Call to Juno (A Tale of Ancient Rome #3) (7 page)

Amazed at her lover’s request, the girl looked expectantly at the king. Nonplussed, the lucumo swiveled around to the queen.

Lady Caecilia nodded. “It’s true. We owe Arruns our lives. And he’s one of our most faithful servants.”

“And what of the girl? She’s far from truthful.”

“My first thoughts were also to punish her. But Semni proved she saw the error of her ways when she rescued Tas. And I can’t have her death on my conscience. For she will perish without a family to harbor her. And I don’t want a decent woman to become a whore so that she might eat. Nor a mother to be separated from her baby.”

The king’s expression softened as he scanned her face. “So you believe in redemption?”

She smiled. “I would not be in Veii if I didn’t.”

The king’s lips curved upward briefly before he turned to his servants. “Very well, Arruns, I’ll honor the debt. The girl may stay. And I can’t stop you marrying her, but I warn against it. However, if she betrays us again, you’ll also be dismissed.”

Arruns bowed. “Thank you, my lord. And the birching?”

The queen squeezed the king’s forearm. Semni was thankful the noblewoman was prepared to chip away at her husband’s judgments. Nevertheless, the lucumo’s exasperation was evident. “No thrashing either, then.”

The wet nurse sighed in relief. Her gratitude toward the queen was overwhelming. She vowed silently she would spend her days proving she could be trusted. But it was the king she needed to win over. She stepped forward, kneeling and kissing his feet. “Thank you, my lord, thank you. I’ll nourish the princess as though she were my own. I’ll care for the princes.”

Lord Mastarna stepped back at her groveling. “Do you think I would have a woman like you caring for my children? You’re not to go near them. You can work in the kitchen again.”

Semni leaned back on her heels. Lady Caecilia made a clucking noise and helped the girl to her feet. Her tone was impatient. “Of course she will. Thia is thriving. Semni nurses our daughter with milk and with love. And our sons adore her.”

Arruns stood to attention. “I will vouch for her, my lord. Please let her remain as a wet nurse.”

The king scowled in frustration at his edicts being undermined. “I see yet again I’m to be overruled by the queen. Very well, Semni may continue to suckle my daughter, but there is one proviso. A wet nurse’s milk is soured by lying with a man. I don’t want my little princess to take a bitter mouthful.” He glared at the Phoenician. “So if you want Semni to continue working in the nursery, you will not lie with her until Thia is weaned.” He turned and glared at his wife. “And in this I will
not
be countermanded.”

Semni gasped. Having been threatened by a bleak future, she knew the penalty was mild, but it didn’t stop her feeling injustice that she was to be denied consummation. She cast a beseeching look at the queen, but Lady Caecilia shook her head, not prepared to champion the maid’s case any further.

Arruns remained impassive. “As you wish, my lord.”

Not waiting to escort his wife, Lord Mastarna stepped from the dais and strode ahead. Lady Caecilia took her time proceeding through the hall, although she seemed disconcerted the king had left her in his wake.

As soon as the monarchs had left the chamber, Arruns wrapped his arms around Semni. “It’s done. I am proud of you.”

Exhausted, she laid her head on his shoulder. As she did so, she noticed one person lagging behind. It was Cytheris. The handmaid’s pockmarked face was furious. Semni knew that she felt the shame of being the mother of a betrayer. No forgiveness dwelt within her for Aricia. And with the confession today, Semni suspected that she would find no pity from the woman she called the Gorgon.

S
EVEN

The kitchen was noisy with the bustle of slaves attending to the preparation of the midday meal. King Mastarna had invited Generals Lusinies and Feluske to dine. There would be no repast that night, though. The time had ended when rich families dined twice a day.

Two naked boys were turning a row of rabbits on a spit over an enormous brazier. A kitchen maid was chopping onions at a table, her eyes streaming. Cook, cheeks still chubby despite less food, was cracking walnuts with a hammer. A flute player was trilling his pipe. In a world at war, the Rasenna could still add melody to their work.

Semni and Arruns entered the kitchen to this scene of industry and aromas. Another maid emerged from the door to the storerooms where the harvest of past years had been preserved: olives and figs, oil and salt. The reserves in the royal cellars were slowly diminishing. The livestock also.

The servants, absorbed in their labor, took no notice of the wet nurse and lictor. Semni searched the room for Nerie, expecting to see the one-year-old sitting on the bench, playing with his favorite ladle with its lion-shaped handle. Her son was nowhere to be seen. Panic seized her at the thought that he’d wandered off into the maze of cellars or ventured as far as the stables at the rear of the palace. Arruns was also scanning the kitchen. “Where’s Nerie?”

