* * *
Mark Antony was working late in his office at home. He looked up in surprise as his steward admitted a distraught pontifex maximus into the torchlit room.
“Paetus Sura, what brings you out at this time of night? Is there something I can do for you?” Antony said, putting aside the edict he was reading.
“Something you can do for me? Marcus Corvus Demeter has escaped from the Esquiline prison!”
“Is that so?” Antony said, leaning back in his chair, folding his hands at his waist.
“Yes, that’s so, and I want to know what you are going to do about it!”
Antony opened his hands. “What CAN I do about it?” he asked innocently.
“Send a deployment of soldiers after them!”
“Them?”
“Demeter has a Gallic slave with him, the Sejana’s lover, accused of stuprum. They escaped together.”
Antony pursed his lips. “The Gaul has good taste,” he said judiciously.
“Is that all you can say?”
Antony sat forward again and picked up the scroll he had been reading. “I think Larthia’s sister is prettier, but there’s no accounting for individual preference.”
Sura stared at him. “Do you think this is funny? Demeter flouted our laws by defiling a Vestal and now he’s at large, probably on his way to rescue that little tart from the death she so richly deserves. At least send reinforcements to the burial site to make sure he doesn’t snatch her.”
Antony shrugged. “I’m sorry. I don’t have the men to spare, there are still pockets of resistance all over the city, conspiracy loyalists who might erupt at any moment.”
“Are you serious? You can’t spare two men?”
“Julia Rosalba will be attended by the Spanish guards assigned to her when she was arrested. Not to mention the formidable Livia Versalia, who is well worth ten of my men on any given occasion. That’s enough.”
“You’re on their side, aren’t you?” Sura demanded, eyeing Antony narrowly. “You want them to get away.”
“I am on MY side, pontifex, and it is not in my best interest to send my soldiers to an execution when they are needed elsewhere. That is all.”
Sura didn’t move.
Antony looked up at him. “I said, that is all. And if I find out that you have done anything to contravene my wishes in this matter it will not go well for you, I assure you.”
Sura made a disgusted sound and stomped noisily out of the study.
Antony smiled, silently wished Demeter the speed of winged Mercury, and went back to his paperwork.
Chapter 11
“What are you going to do with that?” Verrix asked, as Marcus stripped off his uniform and rolled it into a ball.
“I’m going to hide it. In case anyone comes after us I don’t want it to be a marker for the route we took.” Marcus rolled aside a rock and stuffed the red tunic under it, then replaced the rock, kicking dirt around the edge to disguise the fact that it had been moved. Then he took the woolen tunic Verrix handed to him and belted it tightly around his waist. Verrix, now attired only in his shift and trousers, looked down the hill at the stable on the edge of the forum.
“Are you sure Postumus isn’t there at night?” he asked, peering through the almost unrelieved dark.
“He has a house near the Via Flaminia.”
“But he must leave somebody there to make sure no one steals the horses.”
“There’s probably just a stableboy, Postumus is too cheap to keep a night staff. Come on.”
They picked their way down the rest of the elevation, their footing unsure without light to see. Marcus had been tempted to steal the torch from the wall outside the prison, but he knew that it would flash like a lighthouse fire if anyone did come after them.
Going in the darker was slower, but safer.
It seemed an eternity before they were standing in back of the stable. The pungent aroma of many horses confined together and the occasional stomping and neighing of restive animals was punctuated by the rumbling of carts in the street out front.
“Where’s the entrance?” Verrix asked.
Marcus nodded to the left. “I wish we could just wake up the attendant and pay for the horses, but if we do that whoever is in there will remember us.”
“Let’s go,” Verrix said.
They crept around to the double doors, which were barred from the inside. On the plain front of the wooden structure they saw a small trap door used for feed deliveries.
“There,” Marcus said.
They kicked it in; the stableboy sleeping inside on a bench jumped up at the noise and then shrank back against the wall when he saw the two intruders crawl through the door.
“So much for stealth,” Verrix muttered. “He’ll be sure to remember us now.”
Marcus didn’t have time for the niceties; he lunged forward and grabbed the boy’s tunic.
“Get me your two best horses,” he said. “Now.”
The boy stared back at Marcus, his eyes like saucers.
“There’s a gold piece in it for you,” Marcus added, and the boy, realizing that they weren’t going to kill him, bolted down the stable aisle. In short order he was leading two mares to the front as Marcus and Verrix waited impatiently.
“Get me the bridles and blankets,” Marcus barked, reaching inside his tunic for the money pouch Septimus had given him. When the horses were outfitted Marcus handed the boy the coin and added, “Now open the door.”
The boy obeyed, and as he and Verrix led the horses into the street Marcus said, “You didn’t see anyone. You fell asleep and when you woke up the horses were gone.”
The boy nodded vigorously.
During the whole encounter he had not said a word.
“That money will keep him quiet as long as it takes for him to hear the first threat,” Verrix said.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll be long gone by the time Postumus arrives to open his shop.”
“Where are we going?” Verrix asked.
“Porta Collina,” Marcus replied shortly.
