Pompeii: City on Fire (25 page)

The slave left her in the impluvium, still taking in her surroundings, with a single syllable of
"Wait."

She had time, then, to reflect on this newest development in her quest for freedom. If her plans of winning the townspeople with her fighting prowess had not been crushed under the studded sandals of Floronius in the arena yesterday, then today there was nothing left but ash and dust. Cato had thwarted her from start to finish, and now he planned to use her in a new way, and she was once again without a plan to find freedom.

Again, a rage that longed to vent itself shook her from head to foot as she waited for Cato to arrive and inspect his newest purchase. But it was a woman who bustled through the greenery of the garden in the center of the home, and beckoned Ariella with an elegant hand.

"Come." She stood tall and regal at the atrium's half-wall, her gold-edged robe lit by the morning sun above and her hair woven atop her head with a delicate gold chain. "Come here, where I can better see you."

Ariella ran a self-conscious hand over the back of her own short hair, circled the mosaic pool and approached the woman. She was still beautiful, though old enough to be Ariella's mother, with well-defined cheekbones and a trim figure. Ariella's rage did not subside in the presence of this high-born beauty, who had the power to command Ariella's future as though she were nothing more than the newest piece of furniture to be put to good use. She lifted her chin and met the woman's gaze.

Her defiance seemed to surprise the lady of the house, as she must be. Her eyebrows lifted, not in annoyance but more amusement, disarming Ariella.

"So I hear that my son has purchased a slave from the gladiator school?"

Ariella tightened her lips and did not look away.

"I am Octavia. Do you know where you are, boy?" The words were not unkind, though she probably did not care.

"In the house of Portius Cato." Ariella tilted her head and looked the woman up and down. "To be used in whatever way the household wishes."

The lady frowned. "You will find us good masters here." She indicated the gardens. "The house is pleasant, and our slaves are well cared for, as you will learn."

Again Ariella said nothing, but her silence was not noted, for another woman entered the courtyard from a back hall and passed through the garden toward them. "Who is this, Mother?"

The mother held out her arm to welcome the daughter. Ariella took in the girl with a glance. She was about the same age as Ariella had been when she left Jerusalem, though far more innocent. She wore her hair much as her mother, and again Ariella's hand strayed to her leather vest and then her cropped hair, and a shame she had thought long destroyed washed over her soul. The girl's fine white robe was secured with red jewels at her shoulders, and she looked as though she were another flower in the garden she crossed. In their presence Ariella was a caricature of a woman, like one of the stage men who dressed as women for the plays, ugly and laughable.

Octavia pulled the young girl to her side in the embrace of a mother. "A new slave Quintus has purchased, Isabella. From the gladiator school, it appears." Her inflection implied all the curiosity she must have felt.

Isabella broke away from her mother and stepped to Ariella for a closer look. She smelled of honey and flowers, the smell of wealth. "Why, it is the young boy that Quintus saved yesterday!"

"Is it?" Octavia squinted at her.

"Of course it is, Mother. And the same fighter that he studied at the first games."

Octavia frowned. "Why does he have such an interest in this one?"

Ariella breathed through her nose, trying to control her anger over being spoken of as though she were not present. But the young Isabella stood close, too close, peering into Ariella's eyes. All at once, she clapped her hands together and began to laugh.

"Isabella!" Octavia's rebuke was gentle.

"Can you not see it, Mother?" Isabella circled around Ariella, gleeful. "It is quite obvious once you realize!"

"What foolishness do you speak, girl?"

Ariella stood between them and flushed at their inspection.

"Look closely, Mother." Isabella touched her hair. "She is a
woman!
"

Octavia reeled backward as though struck. "A woman!"

Ariella's heart beat out her shame, and she dropped her eyes for the first time since entering the wealthy home.

The young Isabella laughed. "So Quintus has finally taken some interest in women."

"Isabella!" Again, the reprimand was more from duty than outrage.

