by Rachel Ford
Then the tone of the letter changed.
And now that I have dispensed with business, I must tell you something that will astonish you, my dearest Cassia.
Do you, I have never written those words before? How sad and yet how beautiful they are.
But forgive me. I know you will be confused. I had vowed never to write them. Your mother and I, and Emperor Augustus, had agreed you would never hear them.
Yet I must write them. You must know the truth, Cass. I know how easy it is to fall into the trap of other people’s expectations. I know too how appealing it is to romanticize our forbearers, and imagine they were something more, something better, than people. I cannot let you fall into this trap, Cass. I cannot see you hold yourself to false expectations, or jeopardize your own happiness over the lies we have told. Forgive me, then, for lifting the veil on the lies we spent so long telling. Forgive me, if you can, for telling them in the first place. But mostly, learn from my mistakes, Cass.
You are not Augustus’ daughter. You are mine. Your father – the man you called father – could not sire children. You know already, I think, that I cared for your mother. Perhaps you do not know the extent of it. I will tell you.
I loved her, Cass, from the first day I met her. She was then already intended for Augustus, and I only one of many up-and-coming political aspirants. The longer I knew her, the more I loved Luciana. I should have told her how I felt.
But I was a coward. I held my piece – I had a thousand reasons that, at the time, all seemed very good. They weren’t. They were excuses. The truth is, I was afraid.
She married Augustus. It might have ended there – not that I would ever have loved her less, or loved another. But I was elected to the senate, and Augustus saw in me an ally. And he, through some cruel whim of Lady Fortuna, took a hunting injury. It left him unable to father children.
It was Augustus’ idea. He knew that I cared for her, and that she had cared for me once. And the empire needed an heir.
It sounds very sordid, as I write it. But I loved her, Cass, and she me. Our affair lasted only until you were born; those were Augustus’ terms.
And here again, I can only confess that I was a coward. I had never been happier, and have never been since, than those months with her. I should have asked her to leave, to build a life – you, her, and me, together.
It would have been an end to my career, though. And I could not justify that. There was too much to do. The empire needed me.
Those were the lies I told myself.
I let her go again. I think I broke her heart a second time. I know I broke my own.
The rest, you know. She loved Augustus, and he loved her. They both loved you. There, at least, I take some measure of relief; she loved again.
For myself…well, I suppose I have done no better than I deserve. And so, Cassia, I write not to clear my conscience, but to caution you. I know what it is to convince myself to be contented for the sake of an empire; I know what it is to live with the regret of making the wrong choices.
Do not make the same mistake, my daughter. Do not let the decisions of others rob you of your own joy. You will serve the empire better in love, in happiness, in joy. Choose these things, Cassia. There may be reasons, and they may seem dire, that argue against it; but there will always be uncertainty and fear. It is in love, and in love alone, that you will find the strength to weather the storms of leadership.
I wish I could be there to answer your questions. I know you will have many. I hope you can forgive me. But if you cannot, if you cannot accept my advice as a father…then at least accept the example an old fool, who was too much a coward and an imbecile to follow his heart; accept it, and learn from it.
Be happy in your life, Cass. You deserve nothing less – and so much more.
Felix
Chapter Forty-Three
Cassia had never been so stunned. She stared openmouthed at the letter. When Trygve asked, “Cas? What’s wrong?” she’d rebuffed his questions.
Somehow, this seemed too personal, too dangerous to share. Even with him. At least for now.
She still couldn’t comprehend it herself. She was only just accepting that Felix was truly gone. But, Felix – her father?
No. It can’t be. And yet, there had always been rumors, hadn’t there? They were sordid, low and wicked rumors. But people had said that Senator Felix and the empress had been too close, once upon a time.
No. No, she wouldn’t believe it. She couldn’t.
And yet, why would Felix lie? Why, with his last words to her, would he lie?
Gods, but she had so many questions. And the only people who could ever give her answers were dead.
Cassia wept for a long time. Trygve knelt beside her, taking her hand in his and entreating her to tell him what he could do to help. There was nothing, except what he was already doing.
She was more glad now than she had been that Faustus was gone. She could not face him. She couldn’t bear to stand there in front of him, knowing that she was an illegitimate daughter, a pretender. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep her composure. That had been her one refuge, hadn’t it? She was her father’s daughter. The emperor’s blood flowed through her veins. However much Faustus’s gold propped up the empire, it was still her father’s empire; her empire.
Except, none of that was true now. None of it had ever been true. She had no more claim to the rule of Stella than Faustus did.
She spent some hours all but insensible to the world, her mind a swirl of a million thoughts. She considered burning the letter, lest it fall into the wrong hands. She couldn’t quite bring herself to do that, though. If Felix was her father – and the more she contemplated the matter, the more likely it seemed – these were the last words of her father to her.
She couldn’t burn them. Not yet, not until she’d memorized every word. Not until she had read them again and again, in a steadier state of mind. Not until she’d wrung every answer she could out of the text.
