Curses and Smoke (7 page)

“The gods work in their own time,” he said. “Many believe she will exact her punishment on the Romans in her own way. My father told me about this shrine, and one day I’ll tell my son.”

The rocks and brush around them buffered the sounds of the marketplace and temple complex, the calls and voices sounding more like the murmurs of waves sliding on sand. Tag pushed aside a large myrtle bush to reveal blackened, pitted stone steps leading down into a crevice. They took the steps in silence. Lucia sensed the sacredness of the space — the power of it. Castor must have too, because he stopped chattering.

Deep within the rocks stood a small tholos, a circular columned shrine. In the middle stood a well-worn altar covered in flowers, palm leaves, and sprigs of rosemary.

“People are still honoring your goddess,” she noted, looking around for other worshippers. The place was empty.

“Mainly the old-guard families, like I said.” Tag drew a walnut and some herbs from his linen bags and placed them on the altar with a bowed head. Feeling like she needed to give something to the goddess too, Lucia added the remainder of her lily powder.

“Why is her altar here?” asked Castor. “Among the rocks?”

“Because she has the power to breathe her poison out through them,” Tag explained. “Some say she lives deep in the earth, and when she is angered, she rises up, brings her lips to the underside of the ground where we stand, and exhales her poison to consume her enemies. And so she must be appeased.”

“I wonder why I never knew about this shrine,” Lucia said.

Tag shrugged. “Because she is Samnite, perhaps. And because you are Roman.”

“Gods, I hope she doesn’t hold that against me,” she said with a smile.

After they climbed up from the secret rock grove, Castor begged, “Can we go to the wharf now? You said we would go to the wharf!”

“Not yet,” Tag answered. Turning to Lucia, he asked, “Why don’t we take another turn around the market?”

He doesn’t want to leave me either
, she thought. A thrill of pleasure filled her chest. They circled the stalls again, commenting on which seller had the tastiest
garum
and which herbalists picked their plants according to the cycles of the moon. Castor followed a band of raggedy, barefoot boys giving chase to pigs snuffling in piles of rotting vegetables strewn around the carts.

“What do you go to the wharf for?” Lucia asked Tag.

“You do not want to know.”

She grinned up at him. “Oh, now I
have
to know.”

He sighed. “Cat dung. For treating ulcers of the skin, a paste of dung mixed with powdered mustard and oil has been shown to be quite effective.”

She stopped and looked at him incredulously. “You are joking, aren’t you?”

“No,” he laughed. “It’s a proven remedy.”

“So then why the wharf?”

“The cats who feed solely on fish scraps, I have learned from experience, provide the most effective … er, samples. So I go after the droppings of the cats who live on the wharf and around the boats.”

She made a face.

“It’s medicine,” he said, shrugging. Then, with a mischievous grin, he added, “But thankfully, Castor likes to collect the samples for me.”

“How wonderful to have your own little slave to do the dirty work for you,” she teased.

He stopped cold, his scowl returning. “I don’t
own
Castor,” he said, his mouth a thin line. “You do. And I would give whatever I had to keep that little boy from growing up a slave like me.”

She felt her cheeks warm. “Oh, I am sorry, Tag. Of course I know that. Sometimes I forget that you are not …”

“Like you.
Free
.”

“I meant no insult,” she said. “Truly.” As children, teasing him about being a slave was the only thing that seemed to break him — so she’d quit doing it. Along the way, she had stopped thinking of him as a slave altogether. And now she’d brought their lovely time together to a grinding halt with her big mouth.

Tag resumed walking. “Castor, come on,” he called. “Time to go to the wharf.”

The boy whooped with joy and ran, weaving in and out of the pockets of people toward the marina gate outside the temple complex. “Good-bye,
Domina
!” Castor shouted over his shoulder to Lucia as he scampered away.

Without another word, Tag followed the boy.

“Wait,” she said.

He faced her, his expression blank. “Yes,
Domina
?”

Gods, how she hated when he used that title with her. “I … I wanted to thank you for taking me to see the sanctuary of Mephistis.”

“You are welcome,” he said, coldly formal.

She opened her mouth to say something — anything — to regain the warmth they had enjoyed just moments before, but no words came. He looked behind her. “It appears your nurse is looking for you. May Mercury watch over you on your journey home,” he added. Then he turned and set off after Castor.

