by T. L. Higley
He crossed the threshold of his house some time later, still debating whether to tell Octavia and Portia about the gossip, but one look through the atrium answered his question. Portia clung to her mother, her face buried in Octavia's shoulder.
Cato hesitated, but Octavia waved him in. "They are saying awful things about your sister." She patted Portia's back.
"I have heard."
At the sight of him, Portia pulled away from her mother and came to grip Cato's toga. The fabric fell away in her hands, but she seemed not to notice. "Lucius is furious." Her face was tear-streaked. "He had already heard about my being at the games with Maius, and now he says he is unsure whether to trust me. Can you believe that?"
Cato wiped her tears with his thumbs, then held her face. "Give him a little time, sister. He knows you, knows your love for him. He will come around."
"I hate him!" She sobbed once. "Maius! Not Lucius." And then more tears. Cato returned her to their mother, unwrapped his toga, and tossed it across the stone half-wall of the atrium. "There is nothing to be done except to stand and insist upon your innocence. He has no proof, and everyone in this town knows what he is. They have no reason to doubt you."
Her temper flared. "You are a fool, Quintus! Even Lucius doubts me! How can I expect—"
Octavia intervened. "Lucius is hurt, dear. His emotions cloud his judgment. Others will not be so harsh."
Portia's hands fisted at her sides. "Oh, you two. You are both naïve." She spun and ran for the interior of the house.
Octavia watched her go in silence, then spoke without turning back to Cato. "She may be right. There may be no recovery from this."
"There is only one way for this town, for us all, to recover. It is for Gnaeus Nigidius Maius to be no more."
Octavia's eyes slid to his face and she read him well. "You have decided, then."
He rocked forward on his toes. "I am still considering."
She nodded, as though content to give him the time he needed. They both knew her expectations.
CHAPTER 17
It had taken less effort than even Maius expected to begin the campaign of untruth against the sister of Portius Cato. He had more in his employ than he sometimes remembered, and a few well-placed whispers soon spread to jokes told in the baths, to glances in the market. Within a day Maius saw the fruit of his efforts himself when he conversed with several in the Forum, and the dalliance was referred to by more than one acquaintance.
He smiled and looked away from the merchant, as though embarrassed. "Ah, well." He shrugged one shoulder. "I am a fool for beauty, I will admit."
That evening, he again reclined in his atrium, satisfied that the situation was ready for him to bring his threats against Cato. The moon rose and still he lay there, thinking through his plan, and the way in which he would bring Portia to his house. His eyelids grew heavy with scheming, and though the dampness of the night fell on him, he was too weighted to move.
A scratching beside his couch half-roused him and he opened one eye, thinking to have a slave assist him to his bedchamber. But the flames in the brazier nearby did not illuminate a slave.
He must be dreaming, and the lovely Portia had come to him in his dreams as she sometimes did, leaning over him with whispered words of admiration.
But this was no dream, and though Portia did lean over him, it was with the deadly glint of a silver dagger.
He scrambled backward on the couch, and propped his hands behind him. "What? What is this—"
The dagger was at his throat in an instant. "Do not scream." Portia's voice rasped at his ear. "Or I swear by the gods I will slit your throat and not care who finds your blood on me."
Maius pressed his lips together and swallowed. Her eyes were wide with fury and a cold sweat formed across his neck and dampened his hands. "You cannot harm me without retribution."
"No one saw me enter."
Maius began to shake, and he held his hands in front of his face. "Please. What do you want?"
She advanced the dagger. "I want my life to return to what it once was."
Her hand shook. Maius saw the tremor and gained confidence. This act of defiance was outside her ability to carry off. She was bred to days of refinement and luxury, not knife-wielding in the night.
Summoning his own courage, Maius jumped from the couch, grabbed her wrist, and twisted the knife from her grasp.
Portia cried out and went down on her knees.
