Larthia looked back at her sister reassuringly as they went through the door, then made small talk with Livia while they walked back to the gathering, where the partygoers were indeed taking their leave. Larthia left Livia to say goodbye and grabbed a cup of wine from a passing slave and drank from it deeply.
She was not as steady as she appeared; when Livia almost walked in on Marcus and her sister Larthia’s heart was in her mouth. She swallowed hard and forced a smile to her lips when her next door neighbor, Portia Scipiana Campania, appeared and extended her plump hand.
“Lovely convivium, Larthia, I’m sure Livia Versalia is most pleased.”
“Thank you.”
“My dear, I must speak to you. I’ve noticed something this last week and this evening too, and I’ve been intrigued.”
“Really?” Larthia said, wondering apprehensively what was coming.
Portia nodded. “Why is that huge slave following you around everywhere you go?”
Larthia looked at Verrix hovering in the background and groaned inwardly. Portia was the wife of a quaestor, or tax collector, and a notorious gossip. Whatever she told Portia would be the equivalent of writing it on a broadsheet and having it posted in the forum.
“He’s my bodyguard,” Larthia replied, deciding that a simple version of the truth was best.
Portia’s eyes widened. “Are you in danger?”
Larthia shrugged dismissively. “I am humoring my grandfather. He’s worried about the political unrest and thinks I may become a victim of his battles with Caesar.”
“Surely we are more civilized than that,” Portia said, drawing the hood of her evening coat over her head.
“I would hope so,” Larthia replied, nodding at a departing guest who waved in farewell.
“Is he a Gaul?” Portia asked, looking in the direction of Verrix, who remained immobile against a wall.
“What else? Don’t you see the torque?”
“He’s very comely. Hair the color of ripe corn, and those pale eyes. The Gauls are handsome people.”
“You forget what he looks like very quickly when exposed to his personality,” Larthia said darkly.
“I know they make difficult slaves,” Portia said, shaking her head resignedly. “My husband says that they are virtually intractable. Not like the Greeks, who seem to be philosophical about their servile status and adapt to it. The Celts fight their fate tenaciously to the very end.”
Larthia nodded, noting with alarm that Verrix seemed to be listening to what they were saying.
“Well, I must be going,” Portia said. “I have to find my doddering husband, who is doubtless getting drunk on Lesbian wine with that fool Titus Labienus. Thank you again for a splendid evening. Good night.”
Larthia managed to stay on her feet long enough to get rid of the remainder of her guests and see Livia Versalia into her carriage. With the departure of the rest of the Vestals, who followed behind Livia in another conveyance, Larthia was released from her role as hostess. She was walking around her house wearily, directing the cleanup operation, when she saw that Verrix was wearing a very mutinous expression.
“What is wrong with you?” she finally said to him impatiently, turning to face him with her hands on her hips, in no mood for his nonsense.
“May I have a word in private, mistress?” he asked, making the last word sound, as he always did, like blasphemy.
Larthia waved him wordlessly into an anteroom and shut the door.
“I heard what that woman said about me,” he announced immediately.
“What woman?”
“That fat woman in the blue hooded coat.”
“What she said is of no consequence to you.”
“Does it make you feel superior to discuss me as if I were some special breed of canine?” he said furiously. “Gauls are intractable, Greeks adapt- we are people, Lady Sejana, not hunting hounds!”
“You are slaves,” Larthia said. “Bear it in mind.”
“Oh, I see. Am I going to hear about flogging again? Shall I get you the lash?”
“For your information, I spared you from a fate far worse than flogging this very night. If I wanted you to suffer I would have turned you over to that centurion, Demeter. He was very eager to get his vengeful hands on you.”
Verrix looked back at her, stone faced. “I saw him,” he said shortly.
“Is that all you have to say?”
“I did what was necessary to escape from Roman captivity,” he said shortly. “His friend was killed in the process.”
“That’s not how he sees it.”
“That’s how it was.”
“He would have seized you right in front of everybody if I hadn’t stopped him.”
“I don’t need a woman to intervene for me,” Verrix said shortly.
“I didn’t intervene for YOU,” Larthia said nastily. “You represent a substantial investment of my grandfather’s, I want him to get his money’s worth.”
Verrix stared back at her, inwardly seething but silent as a tomb.
Larthia met his gaze, uncomfortable with his anger. Why did she care what he thought? It bothered her that she did.
“Why do you pay attention to that stupid Campania woman’s chatter anyway?” Larthia said in irritation. “Everyone knows she’s a brainless babbler.”
“You were paying attention to her.”
“I was making conversation.”
“You were agreeing with her!”
Larthia stared at him.
“You nodded!” he said furiously.
“I was trying to get rid of her! I wanted her to go home, I wanted all of them to go home. If she had said that she was about to sprout a peaked crown and turn into the goddess Juno I would have nodded!”
Verrix glared at her but again said nothing.
“Why am I having this conversation with you?” Larthia asked herself aloud. “Why do I always do this?” She closed her eyes, opened them again, and announced, “I am going to bed. Nestor will find something for you to do.”
