Daughters of Rome (45 page)

“Marcella!” Cornelia screamed.
“Marcella!”
She hauled Diana’s taut arm, pointing, and Diana looked up to see her cousin.
She’s dead, surely she’s dead
—but Marcella was alive, and gods only knew how Cornelia managed to catch sight of her in this maelstrom. Their cousin stood in her pale-blue
stola
beside the altar of Mars, her hair whipping about her calm face: a column of ice watching the slaughter. There were a score of plebs around her, cheering various struggling combatants and slapping down coins in bets, but she stood quite still.

“Marcella!”
Lollia added her voice to Cornelia’s, shouting, and finally Marcella heard. Her head turned and Diana saw the calm carved face, the watchful eyes, and then she was running toward the chariot.

“Diana, stop the horses, you have to stop them—”

“—Can’t—” she gritted through bared teeth, her blistered palms weeping blood, but she threw her whole body back on the reins and the Anemoi pulled up in a thrash of hooves, dripping foam, shrieking like the wounded men in the fountain. The chariot tilted perilously on one wheel and they all clutched at the rail, but it righted itself and the horses gathered to run again, and this time they tore the reins through Diana’s hands in a blaze of agony. She knew she’d never hold them now, but Marcella was close, and Lollia and Cornelia put out their hands and brought her flying up into the chariot as the Reds lunged into a crazed gallop. A legionary tried to grab for Boreas’s reins but recoiled screaming as the old stallion swiped foam-flecked teeth at him and took off his ear and half his cheek. Diana fumbled whitely for the reins, every finger sawed open and bleeding, but Marcella was clinging safe to the chariot rail, squashed up against Lollia with Cornelia on her other side. There was barely room for the four of them and Marcella hung perilously off the back, but her eyes were gleaming. “Where are we going?” she shouted, but Diana was fighting the horses and had no breath left to answer.

The Aurelian Gate was open, littered by half a dozen prowling guards. They stepped into the path at the sound of hooves, holding their spears up to halt the chariot, but the Anemoi ran them down without a blink. Diana felt the bodies bump under the wheels and Cornelia nearly slipped off the back of the chariot, but Lollia flung an arm around her waist and hauled her back in. They clung to each other, the four Cornelias crammed close behind four runaway horses, and first Diana looked up at the sky and saw that night had fallen, and then she looked back and realized they’d left the city behind.

“
W
HAT
is this place?” Marcella blinked sleepily in the dawn light, looking up at the dusty rafters overhead.

“It belongs to Llyn ap Caradoc.” Diana yawned, stretching her arms overhead as Marcella looked around the hay bales, the harness hooks, the rows of stalls. “He usually has a steward and a few slaves, but they must have fled. Still, I knew Llyn wouldn’t mind if we borrowed his barn.”

“Couldn’t we have borrowed his house?” Marcella shivered in the morning chill, rubbing her bare arms.

“Oh, no. Britons take guest-right very seriously. You don’t ever just invite yourself into a Briton’s house.”

“You know the oddest things, Diana.”

Still, Marcella thought, a haystack was better than nothing. Even if they’d trotted half the night to get to it. The villa wasn’t far outside city walls, Diana had explained at some point last night during the long dark drive, but it was a good distance around from the Aurelian Gate, where they’d had to make their escape. She’d pulled up the horses in the yard well past midnight, and Marcella had been only too happy to pile off the chariot in Lollia and Cornelia’s wake, stagger into the barn, and collapse without a further word into the haystack.

Lollia was still asleep, curled into a ball in the hay and looking no older than Flavia, but Cornelia was just starting to stir. Marcella yawned again, and Diana put her hands to the small of her back and grimaced as she stretched. “Gods’ wheels, I’ve never hurt so much in my life,” she groaned. “Not even after my Circus Maximus race.”

She held up her hands in the gray dawn light and Marcella saw that blood had spiraled down from her blistered, sawed-open palms and dried around her wrists in brown ribbons. “Those horses pulled your hands to pieces, didn’t they?”

