Asterius Page 5

  Once we’d eaten all the food and were lying around in replete exhaustion, the conversation grew serious. Typhon was the one to initiate it, though all of us were thinking it.

  “How have things been with your new mother?” he asked, stroking her hair absently. She leaned in to the caress without knowing she did it.

  “I spent the first three days at home trying to decide if she would alter her activities now Pater had gone. It was a relief to realize nothing would change and that I could remain unmolested in my apartments. Which meant I could escape to join you and Ariaratus.

  “I have always had a way of returning if I was needed. Minerva would send one of the kitchen lads to find the physician and say the Little Mistress had a toothache. That is our code. We have only had to use it twice in all these years. Both times it has been when Natalinus made an unexpected call. But now I am doubly on guard in case I get that message. If Camellia found out what I was doing... Gods, I hate to think.”

  “So, you’re definitely back to being Cassius?” Orion asked with a smile. A lot of the tension had gone out of him, and he looked almost jovial. For a serious type like him, that is.

  “I am. And happy to be. I have missed being busy, although it will take me a while to get accustomed to carrying Ariaratus’ pack again. It feels as if he has added extra bricks in the time I have been gone.”

  We all laughed.

  “I took your advice, too. I wrote Pater about my concerns. I had to keep it short because it was on a wax tablet, but I hope I made my point. I do not expect him to take action. To be honest, I do not know what action he can take. But at least if he knows what I face... The horrible words they throw at me, the threats...”

  “What threats?” Talos demanded, suddenly all protector.

  Accalia shrugged and grimaced. “If I cannot be a good patrician then maybe I would make a better slave. That was the one she levelled at me last night at dinner. They are usually like that. Or that all I am good for is a fat, old husband who will not mind a useless, ugly wife like me. She is sure she could find such a man, given time.”

  Her face was scarlet with mortification, as if sharing those cruel words with us made them true.

  “You’re neither useless nor ugly!” Orion snapped out before the rest of us could say it. “You’re beautiful, and your healing abilities make you worth your weight in gold.”

  She looked down at the ground, as if embarrassed by the compliments. “I am no beauty, we all know that. But I am not ugly, either. But they are right that I am useless at the things a noblewoman should be good at. Being a healer is a useful skill for a slave, not a patrician.”

  “She cannot make you a slave! How could she expect to get away with threatening you with such a thing? Is she mad?” Typhon fumed, looking ready to jump to his feet and head up to the villa to beat some sense into the woman.

  Accalia seemed very pleased by Typhon’s reaction and she laughed. “Not the way Lucullus was, unfortunately. She is much brighter than he was. Her attacks are sly. Unless you know what she is about, the casual observer would miss them. Although I think the slaves know what she and her daughters are like. I catch their looks of sympathy every so often. Which only makes it that much worse.

  “I feel like I should be doing something. Like you said last week, about me not having a spine. But I am not familiar with this kind of fighting. It would be like any of you having to fight against someone with a style you have never encountered before.”

  “No one said you didn’t have a spine. I said you should use Cassius’ spine,” Orion corrected.

  Shrugging, she said, “It does not matter either way. I am outmatched, and it is three against one.”

  “Tell your father what she’s threatening. They’re probably baseless, but you shouldn’t have to deal with them,” Typhon argued.

  She nodded. “I will. In my next missive, I will.”

  And so we slipped back into our old routines for the warmer months and we saw Accalia at the barracks and at our fireside. It was as if life would go on like that forever, although there were little warning signs that all was not well.

  “Pater wrote saying my wax tablet arrived melted and unintelligible,” she told us one week.

  “Pater said he has not received any missives from me. The last few I wrote on papyrus, so they would not melt,” she said at another time.

  And the most telling of all. “Pater wrote asking how I was, as Camellia had told him I was unwell and unable to write or even dictate a message to him.”

  This last one had us all outraged. And it came a few days before we were to go away. Helplessness fuelled our fury.

  “She is stopping your missives from getting through!” Orion declared,

  Accalia wrung her hands and nodded. “I have worried that that might be the case, but now I am certain. Yet I am so careful about getting my missives out. I do not know how she is doing it.”

  “You need to do what you did with Lucullus. Send a vellum message by special messenger,” Orion declared. “Give it to someone you trust. Jabir, for instance.”

  She huffed out a sigh. “Jabir is bedridden right now. Tallia is very worried about him. And I have to be careful, because if I approached one of the slaves who knows me as Cassius...”

  “Get Minerva to give it to someone. You don’t have to do it yourself.”

  She nodded. “I am scared. The threats have been getting worse. She said an envoy from a Parthian prince would be arriving soon. It would not matter to him if I could not spin and weave. I would just have to be one of his many wives. Secluded. Supposedly the prince keeps his wives secluded. And Ariaratus told me that when they go to war they take their women with them and then kill them if they lose. I do not want to go to Parthia!”

  That had sent us all into an impotent rage.

  “I’ll take you away from here. Away from her!” Typhon declared.

  “How? You go on your trial the day after tomorrow.”

  “To Hades with the trial. You’re not going to be sent off to Parthia. I won’t let it happen.”