He turned immediately to go but for some reason she couldn’t afterwards fathom she stopped him at the door.
“Verrix, why did my interchange with Portia bother you so much?” she asked, her tone of command now altered, almost conciliatory. “You must be accustomed to the Roman attitude toward slaves by this time.”
He turned slowly to face her.
“It’s not the Roman attitude toward slaves,” he said. “It’s yours.”
“I am a Roman woman.”
His gaze fell away from hers. “I want you to think of me as a person,” he said quietly.
Larthia looked back at him in silence, her heart beginning to beat faster.
“I want you to think of me as a man,” he added, even more softly, and left.
Larthia swallowed hard, putting her hand out to touch the shelf next to her. The terracotta jars and pots stored there rattled with the sudden motion.
Larthia was startled to find that she was blinking rapidly. Was her younger sister’s emotionalism contagious? Like Julia, she seemed always to be on the verge of tears lately. She tilted her head back to prevent the kohl lining her eyes from running.
What was it about Verrix that drew her? He was a slave, yet she couldn’t seem to remember that. She knew in her heart that she really thought of him as her equal, as if his former status had clung to him through the defeat of his people and his subsequent enslavement. But in a way it had. HE didn’t think of himself as a servant, merely as a man forced by circumstances to guard her until he was able to resume a free life. His attitude had communicated itself to her, and he knew it. He was able to read her mind as if she were speaking her thoughts to him.
Larthia closed her eyes again, pressing her lips together. She should sell him, convince her grandfather somehow that Verrix had to go. But already that thought was abhorrent to her.
She had grown used to the stability of his presence; Verrix did make her feel secure, exactly as Casca had i
ntended. And if she were really honest with herself she had to admit that she liked having him around just to look at him. He was handsome, and he was also everything her husband had not been: young, virile, and overwhelmingly interested in her.
But he was also a slave.
Larthia started as the door opened and Nestor stopped short, surprised to see her.
“Are you all right, mistress?” he said, looking around the closet as if for an explanation of her presence there.
“Yes, yes, I was just searching for the storage jars for the garum,” Larthia said hastily, turning away to wipe her eyes with her fingers.
“They’re in the kitchen, mistress, on the floor of the cold pantry.”
“Of course, of course, I’d forgotten. What did you want, Nestor?”
He reached up past her head and took a jar off a shelf. “Just this.”
Larthia nodded.
“Since we have a moment away from the others, mistress, may I speak to you about something?”
“Certainly,” Larthia replied, glad of the distraction from her troubled thoughts.
“It’s about Verrix.”
Larthia sighed inwardly. So it was not to be a distraction after all.
“Go on,” she said shortly.
“He takes direction poorly,” Nestor said.
“Has he refused to obey an order you gave him?”
“No...” Nestor said hesitantly.
“Then what?”
“He always argues with me, tells me that something may be done better another way, tries to instruct me...”
“Well, is he usually right?”
“That’s not the point!” Nestor said, agitated. “I am in charge of this house. When I say ‘do this’ to a slave, it should be done. Without discussion.”
“I see.” So Nestor was feeling territorial. Well, she was feeling tired and short tempered. She’d had enough of contentious servants for one night.
“I will tell Verrix to obey you without question,” Larthia said briefly. “Is there anything else?”
“I was going to come for you shortly to look over the wine inventory. The guests drank more tonight than was expected. Would you like to do it now?”
“Fine.” Larthia followed the servant out of the closet and into the hall.
* * *
Julia sat at the window of Larthia’s room and played her meeting with Marcus over and over in her mind; his every touch, gesture, word was committed to memory. She got up and walked, then sat, then rose once more. She was so exhilarated that it seemed she would never rest again.
Why was she willing to risk her life for a man she hardly knew? She couldn’t understand it logically, but at the same time she didn’t care. She just wanted to feel again the way she’d felt when he was with her.
She was clear about her decision to continue seeing Marcus. Unlike Livia Versalia, Julia was not religious. She believed in Marcus far more than she did in the goddess Vesta. She had not chosen her present life and had no qualms about abandoning it. Her only concern was the danger to Marcus and herself in pursuing a relationship forbidden by custom and by law.
It would be an eternity until the next market day. She needed the time to talk to him and get to know him; she yearned to hear everything about him, his family, his past, his hopes and dreams. These brief meetings snatched under trying circumstances only whetted her appetite for more.
Desire was like a rising tide within her; it shocked her in retrospect, but at the time Marcus kissed her she had wanted to climb inside his clothes. Her distant awareness of their surroundings had faded into nothingness. If he had pressed her back onto the bed she would not have stopped him.
Each time she saw him she was amazed again that this man wanted her enough to flout the law and put his illustrious career in jeopardy. He looked like the Etruscan kings who had founded Rome, whose representation she had seen everywhere since childhood. He had the same strong nose, finely chiseled mouth and lustrous black hair. He had walked off a temple frieze or an ancient tiled mosaic and into her arms. She, who had little experience of life and no experience of men, had won the hero of the barbarian campaigns.
It seemed impossible but it was true.
