young, she craved adventure, was in thrall to the notion of being the other half of a Proconsular Imperium. In her imagination, as well as lording it over the provincial Romans of Spain, she would comfort the great general at the same time as inspiring his legions to feats of arms hitherto unheard of. With Claudia by his side Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus would add even more lustre to his name.
She should have stayed at home! In Rome Claudia would have avoided temptation, bound by family, name and responsibility: she would never have met Brennos, never have experienced the all-consuming nature of true love, have remained content with her station; she would not have made her upright husband unhappy and never suffered the torment of losing the child of her Celtic lover. Claudia would not have had to live the lie that the child she bore had been unwillingly conceived. To tell Aulus otherwise, to proclaim the joy she felt when she knew she was pregnant by another man, would be to destroy him. She might have been happy, instead of tormented by the knowledge that, having compelled Brennos to break his vows of celibacy, she had failed him by her inability to protect his son.
Many times she imagined telling Aulus, only to recoil from such a thought; first of the battle that had seen the wagon she was travelling in taken by Quintus, of the look in her stepson’s eyes when he had realised her condition. She had thought of killing herself then, in the time between that meeting and his arrival, but with a baby in her womb she could not do it, that followed by a determination to see the child born at whatever cost. Tell Aulus the truth and even he might, in a jealous rage, kill them both. Had that been the right choice? Once under her husband’s care his desire to hide what he thought to be her disgrace had created a prison from which she could not escape. In guarding her from prying eyes, under the protection of strangers whose only task was to make sure she remained unseen, all choice had been taken away. Her heart was wrenched with fear as she heard of Roman victories, a terror that one day Aulus would walk though her door to tell her Brennos was dead. That did not come, but her lover’s dream collapsed, and with a speed that meant the child in her womb was born here in Italy, instead of Spain.
When the legions came home, Aulus had to come with them. That he chose not to march with them, instead taking ship, was considered strange to troops who had been victorious. When they landed as Ostia the litter in which she was to travel was brought aboard so that no one on shore should see her and they had travelled incognito to this villa, where she had given birth on this very floor on which she now paced to and fro. So much for the pride of the Lady Claudia Cornelia! The image of that baby would be with her forever; the bright blue eyes and that hair, russet mixed with gold, wet from the waters that had eased his birth. Perhaps the charm she had placed round his foot was too valuable, but it was the only thing she had had that might save him, a talisman she had taken from his father the better to remember Brennos. That Celtic goldsmith had been clever, the replica he had made so perfect that had she not switched them directly, she could never have been sure she had the original. And Brennos had never noticed, even when he fingered the replacement around his neck.
She had felt something very strange at the moment when she put the charm round the baby’s foot, as if her head was filled with flashes of lightning interspersed with fleeting images of her blue-eyed Celtic warrior, images that had subsided as soon as she let go. But then Claudia knew she had been exhausted, and could not be sure that what she had been vouchsafed were genuine visions, instead of hallucinations.
Claudia was so nervous her throat refused to function, sure that the midwife felt more at ease than her. It was way short of true, for in the presence of this high-born lady, whom she recognised at once, Marcia kept her head half-bowed, which hid the fright in her eyes. Each question was answered in a monotone, which suggested indifference.
‘This is a matter of some importance to me.’
The lady’s sharp tone finally made Marcia lift her head and look Claudia in the eye. ‘You forget that I saw you place that talisman round the child’s ankle. I knew you wished him to live.’
Claudia’s voice was full of sadness. ‘But he didn’t live, did he?’
‘Lady, the boy wasn’t exposed around here. I asked everyone, even offering a reward. I knew you would repay me tenfold. Your husband and that Greek slave used their horses when they took him away. You slept, so you did not see them return. They did not come back till after dawn.’
Claudia stood up quickly. If this Marcia had half a brain, she would be able to find out about her; who she was and, more importantly, to whom she was married. The family connection of the villa would ensure that. Since she could not be of any use, only her silence was valuable.
‘Do you remember the oaths you swore that night?’
‘Only too well,’ the midwife replied, shivering slightly. Yet what she remembered was that look from the black-eyed man, one that threatened her with death.
Claudia gave her a very direct and slightly threatening look. ‘That is good.’
‘Can you not ask the Greek slave where they exposed the baby?’
Claudia treated her to a humourless smile, seized as she was with a vision of a small dead body, a skeleton now, with that eagle the only thing still intact in the tiny grave. Claudia shook her head violently, and reminded herself of the nature of her husband. Certainly he was a warrior and he could be a ruthless one, but for all Aulus’s distress and anger at what had happened, she could not bring herself to believe a man like him could cold-bloodedly murder a new-born infant.
‘No, Marcia. I cannot, any more than I can ask my husband.’
Thoas shot away from the doorway, scurrying to hide behind a pillar as Marcia and Claudia emerged into the vestibule. He did not have it all, there was still more of the mystery, but perhaps he had enough. The Falerii steward had promised him a rich reward for this secret. Over a decade, as he had steadily tired of his tiny wife, Callista, he had given up all hope of release from her tiresome embrace, but now perhaps that had changed. It would be interesting to see if the steward to Lucius Falerius still wanted this information after all these years.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lucius looked at the despatches that Aulus had sent him, unaware that they were, in one sense, out of date. His correspondent had been thorough, not merely listing Vegetius Flaminus’s various crimes but including a mass of attested evidence as well. In the seesaw world of the Senate, with its shifting alliances and constant battles, Aulus had provided Lucius with the political equivalent of gold dust. Impeaching a senator was a prospect often invoked, but rarely pursued; indeed Lucius disliked such actions, which only served to show senatorial shortcomings to the mob. Better to maintain the fiction of complete probity.
The impossibility of perfection, in anything, made him reach for another scroll, which his steward had given him just the day before. The man had been insufferably smug, hinting that he had surpassed his master in the way that his idea had paid off, many years after it had been initiated. The Numidian slave, Thoas, had done well, and he deserved his reward, but Lucius could not believe that the information he had garnered could have taken so long to acquire. It struck him now that in all the despatches that Aulus had sent from Spain there had been no mention of his wife. Had he cared about her at all, Lucius would have noticed at the time, but to him she was no more than a minor irritant, a distraction that could affect the judgement of the man who had the Spanish command. What she did, and when she did it, was within the realms of gossip, and not something to demand attention from a man so deeply immersed in serious politics.
His mind went back to the day his son had been born and he remembered how angry he had been at Aulus’s absence and wondered why. The childhood oath, taken in blood, of undying support, meant less to Lucius than it did to Aulus. He had known, even as he invoked it, that it was merely an excuse for his anger, not the cause. Then he recalled the turmoil of that day, with the Feast of Lupercalia in full swing, mingling with the tension in the streets. There were his own intentions in regard to Tiberius Livonius as well as the need to dispose of Ragas. He had been on edge, in need of Aulus, at a time when he still felt he could trust him. Perhaps he still could, despite the years of suspicion, now he knew for certain that Aulus had engaged in no conspiracy against him. The information in this scroll showed quite clearly that he had acted like a fool; why he should seek to protect an adulterous woman was beyond Lucius. The easiest solution would have been to toss Claudia overboard on the way back from Spain.
He allowed himself a smile; everyone knew the perils of an older man wedding a young, beautiful woman; indeed, he had made several jests in that vein himself. Idly, he wondered who had fathered the brat, considering if
