Ave, Caesarion (The Rise of Caesarion's Rome Book 1)

by Deborah Davitt

  Eurydice swayed against him, feeling as drunk as if she’d had a full pitcher of unwatered wine. “Too far. I can’t see them,” she said miserably. “And it’s very hard to do two things at once.”

  “They’re going to have to trust in the gods and the skill of their crews, then.” Caesarion wrapped his arms around her as she shivered violently from the cold seawater that had soaked her to the bone. “Easy,” he murmured in her ear. “Trying to keep you warm till the storm’s passed enough for us to go back inside.”

  Once back under a roof, he’d helped her strip off her wet clothes himself, rather than calling for their seasick servants from the decks below. No blushes. She’d been exhausted beyond anything she’d ever felt before. Then he’d dried her with a blanket, though her hair would stay sticky and uncomfortable with salt till they reached land—no fresh water could be spared for washing it. And then he helped her get into the mostly dry clothing stored in one of the chests under the bunks, before stripping his own clothing and doing much the same as she shivered under the driest of the blankets on one of the berths. And then once again, for warmth, he’d joined her there. Both of them too tired and physically miserable to do more than hold each other as tightly as possible.

  But when dawn came, the winds had died to only a howl and not a shriek, and the waves had only a little chop to them, though the ship still groaned and creaked around them. And waking in a haze, feeling somehow giddy and purified, as fasting and passing through great danger to the other side might do, she felt fervent, sweet kisses at her lips and throat.

  And she responded drowsily in kind. Felt the urgency in his tight grip, and then he slid on top of her, keeping the bulk of his weight from her by staying on his elbows. And she’d felt the pressure of him between her legs, rubbing against her in the place she most wanted him to touch, and she opened for him, unhesitatingly.

  Rocking against each other, imitating the rhythm of the boat on the waves. Sweet fire licking at her every time he ran his length across her, layers of cloth still wretchedly between them. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, and not daring to use words in case they broke the spell, lifted herself up to kiss him again. He pulled away, but only far enough to whisper in her ear, “Show me the love-spell.”

  Her eyes widened, but again, no blushes. Suspended in this moment, out of time, with the wind covering any noise they made, and free from the danger that had purified them, they were more truly alone than they’d ever been, and it hardly felt real. She reached down and hitched up her long skirts, meeting his eyes, and ran her fingers between her own legs, restlessly stroking the place where she burned. And his eyes lowered, following the path of her hand, and his eyes suddenly went fixed, like an eagle that had spotted prey and prepared to stoop for it. His body went rigid, and he slid lower on the bed, gently urging her legs further apart, improving his view.

  Now she did flush a little. She hadn’t anticipated exactly how powerful his reaction would be. She slid one of her fingers inside, stroking lightly, and said, softly, “Eagle. Aquilus. Caesarion.”

  “Don’t stop,” he told her, his voice hoarse.

  A quiet admission. “It always feels nice, but it never seems to go anywhere.”

  His eyes flicked up. “Poor thing, you never quite ease the ache?”

  She shook her head, her eyes widening as he pulled her hand away gently and kissed her damp fingers. “Do you want me to ease you, beloved?”

  She sat up a little. “Can you?’ Confusion in her voice. “Without . . . everything ending?” Without me getting pregnant. Oh, gods. I want to give him children. I want to be his wife. But if I do, then all the joy in our lives ends, just as we’ve found it.

  “Yes,” he whispered, and he replaced her hand with his own. Firmer. Stronger. And much more insistent. “No sounds, beloved,” he warned her. “Pull the pillow over your head if you need to. But not a sound.”

  But when he kissed her there, lips and tongue moving at the nub while his warm, big fingers stroked her inside, she couldn’t have held back her muffled noise of delight even with an executioner’s axe over her head. And then he pulled his head back, and gave her just his fingers, and she teetered on the brink, afraid to let go at first, and then, reaching out and sliding her mind into his. Touching the fire between them. Feeling his own need, like a banked layer of coals under a blanket of ash. And then his joy as she surrendered to the pleasure of his touch. “Gods,” he muttered a few moments later, stroking her face. “I want to be inside of you so badly.”

