For Life or Until (Love and Warfare Series Book 1)

by Anne Garboczi

  Her knees drawn up under her on her bed, Ness tugged at the wool in her hands. She’d used up all her tears, but her body still trembled from them. The look Aquilus had given her last night at Bernice’s domus, she’d never seen so much hate in a person’s eyes.

  “You really did it this time, child.” Cornelia barged into the room with a basket of market merchandise.

  Fading daylight illuminated the room. Ness rubbed her red eyes and let the skein of wool she’d struggled over for the last hour slip through her fingers. “Did what?”

  “You’re the talk of the city. Everyone’s wondering when the divorce will be.”

  Ness grimaced. “He says he won’t.” She’d uphold her agreement with herself and give up all thoughts of divorce. All day she’d tried to work up the courage to tell him as much and apologize about last night, yet here she sat trembling in her room instead.

  Cornelia widened her eyes.

  Shifting on the yellow damask, she tried to get her heaving breaths to slow. Eleven months had passed since she’d seen Britain’s shores and her family’s faces. Now who knew when she’d ever see them again?

  When would Aquilus stop hating her for what she’d done to him? If only she hadn’t gone last night.

  “Did you hear about Cassius’ deal with the tribune?” Dumping the supplies, Cornelia moved to the door.

  Ness shook her head and stared listlessly out the window to the peristyle gardens. If Aquilus walked through those gardens, she’d muster the strength to go out to him and apologize to him then.

  “He’s adopting one of your sons in exchange for implementing some Germanian trade plan. Second most popular gossip at the market.”

  “What!” Ness jumped off the bed as her wool project went flying.

  Cornelia kept walking.

  Ness’ head pounded. She must have misheard. Adoption was a Roman tradition and Aquilus was Roman to the core, but he wouldn’t do this.

  A shiver passed through Ness. Even if Aquilus did invent such a perverted idea, he would ask her first. Wouldn’t he? Her hands felt as clammy as the Celtic dress she wore, just washed from last night’s wine stains.

  Across the room, Eric and Wryn’s chests moved steadily in sleep. She moved out of the room, then across the peristyle gardens to the tablinum. The curtain swished in the breeze, the room empty. What? Aquilus was always working in his tablinum this time of night.

  She wound around the main house, through the atrium, past the kitchen, and back out to the garden again. No sign of Aquilus.

  The only room left was his. The image of a statesman ancestor on the stained Cyprus door stared at her. She traced her finger across a shallow crack in the door of the room she’d refused to enter since they’d arrived back in Rome. The last time she’d set foot in that room was two years ago when she’d shared it with him.

  The door handle felt cold to the touch. She twisted the bronze. The hinges creaked. Squeezing her eyes shut, she pushed the door open.

  A breath later, she forced her eyes open.

  Aquilus sat on the bed. The Celtic blue coverlet she’d bought in Germania two years ago spread across the mattress. He leaned against the wall, a scroll clenched in his hands. He looked at her but said nothing.

  Her heart contorted. She recognized that red leather scroll. Though she couldn’t see it in this light, she knew the exact spot where her name embossed the leather.

  He gripped the scroll just like when they used to sit up late, her head scooted up against his shoulder, his arm around her.

  “What is this I heard about Cassius and adoption?”

  Aquilus swung his legs off the bed. “A year you scorn this room and now the one time I wish to be alone in this place, you’re here.”

  “Tell me it’s not true about Cassius.”

  With a clatter, the scroll fell against the tile. Aquilus crossed his arms. “Cassius is childless and wants to adopt one of my sons.”

  Her blood started to pound. He couldn’t truly intend to do this. “Your sons? They’re mine.”

  Aquilus shrugged. “Cassius is a powerful political ally. I’ll do as I wish.”

  “No!” All the blood drained from her body.

  “You’re the one who ruined my political capital.” Aquilus showed no emotion.

  She took back every kind thing she’d ever thought about Aquilus as she went berserk. “My children are not here to build your political capital!”

  Aquilus shrugged.

  “What kind of man are you? Selling your children.” Her yelled words slammed against the plaster walls.

