Beloved

going from this house was intercepted and read.'

'Marcus, you should have sent her a message as soon as you saw the emperor was adamant in his desire that you wed Carissa; but you did not. I am not blaming you, for you were distraught not only with your fate and your sudden inability to control it, but with your father's impending death. Zenobia, however, does not know these things. Think of how she must have felt if she loved you as you say she did.'

'She should have known better than to believe that I would betray that love,' Marcus muttered.

Dagian laughed. 'I am willing to admit that your Zenobia is a paragon, my son, but even a paragon could not be expected to keep faith with a betrothed who marries another woman. Be reasonable, Marcus.'

'I want my daughter.'

'Would you place the strain of bastardy upon Mavia? If you claim to be her father and insist on having the child, that is what you will do. You will mark her as surely as if you placed a burning brand upon her forehead. Even if you adopt her formally into this family, she will still be remembered as the illegitimate daughter of Palmyra's queen and one of her Roman lovers. What kind of a marriage can we make for this child with that stain upon her innocent reputation? Have you become so callous in your own misery that you would mark your daughter in order to satisfy your own wishes?'

He looked terribly unhappy, and Dagian pitied him greatly, but she knew that she was right.

'What am I to do, Mother?' he asked.

'Let us just watch the situation with Zenobia, Marcus. Perhaps by the time they reach Rome Aurelian will have grown tired of her. We don't even know what the senate plans to do with her.'

He grew pale. 'You do not think that they would condemn her to death, do you?'

'Who can predict the capricious whims of politicians?' Dagian demanded. 'Once they have won their place in the senate, they behave as if the gods themselves had placed them there. Only if the public outcry is dangerously great do they heed the people. They serve only their own interests. However, if Aurelian has any personal interest in the lady she may be saved serious consequences.'

'You are telling me, Mother, that if Zenobia survives imperial judgment I must regain my lost ground with her and only then can I hope to have any part in my daughter's life.'

'Yes, Marcus, I am. You will gain nothing, I suspect, by anger.'

'What if she no longer cares for me?'

'You will have to begin at the beginning with Zenobia,' Dagian said quietly.

'You sound as if you are on her side,' he complained, somewhat irritably.

Dagian smiled, her mouth quirking upward with her genuine amusement, her lovely blue eyes twinkling. 'Let us say, Marcus, that even having never met the lady, I like the sound of her. I believe she is going to make me a fine daughter-in-law.'

Stunned, he gaped at her. 'What makes you think that I will marry her now? After she has been the emperor's mistress?'

Dagian chuckled. 'You men are so vain when it comes to your prowess. Are you afraid to be compared to Aurelian, my son? Since you conceived a daughter by Zenobia, I am sure the comparison is already made. Perhaps, though, you do not wish to know the results.'

'Mother!' He was visibly embarrassed by her frankness.

'I am sure, Marcus, that if you forgive Zenobia for being Aurelian's captive, she will forgive you Aurelian's niece.'

'I never touched Carissa!' he protested.

'In Zenobia's mind it will not matter if you did or not. You married her. That is far worse.'

Marcus sighed with exasperation, and Dagian quietly left him to his thoughts. He was a good man, her son, and she knew that he was intelligent in many matters. In the matter of man and woman, however, Dagian decided that Marcus was a dunce. He would learn, though, and providing that the senate did not condemn Palmyra's queen to an unfair death, Dagian decided that she wouldn't miss what was going to transpire between Zenobia and Marcus for all the world.

Two days later, Aurelian and his army arrived outside of Rome's walls. The emperor went immediately to the senate, and was hailed a returning hero. A triumph, complete with a holiday, was ordered to celebrate his victory over Palmyra. One rather pompous senator, Valerian Hostilius, suggested that the highlight of the day might be the public execution of the Queen of Palmyra in the Colosseum.

'Her reputation is that of a warrior,' he cried in his rather flutelike voice. 'Let us dress this barbarian queen in lionskins, give her a golden spear, and have her fight to the death a pack of wild beasts! What a spectacle it will make for the people, Caesar!'

Aurelian yawned, then looked about the senate. What a perfumed bunch, he thought. 'A fascinating suggestion, Valerian Hostilius,' he said, 'but the Queen of Palmyra has already suffered for her rashness in rebelling against us, and once she realized her mistake she strove to give us aid once more.'

'Yet you were forced to destroy the city, Caesar. Why was that?' This time the speaker was Marcus Claudius Tacitus, an elderly but extremely competent senator. Tacitus's opinion would carry much weight in the senate's decision.

'I had already sent Palmyra's young King Vaballathus into exile in the city of Cyrene. The queen and I had left Palmyra for Antioch en route back to Rome. Unfortunately, the queen's younger son, Prince Demetrius, could not accept defeat, and with some young friends inspired a second rebellion. The queen was not responsible. She returned with me to Palmyra, and we took our revenge. She tried very hard before we originally left the city to stop her younger son's foolishness.'

'You do not think she deserves to die?' Tacitus questioned.

'No, I do not. She is a woman,' Aurelian said scornfully. 'It was up to her council to control her as her son, the king, was just a boy. I executed the council for not doing their duty, but Palmyra's queen does not deserve death.'

Tacitus turned and looked on his fellow senators. 'The noble Senator Hostilius has suggested we make a death spectacle of Palmyra's queen. I disagree with him, and I agree with the emperor. This woman has been a noble enemy to Rome, but she is now beaten, her homeland destroyed, her younger son dead. She has paid the price of her folly. Now let us show the world Rome's beneficence. After the emperor's triumph is completed, let us retire her to one of the state's villas at Tivoli. She will live out her days there a forgotten woman, and what greater punishment can there be for one who was once so powerful?'

'But the people love a good spectacle,' Hostilius protested.

Tacitus raised a bushy white eyebrow. 'The people?' he said.

A rumble of laughter echoed around the chamber. For once all the senate was in agreement. Hostilius sank back onto the bench feeling foolish, and wishing that he'd never opened his mouth.

'It is decided then,' Aurelian said. 'Palmyra's queen will be pensioned, and retired to Tivoli.'

'It is agreed,' the senate said with one voice, and a smiling Aurelian left them.

The emperor hurried to his home upon the Palatine Hill. He was anxious to see Ulpia and to hear about Carissa's baby. His wife, however, was not at the door to greet him. She was, it seemed, ill and in her bed. Aurelian entered Ulpia's bedchamber, and was shocked by her appearance. She who had always been of such robust constitution was thin and wan.

'My dear,' he said, his voice full of concern. 'How are you?'

Ulpia smiled joyfully at his entrance, and held out her arms to him. 'I have not been well, husband, but now that you are here I will feel better. I know it!'

'Has Carissa been to see you? How is she? Is the child a boy or a girl?'

A shadow passed over Ulpia Severina's pale face. 'Carissa is dead,' she said bluntly. 'She died in childbirth despite the fact that everything was done that could be done for her. She had the best of care.'

'The child?'

'The child was born dead, and thank the gods it was. It was a monster of incredible ugliness, my lord.'

'Poor Carissa,' Aurelian mused, but it was Marcus Alexander Britainus that he was thinking about. Marcus and Zenobia. By the gods, Marcus would not have her! She was his, and he had no intention of letting her go! He was in love. He was in love for the first and only time in his entire life, and the feeling was one of both Heaven and Hades. Suddenly he realized that Ulpia was staring at him. 'And you, my dear,' he said solicitously, 'you have obviously not been well. Have you seen a physician?'