Part 30 (1/2)

Pompey too could not seem to look away from the precious metal. ”It is,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

”Then we have an agreement?” Julius said, looking from one to the other. Both senators nodded.

”Excellent. I will need rooms for my men tonight, here or in a tavern, if you can recommend a few places. They've earned the right to some hot food and a bath. I will return here at dawn to go through the details with you both.”

”There is something else that might interest you, Caesar,” Cra.s.sus said, his eyes twinkling. He glanced at Brutus as he spoke, then shrugged.

”A friend traveled up from Rome with us. I will show you the way.”

Julius raised an eyebrow, but Pompey too seemed to share some inner amus.e.m.e.nt as their eyes met.

”Lead on, then,” Julius said, following Cra.s.sus out into the colder corridors of the house.

Pompey was uncomfortable with the men Julius had brought into the room. Publius felt it and cleared his throat.

”I should bring in the rest of the gold, Consul, with your permission.”

”Thank you,” Pompey replied. He pulled a cloak from a peg on the door and went out with them into the night.

Cra.s.sus took a lamp from a wall bracket and led Julius down a long hall to the rear of the property.

”Who owns this house?” Julius asked, looking around at the richness of the furnis.h.i.+ngs.

”I do,” Cra.s.sus said. ”The owner fell into difficulties and I was able to acquire it at an excellent price.”

Julius knew that the owner would have been one of those who suffered under the monopoly of trade that had been Cra.s.sus's part of their original agreement. He was interested that the old man hadn't tried to have his license extended, but the province Pompey had offered him would be enough to occupy his time. Julius hoped Cra.s.sus would have the sense to let his son make the decisions. Though he liked the old senator, the man was no sort of general, whereas his son could very well be a fine one.

”In here, Julius,” Cra.s.sus said, handing him the lamp.

Julius could see a childish delight on Cra.s.sus's wrinkled features that baffled him. He opened the door, closing it on the darkness behind.

Servilia had never looked more beautiful. Julius froze when he saw her, and then fumbled for a place to hang the lamp, the simple process suddenly seeming difficult.

The room was warmed by a fire in a hearth big enough to stand in. No touch of the howling winter reached them, and Julius drank in the lines of her as she watched him without speaking. She lay on a long couch and wore a dress of dark red cloth, like blood against her skin. He did not know what to say and only gazed in silence for a long time.

”Come here,” she said, holding out her hands to him. Silver bangles chimed on her wrist as she moved. He crossed the room and as he touched her hands, he folded into her embrace and they were kissing. There was no need for words.

Pompey regretted leaving the warmth of the house for the winter street, but a nagging curiosity would not leave him. As the boxes of gold were heaved up and carried into the house, he walked along the line of silent soldiers, falling naturally into his role as an officer of Rome. They had stood to attention and saluted as soon as he appeared, and now his inspection was natural, almost expected.

In truth, Pompey felt a responsibility for the Tenth. It had been his own order to merge Primigenia with a legion who had shamed themselves in battle, and he had felt a proprietary interest when reading Julius's reports in the Senate. The Tenth had become Julius's most trusted men, and it was no surprise to see them in the ranks Julius had chosen for the meeting.

Pompey spoke to one or two of them and they responded to his questions nervously, staring straight ahead. One or two were s.h.i.+vering, but they clenched their jaws as he pa.s.sed, unwilling to show any weakness.

Pompey stopped in front of the centurion and congratulated him on the discipline of his men.

”What is your name?” he asked, though he knew it.

”Regulus, sir,” the man replied.

”I have had the pleasure of telling the Senate how well the Tenth have been doing in Gaul. Has it been difficult?”

”No, sir,” Regulus replied.

”I've heard it said that a legionary finds the waiting the hardest part of war,” Pompey said.

”It is no hards.h.i.+p, sir,” Regulus said.

”I am glad to hear that, Regulus. From what I have heard, you haven't had a chance for your swords to grow rusty. No doubt there will be more battles ahead.”

”We are always ready, sir,” Regulus said, and Pompey moved on, speaking to another soldier a few places down the line.

Cra.s.sus came back into the warm room. His son was there waiting for him, and the old senator crossed to him, beaming.

”I have been so proud of you, lad. Julius mentioned your name twice in reports to the Senate,” Cra.s.sus said. ”You have done well in Gaul, as well as I could have wanted. Now are you ready to lead a legion for your father?”