  Aquilus stood. “You act like I’m selling a child into slavery. It’s an established Roman custom. Cassius will make him heir to all his property.”

  “Heir!” Ness shrieked. “As if I’d let my child be reared by another for money. This Cassius probably isn’t even a follower of the Way.”

  Aquilus shifted one eyebrow up. “As if our children are learning Christian disciplines from your example?”

  “I have a deeper faith than you could ever hope for, and I don’t sell babes to pagans for selfish gain,” Ness screamed so loud the cabinet to the right shivered on the tile.

  “Germania is not selfish gain!”

  “Some Christian you are.” She spat on the darkened tile.

  “I didn’t try to break my wedding promise, nor did I spitefully sabotage a project you spent day and night on for years.”

  “No, you just ruined my life!” Ness shouted. “I bet you never even pray for anything except your stulte political plans.”

  “Oh, I pray. Pray that you would stop being a barbaric vixen.”

  Her blood raced so fast she couldn’t breathe. She pressed her lips together as she tried to regain control of her voice. “I refuse to let you give away our sons.”

  “You have no choice in the matter.”

  Her heart thudded to a halt as her elbows pressed against her sides. “You can’t just do that.”

  “You have no idea what I can do.”

  A chill colder than Britain’s winter sliced through her, bringing uncontrollable shivers. “You’d best carry a knife, then, because I’ll murder you first.” She turned on her heel.

  Aquilus didn’t acknowledge the threat or her turning away. Very softly, when she had almost escaped earshot, he said, “I don’t think Odysseus wanted to leave him.”

  What was that supposed to mean?

  Ness moved back through the dark courtyard. How could Aquilus do this?

  Her head and heart beat as unpredictably as the moon’s shifting shadows. She couldn’t make her hands stop shaking. Eric and Wryn were her children. She’d spent day and night with them for one-and-a-half-years. This wasn’t happening.

  That out of control feeling swept over her, just like the day eleven months ago when she’d turned around in her field and come face-to-face with Aquilus.

  She’d vowed then she’d marry Cedric, and Aquilus had reiterated his wager that she’d play by his rules. So far, he’d won.

  Ness sucked in shallow breaths. She felt lightheaded as she stumbled through the darkness. She couldn’t even pray, just repeated, “Please, God. Please, God.”

  How could she change Aquilus’ mind? Wait, Aquilus change his mind? That never happened.

  She’d just leave like last time. Except this time Aquilus was here, not hundreds of miles away in Germania. Where could she even go? Her village hadn’t proved safe last time.

  How would she pay the exorbitant price of sea fare? She didn’t have the keys to his money box.

  Her stomach churned. Leaning forward, she lost her dinner into the shrubbery. Her body went rigid. Cornelia had been right all along.

  She forced herself down onto a garden bench. Her blood felt cold within her. She couldn’t let her sons be separated for a lifetime. The very thought left her head reeling, unable to comprehend it. These were her babes!

  Another babe? No. She couldn’t face that thought. What would she do?

  Ness gripp
ed the icy marble bench. What would she do?

  Wait. This was her third child. She could legally divorce Aquilus after giving birth. She sat straighter on the marble.

  How long did she have before Cassius signed the papers? Ness chewed her nail.

  Aquilus wanted political capital to implement his Germanian trade plan. She’d offer to play his political game, act the Roman matron, and convince the elite to support his aspirations. Then he wouldn’t need Cassius’ help, Eric and Wryn would be safe, and in eight months, this child’s birth would bring complete freedom.

  Chapter 19

  Ness patted Eric one more time and he subsided into a nap. Outside, clouds obscured the morning light. Time to finish yesterday’s business with Aquilus.

  “I don’t want to talk to him. I want to run,” she told the not-yet-bump under her tunica. She needed to stay, obtain the legal divorce, and end this, not skulk around the rest of her life. Yet to do that, Aquilus had to agree to her deal. Her heart slammed against her chest.

