left, no home, no kingdom, and no prospects. He was a stranger in a strange land, a barbarian in the eyes of these primped and polished men.
The big cat watched him with sleepy eyes, but followed with a dutiful, if petulant, air as he called. “Come on, you fat, lazy bastard,” the Northman said. He spoke with a measure of good cheer he didn’t quite feel. “You’ve not even been in the south two weeks, and you’re already picking up their ways.”
The snow leopard padded along silently behind him, and Trygve tried to forget about his thoughts. He tried to enjoy the sensation of cold stone on his bare feet. His blisters were starting to heal, but he was not yet ready to put his boots back on.
He set his steps in the direction of the gardens. It was there that Gunnar had been answering his own calls of nature, and he imagined that, as sleepy as the snow leopard had been lately, he probably hadn’t made the trip unless it was strictly necessary.
Sure enough, as soon as he reached a patch of shrubs, Gunnar disappeared into it. Trygve shook his head in amusement and yawned into the back of his hand. He couldn’t possibly sleep another minute, but, somehow, he was still tired.
Then a sound, like lowered voices, reached his ears. He saw Gunnar perk up at about the same time he did, and man and beast alike threw their eyes around the garden.
It was bathed in the rosy pinks and oranges of a late sunrise and cast here and there in the long shadows of the colonnades. It seemed, to his eyes, quite empty save for himself and the snow leopard.
But the noise sounded again, and there was no mistaking that it was human speech, though oddly muted. He frowned, heading in what he took to be the general direction.
Then, he drew up short. “Oh!”
It had certainly been human voices he’d heard. Two of them, in point of fact. One belonged to Tullius, who lay with his back propped against a bit of statuary, watching the sunrise. The other belonged to a young man Trygve did not recognize – but who seemed, to judge from the way in which his limbs were intertwined with Tullius’, very familiar with his host.
They started at the sound of his voice and turned as crimson as the morning sky. Both were on their feet in seconds. “Northman,” Tullius said. “You’re awake.”
“I’m sorry,” Trygve answered. “I didn’t realize you were…occupied.” He didn’t bother to conceal the amusement in his tone. He was in a good mood, and his host’s obvious discomfort at being found out in an intimate moment only added to his general good humor.
“This is Lucretius,” Tullius said. “My friend.”
At the same time, Lucretius said, “His agent.”
“A very friendly agent,” Trygve agreed with a smirk.
Lucretius went gray at the comment. “I should be going.”
This seemed an overreaction to Trygve. Unless one of them was married, or they were engaged in some kind of conspiracy to overthrow the empire, he wasn’t sure what all the secrecy and blushes were in aid of. Still, it was Tullius’ house, and if he wanted to carry on like a lovesick teenager, it was his prerogative to do so. “Please don’t,” he said. “I was just taking the snow leopard for a walk. I’ll go now.”
The pair exchanged glances as he turned, and before he’d gotten too many steps, Tullius called, “Northman, wait.”
Lucretius stayed in place, by the marble warrior. His skin was about as pale, now, as the stone. Tullius, though, had followed him.
“Trygve,” he said, “what you saw…not that there was anything to it…but it could be misinterpreted, you understand. You won’t…say anything, will you? To anyone?”
Now, the Northman really was puzzled. “Who would I tell? And what would I say, anyway?”
Tullius seemed to miss his confusion. Relief painted itself on his features. “Thank you, Northman. If Luke’s father found out…that is, if he thought…well, thank you.”
“You mean, he’d object?” Understanding, slow as it was, was dawning. “To you?”
It was Tullius’ turn to be confused. “Of course.”
“Because you’re a gladiator?”
“A gladiator?” The southerner’s confusion seemed to be increasing. “No, because…well, you know.”
Trygve didn’t, and he said as much. Tullius surveyed him for a moment, as if trying to ascertain if he was serious.
Then, he said, “Because I am a man.”
“Oh.” The Northman considered that. “Really?”
“Of course.”
“Why?” If the objection had been one of status, a kind of snobbery over having a paid fighter in the family, he might have understood. In the North, a fighter would have been met with acclaim, but other professions might not be so readily welcomed into a family. At home, some men lived with men, some with women, and some by themselves. They were as the gods had made them to be, and no one thought to challenge or question it.
Tullius seemed at a loss for words. Lucretius, by now, had joined him, and was listening with a curious intentness. “Well…it’s just the way of things.”
