Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
Cornelius had been the darling of the Imperial court when Julia first lured him into her arms, in the last throes of her father’s illness but before he’d died, when she’d been desperate to feel anything besides grief and hadn’t cared how. Underneath his polished manners, Cornelius was sweet and philosophical and a little shy.
And his family had their own legion.
His mother, Lucretia, had come to her in the basilica not a week ago, as Julia was ostentatiously following her brother’s orders to pray for her father’s soul. She approached as Julia knelt before his body, laid out on its plinth.
It had taken him so long to die. So long, after the bloody sieges of Milan and Verona, after watching the armies of Alaric of the Goths pillaging the countryside with no ability to stop it. Julia had been in Rome during the sieges, but she had seen what they did to her father.
Now he was dead. It was hard to imagine a world where that could be true. Julia knelt and pressed her forehead to the cool stone of her father’s plinth, shutting her eyes to the smell of the perfumes someone had doused his robes with to rout the smell of death. Why am I so angry with him? For leaving her—no. For leaving her before she had a chance to prove herself.
“Princess Julia. Augusta. My dear. Have you heard what I said?”
Lucretia spoke in the appropriately hushed tones of a penitent, kneeling beside her at her father’s corpse. There was a note of strained impatience in her voice.
“I heard you perfectly, Lucretia.” It was far too early in the day for this conversation.
“Forgive my insistence, Princess. But times of transition are the most dangerous. We must forge alliances for our own safety.”
“I had hoped to drink my way through the transition, actually.” It was her age-old tactic for avoiding unpleasantness—simply drink until things were pleasant. “Tell me again why I should marry Cornelius.”
“How bad could it be, my darling? He still pines for you, you know.”
That was hardly a reason to marry. “Everyone knows you don’t fall in love with your spouse, Lucretia. It’s embarrassing .” Her own mother had warned her that her husband would most likely smell like a goat shed, and not to expect to love him.
Lucretia smiled. Older than Julia by decades, her skin was still flawless. Whispered rumors claimed she kept it that way by sacrificing virgins at the moon-tide and bathing in their blood, and Julia was half-certain those rumors were true.
“You are correct, of course. We cannot afford to be sentimental. Now least of all.” Her voice took on a hard-edged practicality. “Our family holds a manor near Noricum and a small marble mine, out of Stilicho’s reach. It is lawless there, of course, but we have a legion to defend it. We could provide you with safety and shelter, should the worst happen.”
The worst. She could surmise what Lucretia meant. Her father had left behind plenty of discontents, and if one overthrew her brother, Julia wouldn’t give a copper aes for her own life. It would help to be tied to a powerful family with holdings outside the Empire.
She had extricated herself from that conversation without making promises. But now, if Cornelius was amenable, she would make her promises directly to him.
* * *
Now, in the sanctity of her rooms, Julia prepared her battle armor. She called for a bath of scented rose petals, had her nails trimmed and filed, summoned a cream of crushed pearls for her skin. Julia bade her women carefully arrange the thick crimson fall of her hair. She chose a white silken nightdress edged with pearls; knowing how her body would be silhouetted through the diaphanous fabric. Cornelius would fall to his knees.
She sent away all of her women. All but her head chamber slave, Agathe, who she could trust implicitly. Spies were everywhere, but she would maintain an aura of silence over what passed in her bedroom this night. “Send him in, Agathe.”
“Apologies, domina . He is not here.”
“Not here?” She had sent her message hours ago. “He’s not here at all ?”
“No, domina .” A pause. “Perhaps I should send another message—”
“No.” How embarrassing that would be. “Just fetch some wine.”
* * *
Three glasses later, Julia heard a noise at her door.
Quickly she straightened from her messy slump on the couch just as Cornelius walked into the room, golden-haired and lightly muscled beneath his snowy toga. He stopped, his eyes on her.
Speechless. That boded well.
Julia straightened, wineglass held thoughtlessly to her lips. “Cornelius! Whatever are you doing here at such a late hour?”
“You sent for me. Apologies for my lateness.”
“Ah. So I did. I quite forgot.” She waved a hand airily. “I suppose you might as well stay.”
“Forgive me. You are so beautiful I’m having trouble forming words.” His smile fell. “Is it true? You’re pledged to Olympius?”
“Until I can figure a way out.”
He hastened to her side, knelt by her couch. “What took you so long? You haven’t sent for me in ages. Why?”
Because Father died , went the answer. Because Father died and there was no room for anyone else. She would never apologize, of course. He wouldn’t be here if he did not forgive her.
“You’re too thin.” He drew her into his arms as if she might break. “At your father’s funeral you looked so thin . I wanted to—”
There was too much emotion in his tone. It made her slightly panicked. Julia slid a hand into the close-cropped curls at his neck. “Cornelius, stop talking.”