  Reaching out, she gripped the rumpled mass of her one unspoiled stola. Boadicea wouldn’t offer Aquilus this deal. That Iceni Queen would thrust a knife against Aquilus’ throat. No, the actions she’d planned were more along the lines of Cleopatra’s workload. What choice did she have?

  The worn fabric, stained by days of work, slid down her body. Her hands trembled as she caught her hair up in traditional Roman fashion. She could change her appearance easily enough, but manipulate politics? Rome hated her, yet to enact this plan she’d have to confront Rome.

  Eric whimpered. Ness drew her fingers over his little face. An uncontrollable shiver passed through her. For her sons, she’d pay any price. Taking a deep breath, she walked out of the room.

  Moments later, she struck her knuckles against the tablinum’s doorframe. “Aquilus.”

  The curtain yielded to her touch. Aquilus looked up from a stack of stamped letters. A small fire and two oil lamps supplemented the cloudy daylight. “What do you want?”

  His head on a platter. Ness smoothed her stola. “To talk.”

  “We’re not discussing the twins anymore.” The words went up like a wall as Aquilus’ gaze fixated on the tablets beneath his arms.

  Oh, yes, they were. Ness slid her feet further into the room. “I have a proposition.”

  “I have work to do.” Aquilus extended a wax tablet over the fire.

  “You want political capital. Why?”

  “You wouldn’t be interested.” Aquilus drew a stylus over the warmed wax, blanking the tablet.

  “Maybe not, but I can get it for you.”

  He brought his head up. “No, you can’t. You’re a Celt and not even a well-connected one.”

  Oh, to yank that tablet from his hand and smash it over his head. “I’m the wife of a tribune. I can get you the political favors you need.”

  Suspicion in his eyes, he fixed his dark-eyed gaze on her. “You know nothing of politics.”

  Ness leaned against the wall, treasuring its solidness, as her every muscle felt weak. “I knew enough to ruin your political alliance.”

  Aquilus glowered. “That’s the truth.”

  “I can get you whatever political awards you want.” She bit her tongue to keep the sarcasm out of the words.

  “I doubt that.”

  Her heart pounded, but she stepped up to his table and laid her hands on the wood. “Try me. I’ll go to that dinner party tonight at Cassius’ house.”

  “What’s my end of the deal? I’m sure you’re not spreading goodwill unasked.”

  Her hands went cold. He had to say yes. She pushed down on the table to keep her knees from giving way. “If I get you the political assets, then you don’t sell my children into adoption. Deal?”

  “You’re losing your command of Latin. It’s da, give, not, vende, sell.”

  She ran her tongue around the inside of her teeth. “My mistake.”

  “Even if you could work political miracles that I, who have spent my life in Rome’s affairs, have yet to accomplish, I don’t trust your word.”

  Ness yanked her chin up. “Are you calling me incompetent and a liar, Aquilus Paterculi?”

  He tipped his stool back and stared at her. “Yes.”

  “Give me a week’s trial and I’ll make you eat those words.” She jerked back from his table, her hands clenching into fists.

  Even Aquilus’ cough sounded sarcastic. “You expect me to believe that?”

  Ness yanked her chin down in a nod. “My honest word on it.”

  “As Juvenal said, ‘Honesty is praised and left in the cold.’”

  For just a moment, Ness felt the anger she’d been containing flush through her limbs and she forgot she needed this man’s aid. “Juvenal? All you do is quote these stulte philosophers. Why don’t you just become one?”

  “Juvenal’s a satirist, but Socrates agreed.”

  She widened her eyes. “In truth?”

  Voice biting, Aquilus reflected her prior cynicism and then some back at her. “The philosopher said ‘By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll be happy. If you get a bad one, you can become a philosopher.’”

  Oh, to seize that statue of the eagle and the raven and hurl it at him, but she’d not win this fight by hot words and strength of will. Uncurling her fists, she forced her sharp breathing to quiet. “What do I need to do for you to believe me?”

  Aquilus fidgeted with the tablets in front of him before he met her gaze. “It doesn’t matter if I believe you. I already gave my promise to Cassius.” His voice was quiet.

  Much too quiet! He looked chagrined. Why would he look chagrined? He’d said himself that he was in control of this decision. “So?”