  “Then take me,” she whispered.

  “I swore I’d treat you with the honor due my betrothed.” He looked down at her lifted skirts and smiled briefly. “Honor’s a little tarnished. And I don’t want this to end.”

  She stroked his face. “Mother says there are ways to prevent conception.”

  “I am not putting a plug of dried crocodile dung up inside of you. That’s a trick a prostitute I once lay with tried.” He sounded grim. “It might work with most of her normal clients. But I’m . . . built on bigger lines than most Romans.” He paused. “I’m also not helping you paint white lead all through you. Water from a lead pipe tastes fouler than from a clay pipe, and lead miners grow ill and die. That’s why it’s a job served for convicts condemned to slavery. I won’t risk your health that way.” He kissed her urgently. “And all the herbs that might work are someplace on land. Not here.”

  She frowned slightly. “Not that it matters,” she asked softly. “But how many women have you lain with?”

  Caesarion frowned now as well, rolling to the side. “Five,” he said at length. “Father took me to a brothel for the first time when I was thirteen, after my first campaigning season with him as a man. Alexander got the same, but before the campaign, on his birthday.”

  “Oh.” She rolled over, putting her head on his shoulder.

  “Does it matter?” he asked carefully. Passion seemed to have died for the moment.

  She considered that. “I’m a little jealous,” she admitted. “But I suppose it doesn’t matter if you didn’t love them.”

  He snorted. “No. It served a need, and an educational purpose. My heart is yours. And my body too, now.” A rueful note in his voice. “Would you like to know, sister dearest,” a hint of irony in those words, “how awkward the first time was, with a woman old enough to be our mother?”

  “No!”

  He pitched his voice to a falsetto, “’My, aren’t you endowed for your age—” he lowered his voice to its natural range, adding, “I’m fairly sure they say that to everyone. It brings in more coin.”

  “Oh my gods—” Eurydice curled into a ball against him, trying not to laugh.

  Back into falsetto now: “’Oh, there’s a good lad. Most first-timers don’t last that long. A few of them even spill before they find the correct hole—‘“

  She couldn’t help it. The laughter couldn’t be denied any longer, and it came out in peal after peal. Only once she’d slowed out of a desperate need to breathe, Caesarion rolled her to her back again, and whispered in her ear, “Just so you’re aware . . . once we’ve figured out a few salient matters . . . such as trying to keep you from getting pregnant, and how in the gods’ names I can marry you . . . I absolutely know which passage is the correct one.” A kiss that left her speechless. “You won’t be disappointed. And I can wait.”

  She swallowed as he rolled off the bed. “Isn’t there any way,” she asked, as softly as she could, “for me to ease you?”

  He moved against the roll of the ship and knelt beside the sleeping couch, his eyes intent once more. “Yes,” Caesarion told her tightly. “But I’m afraid that once I’ve had half a cake, I’ll just want the rest.” He kissed her hands. “It’ll be better when we’re on land,” he promised. “We’ll be too busy to think about it as much.”

  That had been ten days ago. The captain had stayed well away from Eurydice for the rest of the voyage, but the helmsman had clearly told the rest of the crew what she�
��d done to stave off Neptune’s wrath, and on the few times she’d ventured from the privacy of their stateroom—always with Caesarion—she got awed looks from men two to three times her age. And the odd gesture to turn away evil, when they thought she wasn’t looking.

  The other ships had regrouped with them—no losses, thankfully, though some of the ships had been crippled by the loss of a mast. And she’d spent her time sharing the minds of seabirds and the dolphins that sped alongside the ships, luxuriating in their playful natures as they leaped from water to air and back again. The helmsman was right, she realized. Water and air behave the same way. The dolphins cut through the water the way the ships do. Air is . . . the same as water. Or at least it behaves similarly. I wonder if under special circumstances, earth or other solids can behave the same way?

