“Here, eat.” She dipped up a bowl of never-ending porridge. If only she had better to offer him. She knelt by him, he almost as tall as her even sitting, and ran her finger along his jaw.
Dirt and stubble covered it. His hair, which had been close-cropped those times she met him at the training field, now bordered on shaggy. Snow clung to the Celtic jerkin that spread across his shoulders, no trace of the patrician left.
“How were the docks today?” She brushed her hand across his fingers and smiled at him.
“Loaded sandalwood, heavy as sin. You?”
“Found another laundering client, and I got a good deal on grain.”
“The weevil population should thank us for buying their leftovers.” He grinned.
Her cheeks burned. She’d lost him all that. She, and only she, by her actions that night. “You deserve better.”
“They give a crunchy texture to it. Who needs mutton when we have weevil meat?” His gaze found hers, that always-ready smile on his lips.
She wrapped her arms around his neck. He circled his arm around her waist.
Behind her, hot water stopped bubbling, signaling the clothes would need washing now or the task done over. She moved toward the laundering paddle. Lifting a wool dress, she dropped it into hot water.
“Eric.” A linen sheet, fine as western silk, slid through her fingers. She bent for another and looked toward him. “Do you think it’ll snow again tomorrow?”
Eric had fallen asleep sitting up with a full bowl of porridge still in his hands.
Not many more hours left and he’d arise again, off to load the docks by moonlight.
He still seemed pleased with her. He smiled, laughed at her, and teased her, in the rare moments when exhaustion didn’t sap his strength. Cara shifted upward, moving the baby growing inside her.
She should tell Eric this had been her fault, a plan of hers rather than a drunken accident. See how much he liked her then, but she wasn’t going to.
She’d already driven off Conan, a man she didn’t want, and inspired an entire town to shun her by revealing part of what had gone on that night. She wouldn’t risk driving off the noblest man she’d ever met, who made her heart thunder in her chest, and who would be the most wondrous of fathers, by revealing the entire truth.
A light snow fell, afternoon sunlight fading fast. Cara shifted the half-filled basket on her hip and circled around the thatched dwelling.
In the street behind the house, half a dozen girls just younger than marrying age laughed. Their fur-lined cloaks and dyed-wool dresses marked them as daughters of up-and-coming familiae.
A girl with a pocked face stabbed a hefty finger toward a girl in blue. Her voice rose above the sound of slush hitting the ground. “You’re just a poor girl, an ignorant little poor girl, Paloma.”
The girl in the blue dress looked anything but destitute. Still, she dipped her chin and ran toward the thatched house. Shoving past Cara, she rushed through the back door.
Cara followed her into the kitchen. “I’m here to pick up the laundering.”
The girl slumped by the hive-shaped stove, tears spattering down, but she pointed to her right.
An intricately-painted jar sat behind the stove. The glazed base showed images from the Silk Road. As Cara knelt on the brick floor, the baby thrust its legs against her stomach. She winced and piled the soiled clothes in her basket, increasing the weight of it.
Still, Paloma sobbed.
Cara hauled the basket to her hip. “It doesn’t matter what they say, you know.”
Paloma looked up. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew all the abominable things they say.”
“Trust me, I know.”
All at once, a smile sprung to the girl’s lips. “Stay, talk to me. Mother’s gone out again, and Father’s always working.”
“Can’t.” Cara pushed the door open.
“I’ll come with you, then.” Paloma skipped along beside Cara.
One kind word and the girl wished to shadow her? Then again, she’d haunted Edna’s house at that age. Soon they reached home.
“You live here?” The girl pointed to the splintered wood of their hovel.
Cara nodded and pushed the door open.
Uninvited, Paloma pattered along after her. “It’s kind of a hovel.”
“You don’t have to say ‘kind of.’” Cara placed a log on the fire.
Paloma moved to the doorway and pointed out to the Tamesis. “I’m going to sail it someday. My father’s a merchant. I want to travel on one of his ships and see the camels bearing silk, and the vineyards where wine is pressed, and the olive trees.”