"You must admit it, Mother. He has never taken a mistress, takes no interest in the female slaves or the brothel. It's the first time he's shown such humanity!"

"Is it true?" Octavia reached out to touch Ariella's arm. "Are you a woman?"

Ariella jumped backward, avoiding the touch.

"Yes, Isabella," Octavia smiled a little. "I see it now. You have been masquerading as a boy?" Her eyes were sympathetic. "How difficult that must have been."

Ariella steeled her heart, clenched her hands into fists at her sides, and studied her feet.

"Mother?"

The male voice from the doorway behind them forced a pounding in Ariella's chest, but she did not turn.

"Quintus!" Isabella was all laughter and amusement. "Come and see what we have here."

She heard his footsteps behind her, the same footsteps that had accompanied her back to the barracks after Jeremiah had been hurt. She swallowed and tried to still her trembling limbs, uncertain of what emotions caused such unrest.

Cato slowed behind her, silent, and still she refused to turn.

"Quintus." Octavia's voice still held curiosity. "What is this?"

"I already told you, Mother," Isabella interrupted. "Quintus has taken a woman."

Cato cleared his throat. "She told you of her disguise?"

Isabella laughed. "Do you think we are blind, Quintus?"

There was a beat of silence and then Cato spoke her name, low and quiet. "Ariella. Turn around."

She pivoted to her new master, aware that she had little choice in this or any matter.

His eyes on her were as kind as his mother's had been, but strangely the kindness only raised her ire, perhaps because she understood none of it.

He studied her. "You are angry." It was not a question, so she did not answer.

Isabella and Octavia seemed to sense that they should retreat, and did so. But Cato did not seem content to speak with her in the open courtyard. He grasped her arm and pulled her toward the nearest receiving room.

She followed, mute.

The room was furnished to impress, with couches, sculptures, and painted panels that reached the lofty ceiling. The high windows opened to the west, and the room was still dim in the morning hours. Cato did not release her until they were well into the room, away from the door, and then he turned on her and took a deep breath, as though preparing for an attack.

Ariella waited, letting her resentment build again, preparing the sharp words she would use, the only weapons she still retained.

"Ariella."

She had expected arrogance. Flippancy, even. But her name was soft on his lips. Apologetic. She fought to hold onto the rage.

He dropped his eyes, as though the shame were his own. "When I saw you under his foot in the sand . . ." He breathed heavily. "I—I could not watch it happen again. I had to do something. To remove you from the arena."

She found her voice, icy and hard. "To keep me as your pet, then. Since I would not be your campaign prop."

His eyes returned to her face now, and roamed over it as though to search out any injury. "To keep you safe."

Ariella licked her lips and swallowed, fighting that curious mixture of fear and anger—and something very different his presence always caused.

He stepped closer. "I did not know what else to do." His eyes went to her bandaged arm, and then his hand touched the knot that held the dressing. "May I?"

She said nothing. He stood so close, she did not trust herself to speak, or even to move.

With gentle hands he untied the knot, unwound the strips of rag, and touched the reddened skin around the crossed cuts with his fingertips. Ariella bit her lower lip to hold it still.

"It should heal well. But you should try to keep it at rest awhile." He rewrapped the rags, still standing a breath away.

"That will not be easy." He stood so close, she spoke over his shoulder, focused on the wall behind him. "The life of a slave is not one of leisure."

He finished with her bandages but did not step back. His eyes were on her face again, and when he spoke his voice was so low she nearly missed the words, only a breath against her ear.

"I did not know what else to do."

CHAPTER 31

With the dawn of each new day, Cato's priorities returned to him as sure as the sun reached through the high windows of his bedchamber.

Free his sister.

Defeat Nigidius Maius.

Avoid Ariella.

And not necessarily in that order. Indeed, the latter was becoming a challenge.

This morning he dressed quickly, anxious to begin the series of meetings awaiting him through the day—meetings with prominent citizens who had each been subjugated in some way by Maius, and whom Cato was attempting to sway to his side of the election. If time allowed, he planned to find his way once again to the old Jewish slave who had become both teacher and friend through days of furtive meeting.