Verrix nodded. It was one of the many gates to the city which stood in the outlying districts and fed the major roads into the forum. This one lay across the Tiber, near the gardens which Caesar had recently given to the public in his will. The fastest route to it was to ride around the flats beyond the seven hills and then enter the city, because the streets at night were so clogged with carts, not to mention the roaming gangs of cutpurses who might also slow, or stop, their progress.
“Let’s go,” Marcus added.
They led the horses away from the forum, walking with them for several miles until they had left the settlements behind and there was nothing but scrub grass and open fields in view. At Marcus’ signal they mounted, riding bareback except for blankets, controlling the animals with their leg muscles.
Verrix was by far the better rider; the Roman army lacked an efficient cavalry, indeed many of its officers could not even ride, but the Gauls were mounted brigands, able to do almost anything from the back of a horse. Marcus kept up with his companion, since he had learned to ride as a young boy in Sardinia, but as he glanced up at the sky he was glad he had run into the slave when he had.
He hated to admit it, but Verrix was an asset.
He kicked the horse’s flanks with his heels and spurred him on urgently.
The sky was getting lighter.
* * *
“Are you ready?” Margo said quietly to Julia, who smiled humorlessly.
“I’m dressed,” she said. “I don’t think it’s possible to be ‘ready’, do you?”
Margo glanced over her shoulder at Livia Versalia, who was standing at the door, waiting with the two Spanish guards to escort Julia from the fanum.
“May I have a minute alone with her?” she asked Livia.
Livia hesitated, then nodded. She stepped out of the detention cell and closed the door.
Margo produced the vial of arsenic from the folds of her
gown and pressed it into Julia’s hand.
“I got this from your sister’s slave. Drink it as soon as they seal you in,” she whispered. “It will all be over quickly, you will not suffer.”
Julia took the poison and tucked it into the bodice of her gown. Then she embraced Margo, holding the other woman close and saying softly, “I love you, Margo. I don’t think I would have survived my first years as a Vestal if it weren’t for you. The only thing I regret about all of this is leaving you behind to live here without me.”
“Why did you do it, Julia?” Margo sobbed. “Is anything worth this punishment? Anything?”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Julia said gently, stepping back from Margo. “Just know that I made a free choice to do what I did, and I’m not sorry.”
Margo clung to her a little longer, then let her go, wiping her eyes with the end of her sleeve as Livia opened the door again.
“Time to go,” she said shortly.
Julia walked forward, a slim figure in her white stola, a thin silk palla over her arms. Livia and the guards fell in behind her as she left the cell.
The only other witnesses permitted at her execution would be the rest of the Vestals and her sister Larthia.
Two carriages awaited them in the temple square. Livia and Julia sat in one, which was driven by the first guard, and the five other Vestals got into the other with the second guard. As they drove off in the gloomy pre-dawn, the horses’ hooves clopping on the paving stones, Julia looked her last at the scene which had been daily life to her for the last ten years. The merchants, loading their stalls to get ready for sunrise, looked curiously at the vehicles as they passed. Those who recognized the Vestal crest might have known what was happening, but most were too preoccupied with presenting their merchandise to give the little caravan more than a passing glance.
Julia reflected with a fitting sense of completion that it was market day.
Livia, sitting at her side, was silent.
There was nothing to say.
* * *
Larthia got dressed in the dark, not even bothering to light a candle. She had spent a sleepless night after Verrix was taken, wondering where he was, wondering what her sister was doing with her final hours. She wondered also, briefly, how her own life had come to such a pass, but she didn’t have time to waste lamenting recent events. For Julia she could do nothing except be present as the sentence was carried out, but Verrix needed a lawyer.
Her grandfather’s pal Cicero she considered to be a pompous blowhard, overly fond of his own opinions and the sound of his own voice, but he was widely thought to be the best lawyer practicing in Rome. She considered and discarded most of those she had consulted about Julia’s situation; attorneys specialized and those conversant with religious law were not those who could help Verrix. The regulations concerning slaves were constantly changing, due to the many foreign conquests which supplied the labor force, and she needed someone who had kept up with the latest developments.
Senator Gracchus would probably know.
But first she had to witness Julia’s execution.
She left her room and went into the hall, where Nestor kept torches burning all night long.
The old slave was already up and dressed, waiting for her to emerge.
“Will you have something to eat, mistress?” he asked solicitously.
Larthia shook her head.
“Can I do anything for you before you go?”
“No, thank you, Nestor.” Larthia was about to walk past him and then had a thought.
“Nestor, if anything should happen to me, if I should disappear or meet with an accident, there is a letter for Senator Gracchus in my room on my dressing table, already sealed. Will you take it to him if it becomes necessary?”
“Are you expecting any trouble, mistress?” Nestor asked worriedly.
“I don’t know. I haven’t been the most popular person lately: my grandfather is one of Caesar’s assassins, my sister is a disgraced Vestal about to be executed, and my lover has been arrested. Can you understand how I might be concerned?”
Nestor nodded soberly.
“Will you do that for me, then?”
He nodded again.
“Good. Now I must be off. Look after things here for me and make sure all the servants follow through with their duties.”