T
ag neared the wooded hideout and spied Minos. That meant Lucia was inside.
Good
. He picked up his pace.

He’d felt bad about the way he’d reacted to her comment about Castor being “his” slave the day before. Sure, it had been a thoughtless remark, but maybe she really did forget about his status when they were together. He certainly forgot about
hers
. Also, she had
apologized
to him, an act of kindness from a slave owner that still had the power to stun him.

“It’s me, Tag,” he called at the hideout’s opening as he scratched Minos, who grinned and panted up at him. “May I come in?”

“Sure,” she replied. He noticed her putting a scroll into a cloth bag as he crawled inside.

“What are you writing?” he asked.

“Nothing. I’m rereading some of Pliny’s scrolls.” He settled himself across from her. When he looked up, she was staring at him with a worried expression. “Tag, I wanted to apologize for what I said —”

“No, you don’t need to,” he interrupted. “I know you meant no insult. I should have seen that.”

“Oh,” she said. “I was worried you were still angry.”

He looked away and shook his head, smiling.

“What?” she asked.

“I’ve just never even imagined that there existed a slave owner who could be worried about how a slave
feels
.”

“I am not your owner.”

“True. But you are still
Domina
.”

“Again, out here, I am Lucia, your childhood friend.”

“All right.” He nodded. “Why are you rereading Pliny?”

“Because I’m hoping that I might meet him soon,” she said, her eyes shining. “My friend Cornelia is trying to arrange it.”

“
Admiral Pliny?
Why? How?”

“Pliny is her husband’s patron. I figured this might be my last chance to meet the man before I’m shipped off to Rome.”

“Can I go with you?” he asked, only half joking. He had often used Pliny’s
Natural Histories
to check remedies and plants. “Perhaps he knows something about the nature of aging and memory that’s not in his scrolls — something that could help my father.” He sighed. “I need to start shielding him from the master somehow.”

“Why does he have to be shielded from my father?” she asked, her brows knitting.

“Because your father is liable to put him out on the street when he realizes
my
father might make a medical mistake with one of his precious fighters.”

Her mouth dropped open. “My father would
never
do that!”

“Of course he would.”

“I wouldn’t let him!”

“But soon you’ll be gone.”

She looked out toward the hideout’s opening. “Well, I will … I will make sure he doesn’t! I’ll extract a promise.”

Tag didn’t bother responding. Did she really think she could have any impact on her father when it came to how he managed his human property?

Lucia stiffened. “Did you feel that?”

“I didn’t feel anything. Did the earth shake again?”

“No, this is different. See, this is the kind of thing I want to discuss with Pliny. I think the earth is trying to tell us something —”

“That another big earthquake is coming?”

“No, I think it’s something else. It seems to me the land is undergoing some kind of —
transformation
.”

The earth vibrated ever so slightly, and this time he did feel it. She scuttled out of their hideout. “Come, let me show you something,” she called.

He didn’t move, and she popped her head back in, twigs pulling strands of black silk from her braid to float around her face. “Come with me. You will enjoy this.”

With a sigh, Tag crawled out of the enclosure after her. Even when they were little, her intensity for whatever captivated her — usually some creature or plant in the woods — was always stronger than whatever resistance he could offer up. Besides, he was curious now.

It took him a few minutes to wonder if this hadn’t been a very bad idea, especially when he noticed that she’d grabbed the bottom of her long
tunica
and tucked the ends into her belt so that she could walk more freely. He could tell it was an unconscious act, a necessary maneuver if she was going to walk through the woods without ripping her dress to pieces.

But watching her smooth legs move confidently through the brush was a reminder that they were no longer children. These were the shapely, beautiful legs of a young woman. Which, of course, led to him noticing the sway of her hips, and when she turned to say something — which he didn’t catch — the fullness of her breasts. Had she always been this lovely? Or had she just blossomed into a beauty in the last three years?

He forced his gaze back to the bottoms of her feet, but that felt terrible as well, because it reminded him of his status as a slave. So he compromised and stared at the loose curls that had come undone from her pinned-up braid as they swung back and forth down her back.

“Look,” she whispered, stopping suddenly.

He almost ran into her. “What am I looking at?”

