by Cass Morris
Footsteps padded into the room. “Post for you, Domina.” Merula handed over three papers. Two were thin folded notes; the third, much thicker and less crisp, as though it had been in transit far longer.
Latona’s heart quickened as she stood. “Thank you, Merula.” She removed herself from the desk to a nearby couch, tucking her feet up underneath her and reaching for the wrap that had fallen from her shoulders sometime during her study. “Is it chilly in here today?” she asked, draping the soft forest green wool around her shoulders.
“A bit, Domina.” Without further instruction, Merula barked at one of Herennius’s hovering slaves to light more lamps and stoke the brazier.
With great discipline, Latona tended to the shorter notes first: one was an invitation to join the rest of her family in dining with the Terentiae the next evening; the other, a swiftly jotted note from Davina, reporting a fight outside of her bathhouse, where the combatants, once separated, seemed to have no idea why they had quarreled. Latona tossed that onto her desk, to add to her list.
The third, as she had anticipated, bore the dark wax and falcon-in-flight seal of Sempronius Tarren. Biting her lower lip softly, Latona curled herself more comfortably over a rolled pillow and began to read.
‘My dear friend—
‘I greet you from the top of a nameless hill above a nameless river. Already it has begun to snow here. Your brother tells me it held off until December last year, but weather in Iberia runs more to the extremes than it does in Truscum. The summer was hot and dry as a bread oven, the autumn has been damp and foggy, with a swiftly descending chill. The Iberians say this heralds a sharp and long winter. We have prepared as best we may, but the Lusetani predations left much of the countryside either stripped bare or ill-planted in the first place. The eastern coast, however, has not fared so ill, and I believe we can bring in provisions enough before the snow falls thick enough to block what paths pass for roads here.’
Latona smiled to read that. ‘I expect you’re already planning improvements to those roads, aren’t you?’ She pitied the legionaries who would, no doubt, find themselves put to leveling ground and laying brick, if the weather held and no Lusetani appeared to trouble them until spring.
‘I have spent winters in strange places afore now. In Abydosia, you can hardly think of it as winter. Their seasons go by flood and drought, not by heat and chill. In Numidia, the northern reaches were mild, if rainy, but the southern mountains had snowstorms as fierce as any in the Albine ranges. We shall see what the season brings in Iberia. Yet as I must endure it, whatever it is, I shall find a way to think it beautiful. Pale flakes look well on ocher dust, I find, like the dappling on a fawn.’
Not many people, she knew, would think Sempronius Tarren to be much of a poet. Certainly he would not be likely to append the moniker to himself. Yet the romantic urge was there, and most often when he spoke of places. She had heard it in his love for the City of Aven and could feel it whenever he wrote to her, describing a far-off mountain range or the serpentine twists of the Tagus River. ‘He ought to have been another Odysseus, another Jason, traveling always to discover new lands and wonders . . .’
But no. He was not shaped for that life any more than Latona could rest easily too long away from Aven. They were, both of them, bound to the city’s soul. Whatever other splendors were out there, nothing would ever compare. His next words gave the proof to that:
‘I had not expected to wrap up this endeavor in a single year, but I must also confess, it would be a fine thing to be home. Missing the elections is trouble enough to my conscience—though I hope I have provided sufficient reason for the Senate to extend my command, I must still worry over how all the other offices will shake out. There are other things to miss, as well. I cannot think to find so invigorating a Saturnalia, for example, as I last enjoyed in Aven.’
Heat rushed upon Latona’s cheeks. ‘Wicked man.’ It was as close as he had come, in any letter, to alluding to their delicious transgression the year before.
‘Your letters have been a great comfort to me, Vitellia Latona. I have often felt as though I could hear your voice across the miles. It is not only the news from the city that I have been grateful for—though I certainly welcome your diligence in that regard. But there are few enough people to whom I feel I can speak so freely and honestly, and I cherish that you trust me enough to do the same.’
His next words touched her to the core: a comfort, almost like a promise, edging near that strange, intense tenderness which he had expressed at his departure, but had held off from putting into print.
