CHAPTER SEVEN
Claudia leant over her new husband, her hands on his shoulders and her eyes scanning the papers before him. She could smell his body, or more truthfully the faint odour of the perfumed oils he used to cover it. His silver hair, carefully brushed, gleamed by the side of her eyes.
‘Does my presence annoy you?’ she asked.
‘Never, never, never,’ he said, quickly and sincerely, his head lifting and turning while one hand patted hers. His nose was in profile — imposing, hooked and patrician. Claudia thought that for all Quintus’s subterfuge and downright lying, he had managed to find her the perfect husband. Sextius knew nothing of Quintus’s machinations, but he heartily shared Claudia’s sentiments. Being handsome and vain, and quite possibly the richest man in the Senate, he had always feared that if he married, it would be because he had been targeted for his considerable wealth.
The idea had never appealed to him; Sextius wanted to be loved for himself, the one person he cared for most in the world. Claudia had been a godsend, rich in her own right, from a famous noble family. He could forgive the touch of Sabine in her bloodline, for she was also a beautiful woman, who fortunately did not make excessive demands on him. The consummation of their union had not been a resounding success, yet Claudia had not chastised him; instead she assured him, while taking all the blame on herself, that she valued his companionship. So Sextius was spared the trial of the marriage bed and he took most of his pleasure elsewhere, discreetly, of course.
‘To be utterly and completely truthful with you, Claudia,’ he said, as usual, using ten words where two would do, ‘I am frankly amazed that you show the slightest degree of interest.’
‘It must be the Sabine in me, Husband, that’s caused this interest in agriculture.’
Sextius frowned; that reference to her lineage disturbed him, it being something he could forgive only as long as it was not alluded to. ‘I must take issue with you. I would describe what you have just said as actually very Roman.’
‘I never realised that one man could own so much land, and all of it so close to Rome.’ Her finger moved across the map. ‘North, south, east and west, it’s wonderful.’
‘My dear, Claudia, one does not wish to be too far away from the city. Life outside Rome can be exceedingly dreary, unless you go far to the south. Even then, you know…’
It was rare for him not to finish a sentence, but he could not utter the words that would conclude it. Sextius liked the south; the Greek cities were so much more accommodating and pleasant for him than Rome, though things had improved in the north since he had been young. But it was part of his fiction, as the upright Roman, to visit places like Neapolis only very occasionally: too many visits and malicious tongues could wag.
‘When you visit the farms, may I accompany you?’
His silver eyebrows twitched. ‘Whoever heard of such a thing, Claudia?’
Her voice was low and urgent. ‘I know it’s unusual, Husband, and people might then make jokes, saying we are inseparable.’
Sextius scarcely paused for breath; for all his lack of intellectual weight, he had a fair degree of guile and the idea clearly appealed to him, as Claudia intended that it should. He, of course, considered himself to be very clever, adept at discerning the deeper motives behind the simple words of others. He also held himself capable of deep subterfuge, an opinion that was totally at odds with the truth.
‘So they would, Claudia. Let them do so, I say. By the way, have you ever visited the Greek cities of the south?’
Aquila, once more standing guard outside Marcellus’s tent, pulled his spear to his chest in salute as the young tribune approached. The officer could look him up and down without trouble, while Aquila had to try to examine Marcellus while maintaining his stiff sentry pose. They were both taller than most of their contemporaries, but there the similarity ended, with the officer’s dark skin and black hair contrasting sharply with his own colouring. Marcellus nodded to him as he came to attention, adding a smile. Natural and unaffected, it failed its purpose, being perceived by the sentry as a deliberate attempt to underscore the gulf between them. Then the tribune stopped and looked him up and down and his eyes took in the gold chain round Aquila’s neck and that was when the man being inspected recognised him.
Suddenly, he was back outside the Barbinus villa, close to the woods, on the other side of which he lived with Fulmina, the day the leopards came. Occupied with guarding the senator’s sheep, he had seen the cage arrive and had spoken to the man who had brought these beasts to the villa, sleek spotted animals that moved with a grace he admired, their dark eyes never still. This bastard had been present, and even then he had got Aquila’s goat with his perfumed perfection: carefully barbered hair, clean oiled body and neat clothes. Had it been this shit or Barbinus who had set the leopards on the sheep? It made no odds — it ended in blood. It was also a time etched in his memory for another reason; the next day, when he had gone looking for Sosia, the Barbinus overseer had taken a savage delight in telling him she was gone.
The charm was hidden beneath his uniform and it was evident that Marcellus Falerius was wondering what the chain held. Aquila’s blood boiled again at this close and, to his mind, unfeeling examination. He was still smarting from the thoughts he had had the night before and the flash of real anger he felt now was because he had to wait upon this officer. This man, whose father had issued the orders that had killed Gadoric, could have him flogged at a whim, order him towards a certain death, and there was nothing he could do about it. Fabius, marching alongside him the following day, and listening to his complaints, did not see what he was driving at.
‘It’s the way of the world, Aquila. There’s them that’s born rich, and then there’s us. Nothing will ever change it.’
‘So I stay a legionary all my life, while he will one day command the army.’
Fabius handed him a fig. ‘He’s been bred to it.’
‘We don’t even know if he can fight,’ snapped his ‘uncle’, his eyes glaring at the decorated armour on Marcellus’s back.
‘He’ll do me, Aquila.’
Aquila was thinking that riding a horse must be easier than marching on foot. ‘You like him, don’t you?’
Fabius eased his shield up his back to keep the sun off his neck. ‘’Course I do. He’s polite, always greets the men with a smile, and doesn’t go poking his nose in places that don’t concern him.’
‘That’s because he doesn’t know they exist and that smile could mean he’s a dimwit. He leaves everything to Tullius.’
Marcellus hauled his horse over to the side of the road, dismounted and stood, rubbing the animal’s neck, as the men marched by. He could not miss the face that stared at him, nor feel comfortable with the look, a mixture of dislike and contempt almost designed to challenge him to react. He was saved from the need to do so by the soldier marching abreast, who shoved the blue-eyed legionary so hard he had to respond sharply to avoid a collision.
‘Eyes front,’ said Fabius in whisper. They were past the tribune before he spoke again. ‘What are you trying to do, earn a flogging?’
‘I’m trying to see what he’s made of.’
‘He’s made of flesh and blood, Aquila, same as you an’ me, and we’ll find out the quality of that the first time we get into a proper fight.’
Marcellus fell in beside Tullius, pulling his horse along behind him. ‘Tell me, Centurion, what do you think of these men?’
The centurion paused a while before replying, having been a soldier long enough to suspect a trick question. His motto was to tell his betters what they wanted to hear, without exaggerating too much and making them suspicious, but something in this young tribune’s eye told him that would never do. Still, a little bragging would not harm him, a reminder that, in this group of soldiers, he was one of the few men who had been in a battle.
‘Hard to tell, your honour, not many of them have seen combat before. And since they’re new to campaigning, I daresay they’re still a bit soft.’
Marcellus smiled. ‘You don’t seem the type to be easy on them.’
‘I ain’t, sir, but you can never tell what a legion’s like in Italy. Life’s too easy there.’
‘We’re not in Italy now, we’re in Gaul.’
Tullius looked first at the sea, blue and sparkling, then at the hills, criss-crossed with fields and terraces. ‘But it’s still gentle country, sir, easy pickings. I’ll wait till they have to kill, just to eat, before I trust their mettle.’