Cook laughed and nodded toward the corner of the room. “He’s discovered the dormice.”

The boy was squatting before an earthen pot, his eye pressed to one of the holes that were punched at intervals across the terra-cotta. When Semni lifted him, he protested, leaning his weight forward, arms outstretched.

“Very well.” She lifted the lid. “You may look for a moment.”

Both mother and son peered inside. Curled asleep on tiers spiraling around the interior was a family of dormice. The furry creatures did not stir despite the light illuminating their den. Seeing them so at peace, Semni felt sorry the offspring of the breeding pair would be roasted and dipped in honey and poppy seeds. Nerie leaned down, determined to touch the animals hibernating within.

Arruns appeared beside them and took the squirming child from his mother. As usual, she was struck by her son’s blond hair against the swarthy features of the Phoenician.

Seeing it was the lictor who had wrested him from his fascination, the toddler stood on the guard’s broad forearm and jigged up and down as he wrapped his arms around the man’s neck. “Roons!”

Arruns smiled and tousled Nerie’s hair before grasping Semni’s hand and turning to face the others. Her heart raced with anticipation.

“We need witnesses.”

The piper ceased his tune. Cook tutted at being delayed in the meal’s preparation. The others looked up curiously.

Semni never thought this day would come. One year ago, a bloodied Arruns had helped birth Nerie on the edge of a battlefield. A bond had been formed that night by the light of a flickering bonfire. One that had been tested by misunderstandings and her own foolishness.

Arruns hoisted Nerie with straight arms above his head, making the boy squeal. “All present, bear witness that I claim this child as my son, as though he were from my loins. He will be called Nerie, the son of Barekbaal, also known as Arruns, and Semni Vulca, his mother.”

It was the first time Semni had ever heard Arruns’s Phoenician name. His first master had given him a Rasennan one. It made her realize how little she knew of his history. He’d always kept her at bay, granting only glimpses to her.

The new father handed their son back to her. Propping Nerie on her hip, she slid her arm around Arruns’s waist, expecting him to make another announcement. “Tell them our news.”

Without replying, the lictor removed his necklace and slipped the simple bronze pendant over Nerie’s head. The charm clicked against the amulet that had been placed around the boy’s neck when he was born. “May this bulla protect you forever from the evil eye. May all the great and almighty Rasennan gods and those of Canaan watch over you.”

Nerie pulled at the locket, peering at the figure engraved on it, and then showed it to Semni. It depicted a naked woman crowned with a crescent moon and holding a bow.

“Who is she?”

“The divine Astarte. Goddess of love and war, death and rebirth. She is the evening star who watches over us. She is worshiped by the Rasenna on the coast as Queen Uni. Others call her Turan or Aphrodite, goddess of love.”

Semni smiled, comforted the foreign deity was so revered. “Then she’ll be a mighty protectress for our child.”

The servants clapped, calling out their well wishes. Semni nodded, waiting expectantly for Arruns’s next declaration. Again he failed to mention there would be a wedding; instead, he thanked those around him and bid them go back to their chores.

Semni squeezed his bicep. “Aren’t you going to tell them we are to be married?”

The piper began playing again. Routine returned. Arruns led Semni by the hand into the hallway. Nerie toddled after his parents, sucking his thumb.

The Phoenician halted, standing inches from her. “I’ll marry you when we can lie together as man and wife. Until then it’s best we live apart.”

“Why? I did what you said. I confessed. You said you would wed me. You said you loved me. Or is it because you want another woman now that you can’t . . . ?”

Lacing his fingers through her loose knot of hair, he pulled her to him, crushing her against his chest. Then he kissed her, his lips hard against hers. It was the first time he’d embraced her since they’d made love six weeks ago. She stirred with need for him. She echoed his movement, her hands cradling the back of his skull. She felt his heat, wanting to stroke the muscled body beneath his uniform.

“Me!” Nerie tugged at her skirts. The lovers broke apart, staring at each other, Arrun’s dark resinous eyes intense under the hooded lids. Ignoring the boy, he leaned his forehead against hers. “Do you really think we could share a bed without breaking our vow to the master? It could be two years until the princess is ready to be weaned.”

Semni knew he spoke the truth, but all she could think about was that she’d only lain with him once and wanted more of him. “The king’s decree is unfair. I want to bear your baby, Barekbaal.”

Arruns smiled at the use of his birth name but shook his head. “Not until this siege is over. It’s enough that Nerie was born into war. I want no more of our children to face the threat of death at the hands of the Romans. Perhaps the gods have done us a favor in preventing us from lying together.”

