stepped forward, his hand falling to the hilt of his dagger.
‘Atticus,’ Septimus shouted, and moved between him and his father, the unarmed centurion holding his hands out defensively. Atticus froze and looked to Septimus, then beyond him to the undaunted Antoninus, and for a second his anger drove him to the brink of attack. He stared again into Septimus’s face, seeing the plea for restraint, and finally he shook his head and left the room.
Atticus strode through the atrium, his mind in turmoil as a flood of conflicting emotions swept over him. His pace slackened as he heard sobbing and he whispered Hadria’s name. She stepped out from within a doorway and the conflict within him abated at the sight of her distress. He went to her and she fell into his arms, burying her face in the hollow of his shoulder.
‘I couldn’t let you leave,’ she sobbed. ‘Not without saying goodbye.’
‘This isn’t goodbye,’ Atticus said soothingly. ‘I’ll come back for you. In time we’ll be together.’
‘No, we won’t,’ she whispered, the anguish of her words bringing fresh tears to her eyes. ‘My father has forbidden it, I cannot defy him.’
‘But we are in love,’ Atticus said, confused by her submission.
‘My father has the power of the pater familias, the head of this household,’ she said. ‘If I disobey him he will disavow me. I would be an outcast amongst my people.’
‘It is no more than I am,’ Atticus said, suddenly angry.
‘Please understand, Atticus,’ Hadria said, a desperate plea in her voice. ‘Rome… my family; it is all I know, the whole world to me.’
‘There is a world outside of Rome, Hadria,’ Atticus said. ‘We could be together there. Leave this city, come with me.’
‘I can’t,’ she said, and seeing his face colour in anger she reached out for him. ‘Please, Atticus. You cannot ask me to choose, not when I have no choice.’
Atticus heard her words and his anger increased, not against Hadria, but against the cursed city that kept her from him. He looked down to her upturned face and a wave of regret drove the fight from his body.
‘So I’m not accepted in your world and you cannot live outside it,’ he said, the words coming slowly. ‘Then you were right, Hadria. We cannot be together.’ And with a final brief kiss he swept past her out of the house.
Scipio rose to his feet to accept the nomination for consul, nodding to the senator who had put forward his name, his expression one of gratitude and mild surprise. A smattering of applause answered his acknowledgement, but it quickly died in the tense atmosphere of the chamber, and all eyes turned once more to the podium. The princeps senatus scanned the tiered seating, searching for further nominations, but none were forthcoming. He struck the podium with his gavel to bring the chamber to order.
‘Senators of Rome,’ he began, and Scipio took his eyes from the speaker to search the faces of the Senate members. The names of the five nominees were called out in turn. Two consuls would be elected from the five, with the senior position going to the senator with the most votes and the junior to the runner-up. Scipio dismissed the first three, knowing they had little or no support, their misdirected ambition matched only by their foolishness. They were no threat. The fourth name, however, was confirmation of what Scipio had suspected over the previous week.
He was Aulus Atilius Caiatinus, a young man who had served five years in the Senate. He was a patrician but, unlike his peers, he openly supported the progressive faction in the Senate. This placed him firmly in Duilius’s camp and Scipio sought him out on the far side of the chamber, noting his position relative to Duilius, who sat in the back row. The final name was Scipio’s, and again he nodded as many eyes turned at the mention of his voice.
With an announcement from the podium, the first of the nominees stood to make a speech in support of his candidacy. He was quickly followed by the second and the third. While Scipio’s expression remained inscrutable throughout the speeches, underneath he mocked the naivete of the nominees. Over the previous week he had invested every shred of his political capital into the election for senior consul. He had called on every carefully nurtured alliance; where none existed, he had resorted to electoral bribery, combining the silver of his treasury with honeyed promises of post-election favours to guarantee votes from the unscrupulous.
