When Gambling (Love and Warfare Series Book 2)
Page 38
Marcellus glanced at the dozen men behind him, smugglers. “Get the crates loaded on the wagons and quickly. The legionaries patrol this section of the river.”
“I’m the enforcer. I’ll give the orders.” Victor Ocelli pushed by him, the stark white of his patrician tunic contrasting with his black hair.
Marcellus rolled his gaze to Orion’s starry belt. “You wouldn’t have survived the first six months at your post if I hadn’t killed the seditious ship captains for you.”
A small ship approached through the shadows. Sailors threw the gangway onto the bank. Marcellus stepped on it, sinking the wood. “Where’s the captain?”
The noise of faint groans rose from the hull, along with the stench of many bodies packed together. Not smuggled cargo then, but slaves, a ship’s former crew most likely. The pirates probably captured the sailors on the high seas and forced them into slavery.
Marcellus tightened his knuckles until they turned white. “I said, where’s your captain?”
A sailor stabbed a thick finger right. “In that cabin.” A high-pitched scream pierced the weathered wood.
Striding over, Marcellus kicked the door open. A bare-chested man with the tattoo of Mithras on his back leaned over a soiled bed, a girl caught between his legs.
“Don’t!” The girl screamed. She couldn’t have seen more than fourteen summers.
The man cuffed the girl across the cheek. “Stop screaming, slave.”
Rage swelled through Marcellus’ veins, the cloud of red obscuring all but that man’s face. Grabbing the captain’s shoulder, Marcellus flung him
against the wall and, with one motion, cut with his knife.
“You killed him!” Eyes wide, the girl stared at him. She knotted her fingers into her skirt.
Snatching up the ship’s log, Marcellus shoved it inside his tunic and grabbed the girl’s arm. She cried yet as he dragged her away from the sight of the carnage to the darkness outside the cabin.
“What’s the screaming?” Victor glanced inside the cabin. He groaned. “That captain works on our side. Did you truly have to kill him?”
With a shrug, Marcellus shoved the cabin door shut. “You can’t inspire fear if you don’t kill a ship’s captain here or there for no reason.”
Victor rolled his eyes. “Very well.”
Chains clinked as the newly-captured slaves trudged down the gangway. Shoulders slumped, the men bore their gazes into the ground. Condemned to a life of abuse and slavery, and for what? Profit. Marcellus clenched his bloody knife hilt.
“Daughter,” a big man yelled through the darkness.
The girl ran and threw her arms around the chained man’s neck. The slaves’ feet pounded against the gangway as the Viri men drove them forward.
Fighting down the hate, Marcellus forced his face to remain a mask as he followed the chained men down the gangway. “Tariffs successfully avoided. My cut of the profit, Victor?”
“After we report to the Shadow Man.” Victor cracked a whip against the lagging slave’s back. The man stumbled.
The Shadow Man, the leader of the Viri, they only met him on important occasions. Marcellus pressed his mouth together. “What will he do with the slaves?”
“Sell them at Ostia, collect the full profit rather than just our tenth now that you’ve killed the slaver.” Victor stabbed the whip’s handle into his belt. “That captain was one of our best, so you still shouldn’t have killed him.”
As the Viri henchmen drove the chained slaves a few paces down the riverbank, Victor walked right. Marcellus followed.
A man in a gray cloak stepped out of a grove of cypress trees. “Good work.” The Shadow Man’s slippery voice slid over the cypress fronds.
Victor nodded.
“Tell me, Marcellus.” The Shadow Man raised a thin hand. “What other riverbank areas did Wryn Paterculi sent legionaries to patrol?”
Marcellus smiled. To the best of his knowledge, Wryn hadn’t sent any patrols. Next time the garrison captured a smuggling shipment, though, the Shadow Man would focus his energies on Wryn, not him. “Still working on that information, sir.”
“The Paterculi girl you gained this information from. I hear you’ve grown very close.” The Shadow Man dropped his voice to a sinister whisper.
Marcellus’ heart thudded against his tunic. “What’s it to you?”
“She’s how you warned us about a dozen different garrison raids her father, Legate Paterculi, had plotted in Britannia. She’s in Rome now.”
Marcellus rubbed his thumb over his knife hilt. He shouldn’t have boasted about that. “In Britannia, Gwen followed her father’s shipping enforcement. Here he’s working on a consul position, not shipping.”
“You’re saying she’s no further use to us?”
Gaze on the gray cloak that hung over the Shadow Man’s face, Marcellus nodded.
“Then why haven’t you killed her?”
