Page 10 of The Tribune Temptation (Roman Heirs #1)
T hat evening, Crispina sat and brushed out her hair at the dressing table in their bedroom. At home, a slave would do this for her, but she’d been trying to minimize her requests to Aelius’s slaves since her marriage, and she hadn’t brought any from her parents’ house. Had Gaia once brushed out her mistress’s hair?
The thought made her uncomfortable, but before she could dwell on it, Aelius entered. He hadn’t been home for dinner, so Crispina guessed he’d been with Catullus or another friend.
He sat and unlaced his sandals. “Good evening. How was your day?”
He always insisted on making conversation during their evenings in the bedroom together. Crispina wanted to tell him not to bother with the effort, but it did make the nights less awkward. “Fine,” she said. “I visited Horatia and her new baby.”
“Boy or girl?”
“Boy.”
He kicked his sandals off. “Do you find it uncomfortable to be around babies?”
Her hand stilled, the brush pausing halfway through her length of hair. The directness of the question surprised her. She thought they had a tacit agreement not to discuss anything so…fraught.
She resumed brushing. She could ignore the question. But as she considered it, the weight of her feelings pressed heavy on her chest. Usually Horatia was the one she confided things she couldn’t tell anyone else. But she couldn’t talk to Horatia about this.
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “I felt jealous, certainly, that she can do something I can’t. The same way I imagine you felt jealous of those who won the election that you lost.”
His face contracted in a momentary expression that almost looked like pain. Interesting . His former loss pained him. She expected any man would be galled or embarrassed at a public defeat, but Aelius seemed to feel it more deeply. Which explained why he was willing to go to such great lengths to avoid another loss.
“But I’m not certain I would actually enjoy having children,” she continued. “They are loud, dirty, and demanding.” Even her students exhausted her as much as she enjoyed them. “Maybe it’s not just a physical ability I lack. The deficiency seems to extend to my nature as well. I just wasn’t meant to be a mother.”
“Perhaps it’s your mind’s way of reckoning with whatever has prevented you from conceiving,” Aelius said quietly. “I wonder, if you were presented with a child somehow, you might feel differently.”
“Well, I won’t be, so it doesn’t signify.” She set her brush down, eager to change the subject. “How was your day?”
He rose and went to the basin to splash water on his face. “Catullus is helping me to ferret out the names of men who might be running in the tribune election. It’s many months off, but the sooner I figure out who my opponents are, the sooner I can determine their weaknesses and how to defeat them.”
“Such ruthlessness.” She tried to imbue her voice with a dry apathy, but something in his drive for success appealed to her. Her father had inherited his membership in the senatorial class, and Memmius had been born into enough money and privilege he’d never had to strive for anything. “Am I to have another Sulla on my hands?”
A grin lightened his face. “Perhaps Sulla just needed a wife to keep him in line. I bet a woman with a good head on her shoulders could have kept him from marching on Rome.”
“Well, he had four, so they evidently didn’t do a good job.” The famous dictator had even divorced his third wife for infertility. At least Crispina knew she was not the only woman to be humiliated like that.
“Four wives?” Aelius let out a long breath. “I’ve got some catching up to do.”
Crispina rolled her eyes and got into bed. Aelius blew out the lamps and joined her a moment later, keeping carefully to his side of the bed. He had a peculiar way of plumping his pillow that had at first irked her, but now, after a week of marriage, the sequence of thump-thumps were becoming more familiar than annoying. She could almost predict their rhythm, like anticipating the next verse of a song.
Don’t get too comfortable. This marriage would end, and she’d have to get used to sleeping alone once more.
Crispina woke in darkness with a growling stomach. She sighed, willing herself to go back to sleep, but her stomach wouldn’t stop whining. At this rate, she’d wake Aelius.
She gritted her teeth and swung her legs out of the cozy bed, wincing as her feet landed on the chill stone floor. She eased the door open and tiptoed out of the room. One good thing about this house being so small was that she had less distance to travel to the kitchen.