“I don’t mind.” Diana tugged affectionately at the old stallion’s drooping ears. “They ran like gods.” The Anemoi looked as exhausted as Diana, still standing harnessed to the chariot with their noses hanging at their knees. They’d galloped half the night and trotted the other half once they ran themselves tired, and even when Diana pulled them up in the barn she said she didn’t dare unharness them. “What if a stray raiding party comes along? We might need to make another fast escape.” The last thing Marcella had seen before her eyes snapped shut in sleep had been Diana curled up against the old stallion’s legs, stroking the heavy nose that dropped on her shoulder and gazing at the road below in search of further danger.

“I think we can unharness them now.” Marcella rubbed her bare arms again. “I doubt we’ll see any marauding legionaries this morning. They’ll all be too busy sleeping off their hangovers and guarding their loot.” She gestured at the horses. “Can I help?”

“Fetch them some water? There’s a well outside.”

Marcella lugged four buckets over, two at a time, as Diana began unbuckling straps and traces. The first stallion shook himself in relief as the bridle slid over his ears, and Diana murmured loving nonsense at him.

“You really were splendid, Diana.” Marcella heaved up a bucket for the horse to drink. “Lollia says you saved her and Cornelia, and I don’t doubt it.”

“You were the one in real danger.” Diana unbuckled the breastplate from the old stallion’s heavy chest, looking at Marcella. “What were you doing down there in the Campus Martius?”

Marcella shrugged. “I wanted to see what would happen.”

“You could have died.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” She smiled. “You saved me, didn’t you?”

“Maybe.” Diana rubbed the second stallion’s silky nose as he started eagerly for the water bucket. “We might all be dead if Vitellius hadn’t given me the horses.”

“He was hiding in the Blues stable.” She hauled an armload of harness to one side. “I spoke with him. He was . . .”

“What?” Marcella asked eagerly. “Tell me!”

Diana looked at her. “Nothing. He gave me the horses. I suppose he’s dead now.”

“Do you have to be so close-mouthed?” Marcella said, exasperated.

“There’s nothing to tell.” Diana looped ropes about two of the arched chestnut necks, and the stallions followed her docile as ponies to their stalls. Marcella rolled her eyes. But by the time Diana put up all four horses with hay and more fond words, Lollia and Cornelia were awake and there was no more privacy to press Diana for her secrets.
The one time she knows anything interesting
, Marcella thought,
is the one time she keeps her mouth shut!

“Juno’s mercy, whenever did you find time to pack?” Cornelia was asking as Lollia rummaged in her satchel and triumphantly produced a packet of bread and cheese.

“Well, I resigned myself to a noble death as was proper.” Lollia began parceling the bread out among them. “But I thought that just in
case
we had to do the sensible thing and flee instead of the patrician thing and die, it would be nice to have some food and perhaps a little money and an extra
palla
or two . . .” She produced coins, cloaks, and more food like a conjurer.

Cornelia laughed, but the laughter died away quickly and she looked out the wide barn doors toward the city. “Worried for your soldier?” Diana said, rummaging about the barn for rags to tie up her blood-crusted hands.

“Soldier?” Lollia dug to the bottom of the pack.

“You didn’t know about Cornelia’s lover?” Marcella spread her
palla
out on the hay to catch the breadcrumbs from Lollia’s bread. “Tullia screamed loud enough to be heard in Gaul.”

“Of course I knew about Cornelia’s lover, and long before you did! So that was him, the soldier at the house? Of course it was. He came to protect you, how romantic! Who is he? You have to tell us now, my honey.”

“Centurion Drusus Sempronius Densus.” Cornelia took a chunk of cheese and started to nibble. Even if Cornelia were starving, Marcella thought in amusement, she’d never wolf her food. “Formerly of the Praetorian Guard.”