‘You are remarkable, Lady Latona, and I think—I dare to hope—that you have begun to realize it. Yet I am all the more certain that, whatever you have expressed in your letters, it must pale next to the golden glow of your reality. When this endeavor ends and I return to Aven, I shall be more eager than I can say with dignity to see for myself.’
It was Latona’s ill fortune that her husband happened upon her while the pleasured flush was still on her cheeks and while the smile still ghosted over her lips.
“Wife,” Herennius said, planting his hands on his hips in what he evidently thought was a posture of authority. “I demand to see that correspondence.”
Latona blinked at him. “Certainly not.”
His cheeks grew florid. “I demand it.”
Latona rose from her couch and handed the letter to Merula, who secreted it somewhere on her person. As she did so, she let the hem of her tunic lift just enough for the blade strapped to her thigh to catch the light from the many gleaming lamps. An unsubtle maneuver, perhaps, but Latona would not chide her for it. “I refuse,” Latona said, squaring her shoulders.
“It comes from Iberia, does it not?”
“I receive much correspondence from—”
“Do not try to pretend it is all from your brother!” Herennius’s nostrils flared. “I will not allow you to make a fool of me!”
Latona summoned one of her most charming smiles and said, as sweetly as she could manage, “If you have a reputation for absurdity in this city, it must be entirely to your own credit, and none of my doing.” She lifted her chin, unafraid to let him see the naked acrimony in her eyes.
“I am not the shame-bringer in this family,” Herennius countered. “Though I am heartily tired of hearing gossip about my wife’s imprudent behavior. Bad enough when it was Ocella, but—”
“When what was Ocella?” Latona advanced on him, but Herennius shifted, unwilling to look her in the eye.
“I should have known then, I suppose, what a taste you had for powerful men.”
An itch began in Latona’s fingers and crept up her arms, her magic prickling with her growing fury. “A taste?” she managed to say, through gritted teeth. “You think what happened with Ocella was to my taste?” Before he could respond, she went on. “You don’t even know what happened. You never asked, never wanted to know, all too content to turn your head aside and—”
A sudden thought struck her. She remembered what Maia Domitia had said a month ago, when she’d met her at the temple: ‘I wish my husband had just taken the bribe he was offered.’
Latona’s hands clenched with sudden rage. “All too content,” she repeated. “As though there were something in it for you, if you feigned ignorance, if you made no fuss.”
She saw it, a flinch in his cheek muscle, a little twitch. Felt it, too, in the slough of his emotions, as his self-righteousness faltered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His tone was utterly unconvincing. “What benefits did you get, husband? For such a wealthy man, for a man owning such tempting property, you came through Ocella’s reign remarkably unscathed. Improved, even, in your finances.” Her breath became ragged and she trembled as rage suffused her blood. “Tell me. Tell me now. When I bargained for my family—”
A half-sob caug
ht in her throat; she could remember it too well, in so many details. The dawn, bright and clear, but with high, wispy clouds threatening rain later in the day. Aula’s shriek, bringing her from the garden. The smell of blood covering the tiles of Lucius Quinctilius’s atrium. The tears on Aula’s face, and Lucia’s, as they stared down his murderers. Dictator Ocella’s eyes, cold as stones beneath river-water.
“When I sacrificed myself to keep them safe, what did you get?” Still no answer. Latona strode toward him, a sizzle like lightning crawling through her blood. “What did you get?” she again demanded. “You must have had a price, to look aside. What was the bounty you took, for your wife’s virtue?”
Herennius looked aside, his gaze cast into some dim corner of the room. “There was no payment,” he said. “It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t . . .” A muscle in his cheek twitched. “The farm, near the Rubicon. The Dictator had taken it off some . . . some proscribed man. It was a gift. Gratitude for my . . . my understanding.” Any abashment at the admission swiftly gave way to indignation, however. “And as for your virtue, you had little care enough for it yourself. You drew the Dictator’s eye; you must have known what would follow. Perhaps you intended it.”