Cara smiled at the bothersome girl. “I hope you do.”
“My friends all talk of betrothals and babes, but I don’t want that.”
“I can see that you don’t.” Leaving the cauldron water to heat, Cara caught up the broom. She slapped its tightly bound strands against the entranceway as Paloma chattered unceasingly.
The last rays of sunshine intermingled with gathering clouds as moist air blew through Cara’s clothes. She paused, her blistered hands resting on the broom. Her stomach jutted out, touching the broom handle. The moving baby kicked again, a painful motion, and her back ached from carrying the ever-growing child.
All too soon, she’d have a baby in her arms, spend every day hauling a squalling child while stirring the cook pot, just like all the other girls. “I wanted it, too, you know. To sail the seven seas, see where Theseus killed the Minotaur, look upon the Grecian olive groves.”
“And now?”
Cara glanced at the fire’s roaring flames. The hearth needed new mud, and soon, to avoid the chance of fire. “Do I look like I’ll make it to Greece?”
“You must be miserable then.”
“No.” Cara glanced at her swollen stomach. She squeezed the splintered broom handle, her muscles aching from the long day of work that would scarcely end before the new day dawned, all dreams of foreign lands a lifetime away. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m happy.”
“Why? Because of him?” Paloma stabbed her finger toward the door. The setting sun lit the back of a man headed toward their house. Eric.
She nodded. “Because of him.”
Hand on the doorframe, the girl ran a curious gaze up and down Cara’s husband. “I mean, he is handsome, an Adonis really, except he should shave, wash, and wear a tunic. To replace all your dreams of far off lands, though, he must have a poet’s soul, words to make a girl’s heart catch afire, a lover’s skill.”
Cara ran her thumb over the broom head. “He is all that, but that’s not why.”
“Why then?”
“He listens. Even when I don’t say it, he listens.”
“That’s enough to make you content?” Pity shone from Paloma’s eyes.
Cara laughed at her verbose little shadow. “Why yes, you know, it is.”
Was Eric content with her, though? He’d gone from unfathomable wealth to hard toil, and she the reason why.
Chapter 20
The Kalends of Aprilis
Awarm breeze blew through the villa arches, flowering green things just bursting from the earth. Victor placed a blanket on the marble garden bench by his father.
A hacking cough escaped Father’s lungs. Another winter might quench his life’s flame. “Where’s Eric?”
“I can’t find him.” Victor kicked a rock, flinging it high over sculpted hedges. He’d taken over the smuggling operation since Father grew ill, and that alone gave him headaches without indulging Father’s obsession with Eric.
“Since Legate Paterculi returned to Britannia three weeks ago, he’s intercepted ten of our last twelve shipments.”
“Ten?” Victor froze. “Where’s that leave our profits? The Viri have to be paid.”
“You know what they do when they’re not paid. Find me, Eric, because I’m wagering he remembered what you asked him that night and told his father.”
“There’s no wa
y in Hades Eric remembered. I doubled the herb amount.”
“Fool!” Father jerked up, bone scraping against bone as he straightened his hunched back. “You could have killed him.”
“He’s a big man, and I wouldn’t see you complaining if Eric was dead right now.” Victor kicked the base of a Zeus statue.
Cursing, he grabbed his stubbed toe. He couldn’t shame the Ocelli name by letting this smuggling operation fail, and yet the ship captains already grew insolent with him. Marcellus had slit a slaver’s throat, and ever since then the ship captains obeyed Marcellus. The odious man had one use anyway.
“Find Eric.”
“I asked all the patricians in Britannia, talked to anyone he ever used to speak to, examined new tribune posts and political positions, perused ship logs for travelers. What else, by all the gods, would you have me do?”
Father pulled the wool blanket up over his frail shoulders. “Check the poorer areas of town. If you’re correct that Eric’s not contacted his familia, then he’s running out of money.”
