At home, his mother was teaching Max how to weave in the atrium. Or attempting to teach him, by the look of the tangled threads hanging off the loom. “Good afternoon,” she greeted him as she tugged a knot of yarn apart.
Max stuck his fingers between the loosely woven threads and grinned at him.
“Good afternoon,” Aelius said. “Where is Crispina?”
“Her library,” Gaia replied. “She said she had a headache, and someone was being rather loud.” She gave Max an accusatory but good-natured frown.
Aelius nodded to them and went to the door of Crispina’s library. He tapped on it. “Crispina? May I come in?”
At her acquiescence, he entered and closed the door behind him. Crispina was seated at her reading desk, glancing over a scroll before her.
“You shouldn’t be reading if you have a headache,” he said.
“It distracts me.”
Aelius dropped into a chair opposite her. “Rufus got to Libo before me.”
Her hand twitched where it held the scroll. “I’m sorry.”
“It was more frustrating than it should have been,” Aelius said. “I know it’s only one person, but he controls at least a dozen votes.” He sighed. “I worry…” He shook his head.I worry I can’t do it. I worry I’ll lose again.“If I am not victorious this time, I will not try again.”
“You’ll give up?”
“It’s not giving up.” His voice came out sharper than he intended. “I will have lost two elections in two years. I would be a fool not to take that as a sign. Mama didn’t even want me to run this time. She wants a country estate, a quiet life. Would you like that? A little villa somewhere in the hills?”
She finally raised her gaze from the scroll for a moment before casting her eyes back down. “I could appreciate that.”
Aelius allowed his gaze to run over her. She was so beautiful, even with the shadows that had darkened beneath her eyes in the past few days. “You still have your courses?”
She nodded.
Shame. He longed for the solace he could find in her touch, her warmth. She could make him forget the election, forget Rufus, forget even his own name.
But that was not an option at present, so he rose from his chair and paced. “Perhaps I have been depending too much on patricians who may be influenced one way or another with petty promises. There are still votes to be won from the people themselves. That’s what I did in the last election. People voted for me, even though I was a nobody.”
“Will you go knock on doors all over the city, then?”
“Something like that. A speech in the Forum, I think. Catullus can help spread the word. Given what happened the last time I spoke in the Forum, people will want to come. Perhaps Tuesday.” The new idea bolstered him, chasing away the fear of defeat. He could already picture himself standing before a crowd. Snippets of rhetoric popped into his mind. He would craft a speech that would make people remember his name even without a fistfight.
An odd expression, like a grimace, flickered over Crispina’s face. “I see.”
“Why don’t you retire?” he suggested. “You look weary. I can have dinner brought to you.”
“I’m not an invalid.” Her voice was tight. “But I would prefer to be left alone.”
“Very well.” He dared a quick kiss to her forehead, then withdrew to his own study to draft his speech.
After Aelius left, Crispina sank her head into her hands. She did have a headache, but it wasn’t from her courses. It was from the constant, crushing guilt of betraying her husband.
It’s for Max, she reminded herself, but that didn’t make it any easier. She hadn’t slept properly since the incident with Rufus. She lay awake at night, listening to Aelius’s breathing, wondering when it would all come crashing down around her.
For the first time, she wished he was more like Memmius, who never spoke to her if he could help it. But Aelius trusted her enough to share his thoughts, his hopes, his plans. If he hadn’t talked about his plan to give a speech in the Forum, then she would have nothing to give Rufus. But now she knew, and Rufus was expecting a note from her tomorrow.
With a heavy sigh, she pulled out a double-leafed wax tablet and rubbed away the existing words with the flat end of the stylus. Then she inscribed a brief note.Tuesday. Speech in Forum.She closed the cover, hiding the words from view, and secured a leather cord around it.
She tucked the tablet behind a stack of scrolls on one of her shelves, then tried to return to her reading, wondering if the guilt would ever leave her.
Chapter 24
