Emeritus seemed to remember himself and introduced his associate. “Otho, another of the city’s fullers.”
The man was as young as Cato and looked as though he had worked his way into the upper class from a poorer beginning. Cato bowed in acknowledgment. “And are the fullers united in their . . . dissatisfaction with the current leadership?”
Otho snorted. “The man is a—”
Emeritus laid a hand on the younger man’s arm. “Careful, Otho. We are, above all things, discreet.” He turned back to Cato. “You can be assured that the Fullers’ Guild would support a change.” He leaned in close, confidentially. “Especially one that would place a man of integrity on the seat of duovir.”
Cato pulled back and lifted an eyebrow. “And where would you find such a man?”
Emeritus smiled. “Your modesty becomes you, but is unnecessary. Rome is not so far away.”
“Then you have heard of more than my integrity.”
“We must not expect to always be successful in our attempts to quash corruption, Portius Cato. Failure is part of the battle. We are looking for a man who will fight. That is enough.”
The commendation was like soothing oil on an old wound, and Cato bowed in appreciation. “I thank you for your wisdom. I shall inform you of my decision.” He turned to leave, but Emeritus called him back.
“Do not tarry too long, Cato. Evil has a way of multiplying when left unchecked.”
Cato returned to the Forum’s main square, fortified that at least there was support from somewhere. But it would take more, much more, to make him believe he could be successful.
Were there others he could approach and try to read? The danger was in Maius’s loyal supporters getting word back to him about Cato’s inquiries. He mused over the possibilities of the fruitsellers, the goldsmiths, the carpenters. Each industry had its own guild, not so powerful as the fullers, but still able to deliver votes in a block that would be important.
He decided to search out the jewelers, as Taurus, who had worked so hard to convince him to run, was part of that guild. He crossed the Forum’s central pavement at a diagonal to the opposite corner where the shops might yield the man.
Indeed, he had not even reached the other side when Taurus appeared, spotted him, and strode toward him, his face pinched. “What is this, Cato? Do you attempt to disqualify yourself before you have even begun?”
Cato held up his palms and grinned. “I did not think a visit to the jewelers would be such a black mark—”
“Cato, be serious for once. I am speaking of your sister! It is all over the city.”
Cato waved away Taurus’s concerns. “She has done nothing to welcome his advances—”
“His advances? It is everywhere that she is after Maius to give her the son that her husband cannot.”
Cato’s blood surged. “You cannot believe—”
“It matters not what I believe! Perception is everything, my boy, and right now your family is cast in a very ill light. Adultery by a woman of standing is nothing to be ignored.”
“She has done nothing!”
Taurus shook his head and held up his hands. “Understand me, Cato. I do not care if your sister is as pure as lamb’s wool or as tainted as the foul sewage that runs the streets. I only care about your reputation, and how this situation makes you look.”
“And I care more for my sister than your cursed election!”
Taurus opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again and snorted. When he spoke, it was quieter, the tone soothing. “Listen, Cato. You could do much good in this town, and that includes helping your sister, and your mother with her endeavors, and any other women you wish to help.” His voice held amusement, but Cato’s thoughts jumped to Ariella. He had already done a bit of good for her in the past day, but she was still in danger.
“You must be reasonable about your priorities,” Taurus was saying. “First things first.”
Cato looked off to the mountain, so solid. Unlike the wavering allegiances of a town that put its own needs above all else. “Do I have the support of the jewelers, or is it only you?”
A slow smile spread across Taurus’s face, like a satisfied cat after a bowl of milk. “The jewelers are united behind me. You will be our man for duovir.”
Cato nodded, pivoted, and left before he could say something about the man’s “priorities” that would not be favorable.
Enough politicking for one day, however quiet it had been. He headed home, past the thermopolium where the smell of onions and garlic made his mouth water, and he stopped to purchase a bowl of meaty stew. He stood at the marble slab with others enjoying hot food from the sunken pots and scooped the stew with two fingers, savoring the flavors and thinking over the two encounters and the rumors that were spreading about his sister. A beggar came to the counter, asking for food, and Cato started to chase him off, but the shop owner held out a bowl to the man with a few quiet words—“in the name of Jesus.” A chill ran over him at the statement, the third time in as many days he had heard that name. In Rome and now Pompeii, they seemed to be everywhere, these mysterious followers.
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.
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 time was right 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 bri
ng 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.
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, then 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.
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.
18
Portia had 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. 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 for Maius that he burned Cato’s 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 cried out as if they’d been seized themselves.
“Do something, Quintus!” His mother’s eyes on him were like twin fires.
A soldier jerked Portia away from her family, breaking the hold 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 for 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 terra-cotta 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.
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 free
dom. 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.”
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