A thought flickered through his mind. He touched his knife. Gwen would hate him if he carried out this idea.
Marcellus hardened his jaw. Better she hate him than she died, or have to endure that wretch Fabius, and the legate couldn’t halt this plan.
He’d need the Marcellus villa and some big-mouthed servants. He wound his way through pillared colonnades. Gwen stood in a knot of women at the furthermost edge.
Sliding between columns, he moved to her. He touched her arm. “Gwen.”
She startled.
He beckoned her behind a marble pillar that lent partial protection from the many ears and eyes. “Meet me tomorrow at the Marcellus villa, the tenth hour.”
“Of course, I love you.” She smiled at him.
He clasped his hand over hers. “I love you too.” But his plan would hurt her so deeply she’d never forgive him.
Chapter 10
As the dinner party faded, Marcellus strode toward the Aventine Hills. It would be a late night before the strenuous journey tomorrow. First, he had a detour to make.
By the time he arrived at the ramshackle apartments near the Tiber, he hauled a bound, gagged, and blindfolded man along behind him. Marcellus threw the man underneath an olive tree at the riverbank and went to gather his rabble.
Soon the men circled him in the darkness, a few paces from the roaring water. The night breeze whipped at him as he spoke in hushed tones. “Tomorrow, we leave for Germania.”
“Who wants to live in Germania?” The new recruit clenched his fists. “We planned to kill the tyrants of Rome.”
“If I stay here, the Shadow Man will kill me, or else Fabius will sell me back into slavery. Scarcely the way to lead a revolt.”
“You never should have asked to marry that patrician scum.” The new recruit slammed his hand against a branch and groans passed around the men, but they all nodded their acceptance of his Germania plan.
“Bruno, I need you. The rest of you, get some sleep.” As the men disappeared, Marcellus motioned Bruno to the muddy hole beneath the tree. The bound man struggled against the rope, what sounded like curses coming from the gag.
Bruno peered through the darkness. “Who’s that?”
“Drusus Valeri.”
Bruno whipped out his knife. “I’ll kill him for what he did to my sister.”
“No.” Marcellus grabbed his arm.
“That man deserves to die. A life for a life.”
“He’s the master of his house. If he dies, not in battle or from illness, the law demands every slave in his household die. They don’t deserve death.” If only he’d remembered that law three years ago before he’d caused so many deaths.
Hands balled into fists, Bruno glared at the blindfolded man.
“Broken bones are allowed.”
“Good.” Bruno stepped forward.
“Get me when you’re done. I’ll return him to his villa.” Marcellus turned up the path to the falling-down apartments. He glanced back. “Tell Drusus to take Livia back as wife.”
“I’ll do that woman no favors.” Bruno grabbed Drusus’ shoulder. “She made my sister take her life.”
“Is marriage to such as Drusus truly a favor?” It’s what Gwen wanted.
“Agreed.” Bruno thudded his fist forward.
The sound of feet cracking against ribs and muffled blows followed Marcellus as he walked up the hill.
If only tomorrow’s business would prove as pleasant, but it wouldn’t.
A rusty villa gate stretched across an all too familiar domus. One guard marched between overgrown flora that no hand had trimmed for three years now. Marcellus’ jaw clenched as he raised his hand to knock against the now-empty Marcellus residence.
“Who are you? What do you want?” The guard’s monotone voice rose and sank through the dawn air.
“Caius Marcellus.” He flashed the Marcellus signet ring on his left hand. “I’m moving in. I brought my own guards, so I’ll no longer need your services.”
“Consul Julius already paid me through the six-month.” Hinges creaked as the guard opened the gate.
“Then that money is yours to keep. You are dismissed.” Marcellus advanced into the courtyard where weeds grew around cobblestones.
“Gratias.” A smile lifted the man’s face. He dropped a ring of keys into Marcellus’ hand. “I hope you find all to your liking.” With a swing to his step, the man walked out the gate.
The heavy keys tugged at Marcellus’ hand. How many times had he seen these keys swing on the belt of the master of this villa? He shoved the images away. After nightfall, he’d never see this place again.
