Conn Iggulden - The Death Of Kings

“Primigenia will be mustering to put down the rebellion,” she said, nodding. His eyes widened slightly as he took in her words. “I won't keep you and I should return to my bath. Just remember you have a friend if you ever need me.”

Julius wondered if there really was a promise in the eyes that looked so warmly back at him. Her voice was low and soft and he could have listened to it for a long time. He shook his head suddenly, as if to break a trance.

“I will remember,” he said, tilting his head slightly as he considered her. As she looked at Brutus, he stole a glance to where the lines of damp cloth curved around her breasts, and flushed again as she caught his glance and smiled with obvious pleasure.

“You must bring him again, Brutus, when you have more time. My son speaks highly of both of us, it seems.”

Julius looked at his friend, who was frowning slightly.

“I will,” Brutus replied. He led Julius away and left her looking after them. Her fingers brushed lightly over her breasts as she thought of the young Roman, the hard nipples having little to do with the air on her skin.

Brutus found Alexandria's home easily, despite the dark of the streets. In the armor of Primigenia, he was an uninviting target for the raptores who preyed on the weak and the poor. Octavian's mother, Atia, answered the door with a look of fear that vanished as she recognized him. He entered behind her, wondering how many others lived in terror of soldiers coming for them in the night. While the senators surrounded themselves with guards, the people of Rome could afford no protection other than the doors they barred against the rest of the city.

Alexandria was there and Brutus was struck with embarrassment as Octavian's mother prepared their evening meal only feet away.

“Is there somewhere more private for us to talk?” he asked.

Alexandria glanced at the open doorway to her room, and Atia tightened her mouth to a thin line.

“Not in my house,” she said, frowning at Brutus. “The two of you aren't married.”

Brutus flushed. “I'm leaving tomorrow. I just wanted to…”

“Oh, yes, I understand very well what you wanted, but it's not happening in my house.” Atia went back to cutting vegetables then, leaving Brutus and Alexandria to stifle giggles that would only have confirmed her suspicions.

“Would you come outside with me, Brutus? I'm sure Atia can trust you in the view of the neighbors,” Alexandria said. She pulled on her cloak and followed him out into the night as Atia upended her chopping board into the stewpot, unmoved.

Alexandria stepped into his arms and they kissed. Though it was dark, the streets were still crowded. Brutus looked around him in irritation. The little doorway hardly offered shelter from the wind, never mind the kind of privacy he wanted.

“This is ridiculous,” he said, and in fact he had been hoping for exactly the kind of meeting Atia had prevented. He was leaving to fight on distant battlefields, and it was almost a tradition to find a welcoming bed for the night before.

Alexandria chuckled, kissing him on the neck, where his armor made his skin cold.

“Pull my cloak around us,” she whispered into his ear, quickening his pulse. He arranged the cloth so that it wrapped them both and they were breathing each other's breath.

“I'm going to miss you,” he said wistfully, feeling her body press closely against him. He had to grip the cloak with one hand, but the other was free to slide against the warmth of her back and, when his fingers had warmed, under her stola and against her flesh. She gasped slightly.

“I think Atia was right,” she whispered, not wanting the woman's sharp ears to hear them. With his broad hand on her hip, she felt as if she were naked with him, and the crowds rushing by in the darkness only added to her excitement. The cloak formed a warm space against the cold and she held him tightly, feeling the hard lines of his armor. He was bare-legged, as always, and it was with a shocking sense of daring that she put her hands on his thighs, feeling the smooth strength of them.

“I should call her to protect me from you,” she said, moving her hands upward. She found soft cords and loosened them to feel the heat of him against her hand. He groaned softly at the encircling touch, glancing around him to see if anyone had noticed. The crowds were oblivious in the dark and suddenly he didn't care if they could be seen or not.

“I want you to remember me while you are away, young Brutus. I don't want you looking wistfully at those camp whores,” she whispered. “We have unfinished business, you and I.”

“I wouldn't… oh gods. I've wanted you for such a long time.”

Under the cloak, she unbuttoned her stola and eased him into her, her eyes shuddering closed with the movement. He lifted her weight easily and, together, they braced against the doorway, unaware of anything else around them as they moved in silence. The crowd jostled near them, but no one stopped and the night swallowed them.

Alexandria bit her lip in pleasure, gripping the cloak tighter and tighter around them until it almost cut into her throat. His chestplate pressed coldly against her, but she didn't feel the discomfort, just the heat of him inside her. His breath was hot on her lips as she shuddered and felt him begin to tense.

It seemed to last a long time before they became aware again of cramping muscles and the cold. Alexandria moaned softly as he eased out of her. Brutus stayed close in the darkness, stroking the skin he couldn't see in some sort of wonder. Heat swirled into the air, made by them. He looked into her eyes and they gazed back at him. There was a vulnerability there, for all her outward confidence, but it did not matter. He would not hurt her. He struggled to find words to tell her what she meant to him, but she put a hand over his mouth to still the babble.

“Shhh… I know. Just come back to me, my handsome man. Just come back.”

She arranged the cloak to cover her disarray beneath it and, after kissing him one last time, opened the door onto light that vanished with her, leaving him alone.

Brutus spent a moment arranging himself to be decent enough to walk the streets. Every nerve tingled with the touch of her and he felt completely alive with the intensity of what had happened. He swaggered a little as he walked back to the barracks, and his step was light.

Gasping slightly in the cold air, Julius turned to look back at the glittering snake that wound down the Via Flaminia below the high pass. The first three days had been hard on him, before the fitness of his time in Greece began to return. Now his legs had hardened into ridges of muscle, and he relished the pleasure that comes from simple exertion with a body that feels inexhaustible. By the end of the tenth day, he was enjoying the march to Ariminum with the legions at his back. In the evenings in camp, he practiced the gladius with the experts Crassus had brought along, and though he knew he would never be a master, his wrists were strengthening day by day and only the sword teachers themselves could break through his guard.

The wind gusted around the marching column and Julius shivered slightly. Although he'd seen many different lands in his time away from Rome, the cold of the Apenninus peaks was new and he bore it with a grim dislike that was mirrored in many of the soldiers around him.

To break the taste of dust in his throat, Julius took a gulp from his waterskin, shifting the heavy weight of his equipment to pull the stoppered mouth toward his lips. The column stopped only twice a day: briefly at noon and then the evening halt, which began with three hours of exhausting work to prepare the camp boundary against ambush or attack. He looked back again at the legion column and marveled at the length of it. From the high pass through the mountains, he could see a huge distance in the clear air, but the invisible rear guard of cavalry was more than thirty miles behind him. As Crassus was pushing a fast pace of twenty-five miles from dawn till dusk, it meant those at the rear were a day behind the front and would only catch up at Ariminum. Each halt had to be relayed along the column by the cornicens, with the blared notes dwindling with distance until they could not be heard.