by Q V Hunter
‘Who says it’s fun?’ Her voice was a mere whisper.
‘It won’t last much longer. He’ll be leading his forces to Atrans along with the others, I guess.’
‘We’re not supposed to corrupt our information by comparing notes. Maybe we shouldn’t talk at all.’
She pressed her mouth to mine. Her velvety tongue slipped between my lips and began to stroke in and out, a little deeper with each thrust. She opened her cloak. Underneath, she wore little more than a bronze undertunic made of the same imported Cathay silk that the Augusta Constantia often wore. I already knew Silvanus bought her jewels, but I saw the general hadn’t spared any cost on nightwear, either, for Justina’s ‘nurse.’ This evening, however, all her ornate necklaces and bracelets were removed—for stealth.
I pulled myself away an inch or two. It was hard. ‘Roxana, you don’t need any more “practice”.’
Her eyes shone, desperate and bright. There was a point beyond which any man no longer resisted a woman—the wrong or the right type. I didn’t want to reach it.
‘Silvanus won’t know.’ She reached for my waist and ran her hand farther down with such expertise, I wondered if it was a job or not.
Instead, I weakened and let her stroke me into a sweat of desire.
‘I can’t take you like this, within a few feet of the general’s quarters,’ I panted.
‘You must now, or I will tell,’ she said, lifting the thin silk above her thighs and rubbing my fingers back and forth between her moist private lips. From then on, I remember only closing my eyes and lifting her slightly so I could sink into pleasure that lasted even longer than I would have predicted.
After many minutes, when we’d finally finished, she steadied herself against the marble wall, smoothed her hair and pulled the hood back over her face. She slipped away towards Justina’s wing, still as light and soundless as a passing dream.
The corridor was stone quiet. No one had witnessed the scene. Roxana had seen to it that I wanted nothing now but to collapse my drained body into sleep. I smiled with a vindication of the resentment I’d nurtured since our night together in the Castra Peregrina’s dormitory. She had enjoyed my touch then, and wanted more.
I slipped back to the lodge to check the latch. I was wrung out, but I wavered. They didn’t call us curiosi for nothing and I convinced myself that my curiosity was innocent, not professional. It didn’t take long for me to check the outgoing mail against the registration book. I found a new letter carrying an unfamiliar address—a Greek tavern, of all things.
Maybe Roxana had some little brother hidden away or even a nest egg of a business starting up. I knew how to open letters without damage—we all did—but I needed wax to reseal it.
I carried her letter back to my room and felt it from side to side. There was an inner envelope. I took an impression of her seal with wet plaster, and then loosened the wax with a candle flame. With patience and care, I worked the inner envelope free. There was no proper address. I opened the letter itself and saw only one line of code.
I worked for two hours or more at breaking her code, but it was only after the first pink glint of a summer dawn that I realized with horror, I’d known the key all along.
I thought back to the notes I’d left with Apodemius and checked my small notebook from Roma. Then I tackled her letter with ease.
It read, ‘Ambush in Atrans.’ I glanced again at the inner envelope. A few faint penstrokes of code deciphered made the letter, ‘E.’
So, she was reporting to Eusebius under Apodemius’ supervision, just as I was. I shook my head at the old man’s counter-intelligence web. But if so, why was she writing the eunuch the truth? Against all my training, I burned it. We’d talk about it first chance.
Troubled, I lay down on my bed. I put a linen cloth over my eyes to block the first morning sun but something was wrong. I felt my neck, then my shirt and then turned my uniform and private pouch inside out.
My bulla was gone.
Chapter 17, Justina’s Note
—Aquileia, August 351 AD—
The summer heat grew unbearable to those who hadn’t endured an African childhood, so now the court started work well before dawn. I was comfortable enough. The heat reminded me of returning to my homeland in 347 under Gregorius’ command. The Numidian noon there sent our European federates panting for the shade of their tents. Even the pack mules rested in the meager shade of the olive trees.