But this was not the time for that. Felix was dead. Felix had been murdered. He’d sacrificed his life, so that she could end Caius’s death grip on the empire once and for all, so that she could smash the cabal of senators who would choke the last life out of Stella for their own profit.
Felix had lived and died for the empire. And it was up to her to make sure that his sacrifice, his death, had not been in vain.
This, at last, she imparted to Trygve. He listened and nodded solemnly. Once, he tried to ask about the risk to herself. “They’ve already tried to kill you once, Cass. They did kill Felix.”
“Yes. And they’ll keep trying, Tryg, until the succeed. Unless we stop them now.”
If he could fault her logic, he didn’t try. Instead, he nodded darkly. “I’d give my right arm to cross blades with that son-of-a-bitch.”
She smiled at that, at that distinctly Northern way of looking at the problem. “That would solve Caius one and for all, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes it would.”
“Well, we’ll have to do things this way. But I promise you, I mean to finish him as fully as you.”
Cassia had donned a dark stola, and eaten only at the doctor’s insistence. Now, Trygve walked with her to the carriage. He could not help but notice her pallor, and the drawn look to her face. “Perhaps we should give it another day, Cass. It will wait, won’t it?”
But she’d shaken her head. “I don’t know when Faustus will be back. I don’t want to have to fight him on this.”
He’d tried not to scowl at that name. “I see.”
“I cannot battle the senate and my husband at the same time. Not now.” She shot him a look so full of sorrow he could feel it sear through to his heart. “I don’t have the capacity to deal with the overthrow of half the senate and my marriage at the same time.”
“Your marriage?” He shouldn’t have asked. It wasn’t his business. But he couldn’t stop himself, either.
She smiled, a soft, sad smile. “Come. You
know as well as I, it’s over. It’s been over since we lost the pregnancy.
“Faustus has no children. He cannot stand the idea of not having an heir. And he would rather lose wife and heir than heir alone. So…” She shrugged. “What kind of marriage is that?”
“Not a healthy one,” he ventured.
“Oh Tryg. So carefully said. You are learning our ways after all. Soon, you’ll be running for office yourself.”
She was teasing, but he didn’t laugh. “Cass, are you alright? This…is a lot – a lot of change, a lot of sorrow, all at once.”
“It is a lot. But…I’ve had time to think, these last weeks. I’ve been a fool, you know. I’ve been trying to hold onto something that I suppose never was, or at least has not been for a long time.
“But that’s over now. I’ll not let my heart play me the fool again. Now, I must think of Stella, and Stella alone.”
“Oh Cass,” he said, and his heart felt like it might break for her.
“Don’t be sorry for me, Tryg. I’ve been a fool, and I suppose I must reap the deserts of playing the idiot. But I will manage.” She smiled again, and this time reached a hand out to his. “And I am not so utterly alone. There, at least, I cannot fault my husband. For he brought you into my life.
“And I don’t know where I’d be without you.”
For a moment, he struggled to find his voice. When he did, it sounded strange, and strangled to his ears. “You’ll never be without me, Empress. Not as long as you want me by your side.”
She squeezed his hand again, and neither spoke again. They didn’t speak on the ride to the Forum. They didn’t speak as he helped her from the carriage after they’d arrived. Only when they had disembarked and she handed him the scrolls did she say, “Keep these for me, until I’ve need of them.”
“Of course.”
Here, walking into the marble atrium, with a hall full of prying eyes beyond, Trygve kept his distance. He walked a respectable few paces behind her. He tried to look disinterested, as if the woman before him meant no more than any other employer might. As if his heart and mind was not full of fear for her.
He was only one man, but he’d have taken on the entire senate if she’d asked him to. But this was a task she and she alone could perform. This was a burden that was hers and hers alone to bear. As much as he wanted to, there was nothing he could do. Nothing but stand in silence, and pray to his gods that any mercy, any kindness they still harbored for their son from the North, they would show her now.
The Forum was a great, round chamber, lined with rows of benches, raised one above the other so that each row could see the central platform. It was this platform toward which Cassia moved now.
The senate rose as she entered, and Gallus – snake that he was – called to her with every affection of sincerity. He was, the Northman had to admit, a good thespian. “Our dear Empress, we grieve with you. Our hearts are heavy with you in the wake of this tragic news. Not often did Felix and I see eye to eye, but a more devoted son of the empire never lived.”
Cassia fixed him with a hard gaze. “For once we agree, Senator.”
“For too long, this chamber has been paralyzed into inaction by misplaced sympathy for the vagrants and criminals who roam our streets,” another voice called. Trygve didn’t know his name, but he recognized him as one of the conservative hardliners. “And now, our dear friend has answered for his tenderheartedness with his life.”
A murmur of agreement rose in pockets of the chamber. Gallus nodded soberly.
“I beg you, Empress: let no more die the way poor Felix has died. Let us waste no time in addressing the issues that are destroying our fair city.”
At this, Cassia offered a grim, tightlipped smile. “It seems Minerva has deigned that we would be of the same mind today, Senators.
“I am come to see that justice is done. I am come to see that no one else dies like Felix died.”
“Then Minerva grant that Felix’s death will not have been in vain,” the other man said.
