One With the Darkness (4 page)

Titus was saying something. She couldn’t concentrate on what. She looked around. And there was a woman dressed
very strangely, staring at her. With her own face! Livia’s vibrations ramped up until they were almost painful. She stared at the woman in shock.

And then the woman with her face wasn’t there. She simply disappeared. She didn’t translocate, for there was no telltale sign of whirling blackness. The air seemed to waver. A mist formed and the woman with her face simply ceased to be. Livia shook her head to clear it. She felt so strange—full to overflowing and nervous. Something knew her, knew all her secrets, even the ones she had not told herself. Shocked to her core, she shuddered. What had happened here?

“Livia, are you attending to
anything
I say?”

Livia jerked her gaze to Titus, who was frowning at her in concern. “Of … of course, old friend. You were saying something about the night market. Did you … Did you see anyone standing there? A woman. She would have been right in your view….”

Titus raised his eyebrows. He was spectrally thin, his brows gray streaks over brown eyes wise for having lived only a single lifetime. “You’ve been working too hard.”

“Oh.” So he hadn’t seen anyone. Had she? It had just happened and yet the memory seemed to be slipping away from her. She pressed a hand to her forehead. “You’re right of course. Forgive me.” What had she seen? A woman?

“Come,” Titus said, taking her arm. “Let’s to the night market and buy you a body slave, and then you are going to come home and rest. Unless you’d rather go to Neronius’s banquet. He has all that Syrian gold to thrust into society, and he means to do it up lavishly tonight.”

“Spare me a night of overindulgence and I’ll give you your trip to the night market.”

“A fair trade, my lady,” Titus laughed, and guided her
out into the night. “And my bodyguards will provide your protection until you get your own.”

She clapped her hands. “My litter,” she ordered Lucius, who appeared from nowhere at her signal.

T
HE NIGHT MARKET
was a new idea. Roman citizens usually conducted business in the morning and early in the afternoon, then retired to rest. They gave the evening over to socializing, on either a grand or a simple scale, whatever they could afford. But Livia was glad for the new idea. As she was a vampire, even bundled up against the rays of the sun her skin itched painfully, and any glimpse of flesh was burned in seconds. She was old and could heal burns, but she only braved the daylight in emergencies. As she alighted from her litter, she felt a thrill of excitement unwarranted by the familiar bustle around her. She didn’t even want to be here, she reminded herself. And yet something important was about to happen. She felt it at the base of her spine.

Why did she feel that she had done all this before?

Something inside her poked to get out. A memory? She pushed it down.

She would buy a slave tonight. It would be a barbarian slave.

Where had that thought come from? Really, her brain was feeling quite disordered. She shook herself mentally.
Keep your mind on your task. Conspirators can’t afford to have disordered thoughts.

There were perhaps still some slaves left from the “triumphal” march Gaius Caesar had staged two days before, upon the army’s return from the north. He had gone to conquer Britannia but lost his nerve. The army stalled on the shore of the channel. He had them gather seashells,
proclaiming “victory” over Neptune. All Rome was whispering after the triumphal march of the soldiers followed by wagonloads of shells and a hundred slaves, some Gauls who had staged a brief, ill-conceived rebellion and some spies and scouts from Britannia. The army was deeply shamed. The Senate protested the waste of funds. It would make her job with the Senate easier.

She was alighting from her litter when a clatter of boot heels on cobblestones and metal on metal alerted her that the Praetorian Guard was near. She glanced up and saw a troop of Caesar’s personal army coming up the street. They looked like evil insects, armored entirely in black, each helmet sporting a black brush of horsehair. Short swords were strapped to their thighs, and they wore greaves that covered their legs to their knees. The crowd skittered aside for them as they marched forward. What were they doing at the night market?

As they drew closer, she saw that the captain of the Guard, in charge of Caesar’s personal safety and one of his closest confidants, was in their lead. The whole city feared Cassius Chaerea almost as much as they feared his master.

Livia feared Chaerea for another reason entirely.
Let him not stop
, she thought.
He mustn’t even look at me.