Maius held the knife in his right hand, and still bent her wrist with the other. She raised white eyes to him. Anger surged through him. Anger at showing fear in front of a woman, anger at how near she had come to taking vengeance.
He reached out with the knife, jabbed it close to her ear, and watched as she yelped and squeezed her eyes shut. With a flick of his wrist, he sliced a lock of her dark hair from her head and let it fall to the atrium floor.
She breathed again, opened her eyes, and went limp in his grasp. He let her go and she sank to the floor, her face in her hands.
Maius gazed at her there at his feet, and felt himself spent and satisfied. For good measure, he kicked her in the ribs. She made no sound.
"Take yourself back to your husband and your brother." His voice was a hiss only a whisper above the fountain's murmur. "Give them a message from me. Nigidius Maius owns Pompeii."
He poked at her with his toe again, and this time she roused, pulled herself to standing, then fled the atrium without a word.
Maius bent to the floor when she had gone, lifted the single dark curl and let it wind itself around his forefinger. And then he shifted his eyes to the doorway where she'd disappeared, and smiled.
CHAPTER 18
Portia remained in Cato's house for the day, and stayed the night, saying she was not yet ready to face Lucius again. When the morning meal was served in the triclinium, she joined them looking haggard, as though she had not slept. Octavia fussed over her, but Portia sank to a couch without speaking, almost without seeming to hear.
With his father gone, Cato was now the pater familias, and he performed his duties to the gods on behalf of his family today, taking a portion of the meal and tossing it onto the flames of the brazier, and setting aside a small offering of salt and fruits.
Isabella did her best to charm a better mood from her sister, but it was almost as though Portia had seen some dark specter in the night and could not shake it from her. She took no food.
Before they had finished their pastries and wine, however, the darkness seemed to spread into the house. A commotion in the front of the home made its way to the triclinium, where the four had already risen to their feet. Portia hung back, clinging to Cato's tunic.
Cato took in the three soldiers. "What is this?"
"We are under instruction to take Portia of the Catonii into our custody to await trial."
Portia gasped behind him, and Octavia and Isabella both stepped forward.
"Who brings a charge against my sister?" Cato's palms grew sweaty and he shifted to block Portia from their view.
"Nigidius Maius. On the charge of assault."
Cato reeled back as though he had been struck himself. Adultery, he had expected. But assault? "This is ludicrous. My sister has assaulted no one."
Behind him, Portia's fingers twisted his tunic until he felt her knuckles dig into his back.
"She has been accused of stealing into the home of Nigidius Maius and attempting to murder him with a knife."
Cato turned enough to see Portia's bowed head, then pulled away from her grasp. "Portia?" She raised fearful eyes to him, and he read the truth at once. "When?"
She leaned in, until they were cheek to cheek. "I am sorry, brother. I do not know what came over me. Last night—"
Cato put two fingers over her lips. "Say no more." He turned to the soldiers. "This situation should be treated as a civil offense, not a criminal one. I will discuss the matter with Maius, and we will come to a financial agreement—"
"Maius has indicated
that she will be tried."
Cato's mind raced. The Roman judicial system allowed much leniency in these types of cases, and a sufficient payment should cover the offense. That Maius would insist on making it a criminal case could only be for revenge.
Was it not enough that he burned my fields?
He remembered his words to Portia last night, that the people would believe her innocence. What would they believe now?
The soldiers would brook no more delay, and they shoved Cato aside to grasp both of Portia's arms. Octavia and Isabella both cried out as if they'd been seized themselves.
"Do something, Quintus!" His mother's eyes on him were like twin fires.
The soldier jerked Portia away from her family, broke the hold that Octavia had retained on Portia's robes. Cato was powerless to change this, she had to know that. Not now, not today.
He pulled his mother back. "We must let her go." He caught Portia's eye before they pulled her from the room. "Be strong, sister. We will have you home before you know it."
At the mention of her home, Portia crumpled, no doubt remembering the angry husband who awaited her there. The soldiers dragged her from the room.