  “You can’t do that!” Orion pointed out as evenly as he could. For him, he was pretty stirred up. I could see he wanted to tell Typhon we’d all go. But he just stopped himself in time.

  “I can fucking do what I like! Are you saying we should just stand by and watch her sold off as a wife or concubine to a Parthian?” Typhon snarled, getting right up in Orion’s face.

  I could see he needed someone to take his fury out on. Orion was just the most available candidate.

  “Please, Typhon, calm down. You cannot take me away. That would make you a runaway and my honour would be...”

  “Your honour? What honour will you have left after a Parthian prince has finished with you? And don’t think your pater could get you back from them. It would start another war if he tried.”

  Accalia burst into tears, loud wracking sobs that had us all in shambles.

  Talos was the one to gather her up and hold her tight. The look in his eyes reflected my own helplessness.

  “How serious is this threat to you, do you think?” Orion demanded, after the worst of her tears subsided.

  “I do not know. It is so hard to tell with her,” she answered on a sigh.

  “Can you tell us where your pater is supposed to be in the next month?”

  She nodded. “I always know where he will be. So I can make sure my missives get to him.”

  Orion was thinking. I could see it. His eyes were jumping around like a madman’s. When he finally spoke, it was to voice an idea that I never would have expected from him.

  “Tell us where he’ll be and when, for the next month. One or other of us will surely be close enough to get to him and tell him what his wife has planned. That would be the surest way...”

  Typhon’s eyes were moving now, as well. “Who knows how long it’d take us to get to him, if we can get to him. And then there’d be more time getting a message home or him getting home himself. It wouldn’t
work!”

  “I can try to get a missive out. You should not have to put your trial at risk by trying to find Pater,” Accalia argued, dragging herself from Talos’ arms and wiping at her tearstained face with her hands. She was trying to be brave and sensible, now we were throwing out foolhardy ideas.

  “But what if you can’t? And we’ll be moving fast. Our guards’ll be moving us as fast as possible to our destinations. You don’t know where we’ll be sent, do you?”

  “No, Pater has no prearranged destinations in his documents. Every year new ones are chosen, depending on news from the borders. Which reinforces what I said before. You will be hard pressed surviving in those inhospitable areas, you do not need the added burden of trying to save me.”

  Her head came up and her chin out. “If the worst happens and this representative comes calling, I will make myself as unacceptable as I can. I might even present myself without my wig. What man would want me with my skin condition?” She ran her fingers through her short, slightly curling hair.

  I knew what that hair felt like now. I’d dug my fingers into it to drag her head back, so I could claim her mouth. It wasn’t the way I’d dreamed of kissing her. It had been raw and ugly and as close to ravishment as I ever want to come, but I hadn’t been able to stop myself. What kind of animal did that make me?

  But I saw that her words amused my pack-mates, so I was appeased.

  “And if that fails I will run away. I have relatives in Rome. Or... Or I could throw myself on Natalinus’ mercy. He would surely not allow Camellia to do something without Pater’s approval.”

  All these ideas made sense, and I began to calm a little. Accalia was not a helpless lass we needed to protect. She was capable of finding her own answers and saving herself.

  Unless...

  I didn’t want to go there. If Camellia could stop Accalia’s messages getting out to her father, she could stop her from escaping to a safe haven. Our girl had been right when she said she was outmatched and had no idea how to play by the other woman’s rules. This Camellia was a schemer, plain and simple. She’d managed to marry a man who could give her wealth and position, close to the hub of the world. And now she’d be willing to get rid of any competitor, any threat to that position, with the effectiveness of a wolf taking down a rabbit.

  Gods, what if an ‘unfortunate accident’ should happen to Accalia while we were gone? Killing her would definitely be an easy solution to one annoying daughter. Possibly Accalia was only alive now because she had not challenged the woman yet. Camellia probably thought she would go willingly to an arranged marriage like a lamb to the slaughter.

  “I think we have to do what we can. If Accalia can get a message out... or run away... all well and good. But if she can’t, one of us needs to alert her father to the danger he has left his daughter in,” Talos said, his jaw set in rocky lines, while his dark eyes burned with righteous fury.

  “I agree,” I spoke up before anyone else could have their say. “Whoever finds themselves close enough, goes for the Master.”

  “How will you know who is close enough? None of you know where you will be!” exclaimed Accalia in frustration. “This is not like your last initiation. It will not work.”

  “If we only have a narrow window of time to reach the places you nominate then we won’t try,” Orion stated in his no-nonsense tone. “But if one of us can get to him, then we will. No argument, she-wolf. It’s decided. Now tell us what we need to know.”

  With utmost reluctance she did as Orion instructed. It was not much of a plan, but it was all we had. And having at least this would allow us to keep the helplessness at bay.

  Chapter Five

  ACCALIA

  I should never have told them. Did I expect them just to sit there and listen as I laid out my greatest fears and not try to solve my problems for me? It was what they did! It was who they were! They were men of action. Warriors. They could no more sit back and watch me get handed over to a Parthian than they could stop breathing.

