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‘History won’t remember you well for it.’
They lay down on the bed together as Gia pulled her closer, locked in an embrace. When their eyes met, Claudia felt her soul rising and falling in rhythm with her heart, the silence between them surging and flooding, until she could no longer keep the words at bay.
‘I’m sorry I pushed you away,’ she said. ‘I should never have asked you to leave. I regret us sleeping alone.’
‘It’s in the past now.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I promise… There is nothing to fight over, nothing to be sad over. We’re here, and we’re together… I love you.’
‘I love you too. More than anything in the world.’
They had nothing left to say, but they gazed at each other for as long as possible, as if afraid to fall asleep.
Finally, Gia passed out.
Claudia watched for a while to make sure she was okay, then carefully climbed out and used the shield to learn all she could about the three men of Marcellus.
Two of the men were so morally debased it took only a few hours to find incriminating information on them. The greasy-haired Tacitus paid brothel girls to spank him with wooden paddles as he wailed like an infant, which Claudia was sure he would not wish for his constituents to know, while Thelonius beat his wife and his mistress alike: not unusual for a Roman man but in stark contrast to the public persona he’d donned. It was only General Aquinas Claudia couldn’t pin down. He was a family man and deeply reverent to his god Jupiter, with a flawless reputation as a military hero and pillar of the community.
He was a snake, as Gia would say, but he was a boring snake. She had nothing on him. He would not be so easy to disrupt or convert. But she would keep searching, watching him through the shield.
Claudia pondered the best course of action. By firing Hieronymus, she’d created a dangerous and very vocal enemy, one who had turned against her at the soonest convenience. Expelling the general and the senators would make them even more inclined to work against her. Yet she knew she couldn’t change their minds. She would never win them over on merit, for they would never recognize it.
The only way to ensure their loyalty was to bribe them.
Rather than accusing them publicly, stripping them of their titles and having them executed, she decided to seize control of them instead, to put their connections and cunning to use for her own gain.
Claudia would call them to her court and tell them, in the simplest of terms, that their secrets would be broadcast to the public unless they agreed to serve her. She would play them at their own game. If they refused, which they indeed might, she could at least ensure their reputations were sullied in the name of protecting her own. She couldn’t be entirely confident that the other men would turn against them, based on what she’d learned, but it was the only leverage she had.
To her surprise and concern, Claudia found that she was now unable to spy on her cousin once more, for reasons unknown.
She had seen him in Britannia before, but now, speaking his name returned only darkness, as it had to begin with.
She tried several times, whispering his name to the shield, but Minerva refused to reveal him.
Why would he be hidden from the sight of a goddess?
Unless… he was being protected by a god?
Claudia was having a dream in which she and Gia were living together back in Pompeii, running the Via Stabiana taberna together. Gia was cooking, her face rosy from the heat of the oven. Gia’s mother was still there, laughing with Cassius at Lucas and his dog. Claudia served the customers, cleaning the tables, content to live an ordinary life.
Suddenly, Minerva appeared at the door like a customer hungry for food, helmeted and carrying her spear.
‘Wake up, Empress,’ she said. ‘You are needed.’
Claudia woke with a start, in Gia’s warm arms.
She could already hear it – as if the sound had bled through into her dreams – a military procession snaking through the streets: a procession she’d neither approved nor been informed of.
Scrambling to the window, she saw a parade of soldiers waving flags and blaring horns. In the middle of the military mob, Claudia sighted an imperial chariot, framed by golden wings.
Sitting inside was her cousin, waving to the crowd and flashing the sign of victory.
A frantic knocking sounded, accompanied by the soft calling of her name in repetition.
‘Empress? Empress?’
