Chapter 4
The sun had set, the yard lit by a nearly full moon high in the sky. Stars shone out in the blackness above, a very bright one hanging in the east. Cassia and Marcianus knew the names of all the stars we could see, though I never recalled them.
Marcella stood in the center of the courtyard, her arms folded, her gaze on the closed gate. She did not turn when I approached, though I knew she’d have heard my heavy tread.
I stopped next to her and tilted my head back to study the heavens. Marcella said nothing, the silence stretching between us.
“I am sorry I could not warn you,” I said.
“I understand why you could not.” Marcella’s voice was brittle. “You could not risk a message being intercepted or a messenger betraying you.” She let out a breath. “But yes, it was a shock.”
“I felt the same, when I saw him in the Forum Romanum. I thought he was Xerxes come back to life, or his ghost.”
Marcella’s brows went up. “Lucius feared being caught by assassins, yet strolled into the most public place in all of the Roman world? Juno defend the idiot. He is very like Xerxes. No sense of danger at all.”
Xerxes had died in a moment of carelessness. He’d never believed himself vulnerable, not until that final sword thrust.
“Like him and not like him,” I said.
Marcella faced me, her arms still tight across her chest. “Do well to remember that, Leonidas. He is not Xerxes. Lucius seems to have the same fascination for life as his brother, but Xerxes had a generosity of spirit that I have never seen matched.”
She spoke the truth. Xerxes had been good to his friends, his wife, and his children, because he cared for them. Deeply.
Again, something he’d never admit, but I’d observed it in him. For all his pranks and wildness, Xerxes had shown a gentleness for his children, and even for his plodding friend Leonidas.
I returned my focus to the sky. “I miss him.”
“So do I,” Marcella said softly. “It is a wound that will never heal.”
Marcella had a way of putting things. That was it, exactly. Losing Xerxes had carved a pain into me that I’d always carry, even if life had bestowed more on me since then. Freedom. A purpose. Cassia.
Marcella had her children, who adored her, and her farm, which had always belonged to her. We both had life, and we’d live it. But we’d never be rid of the hole Xerxes had left when he departed.
“Find a way out of this mess,” Marcella admonished me. “Then take him away again.”
“I’ll do whatever I can,” I promised.
Even I heard the uncertainty in my voice. Marcella chuckled.
“You mean Cassia will. I trust her to find a solution to Lucius’s problem, and quickly, while you guard her every step.”
“I always do.”
Marcella laughed again. “I have come to know this. But do take care, Leonidas. If the best thing we can do is float Lucius out to a lonely island and leave him there, then that is what we will do. Do not let him coax you into believing he is the man his brother was. Xerxes did tell me about Lucius. He was cunning and duplicitous even as a lad. Why do you suppose he was sold to a silk merchant who freed him while Xerxes ended up in the games?”
She had a good point, and I nodded.
“You must also remember that he is not Xerxes,” I warned her.
Marcella shot a dark glance toward the open door of her home. “Oh, I will. Never fear for me, Leonidas. I will make certain Lucius behaves himself. I vow that to you.”
We spent the night at Marcella’s farm, as it was too dangerous to travel back to Rome in the dark. Also, the gates would be closed to us, admitting only the delivery wagons that came from the warehouses to deposit goods throughout the city.
The loft held us all. The children, Marcella, and Cassia slept on one side, I bunking with Lucius on the other. Lucius rolled himself in the blanket Marcella gave him, bade us all a cheery good night, and quickly dropped off to sleep.
I lay awake much longer, like a guard dog watching over his charges. The children snored softly, curled around each other under blankets, and I heard Marcella’s even breathing.
Cassia was awake. I’d come to distinguish between the sound of her sleeping and the sound of her lying wakefully on the far side of our apartment.
Though I worried we might have been followed from Rome despite our precautions, nothing sinister occurred. The night was silent, undisturbed. Behind the locked walls of Marcella’s farmhouse, we were truly alone and safe.
In the morning, I woke to find Lucius gone. The entire loft was empty, in fact.
I sat up in alarm but calmed when I saw Cassia below, handing out chunks of bread slathered with cheese to the children. I heard Lucius in the yard, his tones petulant, Marcella’s firm ones answering.
I laced on my sandals, smoothed the tunic I’d slept in, and descended. Cassia handed me a wedge of last night’s bread smeared with soft cheese, and I munched this as I walked out to the courtyard.