“What!” Marcellus clenched his knife.
“Isn’t that what you do when a source has outlived his usefulness? Like that ship captain tonight.” The breeze blew the Shadow Man’s perfumed scent through the air.
“She’s a woman, a girl even.” Marcellus clenched his jaw. He needed to stop talking. The more interest he showed in Gwen, the more the Shadow Man’s vicious wits would scheme against her.
“If I ordered you to kill her, you would.”
“Of course, sir.” Marcellus forced his hand to fall from his knife. “Anyway, my pay for the night?” If he stopped speaking with Gwen, the Shadow Man would soon lose interest in seeing Gwen dead. If he stopped speaking with Gwen, he’d never get to talk to Gwen.
The Shadow Man extended a heavy bag of coin.
With a shake of his head, Marcellus pointed to the girl standing among a row of chained men. “I want her.”
Victor groaned. “Don’t you have enough women?”
“And him.” Marcellus pointed to the grizzled man who’d call her daughter. “I’ll take those two as my pay for the night.”
“Very well.” The Shadow Man hooked the bag of gold back on his belt.
Victor rolled his eyes and tossed a ring of keys.
The large iron circle landed on Marcellus’ hand. Striding to the chained man, he dug a key into the fetter. The iron fell from the man’s wrist. Marcellus ran his gaze down the long line of slaves marching to their doom.
Turning, Marcellus tossed the keys to Victor. “Come.” Marcellus motioned the father and daughter.
The moon sank toward the horizon as they walked over dirty streets, past bilge water, and hovels.
The enslaved man held his daughter’s hand tight, his gaze wary.
A mile from the river, Marcellus halted. He dug into the pouch at his belt and took out a fistful of coins. “Here, enough for a week’s lodging. Salve.”
The man clasped Marcellus’ arm with both hands. “Rescue the rest of my crew. I beg of you. They were born free. A good man wouldn’t let them be sold as slaves.”
Marcellus shrugged. “I never said I was a good man.” He turned down an alley and disappeared into the darkness.
Find To Deceive an Empire and all the other great books in the Love and Warfare series wherever fine books are sold.
Translation Key
Armatura sword – a wooden sword used for practice.
Aureus – a gold coin worth twenty-five denarii
carissime – dear one, dearest
Denarius – a silver coin equal to a day’s wages for a laborer
Denarii – plural of Denarius
Domina – the title for an elite married woman. A slave would also address his mistress by this title.
Dominus – the title of an elite man. A slave would also address his master by this title.
Domus – house
Ecce – behold, see, look
Equestrian – a person of higher rank, who still wasn’t as elite as a patrician.
Familia – family
Legate – a Roman genera
l
Legionary – a foot soldier roughly equivalent to our modern day private
Mea Culpa – my fault, my blame, I’m sorry
Patrician – a member of the noblemen class
Plebeian – a commoner
Salve – greetings, hello, goodbye
Sestertii – silver coins worth about ¼ of a denarius
Strigil – a tool for scraping off dirt, sweat, and bathing oil. Romans didn’t use soap.
Stulte – stupid, foolish
Tribune – a Roman officer position usually assumed by young men of the patrician class. This office was a stepping stone into political positions.
Quidquid – whatever
The Way – an old name for Christianity
Paterculi Family Tree
Discussion Questions
1. Did Eric make the right decision in the middle of the book to scorn his father’s wealth and survive on his own? What positive and negatives came from his pride?
2. Why did Conan act more considerately toward Cara when he was trying to convince her to marry him, and less considerately after her father said she had to marry Conan? Would you consider Conan controlling? Capable of abuse?
3. How did the blacksmith’s attempts to keep Cara protected backfire? What could have he done differently? Does trying to control a person into making good choices work?
4. The first few weeks post-partum are rough. For those of you who are parents, what of Cara and Eric’s experience reminded you of your own children? What was the hardest part about having an infant in the house?
5. How did Pruella and her mother taint Cara’s view of grace? How did Eric restore her belief in grace?
6. At first, Victor was uncomfortable with the more bloodthirsty aspects of the Viri’s piracy. Why? What changed in order to make him capable of murder and villainy by the end of the book? Was there ever a point where you thought he would turn around and not go down the slippery slope of villainy?
7. When Camulodunum found out Cara was with child, they shamed her through town and countryside. Yet, when she returned to Camulodunum a year later as a patrician’s wife, they honored her. What was Cara’s reaction to their censure and praise? How should we react to the opinions of others?
