29. Drusilla
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
DRUSILLA
T he incessant stinging in Dru’s arms wakes her from a deep sleep.
She groans, sweat dampening her forehead as the events from the day before come rushing back through the pain.
Fucking lion; fucking sacerdos . Reaching over blindly to the table beside the bed, she grabs one of the blown glass vials left there by the physician, catching sight of her arm wrapped tight.
After he burned her wounds, he left her these concentrated concoctions of silphium root to keep the pain at bay. He claimed he gave her all the vials she would need, instructing her to take them starting in the morning when the bell tolls eight times, then twelve times, and so on.
He warned her about taking too much of it at once, though she doubts she’ll need it more often than recommended. She learned to handle pain long ago.
A part of her already hates the ugly burns on her arms, despite insisting on them.
As one of the Faithless, their scars define them, especially ones so visible.
The Three claim they flaunt your mistakes, but she’s learned not to see them that way.
Her scars mark her triumphs, all the times in her life when death gave her a second chance.
Although Dru normally bears her wounds with pride, she doesn’t deserve these scars—the sacerdos does.
Sitting up, she swallows the contents of the vial without waiting for the bells to toll, the intense pain enough to warrant it. The bitterness runs down her throat and sits heavy on her tongue; she drinks the rest of the water in the cup beside the vials to chase it away.
Sabina knocks on her door right as she places her bare feet on the cold marble floor.
“Wait, let me help you,” Sabina insists as she practically drops the linens on the ground.
Dru’s already standing on her own, wincing.
“Are you never not carrying linens?” Dru asks, padding over to the balcony.
“Do you want clean ones or not?” Sabina counters, grabbing a silk robe from the clothes trunk and placing it over Dru’s shoulders. Dru nearly shrugs it off but clenches her hands together instead.
Dru watches the morning waves crash onto the shore. As she has most mornings, she realizes. At least I’m here to see another sunrise.
“I’m sorry I can’t train you today.”
Sabina scoffs. “After what happened, I wouldn’t let you.”
As the medicine winds its way through her, slowly numbing the worst of the pain, she turns to Sabina. “I noticed you’re always at the palace. Don’t you have any friends besides your cousin?”
She pauses, her shoulders wilting. “My brother forbade me from seeing those who spoke up against his treatment of me. Which was everyone.”
Anger and pity rise up inside Dru. “Why didn’t Cato do anything about your brother? He’s king, after all.”
“He didn’t know—he still doesn’t.”
The look in her eyes begs her not to tell him.
Oh, Sabina. “I understand.” An idea forms in her mind. “In lieu of training, why don’t we go into the city today and find something fun to do?”
For the first time since meeting her, Sabina offers Dru a small smile.
After a bath, Sabina helps Dru put on a dark green dress with golden stitching.
It’s more conservative than the ones she wore to the ceremony and the festival, but it’s main draw is the lack of sleeves.
That way, her exposed arms won’t get irritated by the fabric.
The open back leaves the fabric to cover only her chest, starting from where it’s hooked around her neck and tightening around her waist.
She allows Sabina to braid her hair loosely, despite wanting to leave it down. Another annoyance that would bother the wounds on her arms.
Dru offers for Sabina to choose a dress as well, though it takes some convincing. Once Dru argues that they’re her late cousin’s dresses and shouldn’t be Dru’s anyway, it does the trick.
“I can’t believe what Marcus did yesterday,” Sabina comments as she wipes her hands on her blue silk dress. On Dru, the hem would hit the middle of her thighs, but on Sabina, it brushes the tops of her knees.
“What did he do?”
Sabina’s eyes widen. “You don’t know?”
Dru shakes her head.
“I don’t know if I should tell you,” she admits.
Concern sets Dru’s heart pounding. “Now you must.”
Sabina sets to braiding her own hair loosely over one shoulder. “When he heard about how the sacerdos practically fed you to the lion, he went to go find him at a tabernae and threw him out of Anziano.”
Dru’s lips part. “He did?”
Sabina smiles again, lighting up her face and showing a single dimple on her left cheek. “Apparently, he threatened to do more than that. But someone tried to kill Regina Vedova Alessandra, who went with him—the bard knocked him unconscious with his lute. ”
Dru’s mind spins, latching onto tried to kill and the bard .
“The bard?”
Sabina nods emphatically. “He snuck up behind some Phaedran assassin and hit him on the head with it.”
Anger at whoever gave the order causes her next words to come out in a heated whisper. “And where is this assassin now?”
“They placed him in the holding cell in the arena. Marcus found him murdered there this morning, stabbed at least a dozen times.”
Dru lets out a breath. “He deserved no less.” And merely confirmed the Imperium’s involvement in the attempt.
After lacing up her sandals, they exit her room, finding Marcus, Cato, and Alessandra eating together in the courtyard.
Cato notices her first. “And where are we off to today dressed so nicely?”
Marcus looks up from his breakfast, his hooded gaze lingering on her face, her exposed arms, and down her legs. Despite the dress covering most of her up, she feels naked under his attentiveness, utterly exposed simply from his gaze on her.
And after what he did—and nearly did—for her yesterday, she can’t look away. Heat warms her chest, pooling lower.
Realizing she’s been silent for too long, she clears her throat. “Into town.”
“I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” Cato argues, brow scrunching. “Though few know Sabina has any relation to me, they know she works here at the palace, and enough people might recognize you from the trials.”
“Not if they go somewhere safe,” Alessandra interjects. “There’s a place hidden, in the courtyard behind the butcher’s shop, called the ballo.” She nods at Sabina. “You know the one.”
Sabina shakes her head. “They only allow high-ranking women in.”
Alessandra smiles. “They’ll allow anyone with a password in. It’s ‘sangue’ this week, in honor of the blood trials.”