The next few weeks found Magnentius back in his element again. He shoved horseracing touts and whores aside for military tacticians and physical trainers. He rode off with Gaiso to inspect the legions stationed within reach of Aquileia. General Silvanus and Commander Gregorius liaised with the Caesar Decentius along the Rhenus to interrogate legati and their tribunes in command of the legions farther out.
My workload doubled as the council’s marching orders flew west, north and south by twenty-four hour courier relays. We beefed up the regular postal staff with secondments from army riders, coordinated with military checkpoints to register all communications and tightened up evectio inspections to keep the state roads as clear as possible.
Magnentius ordered a unit of cavalry and engineers to move forward off immediately for the fortress at Atrans. They would extend its defensive walls into an impassable roadblock spanning the entire pass. Next to leave were units of archers and specialists in the repeat-action ballistae, both equipped with sulphur-tipped weapons that water only made burn all the hotter.
Gregorius selected army scouts and signal experts from among Illyrians who knew the Sava River region well. They rode off next, to secrete themselves beyond Atrans in a string of signal stations along the hilltops towards Celeia. They would relay alerts of the enemy’s approach to our central command.
As long as Aquileia was the hub of western imperial communications, I stayed in place. But Aquileia was beginning to empty out of officers I trusted. Gregorius remained in charge of the wider military forces, but he was shuttling between the legions not yet engaged, pulling them into the plan.
Meanwhile, Marcellinus’ grand staffs in Mediolanum and Aquileia stuck to their own routines and devices but they still played their part preparing for the confrontation with Constantius. Bustling with mint officials, clerks, notaries, secretaries and tax collectors, his bureaucratic offices funneled forward all the money Magnentius had raised to pay for his mushrooming troop numbers. The Magister Officiorum was hardly subtle in lining the war chest. Private property tax on some large estates shot up to fifty per cent. Other prominent landowners were compelled to purchase imperial property ‘by invitation.’
Finally, the day came when I stood at attention in full armor with the rest of the usurper’s forces to witness General Silvanus and Gaiso parade out of the imperial courtyard behind Magnentius and his cortège of praetorians heading for Atrans. As the scorching sun rose over the hills outside Aquileia and glistened on the sea beyond, thousands upon thousands of fighters waited in formation. When the imperial standards appeared, we heard a cheer for each go up and echo over the distant throb of the waves pounding on the shore to the south of us.
Staying in Aquileia suited me fine as long as I wasn’t sure of Roxana’s game. If she was waiting for secret instructions from the East, I was going to know it first. Even routine signals from ‘the Mouse’ in Roma addressed to her now got scrutinized first by me. Judging by his questions, Apodemius was playing it straight and for all I knew, so was she.
Though I watched her like the Greeks’ mythical giant Argos—that one in Hesiod’s poem with a hundred eyes who kept watch over the seductive nymph Io—I couldn’t catch her doing anything else suspicious. But then, I was a mere mortal, with only two eyes and twenty-four hours in a day. When I wasn’t racing to keep up with my postal duties, I was searching the imperial grounds for my lost bulla. I hated myself for being so distracted by the disappearance of a lousy hunk of bronze-covered pottery, but childish superstition dies hard in times of uncertainty.
As for Roxana, with Silvanus gone into the field and festive imperial dinners suspended, she never left the women’s quarters now. For weeks, I despaired that our curious night of stealthy lovemaking and the mystery of her letter to ‘E’ had hit a dead end.
Oddly enough, it was the Empress who triggered my next encounter with Roxana. The gentle young woman had ventured out of her suite of rooms one day in search of me.
‘Agens Numidianus?’
I turned to see Justina standing in one of the main reception halls. She looked like a fragile doll on display in a vast empty stall. Two things caught my attention—her long curls were bound up with ribbons and stuck with jeweled pins. It was a hairstyle I associated with grown women like Kahina. The vulgar betrothal ring Magnentius had given her hung from a gold chain around her slender neck.
She held out a small letter.
‘I’ve written ad imperatori, to my Emperor Husband, but it’s a very, very private message. I would be so grateful if you delivered it to him in person.’
‘So solemn, Augusta? I am sure he’ll be happy to hear from you.’
