Call to Juno (Tales of Ancient Rome #3)(49)

A pang of jealousy hit Semni. A new world was opening to Aricia while her own was shrinking.

Aricia reached over and stroked Nerie’s fair hair. “I hear Arruns has claimed Nerie as his son. You must be pleased.”

Her words brought the wet nurse to her senses. The conversation must end. Once again, Aricia was compromising her. “You need to leave. Do you want me to be punished again because of you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I confessed to the king and queen that I remained silent about your secret visits with Tas and Lord Artile. And now Arruns refuses to marry me because Lord Mastarna has forbidden us to lie together until Thia is weaned. I’m denied happiness because I placed loyalty to you above this House. I won’t risk breaching that duty again. I will be telling Lady Caecilia you visited here to see the princes. And you must promise me you won’t try to do so again.”

Aricia was aghast. “I’m so sorry. I want so much for you to pardon me. Can you find compassion in your heart?”

“What are you doing here?”

Both girls swiveled around. Cytheris stood in the doorway. The older woman glared at Semni. “Did you let her see Tas again? Touch the children?”

The wooden tablet thudded to the floor as Aricia limped to Cytheris, kneeling with difficulty before her. “Mother, I’ve come to beg forgiveness.” She reached up to take her hand, but Cytheris placed her arms behind her back. Her pockmarked face was rigid with disapproval, her eyes stony. The Gorgon had returned. She ignored her daughter, addressing Semni again. “Did she see Tas?”

The nurse raised her hands in protest. “I sent the princes away as soon as I saw her.”

Cytheris seized a handful of Aricia’s black ringlets and tugged them. “Get up and get out. You are not welcome here—ever.”

The girl lurched to her feet. “Please. I have changed. I want to make amends.”

Cytheris released her hair. “You’re the one who wanted no more of me. Who spat out words of hatred. Who betrayed a mistress who’d only ever shown you kindness.”

“You disowned me, too. Beat me. But now I’m contrite.”

Cytheris tutted. “I don’t believe you. I can never trust you again.” She turned to Semni. “I thought you’d learned your lesson. Wait until the mistress hears you’ve let her sneak in here.”

Semni was indignant. “I didn’t let her in! And I told her to leave as soon as I saw her. Ask Perca.”

Aricia collected her red shawl from the chair and wrapped it around her before covering her head. There was sadness in her slumped shoulders as she headed toward the hallway. “Don’t blame Semni, mother. She asked me to go as soon as she saw me. Do not fear. You will not see me here again.”

When her daughter had gone, Cytheris walked to a chair, gripping its back, her eyes closed as though in pain.

Semni walked to her. She didn’t believe Cytheris hated Aricia. She’d seen her distress after Lady Caecilia cast the girl into the street. Yet the show of emotion had been fleeting. Cytheris was expert at hiding her feelings, a hard veneer protecting them from view. Today, though, Semni wondered if there would come a time when the lacquer would erode and Cytheris’s regret and hurt would be on display.

Nerie reached out and touched the handmaid’s frizzy hair. She opened her eyes, catching hold of the boy’s fingers and kissing them. Had she ever done the same to her own daughter?

“Why can’t you forgive her?”

“And you can? After Aricia caused you and Arruns heartache?”

Semni hesitated, thinking carefully. Hating Aricia was not as simple as Cytheris thought. “Yes. I think I can. I know what it’s like to be remorseful and yet unforgiven because of my own foolishness. And now I’m grateful I’ve been given another chance. I don’t begrudge your daughter the same. Not when she was the first person to overlook my faults.”

Cytheris grew less adamant. “How can I forgive her unless Lady Caecilia finds it in her heart to grant mercy? Aricia must first convince the mistress that she is worthy.”

Semni doubted the queen would ever forgive Aricia. “I’ll go and tell her what happened.”

“Wait.”

Cytheris crouched and picked up Tas’s tablet, her long ankle-length plait snaking along the floor. “Why was she holding this?”

“She was showing me she could write. Lady Tanchvil is teaching her.”

Cytheris raised her eyebrows. “Then she is still full of dreams and nonsense. The College of Priestesses of Uni is not going to accept a half-blood freedwoman into its ranks.” She rose, placing the tablet on the chair.

Semni shrugged her shoulders. “She might surprise us.” She walked to the doorway with Nerie, expecting the Greek woman to follow. Instead Cytheris lingered, tracing the letters in the wax, smiling. Her pride was plain to see.





TWENTY-ONE





Semni walked along the barracks’ corridor until she found Arruns’s cell. Crouching in the doorway, she held Nerie around the waist. In the flickering line of wall torches, his blond hair seemed like gold.

Inside the room, Arruns was naked to the waist, wearing an ankle-length kilt. The faint, acrid smell of pitch filled the air. Even with his swarthiness, she could see his untattoed skin was tinged pink. A barber must have stripped the hair from his body only a short time ago. It was as though he wore a cuirass of flesh, the muscles of his pectorals and abdomen defined. As always, the writhing serpent intrigued her as it wrapped around his torso and neck, the jaw open and eating half of his smooth-shaven skull, the forked tongue licking his cheek. Her longing for him was so deep that it hurt.