Victor swallowed. If they had an informant in their midst, he knew a much better suspect than Eric. “Marcellus approached me before that night I drugged Eric. He threatened to reveal everything he knew about our smuggling and piracy.”
“Everything he knew?” Father yelled, sneering. “Marcellus doesn’t know anything.”
“He knows now. Ever since summer, Marcellus has aided me with the smuggling.”
Father tensed sickly muscles.
“Which of our shipments did Legate Paterculi capture?”
“The one at Aquae Sulis, another at Curia, a third at Isca Augustus – ” Father rattled off names.
Victor felt his lungs tighten. Marcellus had played him for a fool. “Nine of them were ones Marcellus knew of.”
Father dug his knobby fingers through wool strands. “It’s him.”
“What do we do, though?” Victor pictured stabbing a knife through the man’s back but he would get blood on his hands. “I’ve told Marcellus things. He could expose us to Legate Paterculi.”
“We’ll take Marcellus to the Shadow Man.”
“The Shadow Man?” Victor rubbed his thumb against the Zeus statue. The Viri leader who they said killed anyone who allowed himself to be caught. It didn’t matter what jail the legionaries held the smuggler in, the Shadow Man would ensure the smuggler died by morning. The Shadow Man would kill Marcellus, which was good because then he wouldn’t have to do it.
“Time you met the Shadow Man yourself.”
Victor moved his gaze to the south where Rome and all his ambitions lay. If he could learn to kill. He shivered. “I wonder what it’s like running an operation you have to kill for.”
A merciless laugh rose through Father’s yellowed teeth. “He’s not the head, just the face of the Viri. There’s another higher up who makes the Shadow Man look like a squeamish woman compared to him.”
Victor swallowed.
“Oh, and if Marcellus isn’t our leak, you will kill Eric.”
Spring sunshine shone down on the hollow. Londinium sat far enough to the west that Cara couldn’t hear its bustle or smell its stench. Instead, the scent of hawthorns wafted around her, little buds on the tree’s boughs promising new life. Today Eric had one of his rare days off.
Behind her, feet pounded, Eric’s pace thudding against the ground as he looped back from the circuit he started running half an hour ago. Coming up to her, he dropped his hands to his knees, his chest heaving in and out as when she first met him on the training field.
She rested her elbows on her knees on either side of her now thoroughly round belly. “Why do you exhaust yourself on your day off?”
“Barge loading only strengthens my arms. It doesn’t improve my speed.”
“And?” She tilted her gaze up to meet his.
He laughed. “I don’t know. Maybe somewhere in my irrational mind I think I’ll still do it. Be in those Olympic Games.”
If only he could. He deserved to. If not for her, he’d be there. Below them, the swollen Tamesis roared.
Eric dropped to the ground beside her and kissed her. The scent of green grass and river breeze enveloped her as his lips brushed over hers.
A pain shot through her midsection, and she broke the kiss.
Eric moved half a pace back and picked up a stick. Leaning forward, he traced numbers on the packed dirt between green shoots.
The breeze flapped Eric’s jerkin. His broad jaw looked leaner than six months ago and only muscle remained on his big arms and hard stomach. “Do shopkeepers care as much about looking wealthy as patricians do?”
“What do you mean?” Hands on her belly, which ached strangely today, Cara rose to a kneeling position and looked over his shoulder. Numbers and an image scrawled across the dirt.
“Soon as the snow melted, Emperor Trajan went up to the mountains to finish this war with Decabulus. If Balbinus Maximus’ predictions are to be believed, within a month or two, Rome should hold all the Dacian gold mines.”
“Oh.” Another pain pierced her abdomen.
“Gold-plated chalices for a lower price, would shopkeepers buy those to flaunt their wealth at feast days?”
Conan had pewter chalices at his betrothal feast, but she had no doubt he would have bought gold if he could have afforded it. “Yes, they would. Why?”
“Some of the ship captains at the docks will hire out for half a voyage. Take Camulodunum pottery or village grain down the Danube for one customer, and then bring goods from Dacia back for another.”