Tears rose to the corners of Latona’s eyes, not of sorrow but of incandescent rage. But of course Herennius was so small a man as to think she had invited her own violation. Latona had not thought she could hate him so much as she did in this moment. This man, whom her father had intended to protect her, had stood aside and let Ocella do as he pleased, happily accepting a few acres of wheat and pasture. Through the bile rising in her throat, she managed to choke out, “A farm. A dead man’s farm.” The words tasted acid on her tongue, and she hoped Herennius could hear every ounce of her contempt in them. “I knew you for a coward, Herennius, but I never thought you a simpleton, nor did I know that your dignity could be bought so cheaply.”
The crack of his hand against her cheek was loud—loud as a clap of thunder. Had it only sounded so because it rang inside of her own head?
A heavy moment passed. Herennius stepped back, his feet shuffling against the tiles of the floor. Latona let her head hang to the side for a moment, fury brimming inside of her. For a moment, she thought she could kill him for the indignity done to her. Slowly, she dropped her hand from her cheek. Slowly, she met Herennius’s eyes.
Whatever he saw in her face staggered him. Face pale, he retreated a step. He had gone too far, and he knew it. Still, peremptory arrogance ruled in him. “Wife—” he began.
A sudden crashing noise. Every oil lamp in the room shattered. Now Herennius skittered back almost into the atrium. She had frightened him, and she was glad of it. Her Fire magic filled the space with heat, the lamp oil blazing where it stood. Slaves rushed to douse sofa cushions and fabric hangings—at least they did around the corners of the room. No one dared come within several feet of Latona and Herennius.
“Domina.” Merula’s voice, somewhere behind her, held a note of warning. Latona was familiar with that tone; Rubellia used it on her from time to time. It was how one approached something dangerous, an animal you thought might bite. ‘And by the gods, I could. Right now, I could.’ She had seen so much violence in others in her life, but she had rarely felt it within herself. Now, her heart burned with fury.
She probed Herennius with Spirit magic. Terror, utter terror, vibrating and uncertain. She had scared him. ‘Good.’ She wanted him scared. She wanted him to hurt.
“Domina.” Merula, again, and now Latona looked down at herself. Only then did she realize that her fists were clenched, as though she might strike Herennius in return. That, though, was not what had concerned Merula enough to speak. Clenched, her fists were—and glowing. Flames from the brazier had leapt to her hands, eager for her to use them in her own defense.
‘Ah.’
Herennius was not merely scared; he was terrified. ‘What scares him the most, I wonder?’ Pure physical fear of the harm she might do him, if she chose? Fear that she might have such anger and vigor in her? Or a larger fear, fear that she was demonstrating powers that no mage was supposed to have? ‘No. His mind is not big enough for that.’
Dimly, Latona could hear the usual noise of the street beyond the house, but it seemed to be coming from much farther away. Between two breaths, the world seemed to freeze: ‘Guide me, Juno . . .’
A deep breath filled her lungs, then released in a sigh. She flexed her fingers in a slow, deliberate motion. Herennius stood stock-still as she strode past him to the atrium, his saucer-wide eyes following her. She knelt, slowly and deliberately, then thrust both of her hands into the impluvium pool. The water hissed and even steamed a little; the cool water stung, but Latona let it douse the energy she had been building. It felt a bit like betrayal, to rid herself of her flickering little allies.
A moment later, she cupped some water and splashed it on her face. Then she stood and walked back toward Herennius, stopping still a few strides away from him. “I suppose it’s no surprise that it comes to this.”
