by Rachel Ford
Now, she wished more than anything that he and the big cat would return. But until they did, she was on her own.
Cass stood up tall. “I didn’t call you back to reconcile, Faustus. I called you back because we’re getting a divorce.”
He blinked, then barked a laugh. Cass felt her cheeks flush, and her anger rise. But she said nothing. He, meanwhile, continued to laugh. “You can’t be serious. You are? God, Cassia, what a spoiled little bitch you are.
“You really think I’m going to let you get away with that, now that you’re finally about to give me a son?”
“You will,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Really? And how do you think you’re going to fund your slums renovation? Or did you forget, my darling wife, that if you divorce me, you owe me – that is, the imperial treasury owes me – everything I brought to this damned marriage? That’s every copper that fool of a father of yours wasted, repaid. Ever copper Flavius poured into this sinking ship, to keep it afloat.” He shook his head. “You want to shut me out of your bed? Alright. I’ve got far more diverting companions anyway.
“But divorce? Oh no, my sweet. This is my empire. I’ve sacrificed too much, put up with you for too long. I’ll see your precious empire destitute before I let you put me aside like an old whore.”
His wrath seemed to fuel her own confidence. She laughed in turn, a low, menacing laugh. “No, my husband. You won’t. You see, you’re not as clever as you think you are. You’re no Flavius.” His eyes flashed at the comparison to his father, but she went on unperturbed. “Do you know what the penalty for utilizing slave labor is, husband? Do you know what it is for an emperor?”
He blinked. “What?”
“You see, my sweet, you really are not as clever as you think. Unless spending the majority of the rest of your life in a dungeon was some part of your plan.”
His face went pale, then red, then pale again. “You have no proof of anything.”
She laughed again. “Try me, Faustus.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh, but I would. You know I would.”
“It won’t save your empire. You put me in prison, I will divorce you. I might not be able to spend it, but I will get back every bit of gold I’m owed.”
“I don’t doubt it. Which brings us to my point. You’re a rich man, Faustus. You’ll be a rich man if you forget the gold your father pledged to the empire. But more importantly, you’ll be a free man. Free to enjoy your gold and spend it however you like. Free to ruin someone else’s life.
“But, if you don’t forget it, you will be a richer man. But you will spend every minute of your youth and middle age in a dungeon. You might see the sun a few times a year, when they clean your cell.
“And by time you’re out, if you live to see the end of your sentence, well, your gold is going to be cold comfort for an entire lifetime.”
He stared at her, his cheeks growing redder and redder until they were almost purple. “You miserable bitch. You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me,” she repeated.
“This is blackmail.”
“Not at all. This is two reasonable adults trying to work out an arrangement agreeable to both parties in the face of some unhappy choices.”
“It’s not agreeable to me.”
“Well, neither are the alternatives.”
He paced up the length of the room and down, then returned to her. “Look, Cass, I know I fucked up, alright? I know I had no business touching you. I’m sorry. I really am. I shouldn’t have done that. I was drunk, and I didn’t really know what I was doing – but it’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have done it.”
She snorted and turned away. But he caught her arm. “I mean it. I really am sorry. And whatever you want – you want time, you want me to earn your trust back? Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”
“I want you gone, Faustus. It’s over.”
“You can’t do this, Cass. Not now. Not when we’ve finally got another chance at an heir. This is what your father wanted – what both of our fathers wanted: a child to bind your empire and my gold. You can’t give up now, when we’re this close.”
If she hadn’t seen his smirks earlier, when he thought he had the upper hand, Cass might have pitied Faustus now. She might have felt a pang of guilt knowing this child wouldn’t be Faustus’s.
But she had seen it, and she knew that his contrition, his reasonableness in the moment, was only a product of losing the high ground. “My decision is final, husband. We are getting divorced, one way or the other.
“I have the divorcement papers drafted. You can sign them and be on your way. Or, I can call the prefect and have you held until your trial.”
Chapter Sixty-One
Trygve had been walking Gunnar when he bumped into one of the palace guards, a young man named Nonus. “Hey,” the young man said, “did you see the emperor’s back?”
Never in all his life had such a casual bit of information caused the Northman so much consternation. He’d headed back for Cassia’s rooms at a run, only slowing when he heard voices. Her voice and – his.
Trygve walked with careful, quiet steps, trying to pick up what was being said. He knew Cass had planned what she’d say when she presented her ultimatum. If that’s what was going on, he didn’t want to interrupt.
But he wouldn’t stay away if he couldn’t be sure she was safe, either. This was Faustus, after all – Faustus, who had raised his hand to hit her, who had tried to rape her.
He heard the other man’s voice, raised high and angry. “You can’t do this to me, Cassia. That’s my son too. I’ve a right to raise him.”
“Faustus, forget the pregnancy, for the love of Minerva. That’s all I am – all I’ve ever been – to you, isn’t it? Some kind of vessel to make you a child?”
“You’re my wife. We’re having a baby. Of course I’m thinking of him.”
“I’m not your wife anymore. You lost me a long damned time ago.”
Trygve crept closer and peaked around the door. They were standing close to one another, and each was red-faced and visibly angry.
