Call to Juno (Tales of Ancient Rome #3)(29)

Marcus removed his helmet, dragging his fingers through his cowlick. He concentrated on his friend’s face rather than his body. Pinna thought how difficult it must be for him to see Drusus naked when he hankered for him. She hoped Marcus would never cry out in delirium, for it would be the Claudian’s name he would call. A secret she alone knew. One he hated that she possessed. One he did not believe she would keep.

“Pinna is right. You must take things slowly. Even with the sutures removed, you’ll need to build up power. And your collarbone and ribs need to mend as well.”

“I don’t like being a cripple.”

“It’s fortunate the bastard hit bone. At least your spleen, guts, and lungs weren’t pierced. You’ll be well in no time.”

“‘Fortunate’ is not a word I would use.” Drusus winced as Pinna began wiping his skin with garlic juice, shedding his loosened scar tissue and encrusted blood. Then she began the meticulous process of tugging at a knot with the pincers, the flesh resisting before she cut the thread with the honed scalpel, then used the tweezers again to pull it free. As she worked, she was conscious of Marcus’s surreptitious glances along the Claudian’s lean, rawboned body, which was still muscled despite being bedridden for so long.

Drusus also eyed his friend but not with desire. He was scanning Marcus’s thick hide helmet, bronze pectorals, and sword. “You’re wearing full armor. Has the general ordered us to ride out to skirmish at last?”

Marcus shook his head. “He forbids it. We’re hunkering down and letting the Etruscans starve. He’s not wasting time building ramps and towers either. We lose ten men to their one with such tactics.” He screwed up his mouth. “Believe me, you’ve missed no action.”

“Where are you going, then?”

“To Rome. I’ve been ordered to escort the soothsayer there.”

“Artile, the brother of the king?”

“Yes, Camillus believes he may well be able to assist the Senate in determining the expiation rites.”

“What makes the general think they will listen to a Veientane rat?”

Marcus hesitated. Drusus placed his hand over Pinna’s, preventing her from continuing with her ministrations. He raised himself to half sit. “Oh, I see. I’m not worthy to hear the full story. As always, Furius Camillus has chosen you above others.” His stutter returned. There was always tension between the men despite their friendship—a rivalry for her Wolf’s favor. A contest Marcus always won. Drusus was brave but rash. His present injuries attested to this. Marcus had won an oak-leaf crown in his first battle for saving another’s life and returning to the fray. And she knew this galled Drusus—for he was the man who’d needed to be rescued.

Marcus rubbed the scar at the edge of his eye, keeping his tone even. “It’s the influence I might exert over my father which he finds useful.”

“Even so, the general has marked you out for higher promotion, hasn’t he?” Drusus clenched his fists. “While I risk being a civilian forever.”

Marcus crouched down again. Pinna edged back to allow him to draw closer to the injured man. He rested his hand on Drusus’s shoulder.

“Farewell, my friend. I’ll speak to my father about you. If he’s elected as a consular general in December, I’ll make sure he chooses you from the next levy to fight in his regiment.”

Drusus gripped Marcus’s arm, his resentment replaced by uncertainty. “You believe I’ll fully recover?”

“Yes. Then we’ll see Caecilia and her husband destroyed.”

Drusus frowned, hesitating. “You want your cousin dead?”

Pinna was nonplussed. Marcus had always declared publically that he would see Caecilia executed. Pinna knew he didn’t mean it. Yet something had happened to change him in the Battle of Blood and Hail. Both friends had faced Vel Mastarna and failed to slay him. Drusus’s devotion to the traitoress remained, but her kinsman had hardened his heart against her.

Marcus stood and tightened his belt buckle with its horsehead crest. “I saw her that day. She was on the ramparts clad in yellow. Even from a distance I could see its bright color. There she was . . . staring down at me, dressed like some eastern whore. You should forget her.”

Drusus reddened, a fit of coughing seizing him. Pinna brushed past Marcus, offering her patient a spoon of honey and mint. “Lie down again, my lord. I need to finish with these stitches.” The knight slid down onto the pallet, his spasms easing.

Marcus watched Pinna pick at the knots with the pincers. “That’s right, Pinna. Make sure you take very good care of him.”

She flushed, concentrating on the sutures. “Good-bye, my lord,” she murmured. She made sure she kept her head down until the lack of squeaking leather and clanking metal told her that he’d left the tent.



Pinna grew anxious when she saw Marcus waiting for her in the camp square after she’d finished tending to her patient. He barred her way to the command tent.

“Don’t you need to ride to Rome, my lord?” she said, bowing her head. There had been a time when such formalities were unnecessary. He had been simply “Marcus” when she’d shared his tent and his life.

“It’s too late in the day to start the journey now. I’ll leave early tomorrow.” He nodded toward Drusus’s tent. “I see that you have duped him into believing you’re benign. You no longer circle each other like dogs.”