The Bow of Heaven - Book I: The Other Al - By Andrew Levkoff Page 0,109
was drawn not by the usual two, but by four horses. She had closed all the shutters and not even Livia rode with her. She had been looking forward to the journey home through northern Etruria, especially since it had rained on most of the journey north and she had seen little of the countryside. But now, her body and her spirit were as closed off as her carriage, and her mood raced like the clouds between despair and rage as they wound their way toward Pistoria on the Via Cassia.
Before they had gone ten miles, Crassus halted the procession, summoned a groom to take his mount and rapped smartly on the carved door of the vehicle. “Tertulla,” he said in a tone just below civil, “I wish to ride with you awhile.” There came the sound of a bolt being pulled back, and the door swung open.
Crassus entered, flipped his cloak out of the way and sat with his back to the front of the carriage, facing her. Tertulla lowered the hood of her sea-blue paenula and waited, her eyes lowered. He pulled a shutter aside, gave the command to proceed and closed it again. In a moment, the raeda lurched and they were on their way. The two of them sat without speaking in the dim light of the cabin. The constant grinding of the iron rimmed wheels on the flagstones paved over their silence. Tertulla ached to tell him how sorry she was, to explain, to do anything which would make him look at her in the way he had done only yesterday, in the way she feared he would never look at her again. Her heart was pounding with the knowledge that these next few moments might determine how they would spend the rest of their lives, yet she could not speak first. That was her husband’s prerogative, and so she waited.
At last, Crassus looked up and said, “Do you remember when we first built the villa at Baiae, that mouse in the bedroom?” His voice was sad and distant.
“Hercules.” Tertulla, said, her voice too timid to be hopeful.
“You made a pet out of him.”
“Only because you could never catch him.”
“I would have done, if you’d let me tell the slaves to do it.”
“But you were my hero. You were so diligent: devising traps, laying bits of cheese about the room.”
“At least you allowed the slaves to clean up the mess. And the droppings.”
“And that time you stayed up, sitting on the bed in your nightshirt, ready to pounce on him with your helmet .... I could not breathe for the laughter.”
“I did catch him, if you recall. That’s when you named him. Alas, he ate through the box.”
“And you held a manumission ceremony in absentia!”
“More for me than the mouse. I gave him his freedom so I would be free of having to chase him. Remember that little bed you made for him from a jewelry box? He never went near it. Thought it was another trap. A smart little rodent – you should have called him Alexander.”
“Our Greek would have been insulted.”
He sighed. “Did we ever find out who let the cat in the house?”
“No. Poor Hercules.” She waited, hoping he would say more.
“Those were happy times,” Crassus said at last, putting his hand to his forehead. He seemed ready to sink back down into silence.
“Marcus? Talk to me. Please?”
Staring at nothing, he asked, “Have the years turned me into such an ogre? Or have Caesar’s laurels charmed you?” He looked into the blue of her eyes. “Do you love him?”
“Oh gods, Marcus. He raped me!” She reached across the coach to take his hand, but he pulled away.
Crassus looked up and met her gaze. “It did not look like rape.” His words fell like lead from his mouth. He felt diminished, compacted, separate. He could see truth in her green eyes, but a carapace of convention kept him from touching her.
“But for the darkness, you would have seen my tears.”
“Why, then, did you not cry out? Why did you not resist?”
The carriage bounced over a rough spot and they both grabbed for their handholds. “Do you think after thirty years I would betray you for that preening peacock? Think, Marcus. I let him do what he did for the same reason you did not stop him! How long did you stand at the doorway? Who do you think sacrificed more last night, you or I?”