But he raised a hand. His cloak swirled back. The troop stopped, took one marching step in place, and stilled. Chaerea had a face hardened by years of battle and more years of palace intrigue. It had deep lines carved around the mouth and an ax blade of a nose. His eyes had seen every cruelty Imperial Rome could present.

“Livia Quintus Lucellus,” Chaerea said, nodding crisply, “I heard that you were attacked last night by three men.” He did not even acknowledge Titus.

“It was nothing. I was unhurt.”

“You lead a charmed life.”

He was right about that. It was a fact she did not want blurted to the world. “They were bumblers,” she said, though they hadn’t been. They had been dressed as ruffians, but she was betting they were ex-army, the way they wielded swords. She realized others near her were listening intently to her and Chaerea’s exchange. Soon the whole city would be buzzing about her too-miraculous escape. “Several generous bystanders helped me,” she lied by way of explanation. “And did not remain that I could know their names and thank them properly.” Even Chaerea must not know how she had vanquished her attackers.

“Alas, the Guard apparently cannot keep the city entirely free of brigands. My apologies.”

“I am here to buy a bodyguard,” she said, to reassure him.

“I would buy a troop of them, if I were you.” He nodded again. Then he held up his hand and motioned the Guard forward.

Titus breathed a sigh of relief. “That man makes my stomach churn,” he muttered.

Surrounded by several burly slaves armed with short swords, he led the way into the busy market. The air was filled with the chatter of bargaining, the cries of the vendors hawking their wares, and the smell of cooked meat, spices, and cedar boughs. Dyed cloth in many colors, produce from the lands beyond the Tiber, carved wooden bowls—you could buy anything at the night market. The slave vendor stalls were at the back, surrounding a simple raised platform on which stood several posts with shackles for the auctions held once a week. The place was a warren of stalls. You could buy scribes, accountants, galley slaves for your barge, men to till the fields of your estates, or
females to be hairdressers, laundresses. Of course Romans also bought slaves used for more intimate activities, such as bathing and sex. In Rome anything was possible.

“There’s a likely seller.” Titus pointed. He had gathered his toga over one arm. “He specializes in combatants for the arena.”

Livia cast her eyes over the stock, brawny men with dead eyes. Not barbarians. These were likely from the provinces to the east, Judea or Syria. Roman men and women clustered around, prodding muscle, asking about their training. A shivery feeling wafted through her. What she was looking for wasn’t here. She knew that as surely as she knew her own name. “I want more than muscle, Titus.”

Titus sighed. “I doubt you’ll find one who can slaughter at your command and play the lute into the bargain.”

“I don’t want a lute player.” But intelligent, a core of strength and courage … maybe she was looking for character. One couldn’t judge those qualities in a slave market. But she knew she would recognize the one when she saw him.

They kept going. The slaves all seemed alike, none what she wanted. She glanced to Titus. He didn’t relish shopping. But she vowed she would see every slave in the market until she found the one she wanted. He was here. “Why don’t we split up? I’ll scout ahead,” she offered.

“I’m not leaving you alone. Your enemies are everywhere.”

“Give me a couple of your bodyguards as escort. Look out for any slave that seems like he has a brain in his head as well as a ribbed belly.”

Titus nodded brusquely, pointed at one of his slaves, and started off to the left. Livia looked around. She felt so strange. It seemed as if she had done this all before. She moved through the crowds. The electric energy of her Companion made people part in front of her like water
before the prow of her barge. Let the bodyguards keep up if they could.

“New shipment!” she heard a vendor yell. The cry sent shivers down her back. She knew that cry. “Fresh from Britannia.” She pushed through the clot of onlookers.

Somewhere in her mind she registered the barbarians who sat half-naked with slumped shoulders and hunted eyes, chained to posts. Even in the brisk January night, the scent of men unwashed and the lime used to kill their vermin hung in the air, along with the sweet aroma of blood from half-healed wounds and the astringent smell of the
acetum
used to disinfect them.