She passed through the narrow hallway that opened onto the peristyle, the small private garden at the back of the house. At this hour, it was lit only by moonlight. As she crossed through the garden, a noise made her stop short. At first she thought it was just a slave snoring, as the slaves slept wherever they could find space to lay a blanket, but it was an irregular sniffling noise, not the rhythmic sound of snoring.
A tiny sob sounded, coming from the corner of the garden. Crispina debated pretending not to have heard it. She was not skilled at comforting people, and certainly had no experience comforting slaves.
But Aelius treated his people well, and she sensed he would want to know if one of them was unhappy.
Crispina cleared her throat. “I can hear you.” Her voice echoed in the darkness.
There was a rustling, shuffling sound, and a shadowy figure uncurled itself from behind a bush. Crispina recognized Cassandra, the brown-haired young woman who helped in the kitchen.
Cassandra twisted her hands before her. “F-forgive me, mistress.” Tears shone on her cheeks in the dim moonlight. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Crispina stepped nearer to her, keeping her voice low so as not to wake anyone else. “You’re upset. Tell me why.”
Cassandra shook her head. “It’s nothing, mistress. Please, may I fetch you anything?”
“I rose to get a bite to eat, but now I wish to know why you were crying.” Her words sounded much too peremptory. If she really did want to help Cassandra, ordering her to spill her secrets was not going to get her very far. She strove to soften her tone, speaking as she would to a pupil she wanted to encourage. “My husband would want to know if there was anything wrong.”
“The master is a kind man,” Cassandra murmured. “There’s no need to burden him with my troubles.”
Cassandra’s hand went to her stomach in an unconscious, momentary caress. Crispina nearly missed the gesture, but her eyes caught the movement of Cassandra’s pale hand in the darkness. She drew in a breath, putting together the pieces. She had seen that gesture dozens of times from Horatia during both of her pregnancies. Between that and Cassandra’s tears …
“You’re with child,” Crispina said.
Cassandra flinched and took a quick step back, nearly stumbling into the bush. “Yes, mistress.” Her voice trembled.
“Why not say so? A child is a happy thing.” Crispina forced a smile. First Horatia, now her husband’s slave. As if she needed another reminder she was a failure.
Cassandra swallowed hard. “Forgive me, mistress. I was afraid. I-I know of your…struggles.”
The crying was starting to make sense. “You thought I would be angry?”
Cassandra nodded jerkily. “I feared you would s-sell me. Once I got too big to hide it.”
“You know Aelius would never permit that.” Her words came out too coolly. She took a breath and tried to sound kinder. “Would you tell me who the father is so we may congratulate him?”
A pained look came into Cassandra’s eyes. “I…”
Crispina thought through the male slaves in the household. Cassandra seemed to be on friendly terms with everyone, but Crispina had no idea who she might have a special fondness for. “Is it Malchio? Ajax?”
Cassandra shook her head.
“Hector?”
“No, mistress.” Cassandra bit her lip.
Crispina hadn’t yet learned the names of all the slaves, so she had no more options to put forth. “Won’t you tell me? It must be someone in the household.”
Cassandra remained tight-lipped and silent. A horrible possibility hit Crispina, and a heavy stone of dread settled in her stomach. Her throat tightened, but she managed to get the words out. “Is it Aelius?”
He had promised fidelity to her, yes, but Cassandra must be months along. It could have happened before the wedding, before they’d even met.
A shocked noise burst from Cassandra. “No, mistress! The master would never…and I would never…it’s not him, mistress.”
The vehemence of her denial assuaged Crispina’s anxiety, and she let out a relieved breath. “I see.” Aelius did not seem like someone who would force his attentions on one of his slaves, and she was comforted she hadn’t been completely wrong about him.
“It’s someone from another household, mistress,” Cassandra confessed. More tears sprang to her eyes. “I-I fear…” Her words broke off in a sob.
“Has this man mistreated you?” Crispina asked. Because slaves were considered property, Aelius would be entitled to demand financial satisfaction from anyone who had harmed one of his people.
Cassandra shook her head. “I love him.” Her face crumpled, and she pressed a hand over her mouth to muffle another sob.