  I should have said nothing! Now one of them would lose the trial. Or more than one, if two were close enough to where Pater was going to be in the coming month. Why did I have to tell them?

  And it might all be for nothing. There could be a reason my missives were not getting through. It might have nothing to do with Camellia. The roads were always treacherous, sea travel more so. Maybe she had told Pater I was sick to ease his mind, thinking I had not written. She might not know I am excessively dutiful when it comes to writing to Pater when he was away. After all, I was a recluse who rarely stepped out of her apartments. I might have lost track of time or sent my missive to the wrong place, as far as she knew.

  My arguments were nonsense, of course. Anyone who sat with us at dinner would know what sort of woman Camellia really was. The slaves knew. Tallia was just the only one with the courage to raise the issue with me.

  Tallia was Jabir’s wife and worked in the kitchens. She was a dark-haired matron in her early forties. And an impatient and determined woman, I had discovered over the years. After all, she had chosen to marry a man old enough to be her father, despite what others, including Jabir, thought. And though Jabir—the retired guard who had helped me get to Typhon when a madman was after him—was a strong man, it was clear from the start who wore the breeches in that family.

  She saw me coming in late from my work with Ariaratus, the day after my fireside gathering with my pack, and took me aside. I thought she was going to ask me about Jabir’s health, as she knew about my secret activities.

  I let her guide me into a dark alcove at the far end of the peristylium. The sun was setting and the grassy garden at the centre of the villa was shadowed, which made the corridors around its edge even more so. A casual observer would not see us.

  “You have nothing to worry about, Tallia. Jabir is making a good recovery. He should be back on his feet by this time next week,” I said before she had a chance to open her mouth.

  “T’ain’t about Jabir,” she said, holding her hand up to stop me speaking.

  I would have laughed if I had any humour left in me. Tomorrow my men left, and I was sick with worry for them. And if they tried to find Pater I did not know what might happen. How would they explain their interest in me? Pater would know I would never send one of his initiates to him with a message. Their initiation was too important.

  “It’s that woman. Master’s new wife. She’s bad news. You hear me, Little Missy? Bad news. You’re like a lamb sitting across from a lion. She’s just biding her time before she eats you alive.”

  I nodded. “I know. I have been trying to get word to Pater, but somehow my messages are not getting through.”

  “She’s finding a way to intercept them, that’s how. You need to do something, Little Missy. You need to get away from here until your pater comes back. It ain’t safe here for you.”

  That she had told me just what I had considered doing myself surprised me. Could I go to Natalinus and ask for his help? He was Pater’s best friend. If anyone would want to keep me safe it would be him.

  “I planned to do just that,” I told Tallia. “I have just been putting it off because of my work with Ariaratus. This is a busy time of the year for him.”

  “You look after yourself and let him do his own job, you hear me? Get out of here before it’s too late!”

  I was worried she might be right. Yet what would a few more days matter? Once the pack was gone I could start making my plans. The idea of going before they did felt wrong. It would be hard enough saying goodbye, but the idea of not saying goodbye... No, I would stay just another day.

  They would be leaving by fast wagon in the morning. I planned to be there to say goodbye and wish them luck. This time there would be no blindfolds. They had weeks of journeying ahead of them. I envied them the adventure of it.

  What would it be like to see some of the places Pater had told me about? He had a way of bringing them all to life for me, whether talking about the great pyrami
ds in Aegyptus or the monstrous fallen statue of Apollo at Rhodus. Wondrous places that inspired the imagination.

  Many times, I had asked Pater to take me with him. Part of me would have missed seeing my pack if I had convinced him, but most of me would have been overjoyed to see those far-flung places with Pater at my side. But Pater said travel for an innocent girl was unsuitable and dangerous. He had his guards, of course, his own retired gladiators. But a young girl would attract the attentions of predators, and who knew if his guards could keep them safe from them.

  I had wanted to ask him how bringing Camellia and her daughters home was any different. If one girl was a temptation to predators, surely three would be three times as dangerous. But it was a useless argument, now they were here. And I had not wanted to waste the little time I had with Pater arguing with him.

  Leaving Tallia, I headed for the bathing room where my women’s clothes and wig would be waiting for me. Minerva would not be far away.

  As I bathed the blood and dust from my body, I tried not to think about what life would be like from now on. My pack would be gone. It would be for the best. Maybe now I could stop dreaming about one or the other of them in increasingly heated situations.

  Last night it had been Asterius. He had stood before me in all his godlike beauty, dressed in armour, his shield on one arm, helmet under his other. His muscles had shone with sweat and his dark curls had formed a damp crown around his beautiful head. He’d looked at me as if the sun rose and fell in my eyes. When I called to him he came, throwing his shield and helmet aside and lifting me off the ground so I could kiss his mouth.

  And the kiss had been every bit as passionate as the one we had shared in the woods. So much need. I was drowning in it. For long, impossible moments, he held me like that, ravaging my mouth, pulling my hair back just as he had done that night. And when my mouth no longer satisfied him, he began kissing his way down my neck, biting at it like a wolf might. It had been the most arousing dream I had ever had, and I awoke drenched in sweat and so needy I wanted to cry with it.