Bowing and scraping, the soothsayer bundled the butchered hen into a dirty leather bag. It would do for his dinner that night. When he'd finished, he risked a glance at Fabiola. 'My fee?'
Fabiola laughed. 'Benignus,' she called.
The massive doorman emerged instantly from his waiting place just behind the door into the house. As always, his metal-studded club hung from one hand. There was also a dagger shoved casually into his wide leather belt. 'You require something, Mistress?'
The soothsayer's eyes bulged with fear, but he didn't move. Benignus was blocking the exit.
'Throw this fool out.'
Benignus shuffled forward and took a firm hold of the man's arm. 'Come quietly and I won't hurt you,' he growled. 'It's your choice.'
The soothsayer nodded. Further protests would result in broken bones, or worse. Meek as a lamb, he disappeared with Benignus.
Brooding, Fabiola looked down at the smears of blood left on the flag-stones. The prophecy had clearly been false, but it had still upset her. She wanted no happy reunion with Brutus if she couldn't convert him to her cause. No happy family life unless Caesar paid for his crime. Her mother had to be avenged.
She sat motionless for a long time. The shadows grew long in the courtyard as the sun went down. The temperature began to drop, and eventually Fabiola shivered. Feeling sorry for herself would get her nowhere. Perhaps the soothsayer had been partly right. If she stopped seeing Antonius, maybe Brutus would come back to her. A spark of hope lit in Fabiola's tired heart, but her throat closed with fear at what the Master of the Horse might do if she spurned him. Nonetheless, she steeled her resolve. If things continued as they were, her life wasn't worth living. It wasn't as if she hadn't existed under the constant risk of death before and survived to tell the tale.
Her spirits lifted a fraction.
She would go to one of Caesar's triumphs and seek out Brutus. In a public place, he couldn't avoid her and, by begging, she might engineer a reconciliation. Antonius would be there, but with the gods' help, she could avoid him. For the moment. Fabiola did not allow herself to dwell on the matter further. It was time to think happy thoughts. Maybe she'd meet a soldier at the triumph who knew Romulus. It was a pleasing fantasy, and Fabiola took comfort from it. Tarquinius saw the soothsayer being ejected from the brothel. Flying through the doorway in a tangle of limbs, he landed on the hard-packed dirt with a bone-crunching thump.
Smiling, one of the massive doormen emerged after him. 'Don't come back,' he warned.
Picking up his scuffed leather bag, the lank-haired augur scuttled off.
Tarquinius grimaced, feeling like a fraud too. His visit to the mountain had not achieved nearly as much as he'd hoped for. Still, it had been worthwhile. Moving his parents' bones to a tomb befitting pure-bred Etruscans had been poignant but satisfying, and spending a day by Olenus' burial mound had eased his reawakened sorrow somewhat. While his old mentor had died violently, he'd walked to meet it with both eyes open, a decision that pained Tarquinius but which he had to respect. In the cave, he'd been dismayed to find the amazing battle chariot smashed into little pieces, probably by the legionaries who had accompanied Caelius. The inspirational paintings of Etruscan life had been defaced too — with the exception of that depicting Charon. Even the Romans respected the demon of the underworld. All the same, the deliberate damage brought home to Tarquinius the utter finality of Etruria's decline into oblivion. His people's civilisation was gone for ever, which gave him the sensation of being very alone. He longed to see Romulus again, which had brought him back to the purpose of his visit.
The haruspex had dug up the bronze liver and carried it up the mountain, hoping that it would help him with a divination. Yet again, though, he had been frustrated. Not a thing had been revealed in the entrails or the liver of the plump lamb he'd caught on his ascent. In an unusual loss of self-control, Tarquinius had railed and ranted at the cloudy sky and the few vultures hanging in it. Of course his outburst had done nothing except make him feel foolish. It was only when he'd calmed down that the sole revelation of his climb became clear.
