Conn Iggulden - The Field Of Swords

“I am, sir,” Publius replied.

Julius woke long before dawn and lay in the warmth created by Servilia beside him. He had left her only once the night before to ask Crassus to bring his men in from the cold. While Crassus opened rooms and summoned food and blankets for the century, Julius had quietly closed the door once more and forgotten them.

Now, in the darkness, Julius could hear the snores of soldiers packed along every space of the house.

No doubt the kitchens would be preparing breakfast for them, and Julius knew he too should be rousing himself and planning the day. Yet there was a delicious lethargy in that warm dark, and he stretched, feeling her cool skin against his arm as he moved. She stirred and murmured something he could not catch, enough to make him sit up on one elbow and look at her face.

Some women looked their best in the bright light of the sun, but Servilia was most beautiful in the evening or under the moon. Her face had nothing of the sharp hardness he had once seen. He could still picture her acid contempt when he had come striding into her home for their last meeting. It was a mystery to him how he could have engendered such apparent hatred and yet now have her in his bed, stirring like a dreaming cat. He might have held back after that first embrace in the firelight, but her eyes had been full of some strange grief and he had never been able to resist the tears of a beautiful woman. It stirred him as no smile or coquetry ever could.

He yawned in silence, the strain making his jaw crack. If only life were as simple as he wanted it to be.

If he could dress and leave with nothing more than a final glance at her sleeping form, he would have a perfect memory of the woman he had loved for so long. It would have been enough to banish some of the pain she had caused him. He watched her smile in her sleep and his own expression lightened in response.

He wondered if he was in her dreams, and thought of some of the extraordinarily erotic sequences that had plagued his sleep for the first few months in Gaul. He leaned closer to her ear and breathed his name into it, over and over, grinning to himself. Perhaps she could be made to dream of him.

He froze as she raised a hand to rub the ear without waking. The movement in the soft linen revealed her left breast, and Julius found the image endearing and arousing at the same time. Though age had left its marks on her, as she lay there her breast was pale and perfect. Julius watched with fascination as the exposed nipple firmed and darkened, and he considered waking her with the warmth of his mouth on it.

He sighed, lying back. When she woke, the world would intrude on them once again. Though Crassus would keep any secret, Brutus would have to be told his own mother was there in the north. Julius frowned in the darkness as he considered his friend’s reaction to the news that Servilia once again shared his bed. Julius had seen Brutus’s relief at the end of that relationship, punctuated with twin slaps in Rome. To see it rekindled could weigh heavily on him. Julius clasped his hands behind his head as he thought.

There could be no returning to Gaul until spring; he had always known that. Once the passes were blocked, nothing living could make the trip. At one point, Julius had considered traveling to Rome, but dismissed the idea. Unless he could be certain of making the journey without being recognized, he would be too much of a temptation for his enemies, with only a hundred men for protection. Rome was as unreachable as the passes over the Alps, and Julius struggled with a feeling of claustrophobia at the thought of spending months in the dreary streets of Ariminum.

At least his letters would get through, he thought. And he could travel to the shipyards to oversee the fleet he had ordered. It seemed a vain hope to expect them to release the vessels without any more than his deposits, no matter what he promised. Yet without them, his plans for the sea crossing would be delayed, perhaps by as much as another year.

He sighed to himself. There were always battles to be fought in Gaul. Even when a tribe had paid tribute for two summers, they could plant their flags in the hard ground and declare war on the third.

Without outright extermination, Julius was forced to face the fact that such rebellions could continue for his full term there. They were a hard people to put down.

His eyes were cold as he considered the tribes. They were nothing like the men and women he had known as a boy in Rome. They sang and laughed more easily, despite their short, hard lives. Julius still remembered his astonishment the first time he had sat with Mhorbaine listening to a storyteller weave an ancient tale for them. Perhaps something had been lost in Adàn’s translation, but Julius had seen tears in the eyes of veteran warriors and at the conclusion of the story Mhorbaine had wept like a child, without a sign of embarrassment.

“What are you thinking?” Servilia said. “You look so cruel, sitting there.”

Julius met her dark eyes and forced a smile onto his face. “I was thinking of the songs of the Gauls.”

She pouted, pulling herself up on the cushion beside him. The fire was long dead and with a shiver she yanked the blankets to cover her shoulders, forming a nest of cloth from which she watched him.

“I travel three hundred miles and throw myself into a night of lascivious pleasure with you and you are still thinking of some grubby tribesmen? You amaze me.”

He chuckled and wrapped an arm around her, pulling the whole bundle close to his chest.

“I don’t care why you came. I’m just glad you did,” he said.

This seemed to please her and she tilted her head to be kissed. Julius half turned to respond and the scent of her perfume recalled all the passion and innocence of the past. It was almost too painful.

“I missed you,” she said. “Very much. I wanted to see you again.”

Julius looked at her, struggling with his emotions. Part of him wanted to be angry with her. She had caused him so much grief that he had hated her for a long time, or told himself he had. Yet he had not hesitated after that first moment the night before. All his internal arguments and scabs had drifted away, and again he felt as vulnerable as any other young fool.

“Am I an evening’s entertainment to you, then?” he asked. “You seemed to have no doubts when I left your house in Rome.”

“I did have doubts, even then. If I hadn’t sent you away, you would have grown tired of having an old woman in your bed. Don’t interrupt, Julius. If I don’t say it, I may not be able…”

He waited while she stared off into the darkness. One of her hands tightened slowly in the heavy cloth that covered them both.

“When you want a son, it cannot come from me, Julius, not anymore.”

Julius hesitated before responding. “You’re sure?”

She sighed, raising her eyes. “Yes, of course I’m sure. I was sure when you left Rome. Perhaps you are already thinking of children to carry on your line. You will turn to some young girl with wide hips to give you them, and I will be thrown aside.”

“I have my daughter,” he reminded her.

“A son, Julius! Do you not want to have sons of your own to follow you? How often have I heard you speak of your own father? You would never be satisfied with a daughter who cannot set foot in the Senate building. A daughter who cannot lead your legions for you.”

“That was why you left me?” he said, understanding. “I can find a wife from any family in Rome to carry my blood. Nothing between us would change.”

Servilia shook her head in weariness. “It would, Julius. It must. You would look at me with guilt for every hour we spent together. I couldn’t bear to see it.”