Chapter 3 #2
It was only relatively peaceful. There was still worry about bandits, barbarian and Roman alike, who wouldn’t hesitate to rob us and take Cassia away with them. The sooner we were indoors, the better.
The sun touched the tops of the mountains west of us, casting long shadows into the valley as I trudged toward the farm.
The farmhouse was a low-walled square, its protected courtyard housing Marcella’s few animals and her larger number of children.
Goats tottered in the green outside the farm’s gate, attended by a spindly lad. He glanced up, saw me, and rose from the low wall on which he’d been sitting, his thin body taut with uncertainty.
Then he sprang straight into the air and let out a wild shout.
“It’s Leonidas!” he bellowed. “Leonidas has come!”
The lad, Sergius, who was about seven summers, had been shy and reticent when I’d first found him near the body of a murdered man in a Roman shop. Now he yelled with the same enthusiasm as Xerxes’s offspring.
Figures poured from the gate. Most were small, ranging in ages from three—the last child Xerxes had fathered—to nine.
The children were followed by Marcella herself. She was not much taller than her oldest boy, who was growing quickly toward Xerxes’s height. She shaded her eyes and peered at me, standing her ground as I approached.
The six children, who’d never been afraid of me, swarmed me before I reached Marcella. They cried greetings, flung questions at me, and one even tried to open the pouch at my belt, looking for gifts.
Marcella stood calmly in the middle of the chaos, her round body, mouse-colored hair, and plain face belying her fierce spirit.
“Who have you brought with you, Leonidas?” she asked without greeting. “Cassia, I see. Who is the man?”
Fabricia, the oldest girl, came to her mother’s side, leaning into her. “Another stray?” she asked brightly.
“He is Xerxes’s brother,” I said quietly. It never did to keep Marcella curious for long. “So he claims.”
Marcella’s eyes widened, her sunbaked cheeks paling. “His brother …”
“Did you know of him?”
Marcella nodded, her gaze now fixed on the man who waited near the boulder with Cassia. “He spoke of him a few times. Lucius.”
“Yes.” I drew a breath and gentled my voice. “He looks very much like him.”
“Does he, now?” Marcella continued to stare at Lucius, who in the distance was little more than a male figure shrouded by my large cloak.
“I can send him away, if you want. But he needs a place to stay for a time, to be safe. He’s in trouble.”
Marcella snapped her attention back to me. “In trouble? That sounds like someone who’d be related to Xerxes.”
As I stood mutely, waiting for her answer, Marcella made a noise of exasperation. “Very well. Bring him, Leonidas.”
She turned for the gate, Fabricia following, clasping her mother’s hand. Fabricia grinned at me over her shoulder, swinging their arms between them.
The other children surrounded me as I turned back, raising my hand to signal Cassia to come with Lucius down the hill.
“By Mercury,” Lucius said, taking in the multitude as he reached me. “My brother was certainly busy. I must meet this woman who could snare him.”
The children transferred their attention from me and the stranger to Cassia, tugging at her hands. She sank down to speak to them, fond of Marcella’s unruly horde.
I led Lucius into the house’s large square courtyard of packed earth, where the animals came in for the night and Marcella stored anything she needed. Her stove and oven were also here, so the cooking smoke could escape to the open sky.
After dark, the stout gate was shut and bolted, keeping the world at bay. Only a siege engine could have breached the barrier, which Xerxes had built and I now fortified from time to time.
Marcella and Fabricia had retreated into the living quarters, which consisted of one large, low-ceilinged room on the ground floor, with a staircase to a loft where Marcella and the children slept.
Fabricia and Marcella were setting bowls onto the long table in the middle of the room when we entered.
I held Lucius back at the door, while Cassia and the other children surged around us into the house.
Marcella pretended to ignore me and Lucius as she set down bowls, laying spoons beside them. Finally, she turned from the table, pushed straggling hair from her face, and approached.
When she halted in front of Lucius, Marcella went very, very still. Her throat worked and her eyes moistened with sudden tears that she blinked away.
“You are very like him,” Marcella announced, with barely a catch in her voice. “But not quite the same.”
“I am a year older,” Lucius said. “He married you, did he? My brother grew up to have remarkably good taste.”
Marcella’s mouth tightened. “Not quite married.”
The oldest son, a lad called Ennius, popped around Marcella’s sheltering body. At nine years old, he already bore a legginess that said he’d match his father in height.
He stared at Lucius in both curiosity and some belligerence. Ennius was conscious of his place as oldest male of the family, which meant he considered himself obligated to defend his mother and younger siblings.
Lucius gaped down at him. “Jove and Juno,” he whispered.
“What is it?” I asked, moving protectively toward Ennius.
“He is so like Manius. When I last saw my brother, he looked like this, exactly.”
Ennius continued to stare at him, and Lucius’s eyes flooded with sudden tears. He put his hand over his face and abruptly turned his back.
Marcella didn’t move. She’d not trust him until she knew him further, and neither would I. Neither of us attempted to comfort him.
Cassia, who’d begun helping Marcella set things on the table, was the one who went to Lucius and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“It is difficult to lose family,” Cassia said in true sympathy.
Lucius’s back quivered, then he wiped his eyes and raised his head. “I lost him so very long ago, when we were both as young as this lad. I never saw Manius again.”
“Who is Manius?” Ennius asked in confusion.
“Your father, dear boy,” Lucius answered, clearing his clogged throat. “That was his true name, the one I knew him by.”
Ennius shook his head. “Our dad was called Xerxes.”
“Xerxes was who he’d become when I met him,” Marcella stated firmly. “He told me the name he was given at birth, but he’d forgotten Manius years ago.”
Lucius let his gaze rove the large room and collected children. “I am pleased my brother found such a life. Landed on his feet, I’d say. So like him.”
“He did not land on his feet.” Marcella’s tone told us she did not like Lucius claiming he knew her husband better than she did. “He was a gladiator, a slave. He died for that.”
Marcella turned her back on him and headed for the table, joining Cassia in laying out round loaves of bread.
“Poor woman,” Lucius murmured to me. “I did not mean to offend her.” His words held distress.
I shrugged and motioned to the table. Marcella was not a woman who made herself agreeable to please others. She had a heart as large as Campania, but this did not mean she was soft or weak.
“Mum is always testy when someone talks about Dad,” Ennius confided in us. “Except for Leonidas. He can talk about Dad all he likes.”
Lucius sent me an interested glance. “I see.”
I ignored him and tramped to the stool reserved for me when I visited. Lucius hovered uncertainly until Marcella fetched an extra, roughhewn seat and plunked it at one end of the table.