Marcellus pushed the villa door open. Dust and cobwebs covered the atrium, mildew growing on chipped tiles. He’d have to scrub the entire place and weed the courtyard if he wished to convince Gwen he lived here. “We need to hire day-laborers, a cook, and a porter at least.”
Bruno raised his eyebrows. “Where’s the coin coming from? This trip to Germania won’t be cheap.”
Marcellus sank his teeth into his lip. “All right, just a cook, but find the biggest-mouthed gossip in all of Rome.”
“We always hire discreet workers.” Bruno scanned his face.
Marcellus shook his head. “Not this time. It doesn’t matter if her food tastes like slop as long as she knows how to spread a malicious tale.”
With a nod, Bruno passed into the street.
Androkles kicked a curtain, revealing a dusty room. “You grow up here, Marcellus?”
“Only on occasion.” For the most part, he’d grown up with his mother at one of the Marcellus northern vineyards. Clear waterfalls, fresh mountain air, and snow in winter, no better spot on Jupiter’s green earth. Abominable taskmasters there, but after the work ended, he’d steal a loaf of bread and escape to the mountains for the evening hours.
“Any good memories here?” Androkles shoved another curtain.
“Here?” Marcellus snorted. “The domina ensured I felt the sting of someone’s lash every week I lived here.”
“The master any better?” A rotten curtain tore underneath Petiphor’s overeager hands, revealing the dusty shelves of the tablinum.
Marcellus clenched his fists. Oh, to burn down that room. “A thousand times worse.”
“Because?” Androkles swung his gaze to him.
“I’ve no wish to speak of it.” Marcellus glared at the sunshine streaming through the opening above to reflect off the atrium pool.
“I know the feeling.” Androkles glanced around the dilapidated space. “Why are we here?”
“To clean the place.” Marcellus flipped open the curtain to a familiar closet. A bucket and rags stood where they always had. He grabbed the handle and dunked the bucket in the atrium pool. “I have to make this villa look lived in before Gwen arrives.”
“Gwen Paterculi is coming here?” Androkles widened his eyes. “What are you going to do, seduce her?”
“Not all the way seduce.” Patrician men were dolts. A few passionate kisses and the world finding out could ruin a girl’s reputation, make her unmarriageable. Gwen needed to be unmarriageable.
“We’re supposed to clean this entire villa so you can almost seduce a girl you desire?”
“It’s not like that.” Kneeling, Marcellus moved the scouring cloth across the filthy tiles. “The Viri want her dead. Her father’s home is safe, but he intends to marry her to Fabius, and Fabius won’t protect Gwen, and she’ll die.” Marcellus dunked another cloth into the bucket. Guilt drenched him, but he was saving Gwen from death and the terror of marriage to a brute like Fabius.
Androkles raised a bushy eyebrow. “And seducing her?”
“Will make Gwen unmarriageable, so her father can’t marry her off to Fabius, and she won’t die.” Marcellus slapped the cloth against the mildew-stained tile and scrubbed his guilt into the mosaic.
The new recruit guffawed.
Marcellus glanced up. Normally, the rabble didn’t take a brush with death so lightly.
“You actually expect us to believe that story?” The new recruit kicked the water bucket, splashing dirty water over Marcellus.
Androkles smirked. “Are you sure this isn’t a little less about Gwen dying, and a lot more about you not wanting your archenemy laying his hands on your girl?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Marcellus threw a sopping rag at Androkles and another at the new recruit.
“If you’re going to all the trouble to ruin her reputation, you might as well as seduce her the whole way.” Androkles dangled the wet cloth between his thumb and forefinger.
“Start cleaning.” Marcellus scoured another tile.
The new recruit stomped his sandal over the wet rag. “I don’t clean.”
“You do today.” Balling another wet cloth, Marcellus threw it at the new recruit. It landed with a satisfying splash against his chest.
The new recruit crossed his arms. “Cleaning is women’s work.”
Marcellus groaned. “We were all slaves not too long ago.” Him still. “Don’t tell me you’ve never scrubbed a floor before.”
“I’m never doing it again,” Androkles said.
“I mucked horse stalls.” The new recruit gave the rag a disdainful look.