8. Eric’s familia was different from other Roman patrician families in that they were followers of the Way and his father married a Celtic woman (read their love story in For Life or Until). How did Eric’s family background affect the way he treated Cara and the choices he made throughout the book?
9. Eric and Cara’s marriage came about because of unplanned circumstances rather than love. Do you think they were a good fit for each other’s personalities despite that? Why or why not?
10. Cara’s greatest desire was to explore the world rather than be confined to the limits of Conan’s shop. She lied to her father and broke society’s rules to go to Victor’s events in a bid for freedom. How did her ultimate challenge of the rules that night Victor drugged Eric, enslave her rather than free her? How can choosing the wrong rules to break sometimes lead to more oppression rather than more freedom?
11. How did Eric and Cara grow and mature as people throughout the book? What was their greatest accomplishment in the story, in your opinion?
Historical Note
As a mental health counselor, I always enjoy slipping in a mental health diagnosis here and there in my books. Cara’s spells would be diagnosed today as panic attacks. The main characteristics of a panic attack are rapid heart rate, dizziness, shortness of breath, numbness, and nausea, along with feelings of dread and shame and lots of negative thoughts.
The negative thoughts often have nothing to do with the original event that triggered the panic attack, but they are overwhelming nonetheless. Panic attacks are accompanied by a feeling that you will go crazy or die. Every year, many panic attack sufferers end up in the emergency room convinced that they are having a heart attack.
Historically, the two Dacian wars were a pivotal part of Emperor Trajan’s reign. Dacia had extensive gold mines, so after Trajan conquered Dacia, the Roman Empire was flooded with gold. Piracy was an issue that the Romans dealt with to a greater or lesser extent in every century.
Julius Caesar was captured by Cilician pirates and was only released for a ransom of fifty talents. At times when pirates grew too bold, such as when they burned the Italian port city of Ostia, the Romans would crack down on piracy. On other occasions, the Romans took advantage of how pirates provided a good supply of slaves by capturing free men and women and selling them into slavery. The Viri are a fictional piracy organization, but the Roman soldiers’ fight against piracy was a historical struggle.
Acknowledgements
To my critique partners and beta readers. Thank you for reading at a crazy fast speed so I could meet my deadline.
J’nell Cseleski http://www.jnellciesielski.com/
Ben Wand http://inventingbendwand.wordpress.com
Jennifer Slattery http://jenniferslatteryliveoutloud
J. L. Bradley http://jlbradley.com
Abigail Cossette Ryan http://zarecaspian.com
Rick Ellrod https://rickellrod.com/
Kati
Sue Campbell Freivald
Kim Griggs
And others, who did not wish to be named.
To my husband for putting up with frozen pizza, un-vacuumed floor, and incessant monologs about Ancient Rome while I crafted these novels.
To my parents, for all the hours they watched “Joe-Joe” so I could write.
Cavé
CAVÉ - (pronounced kah-weh) Latin meaning Caution or Caution (You).
The Cavé Books imprint is dedicated to relating true to life stories from the historical period in the time of the early church. Scripture offers much wisdom on the topic of caution. Proverbs 14:16 informs believers that The wise are cautious and avoid danger; fools plunge ahead with reckless confidence.
Daily life for the followers of Christ the Lord during the latter part of the first century in the Roman Empire is truly difficult for modern Christians to imagine. These godly saints behaved so bravely in such trying times because they cautiously but devoutly followed the narrow path, the path of the cross - “the Way” (John 14:6; Acts 24:14-15). The legacy of their devotion and caution is the body of believers we know as the church today.
More Books by Anne Garboczi Evans
Love & Warfare Series
For Life or Until
When Gambling
To Deceive an Empire
Whoever Does Not Love
Lawmen & Suffragette Series
Hot Lead & Cold Apple Pie
Plum Pudding Bride
Short Fiction
Christmas Treasures: A Collection of Christmas Short Stories
Forever Family Series
What’s a Foster Family?
What’s A Forever Family?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
annegarboczievans.wordpress.com
Anne Garboczi Evans is a mental health counselor, military spouse, and mama to an opinionated preschooler named “Joe-Joe” and a very dramatic baby named “Chip.”
Reading Rosemary Sutcliff as a middle school student and taking Latin in college instilled in her a love of the Roman Empire, leading to her Love and Warfare series. Moving to the CO Rockies inspired her to write the Lawmen & Suffragette series, romantic comedies set in the Old West. Working in mental health got her interested in writing women’s fiction.
When not writing or reading, you can find Anne introducing her boys to the outdoor wonders of colorful Colorado.
Website: annegarboczievans.wordpress.com
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