“And you’re sad because you’re parted from him?”
Cassandra wiped her eyes and took a deep, shaky breath. “I learned today that his master, Epidius Verus, means to s-sell him. He’s young and strong, and I’m afraid he’ll get sold off to a mine and I’ll never see him again.” She bowed her head, wrapping her arms around herself as if to hold in all her grief.
Crispina eyed her uncertainly. Surely she should offer some comfort, but the thought sent a prickle of unease over her skin. Consoling someone felt like attempting to speak a language she hadn’t studied. Times like these made her grateful, in a twisted way, that she wasn’t a mother. She would certainly fail at providing the sort of solace and warmth a child required.
But maybe instead of comfort, she could help solve Cassandra’s problem. “Why is he to be sold? Has he displeased his master in some way?” People did not sell their hardworking slaves for no reason.
“He wouldn’t tell me,” Cassandra said. “Said it was better for me not to know. But as far as I know, he’s never done anything to displease. He doesn’t deserve this, mistress.”
“It does seem like an injustice,” Crispina said. She’d been brought up to regard slaves as invisible, interchangeable, but meeting Aelius and Gaia had changed her view. The thought of Aelius’s father reappeared in her mind. What if Gaia had once been as grief-stricken and helpless as Cassandra now looked? Would anyone have come to her aid?
“Do you know when this sale is to happen?” Crispina asked.
“Tomorrow, mistress,” Cassandra said, her voice breaking. “I said my goodbyes today. I told him I’d name the child after him if it’s a boy. Taurus.”
“If it’s to happen tomorrow, then we must act quickly.” Crispina beckoned Cassandra to follow her. “Come, let’s consult with Aelius.”
“But it’s the middle of the night, mistress! He’s asleep!”
Crispina shrugged. “Then we’ll just have to wake him.” In truth, she wasn’t sure if Aelius would be irked to be awoken in the dead of night to advise on how best to reunite his slave with her lover, but Crispina could weather his annoyance.
She strode back to her bedroom, Cassandra trailing behind her. Upon entering the darkened room, she asked Cassandra to light a lamp and went to Aelius’s side of the bed. Crispina allowed herself a moment to glance down at him, his expressive face relaxed in sleep but still supremely handsome. Then, she put a hand on his shoulder and gently shook him.
She nearly had to pummel him to wake him up. Cassandra, twisting her fingers until her knuckles went white, seemed to be on the verge of passing out from the horror of waking the master.
“Aelius!” Crispina hissed. “Wake up!”
Finally, Aelius’s hazel eyes blinked open. “What’s wrong?” he grumbled, hauling himself into a sitting position.
“I need to discuss something with you,” Crispina said.
“And it couldn’t wait until morning?”
“No.” She glanced back toward Cassandra, hovering near the door as if debating whether to flee into the hallway.
Aelius followed her gaze. “Is everything all right?”
Crispina hesitated for a moment. She should have thought more carefully about how to present this to him. This was the first time she would ask a favor of him, and she feared she was not off to a good start after rousing him in the middle of the night.
“Cassandra is pregnant,” she announced, deciding to get straight to the point. “And the father of her child, whom she loves, is about to be sold off tomorrow to a mine or somewhere horrible.”
Aelius’s eyebrows shot up. “I see.”
“I would like for us to purchase him,” Crispina continued. “I know you don’t need another slave, and it may be an unnecessary expense, but you can use the money from my dowry, and—”
“There’s no further discussion needed.” Aelius swung his legs out of the bed and rose to stand before her.
Crispina broke off. Her gaze snapped to his face, shadowy in the insubstantial lamplight. She didn’t know him well enough yet to read his expression. Was he about to refuse, or…
He addressed Cassandra, still lurking in the back of the room. “In the morning, give Ajax the name of your beloved’s current master. I’ll send him with six hundred denarii to make an offer of purchase. It’s a better price than he’ll get from a dealer.”
“Oh, sir,” Cassandra whispered. “Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.” She hid her face in her hands as another wave of tears overtook her. Crispina hoped they were happy tears this time.