Cato turns to Marcus. “What do you think about this? ”
Marcus looks at Dru when he responds. “I think, if they’re careful, it should be fine. Besides, they might be able to find out if there are any more attempts on your life planned. Even my men say the ballo has all the best information.”
Dru grins. “Perfect, then that’s where we’ll be.”
The bell tolls eleven times, and Dru starts; she slept later than she realized.
“And who says I can spare Sabina?” Cato pouts.
Sabina shifts nervously beside Dru. “I believe you’re capable of fetching your own linens, Sovrano.”
Alessandra presses her lips together and Cato laughs. “Quite right. Well, if you’re going, bring Marcus with you.”
Marcus coughs, nearly choking on the bite of bread in his mouth. “They don’t need my protection, Cato. Dru can take care of herself and Sabina.”
Pride warms her chest. The truth is, she’ll feel better with Marcus nearby. She wants to do this for Sabina, to give her a place to be free. And, as Marcus said, it wouldn’t hurt to find out if there are any more plots against the king.
Cato claps a hand on his shoulder. “I know she can, but given what happened yesterday at the second trial, a little extra protection might help.”
“He should come,” Dru cuts in. “It doesn’t hurt to be safe.”
Confusion and something else flickers across Marcus’s gaze as he gets to his feet.
“Off you go, then,” Alessandra says, waving her cane in their direction. “Before it gets too crowded and those women drink all the good wine.”
At her insistence, Dru and Sabina leave the palace, Marcus trailing behind them.
They find the secret entrance to the ballo at the back of the butcher shop deep in the heart of Notevole, just like Alessandra said they would. The heavy scent of salt, spices, and old iron lingers in her nostrils as they pass through, and she wishes she’d eaten breakfast.
They left Marcus to fend for himself at a tabernae across the road. Despite being connected to a brothel, she trusts him to behave himself, given their last experience at the one on the Mercato Bridge.
“Are you sure we should do this?” Sabina asks, nibbling on her lip. “What if they won’t let me in because I’m not high-born?”
“The password is what gets you in, not your status,” Dru reminds her softly. “But if they do deny you for that, then they’ll have me to answer to.”
Sabina eyes her uneasily.
“And if that doesn’t work, then they’ll have Cato to deal with.”
That garners another gentle smile from her.
When it’s their turn, Dru motions for Sabina to give the butcher the password. She whispers it so no one else will hear, and the butcher nods. He’s an older man on the taller side, with a full head of white hair and a sour expression.
He holds open the thick brown linen hanging across the back. “This way.”
Once they’re on the other side, he lets it close. The only light emanates from the small gap beneath the fabric. The two women head down the dark, narrow hall to the door at the end, where Dru detects the muffled sound of music floating through the barrier.
Nodding to one another in the half-light, she opens the door and they pass through the threshold.
Completely closed in by limestone blocks, the grandness of the courtyard hosting the ballo impresses Dru.
Thick grape vines climb the walls and multi-hued sunshades block the most intense heat as the sun continues to rise high above them.
One wall has been painted with vibrant depictions of Durevolian women through the ages, some of the older ones cracking along the edges.
A long table has been pushed against the wall of the butcher’s shop, flush with jugs of mulsum wine and horns of what she imagines to be the Nettare she drank the night of the festival.
The sweet breath of a fistula, the familiar strum of a lute, and the soft pattering of a small drum greet them as they step further in.
The trio stand at the center of the room on a small, raised platform.
Although the instruments are familiar to Dru, the music is not—it speaks to her in a way most Imperium songs fail to, loosening some of the tension in her shoulders.
Alessandra was right about this being only for women. The instrumentalists, the drink servers and pourers, the partygoers—all womenfolk.
The high-ranking women of Anziano—a few she recognizes from Cato’s council—dance lithely in the center of the courtyard around the musicians.
Not unlike how the Tredici danced during the festival, they sway their hips to the rhythm of the music, free of the cares that hinder them outside these walls.
She doesn’t want to bother the dancers with questions about any gossip they might’ve heard about Cato. Besides, it’s better to ask questions of the women on the outskirts who haven’t yet been taken by the music and drink.
Dru glances over at Sabina, finding wide eyes and an open mouth. Dru smothers a grin. The questioning can wait.
She grasps Sabina’s hand and pulls her over to the wine, grabbing a horn of Nettare for her and then herself. She’ll likely regret ingesting the potent drink so soon after the last time, but Sabina needs to know she doesn’t have to worry here.
Dru hands her the horn. “Your brother isn’t going to find you here.” She gestures to the other patrons. “You can be yourself—you can be free .”
After watching the women dance for a moment longer, Sabina regards Dru. Tears brim in her warm golden eyes, and her bottom lip trembles slightly. Dru places a reassuring hand on her shoulder, takes a gulp of the Nettare, and pulls Sabina into the fray.
Passing between writhing bodies, Dru brings them near the middle of the throng, directly beside the musicians.
The women here dance close together, sweat forming on their brows and dripping down their temples.
Many wear different perfumes, the scents of roses and grapes, of lavender and basil, mix with the wine permeating the air around them.
Dru turns to Sabina, nodding at her drink for her to finish it. Sabina takes a breath and tips back her horn, gulping the entirety of the contents. Dru laughs, taking the empty horn from her.
Sabina raises her hands into the air, swaying her hips back and forth to the rhythm of the music. Dru follows her lead, finishing her own drink and handing the empty horns to a nearby servant passing through.
The heady wine winds its way familiarly through her chest and along her limbs, numbing the pain in her arms further. She wonders belatedly if she’s allowed to combine alcohol with the medicine. Too late now.
As the music crescendos, Dru smiles as Sabina closes her eyes and tips her head back, giving herself over to the ballo.