We spoke briefly of a treasure you found on the street the other day. I have it now. But would like to make sure it’s in safe keeping. I’d like to discuss this with you at your earliest convenience.
I rolled it without signing, but I did pour hot wax and seal it with my insignia—the Sapphirus dragon breaking out of the ocean waves. Fausta would want some proof it was me, but my insignia was used by every Sapphirus in Rome.
Handing it to Koska, I said, “Be sure she burns it after she reads it. And put it in her hands yourself. Do not go through Bellona or any other servant.”
“Yes, Tribune.” He tucked the missive into the pocket of his tunic and left.
I lay back on the chaise, trying to settle my mind. I huffed a laugh, thinking about Fausta. She was known as a cold, fierce patrician woman—both beautiful and deadly. There were rumors she had killed her husbands in order to gain their fortunes. This was why she likely had no luck in finding a third. Though there was never any proof and no one ever brought charges against her, it was believed tobe true by many. What a perfect facade to hide her true nature. No one would suspect her of smuggling slaves out of Rome.
But if I could discover it, so could someone who intended her harm. Notably, Caesar. I had to speak with her soon.
It wasn’t Fausta who lingered in my thoughts as I drifted into sleep. It was Lela. A tightness eased in my chest, for I might finally have a way to get her out of the city and somewhere safe. I hated to part with her, but every day she remained inside the city walls was another day closer to danger for her. I had to get her out, even if that meant letting her go from my life forever.
A burning sensation stirred from the deep where my dragon slept. He didn’t like that idea. Neither did I. But keeping Lela alive and getting her free of here was all that mattered now.
XVLELA
Pulling the sides of my hood to hide more of my face, I walked alongside Trajan through the streets toward the forum. We both were draped in black cloaks, like patricians of the Media Nocte house. He’d told me there was a patrician of this house who was currently in prison as a traitor to Caesar. He worked in the treasury and had been caught skimming from the coffers.
It was Trajan’s idea that we would watch from the crowd of plebsrather than closer to the temple where the patricians would be so we wouldn’t run into anyone who would recognize his face and wonder why he wasn’t wearing his own house colors. But we needed the guise of patricians to even get close to the dungeon where the Visigoth king was being held.
Three men stumbled from a tavern onto the street. Trajan wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. I was thankful for it, yet again surprised that I welcomed his touch. It disturbed me that I could want a man to keep me tucked close to his body for protection. It had been a very long time since I’d yearned for such a thing.
“The celebrating has already begun,” Trajan murmured down to me as he guided us through the crowded streets.
“Rome loves a celebration.”
“That she does,” he agreed, maneuvering past a brothel where the prostitutes and some of their customers congregated outside.
The mass of people only increased the closer we grew to the forum. Fortunately, the sight of our finely woven black cloaks parted the way for us. One mother turned her head and caught sight of us coming closer and immediately snatched her child out of our way, the look of fear in her eyes.
It saddened me to think these people, even free Romans, were as trapped as I was in a world of fear. This city was terrified of Emperor Igniculus and his ever-increasing laws to control them, to keep them oppressed and subservient.
Glancing up at Trajan, his head covered in the hood, I admired him. I doubted his reasons for liberating Rome of the tyrant Igniculus were as much about freeing the people of Rome as they were about freeing the patricians of Caesar’s iron fist, but it took courage to go against such a formidable power. Trajan knew that he risked death, and possibly a torturous one, to walk this path. Yet, he was doingit anyway. Even without the help of his friend, the general Julianus Dakkia, who had fled the city with his woman.
“Over here,” he urged over the raucous crowd.
He guided me with an arm around my waist toward some stone steps on the side of a taverna. We passed a few men leaving the second floor and heading down.
“What is this place?” I asked as we continued up the side of the building that smelled of baked bread and roasted meat.
“There is a taberna below. Koska lives in the upstairs apartment. He assured me there are only a few rooms his landlord rents, the one who owns the taberna below. He said most of his neighbors will be in the center of the forum. But he said it also has a good view of the Temple of Mars.” He stopped and led me with a hand on my back to the banister of a small veranda. “And it seems Koska was right.”
“Indeed, he was,” I said, marveling at the direct view we had.
Buildings surrounded the forum, but from here, we could see through a break in the buildings and over a shorter one. We could see the route outlined by the people on both sides where the chariots would parade through the forum to the steps of the Temple of Mars.
“Won’t someone think it strange that two patricians are watching the spectacle from way over here in the burrows of commoners?” I asked.
“They won’t stop to wonder about us,” he answered with confidence. “Everyone wants a peek at the Visigoth king. Now that it’s spread he won’t be killed because of the soothsayer, they’ll want to see the man spared by the gods.”
“Until Lupercalia,” I corrected.
“Until then.” His gaze was on the square of the forum. “Drussus’s wife and daughter are already in place, it seems. It won’t be long now.”
There were golden chairs on the terrace of the Temple of Mars.Two dark-haired women draped in black silk that shone in the sunlight sat in two of them, waving to the adoring mass of people. There was an empty chair next to one who must have been Drussus’s wife, and a more ornate chair set more forward. It looked more like a throne, even from here. That was for Caesar.
“They’re coming,” said Trajan.
