Arts of Dark and Light: Book 01 - A Throne of Bones (94 page)

She didn’t flinch from his accusation. “The problem, Marcipor, is that you think all women are stupid and too blinded by your beauty to see through your charm. I was taken in by a man like you once, and thankfully, my father forced me to see the truth.”

“I don’t think you are stupid, my lady.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course you do, Marcipor. How could you not? You’ve had slaves and patrician women alike eating out of your hand for years. Sextus says you’ve fathered more children than you have fingers and thumbs. And now you think to play the penitent with me, batting your eyes and beseeching me not to sell the little innocent orphan?”

His pretense of submission vanished. “So you intend to make him sell me.” His voice was as cold as his eyes.

“No, not at all.” It took more than a slave’s anger to intimidate the daughter of Patronus Severus. “But if you ever attempt to seduce me, or any of my friends, or indeed, any other patrician woman, I will not only have you sold, I will first have you whipped and beaten so badly that your lovers will vomit to look upon you.”

He frowned. “And what if a patrician woman pursues me?”

“Then you tell her no, Marcipor. No. I realize you may not have heard the word before, but I promise, most women understand what it means.”

He favored her with the merest ghost of a smile. “I suspect my lady knows well how few patrician women are accustomed to hearing it.”

“In such a case, come to me, Marcipor. If necessary, I will teach it to them. I will not pretend to like you, but we don’t need to be enemies. If nothing else, I believe you are loyal to Sextus, and I am willing to put up with you on that basis, so long as you cease behaving like a bitch in heat around your betters.”

“I can live with that,” he said. “I don’t like you either, my lady, but I think you may well be worthy of my master.”

She snorted. “Of course I am. The only question there has ever been was if your master was worthy of me. Now, let us go find the new tribune and congratulate him.”

Severa was not at all unhappy to discover that the speeches had been given and the voting was just about to begin by the time they returned. The eleven candidates for the three consulships stood shoulder to shoulder on the stage, awaiting the announcement of which tribe would begin the voting.

It had been difficult to pry Sextus from the clutches of the vast host of Valerians and other well-wishers, but with Marcipor’s help she’d managed to extricate him and return to the Forum, which was much more crowded now, since the voting was taking place for the highest offices.

She was pleased to learn that one of her cousins had been elected to one of the twenty quastorships. She didn’t know Servius very well, as he was ten years older than her, but it was good to know that House Severus still commanded support among the tribes despite the unfair criticism of her father that was still on the lips of far too many Amorrans.

“Valeria is the principium,” the praetor declared, brandishing the engraved stone he’d drawn from the basket. A hushed awe fell over the crowd despite the half-inebriated state of many of the voters. Surely this was a certain sign of the Almighty’s hand at work! Marcipor wouldn’t find anyone giving odds against Corvus, that much was certain. With the outcome pre-ordained, the Valerians went with a simple show of hands, and it wasn’t long before their custodis presented the three names to the elderly magistrate, whose voice was beginning to grow hoarse.

“For consul civitas, Tribe Valeria votes for Marcus Andronicus Declama. For consul provincae, Appius Appuleius Pansa. For consul aquilae, Sextus Valerius Corvus!”

As the three tribes cheered the entirely predictable vote, Severa looked at her fiance, who was regarding his namesake with an odd expression that was almost regretful.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Do you not want him to win?”

“It’s not that. I’m not even angry with him. I know better than anyone what an ass Fortex could be. And I know it probably sounds awful to say it, but I have no doubt he had it coming. My uncle may be a hard man, but he’s always been fair, and he never had anything against my brother. He wouldn’t have executed Gaius Fortex if he hadn’t given him cause.”

“Then what’s troubling you?”

He shrugged. “Corvus didn’t think he’d ever be consul. He didn’t want to be consul. He’s nine years past his year, just like I’m three years past mine. And yet, there I was up there, all the same. Just like him—summoned by the tribes whether he wanted it or not.”

She slipped her arms around him and pressed her face to his chest. Now she understood. He was seeing himself up there one day in his uncle’s place, another reluctant consul raised up by a sense of duty and the voice of the People instead of his own ambition. And the grave responsibility of the magistracy lay much more heavily on those upon whom it was imposed than on those who sought it as a mere sign of their own glory.

The tribes were voting quickly now. Clustumina, Galeria, Quirina, Stellatina, and Voltinia all followed the Valerian lead. Only Amorres, Tromentina, and of course, Falconia, preferred Falconius Rullianus to Andronicus Declamas. The votes for the Provinces and Eagles were unanimous. The sun was just beginning to set when Declamas belatedly reached his majority, and the Viturian, now acting in a propraetorial capacity, announced the elections over after only nineteen of the twenty-six tribes had voted.

However, instead of announcing the three consuls for the new year, the propraetor looked to the side of the rostra, which was the signal for three squads of eight fascitors to march to the front of the platform. Severa, Sextus, and everyone else in the crowd fell silent upon seeing them, as each of the twenty-four men were carrying their axes unbound by their customary branches.

“We are at war,” Sextus said, sliding his arm around her.

“I don’t understand,” Severa said, confused. “Aren’t we always at war? My brothers have been away invading some province or breed land almost as long as I can remember!”

“No, the Senate permits the Houses Martial to use their allotted legions as the situation requires and as they see fit. Your House didn’t care if our legions defeated the goblins or not, and your father would never have sent them to our assistance if we were losing. But formal war is something altogether different. I don’t think there has been one in more than one hundred years. It means all the Houses are united, and that has to be a very bad sign.”

