Call to Juno (Tales of Ancient Rome #3)(53)
“When I chanced upon you naked in Camillus’s tent before the Battle of Blood and Hail, I was prepared to ignore a passing dalliance. But I respect him too much to let a whore run his household.”
She bridled. “I’m a citizen. Daughter of a soldier. There’s no disgrace in a nobleman having a concubine who once was poor.”
“You forfeited your citizenship the day you opened your legs for money. I’m going to find your name on the prostitutes’ roll and show it to him.”
Her pulse quickened. “Please, don’t tell him. Poverty led me to that life. There was no other choice.”
“Destitution is never an excuse for a freeborn woman to taint herself.”
His lack of sympathy sparked anger. “If you expose me, I’ll tell Lord Camillus the type of services you paid me for.”
He fixed his one eye on her, the socket of the other hidden by his eye patch. “I know he has little time for whoring, but he’s not going to worry about another soldier sleeping with a harlot. Besides, I’m sure he enjoys the fact you’re experienced. Why else would he keep you?”
She flinched. “It’s not the fact you had to pay that will disgust him. He’s nothing like you, my lord. I don’t knead his prick with my feet to excite him. And he would never use his tongue like you did—slobbering over me down there.” She lowered her gaze to her crotch, then raised her eyes to meet his. “He might overlook a man f*cking a lupa, but a pervert? What kind of man . . . what kind of soldier does that to a woman?”
His cheeks flushed red above his beard. He let go of the basket, but thrust his disfigured face close to hers. “Ah, now that’s more like it. The slut from the gutter.” He pulled her shawl from her head. “No use pretending you’re decent, Pinna, with your hair covered and shoes on your feet. You should be bareheaded and barefoot in that lupanaria again.”
She gasped, astounded he would treat her so in public. She glanced around, worried who might see them but passersby seemed uninterested.
“Tell me, what about Appius Claudius Drusus and Marcus Aemilius Mamercus? What fetishes do they have that they keep hidden?”
She pressed her lips together.
Genucius dug his fingers into her forearm. “Tell me!”
She winced. His ability to expose the others alarmed her. She’d promised both officers she would remain silent. And now Marcus had been chosen as a military tribune at the recent elections. She did not want his reputation harmed. Genucius, too, had been successful. He was now one of the ten people’s tribunes. Mud would stick to him also. “All three of you have been tacit about me,” she said. “If you speak out, you’ll not only humiliate yourself but also discredit them. Do you want that on your conscience, my lord?”
He thrust her away. “You will never escape your past, Lollia. I wasn’t your only customer. There might be others who’ll recognize you, even though you no longer paint your face and your nipples.”
She tensed. It was true; she’d been fortunate not to have been detected since returning to Rome. Yet she now resided among the rich. Her customers had mainly been the lowlifes of the city. “We all must hope that doesn’t happen, musn’t we?”
Pinna lifted her shawl to cover her head again. Genucius did not move. “You think me weak. But some believe it’s best to satisfy bodily cravings with a whore. One thing I’ll never do is fall in love with a lupa.” He glanced around him, his voice taking on a different tone. “Furius Camillus is my friend. If you love him, Lollia, spare him. He’s destined for greatness—he can’t risk a scandal.”
She froze. His pleading distressed her more than his bullying.
He strode away, not waiting for her to reply.
Pinna stared after him. His concern for Camillus shamed her. Genucius had once been one of her favorites, a good-natured talker who liked to complain about his wife after his lust had been satisfied. Now she had made him hate her. As she had Marcus. And once done to Drusus. She was like poison in a well.
She pressed her hand to her breast, her heartbeat so strong she could feel it through her bones. Would her Wolf hate her one day as well? Was it better to hurt his feelings and leave him now than expose him to public humiliation later?
Yet where would she go if not to his home? Retrace her steps to the brothel? Return to degradation? The thought of losing him terrified her. She could not live without him. She drew the shawl across to shield her face and continued to the Aventine Hill.
Her Wolf’s atrium was spacious and warm. No wind whistled through cracks in its timbers. At night, the roof hole’s cover was bound tight against the cold. The cistern was filled with clean water. She’d never lived in such comfort. Her father’s hut was humble with its earthen floors, thatch roof, and mud walls.
Camillus had bestowed all the duties of a wife upon her. She stoked the hearth fire until it burned brightly and placed the boyish statuette of the Lar on the table at meal times. Yet Pinna worried she was committing sacrilege every time she touched the effigy of the spirit who guarded her Wolf’s home. She did not wish to bring misfortune on her lover. And so she baked more salt cakes than necessary to throw into the fire to thank the Lar and the goddess of the hearth. She also did not forget honey cakes and wine for the other many household spirits. As a further precaution she hid amulets in crevices. She even hung bells in the garden to ward off evil influences.