Julia paced the bedroom, dimly aware of the sounds of the party breaking up, the rumble of departing carriages and the scurrying of servants in the halls. She stopped to examine a crystal bottle of scent on the dressing table, pulling out the stopper and holding it under her nose. Lemon verbena. She replaced the bottle and looked around the room.
Larthia’s bedroom was almost bare, furnished with a bed and a chest and a vanity table, a few other necessary items. Romans, even the wealthy ones, saved their display of luxury for the reception rooms where others might view their largesse. The chambers meant for sleep were spare and functional, an outgrowth of the Roman attitude that the best of life was lived in public.
Julia, unable to still her wandering feet, went to the window again. She was staring out at the moonlit portico when Larthia entered from the hall.
“The litter Livia sent for you is here,” she announced, removing a pin from her hair to ease her aching head.
Julia went to the door and embraced her sister.
“I can’t thank you enough for everything you have done for me,” Julia said. “I’m so happy.”
Larthia nodded absently.
“Are you all right?” Julia asked, staring with concern at her sister’s distracted expression.
Larthia shrugged. “My head is banging like the gong used to summon Hannibal’s elephants.”
“Are you worried about my meeting Marcus here in future? We can arrange something else...”
“No, no, that’s not it. Just a domestic matter.” Larthia smiled. “And I’m tired. The party was a lot of work and now there’s the clearing up to do.”
“I understand.” Julia kissed her sister’s cheek. “I will see you here next market day. Please ask the physician to come in the early evening.”
“What shall I say is wrong with you?” Larthia asked, raising her brows inquiringly.
Julia shrugged. “Fatigue, malaise, loss of appetite. Back pain, everybody has back pain. Avoid anything specific.”
Larthia nodded. “I’ll walk you to the door.”
She stood in the doorway and watched her sister climb into the litter, wondering if the course they were contemplating meant that they both had lost their minds.
Then she went back inside and closed the door.
Chapter 5
Marcus paused in the act of lifting the pilum and wiped his brow with the back of his free hand. In front of him, his class of fifty hastati watched his every move. They were the youngest legionaries, new recruits, and he was instructing them in the use of the six foot javelin, the primary missile weapon of the infantry.
Marcus blinked and tightened his grip on the aumentum, the leather throwing thong bound to the shaft of the lance. He hoisted it behind his shoulder and threw it; as it left his hand he gave it a half turn, which imparted a rotary motion to both maintain its direction and increase its penetrating power. The hastati turned their heads in one body to follow its progress through the morning air.
Marcus was an expert with the lance. He could throw it more than sixty-five yards with deadly accuracy. The men watched in awe as the missile’s pointed shaft sank into the soggy spring earth of the Campus Martius and the lance remained in place, quivering with tension.
Marcus walked over to it and pointed out its angle of entry and depth of penetration, speaking the plain, elementary Latin most likely to inform these men, most of whom employed it as a second language. He was training them as a special favor to Caesar, whose recruits they were, raised in Transalpine Gaul. Called alaudae, “the larks”, they were the Imperator’s attempt to prove that provincials could do as well in battle as the Italian born if the provincials were properly trained from their entry into the army. To that end he had sent Marcus, who was usually assigned more administrative tasks, to de
monstrate the use of the pilum to the larks.
Marcus retrieved the lance and then called for the men to come forward, one at a time. He showed each one how to grip the aumentum and hold the javelin aloft, thinking that this entire legion could put some of the native Roman soldiers to shame. The larks were all industrious and very eager to learn, conscious of the chance they were being given to win citizenship as part of Caesar’s long term recruitment plan. They wanted to find and keep their place in the most efficient and rigidly organized fighting body the world had yet seen: the Roman army. To that end they had been formed into a supplementary legion, or auxilium, to prove their mettle. If they performed up to standard their status would be permanized and their group organized like the others.
Caesar’s legions were subdivided into ten cohorts each, and each cohort had three maniples, or tactical units. A maniple had two centuries, groups of one hundred men, commanded by a centurion. Thus each cohort had six centurions, and premier among these six was the pilus prior , or first javelin thrower, who commanded the entire cohort. Marcus was the pilus prior of Caesar’s first cohort, summoned to all of his war councils, second in command only to the military tribunes, men of patrician families who achieved their positions more by right of birth than military merit. Such officers would be the last to dispute that the centurions were the backbone and the real heroes of the army. Marcus’ friendship with the libertine Septimus Gracchus was an example of the relative standing of the two classes of officers; the much decorated career soldier Marcus was a centurion, and Septimus, the Senator’s son doing his obligatory term in the military, was a tribune.
The recruit grasping the pilum let it slip through his fingers to the ground.
“Like this,” Marcus said patiently, picking up the javelin and showing the man how to insert his first and second fingers through the leather loop on its shaft. He glanced up at the sun and wondered how much time he would have left to show them the hasta, the two foot long, double edged Spanish sword for which the first line of infantry was named. Practice had shown that the javelin was more effective in battle than the sword, so he was concentrating on the pilum, but the men had to learn the use of both.
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