Faustus jabbed a finger at her. “You stopped being a wife long before I did anything to lose you.”
“Like hell I did. You would have let me die in childbirth while you went off and drank to mourn a baby we’d never even had. You call that being a husband? And what you did after Iulius’s wedding? You call that being a husband?”
“You shut your bed to me. What did you expect? You’re my wife.” Now, he took another step forward. “And don’t pretend you’re so aggrieved by it, either. I put a baby in your belly, didn’t I?”
Cassia’s eyes flashed, and for a moment she looked like she was about to say something to challenge the assertion. Then, though, she said, “Sign the paper, Faustus.”
The emperor shook his head. “No. No, I’m calling your bluff, Cassia. I’m the father of your child. You want to put me in prison? You go ahead. You explain that to our son. You explain that you wanted my money so badly, you threw his father in prison.”
Cassia laughed, a cold, hollow laugh that was so mirthless it sent a shiver up Trygve’s spine. “You really are incapable of seeing what’s going on, aren’t you? You can’t even imagine it.
“Alright, Faustus, I’ll spell it out for you. The baby? It’s not yours.”
He blinked, as if confused. “Not mine? What are you talking about? Of course it’s mine.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It is. You only missed one cycle. That places it in the last month and a half. That means, it was after Iulius’s party.”
She shook her head. “Maybe, Faustus. But not with you. You came to my room to rape me, but you weren’t able to. You passed out first.”
“That’s not possible. If we didn’t…then how?”
“Oh, the standard fashion, husband. It wasn’t the how that changed. It was the who. And the who was not you.”
Faustus’s cheeks turned a deep crim
son. “Who? Who is it, then you miserable harlot?”
“A better man than you could ever dream of being. Now sign the paper. Or go to prison for another man’s child. I really don’t care at this point.”
Then, so fast that Trygve only had time to start moving, the emperor backhanded Cass across the face. It was a cruel hit, forceful and loud. She went down. The Northman saw red at the sight and loosed a scream of rage.
He crossed the distance between them before Faustus could get in another hit. Seizing the other man’s arm, he spun him about so that they were face to face.
The emperor’s eyes flashed. “You.” He glanced back at Cass, who was picking herself off the floor. “You – and the barbarian? My god. You whore.”
He turned back to Trygve at that, drawing the blade that hung at his side. “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill both of you.”
The Northman jumped back as the point of the short sword made for his stomach. Cass screamed for Faustus to stop. “Have you lost your mind? For Minerva’s sake, stop Faustus.”
Trygve, though, saved his breath. He’d seen the look in Faustus’s eyes before. He’d seen it in his own, not too long ago: murder. He was either going to disarm the emperor, or one or the other of them wasn’t leaving here alive.
Faustus screamed a litany of curses and challenges, bearing down on him with strike after strike. Trygve kept a step ahead of the other man, but barely. So far, he hadn’t drawn his weapon. But the emperor was closing the gap between them. In another step or two, if he still hadn’t drawn, he would be dead.
Some part of the Northman yet hesitated. How many times had he wanted to kill Faustus? How many times had he thought of it? And here he was, with the perfect opportunity to do it.
All he had to do was draw his sword. He didn’t for a minute think the soft southerner before him could put up a real challenge. So if he unsheathed that blade, he’d have the chance he’d wanted all this time. He could kill Faustus, and it wouldn’t even be murder. It would be self-defense, with the empress there to vouch for him.
Or would it be murder? He threw a glance around the room, looking for something, anything, to use for a non-lethal takedown. He was stronger than Faustus. All he needed was an opportunity, a chance to get his sword arm – without being diced in the process. Nothing leaped out at him, though.
A movement in the corner of his eye drew Trygve back to the emperor. And to his consternation, he saw the blur was Cass. She’d gotten to her feet and leaped for her husband. With one hand she grabbed his arm, and another she held onto the desk behind her. “Faustus, enough. Leave him alone.”
It got his attention. Faustus spun on her. But not with the intention of putting down his sword. On the contrary, he raised his blade arm to strike.
Trygve moved by instinct rather than thought. He leaped forward, propelling himself off the ground. With one quick motion, he’d grabbed the emperor’s head. And with another, he’d pulled it to the side with a hard, sharp snap.
The sword arm went limp. The man’s whole body went limp. A moment later, he slumped to the ground, his neck broken.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Three months passed before Cassia and Trygve married. That was the standard Stellan mourning period. It wasn’t defined by law, but it was a tradition, and Trygve understood that she didn’t want to flout it. Not after the already eyebrow-raising circumstances of her late husband’s death.
For everyone knew the tragic circumstances under which Cassia Augusta had recently been widowed. Emperor Faustus, returning home from a long business trip, had been ecstatic at learning that he was to be a father. And in his ecstasy, he’d misjudged a step, tripped over the corner of her desk, and tumbled downward, snapping his neck in the process.
It was a great tragedy. That was the story Cassia told. That was the story her faithful bodyguard from the North told. And if Prefect Celsus had reason to doubt any of it, he didn’t question. The man’s neck was broken. He had returned in an excitable state. The empress was pregnant.
