Excerpt
A MAN AT WAR
CHAPTER I
Twilight in the Time of Augustus,
the Last Days of the Golden Age of Rome . . .
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It was in a dank, dark cell rife with insects and the putrid stench of excrement that Helena was held before the Inquest. She was in the bowels of the Antonian Basilica, deep beneath the splendid nave, chambers, and judges’ tribunals. It was as if this prison was along the passage to the Underworld, far away from the world of light. She sat hunched in the corner with her knees to her chin; the coarse straw on the cell floor chafed her bare feet. Her eyes were raw from crying and her cheeks moist with tears. The stickiness of the dried blood on her lavender nightgown was revolting. Cassia Bella’s blood.
Why had Cassia’s last words been an apology? Did she believe her death had been caused by her pursuit of Helena’s beloved Tiberius? Helena did not see Cassia at fault for this calamity, but herself. Had the gods heard Helena’s malevolent prayers and taken Cassia away? It was too late to tell the Fates that she hadn’t meant it. She hadn’t wanted her dead. Now, here in the darkness, she knew that she loved Cassia. In the depth of her being, Helena felt that she was to blame.
This regret had made her retch in the other corner. When she finished, she realized how foolish she was to do so. The malodor of vomit, above the other acrid smells, attacked her nostrils. She had been confined in the cell for some time. She didn’t know for how many hours. She did know that she would be released at nightfall for a proceeding called an Inquest. Out of reach of sunlight, she didn’t know when that would be. The only light she saw peeked through the small hole in the wooden cell door, from the dim flickering of a basinal lamp hanging in the corridor.
The last of the day’s light she had seen had been lavished on the wonderful figure of Tiberius Antonius Fortis. He was every bit a descendant of the mighty Hercules, with his tall, well-muscled form enhanced by the contrast between his broad shoulders and narrow waist. A decorated legionary Tribune and war hero, he was the most renowned man in Roman Spain.
After her arrest, she had been taken to the Basilica and kept in a small, bland room with a soldier guarding the entrance. Tiberius’ younger brother Lucius had been brought to the Basilica as well, but they were escorted to different chambers. She had no idea where Tiberius was. He had not been arrested and perhaps remained in Cassia’s home, the House of Claudius. She had sat still in the room, too jarred to move or even cry.
After over an hour, she was led to another chamber where a portly old man sat behind a long, bronze table, with the swarthy Titus Cruciatus Odium, chief of the Governor’s staff, standing smugly by his side. The old man said she had been summoned for the Denunciation and ordered her to remain silent while in the room. Helena nodded in response and did not raise her eyes from the table. In front of her lay Cassia’s Egyptian dagger, the blade still coated in blood.
The weapon held her mind and she barely heard what Titus and the old man were saying. All she knew was that she was being formally charged with Cassia’s murder. Such was absurd to her. It seemed like an odious trick by Titus, a vindictive act by a despicable man.
Two burly soldiers who made her look like a small child in comparison led her out of the room into the monumental nave, awash in sunlight from the clerestory windows. From the corner of her eye, she saw Tiberius emerge from the double colonnade. Helena raced over to him. She heard the soldiers hurry after her, but she didn’t care.
Helena leaped into his arms. He squeezed her and lifted her off the ground with his embrace. He raised a hand to halt the coming soldiers. Tiberius put his palms on her cheeks and placed a firm, wet kiss on her lips. Staring down at her, he pushed the hair away from her face and said, “Know that I love you.”
Her mouth quivered under the strain of emotion. Nothing else mattered but to hold him, to feel his powerful arms around her. “I so love you,” she said. She lowered her head under his chin and muttered, “What madness has overcome the world.”
“The madness of only one, my love,” he whispered to her. “Don’t despair, this will all be over.”
“This is quite touching,” Titus said as he approached with his characteristic limp. “Very Greek, I may say, except for the absence of a pretty boy.”
Tiberius shielded Helena from Titus with a twist of his body. “To hold her here is barbarous,” he said. “Let Helena come with me. I vouch that she will be present at the Inquest.”
Titus smirked. “This building may bear your father’s name, but your influence is meaningless in this hall of justice.”
“I ask you—”
“And your request is denied. The proper place for her kind is in a cell among the filth, beneath layers of rock and dirt.”
Tiberius moved menacingly close to Titus and the two soldiers grabbed the handgrips of their swords, exposing the gleaming blades.
“I already have one Antonius charged—do you wish to be another?”
“Don’t, my love,” Helena said, and Tiberius turned to her. “Go. Do not worry about me. I shall be fine.”
“See, at least she is reasonable,” Titus said, stroking his pointed beard. “I am as well. No one can claim that I am a cruel man.” He turned to the soldiers and said, “I, as the First Officer of the Propraetorian Legate Cassius Bellus, order that she is to remain unspoiled during her confinement. Inform the guards there shall be no unwanted visits.”
“How decent of you,” Tiberius said.
Against all her desires, Helena let go of him and walked to the guards. She glanced back at him. The morning sunlight anointed Tiberius as he stood there, his face stern and determined. Titus looked so less a man than he.
“You shall see me at the Inquest,” Tiberius said.
The soldiers led Helena down the dark cavern of a staircase to her repugnant cell. There, through the hours of weeping, she considered the outrage of her ordeal. To be arrested for a crime she hadn’t committed was one thing, but for Titus to lodge a murder accusation against her was a travesty. Was this the revenge Titus had threatened when she had repelled his drunken advances?
She was certain the truth would come out at the Inquest—or at least she hoped it would. Hope, which Cassia had called a curse, was the only thing Helena could cling to. She prayed to her sweet mother to save her from this nightmare. Helena’s mother, Calandra, a Syrian slave girl who had been a wedding gift to Tiberius’ parents, had died while giving birth to her. Helena believed her mother a goddess and kept an ornate urn housing Calandra’s ashes on a shelf above an empty bed in her bedchamber. Her blessed mother had always been with her and answered her prayers when she had traveled to the Northern Frontier to find the gravely wounded Tiberius who was feared slain in the Varian Disaster. Yet her mother refused to answer her prayers when her father, Damianos, had fallen ill and died four years earlier. Until now, she had never known another such wretched day.
She heard a familiar voice call out from the corridor, “Helena!”
“Is that you, Marcus?” Helena asked and raced to the door. She stood on her tiptoes to see out of the hole in the cell door, but she could barely see over the bottom rim of the hole.
“Glad I’ve found you,” said Titus’ estranged cousin Marcus.
“I’m so delighted to see you,” Helena replied. Marcus put his brown fingers through the opening and Helena grabbed them; they immediately comforted her.
“How are you?”
“How do you expect? I want to see you.”
“Guard, open the door,” Marcus shouted down the corridor.
“I can’t, Sir, it’s not allowed,” the guard replied from the distance.
“You know who I am?” Marcus said. “Centurion Marcus Arrius Valens, Commander, First Cohort of the City’s Garrison. Open this door.”
The guard obliged and when Marcus entered the cell, his face cringed at the smell. Helena threw her arms around him, digging her fingers into his tunic and toga like a frightened cat clawing its master’s clothes.
“It’ll be fine,” he said soothingly to her. He turned to the guard and said, “This cell is disgusting. Take her to another. Or have her come with me.”
“That, Sir, I cannot do. She is of the Disgraced class and this is the appropriate cell.”