“Vitellia, I—”
“Herennius,” she said, speaking in a very careful pace as she chose each word and spoke it with precision. “This marriage is at an end.” He sucked in his breath as though to say something, and she held up a hand to halt him. “Let us not demean ourselves with further arguments. It was an arrangement made in a different time, when I, at least, was a different person. It has been unsuitable for years. It has now crossed the line into entirely inappropriate.” She turned to Merula—and noticed, only then, that the girl had her dagger in her hand. ‘Bless her instincts . . . and her restraint.’ Latona wanted out of this house, but murder was hardly likely to be conducive to her future. “Merula, please bring my personal things. A few gowns, my cosmetics and perfumes, my jewelry, my private altar.” She strode back to the couch, ignoring Herennius, and picked up her soft green wrap. “That will be sufficient for now. We shall send my father’s men for the rest in the morning.”
“Latona—” Herennius had, at last, found his voice. “Latona, please don’t be hasty.”
“I divorce you,” Latona said, swinging her wrap over her shoulders and watching as Merula skittered—a little too eagerly, perhaps—toward her sleeping cubicle. Latona turned to her desk and began gathering up her papers, slipping them into a box of polished ebony.
“Latona,” Herennius started again. “Please.” He seemed to have recovered from his fright and was angling back toward his usual concerns. “This will be embarrassing for both of us.”
“Perhaps,” Latona admitted, tucking the letter-box under her arm. “But I am tired of enduring private humiliation for the sake of avoiding public embarrassment. I divorce you.” She had to say it three times, for formality’s sake, and there were witnesses enough to make it official. “Look on the bright side, Herennius. You care little for politics, and I care little for trade. Your friends will support you; mine shall support me. I imagine we can keep public unpleasantness to a minimum.”
“Latona—”
“I divorce you.” She finally turned to look at him again. “There. It is done.”
“But what—how—how are we going to explain this?” Herennius’s tone was strangely hollow. Confusion, not sorrow.
Latona’s shoulders moved in a careless shrug. “I’m sure we can come up with a suitable explanation. My father decided to look for other opportunities. You are pursuing some merchant’s daughter to secure yourself a plum trade.”
Herennius snorted. “I can’t give a financial reason. No one would believe it, not with the dowry you came with.”
And which now, Latona reflected with some pleasure, Herennius would have to give back to her father. “Then perhaps we make the most shocking choice of all and tell the truth,” she said, a sigh in her voice. “That we do not like each other.” He stared, unable to contradict her. “At the moment I am too angry and too tired to much care what sto
ry we spin out of it.” Merula re-entered the room, carrying a small chest. “Are we ready?”
“Yes, Domina.” Merula could not keep a grin off her face, and by the baleful look Herennius gave her, he had noticed.
Latona had never been better pleased by Merula’s insolence. “Then let us be off.” And without another look in Herennius’s direction, Latona turned and stalked toward the front door.
XLIII
Latona’s cheeks were still burning a furious red when she came to the door of her father’s home. She had hardly noticed the surroundings as they moved through the streets winding up the Palatine Hill. Her arms were folded across her chest and she rubbed them for warmth. She ought to have changed gowns before leaving, put on a warmer tunic and sturdier shoes, but she had not wanted to stay in that house a moment longer than strictly necessary—not so much out of pique as fearing that Herennius might find his courage and attempt to bar her from leaving.
As Merula pounded briskly on the door, Latona turned, gazing out at the city. Abruptly she remembered the previous year’s Cantrinalia, after which she and Sempronius Tarren had stood in this same spot, watching the sun set over the red rooftops of Aven, warm with promise. A new feeling pierced through the fury and the indignation: hope.
A sudden gust of wind, crisp and cool and smelling of damp leaves, snatched at her hair, and she shivered. Merula was still knocking, and now cursing under her breath. “Diana’s tits, where is that fool boy?”
When the door at last did open, the fool boy in question got a tongue-lashing in rapid Phrygian. From his furrowed brow and jutted-out lower lip, Latona guessed that he did not speak the language. Merula’s tone was impossible to mistake, however, and once Latona was safely and warmly bustled inside, sighing with relief as the warmth from the hypocaust came over her, she switched to Truscan. “—to leave your lady standing out on the street! I’ll be having words with Paenas, mark me right now! Now go! No, do not be going to the Lady Aula yourself, clearly you cannot be trusted! Find me someone better equipped!”