Call to Juno (Tales of Ancient Rome #3)(27)

The night in the lupanaria still haunted her—a nightmare from which she would often wake in panic. How Drusus had clamped his hand over her face as he’d abused her, making her feel like nothing, filling her with terror that she might suffocate.

Yet her disgust for the russet-haired Claudian had now receded. His anguish touched her. Where once he’d been menacing, he now was vulnerable.

The fever came on the second night. As evening fell, his temperature rose. His skin burned to the touch, and he groaned with both the hurt of the slashed skin and the soreness in his bones. When she peeled back the bandages, she was dismayed to see the section of the wound on his hip was seeping, the skin around the knots swollen and red. She implored Mater Matuta to save him.

In his delirium, he clasped her hand, his fingers bands of iron, his voice rasping and low. She bent her ear close to his mouth.

“Don’t leave me, Caecilia.”

She frowned. In his confusion, he thought she was the love of his youth. A love that was dangerous and forbidden.

Drusus’s call to the traitoress brought memories flooding back of when she’d first met him. Not the brutal encounter in the lupanaria but a year earlier. Back to a night where ghouls squabbled with ghosts for space in the graveyard of the Campus Martius.

Seeking shelter from a storm, she’d spied Drusus lurking in the sepulcher of his Claudian family. Marcus had been with him. She’d been astonished to watch Drusus engrave a curse onto a defixio lead sheet, then hammer it into the wall. Black magic was the practice of women and the weak minded, not of rich warriors. And when Marcus had read the curse aloud, she’d stifled disbelief to hear it was Vel Mastarna’s destruction that Drusus sought.

Pinna’s confusion doubled when Marcus departed from the tomb. Alone in the dark, the Claudian was not finished invoking the spirits. Weeping, he’d engraved a love spell on a second defixio. It was an enchantment to regain the love of a girl who’d chosen an enemy.

Pinna’s knowledge gave her power. Wasn’t the knight also traitorous for loving Aemilia Caeciliana? And a death penalty awaited those who used the dark arts to kill a man. What kind of warrior resorted to magic instead of using a sword? She’d threatened to display both defixios on the speakers’ platform in the Forum, but Drusus had paid her to keep silent. Yet when he later stumbled upon her in the brothel, he’d not believed she would continue to keep her promise.

The fevered man’s grip tightened around her hand. “Say you love me, Caecilia.”

Pinna stared at him, uncertain how to respond. Deciding whether to lie. And in that moment, she no longer hated him but felt only compassion. She could not let a dying man slip into the void without comfort.

“Hush,” she whispered, wiping his brow with a cloth. “Rest now. I love you.”

“Forever.”

She hesitated. “Forever.”

He’d closed his eyes.

The fever had continued. She paled to think she would lose him and so also lose Camillus. And her resentment that Marcus should expect her to heal a near-mortal wound tripled—so too her worry that she would fail.

On the fifth day, he woke clear eyed but weakened. He didn’t seem to remember seeking a declaration of affection. Instead he scanned her face as she lifted his head so he could sip some water. “Why are you helping me, Pinna? I thought you of all people would leave me to die.”

“Thank Marcus Aemilius for that. He convinced me,” she said brusquely, then her voice softened. “Whatever spite there is between us, I would not see any man suffer as you have.”



By the time Pinna returned from the sanctuary, it was early afternoon. Drusus was lying on his back on his pallet.

“My lord, wake up.”

He opened his eyes, wincing as he eased himself to sitting. The movement started him coughing. “I’ve been waiting for you. You said you would remove the last of my stitches today.” As always she noticed the slight stammer in his voice when he was agitated.

“I was with the general.” She knelt beside him and lifted his tunic over his head. There was no modesty between patient and nurse. An intimacy had grown between them. At first he’d resisted being dependent upon her, embarrassed at his helplessness. After a time a familiarity grew between them as she spooned food into his mouth, washed him, and cleaned his ordure. She knew every inch of his body without them being lovers.

His torso was bandaged from chest to groin. She was pleased to see there were no bright spots of fresh blood to indicate the sewn flesh had ruptured. “I’ll unpick them now. But you must promise not to try and do too much afterward. It will take you time to regain full strength.”

Businesslike, she unwound the strips of cloth, keeping the strapping on his ribs and dislocated shoulder intact. As she leaned across him, her breasts brushed his chest. She edged back, being more careful not to touch him, but as her hands moved down toward his thigh, she noticed he had hardened. He grabbed his tunic and covered himself, face scarlet. It was a curse of his, the unbidden betrayal of emotions by his skin.

Pinna also blushed. “Well, at least we’ve discovered full strength in one part of your body.”

Drusus raised his head. For the first time since they’d met, they shared a smile.

Once the seam along his flesh was exposed, Pinna examined the wound. The bruising had faded to yellow. She was proud her needlework was neat. The scar would not be stretched or deformed. Relieved his erection had calmed, she gently touched the remaining stitches from hip to groin, checking whether she could remove them. She was conscious he was watching her.