  Some days, she felt like Zaracas, the Carthaginian philosopher who’d come to Rome at Alexander’s request to work with her. I wonder too much, too. Is everything we think we know about the world wrong? Is there any truth in what the ancients thought? Is everything made up of atoms, and how would we ever know? Was Tahut right when he said that there’s fire in everything?

  And then they docked at Valentia, and begun the long process of disembarking twelve thousand men. It took days, and she and Caesarion were invited to stay at the home of a patrician Roman family that had not thrown in with the Tillii, and who’d managed not to get themselves killed by the locals—most of whom, as Malleolus pointed out quietly, did look a little more Carthaginian than Eurydice might have expected.

  It was expected for nobles to offer hospitality, but Malleolus shook his head when the subject had come up. “I can’t guarantee your safety in the villa,” he’d told them both, gruffly. Over the years, Caesarion’s trust in the half-Gallic centurion had wound up giving him more authority than his comparative low rank would normally accord. “The lads and I would sleep better if you stayed in camp, my lord. Go to dinner with the nobles, so they’re not affronted, but I’d hate for them to try to cut your throat in your sleep.”

  “Wouldn’t work,” Caesarion had replied, smiling.

  “True enough,” Malleolus had replied, not doing so, himself. “But your lady sister doesn’t have your advantages, my lord.”

  And that had been that. Eurydice had watched Malleolus step out of the command tent, and told her brother, simply, “You need to promote him. He’s become your chief bodyguard. That needs to be recognized.”

  “I know. But he’s not noble-born. Promoting him to tribune inside the legion might cause some bad feeling. If a centurion gets that promotion, he’s usually transferred to command the auxiliaries for a while.”

  “Only from the patricians, surely?” She hesitated. “The rest of the men have known him for over a decade.”

  “I might reorganize the Tenth entirely,” he muttered. “That change is needed. They’re on duty all year, since they’re our house guards, not just a military unit. If I break them in half, and the ones who solely work in the field stay military, and the other half stays our house guards? I can make him their prefect. In charge of all our security. And perhaps helping Mother and Alexander with intelligence gathering.” Caesarion looked at the ceiling. “Assuming Mal doesn’t get his subligaria twisted over the idea of no longer being a proper legionnaire.” Subligaria were the loincloths usually worn by men, and sometimes by menstruating women and athletes. Eurydice had several of these now for riding, as well as strophia—breast bands worn by female athletes, which she had tried under her kalasiris or stola, with varying degrees of success.

  She’d glanced at the open flap of the tent, and refrained from taking his hand across the table. “I think his first concern is loyalty to you,” Eurydice murmured. “That’s . . . something that should be rewarded.”

  He nodded. “I’ll figure something out,” he promised.

  As he’d predicted—and to her mingled relief and disappointment—once they’d gotten underway, the tension between them had diminished. He was constantly busy with reports moving up and down the massive column of men. And even if she hadn’t been mentally exhausted from keeping overwatch all day, every day, her first real taste of campaigning from horseback—eight hours a day in the saddle, with only a brief respite at noon for a quick meal, taken standing, and so that everyone could find somewhere to empty their bladders—had left her in a stiff ball of pain every night for the first ten days, which had gradually started to ease. Still, it’s better by far than the carruca, she told herself, and kept going.

  And two days later, with their army resupplied from the sullen merchants of Valentia, they marched north. Some of the citizens gathered to wave and cheer—perhaps out of genuine hope that the legions would quash the Tillii. Perhaps out of concern that failing to appear loyal to Rome would have fatal repercussions. Eurydice concentrated on keeping her balance in the saddle. Her reins were tied to Caesarion’s saddle, so she didn’t have to divide her attention three ways. Because now that they were on land, her responsibilities were clear, if exhausting—don’t fall off the horse, and keep a constant vigil from the air, looking for ambushes set up along their route north. The native population was agitated, and might well see an opportunity to throw off Rome’s yoke entirely, while its forces were divided, after all.