Cara pressed her hand against the moist earth, squishing a mayweed stalk.
“With the capture of the Dacia gold mines, the price to buy gold should fall lower than it has in decades and the price of gold is still high here.”
“And?”
“If I charted a vessel to purchase a boatload of such supplies, we could make a good profit.”
She traced her gaze over Eric’s jerkin. A ship would get him off the docks he hated so much. “How much would that cost?”
“To fill a ship? Six thousand denarii if my calculations are correct, which they probably aren’t.” Eric scratched another number in the dirt.
“I can fix the numbers for you.” They had nowhere near that kind of money and wouldn’t even if she laundered clothes until this child inside her had married and had children of his own.
“Purchasing the gold-plated chalices would lower the price to fill the vessel. Provided they sell well, they will turn a good profit still.”
“But the money?”
“You do it through backing. That’s the idea anyway. Find a wealthy man, present your idea. He provides the money, and then we get a cut of the profits once the voyage is over.”
She wiped her dirty hands on her dress. “I’m sure you know many wealthy men.”
“Yea, but I don’t know if I can make it work. Everyone’s probably chartering ships for Dacia.”
“Of course, you can do it, Eric. You can do anything.” She smiled at her husband who combined the strength of Hercules with the wit of Cicero.
“That’s not actually true, you know.”
“What?” Cara touched Eric’s shoulder. Working in trading ventures would be a step down from the patrician’s life for certain, but it was closer to what Eric deserved than the mindless drudgery of the docks.
He laughed, a rumbling sound that tumbled over the green shoots and new life sprouting everywhere. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try.” He drew the stick in a swirling circle design.
“What’s that?”
“The image I’d engrave on the cups. It’s a raven soaring over the mountaintops.” Eric swept his hand over the picture he’d created on forest earth. The image looked like something an artisan would craft.
“What’s that there?” She pressed her thumb to the dirt.
“A dead eagle.”
“You can’t put dead animals on your goblets!” A pain shot through her midsection, fiercer than las
t time, and Cara doubled over.
Eric dropped the stick. “The babe kick you?”
She shook her head. “It’s as if all my muscles grab me, and then pain everywhere. Been that way since noonday.”
“It could be the babe’s time.”
“How would you know?” Cara dug her knuckles into her midsection and the pain subsided once again.
“My mother gave birth to my youngest brother when I was twelve, and women in my family really do say anything, regardless that you’ll never unsee the mental images they create.”
Cara’s tongue went dry. “It couldn’t be time. It’s too soon.”
“Nine months since the Kalends of Julio.”
“But,” her heart pounded, her hands trembling as the Tamesis churned below her, “I’m not ready.”
“I don’t think anyone’s ever ready for a babe.” Eric used that calm voice again. Didn’t he realize a babe was coming? A babe!
Cara grabbed her stomach as the pain crested again. “Did your mother say how much worse the pain gets?”
“She said once that it wasn’t so bad. She spoke to Gwen, though, whose life ambition at that time was to disguise herself as a man and join the Roman Army. So Mother may have stretched the truth.” Eric stood and reached for her hand. Calmly!
She dug her fingers into his as unadulterated terror streaked through her. Mere hours left until she became a mother.
A night and the first few hours of morn later, darkness had fled and warm sunshine streamed through chinks in the wall. Eric’s mother had definitely lied.
Heart racing, breath heaving, head pounding, Cara screamed. Then she flopped back against the now bloodstained pallet.
The midwife held up a human who looked far more like a drowned rat than an infant. Grabbing a less than clean wash rag, the woman whipped it around the baby.
“Not going to put her on the ground for the naming ceremony because your floor’s revolting, but here,” the midwife thrust the tiny thing into Eric’s arms, “do what you will with her.”
The woman shoved her hands in the water jar, then, rubbing them on her skirt, she kicked the door open. “I’m leaving now. I have actual paying cases to attend to.”
When Gambling (Love and Warfare Series Book 2) Page 24