I lied, of course, but with the kindness the gentle child-woman inspired in everyone. I doubted Magnentius would make time to read anything from his ‘wife,’ given his joyful departure at the head of a barbarian imperial force for the real work of winning more Empire.
Nevertheless, I held my tongue and took the pathetic packet, sealed with her imperial insignia and tied in a bow with a thin purple cord. She watched as I slipped it under my cuirass with care. I nodded and turned to get on with my day’s many tasks.
‘Agens, do you recall I told you of a dream that I would someday found a dynasty?’
‘I do, Augusta. I also recall I froze my feet off listening to you.’
‘The oracle appeared to me again last night. She repeated that I would found a dynasty.’
‘This time did she predict how many sons you would have?’
Justina’s face turned even paler than usual. ‘Yes, she said I’d bear one son and three daughters.’
‘You don’t look happy about it, Augusta.’
‘No, because, Marcus,’ and my heart softened as I heard her forget all her grown-up protocol, ‘the oracle said Magnentius was not to be their father.’
‘Oh, Augusta! Forget about dreams that upset or confuse you! In Roma sophisticated people stopped paying attention to those predictions long ago. Oracles are always changing their meanings to suit events. I hope this letter isn’t full of such worries about a little dream. Right now, the Emperor has victory on his mind, not siring little caesars.’
She let out an affronted gasp at that ill-considered phrase of mine, and bit her tongue. ‘Well, thank you, anyway.’
‘Shall I accompany you to the Ladies’ Wing?’
‘Yes, I suppose it’s not correct for me to be wandering around like this, with my husband off at battle. I await his return with new eagerness and anticipation.’ She blushed, drew up her slight frame in its robes too heavy for the season and thrust out her small, high bosom with a self-conscious smile.
So that was what the letter announced. I didn’t need advanced observation training back at the Castra to guess that Justina had grown up at last. She was now a proper, fertile woman inviting her husband into her bed. Magnentius was a decent man, himself a father of a grown daughter. He didn’t ravish little girls. Still, things might be different now. I hid my discomfort at the sudden image of the rough-hewn Franco-Breton celebrating his imminent victory at Atrans by deflowering the delicate Justina.
I was just about to deposit the Empress at the entrance to her wing with a salute when female shrieks echoed down the marble corridor. Justina turned and dashed towards her private wing. I saw no guards or ladies-in-waiting in sight, so I shouted for backup and with pugio ready, I followed her at top speed.
We found Roxana and Kahina on the floor of Justina’s reception room, dragging and sliding around on priceless Eastern rugs in a vicious struggle. They pulled each other’s hair and screamed with equal force. Justina froze in the doorway, appalled at the sight of the two most trusted women in her life tearing at each other like wrathful Furies.
I pulled the sash tying Roxana’s waist to yank her up and off Kahina. At least I got the two of them parted. Kahina panted, red-faced and disheveled, her bare legs exposed on the marble stones. She lay on her back and glared up at Roxana like a lioness at bay.
Both women were dressed lightly, as if just back from the baths. Their hair coils hung loose over their brows and ribbons straggled around their necks, but whether that was from the heat of bathing or the result of battlefield engagement, I couldn’t tell.
‘Don’t trust her, Marcus,’ Kahina yelled.
‘So you do know him.’
‘Of course I know him, you bitch. But he’s just a freedman from my husband’s household in Roma, nothing more.’
‘So why fly into a rage over such a little trifle?’
Kahina seethed in defeated silence. Poor Justina mustered enough maturity to ask, ‘I command you both to explain.’
Roxana didn’t answer. She cast a disdainful glance at her young Highness that would have got her dismissed on the spot—were Justina anything like Constantia.
Kahina turned her face to the floor and broke into tears. I stared at her. This was not the weeping of embarrassment or even pain, though the honey-colored skin of her upper arms was scored with deep scratches from Roxana’s nails. Her very soul sounded wracked. Her sobs turned to wails that turned my stomach.