“Oh, I promise you, Senator Albus, I do not mean that that should happen.” Now, she turned to Trygve and nodded. He stepped forward and handed her the scroll. “You see, gentlemen, Senator Felix knew who his murderer was. He knew that he would be killed, and he knew why.
“And he documented his evidence here.” She raised the scroll. “And what’s more, he documented his evidence that the same murderer had meant to kill me. That the same murderer poisoned me, so that I lost my pregnancy.”
A murmur and then a hush settled on the crowd. Gallus shifted nervously. Albus glanced around, as if seeking support.
One of Cassia’s allies spoke first. “You, Empress? Who would dare?”
“These are terrible charges,” Gallus declared. “And, if our friend Felix has the evidence you suggest, I’m sure whoever is responsible will be dealt with most harshly. But why bring such a thing here, Empress? Surely this is a matter for the prefects rather than the senate?”
“Not when it involves certain members of this Forum,” she countered, “and one who has been richly ennobled by this body.”
Chapter Forty-Four
The chamber erupted at her words. She didn’t expect anything less. Nor were Gallus and Albus and the rest of the conservative senators’ reactions anything other than what she expected. She doubted that all of them knew the details, or even the scheme itself. But once she’d said opened with this, well, it wasn’t too difficult to figure out.
And their loyalties weren’t with the rule of law. They weren’t with the empress, or the people, or anyone but their wealthy benefactors.
So she wasn’t surprised when they protested that this was ridiculous, when they declared the charges to be outrageous before they’d heard them. Nor was she waylaid from her purpose.
And in this, she was assisted by her own loyalists in the senate. They shouted louder than the opposition, demanded with an equal ferocity that Felix’s words be heard.
And they were. She read his list of evidence, all the dates and notes he’d accumulated. When she reached the line, “You will, gentlemen, find it curious, I think, to remark the number of Caius’ agents with whom our humble poisoner was acquainted,” the protests began anew.
“This is absurd,” Gallus fumed. “We have only the word of a dead man, whose hatred of Governor Caius is no secret. I do not, of course, doubt that this poisoner is the monster you say, Empress. But she is dead. Felix is dead. There is no one who can corroborate anything he’s said.”
His words met with resounding applause from his wing of the senate. She smiled, “It seems Felix anticipated your objections, Senator. ‘But, I can hear my learned colleagues protest that coincidence and circumstance is not evidence. Senator Gallus, I can hear your voice already from beyond the grave (and I’m not even dead yet): ‘We cannot destroy such a hero of Stella like Caius on such evidence.’”
A few men laughed knowingly. Gallus shifted in place. She continued. When she reached the line about Felix’s great gamble, a terrible hush settled on the Forum. When she finished, with Felix’s injunction to arrest Caius’s agents, the stillness was palpable.
She raised the list now. “Here is the list. It includes all the times and dates, all the names and agents that Ameillia met.
“Senators, sons of Stella, Senator Felix died to draw out a viper. Today, I am come to you to request the arrest warrants of everyone listed here.” She gestured with one hand to the list of agents. “And the arrest of Governor Caius on suspicion of conspiracy to murder and accessory to murder.”
Senator Gallus stood. “Empress, I do not believe for a moment that Senator Felix’s conclusions are correct. Governor Caius’s commitment to Stella, his loyalty to you and the Emperor, is above reproach. But Felix’s evidence cannot be disputed without questioning those he mentions. So, let me be the first to say, Lady Justice must rule. I second your request for warrants.”
One by one, the senators voiced their assent, some putting more distanc
e between themselves and Caius, and others reaffirming his belief in the governor’s innocence. Not that that they had any choice.
Cassia was empress. It was very much within her purview to order arrests. Alerting the senate was a courtesy – and, in this case, a strategic move. But if they refused, she could still issue the warrants, and take her case to the courts and to the public.
It had been a long time since an emperor appealed to the people directly, over the senate. Sometimes, it ended poorly for the emperor. A mob had torn Ilius IV from his carriage and stoned him when he’d tried, some three hundred years ago. But usually, if the cause was right, it ended badly for the senate. Senators who stood against the people would find themselves deposed, often brutally and with finality, if the cause was right.
And a poisoned fetus, an attempt on the empress’ life, and a murdered senator? Those were odds Cassia would have played in a heartbeat, if it came to that.
But, fortunately, it didn’t. She wanted justice. She wanted the world to know Caius’s crimes. She wanted him to answer for them, him and all his allies. A violent uprising would put an end to his crime spree, but justice tarnished with spilled blood lost something of its veneer. No, if she could avoid that, she would.
Cass got her arrest warrants. Now, all they could do was wait. Trygve was pretty sure she was going to start climbing the walls pretty soon. She reminded him of Gunnar when the big cat had been cooped up for too long, when he needed to run free in the tundra until he was ready to return home. She had the same kind of energy to her step as she paced back and forth, back and forth.
By midafternoon, most of the agents on the list had been arrested. They wouldn’t hear about Caius until evening, or perhaps the next morning. Cass wavered between unflinching optimism, and despair.