Nestor extended his hand and pressed a silver piece into Larthia’s palm.
“A coin for the ferryman, mistress. For Miss Julia. Please give it to her.”
Touched, Julia took the coin and then hugged the old man briefly.
“That’s very kind of you, Nestor.” She tucked it into her purse and ran down the hall before she could break down and cry.
Burying the dead with coins to pay the ferryman who crossed the River Styx to the home of the blessed was an ancient custom. Tradition said that if you did not pay him you were left to wander forever, lost and unfulfilled, in a misty netherworld of troubled souls. It was a fate to be avoided at all costs.
Julia would travel with her fare in hand.
Larthia wiped the back of her arm across her eyes and hurried out the door.
* * *
Marcus and Verrix crouched behind an outcropping of rock and peered around at the empty landscape. The horses, tied to a tree near them, munched on grass contentedly, glad of the rest.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Verrix whispered, struck by the awful thought that Marcus might be mistaken about the location.
Marcus nodded. “I read the law, this clearing is considered sacred for sacrifices. And look.”
He pointed. Verrix followed the direction of his finger and saw a huge rock rolled back from a hollow freshly dug into the side of a hill.
“Is that the tomb?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And you call us barbarians,” Verrix observed disgustedly, shaking his head.
“Shh!” Marcus said suddenly, grabbing his arm. “I think I hear something.”
They both listened intently.
“They’re coming,” Verrix murmured.
Muffled footfalls signaled the approach of the little procession. Marcus raised his head and saw Julia, her hands bound with rope, at the head of the column, walking between her two guards. Directly behind her was Livia Versalia, trailed by the rest of the Vestals.
He glanced up at the sky. The first thin threads of light were coming into it; entombment would take place when the sun was first visible over the horizon. As Marcus had already explained to Verrix, Livia would first prostrate herself and pray for the acceptance of the sacrifice. When she was flat on the ground and unable to resist, they would strike, taking out the two guards. He doubted if any of the other Vestals would fight them; it was too easy for those women to put themselves in Julia’s place.
“There’s Larthia,” Verrix muttered, as a figure emerged from the trees, all alone, as Livia had specified.
When Julia saw her sister she bowed her head.
Livia knelt on the grass, then lay forward with her head pressed to the ground, her arms extended.
“Get the horses,” Marcus said to Verrix. “Now.”
Verrix rose and sprinted away, returning a short time later with the two animals in tow. They mounted and led the horses a little closer, until they could hear Livia’s murmuring voice.
“I’ll take the guard on the right,” Marcus said. “Go!”
The men burst from the trees as all the participants in the ceremony looked around, startled. Before the guards could react Verrix had slashed the first one with Septimus’ knife and he went down, clutching his arm.
Julia gasped aloud when she saw Marcus, and Larthia shouted for joy.
Marcus attacked the second guard, who offered only token resistance as Marcus dismounted and wrestled him to the ground, holding him there with the point of his sword.
“Cut her loose,” he barked to Verrix, who slashed Julia’s bonds as Larthia ran to help her sister.
�
��Do something!” Livia screamed to the injured guard. “They’re going to get away!”
The first guard struggled to his feet and Verrix whirled instantly, bringing his forearm across the other man’s throat and knocking him down again.
Livia rushed at Verrix, who clipped her on the jaw. She crumpled to the grass.
“Larthia!” he called, and extended his hand. She dashed over to him and took it. He hoisted her into his horse as Marcus said, “Stay down or you die,” to the second guard. He stayed down, and Marcus ran to Julia, who fell into his arms.
“I thought I would never see you again,” she sobbed, clutching him.
He held her briefly, tightly, then said, “Come on, we have to go. I don’t know what Livia has planned, she may have ordered some reinforcements.”
They ran to his horse and he lifted her onto it, then jumped up in front of her himself, as Verrix mounted also. The remaining Vestals watched in awe as the two men kicked their horses and galloped out of the clearing, the women behind them clinging to their waists.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” Junia Distania whispered, still dazzled by the spectacular rescue, as the dust settled behind the departing horses.
“Somebody help me,” Livia said hoarsely, dazed and struggling to her feet. Augusta Gellia ran to her side and assisted Livia to stand, offering her arm.
Livia looked around alertly. She saw that Julia and Larthia were missing and the two Spanish guards were still prostrate on the ground.
“Go after them!” she shrieked at the guard who was not bleeding. “What are you waiting for?”
“I’ll have to consult Consul Antony for my orders,” he replied in heavily accented Latin. He was a mercenary and didn’t care if Julia lived, died, or moved to Transpadani.
“You mean go back to the curia?” Livia demanded shrilly. “They’ll be in Parthia by then!”
“I have no authorization to pursue them, madam,” he said in protest.
“I’m giving you authorization! I order it!”
“I take my orders from the Consul,” the guard replied stubbornly, staring Livia down, as the other guard watched the byplay, silent.
“Oh, you are useless!” Livia shouted, balling her fists. She looked as if she were about to stomp her feet and tear her hair, then suddenly remembered that her women were watching her make a spectacle of herself. She took a deep breath and struggled for calm, forcing herself behave rationally.
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