15. Drusilla #3
Cato speaks first. “I know it’s in your nature to distrust, Drusilla.
But I hope you’ll take into consideration that Jove is one of the few people close to me who treats me as a man rather than a king.
And that endears him to me.” He taps his fingers on the table.
“I’m not saying you have to trust him, but I’m asking you to trust me. ”
“I don’t know you well enough to trust you either, Cato,” she confesses. “But I’ll do my best not to make my suspicions of the bard obvious.”
The bard holds out his hands. “Is it my hair, my clothes, my profession?”
“It’s”—she gestures at him—“all of it.”
“You’re jealous,” he says, smirking.
She chokes down a laugh. “I absolutely am not.”
He ignores her. “We all struggle in the Imperium. The difference is, I’m doing something I love. And you can’t stand that.”
She tears off a hunk of bread and chews on it, considering his words. A part of her knows he’s right, that she’s jealous of the life he leads. She’ll never admit that to him, though. He has no right to expect her to see it from his perspective if he doesn’t try to understand hers.
Maybe I can convince Cato though.
“Where are you from, in the Imperium, I mean?”
The bard doesn’t hesitate. “The capital. My family lived in squalor for most of my life, barely getting by. I tried to work like my siblings, but I wasn’t cut out for manual labor.
I found an old, abandoned lute on the street one day, fixed it up, and taught myself how to play.
So I could bring in some money for my family. ”
She takes a moment before responding, unsure of how much of herself to show them.
The idea of divulging her secret to prove a point is both terrifying and relieving.
Her mother always told her that keeping her singing voice to herself would ensure her safety in the Imperium, but she never told her why.
In the end, the fear wins out.
“I too had a talent like that when I lived with my mother in Obliviscatur before our village came under Imperium rule. But when the Phaedran army killed her and set fire to our home, I never used it again. Because I saw—as a woman and a conquered—that I had little choice in my profession. Because if I’d chosen to use my talent to scrape by, I would’ve been sold into slavery by now, simply by the fact of who I am. ”
Their silence deafens in the quiet morning, pity dragging down the lines of their faces. She hates pity, especially when directed at her, but sometimes it’s a necessary evil.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” she insists. “I found something I’m good at and can live with, and sometimes they pay me.”
“Not enough,” Cato says.
“Enough to get by. To enjoy mulsum wine now and again. This may surprise you, but I don’t need much more than that.”
Cato crosses his arms. “Knowing you as I do now, it doesn’t surprise me at all.”
She opens her mouth to speak again, when the doors open and Marcus walks through. At the sight of him, she closes her mouth and forgets about the bard completely.
At the tabernae, she compared his stillness to being carved from marble. Looking at him now, she sees how right she was.
The clouds gray out Marcus’s sun-drenched skin, though it remains stark against the white marble.
Years of hard work have chiseled away at his muscles, sculpting his arms, torso, and legs in a testament to his constant strive for perfection.
Unlike most men in his position, he’s chosen to remove all his body hair, the way the wrestlers in the Imperium do.
His lack of clothes doesn’t help. It’s no different from what the men in the Imperium wear when they exercise, but Marcus wears it well.
His only item of clothing besides his caligae sandals are shorts.
They ride low on his hips, drawing attention to the hard lines carved into his lower abdomen, and ride high on his muscular legs.
She knows she’s staring, but she can’t tear her eyes away from him. If I believed in gods…
Cato clears his throat gently, and her attention snaps to her hands clenched in her lap. Fire whips across her cheeks, the embarrassment causing sweat to pool beneath her arms.
“I trust you had a good run?” Cato calls out, a slight laugh in his throat. She doesn’t dare look at him for fear of being consumed by her own humiliation. She’s not embarrassed from staring at Marcus, only that she got caught.
He takes the last seat beside her at the table, and she pushes down her all-consuming wants.
“I did,” he replies, running a hand through his sweat-slick locks, his arm flexing. “I love when the fog hangs on like this in the mornings.”
And, judging by the genuine smile on his face, he does love it. She wasn’t wrong before when she assumed Marcus has been living well in Anziano. But while she found fault in it then, she doesn’t now. It’s selfish to say he shouldn’t be happy just because she’s suffered greater than him.
And once she’s done what she came to do, she can leave knowing he’ll be happy here still.
Pulling most of the sweat-slick hair away from his face with a strap, he drinks nearly an entire jug of water before grabbing a slice of the bread. He salts it and devours it in two bites. Some cured meats have been set out as well, and he pops a few in his mouth.
“Hungry, are we?” she asks.
“You should come with me next time,” he offers. “Anziano is otherworldly before dawn.”
“Gods, how do you get up so early?” the bard asks.
“We’re used to it,” Marcus says, including Dru in his response. The Faithless keep a strict schedule, and that includes when to go to sleep and when to wake up. She’s been waking before dawn nearly all her life.
“Couldn’t be me,” the bard says between bites.
Dru snorts softly. “A truer thing has never been said.”
“I want you all to be ready for the festival tonight.” Cato gets to his feet, brushing crumbs off his robes. “There’s nothing like it in all the world, and I won’t have you ruining it with talk of death and dismemberment.”
“Shouldn’t we be training?” Dru wonders. “The first trial is a mere day away.”
Cato shrugs. “Then I suppose I’m either ready or I’m not.”
She opens her mouth to argue, but nothing comes out. Deodamnatus if he isn’t right .
“You’re very cavalier about your own life and the fate of your country.”
“There’s no sense in worrying,” Cato reasons. “But, if it’ll make you feel better, we can spar in the arena later.”
As much as she wants to, Cato’s right: it would only serve to satisfy her own doubts.
“No, you’re right; take your day off.”
Cato places a hand over his chest. “I never thought I’d hear you say those words.”
Dru crosses her arms. “I can be amenable now and then.”
The bard coughs. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”
A challenge . “Then I’ll have to prove it to you.”
“I think we’d all like to see that,” Marcus admits beside her. She taps the muscle of his arm with the back of her hand, and he chuckles, the sound low and deep. “I’m serious. You could use a night off too. The world won’t come to an end if you do.”
She wants to remind him that the Faithless don’t allow for nights off, but she doesn’t. Marcus is the only other Faithless here, and the more time she spends with him, the less of their influence she sees.
Cato gets to his feet and so does the bard.
“Don’t forget about the festival tonight,” Cato reminds her as he heads for his chambers. “I’ll find another dress for you to wear.”
Marcus gets to his feet once Cato enters his rooms. “And I’m off to bathe.”
He glances down at Dru, gaze soft. “Until tonight.”
Although it shouldn’t matter, she can’t help thinking it sounds like a promise.
After Marcus leaves for his chamber, her leg starts to bounce, her fingers tapping restlessly on the table. She has all this pent-up energy now and nowhere for it to go.
Sabina approaches and sets a jug of water on the table. An idea forms in Dru’s head. If Cato doesn’t want to train, maybe someone else will.
“Sabina,” she starts, and the girl glances up. “Do you want to learn how to defend yourself?”
She blinks her wide eyes rapidly. “I do. Are you offering?”
Sorrow and anger at Sabina’s home situation bubble up inside her. If it were up to Dru, she’d march down to their family home and kill the bastard herself.
But if Sabina ends up in the hands of her brother again, and Dru’s not around, she needs to be able to hold her own against him.
“I am.”