Aelius crossed to Cassandra and folded her into a gentle embrace. She sagged into his arms, alternately sobbing and gasping thanks. He murmured soothing words into her ear and patted her back with a soft touch. Crispina felt a twinge of embarrassment at the effortless way Aelius comforted the young woman. She had been unable to summon that much warmth to offer Cassandra.
But at least she had solved Cassandra’s problem, and the lovers would be reunited in short order.
Cassandra calmed and withdrew from Aelius’s embrace. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I had planned to name the child after his father, if it’s a boy. But now, I think I should name him after you, sir, for a boy, or you, mistress, for a girl. If you would permit it.”
Aelius smiled down at her. “We would be honored. Now, I think you should try to get some rest.”
“Of course, sir.” She bowed formally to him and Crispina, and left the room.
Aelius turned to Crispina, his brow furrowing in an expression she couldn’t place.
She lifted her chin, meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry for waking you, but I thought you would want to know of the situation.”
“You were right.” His gaze grew faraway, and he glanced at the door through which Cassandra had left. “I often wondered if my mother was once in Cassandra’s position.” An edge of vulnerability roughened his voice.
Crispina sensed he was confessing something hidden, something he’d never spoken about to anyone before. She took a moment before replying, wanting to take the appropriate care with her words, as if handling a glass cup that had been blown too thin. “Do you mean…your father…?”
“I have never brought myself to ask her,” Aelius said. “And she has never volunteered it.”
“Even as a child, you never asked?”
He shook his head, gaze downcast.
Crispina absorbed this in silence. She couldn’t imagine having the self-control to avoid such a crucial question. A new layer of respect for him settled atop the foundation of regard that had already been built.
Aelius continued, “In truth, I think I never asked because I knew the answer.” His jaw tightened, and he sat on the bed with his back to her, shoulders tense. “My mother spent a great deal of time behind closed doors with our master. I never asked her because I couldn’t bear knowing for certain every time she looked at me, she would see a ghost of violence that had been done to her.”
Crispina recalled Horatia’s questions about Aelius’s father, the hypothesis he could have been the son of their former master…and the grim reality of what Gaia might have been forced to endure. Her heart twisted, and she felt an urge to go to Aelius, attempt to comfort him despite her ineptitude, but a deep guilt held her back. After all, she’d been aware her father and ex-husband had taken liberties with their slaves and she’d turned a blind eye to it. She’d never found it as abhorrent as it seemed now. Her past nonchalance left a bitter taste in her mouth.
“I’m sorry.” Her words came out in an unsteady murmur. “Your mother loves you very much. Anyone can see that.”
“I know. That’s why I promised myself I would never ask her to tell me. That part of our lives is behind us. I don’t need to know who my father is.” He turned toward her and gave her a wry smile. “That must sound so strange to you, who can trace your lineage back to the founding of the city.”
Admiration bloomed in her chest. All her life, she’d been raised to think that family and ancestry were everything. The patrician class to which Crispina belonged traced their lineage back to the first hundred senators chosen by Romulus at the city’s founding. Crispina had always been taught that being a member of such a family was the highest possible honor, and maintaining the purity of their bloodlines was of the utmost importance.
In her lessons, she had been forced to memorize her family’s genealogy going back centuries. Yet Aelius was striving for success without even knowing for sure who his father was.
“I suppose you’re a direct descendent of Romulus?” Aelius continued, joking.
“No, but my father will tie himself in knots to claim ancestry from Aeneas,” Crispina said.
His mouth curved in a warm smile, then opened in a yawn. “May we return to bed?”
Crispina nodded. She blew out the lamp and slid into her side of the bed. Aelius said nothing further, and soon the deep, even sound of his breathing filled the room.
She envied his ability to return to sleep. Her mind was still too active, coming to terms with the feeling of something shifting, changing, remolding between them. Now, they were no longer just two people being cordial to each other for the sake of a marriage. They were co-conspirators in this scheme to reunite Cassandra with her lover. Partners . The seed of something new was growing, and Crispina wondered if she’d be able to uproot it when the time came.