Part 20 (1/2)

”I already told you, Mother,” Isabella interrupted. ”Quintus has taken a woman.”

Cato cleared his throat. ”She told you of her disguise?”

Isabella laughed. ”Do you think we are blind, Quintus?”

There was a beat of silence and then Cato spoke her name, low and quiet. ”Ariella. Turn around.”

She pivoted to her new master, aware that she had little choice in this or any matter.

His eyes on her were as kind as his mother's had been, but strangely the kindness only raised her ire, perhaps because she understood none of it.

He studied her. ”You are angry.” It was not a question, so she did not answer.

Isabella and Octavia seemed to sense that they should retreat, and did so. But Cato did not seem content to speak with her in the open courtyard. He grasped her arm and pulled her toward the nearest receiving room.

She followed, mute.

The room was furnished to impress, with couches, sculptures, and painted panels that reached the lofty ceiling. The high windows opened to the west, and the room was still dim in the morning hours. Cato did not release her until they were well into the room, away from the door, and then he turned on her and took a deep breath, as though preparing for an attack.

Ariella waited, letting her resentment build again, preparing the sharp words she would use, the only weapons she still retained.

”Ariella.”

She had expected arrogance. Flippancy, even. But her name was soft on his lips. Apologetic. She fought to hold onto the rage.

He dropped his eyes, as though the shame were his own. ”When I saw you under his foot in the sand . . .” He breathed heavily. ”I-I could not watch it happen again. I had to do something. To remove you from the arena.”

She found her voice, icy and hard. ”To keep me as your pet, then. Since I would not be your campaign prop.”

His eyes returned to her face now, and roamed over it as though to search out any injury. ”To keep you safe.”

Ariella licked her lips and swallowed, fighting that curious mixture of fear and anger-and something very different his presence always caused.

He stepped closer. ”I did not know what else to do.” His eyes went to her bandaged arm, and then his hand touched the knot that held the dressing. ”May I?”

She said nothing. He stood so close, she did not trust herself to speak, or even to move.

With gentle hands he untied the knot, unwound the strips of rag, and touched the reddened skin around the crossed cuts with his fingertips. Ariella bit her lower lip to hold it still.

”It should heal well. But you should try to keep it at rest awhile.” He rewrapped the rags, still standing a breath away.

”That will not be easy.” He stood so close, she spoke over his shoulder, focused on the wall behind him. ”The life of a slave is not one of leisure.”

He finished with her bandages but did not step back. His eyes were on her face again, and when he spoke his voice was so low she nearly missed the words, only a breath against her ear.

”I did not know what else to do.”

CHAPTER 31.

With the dawn of each new day, Cato's priorities returned to him as sure as the sun reached through the high windows of his bedchamber.

Free his sister.

Defeat Nigidius Maius.

Avoid Ariella.

And not necessarily in that order. Indeed, the latter was becoming a challenge.

This morning he dressed quickly, anxious to begin the series of meetings awaiting him through the day-meetings with prominent citizens who had each been subjugated in some way by Maius, and whom Cato was attempting to sway to his side of the election. If time allowed, he planned to find his way once again to the old Jewish slave who had become both teacher and friend through days of furtive meeting.

He met Octavia and Isabella in the morning room, already dining on cereals and oranges being served by Ariella.

Her appearance in the days she had been part of his household had ceased to be a shock to him, as it was the first morning after he bought her from Drusus. Isabella and Octavia had taken Ariella under their collective wing at once, refusing to allow the disguise to continue. They dressed her in the finest robes a slave could be given, then decorated her in the way of women, with baubles and glittering things Cato could not name. And she no longer smelled of leather and metal, of the sweaty training barracks. Instead, the scent of the gardens sometimes lingered when she bent over him to serve his wine or pa.s.sed him in the courtyard or back halls of the house. Her hair, too, had begun to grow out since he had first met her, wavy and thick, and he found it rather complementary to her pet.i.te features. Only the metal collar made her position clear.

All of it was quite disturbing, and almost he suspected his mother and sister of confounding him purposely. He nodded a morning greeting to the two of them, and each smiled sweetly. Surely they had placed Ariella here this morning in antic.i.p.ation of his arrival.

For Ariella's part, she continued to ignore him. He could not understand her att.i.tude any more than her appearance. She seemed to always be about, almost as though she followed him in his movements through the house, and yet she did not speak to him nor even look at him unless necessary.

And she was sad, this he could see.

”Mother, Isabella.” He lowered himself to a cus.h.i.+on and ladled his own wine into a bowl before Ariella had a chance to attend him. ”What plans do you two have on this lovely summer day?”

Isabella shrugged. ”I thought I would hang about the doorways of your receiving rooms and listen to your meetings.”

Cato narrowed his eyes. She was only half-jesting. Isabella's curiosity of the workings of politics had become insatiable. ”And if one of those men should take offense at your listening ear, and draw a dagger against it?”

She gave him a sly smile and shrugged. ”Perhaps Ariella has been teaching me the way of the warrior.”

Cato glanced sharply at Ariella, but the slave's eyes were on Isabella, and her tiny smile and shake of the head were for the girl alone.

”I'll not have any sister of mine-”

”Oh, hush, brother.” Isabella laughed. ”I am only teasing. My, but you are so sensitive of late!”

Cato grabbed at a hard crust of bread and bit down on it, then cursed at the pain.

Ariella's glance flicked to him for a moment, but her amus.e.m.e.nt had fled and he saw only resentment, which pained him more than the crusty bread.

Later in the day-after an exhausting round of n.o.blemen, civic leaders, and wealthy businessmen had paraded in and out of the house, in turn rejecting or supporting him-Cato found Ariella in the kitchen, kneading dough.

Octavia held sway in all things domestic in Cato's house, and he had not specified how Ariella was to be put to use. Beside a position requiring learning, such as a tutor or overseer, a kitchen slave had the most chance to move about the house and the city at will, and Octavia had placed Ariella here for the relative freedom, no doubt sensing that the girl was special to her son.

He watched from the doorway as her arms, well-muscled from the months of training with a sword, pounded and flipped the tanned lump until it was silky smooth.

”You attack the dough as though it were your enemy.”