But all that receded. Her eyes were drawn to a giant of a man in the back. His wrists and ankles were shackled to two posts by chains of only two or three links so that, though standing, he was spread-eagled and unable to move. His hair was dark like any good Roman’s, though long and tangled, held away from the sides of his face by some tie at the back. His beard was rough and untrimmed. He wore only a scrap of cloth about his loins, the better to reveal his muscled shoulders, chest, and corded thighs. Those muscles had not been acquired in some gymnasium but were created by hard work. His flesh was paler than a Roman’s, though he had spent time in the sun. He had a light dusting of dark, curling hair over his chest and belly. A wound in his left shoulder still seeped. No one could say he wasn’t attractive. Yet it was his eyes that riveted her. They were light: translucent green like the shallows of the Mediterranean. They burned with hatred. She felt she had known him always, though her rational mind knew this was the first time she had ever seen him. Her throat seemed to close. She had done all this before. She swayed as something inside her seemed to be trying to get out. A thought? A memory? She squeezed her eyes shut.

She took a breath. That was better. She’d pushed down whatever weakness assailed her. Her eyes returned to the barbarian.

A gaggle of three men clustered around him. They were talking….

“You can’t want him for your brothel, Graccus,” one laughed. “He’s incorrigible. Your patrons want slaves to spread their cheeks willingly.”

There was much tittering. “Enough fruit of the poppy and he’ll take direction.” The one called Graccus was an oily-looking creature. His pomaded locks lay in curls around a face that was lined with a heavy sensuality. “And if he does not, some like the pleasure of forcing a big man. I’ll just chain him.”

The slave’s muscles bulged as he strained against his bonds. He had broken out in a sweat in spite of the fact that he was nearly naked in the cool winter night of Rome.

“Well, he isn’t much good for anything except a brothel,” another said. “You could never trust the brute, and who wants a slave like that?”

Graccus mustered his courage and approached the barbarian. “His body wants shaving, except for a patch around his organ.” He poked the man’s biceps with his ivory walking stick. The barbarian gritted his teeth. She could see his jaw clench. Emboldened, the others surrounded him, touching shoulders, tweaking nipples.

“Be careful, Roman dogs,” he growled in accented Latin. They leaped back as though they had been struck.

Where did a barbarian learn to speak the language that ruled the world?

Graccus drew himself up to retrieve his dignity and managed a chuckle. He turned to his friends. “Yes, fruit of the poppy and daily beating. I’ll enjoy seeing him on his
knees. Perhaps I’ll use him myself.” He looked around. “Seller! You there!”

A small man in a surprisingly rich tunic and toga looked up. He was waiting on two women. “Yes, citizen? Ahhhh, you have good taste. He is magnificent, is he not? I shall be with you in only a moment.” He turned back and continued extolling the skills in hair dressing of the female slave the two women were considering.

Graccus looked sour. “Well, let’s see more of him. I would know whether my patrons will find his genitalia sufficient.” He stepped near enough to the barbarian to tear the cloth from his hips and toss the pieces away. The barbarian lunged against his bonds with another growl. But now Graccus was surer of himself. He only grinned.

“He’s well enough,” one of the others said. That was an understatement. The barbarian was impressively endowed.

“I’d like to see him eager.” Graccus walked behind the slave and slapped his buttocks.

One of the others moved in. They were going to tease the slave into an erection. That would keep them occupied. Livia glanced to the slave trader. He had finished with the women. One of his slave assistants was escorting them to the front. Graccus and his friends were now focused on the barbarian. He roared his protest as they touched his genitals.

Livia knew what she would do. And it felt right and true.

She slid over to the slave trader, Titus’s bodyguards in tow, before he could approach the men. “Kind sir, how much for the barbarian?”

The trader looked startled. “That one, my lady? He is no woman’s slave.”

“I shall be the judge of that. How much?”

A calculating look came over the trader’s face. She could see the price rising in the face of her open interest.

“Two thousand dinars.”

Steep. But what did she care? “Done.” She did not even glance toward the barbarian and his tormentors, though she could not help but register his roars of protest. The trader led her to the front of the stall and wrote out a receipt. She paid him from the purse she had concealed in the folds of her
palla
and took the scroll that said she owned a new slave.