  He sat straight up. “I said, I gave my word. To some people that still means something.”

  Aquilus abandoned his own sons, yet he judged her? Her veins popped as if the blood would explode from them. “And I suppose if you vowed to murder me, you’d keep that promise as well?”

  “I would not promise such an evil thing.”

  “But you did! Don’t you realize being faithful to your own is more important than a promise?” The tablets on the table jostled as she slammed her hands on his table.

  Aquilus stiffened his shoulders, and that look, she knew it only too well. He was refusing her, rejecting even this, her best offer, which had taken all her self-respect to present.

  Ness felt the blood drain from her cheeks. Her hands slid off his table. “Aquilus.” Her voice broke.

  He flicked his irritated gaze up.

  Her soul revolted, but she raised her hands, palms up. “I beg of you.” Her pleading voice quavered, no room even for anger as her limbs trembled.

  Then she waited. Waited for something she couldn’t control. Her body formed a translucent barrier over her emotions, the desperation seeping through every pore.

  Aquilus sat there, elbows on the table.

  Her stomach turned inside out, her breath coming so fast it choked her as sweat droplets formed on her forehead.

  If Aquilus said no, she’d leave. Yet, even leaving likely would fail. She fixed her gaze on Aquilus. Her hands shook. She couldn’t lose Eric or Wryn.

  His face was a mask of dark angles and hard lines.

  If he said no… what if he said no?

  Aquilus looked at her, and then at the tablets in his hands, then her again. He stretched his fingers across the wax and then tightened them against the table.

  Almost imperceptibly, his breathing quickened. He dropped his hand. “All right.”

  Her legs buckled.

  His mask returned. “I expect you to uphold your end of the deal.”

  “I gave my word.” She passed through the stucco doorway.

  A pace away, she stopped. If she meant to win this game, she needed to look the part, but the expensive fabric of her stolas now covered Eric and Wryn’s backsides.

  Ness dug her teeth into her lip. Slowly, she turned back. “Aquilus.”

&nb
sp; He looked up.

  “I need—” No. “I want—” that just sounded worse.

  Aquilus raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  She lifted her head high. “I cut up my formal clothes, so if I’m to go to your event tonight, I need money.”

  “You did what? On second thought, I don’t even want to know.” He fumbled with the lock to the money chest that he’d still not given her the key to and produced a bag of coins.

  She snatched it from his hand and headed for the door.

  “Wait.”

  Her face flamed with heat, but she stayed her step.

  He fumbled with a thin table drawer and, yanking it open, reached in. “Catch.” He tossed something small at her.

  Her hand jumped forward and she closed it around the flying object. She uncurled her fingers. A small iron circle lay in her hand.

  Eight more months. She jammed the iron wedding band on her finger. Oh, she’d wear it. He better believe she’d wear it.

  Wear it every gruesome day of these eight months until she could legally throw it into the blacksmith’s fire and melt it into the molten mass of ugliness that her marriage had become.

  One bare nod served as Aquilus’ greeting when she met him at the door that evening.

  Her newly-bought stola dragged down her limbs. Sweat formed underneath the brooches that clasped the fabric at her shoulders. Her lip trembled.

  Clenching her hand, she felt the cold rub of iron from Aquilus’ ring. She hadn’t participated in Roman society since before the twins’ birth. Society would exact its toll. She snuck a glance at Aquilus. He glared at the street. Would he?

  Her sandals clapped against cobblestones as each step she took brought her closer to her doom.

  When they reached Cassius’ house, a slave showed them to the alabaster-colored curtain portioning off the triclinium. The voices of the wolves rose from inside. Bernice would certainly attend tonight along with every other person she’d insulted only two days ago. Ness gritted her teeth. Any chance the cloth partition would turn to iron and prevent her from having to enter that room?

  Aquilus reached forward. His square hand looked so dark against the fair cloth. He pushed the curtain back. Light streamed out of the room. Faces from Praetor Ocelli’s house dotted the colonnaded hall. The people chattered on, unaware of her presence for one more precious moment.