The haruspex saw a clear picture of himself in Rome, and of Caesar standing alone. Ominous storm clouds were building overhead. Then, in close succession, he'd seen Romulus and Fabiola. His suspicions about their parentage hardened into certainty. Neither looked happy either, which worried Tarquinius. Were both of them in danger? From Caesar? Why? At once he had known that he still needed to be in the capital. Making the time first to rebury the liver beside Tarquin's ornate gladius, he had taken his leave of Caecilius and the latifundium. The lump of bronze was too bulky to carry about and the sword would attract too much attention. What a man like Caesar would do to possess such a weapon, he thought bitterly. Perhaps Tarquinius would reveal their location to someone in the future. He hoped so. On the road south, he knew that this had been his final visit home.
Reaching Rome, the haruspex had immediately returned to the Lupanar to see if anything had changed. Seeing the soothsayer's dramatic exit on his first morning was more reward than he'd expected. Fabiola was also seeking guidance of some kind, and not just the usual rubbish spouted by such conmen. As this realisation sank home, Tarquinius got to his feet. Barely remembering to act the simpleton, he hurried after the charlatan. A soothing word in the man's ear and a coin or two would secure some much needed information about Romulus' sister.
If the gods wouldn't help him, then he'd help himself.
Caesar's first triumph was to celebrate his conquest of Gaul. Although Romulus and the men of the Twenty- Eighth had not taken part in that campaign, they were part of his honour guard and so were to accompany him anyway. The preparations for all four triumphs went on for several weeks after their arrival in Rome. Daily at dawn the honour guard, Caesar's unprecedented seventy-two lictores and hundreds of legionaries from various legions assembled on the Campus Martius, the great plain to the northwest of the city. There an officious master of ceremonies drilled them for hours. The soldiers grumbled but did as they were told. Caesar wanted the event to go off well, and it wasn't as if they were risking their lives any more.
Like his comrades, Romulus was not permitted to leave their camp outside the city, unless it was on official business. This afforded him no opportunity to slope off in search of Fabiola or Gemellus. Part of him was glad. Where would he even begin? Nearly a million people lived in Rome. Who was to say that his sister was here anyway? If Gemellus was ruined, he might no longer be living in the house where Romulus had grown up either. It was odd to feel so helpless now that his dream of returning home had been granted. His guilt about Brennus had eased somewhat, though, for which Romulus was grateful. It wasn't pleasant, berating himself mentally every day.
The frenzied atmosphere in the city also made it easy enough to be absorbed by other things. Everywhere Romulus and his comrades went, they were greeted as heroes. Boys and girls ran alongside them, begging to hold their gladii or shields. Fruit, bread and cups of wine were shoved into their hands by grateful housewives while blessings rained down on their heads from old men and women. Romulus had never known anything like it. As a slave growing up in Rome, he'd been practically invisible to most people, a creature to be ordered about or kicked out of the way. Now he was a conquering hero, and it felt very good. Romulus ignored the niggles of unease which kept surfacing at this attitude. After years of hardship and danger, he was going to enjoy himself whenever possible.
Tens of thousands of peasants had flocked to Rome to see the triumphs, and were living in tents in any available open space. Caesar's largesse knew no bounds, and on alternate days he was providing feasts that were open to all. Thousands of tables were set up in the fora, each one groaning under the weight of fine food and wine. Each day the public could choose to watch athletic or sporting competitions, chariot racing or fights in Pompey's amphitheatre. Hundreds of lions had been procured to appear in large-scale beast hunts. There was even talk of a naval battle taking place on a specially flooded lake which was fed by the River Tiber. Unsurprisingly, Romulus had mixed feelings about the gladiator contests. On the one hand, he felt a burning hatred for the lanistae who sent men in to die, and for the crowds who demanded the fighters' blood. On the other, he had some nostalgic memories of his comradeship with Brennus in the ludus and of the incredible battles they'd survived in the arena. There was an added complication. When the time came for him to leave the army, he'd have to earn a living, and being a gladiator was all Romulus knew. That, and being a soldier. It hurt his head to think too much, so, like his concerns about finding Fabiola, he put his worries off for another day.
Romulus would remember the first triumph until the day he died. The procession assembled on the Campus Martius early in the morning. Preceded by his lictores — twenty-four for each of his three terms as dictator — Caesar rode in a magnificent chariot pulled by a quartet of horses. Wearing a gleaming white toga with a purple