She pulled him to the couch and kissed him.
Cornelius groaned in the back of his throat. His arms tightened around her, and Julia felt the old, familiar urge to pull back. To halt things before they went too far.
But why should she? What was she saving herself for? She had always known that her virtue belonged to whoever her father chose. But now her father was dead and her brother had given her far too cheaply to the man she despised most.
Wouldn’t it enrage them if she gave herself to a man of her own choosing? It was like stealing herself back.
* * *
Cornelius’s toga was off now. His torso gleamed, pale and hairless against the white linen of his undertunic. Julia let her breasts brush his bare chest; let him curl his hands into her hair. She could feel his arousal pushing at her stomach and she knew she ought to feel something. He certainly felt something.
“Marry me, Cornelius.”
He blinked at her, astonished. “What?”
“I know it sounds rather mad. But I’ve thought of nothing else since my brother made his wishes known.” Julia sat up, shoulders bared to the moonlight. “Don’t you want to?”
She drew a finger idly down his chest and he tilted his head back. “God—keep doing that.” Julia let her mouth follow her fingers down his slender torso. Down to where his arousal tented the cloth that covered his hips. “Julia. Yes— ”
Abruptly she batted his hands away and rose, wrapping a silk robe around herself.
Cornelius sat up, frowning. “Where are you going?”
“Pouring wine, silly. Aren’t you thirsty?” She went to the table and poured for them both. “You’d be second in line for the throne if you married me. My brother has no heir. And the public likes you better than him.”
He propped himself up, his toga draping down to his waist, arousal still very much in evidence. “Is this some joke?”
“Not at all.” Julia handed him his wine, a cool smile curving her lips. “I hear how the people cheer when you go out. And your family has its own claim to the throne. My brother is not popular, not like that. His advisors see you as a threat.” She took a sip of wine. Not too watered, thank the gods. “Do you not know your history? Remember what happened to Germanicus. You’ll be their first target once they consolidate power. Unless you act before they do.”
“Germanicus.” He said it slowly; as if he gave her words less credence than an old folktale. “And marrying you will neutralize this threat.”
“Marrying me will be taking your fate in your own hands. My brother is weak, Cornelius. Stilicho has barely the troops to hold Ravenna; he is overextended at the borders. He is turning to that villain Alaric of the Goths , of all people, to help defend the Empire.” Another sip of the wine. Courage seeped into her limbs. “How would you like to be emperor?”
Cornelius lay back on the couch, arms crossed behind his head, looking every inch the darling of the Imperial court. “I am going to pretend that was an outrageous joke,” he said drily, his eyes traveling over her silken-clad form. “Come back.”
Julia stayed where she was. “With Alaric here, everyone will be distracted. We’ll meet outside the city, at that temple to Dionysus outside the eastern gate.” It was fitting. God of wine and revelry; god of revolutions. “We marry, and then flee to your parents’ estate where it’s safe.”
“My God, you really are serious. You must be trying to get me killed.” Cornelius sat up straighter. “You realize the seas are terrible this late in spring, do you not? And what about my parents? If your brother doesn’t murder me, they will.”
“Your mother begged me to consider you as a husband. She wants this.”
“Then I should ask her—”
“It is far better to ask forgiveness than permission, Cornelius.” Julia strolled to the garden, aware of the moonlight’s fall upon her shoulders. The way it lit her hair. “Are you content to be under my brother’s thumb all your life? I’m not. Pannonia might as well be lawless Germania for all the good Stilicho’s legions can do there. Where is your spine?”
Silence. She took a long sip of the wine. Four—three—two—
Footsteps at her back, and then Cornelius drew her into his arms from behind. “I would marry you in an instant, you know. But your brother would have me garroted.”
“Not if you have the courage to take what is yours.” Julia turned to face him, and Cornelius kissed her. It was easy to feign an answering passion. She could not understand how he could be brought to his knees by the same embrace that left her cold. I am above it , she told herself.
“We do not have much time. I could be married to Olympius by month’s end. And if we don’t flee, my brother will simply dissolve our marriage. We must be beyond his reach.”
Cornelius stared down at her; his eyes glowing. “Do you love me, Julia?”
The words brought her headache roaring back to life. It was what she had to say; she knew that. The words that would make Cornelius bend.
It wasn’t quite a lie, was it? She was fond of Cornelius. He would be an ideal husband; he would not impose on her. Fondness was a kind of love, was it not?
She drew a breath and tried to mean it. “Cornelius,” she said quietly, gazing into his eyes. “I have not stopped loving you since the day we met.”
Cornelius’s arms tightened until she could not breathe. “May God protect us both.”