appreciatively, then smiled at Aquila and Fabius.
‘We’ll see you both another time.’ Then he looked at Donatus, flat on the other table. ‘Don’t expect I’ll see him though.’ Both Aquila and Fabius looked at the same time. Fabius, less experienced, was unsure, but Aquila knew. Donatus was dead. Scappius grinned and turned to leave. ‘You should have left him where he was.’
‘What have you done,’ snapped Demetrius, breaking the silence that followed the trio’s departure.
‘I ain’t done anything,’ said Fabius angrily, and in a very liberal interpretation of the truth.
‘Don’t give me that, you good-for-nothing bugger. People like Scappius don’t go calling for no reason.’ Demetrius prodded the dead man on his table. ‘And who is this?’
Aquila explained, trying to minimise Fabius’s role and maximise his courage in going to the rescue of his stricken friend, but it was having no effect on the father, whose face grew darker at every word.
‘I want you out of this house,’ he said, pointing at Fabius as soon as Aquila had finished.
‘What?!’
‘You heard. What do you think Commodus and his gang are going to do. Forget you? And if you stay here, they’ll take it out on me, too. I haven’t spent all these years building a business to see it burnt out on your behalf.’ He stepped forward, poking his son in the chest. ‘You’re no good, d’ye hear?’
Fabius put a hand on his father’s ample belly and pushed him back. ‘If I’m no good, I get it from you. Don’t you walk in here getting pious with me, especially after what you’ve been doing.’
‘Shut up!’ snapped Demetrius, throwing a worried glance at Aquila.
‘Why should I?’ asked Fabius, with a sneer. ‘You don’t think it’s a secret do you? Go on, Aquila, ask him what he’s been up to.’ Fabius looked like a man who had gained the advantage, while Demetrius held up his fat hands, imploring his son to be silent. Aquila just looked from one to the other, confused. ‘Ask him why a daughter of Calpurnia’s age and looks isn’t married.’
Demetrius turned his frightened eyes towards Aquila. ‘I need her to help my wife in the shop.’
‘And at night, Papa. What do you need her for then?’
Aquila dropped the spear, so that the point was close to Demetrius’s huge belly. The man started to tremble and Fabius drove home the final nail.
‘You’ve ruined her life, you fat slob. He won’t give her a dowry and without that she can’t get a decent husband. Not that too many would want her after what you’ve done.’
‘Get out!’ Demetrius cried, but the words had no force.
She sobbed in his arms as he held her gently, letting her spill out her grief. The sun had come up and in the bakery below they could hear the noise of the first customers. The pressure from her arms, wrapped round him, seemed to increase with each revelation. It had been going on since she was a child, originally something playful, just touching, but it had grown stronger as her mother’s health had deteriorated, and, like every child in the world, she was her father’s property.
‘Shall I take you away from here?’ he asked.
She looked up at him then, through tear-stained eyes, but she managed a smile and her hand ran over the eagle at his neck. ‘You have a destiny, Aquila, remember.’
‘All I have are dreams and prophecies. I’ve seen people blinded by those and die because of it. To me it is of no consequence.’
‘But it is. Fulmina knew. I think I do, too. Perhaps I’ve inherited her gift. You’re not meant for a life in the back streets of Rome.’
‘From what I’ve heard of this Commodus, I’m not destined to live at all.’
She gripped his arms and shook him. ‘Then get out of Rome.’
Aquila smiled, thinking that if Calpurnia did have second sight, it ran totally counter to the advice he had been given by Drisia. ‘Where to? Besides I’ve barely been here two months.’
Calpurnia looked at him closely, her wet eyes narrowing slightly. ‘You’ve already made up your mind to leave, haven’t you?’
He tapped her on the nose, which produced that smile he liked so much. ‘You’re too clever.’
She kissed him suddenly, taking him by surprise, then with her hands round his neck and her eyes full of pleading, she spoke. ‘Once, Aquila. Just once.’
He knew what she meant and shook his head.
‘It would make me happy. I will ask for no more, I promise.’
He shifted uncomfortably, to try and hide the fact that though his mind considered it a bad idea his body did not.
‘I cannot have more, I know that. I have told you how I’ve suffered. Perhaps, now that it’s out in the open, my father will give me a dowry and I’ll find a husband, but once, Aquila, just once, it would be nice to hold someone I love inside me.’
Her kisses took away what little resistance he had, leaving her with no need to exert much strength when she pulled her conquest down onto the bed.
‘Go to Commodus.’
‘What do I say?’ asked Demetrius. He was plainly afraid of Aquila, his great fleshy jowl shaking even as he listened.
‘You will tell him that Fabius and I have left your house.’
The small eyes brightened as Fabius interrupted. ‘Where are we going?’
‘When you registered me with our tribe, so that I could vote, which class did you put me in?’
‘The fourth class, like Fabius, not that he deserves it. On his own he would never qualify to vote.’
‘Good!’ said Aquila, who was not interested in anything but Demetrius’s initial statement. He turned to Fabius. ‘You and I are off to join the legions, “Nephew”.’
Fabius shuddered. ‘Never.’
‘Thanks to the foresight of your father, we will be required to apply as hastarii, taking our own equipment.’
‘You go,’ replied Fabius with a dismissive sniff. ‘I’ll stay here.’
‘You’ll be dead in a week. Commodus will see to that.’
Fabius went pale, but Demetrius spoke. ‘You still haven’t told me what I am supposed to say to that robber and thief.’
‘You’re to tell him to leave you and your family alone.’
‘He’s not going to listen to me.’
‘He will, because you will say that in the next week, I will deliver him a message, one that will remove whatever desire he has for revenge on you, Fabius, or me. If, in seven days, he’s not satisfied, and prepared to say so publicly, then he can do what he wishes. That is, as long as he’s prepared for the consequences.’
Demetrius scowled. ‘You seem pretty sure of yourself.’
‘You have two choices, Demetrius. Either wait here for Commodus, with his brother, to visit you, or go to him and deliver my message.’ The older man nodded, aware that there was no choice. ‘The other thing you’ll have to do is dig under your floorboards and get out some of that hidden money.’
The fat man was too frightened to ask how Aquila knew about that. ‘Why?’
‘To pay for our equipment, Demetrius. You wouldn’t want anyone from your family turning up for service in the legions improperly dressed.’
Demetrius puffed up angrily, as if he was about to explode in protest, but he saw the look in Aquila’s eye and the words died in his swollen throat. The young man walked over to him, towering over the fat baker.
‘Lay another hand on Calpurnia and I’ll castrate you personally. I’ll make you eat you own balls, d’you understand?’
The fat face held a look of absolute terror and his hands had, involuntarily, gone to cover the top of his portly thighs.
‘I want you to have the choice, Calpurnia.’ She moved her naked body closer to him, thrusting with her pelvis. The eagle slipped round her neck, brushing over her breast.
‘Again Aquila, please?’
He laughed. ‘Just once, you said, and that was two days ago.’
The vibrations of her words tingled on his neck. ‘That was before I knew it could be so nice. And I don’t want