The crowd, most of which was chattering about the uncovered axes, fell silent as the three newly elected consuls appeared again, each standing in front of his fascitors. But instead of wearing the white robes they’d been wearing before, under their purples capes of office, each of the three men was wearing legionary armor. Corvus’s was battered and dirty, while Declama’s was shiny enough to look brand new, but the effect was every bit as grim as the consuls had intended.

“Men of Amorr,” the propraetor cried out, “your new consuls will address you now. I give you Marcus Andronicus Declama, consul civitas!”

“The new year is customarily a time of celebration and festivals.” Declama’s voice was high-pitched, but the gravity of the occasion was such that no one tittered. “That will not happen this year, for as you have seen, we find ourselves facing imminent war. As consul civitas, I am cancelling all public festivals and announcing three days of repentance and contemplation, during which time I expect every man, woman, and child to repent of their sins, to beg forgiveness of the Almighty God, and to ask the intercession of the Immaculate Lord, the true King of this city, to strengthen and sustain her.”

The Forum buzzed with astonished discussion of what had provoked these extreme measures. Declama nodded to Appuleius Pansa, the consul provincae, who stepped forward.

“As consul provincae, I have nothing to say except to express my full support for the actions of the consul civitas and to declare that we three consuls have agreed that we shall henceforth speak with one voice, and that any public statement made by one of us should be considered to have made by all three of us, speaking in unison. With regards to the direction of the anticipated war effort, the consul aquilae shall be the sole magister militum, and the consul civitas and I will serve as his chief legates.”

There was scattered applause, but the men of the tribes were too astonished and alarmed at the consul provincae’s highly unusual announcement to do anything but wonder what would come next.

Corvus stepped forward, and, as if to illustrate the truth of their words, Declama and Pansa assumed parade-like military stances on either side of him. His voice was strong and commanding as he addressed the Forum in much the same manner as a general addressing his men.

“Men of Amorr, you have placed great trust in me and my colleagues in a most difficult time. Many of you already know of the Marruvian league, which our allies of the south and east have formed against us at Falera. What none of you yet know, and the reason for the extraordinary and precipitate actions my colleagues and I have taken, is that the other six Utruccan allies have joined together in a northern league, led by the Salventii. It is our belief that if we do not agree to their demands, these leagues will soon unite their forces and march upon Amorr in the spring.”

The crowd erupted with cries of outrage, fear, and anger.

Severa could feel Sextus’s tension, and it frightened her.

“I wonder if they’re going to make him dictator,” he whispered. “I hope not. My father would just love that. If Corvus is named dictator, I swear, Magnus may very well may go to Salventum and volunteer to general for them.”

God, what sort of family of madmen am I marrying into? She didn’t know if she should laugh or cry at what Sextus was suggesting. And here she’d thought that being the daughter of the princeps senatus was difficult! Could she even marry Sextus if her father-in-law was leading rebel armies against Amorr? And as a leading military tribune, would Sextus even be in the city long enough to marry if war came?

“Men of Amorr,” Corvus said, “it is the custom of the Senate to require three days of deliberation before a vote is taken on any suggested new law. Therefore, tomorrow when the Senate meets, I shall propose a reply by the Senate and People to the demands of these Utruccan leagues as well as the
Lex Valeria Corva
, which concerns how we intend to organize our legions and marshal our strength, assuming war with our former allies becomes unavoidable.”

“Dictator, dictator!” The cry went up from various points around the Forum. “Corvus dictator!”

Severa felt Sextus wince, but his uncle was quick to nip the chant in the bud.

“You need no dictator, men of Amorr! Your laws are sound. Your walls are strong. Your will is certain. And your leaders are one! We stand at the crossroads. We must choose. Our erstwhile allies have made demands of us, men of Amorr, demands of you and of our sacred city. With insolence they demand their liberty. With threats they demand you grant them the very citizenship you possess. Shall we submit to their demands, men of Amorr? Shall we give them a voice in our governance? What say you?”

“No!” The very tiles beneath her feet seemed to shake with the thunder of the twenty-six tribes.

“Shall we answer them with words or shall we answer them with war? Tell me three times!”

“War! War! War!”

“Then so shall I advise the Senate tomorrow. Do not fear, men of Amorr. Some of us will bleed, and some of us will die, but as our forefathers defeated the Maruvii and the Salventii, so we shall defeat them once more!”

The crowd roared their approval of the three consuls standing together in their armor, displaying their united resolve and readiness to lead the city into war. Most of the members of the Senate who would be voting on the response to the allies were present in the crowd, shouting in enthusiastic chorus with the vulgar citizenry, so it was already clear that a Senatorial vote in favor of a belligerent reply was all but a certainty.

Sextus was not shouting, Severa saw. He was staring at his uncle in something akin to awe. She understood. All her life, she had found it almost impossible to balance her firsthand knowledge of her loving, if formidable, papa with the powerful, arrogant, and sometimes feared figure of the princeps senatus of whom she heard others speak. Sextus had certainly heard others talk about Corvus, the victorious general and battle-hardened leader of men, but this was probably the first time he had ever witnessed his uncle in this light.

Had Corvus ever been like Sextus? They had both been lost in the shadow of the same man—would the effort involved in stepping out of it and becoming his own man affect Sextus in the same way? Was the cost too great? She found it hard to picture her handsome, nonchalant fiance executing anyone or standing before the Forum in battered armor, exhorting men to bloodshed and war. What would such a transformation do to their marriage? What grief would it bring her?

She shivered, even as the gathered voices of the angry men of Amorr crescendoed around her. To her, they sounded like wolves howling a fateful warning.