“The web,” she whispered as she pointed again.

A huge spiderweb spanned the length between a rotten log and the roots of an oleander bush. “That is one immense web! What kind of spider is it?” he whispered back. Then, “Why are we whispering?”

She ignored him. “I don’t know what kind of spider it is, but that’s not what’s important. Be still and watch.”

Nothing was happening with the web, but he quickly became aware that their arms were almost touching. He looked down at her hand and at the soft skin on the underside of her wrist. Did her skin feel as silky as it looked? Gods, why was he thinking this way?

“There!” she said. “Did you see it?”

He glanced back to the web. “See what?”

“By Diana, you haven’t changed a bit! See how the web is
vibrating
?”

“No, I don’t…. Oh, yes. I see it.” She was right. The iridescent threads trembled delicately. “It’s the wind. So what?”

She turned to him. “Do you
feel
any wind? It’s another strangely hot and airless day. There is no wind.”

The golden lights in her eyes made him think of sunlight glinting off bronze.

“My point is,” she continued, “that the earth is constantly trembling. It’s not at a level where we can detect it, but I think many animals sense it.”

“The gladiators all say that Vulcan is angry and that the giants are stirring.”

“Yes, I know. And Metrodona says her seer in the market has visions of all the statues in Pompeii falling to the ground in positions of agony.”

He smiled ruefully. “That is strange and unnerving.”

Her face changed.

“What?”

“I like it when you do that,” she said softly.

“Do what — say something is strange?”

“No, smile. You’re always scowling these days.”

“Oh. Thanks for reminding me.” He stopped smiling and exaggerated a scowl.

She laughed. They gazed at each other for a long moment.

“I missed you when you were in Rome,” she said.

He’d thought of her often too, but only as the young friend he explored the woods with, as his fellow wood-cave builder. He would not have been able to conjure the creature that stood before him, this beautiful girl who left him with a strange hollow feeling in his chest. The hollowness grew when he looked into her eyes, so he forced himself to look away — his gaze lighting on her neck, at the way the fabric of her dress clung to her curves, at her mouth. He didn’t know where to look, but he didn’t want to stop looking either.

“Tag,” she called softly.

Gods, the way she said his name … Her voice vibrated within him, deep and low. Ever so slightly, she tilted her face up to his. Was she going to …? The warm scent of her body made him dizzy. He felt her soft breath against his mouth.

He suppressed a groan and took a step back. This could not be happening. She was the
master’s daughter
. He could be put to death — crucified — for touching her. “We cannot,” he managed to get out. She stared up at him, her mouth still partly open, and she looked so beautiful, so inviting, this time he did groan.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because …” Breathing suddenly seemed very difficult. He swallowed. “Because I am a slave.”

“I don’t care.”

“Because it is wrong.”

She blinked. “Why?”

He had no answer. He couldn’t think. His lungs seemed incapable of taking in air.

“Lucia …”

“Just once, before I’m married, I want to know what it is like to kiss someone I
want
to kiss,” she said. “Just once,
I
want to make my own choice about it.”

For her it would be a kiss she stole from a slave on a whim; she’d just said as much. But for him … for him, he knew suddenly, one taste would be torture, to know that she would be forever out of reach afterward.

Another sickening realization tightened his chest. Did
he
have a choice?

He took another step away. “Are you going to order me to obey? Take away my choice too?”

Her eyes widened. “Gods, no, Tag. I just thought … I only wanted to know what it would feel like. I thought maybe you might want …” She put a hand to her throat as her face flushed. “I’m sorry. Oh, Diana, this is so embarrassing.”

“Don’t be embarrassed.”

She shook her head. Her eyes began to fill. “I … I need to go,” she said, turning away.

He reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Wait. I’m sorry. I
do
want to —” What was he doing? He should let her go. But now that he was touching her …

She stared up at him as he moved closer. He released her wrist and cupped her cheek, his thumb caressing soft, flushed skin. He paused to drink in her scent, her warmth, the way her breath hitched when he bent toward her. Yes, this was a very bad idea, but as he lowered his mouth onto hers, his fears melted away. Everything disappeared, in fact — the woods with its strangely vibrating spiderwebs, his status as slave, even the knowledge that he could be killed for touching her.

There was only Lucia.