And then she was gone, leaving Cato and the two women staring through the triclinium doorway in stunned silence.
But Cato could not keep silent long. No jesting comment, no irreverent sarcasm, could mitigate this disaster. Instead, a deep and furious anger boiled up from within and spewed out with flaming curses. He kicked at the couches, knocked over the tables of food, sent pastries scattering across the mosaic floor.
His mother tried to calm him, cool hands on his arms, but he shook her off. He despised injustice of any sort, and this was the worst kind, the kind that threatened those he loved.
In the stillness that followed his rampage, a terracotta jug teetered on its side on the floor, the only sound in the room save Cato's panting outrage. He lifted a sandaled foot above the jug and smashed it down, welcoming the pain of jagged edges.
Perhaps there had never been a doubt. Perhaps since that first meeting in the wine shop, when Maius had looked at Portia with greedy eyes and smirked through his subtle threats against Cato, perhaps he had made his decision in that very moment, though he had not known it until today.
Whatever the case, there was no longer any question. Cato would run for duovir.
And he would win.
CHAPTER 19
Ariella measured the hours by the bruises she received in training and counted the days until her next fight. Only a flamboyant performance in the arena would gain her the attention necessary to make a name for herself and win her freedom. Time passed in a blur of tears and sweat, a hardening of her muscles, a growing confidence, and a sense of what it would take to entertain the populace. She was ready.
Her increased commitment did not go unnoticed by her fellow gladiators, and they left her alone to beat against the palus, and showed more respect when paired with her.
On a sun-hammered afternoon, when most of the fighters had retreated to shade and sleep in their cells, Ariella still thrust at the palus, feeling herself watched by the always-smiling Jeremiah from his smoking cookfire at the edge of the training yard, and by the ugly Floronius, who also pushed through the customary afternoon rest.
Jeremiah brought her a dipperful of cool water and she stopped to guzzle it, then to squeeze his arm. He smelled of the boiled fish he was cooking.
"Where is my water, slave?" Floronius stood near the palus, leaning on his wooden sword jabbed into the dirt.
Jeremiah bowed slightly, then retreated to his bucket, refilled the ladle, and turned to trek across the grass.
"You are as slow as an old turtle, slave. I'm likely to die of my thirst before you reach me."
Ariella bristled. "Take a few steps yourself, then, Floronius."
Floronius bared his teeth at her. "I've seen the way he takes care of you, runt. You think he belongs to you? The runt gets his own personal slave, eh?"
Jeremiah's slow gait at last reached Floronius where he stood at the palus, and the larger man grabbed the ladle, sloshing water onto his feet. "Arrgh! Fool!" He slapped Jeremiah across the face.
Ariella approached, alarmed. She did not expect Jeremiah to retaliate, but almost she believed he offered Floronius the other cheek. "This is what you've come to, great Floronius?" She tipped her chin toward Jeremiah. "Choosing old men for opponents? What will Drusus say?"
Floronius's eyes went dark. "And you would tell your tales to Drusus like the child you are, rather than fight your own battles like a man."
Ariella took a step toward him, sword arm raised, but Jeremiah stepped between them, his palms up. "No need for this, men. Floronius, my apologies for both my speed and my clumsiness. Forgive an old man who has served too long."
But Floronius had his eyes on Ariella, and it would not end with Jeremiah's undeserved humiliation. "If you have served too long, then, old man, perhaps it is time you were relieved of your duties." He shoved the dull end of his sword against Jeremiah's shoulder, pushing him back.
"Stop." Ariella tried to push Jeremiah behind her, but Floronius seemed to seize on her weakness for the old man, and use it as a deadlier weapon than a sword. He shoved Jeremiah again before Ariella could intervene.
She saw the man stumble, saw his feet catch under him, but could do nothing to stop the fall. His eyes widened and his arms spread wide, and then he pitched backward and fell against the palus. Ariella felt more than heard a horrifying crack, like the snapping of a brittle tree branch. Torn between a blinding haze of fury at Floronius that prompted her to rush at the brute with her fists, and a flush of concern for Jeremiah, she chose to race to the older man's side where he lay in the dirt, panting.