“So
that’s
where I knew him.” Lollia sounded satisfied. “Your old bodyguard. I always used to think he had an eye for you—”

“How long did it go on?” Marcella wondered. “You never did tell me.”

“Over four months,” Cornelia said, composed. “And that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

“Do you suppose we could return to the city today?” Marcella broke a chunk of bread in half as she gazed out at the road, letting her own eyes drift out toward the city. “Just think what must be happening . . .”

“If you’re that curious, you can go alone.” Diana was bandaging up her bloody hands. “We stay here a few days until things calm down.”

“Who are you to give orders?” Marcella said, nettled.

Diana looked back at her calmly. “I’m the only one who can drive a chariot, that’s who I am. Unless you plan on walking back to the city? Because the horses are staying here, and so should all four of us until things settle down.”

Marcella glared. Cornelia didn’t look happy either—still worrying for her soldier—but Lollia flopped back into the straw with a groan of contentment.

“A few days to sleep in this delightful hay—bliss, even if it is scratchy. I don’t think I’d even care if some legionary raped me at this point, as long as he didn’t wake me up. I could even sleep through sex with Fabius, and that’s saying something. Gods, I hope he really is dead. Pass the cheese?”

They slept a great deal over the next day. Lollia made friends with the nameless black dog who haunted the barn, as well as the horses who had saved their lives—even the savage old stallion succumbed to her cooing and let her put braids in his mane. “It appears,” Marcella observed, “that no male of any species can resist Lollia.” Marcella spent a good deal of time staring down the road toward the city, calculating a dozen different possibilities for Rome’s outcome.
Vespasian is Emperor? Vitellius is prisoner? Vitellius is dead . . .

It wasn’t till sunset that the villa’s owner returned. Marcella saw him first from the door of the barn, a lone figure striding up the long slope of the hill toward the barn. Her muscles tensed before she realized it was only one man. His sword was out, but he strode far too unhurriedly to be looking for a fight. “Diana,” Marcella called, “is that our, ah, host?”

Diana swung off the fence railing where she’d been watching the Anemoi frisk in the long grass, her pale hair gleaming in the fading sun. She looked down the slope a moment, then turned swiftly and jogged to meet the approaching figure. She met him a short distance from the barn’s entrance, and Marcella could hear them without straining. “I wondered if you’d be back, Llyn.”

“I’m back.” He looked her over, and Marcella wondered if he’d start feeling her legs up and down like he’d check a horse for spavins. “I see you came out unscathed.”

“Me and my three cousins.” Diana gestured behind her, and Marcella gave a vague wave from the door of the barn and retreated a little into the door’s shadow as if she were out of earshot. “I put them up in your barn—we didn’t have anywhere else safe. Don’t worry,” Diana added, though Marcella didn’t see the Briton’s face move. “We didn’t enter your house. I wouldn’t violate guest-right. Though I did borrow your tunic,” she added, plucking at the coarse cloth. It hung to her shins, and she’d belted it around her waist with a spare length of rein. “My dress was all bloody, and I found this hanging on a nail in the barn. I figured guest-right didn’t extend to old clothes.”

“It does not,” he said formally. “And I welcome you and your cousins to my hall, as guests—though you can probably return to the city if you wish.”

“Why?” Diana tilted her head at him. A stray lock of hair curved over her forehead like a little crescent moon: Diana the Huntress more than ever, Marcella thought. “Is the city quiet?”

“Yes. The legionaries are under control now.” The black dog padded out, tail wagging, and Llyn bent to scratch his ears. “An emergency meeting of the Senate is soon to be convened. They will undoubtedly confirm Vespasian as Emperor. They’re already hailing his son Domitian at the Domus Aurea.”

So Domitian survived.
Marcella was mildly surprised at that. And the Senate was confirming Vespasian already? She drew in a breath, praying the Briton would go on.

“Another emperor.” Diana put her bandaged hands at the small of her back, stretching. “There will always be one, you know, no matter how many times you take matters into your own hands. I hope you realize that.”