“With the condition this house is in, you’ll find similarities.” Dirt came off on Marcellus’ rag as he rubbed it across the tiles.
The new recruit dug his thumbs into his belt. “I’m not cleaning for some patrician—”
Marcellus glared at him and he cut off whatever Gwen-referencing oath would have come next.
“You don’t even get to keep the house or the girl.” The new recruit glowered at the water bucket. “We’re fleeing tonight to the Germanian wilderness. I think I deserve one day of carousing before joining those barbarians.”
“Not to worry, barbarians have plenty of strong drink too. Now do something about those cobwebs.” Marcellus thrust a broom into the man’s hands.
This afternoon, at the tenth hour, she’d see Marcellus. This morning, she had to convince father to allow her to marry Marcellus. Father had one sure weakness. Barefoot, Gwen pattered across the garden path.
Mother knelt over her herbs. Gwen plopped down beside her. Mother could convince Father. “Your herbs are blossoming beautifully, Mother.”
Mother narrowed her eyes. “You’d rather read political treatises than handle growing things.”
“Yes….” Gwen chafed one hand over the other. “You’ll tell Father to let me marry Marcellus?”
Mother dropped the trowel. “Marcellus is a horrid man. I’d like to stab a knife between his ribs just for asking for you.”
“I love him, Mother.” Marcellus cared about people and wanted justice for slaves and plebeians.
“Love is a wonderful emotion, Gwen, but he’ll hurt you even more because you love him. You watched what happened with Livia’s husband.”
Gwen squeezed the brick. “Marcellus loves me too. He’d never hurt me like Drusus hurt Livia.”
“Marcellus is a hundred times worse than Drusus.” Jumping to her feet, Mother looked ready to draw that knife she’d threatened.
“How could you ever compare Marcellus to that abominable man Livia’s father made her marry?”
“Let me see,” Mother held up the fingers of her hand. “Marcellus is given to drink,” one finger went down, “he’s violent,” another finger, “and he has more women than anyone can keep track of. He’s also more likely to beat you than love you.”
“That’s just his reputation. You can’t believe all the city gossip.”
“Men don’t develop such reputations without some material to work with.”
An uncomfortable feeling twisted in the pit of Gwen’s stomach. Last year in Britannia when she’d met Marcellus outside the city limits, he’d spent two hours helping an elderly man dig his cart out of a mud-swollen rut. She’d seen him play knucklebones with slave children too. “Marcellus wants to marry me. He wouldn’t want that if he didn’t love me.”
“Gwen!” Mother struck her hand against her brow. “You have a twenty-five million sestertii dowry, a father who is greatly influential in this city, and the face of an angel. There are a host of reasons a man would want you that have nothing to do with love or your best interests.”
“Marcellus isn’t like that.” Gwen dug her fingers into the dirt.
“How would you know? Have you ever even spoken to him? I know at all the dinner parties the girls spread wide-eyed longing about him, but you never were the kind to want something because everyone else wanted it.”
“I don’t want him because of the other girls.”
Mother touched the brick wall with dirty fingers. She moved her gaze across Gwen’s face. “It wasn’t John you kissed in that garden.”
“Um, I have research to do on the Viri. I really must catch the Shadow Man before Wryn does. Sorry.” Jumping up, Gwen headed to the villa.
Seventh hour of the day. Only three more hours until she met Marcellus. Gwen slipped the note she’d received from Aulia inside her tunica and hung back behind the curtain to her parents’ room. Voices rose and fell, and Mother spoke her name.
Flicking open a tiny sliver of curtain, Gwen peered through the opening.
Mother sat on the bed, hands pressed against the mattress. “Gwen spoke to me about Marcellus.”
“What’s left to say?” Father looked up from a stack of scrolls. “I mean, I can wipe her tears if I’m supposed to express sympathy, but nothing Gwen can do or say will ever make me sign betrothal papers to that ruffian.”
Mother ran her finger across the linen sheet. “What if she found a way around a betrothal?”