  After seven days at the march, they passed through the tiny Carthaginian town of Barcino, named by the father of Hannibal. Most of the actual Carthaginians had been Romanized; they wore tunics, and seemed eager to trade, remaining wary of their Iberian tribal neighbors in the towns further inland. “It’s a good place for a city,” Caesarion muttered. “Hills to back it.” He frowned, and waved to one of his scribes. “Make a note for when I get back to Rome,” he called. “I want to build this town up. Get a proper wall around it. Tower on the headland. And more damned quays. It was too small for our fleet to put into, which is why we had to land at Valentia. We need more ports in Hispania, especially if the locals continue to give us trouble.”

  A quick salute, and the scribe moved off, digging in his pack for a wax tablet and stylus.

  And then, finally, seven days of rough hills and bad roads later, they arrived at the outskirts of Emporion, a small city that had its back to the Pyrenees mountains. Eurydice, who’d never seen the Alps, but had at least traveled through the Apennines in a swaying carruca last year, to and from Brundisium, gaped a little at the towering peaks. “This is the city where Scipio landed to start conquering Hispania two hundred years ago,” Caesarion told her as they perched on their horses’ backs, overlooking the city from a nearby hill. His voice was dark. “It was a Hellene colonia at the time. And now we have to take it back from the Tillii.”

  “Another siege?” she asked, dreading the reply.

  “Tell me what your birds see,” he replied, nodding skywards.

  She found a hawk effortlessly, and banked through the air on its wings, studying the city. “The docks . . . there are towers on the headland by them, but I only see a few men guarding them.”

  “How many?”

  “Two or three on each. Not under arms, brother.” She blinked. “They’re watching the sea, not the land.” She brought the hawk around for another pass. “The city wall—the gates are closed, but again, the guard is minimal.”

  Caesarion’s voice held a frown now. “Doesn’t sound like they’re prepared for a siege. Wary, but not hostile.” He raised a hand, getting Malleolus’ attention. “Get a guard together, and grab someone of decent rank, but who’s needed a kick in the head recently. They’re going to ride to the city gates and demand that the townsfolk open their doors in the name of Rome.”

  Malleolus didn’t smile. “Shall be done, dominus.”

  He saluted and moved off, and Caesarion glanced over at Eurydice as several of his legates approached—including Cicero Minor and some of his command staff from the Seventh. Eurydice, from above, barely recognized Alexander and Tiberius in full armor, and Antyllus, Antony’s son, trailed behind them, along with the officers of the
Fourth, with whom he’d been assigned to make up for losses among the staff due to winter fever.

  “Keep an eye on the town’s surroundings,” Caesarion told her, his voice hard. “This smells entirely like an ambush.

  Alexander’s voice now. “What are the odds that they just pushed on?”

  “They’d be stupid to,” Cicero Minor replied bluntly. “This is the only city of any size for miles.”

  Tiberius now, quietly, “The town looks too small to be defensible. Not for a prolonged siege, my lords. It’s barely a half a mile from the western walls to the docks.”

  “They’d be hard-pressed to fit two legions inside there, along with all the inhabitants. Unless they’ve crammed five men into every house, and they mean to jump out as soon as we ride in,” Caesarion agreed dryly. “Eurydice, any signs of where they might be camped?”

  “There’s a square area north of town, behind some hills,” she reported after a moment. “Bare of all vegetation, but no fence. It’s not a farmer’s field. There are regular holes in the ground outlining its shape.”

  “That’s from the vallum,” Alexander said shortly. “Any tracks?”

  She shook her head. “There’s a road leading west—dirt, and well-worn. They might have taken it.”

  About an hour later, a delegation of residents emerged from the city warily, holding their hands up slightly and cringing as the legionnaires of the Tenth chivvied them back to where the command tent had been set up. Eurydice didn’t envy them. They got to pass twelve thousand or so troops who’d spent the past month crossing an ocean and increasingly rugged countryside to get here, and had just been ordered to make a marching camp instead of forming battle lines. The legionnaires weren’t quite spoiling for a fight, but they’d spent all winter preparing and drilling. They were fresh and ready for one, if it came to it.