"What is it, Jeremiah? Where is the pain?"
Jeremiah's face paled, and he reached to grip her arm with a strength that belied his age. She tried to absorb his pain through that grip, but he looked faint. He licked dry lips and rasped out, "My hip."
Floronius's derisive laughter echoed. "So we shall be looking for a new slave, after all."
Ariella ignored him. For now. There would time for retribution later. She ran a hand over the man's hip, but could feel no disjoint. Broken, then, most likely. "Do not move, Jeremiah. I will get Drusus."
He nodded slightly, eyes closed.
Ariella found Drusus in the portico at the end of the barracks' large training yard, sharpening a lancea. She pointed to the distant figure of Jeremiah, still on the ground. Floronius had vanished.
Drusus huffed in annoyance. "Well, I did not pay much for him, so the loss is not too great. It was time for a younger man, anyway."
"He needs a physician, Drusus! His hip is out of place, or broken. It must be set."
Drusus shrugged and returned to his sharpening. "A slave his age? He will not live to recover. Why bother?"
Ariella kicked at the lancea, knocking it from Drusus's hand. "Because he is a good man! Unlike the rest of the monsters in this place, including yourself."
Drusus stood, fire in his eyes, but Ariella did not care. "Prove me wrong, then, Drusus. Let me care for him."
"Take him to your own cell, then, if you wish. I care not what you do with him."
Ariella fumed at the cruelty, but said nothing more. She returned to Jeremiah with a few comforting words, then sought out Celadus to help her move Jeremiah as gently as they could manage. Once in her cell, she bathed his forehead with cool water and promised to find a way to relieve his pain.
But Jeremiah shook his gray head. "If it is my time, then I am only glad I have you to ease the passage."
Ariella's heart warmed with the words of affection, but she would not give him so quickly to the afterlife. "Do you have family here, Jeremiah? Anyone I can find to help you?" Why had she never asked him such a question?
His eyes misted. "Family, yes. I have family here."
"I will take you to them."
With whispered instructions he told her where his fam
ily lived. She would bide her time until nightfall, then somehow get him out.
Through the evening meal, where the other fighters laughed and told their ribald stories as usual, with no thought to the faithful slave suffering in her cell, Ariella choked down Jeremiah's fish stew and waited for her chance. When the time came for her nightly chains, she convinced Drusus to leave her free for the night, to care for Jeremiah. Her earlier words must have penetrated to some degree, for he said nothing, but left without locking her in shackles.
She sat beside Jeremiah on the ground, singing soft songs from home, while he dozed in snatches and groaned in his sleep. When the chill convinced her that night had fallen, Ariella slipped from the cell, found the wobbly wooden cart Jeremiah used to bring his purchases from the Macellum, and rolled it through the damp grass, as near to her cell as possible.
It would not do to involve Celadus in this effort. She did not trust him so fully.
She gave Jeremiah a rag to bite down on, then half-carried, half-dragged him to the cart. He collapsed in relief.
A few quick turns took them through the bumpy streets of Pompeii, each rut another injury to the dear man. The night air wrapped chilly fingers around her and squeezed. The shadowy streets quickened her pace.
"Are you certain they will be awake?" She rolled the cart to a stop in front of a large set of double doors.
"They will come."
Ariella took in the size of the doors. This was no poor relation. "Your family lives here?"
He smiled, his head against the side of the wagon. "They will come."
And so she knocked with trembling fingers on the door of this wealthy home, and waited for a servant to answer the late-night summons.
When the door opened, a bulky Persian stared down on her with dark and suspicious eyes. She stepped aside to reveal her cargo. "He is hurt. I have brought him to his family."
The Persian flicked a glance over the wagon, then his eyebrows shot up. "Rabbi!" He pulled the door wide. "Can he walk?"