“What do you mean? Roman daughters are betrothed to whom their father chooses. Just because I haven’t exerted that authority to force her to marry, doesn’t mean I don’t wield it.” Father’s voice grew hard as a blade. “I will certainly wield it to prevent our daughter from marrying that violent lecher.”
Gwen pressed her lips together. Father misjudged Marcellus.
“Roman daughters?” Mother raised one fair eyebrow. “Gwen’s half Celtic.”
“And?” Father pursed his brow. “Are you suggesting she’d run away with him? Gwen would never do that.”
“I seem to remember you underestimating a Celtic woman once before.”
Terror streaked across Father’s face. “I’ll drag her back. I’ll lock her away. I’ll annul the marriage.”
“Could you do that? I would feel much more at ease about our daughter then.” Mother crossed to him.
“No. I couldn’t. If she runs away and cohabits with a man, the law gives her the right to stay with him.”
“Rome has the most woman-hating laws I know.” Mother raised her hand, pale skin reflecting the sunlight. “The one time I want Roman laws to be controlling, they fail me.”
Horror blazed in Father’s eyes. “She loves the fuller’s shop I helped her start. I can’t get her a political position in Moesia, but what if I helped her set up a shop there? A forge for weapons even?”
“Oh.” Mother brushed the back of Father’s chair.
Father twisted to her. “That should distract her from this villain.”
“I don’t know.” Mother ran her tongue over her lips. “A girl in the heat of her first love? And I sincerely doubt that it was John she kissed in that garden.”
“Marcellus dared to kiss my daughter? I wish I’d beaten him before throwing him out of the villa.” Voice rising, Father gripped the pommel of his short sword.
“This afternoon, I spoke with the servants at the Linthicus party, along with the servants at all the other dinner parties we’ve attended.” Mother ran her fingers over her palm. “They said Gwen disappeared into the gardens or empty rooms with Marcellus for hours. Not just last night, but at all the parties. The Agricola servants said Gwen went to the gardens with Marcellus last year in Britannia too.”
“Hours? You’re not suggesting….” Father gripped his chair arm
in a death hold.
“Given Marcellus’ reputation, it’s more than possible.”
“No!” Father clenched his hands across his face. Another moment, and he brought his hands down, but his face had the look of death. “I don’t care, you know, Ness. You’ll tell her I don’t care? As long as I can keep her free from the clutches of that ruthless man, I don’t care about the rest.” His throat moved as he swallowed. “Even if there is a babe.”
Ruthless? She loved Marcellus. He supported her ideals. He—
“Perhaps I’m wrong.” Mother sat back on the bed. “Gwen is much like me. Despite my lack of wisdom at that age, I carried a knife and would have used it on a forward man.”
“I pray heaven you’re wrong. I’m going to offer her some kind of business venture far away from here to ensure you stay wrong.”
Father wanted to help her with another business venture merely because he hated Marcellus so much? Gwen clenched her hand. Perhaps she’d live up to Mother’s admonition and run off with Marcellus. Father said himself he couldn’t stop her.
On the other hand, this was her home, and her parents loved her. Also, sometimes, on the nights with no moon, Marcellus frightened her.
Dropping the curtain, Gwen rapped her knuckles against the plaster wall.
“Come in,” Mother called.
Gwen pushed through the curtain. “I’m going to see Aulia. Her betrothed died this morning, and she sent a letter asking if I’d stay the night with her.” Aulia also asked if she’d help select the colors for the boar’s head on Aulia’s doomed betrothal gift for Wryn.
“The Mesopotamia legate?” Mother patted the space beside her.
Gwen shook her head. “No, he broke off the betrothal because he wanted to take his slave as concubine instead. This is a new man.”
“You can’t trust unscrupulous men.” Father clenched the wax tablet.
She held her head high, the silky folds of her tunica falling to sweep the ground. “I wouldn’t know since I don’t know any.”
Mother glanced at Father and shook her head. He glowered but subsided.
“Is it all right if I stay with her?” After she spent an hour at Marcellus’ villa. “Aulia will need comforting, though we should celebrate. She didn’t even want the wretched man her father selected, but she’d never cross her father’s wishes.”
To Deceive an Empire: Love and Warfare series book 3 Page 11