‘Please don’t tell him that,’ Marcellus replied hurriedly, dropping his studied demeanour.
‘Lucius Falerius must know that he has many enemies, fellow-senators and knights. Some of our Italian allies would readily commit murder if they thought that by doing so they would gain the citizenship, and we did not entirely satisfy the demands of the Parthian ambassadors, for which he will bear the blame.’ Marcellus was studying Quintus, savouring and testing every word, seeking for any meaning that might be hidden amongst them, but the Cornelii face was like a mask, and his words lacked emphasis. ‘The real question is, having failed, will the people who tried to kill him make a second attempt?’
‘His doctor advised me that he should leave Rome to recuperate.’
That made Quintus sit upright, though he tried to control the movement. He was the acknowledged heir to Lucius’s power, everyone knew that, and like most successors he was eager to grasp power. There was a slightly crafty edge to the voice now. ‘I am troubled by that, Marcellus. Your father has been kind to me, taking me into his confidence. We think as one, and though I am prepared to assume whatever burden he places on me, I confess to a feeling of nervousness.’
‘He won’t go,’ said Marcellus, gratified to see the slight jerk of protest that ran through Quintus’s body. ‘Even if Epidaurianus tells him he will die from overwork.’
‘We must, at all costs, keep him alive.’
The attempt at sincerity left Marcellus wondering just how badly Quintus wanted power — after all, anyone could have hired that assassin. It was not something he, himself, craved, though his father had arranged that he would come upon it in time.
‘I lack the wit to think of a way of moving him, Quintus Cornelius.’ The young man bowed his head slightly. ‘Which is why I’ve come to you.’
The senator sat fingering the edge of his toga, ruminating on those words. He was not fooled; this youngster had the brains to conjure up a solution, he just lacked the stature to enforce it. The question he was posing to Quintus was plain.
‘If he could be persuaded to undertake an important task, one that got him out of Rome…’
‘Yet one that was not too arduous,’ added Quintus, solicitously.
‘A deputy of sufficient stature could do most of the actual work.’
‘I will call upon your father today, Marcellus, at the ninth hour,’ said Quintus. ‘It will be of some benefit if you are present.’
‘You look like a stuffed magistrate,’ said Valeria, under her breath, her hand flicking at his pure white toga.
They were sitting in the garden of her father’s house, with her personal maid less than six feet away. Marcellus, sensing her anger, wanted her more than ever. He had tried to keep his own promise, to stay away, but somehow his resolve always failed. Not that abstinence in regard to Valeria was easy, Gaius being one of his closest friends. Besides that, because patrician Rome was really rather small, they tended to meet at every function or festival. It was always the same for Marcellus: the desire to dominate her, to make her perform as Sosia did, doing everything he commanded, was overwhelming. However, the opposite occurred, often to the point where Valeria delivered a very public humiliation. Only a fool would stand for it, yet, in pursuit of a kind word from this girl, Marcellus had even defied his father by calling at the house each day since the attempted assassination, without first changing. He tried to edge closer, inching along the stone bench, but she moved away.
‘I have not been to the Campus Martius today, Valeria. I had to call on Quintus Cornelius. Are you annoyed that I still came to see you?’
Her head jerked away from him, the nose lifting in the air, which stretched her slim neck. Admiring it, he was wondering if he wanted to caress it with his lips, or squeeze it between his hands.
‘That is something I’ve yet to decide upon, Marcellus Falerius.’
The formality forced him to suppress a curse. He had nearly gone home to change into his fighting clothes before coming here, knowing he was in no danger of a rebuke. While his father had been confined to his bed, Marcellus had done very much as he pleased, but he had decided against it. How could someone who had just called on one of the leading senators of Rome, and been received in his house with honour, humble himself before a mere girl, however much he desired her, by changing into battered old armour and a smelly smock? Some of that feeling still persisted, making him speak more directly than normal.
‘What is wrong with being clean? You make that sound like a crime.’
‘Did I not ask you, Marcellus?’
Valeria had never asked him in so many words, but by hints and the way she reacted he knew that the look of his battered accoutrements, as well as the feel and smell of his exertions, brought the more hair-raising parts of his stories alive. It was as though she was some kind of Amazon, denied her true vocation through being born at the wrong time, who was determined to live her true life, vicariously, through him.
‘My father forbade it, yet I have defied him more than once.’ Marcellus stopped. He had never told anyone about his father’s instruction and the frown on Valeria’s face was evidence that doing so now was winning him no plaudits. He searched his mind for an excuse, aware, as he spoke, of both the lame, illogical words and the equally pusillanimous way he delivered them. ‘I cannot take advantage of his illness. Until he is well enough to conduct his own life again, I must obey him.’
Her eyebrows were now arched up, giving her an aura of heightened beauty. ‘Why did he forbid it?’
‘He said it was undignified, unbecoming of a Falerii.’
‘I suppose it’s all right for a Trebonii?’ Valeria replied sourly, making it plain she had not missed the snobbery, even if Marcellus had not intended it. ‘You choose to please him rather than me?’
Marcellus was genuinely non-plussed by that. ‘He’s my father. I have no choice.’
‘What did you say when he arranged the marriage with the daughter of Appius Claudius?’
‘Say?’
The tone of voice that followed, wheedling and anxious, struck a false note. ‘Do you care anything for me, Marcellus?’
He looked around, partly to avoid an answer, more to make sure that the slave girl had not heard her mistress’s words. The maid seemed to be concentrating very hard on her sewing, as though she had no desire to listen to their conversation.
‘Answer me!’ whispered Valeria, urgently.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘It’s very simple, Marcellus. The answer is yes or no!’
They had never talked of this, though he had often tried to move their conversations in this direction, but he had never insisted, partly because he was unsure if the emotions he felt consisted of love or sheer possessiveness. There was such a lot he disliked about Valeria: her vanity, the way she treated her parents as well as the rest of her family. She was cruel to slaves, in a way that he felt was unbecoming, making them grovel before her over trifling misdemeanours, but most of all he hated the way she behaved with people her own age. She was like a cat with other girls, either seeking to be stroked, or scratching painfully. With boys it was worse, since she could not bear to see them pay court to anyone else. Her coquetry infuriated him, especially when her sole intention seemed to be to make him jealous.
‘Yes,’ he whispered.
‘So what did you say to your father about the betrothal?’
‘I didn’t say anything!’
‘Why not?’ she hissed. ‘If you love me, you should have told him.’
That put Marcellus on the horns of a dilemma. First of all, the question had changed: she had moved effortlessly from the one word, care, to another, love, which was quite substantial. Even Valeria, self-obsessed as she was, must know that no one told Lucius Falerius what to do, least of all his son. Quite apart from that he could hardly admit that he had put forward her name as a tentative suggestion, only to be informed that the Trebonii were not considered good enough to be connected with the Falerii. So he took a deep breath, which puffed out his chest, and replied with the only answer he could think of, unaware, as always, that by adopting such a pose he looked and sounded pompous.