He met Octavia and Isabella in the morning room, already dining on cereals and oranges being served by Ariella.

Her appearance in the days she had been part of his household had ceased to be a shock to him, as it was the first morning after he bought her from Drusus. Isabella and Octavia had taken Ariella under their collective wing at once, refusing to allow the disguise to continue. They dressed her in the finest robes a slave could be given, then decorated her in the way of women, with baubles and glittering things Cato could not name. And she no longer smelled of leather and metal, of the sweaty training barracks. Instead, the scent of the gardens sometimes lingered when she bent over him to serve his wine or passed him in the courtyard or back halls of the house. Her hair, too, had begun to grow out since he had first met her, wavy and thick, and he found it rather complementary to her petite features. Only the metal collar made her position clear.

All of it was quite disturbing, and almost he suspected his mother and sister of confounding him purposely. He nodded a morning greeting to the two of them, and each smiled sweetly. Surely they had placed Ariella here this morning in anticipation of his arrival.

For Ariella's part, she continued to ignore him. He could not understand her attitude any more than her appearance. She seemed to always be about, almost as though she followed him in his movements through the house, and yet she did not speak to him nor even look at him unless necessary.

And she was sad, this he could see.

"Mother, Isabella." He lowered himself to a cushion and ladled his own wine into a bowl before Ariella had a chance to attend him. "What plans do you two have on this lovely summer day?"

Isabella shrugged. "I thought I would hang about the doorways of your receiving rooms and listen to your meetings."

Cato narrowed his eyes. She was only half-jesting. Isabella's curiosity of the workings of politics had become insatiable. "And if one of those men should take offense at your listening ear, and draw a dagger against it?"

She gave him a sly smile and shrugged. "Perhaps Ariella has been teaching me the way of the warrior."

Cato glanced sharply at Ariella, but the slave's eyes were on Isabella, and her tiny smile and shake of the head were for the girl alone.

"I'll not have any sister of mine—"

"Oh, hush, brother." Isabella laughed. "I am only teasing. My, but you are so sensitive of late!"

Cato grabbed at a hard crust of bread and bit down on it, then cursed at the pain.

Ariella's glance flicked to him for a moment, but her amusement had fled and he saw only resentment, which pained him more than the crusty bread.

Later in the day—after an exhausting round of noblemen, civic leaders, and wealthy businessmen had paraded in and out of the house, in turn rejecting or supporting him—Cato found Ariella in the kitchen, kneading dough.

Octavia held sway in all things domestic in Cato's house, and he had not specified how Ariella was to be put to use. Beside a position requiring learning, such as a tutor or overseer, a kitchen slave had the most chance to move about the house and the city at will, and Octavia had placed Ariella here for the relative freedom, no doubt sensing that the girl was special to her son.

He watched from the doorway as her arms, well-muscled from the months of training with a sword, pounded and flipped the tanned lump until it was silky smooth.

"You attack the dough as though it were your enemy."

She startled, and her reflexes clearly remembered their training. Her floured fists jerked to chin-height, she took a step backward with one leg, bracing her weight, and she was once again Ari of the arena. But the reaction lasted only a moment. She returned to her bread the moment she saw who had startled her, the gladiator dissolving once more into a woman.

Cato leaned against the doorway and folded his arms. "I must remember not to come upon you in the dark."

She did not look up, but he could see her face flush red.
She does not appreciate the reminder.

Already he had forgotten his morning objective, to avoid her. "You have been nearly silent since coming here. I have never found you with so little to say."

She did not pause in her kneading. The ball of dough fell from her hands to the floured board, sending a puff into the air around her hands. "Perhaps the company has grown dull."

He could not help smiling again, but was glad she did not see it. This provocation was closer to their former interactions than anything since he brought her to his house. "Hmmm. Yes. My mother and sister can be quite tedious."

"Your mother and sister are the best thing about the Catonii."