“Me! Me!” Nerie’s persistence distracted her. She hoisted him onto her hip. “A woman cannot fall pregnant when her milk is flowing.”

Arruns’s face resumed its somber lines, his feelings once again masked. “Well, we can’t test whether that’s true without disobeying the master.” He stroked Nerie’s head and then turned to leave. “It’s time for me to return to Lord Mastarna.”

Resentment surged as she watched him go, thinking the gods were punishing her for a past wrong that she’d righted. Then she remembered the fury of the king, and what might have been her fate. She hugged her son.

The tightness in her breasts told her she needed to feed Thia. She headed for the nursery, but as Semni rounded the corner into the living quarters, Cytheris barred her way. She could smell the strong scent of aniseed on the maid’s breath.

Semni averted her gaze as she tried to pass.

Aricia’s betrayal had caused threads of gray to grow in Cytheris’s ankle-length plait even though she was only in her thirties. To know her daughter had been faithless to Lady Caecilia had caused her much sorrow. Today she’d learned Semni’s act of bravery in thwarting Aricia’s plot had been built on deception.

“I need to put Nerie to bed and then feed the princess.”

Cytheris placed her hands on her hips. “Thia can wait a little longer. I want you to know the mistress may forgive you, but I never will.”

Semni shifted Nerie’s weight. The boy was drowsy after all the excitement, his head against her shoulder. “I said I was sorry. What more can I do? I will not make the same mistake again.”

“Well, I don’t believe you. You’ve always been selfish and careless. You were early ripe and you’ll be early rotten. You cuckolded your old husband and bore him a bastard. Then you drank yourself silly and slept with any manservant who’d have you once you were given a chance of a new life by the mistress.”

Semni winced at hearing her sins set out in plain sentences. “Nerie was born from my worship of the wine god at the Winter Feast of Fufluns. It was a sacred union. And I’ve changed—you know that. I was chaste and sober after I saw Arruns would never have me while I was wanton.”

“And now you’ve snared him.”

Semni shoved past her, angry now. Cytheris dogged her heels. “I could scarce believe it when the mistress told me yesterday Aricia had not left the city. Every day I live with the shame of knowing my daughter placed Master Tas in harm’s way. And now I learn that you had the chance to stop her and did nothing?”

Semni swiveled around. Cytheris bumped into her at the sudden change in direction.

“I made a mistake. I was scared and stupid. And now I’m being punished. Isn’t it enough for you that Arruns and I are to be separated?”

“Forgoing pleasure for a time is a mild punishment compared to what you deserve. You are fortunate the mistress is kindhearted—and can sway her husband.”

“Then be satisfied my admission hasn’t made me happy. Arruns won’t marry me until Thia is weaned.”

Cytheris’s eyes narrowed. “He doesn’t need to be your husband to bed you.”

The Greek woman’s lack of sympathy only doubled Semni’s annoyance. “Aricia told me that you were also a wet nurse. And you opened your legs for your slave master in Latium. Then fell pregnant with her as proof of your adultery. You were little more than a girl yourself and acted foolishly just like I did. You’re a hypocrite and always will be.”

Taken aback, the handmaid grew shrill. “My past is irrelevant. You don’t deserve clemency. Lord Artile is an evil man. Young Tas was under his influence for far too long while you could have saved him. Lord Mastarna should have thrown you into the street with the stripes on your back fresh and bleeding.”

“Just like you did to Aricia?”

Cytheris pockmarked face flushed red. “She deserved a beating.”

“For her crime, yes. But what about all the other times you whipped her? Your daughter lived with your bad temper. Do you know we used to call you the Gorgon? With your frizzy hair and poisonous stare. With your heart that’s made of stone.”

“I did what a mother ought to. Discipline only.”

“You always loved Lady Caecilia’s children more than your own flesh and blood.”

Cytheris took a deep breath. “You’re wrong. I grieve for the Aricia I lost but despise what she became. I mothered a child who’s betrayed all who cared and loved her. And besides, she wants nothing to do with me.”

Nerie started grizzling, his lower lip trembling. In the distance, Semni could hear Thia’s piercing screams.

“I must go, Cytheris.”

The handmaid stepped back. “Yes, go. But I’ll be watching you. Aricia has been lucky Lady Tanchvil has taken her in. If I find she’s using you to gain access to Tas again . . .”

“Don’t worry! I swear by Fufluns I never plan to speak to her.”

Cytheris nodded and let her pass. “Then in this one thing we’re in agreement. I never wish to set eyes on my daughter again either.”