”I am, sir,” Publius replied.

CHAPTER 34.

Julius woke long before dawn and lay in the warmth created by Servilia beside him. He had left her only once the night before to ask Cra.s.sus to bring his men in from the cold. While Cra.s.sus opened rooms and summoned food and blankets for the century, Julius had quietly closed the door once more and forgotten them.

Now, in the darkness, Julius could hear the snores of soldiers packed along every s.p.a.ce of the house. No doubt the kitchens would be preparing breakfast for them, and Julius knew he too should be rousing himself and planning the day. Yet there was a delicious lethargy in that warm dark, and he stretched, feeling her cool skin against his arm as he moved. She stirred and murmured something he could not catch, enough to make him sit up on one elbow and look at her face.

Some women looked their best in the bright light of the sun, but Servilia was most beautiful in the evening or under the moon. Her face had nothing of the sharp hardness he had once seen. He could still picture her acid contempt when he had come striding into her home for their last meeting. It was a mystery to him how he could have engendered such apparent hatred and yet now have her in his bed, stirring like a dreaming cat. He might have held back after that first embrace in the firelight, but her eyes had been full of some strange grief and he had never been able to resist the tears of a beautiful woman. It stirred him as no smile or coquetry ever could.

He yawned in silence, the strain making his jaw crack. If only life were as simple as he wanted it to be. If he could dress and leave with nothing more than a final glance at her sleeping form, he would have a perfect memory of the woman he had loved for so long. It would have been enough to banish some of the pain she had caused him. He watched her smile in her sleep and his own expression lightened in response. He wondered if he was in her dreams, and thought of some of the extraordinarily erotic sequences that had plagued his sleep for the first few months in Gaul. He leaned closer to her ear and breathed his name into it, over and over, grinning to himself. Perhaps she could be made to dream of him.

He froze as she raised a hand to rub the ear without waking. The movement in the soft linen revealed her left breast, and Julius found the image endearing and arousing at the same time. Though age had left its marks on her, as she lay there her breast was pale and perfect. Julius watched with fascination as the exposed nipple firmed and darkened, and he considered waking her with the warmth of his mouth on it.

He sighed, lying back. When she woke, the world would intrude on them once again. Though Cra.s.sus would keep any secret, Brutus would have to be told his own mother was there in the north. Julius frowned in the darkness as he considered his friend's reaction to the news that Servilia once again shared his bed. Julius had seen Brutus's relief at the end of that relations.h.i.+p, punctuated with twin slaps in Rome. To see it rekindled could weigh heavily on him. Julius clasped his hands behind his head as he thought.

There could be no returning to Gaul until spring; he had always known that. Once the pa.s.ses were blocked, nothing living could make the trip. At one point, Julius had considered traveling to Rome, but dismissed the idea. Unless he could be certain of making the journey without being recognized, he would be too much of a temptation for his enemies, with only a hundred men for protection. Rome was as unreachable as the pa.s.ses over the Alps, and Julius struggled with a feeling of claustrophobia at the thought of spending months in the dreary streets of Ariminum.

At least his letters would get through, he thought. And he could travel to the s.h.i.+pyards to oversee the fleet he had ordered. It seemed a vain hope to expect them to release the vessels without any more than his deposits, no matter what he promised. Yet without them, his plans for the sea crossing would be delayed, perhaps by as much as another year.

He sighed to himself. There were always battles to be fought in Gaul. Even when a tribe had paid tribute for two summers, they could plant their flags in the hard ground and declare war on the third. Without outright extermination, Julius was forced to face the fact that such rebellions could continue for his full term there. They were a hard people to put down.

His eyes were cold as he considered the tribes. They were nothing like the men and women he had known as a boy in Rome. They sang and laughed more easily, despite their short, hard lives. Julius still remembered his astonishment the first time he had sat with Mhorbaine listening to a storyteller weave an ancient tale for them. Perhaps something had been lost in Adrn's translation, but Julius had seen tears in the eyes of veteran warriors and at the conclusion of the story Mhorbaine had wept like a child, without a sign of embarra.s.sment.

”What are you thinking?” Servilia said. ”You look so cruel, sitting there.”

Julius met her dark eyes and forced a smile onto his face. ”I was thinking of the songs of the Gauls.”