Justina tried to assert her authority. ‘Lady Kahina, please, go to your rooms and rest. Roxana, explain yourself or—’
‘She’s just a jumped-up African nanny,’ Roxana spit out. ‘She dared to accuse me of flirting with that horror she married.’
‘One hero isn’t enough for you, you sewer slut. I come from a decent family. I worked for a respected African citizen. I married into a leading Roman family. But who are you, really? What slum did you climb out of?’ Kahina spat back. ‘As soon as General Silvanus leaves for the front, you’re chasing my husband. You’re a Messalina, rubbing almond oil and rose lotion over your thighs like some cut-rate Cleopatra—’
‘That’s enough!’ Justina held her own. ‘Lady Kahina, get up off the floor. Roxana, Commander Gregorius is an honored conciliarum who enjoys my husband’s trust. You’re a servant here. You will apologize for insulting the painful wounds he suffered in the service of our Empire.’
‘Yes, Augusta.’ Fighting to control her temper, Roxana fixed her gaze on the mosaic at her feet, ‘Indeed, I pity Atticus Gregorius’ wounds . . . and I pity his wife even more.’
The two older women stood fast, the one still engulfed in sobs, the other adjusting her torn ivory tunic back over her lithe limbs with as much dignity as she could muster. I saw blood smears all over the expensive Egyptian cotton. Whether it was Kahina’s or Roxana’s, who knew?
‘We need your other ladies, Empress. Where are they?’ I asked.
Justina shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know. Resting, bathing, amusing themselves in the market or down at the shore. They find my court boring, so I let them go when and where they choose. Only the Lady Kahina stays with me. We read or sew together when Roxana’s busy.’
Roxana shot me a warning look. To inquire where she went or what kept her busy might shed too much light on her true assignment for Apodemius.
‘May I go now, Augusta? I recall you had business for me.’ Justina’s letter sat stiff at my waist and other duties called. It seemed safe to leave them now as a hen pack of curious chattering women rushed into the suite like birds poking their beaks into a pile of seeds.
I shot Roxana one last look of warning and started off for the gate lodge. I was halfway back through the echoing reception halls when I heard my name called.
Her arms still bleeding, Kahina rushed up to me across the broad marble expanse.
‘Get those scratches seen too before they fester, Lady,’ I said.
‘Look me in the eyes, Marcus . . . Or are you afraid they’ll say too much?’ Her soft Numidian accent, so like my mother’s, tugged at my heart.
I looked her straight in the face but kept at arm’s length. She deserved a fair warning from me. ‘You know I’ve always admired your eyes and now I admire your courage. That servant Roxana might know more about dirty fighting than you can imagine. You were right to defend Gregorius’ honor, but not to abandon your Manlius dignity or risk life and limb in the process.’
‘But I won, Marcus.’ She smiled with a bitter irony that confused me.
‘How so? I’m afraid, Lady, that I found you bleeding and on your back.’
‘I won, because I got this off her neck,’ She stretched out her fist and unfurled her fingers to reveal my bulla and its broken cord hidden in her palm.
I closed my eyes for a moment. Now I suspected what might have set the two women at each other’s throats and it wasn’t an insult to the Commander’s injuries.
‘Do you recall that night I discovered you rooting around for it in Leo’s study? It was then I knew how much it meant to you. Later, in Rome, Verus told me you always wore it, even when other young men would have tossed such a childish thing away. Verus said it was the Senator’s gift and that you would never part with it.’
‘Verus told the truth.’
‘Then how—?’ She blushed. ‘When I saw it on that woman’s neck and I thought—I just forgot myself. I can’t pretend to like or even to understand her. I know she’s only a servant—of no importance whatsoever—but there’s something about her that I don’t trust.’
‘Her duties might be heavier than you think. Did she really make a pass at the Commander?’
‘Of course. With her, seduction is no more than breathing. I doubt he noticed anything. That’s the advantage of having lost an eye.’ She gave me a rueful smile. ‘But she gave me enough of an excuse to fight her for this. Did she . . . steal it from you?’ Kahina glanced away at the tall marble pillars surrounding us like a stern forest.