This clarified nothing, and Trygve repeated, “Why?”
It took a while, but in the end both the Southerners and Northerner were made to understand. In the South, Trygve learned, matrimony was a matter of raising children and – more importantly – combining estates. A pair that could not reproduce, that could not create heirs, then, was seen as an evil. There was still some confusion on this point to his mind, as the prohibition didn’t seem to impact opposite sex couples past their heir-making days. Still, the whole thing seemed rather presumptuous to the Northerner, like second-guessing the gods. And he said as much.
“My father would disinherit me,” Lucretius declared matter-of-factly, “if he knew.”
“Not that you wouldn’t have somewhere to go,” Tullius said.
Lucretius smiled. “But your career would be over, too, Tull.”
The gladiator snorted. “I’m getting too old for the arena anyway.”
After a space, Trygve was given to understand that a pairing such as they discussed was not illegal in Stella. It was regarded with such violent distaste, though, that openly acknowledging it posed a risk not only to familial ties but general social standing.
That put their caution in a new light altogether, and his amusement was long gone. It was one thing to laugh at the blushing simpers of lovers – lovers were always ridiculous, and consequently always worth laughing at. But though he hardly knew Tullius, and didn’t know Lucretius at all, being a stranger was no barrier in determining the genuineness of their worry. “Your Stellan ways are very strange,” he declared. “You cheer to see men kill each other but would destroy them if you knew they loved one another.” He shook his head.
“It is strange,” Lucretius agreed. “In perspective. But I have lived here all my life, and never questioned it. Until I met Tullius, anyway. I suppose I probably never would have, if our paths hadn’t crossed.”
The conversation moved on. Once convinced that Trygve did not mean to ruin them, his host, it seemed, was eager to grab onto safer topics. “I meant to tell you…you had a visitor, Northman. Yesterday, while you were asleep. A senator called Felix.”
“A senator?” Trygve recalled what he knew of the Stellan system of government. If his memory was accurate, senators served by the will of the people, to craft and pass the legislation that the emperor and empress would sign into law. They were members of a small, elected body, and usually of noble birth. It was his turn to panic, as his mind assumed the worst. Was this senator here on diplomatic business? Had he some tie to the King of the North?
Had Trygve been recognized? Was his cover blown?
His level of concern, though, was not mirrored in his companion’s faces. Tullius nodded a confirmation. “Yes. I told him you were asleep. He said he’d call again.”
Lucretius wrinkled his nose. “Lucky you.”
“Why?” the Northman asked. “Who is this Felix?”
“I don’t know
Felix himself,” the gladiator answered, “but senators, and patricians in general, want one of two things from a gladiator. Much less a Victor. Neither of which, I suspect, you’re interested in giving.”
Trygve was not so naïve as to miss the tone of these words. “You mean…?”
“Usually, they’ll want to fuck you,” Lucretius elucidated. “Victors are more celebrated than the emperor and empress themselves. Some men – and women – will pay handsomely for that.”
“Oh. But I thought you said-?”
Tullius nodded. “It doesn’t make sense, Northman. But it’s true anyway. It’s not the same thing to rent a man for a few hours as to love him for a lifetime. You can boast about the one and be ruined for the other.”
“And sometimes,” Lucretius continued, “they want to pull you into their schemes. They’ll call it all sorts of things – private security is a favorite – but it’s always the same: murder for hire.”
“Really? Is that legal?” Trygve’s fear had been diminishing, but his surprise was mounting. Into what manner of chaotic world had he stumbled, where prostitution was safer than love, and murder arranged in the open?
“When it’s the men writing the laws?” Lucretius snorted. “They can get away with whatever they want.”
At these words, Trygve studied the young man. He was Tullius’ junior, he thought, but by less than a decade. He was slighter of form, but not slight. His shoulders were broad, and among Trygve’s people, he was of an average height. Compared to a typical Stellan, he would probably be thought on the tall side. He was fairer than Tullius, too. His skin, though tanned, was lighter, and his hair was a kind of whitish blonde. He had a good face, though it was often given to unfiltered expression. Right now, as he discussed his rulers, it was twisted into a sardonic sneer.
“It’s not as simple as that,” Tullius put in more mildly. “But when a man starts to accumulate too many professional killers…” He shrugged. “Those tend to be the men who find themselves ‘needing’ to resort to lethal force against their rivals. ‘Needing’ to defend their business interests with steel. ‘Needing’ to kill.”