The sky had clouded, but the air was calm and dry. May in Rome could be pleasant when it wasn’t raining, with warm sunshine but cooling breezes, a respite before the summer’s heat.
Marcella stood over Lucius, who was seated on the ground, a large, bad-tempered goat between his knees. His attempts to milk her had more white froth on the packed earth than in the pan.
“Hold still, blast you to Hades,” Lucius was snarling.
“She will not obey you,” Marcella told him. “You must perfect your aim instead.”
“She’s pigheaded stubborn, like all female creatures.
” Lucius jumped as the goat kicked back with her hind feet.
The pan upended, spilling what little Lucius had managed to capture, and the goat trotted off, head high.
“In Parthian lands, they have a demon called Angra Mainyu, and I swear it is manifest in that bloody goat.”
“Do not invoke demons in my house,” Marcella said sharply. “One never knows when they are listening. Now, catch her and bring me some milk. If you are going to stay, you must be useful, or I’ll turn you out to sleep beside the road and hope those seeking you don’t find you.”
I finished up my bread and cheese, enjoying the scene. Marcella turned on her heel to head inside and scowled at me.
“Do not look so pleased, Leonidas. You can help him.”
She swept past me where I stood like a pillar, and Lucius chuckled.
“That is one fiery woman.” Lucius joined me watching Marcella stride into the house. “I know exactly why my brother fell for her.” He scanned the yard and sighed when he saw the goat in the corner, enjoying some fallen straw. “It truly is a demon,” he whispered. “Mercury defend us.”
I’d dealt with this particular monster before. The goat was old and wise, plus large from the food she managed to find anywhere and everywhere. Marcella had three or four other goats, much more docile, but she was testing Lucius with this one.
Without a word, I strode with him to the goat, who waited until we were a few paces behind her before she bolted.
Between the two of us, Lucius and I eventually managed to wrangle the she-goat to a standstill.
I wrapped a strong arm around her while Lucius sat behind her and quickly streamed milk into the pan.
The goat squirmed and fought, but I held her as though she were a secutor doing his best to stab me in the ribs with his short sword.
We returned in triumph with our milk. Marcella glanced at the full pan and bade us set it on a bench without acknowledging our victory.
“Ennius, show Uncle Lucius how to clean out the pens,” she said as Lucius plopped, exhausted to a stool.
Lucius now wore a plain tunic that fit him so well, I suspected it had once belonged to his brother. Marcella was always practical, but I knew it must have cut her to dig into whatever box had held the garment and give it to Lucius.
Hence Lucius’s penance in the form of milking her most obstinate goat.
Lucius sent me a despairing glance but heaved himself up and followed the more energetic Ennius into the yard.
“He had no idea Xerxes died,” I said to Marcella after I helped myself to more bread and cheese. “It shocked him as much as the rest of us.”
Marcella frowned. “That may be, but Lucius is the sort who will take full advantage of hospitality if he’s not governed. His master gave him too free a rein, and look what happened?”
Cassia broke in from where she helped the younger daughter clean the dishes. “Do you believe he truly stole the money from the silk merchant?”
“He might not have,” Marcella conceded. “It is typical of overly prosperous merchants to stir up trouble and start wars amongst themselves. Even the ones in the village, who barely make ends meet, keep up a rivalry. I’m certain Herminius’s manager accused Lucius of all sorts, jealous of his promotions, as Lucius suspects.
But there is more to this than he is admitting, mark my words. ”
Marcella, no fool, was likely right.
While Lucius helped Ennius and the other boys with their chores, Cassia and I prepared to return to Rome. We, more or less, had obtained Nero’s permission to leave the city when we wished, but our benefactor, whoever he was, might withdraw his protection if we remained too long away.
Lucius emerged from the courtyard to see us off. He was as dirt-smeared as the lads, but he still managed a lopsided smile as the children swarmed out to say good-bye to us.
“We will take this.” Cassia held up Lucius’s cloak. “And keep it safe for you.”
Lucius’s eyes widened. “Have a care. That will be all I have left if Fulvius succeeds in discrediting me.”
“Which is why we will look after it,” Cassia said. “It might become damaged here or stolen if you attempt to seek refuge elsewhere.”
“Where would I go?” Lucius asked in amazement. “Oh, very well. It is true that if that be-deviled goat gets hold of it, she’ll chew it to shreds. I can hear her plotting, even now.”
Cassia slid the neat bundle of the cloak into her bag, which she gave me to carry.