The Blood of Gods A Novel of Rome - By Conn Iggulden Page 0,129
am happy wherever you are. You have wealth enough for comfort and you are respected and loved.’ She hesitated, unsure how far she should go with an argument they had been through before, many times. ‘I do not want to lose you. You know I would die on the same day.’
Brutus turned to her and gathered her to him. She felt small against his side and he could feel the heat of her skin through the thin cloth as he breathed in the scent of her hair.
‘You are a little mad, you know,’ he muttered. ‘But I love you anyway. And I will not lose, Portia. I have thrown down a tyrant, a king. Should I now bend my knee to some boy calling himself by the same name? I knew the real Caesar. Octavian has no right to it. No right at all.’
Portia reached up and took his face in her hands, the touch surprisingly cool on his skin.
‘You cannot unbreak all that is broken, my love. You cannot fix the entire world. I think that, of all of them, you have done enough and hurt yourself enough for one lifetime. Is it such a terrible thing to enjoy the fruits of your life now? To have slaves wait on you hand and foot while you enjoy the summers? To spend those years with me in some fine villa by the sea? My father has a place in Herculaneum that is very beautiful. He writes letters every day and runs his estates. Is there shame in that? I don’t think there is.’
He looked down at her. It could not be said that she didn’t understand what drove him. He had told her everything of his past and his failures as well as his triumphs. She had married him in the full knowledge of who he had been and who he still wanted to be, but that did not stop her arguing for peace and retirement. He was only sorry their son had died in childhood. Raising a growing boy might have turned her attentions away from her husband. Yet since then, she had not quickened again, as if her womb had died with the child. The thought upset him and he shook his head.
‘I am not an old man like your father, Portia, not this year anyway. I have another battle in me. If I don’t fight it, or if we lose, they will say of me only that I was a murderer, not that I freed Rome. They will talk of Marcus Brutus as just some petty traitor and they will write the histories to suit them. I have seen it done, Portia. I will not let them do it to me. I cannot let them do it to me!’ He reached up to hold her wrists and brought her hands down to his chest, over his heart.
‘I know you are a good man, Marcus,’ she said, softly. ‘I know you are the best of them, better than that scrawny Cassius, or Suetonius, or any of them. I know it hurt you to be part of their plots, just as it hurts you now to be fighting still. I think you care too much about how they see you, my love. What does it matter if small men live in ignorance of who you were, who you still are? Is your dignity so fragile that the meanest beggar on the street cannot laugh like a fool when you pass? Will you answer all insults, even from men who are not worthy to tie your sandals? You did free Rome, husband. You restored the Republic, or at least you gave them the chance to see a way through without dictators and kings ruling them as slaves. That’s what you’ve said a dozen times. Isn’t that enough for you? You have done more than most men would manage in a dozen lifetimes and I love you for it, but the seasons change and there has to come a time when you put down the sword.’
‘I will, I swear it, after this. Just after this, Portia. The gods have given me all the lions of Rome as my enemies. If they can be beaten, there is no one else who can make an empire out of the ashes. The Republic will go on and there will be peace for a thousand years. I have that in my grasp, just as I have you in my grasp.’