‘Then I shall just have to redouble my efforts with Sextius, though I fear some of his friends have quite undermined my attempt to paint a rosy picture of Sicily.’
‘You have yet to tell me why you are so keen to go there?’
Valuing Cholon’s friendship, Claudia hesitated, but set against her desire to find her son that was as nothing. The question, once posed, would open a breach between them, one that could perhaps never be closed. She had undertaken, many years ago, not to ask where he and Aulus had exposed her son, yet she had no choice but to probe and the answer was vital. If it was affirmative, she would go to Sicily on her own and if Sextius baulked at this, he would have outlived his usefulness, so since they were not married in the strict form, she would offer him a divorce.
‘As you know, I travel everywhere with my husband.’
‘It has always amazed me that you do,’ replied Cholon smoothly.
He failed to add that, to him, the act of journeying was less mysterious than the person she chose to journey with. The Greek had suffered many an evening in Sextius’s company, purely for Claudia’s sake. The man was a bore, forever preening his perfect Roman countenance and his attempts to hide his true inclinations behind a facade of Roman virility were risible. Sextius was locked into the past, unaware that times had changed, that with the increasing influx of Greek ideas into the Republic, no one in Rome gave a damn these days about a man’s sexual orientation. Claudia stood up and went to a chest set against the wall, opened it and took out a number of lined scrolls, before turning round to face her guest.
‘What have we here?’ he asked.
‘You must have wondered, once or twice, why I chose to marry Sextius?’
Good manners fought with veracity in Cholon’s breast and throat. The result was a sound that was neither affirmative nor negative, but it would have been recognisable in a man with a heavy cold trying to clear his windpipe.
Claudia smiled. ‘I’ve always admired your eloquence, Cholon.’ He just pointed to the scrolls in her hand, not trusting himself to speak. ‘Sextius owns land all around Rome. It is an added advantage that he is friendly with all the other landowners.’ Cholon bowed his head, acknowledging the truth of what she said. ‘That is why I married him.’
The Greek was as devious as he was clever, so she waited to see if he would make the connection. He shook his head slowly, like a man who has hold of only part of an idea. ‘I asked you a question once, which you declined to answer.’ Claudia let fall one of the linen scrolls. ‘I have here a survey I have undertaken, which Sextius will present to the Senate in his name, detailing the incidence of infant exposures in Rome and the immediate surrounding areas of Latinum.’
The Greek’s eyebrows were up now, and he shifted his position, adopting a more guarded pose as she continued. ‘It’s incomplete of course. I’ve naturally been constrained in what I can ask. Only a properly empowered praetor could demand answers, but, as you will see, my survey is quite comprehensive.’
‘I thought you had put that matter out of your mind,’ he said.
She ignored that and pointed to the scroll, but her eyes never left the Greek’s face. ‘There’s a place near Aprilium, right by the River Liris. A child was exposed there, on the night of the Feast of Lupercalia, which, as you know, is the exact time my son was born.’
Cholon kept his face as stiff as a thespian’s mask, but he could not stop the flicker in his eyes, which was enough to satisfy Claudia.
‘I must go,’ he said standing up.
‘Yes,’ his hostess replied. ‘You’d better, before I’m tempted to break a promise.’
Cholon was afraid that his resolve would weaken, so the farewell was as hurried as it was unpleasant. Her words had taken him back to that night, so many years before, when he and his master, Aulus, had ridden many leagues from the empty villa where Claudia had just given birth to a bastard son. The child had lain in the saddlebag beneath him as he rode, and still he could recall the eyes that had stared at him in the reflected moonlight, bright blue as he had seen by the candles which illuminated the actual birth.
They had placed the child where he could not be found; Aulus wanted no disgrace of his name, but, noble as always, he was not prepared to bring opprobrium on the head of the woman he loved. Many times he had wondered what became of that little body in the swaddling cloth; many times he had prayed to his gods to forgive him for what had to be a sin. And, loyal to his late master, when pressed, not that he knew precisely, he had declined to tell Claudia the area in which the child had been exposed.
There had been a river gurgling in the woods where they had lain him down, that he recalled, and a mountain-top silhouetted in the moonlight, it being a cold, clear night, with a strange cap shaped like a votive cup. He had asked a surgeon about death by cold, and had been assured that, as the body cooled, the person dropped into a slumber from which they did not wake, so the child would have felt no pain.
It was only when he was in the street outside Claudia’s house that he realised that he had forgotten to ask her why, when she had mentioned the River Liris and Aprilium, in his mind likely locations, she was so intent on going to Sicily.
Titus knew that he had to split them up. They were not working together — just the opposite — and if he left Aquila and Marcellus together too long, one of them would kill the other. It seemed as if the differences in birth and background somehow served to compound the mutual antipathy. Marcellus could not accept the new tribune as his equal. Aquila, aware that Marcellus Falerius had little battle experience, took every chance he could to remind him of the fact. It was as hard to know who to blame as it would be to find the seat of their quarrel, but Titus knew that a decision had to be made. Yet the most simple one, of sending Marcellus back to Rome, was debarred to him and not only because it would break a commitment; it would be a dishonourable thing to do.
He needed Aquila Terentius to help him retrain the legions, as well as the Iberian levies he had raised from the coastal plains. Not only that, the whole army, except those men he had brought to Spain himself, knew him. Titus was the kind of general who talked to his troops, so he heard repeatedly how much both Aquila and that charm he wore round his neck were seen as lucky symbols. There was an element of legend about the tales they told; even the men who had passed under the yoke before Pallentia credited his new tribune with saving their lives. And his elevation to what was a rich man’s rank made every man in the army proud, leaving him in no doubt that they would feel more comfortable attacking Numantia with this man by his side.
Yet he was bound to Marcellus by a tie of loyalty that went back a long way, to a time before the young Falerii had donned his manly gown. Quintus always claimed he was doing something, but he seemed to want Marcellus to take on his first magistracy without ever having spilt blood, something that would hamper the young man’s future career. The solution came to him through Aquila, who, at a conference, asked the general what steps he was going to take to ensure that the Lusitani, more numerous than any of the other tribes excepting the Duncani, could not interfere with his operations around Numantia.
‘I’m sure you have some suggestions to make, Aquila Terentius,’ said Marcellus, sarcastically, ignoring the sour look Titus gave him for his interjection.
‘Perhaps we should send you to confront them, Marcellus Falerius. After all, a soldier with your reputation will scare them shitless.’
‘Enough!’ snapped Titus, glaring at Aquila. ‘Please be so good as to leave your rankers’ language outside my tent.’
‘I do have a suggestion, General, but it’s not one you’re likely to welcome.’
‘Which is?’
‘Postpone the campaign for this year. Raise ten more legions, get some good officers, and attack both the Lusitani and the Duncani at the same time.’
‘Why would I be so against such a suggestion, always assuming it made military sense?’
‘Your year as a consul will be up, Titus Cornelius. There will be some other bugger champing at the bit soon, especially if they think you’re doing nothing. You might be blessed with an open-ended proconsulship now, but I’ll bet a sestertius to a bent ass that you’re recalled. I’ll say it now, and stand by it. You’re a proper soldier, but I don’t think even you’ll want to go home and leave somebody else to grab all the glory.’
Titus frowned at that, then he looked around the assembled officers, all junior, since he had sent all the senior men, those who had served with Mancinus, back to Rome.
‘Listen well. I am here as proconsul of both provinces of Spain. I am here to fight a war, not just a campaign. When I leave this land, it will be at peace and my soldiers will be able to go home with me. There will be no more
