Page 37

‘My father owns this vineyard.’ Felix dropped his hand before the ring could be inspected.

Authentic as it might have been, it was crafted for Loren’s slender fingers.

Anyone with half a brain would notice how tightly it fitted Felix.

‘He sent me here for samples. A quality inspection. Anonymous,’ he added for Adolphus’s benefit.

Word didn’t need to make it back to Lucius Lassius. If Loren had kept his head down this long, no sense alerting his father that he was now conducting spontaneous inspections on their outlying properties.

‘Samples my arse,’ Darius said. ‘Lying bastard.’

Adolphus bristled. ‘You dare insult my employer’s son?’

Felix shot him a fond look. Adolphus might be an idiot, but he was a loyal one. Or a bootlicking one. In the moment, Felix would accept either.

‘This boy is no one’s son. He’s a criminal.’ Darius gestured with the point of his sword. ‘Open the bag.’

‘And spoil the samples?’ said Felix.

‘And spoil the samples ?’ spluttered Adolphus.

The other guard grabbed, but Felix danced away. ‘Fine. Have it your way, but if wine stops flowing in Pompeii, on your head be it.’

The bag thumped to the ground, and Felix untied the strings. Lifting the flap, he allowed Adolphus and the guards and the gods themselves to peer inside.

Grapes spilled out. Hundreds of them.

Adolphus gasped. ‘Oh, wonderful samples. You have an eye for detail, like your father, young master.’

Felix filtered him out, holding Darius’s piercing gaze. Darius’s eye twitched. A bead of sweat dripped off his nose and splattered in the dirt.

Adolphus was fooled, but Darius knew too much.

Felix unmistakably wasn’t the son of Lucius Lassius, and if Darius pressed the issue, the deception would unravel.

Felix would face worse than Servius; he’d be turned over to Lassius himself for fraud once Servius had the helmet.

Not exactly how Felix imagined meeting the parents of the boy he’d kissed would go .

Fumbling and stomping broke their glaring contest. Loren stumbled through the gap.

‘Wait!’ He staggered between Felix and Darius. ‘You cannot harm him on these lands. I order you—’

The sweet, clumsy fool was about to ruin it all.

Felix snarled, ‘Silence, Felix!’

‘What,’ said Loren, and it wasn’t a question. Silently pleading he would catch on, Felix twisted his hand until the signet ring flashed.

‘Who is this?’ Adolphus puffed his chest. ‘Who is this, issuing orders?’

‘I,’ Loren said, hesitation scraping. He swallowed. ‘Am Felix. His assistant.’

‘He’s Greek,’ Felix offered. ‘Speaks little Latin.’

Loren looked as if he’d swallowed a wasp. ‘Yes, I—’

‘In fact, he hardly speaks at all.’

Loren’s mouth shut with an audible click.

‘Interesting,’ Darius said, ‘that you two match the descriptions of the thieves we’re chasing. You should know guards talk to each other. Perhaps it wasn’t wise to throw around your affiliation with Isis at the city gate.’

‘On whose authority?’ Adolphus snapped. ‘You trespass onto the land I tend, accuse my master’s heir of theft, demand access to time-sensitive samples. I would like to know, who do you serve?’

Darius’s thick fingers tightened around the grip of his sword.

Felix held perfectly still. One well-aimed swing, and his head would roll with the grapes.

But anyone with even a passing knowledge of trade knew the power Lassius commanded.

Even when Felix’s identity was revealed, the scandal of killing the vineyard’s heir unarmed on his own property would sink Darius’s reputation.

And by extension, Servius’s. The line Darius trod was thinner than papyrus.

Slow, so slow, Darius inclined his head. Bowing to Felix must have ranked among the most painful tasks ever asked of him. ‘I meant no offence, wine-master. We’ll leave you to your business. Come, Maxim.’

Tilting his chin to his companion, Darius strode down the long row of trellises. Maxim shouldered past Adolphus, nearly knocking him over. Loren steadied him.

‘Horrible man,’ Adolphus said with a sniff, shaking off Loren and snapping his heels together to preserve his dwindling dignity. ‘Are you all right, sir?’

It took Felix a moment to realise the question was for him. He nodded and released the breath he’d been holding as Darius finally disappeared.

‘It is a sad day when a boy cannot fetch grapes off his own land without being harassed,’ Adolphus continued. ‘Why, when your father finds out—’

‘No,’ Felix said. ‘Don’t breathe a word to him.’

Adolphus frowned. ‘But—’

‘Do you think my father is a patient man? Or a forgiving one?’ Felix squished a grape between finger and thumb. Juice and pulp splattered. ‘If he found out you allowed his son to be chased by armed men, he may question what else you let happen. Lax on patrol, lax on quality.’

‘Sir.’ Adolphus’s receding hairline trembled. ‘My work is my life. Allow me to set this right.’