As the third candidate sat, Caiatinus stood to speak. He began in a low, sonorous voice that lent gravity to his words, describing how he was the best candidate to lead the Republic in the perilous times ahead. His speech was carefully contrived and he subtly criticized Paullus’s loss of the fleet, drawing attention to the dead consul’s allegiance to the old order of Rome, an allegiance that had made him inflexible and unable to adapt to the conditions of the new war being raged on the sea against Carthage.
Caiatinus then spoke of his rival candidates, focusing on each one in turn. His attack on each character was ingeniously understated, providing Caiatinus with a false ethical superiority and, as he came to Scipio, he looked towards his chief rival, speaking his name in full, deliberately drawing out the pronunciation of his unofficial cognomen, Asina. Scipio bristled at the insult but kept his expression dismissive, careful not to reveal how deep the wound to his pride still ran.
The end of Caiatinus’s speech was met with enthusiastic applause, and Scipio was given brief seconds to scan the chamber and ascertain who amongst the undecided had been influenced by the senator’s words. In the silence that followed, Scipio stood and began the speech Fabiola and he had crafted.
Like Caiatinus, the tone of his voice commanded the attention of all in the chamber. Scipio was careful to personally address several senators he knew were uncommitted. These men were beyond his control, senior senators who were independently powerful and rarely allied themselves to any man or cause, and so Scipio had to rely solely on his oratorical skills and his ability to persuade men of his conviction.
Across the floor of the chamber, Duilius was similarly looking to the senators who were the focus of Scipio’s attention. He watched as they were ensnared by Scipio’s speech, the dramatic words probing their basest fears and uncertainties. It was a powerful oration, a worthy rebuttal to Caiatinus’s speech, and Duilius realized the vote would be closer than he had hoped. Upon learning, days before, of Scipio’s decision to run, Duilius had briefly thought to oppose him personally, but he ultimately conceded that the chances of success would be increased if the candidate for his faction was a patrician, considering the overwhelming majority of that class in the Senate. Moreover, Duilius now firmly believed he could wield his political strength to greater effect if he kept his influence hidden from the Senate at large, confident he could achieve more covertly than he ever could as a visible leader.
Scipio finished his speech with a tirade against the Carthaginians, a climax that roused the Senate. Many cheered as he spoke of the enemy’s inevitable defeat and the might of the city that would humble them. As he sat down amidst tumultuous applause, he straightened his back and looked directly at the podium, casting a figure of absolute authority and bearing.
The princeps senatus brought the Senate to order and called for a show of hands for each candidate. The first three were piteously supported, but Scipio watched in consternation as the support was called for Caiatinus. Close to half the Senate raised their hands and Scipio struggled to count their number in the brief time their hands were held aloft. The final vote, for Scipio, was called. Again, innumerable hands were raised, and Scipio held his breath, knowing the count was too close to call.
The tension within the chamber rose as the princeps senatus duly eliminated the first three candidates. He called for a division of the house, a physical manifestation of the vote, where each senator would move to the side of the chamber of their chosen candidate. The senators moved quickly. The men on the flanks, for the most part, remained seated, while the centre dissolved to add weight to each faction. Immersed in the centre of his group, Scipio couldn’t accurately guess the numbers on his own side, and he felt a bead of sweat snake down his back as he tried to count the numbers of the opposition. The chamber settled down once more as the last of the senators took a seat.
The princeps senatus, with an unrivalled viewpoint, looked to each side in turn. He nodded his head and Scipio leaned forward as the speaker looked once more to Caiatinus’s side. The old man’s lips moved as he silently counted Caiatinus’s supporters, his head beginning to nod again as he neared the end of his count, as if his calculation was proof of his suspicion.
‘Senators of Rome,’ he announced, ‘I hereby declare that the new senior consul of Rome is Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio.’
The chamber erupted, the members rising to their feet amidst cheers and calls of protest, even before the speaker reached the end of Scipio’s name.
The victor remained seated, taking a moment to let the announcement soak through his consciousness.
