Beloved

he would destroy our family.'

'I should not have allowed you to sacrifice yourself for us, Marcus. Return to Palmyra this night. We will weather the storm.'

He sat down heavily, and his head wearily dropped into his hands. 'You are welcome to come to me, Mother, but I somehow feel that you will want to return to Britain with Aulus. Go with him if that be your desire, or live with Lucia or Eusebia, but leave, I beg you, this sewer that has become Rome. When I ride through its gates I shall never return. I swear it! I shall never return!'

'Oh, Marcus,' Dagian replied brokenly, 'I am so sorry. I am so very sorry!'

'Marcus is correct, Mother,' Aulus spoke up. 'Rome is no longer a decent place to live. Why do you think I chose to settle in Britain? The immorality and corruption here is worse than ever. Each day the rich become stronger, the powerful more powerful. The simple citizen who would normally be honest and hard-working is being ground into the earth, and the idle are being rewarded for their very laziness. This is not the Roman way, yet mention the old ways of diligence, hard work, honesty, manners, and honoring the gods, and the people mock you. Well, the new ways are not my ways, nor are they better ways, and I will not abide by them.

'Aurelian chose to foist his whore off on Marcus because of the very virtues we believe in, Mother. He knew that Marcus would not, like so many of these new Romans, desert his family or his obligations.'

'Mother!' Lucia hurried into the room. 'Mother, it is Father!'

'I will come immediately,' Dagian replied, and she hurried from the room.

'Is he dying?' Marcus questioned his sister.

'I think so,' was the answer.

'Will you and Aulus come now?'

'In a few minutes, Lucia. Where did you put Carissa?'

'In nurse's old room on the second floor in the far back of the house.'

'Go now, Lucia. We will come presently.'

'What are you going to do, Marcus?' Aulus cocked his head to one side curiously.

'If he is dying then he will want to see us all, and that most certainly includes his new daughter-in-law. I know I can rely on your aid, younger brother.'

'You can, older brother,' was the smiling assent.

As they went Marcus said, 'There will be time for us to talk before I return to Palmyra, Aulus. I intend selling the business here in Rome, but it will be to someone who will broker for us the goods you send from Britain and those I send from the East.'

'Agreed, and I think I may know the man we can trust.'

They reached Lucius Alexander's room, and when they looked inside Dagian left her husband's side and hurried toward her sons. 'It is the end,' she said softly. 'He will die before dawn.'

The two brothers disappeared down the corridor of the upper floor and, stopping before a heavy wooden door at the corridor's end, lifted the heavy bar that lay across it.

'You bastard!' Carissa was across the floor, her nails extended to rake at him.

With a wolfish grimace he caught her wrists and brutally forced her arms down. 'Be silent, you bitch, or I swear I will throttle you, emperor's niece or no!'

She glared at him furiously. 'You are hurting me,' she said.

He ignored her complaint, continuing to hold onto her wrists. 'My father has chosen this moment to die, Carissa, and he wishes his entire family about him. You are going to come with me now, and you are going to behave like a good Roman wife would behave. Modestly, quietly, and reverently.'

'No I'm not! I shall tell your father that I carry Aurelian's son, and that my bastard will bear his proud patrician name! Let that be his last thought in the mortal world, and let him know he is powerless, even as you are powerless to do anything about it!' Her beauty was suddenly marred by her hatred, which made her look quite common.

Marcus's voice was low, but Aulus could hear that it held a dangerous note. 'No, Carissa. You will behave as I have said. Modestly, quietly, and reverently. If you do not I swear to you that I shall throw you from the roof of this house, and tell the world that you committed suicide when I attempted to claim my conjugal rights.' He smiled, but his eyes were pitiless. 'I almost hope,' he said, 'that you give me the chance to kill you.'

Looking into that hard and ruthless face, Carissa knew that Marcus meant exactly what he said, and she shivered, suddenly afraid. She didn't want to die, nor did she want her unborn child killed. 'I will do what you want,' she said.

'And remember,' Aulus said, 'that I, too, shall be by your side.'

Carissa brushed her hair into a smooth coil, and affixed it with silver pins. Then she quickly shed her torn tunic and replaced it with a fresh one. They walked down the hallway to Lucius Alexander's death chamber, where Dagian and her daughters clustered about the old man's bed. 'Here are your sons and Carissa to see you, my dearest,' Dagian said as they reached the bedside.

Lucius Alexander opened his dark eyes, but for a moment he could not focus clearly. Then as the fog cleared from his eyes he struggled to speak. 'You have both been sons to be proud of, and I know you will keep the family and its traditions alive in the hearts of your own children. Kneel, my sons,' and both men knelt by Lucius's bedside. The old man struggled to raise his hand to Aulus's head. 'My blessing, Aulus. May only good fortune smile upon you and your family throughout your lifetime.' Aulus felt the sob rising in his throat, but quickly forced it back. 'Marcus, my son, my heir, upon you falls me responsibility for mis family. Will you honor mis responsibility?'

'Yes, Father, I will.' Marcus felt his father's bony hand upon his own head.

'I am pleased with you. Pray that tonight you will plant the seed of life within this sweet child's womb.'

'It will be as the gods will, Father.'

'Carissa, my newest daughter, I know you will be to Marcus as my faithful Dagian has been to me.'

'Yes, Father Lucius,' came the demure reply. 'I promise to follow her example.'

'You are a good child,' Lucius whispered. 'I was right to pursue this match. Marcus will see I was right.' The dying man fell back upon his pillows, his breaming a harsh rasp. Soon he slid into a half-conscious state. As the minutes turned to an hour, and then two, and three, Lucius Alexander seemed to shrink before their very eyes. Each bream he drew was a tortured struggle, and it seemed as if his chest would split with the effort. In the loneliest part of the night, those hours just before the dawn, Lucius Alexander opened his eyes a final time, and stared at the woman who sat patiently by his side. 'Farewell, my heart,' he said distinctly in the voice of his youth, and then he died.

For Dagian it was as if a spear had pierced her heart. One minute he was there, and then as quickly he was gone. As she sat frozen with shock and grief her eldest son reached over and closed his father's eyes. 'Conclamatum est,' he said as he closed them.

'It is over, Mother,' Marcus said quietly, helping her to rise from her place by the bedside. She looked helplessly at him, unable to speak. 'Lucia, Eusebia, take our mother to her room to rest, and stay with her. Aulus, return Carissa to her place of confinement.'

'You cannot mean to lock me up again?' Carissa protested.

'Do as you are told else I take a stick to you!' he thundered.

Had Lucius Alexander Britainus died but several days later, his eldest son, Marcus, would have been safely on his way back to Palmyra. As it was, the old man's death and the settling of his estate took longer than Marcus had anticipated.

Lucius was buried the same day he died. In the confusion the two young slaves appointed to carry the lifeless body of their master to the atrium mistakenly placed him upon the wedding couch that had been set up for Marcus and Carissa. Marcus laughed at the irony of it. 'The marriage was dead before it was even celebrated,' he said bitterly.

At the hour appointed for the funeral the public crier gave notice according to ancient custom, going about the city and saying, 'The citizen, Lucius Alexander Britainus, has been surrendered to death. For those who find it convenient, it is now time to attend the funeral. He is being brought from his house.'

Lucius Alexander's funeral was well attended, for he had been a respected man. He was escorted by many to the Alexander family tomb, which stood along the Appian Way on the road to Tivoli. Afterward the family hosted the