And his sword? Well, that was neatly sheathed, as if it had never been drawn.
All the pieces of their story fit together. And even if they had their suspicions, no one uttered them out loud.
For his part, Trygve wouldn’t have minded telling the truth. He didn’t regret killing the emperor. He’d been left with no choice, and he’d done what he had to. He’d do it again in a heartbeat.
But Faustus was dead, and Cass didn’t want to ruin him in death. “His reputation – whatever’s left of it – is all he has left, Tryg. We don’t need to take it away from him.
“The child will bear my name and carry your blood. We will tell them the truth of their parentage. And you can adopt her when she’s born, so legally she will be yours too. But this way, she won’t be born under a cloud of suspicion.
“And I will not have avenged myself against Faustus in death.”
There were more practical concerns than Faustus’s reputation, though. A death in conflict would be grounds for Faustus’s relatives to sue for the return of all or some part of his estate. Luke – who heard the story in full after the prefect had come and gone – shrugged. “It was well done. Now, Flavius’s money is beyond any of his relatives’ reach,” he told the Northman. “She was his wife: she will inherit in full. So, now the empire’s financial future is secure.”
Cass had her own political motivations. “You are Bjarne’s son. Even in exile, you are his son. If the conservatives learn that I’ve taken the son of Bjarne as my lover, and he has killed the Stellan emperor, there will be no peace. Not because they’ll care a whit that Faustus is gone, but because it will be cause to rally patriotic fervor to them, and against me.
“You will be the Northern invader, and I will be a dupe or a collaborator. And none of Faustus’s crimes will make a jot of difference to their narrative. It will be a question of Stella versus the North, and no proud Stellan will choose the side of the North.
“They’ve lost on policy. We cannot give them an opening for ad hominem, Tryg.”
Her reasoning was good. Indeed, it had been from the moment Faustus slumped to the ground. She sprang into action, planning what they’d say and how much they’d tell. She’d been cool and methodical until the prefect was gone, and the body readied for burial. It was only after that, when they were alone, that she’d broken down. She’d sobbed into his shoulder at how near she’d come to losing him, and what a miserable business it was to end a marriage with lies and death.
But her grief was short-lived, and Cass’s color and vigor seemed to return in leaps and bounds after the burial. Without the shadow of a loveless marriage and a violent brute of a husband over her head, she bloomed like he’d never seen before.
And it was a joy to behold. She was a joy to behold, and though he wasn’t sure how it was possible, Trygve loved her more every day.
So it was that three months felt a terribly long time indeed. But at last, the day came. Cass’s pregnancy was showing more now. She fussed with her wedding clothes all morning, until he took her hands in his. “You are beautiful. You’re radiant. Leave that poor dress alone already.”
She laughed. “I am huge. And this ‘poor dress’ is not doing its job: I still look huge.”
“Cassia Augusta, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. When I was dying in the arena, I thought it. I’ve never stopped thinking it. So don’t worry about the dress.” He added with an impudent grin, “We’ll be taking it off soon enough anyway.”
She’d flushed from the roots of her hair to the nape of her neck. “You’re terrible.”
“Maybe. But you love me anyway, so what does that say about you?”
“Oh, that’s definitely not fair. Everyone knows my track record with men is terrible.”
“True. First Faustus, then an exiled would-be assassin. You do make some awful choices, my love.”
She laughed again, kissing him tenderly. “Come on. Let’s go make this official.”
&nbs
p; They did. The ceremony was simple, with the same rituals he’d witnessed at Iulius and Octavia’s joining. He’d added a Northern prayer to Frigg, and with a bit of persuasion – the kind that all priests understood: tithes – the Stellan churchman agreed.
The feast lasted until well into the next morning. But by then, the happy couple had long retired. And the offending dress had indeed come off.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Summer – Taram
Trygve wrapped an arm around Cass’s shoulders. It was a protective gesture, but he wasn’t sure who he was protecting – himself, or her.
This was an assembly of faces he’d never supposed he’d see again. Some were strangers – the tsar and tsarina of Taram, for instance, were known only by reputation to him.
But there were far more familiar faces present. There was Tsar Fyodor, his sister’s father-in-law, and one of the men he’d tried to kill. There was the tsar’s new wife Terese, and his son and Karina’s husband, Tsarevich Vladimir. There was Danil, the impudent Miran former secretary, now Ingrid’s husband.
And there were his sisters, Karina, Lucia and Ingrid. Before they’d arrived, he had planned so many things he might say. Now, he stood there mutely, unable to find his voice.
The Taram tsar spoke first. “Welcome to Taram, my friend. I am Kirill, and this is Yuliana.” One by one, he introduced him to the faces he didn’t know. First, he met Tsar Fyodor’s new wife. She was, he realized with no small measure of surprise, a woman of his own home country.
Then he met a young woman called Irena – apparently the Taram tsar’s eldest daughter – and her husband – a priest, of all things. There were children, too: Kirill and Yuliana’s son Alexander; and Ingie and Danil’s daughter, Åshild.
Trygve’s eyes watered when he met the baby girl. “It’s a good name, Ingie. Strong and noble.”