Felix stood, hoisting the bag over his shoulder. ‘You’ve done enough.’

‘There must be something more.’

‘My assistant and I were on our way to inspect the upper pastures.’

Behind Adolphus, Loren’s nose crinkled. Pastures? he mouthed, but Felix shot him a warning glare.

If Adolphus thought the phrasing strange, he didn’t dare mention it. Instead, he brightened. ‘We shall go together. Stravo has a cart.’

Beneath the brim of his hat, Stravo grimaced.

‘No, no,’ Felix said. ‘It’s delicate work, these inspections.’

Loren pulled another face. It didn’t help Felix stay in character .

‘Besides, my father did want this done anonymously,’ he continued. ‘Though . . .’

‘Anything. Anything at all.’ Adolphus adjusted his badge, a reminder of his station.

Resisting the urge to raise an unimpressed brow, Felix looked towards the sun’s position. The ambush had cost precious time. Making it up the mountain before sunset had been a stretch already, but now it would be impossible on foot. Scaling Vesuvius in the dark would surely prove deadly.

If only there were a faster way.

Stravo seemed to draw the same conclusion the moment it clicked for Felix, but he didn’t look happy about it. ‘Shall I hitch the mules?’

‘Oh,’ Adolphus said to Felix, ‘what a brilliant idea, Master Lassius. Full of them, you are. Just like your father.’

Full of shit, more like.

Adolphus fretted and fussed, a last-ditch effort to impress, until they left him at the edge of the vineyard. He waved a linen handkerchief as he faded from sight.

‘We aren’t sailing to Troy,’ Loren muttered. ‘The theatrics are unnecessary.’

Felix pretended he understood that reference.

Stravo’s rickety cart was little more than planks tacked together and set on four wheels.

Felix didn’t trust the contraption not to fall apart, especially where he was much heavier than its usual fruity occupants.

Despite the ominous creaking, it held firm, even when the road turned from packed dirt to lumpy rock farther out.

He and Loren dangled their legs in tandem off the open back, the laundry bag separating them.

Damned laundry bag. Felix couldn’t believe the deceit had worked.

The risk he’d taken was calculated, and for someone who never learned mathematics, extraordinarily foolish.

Had Darius kicked the bag, looked beyond the surface layer of grapes, everything would have ended then and there.

Would Darius have let Loren go? Or would his blood have spilled, too?

A whistled tune from the driver’s bench shook Felix from his mental spiral. They were on the mountain proper, halfway up one of the trails only grape farmers used.

Loren cleared his throat and spoke for the first time in a long, silent while. ‘It was clever, what you did back there with the ring. Brave, too.’

‘Brave? It’s your ring. I stole your identity. You should be angry.’

‘If you want to be Lucius Lassius Lorenus, be my guest.’ Loren pulled his knee under his chin, like he had the day at the harbour, when he’d spoken about Achilles and Patroclus and Felix had lacked the nerve to tuck his hair.

Even now, eyeing the strands mussed by their sprint through the vineyard, he clenched his fists to stop from reaching.

Instead, he picked his thumbnail and watched the ground disappear below. ‘I ruined it for you. Darius saw the signet ring. He’ll tell Servius, who will tell your father. It’s over.’

Loren’s brow furrowed. ‘You’re a thief, Felix. For all Darius knows, you murdered Lassius’s real heir and stole the ring for this purpose. In fact, I hope a rumour of my brutal slaying does make it back to my father. Delay the inevitable, at least.’

‘Or hasten it, if he came to see for himself.’ Felix studied Loren’s profile, the sharpness and softness of his lines, the translucent glow of peach-fine hair on his cheek. ‘Darius saw you at the games. Now Servius will know you both as Julia’s heir and my accomplice. Two axes against your neck.’

‘Just one, I think.’ Loren sighed. ‘I spoiled any chance I had with Julia when I made fools of us both in the Forum. No one takes a mad boy as an heir.’

Felix sniffed. ‘Never liked her anyway. You can do better. ’

‘I hope so.’ Loren shot a sideways glance and Felix’s heart skipped.

He busied his hands by popping grapes into his mouth. When he held out a handful, a peace offering, the corner of Loren’s mouth tilted. Together they ate until they’d emptied the bag and only Mercury’s helmet remained.

With careful fingers, Felix drew it out. It seemed safe as anything out here on the side of a mountain. Stravo wouldn’t know a thing about it, wouldn’t care even if he did. The lower class didn’t get involved in the affairs of the rich. Too messy. Too much to lose.

Case in point: Felix, with this headache of a helmet.

‘They were after this,’ he said. ‘You called me clever, but I’m not. I’m lucky. Lucky Adolphus was there to stop them. Though, if what you said the other night is true, I suppose Servius wants me alive anyway.’