Jack Whyte - The Skystone

"Yes. I agree. But he shares his peculiar gifts for winning popularity with all his breed. " A pause. "How long ago, exactly?"

"Two months ago... three at the most. "

"And they are still looking for you?" She shook her head. "A pity about your limp. "

"Aye. And my grey hair. "

Another short pause, then, "You are still angry at Seneca, aren't you?" I took a sip of my wine. "Yes, I am. "

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"I can answer that, " she said. I was amazed at how she reminded me of her brother. He would have said exactly the same things to me, in the same tone of voice. "You won the fight. He was the loser. You did not suffer at his hands. Only at his tongue, and that you should have forgotten by this time. At least, you should have put it out of the forefront of your mind. "

"Luceiia, " I said, knowing she was correct, "you may be right. " I scratched at a sudden itch under my arm. "I probably should have. I just don't seem to be capable of forgiving or forgetting either the man or the occasion. "

Her voice was insistent. "I ask you again. Why?"

"I don't know why, Luceiia!" I heard a note of irritation coming into my own voice. "Pardon me, but that is the way he affects me. I have been asking questions about him. The man is notorious — infamous. And it seems the more I hear about him, the more I detest him. He offends everything I hold in esteem. I sometimes think... "

"Go on. Finish it. " Again her brother's tones. "You sometimes think what?"

I shook my head. "I don't know, it suddenly sounded foolish even to me. I was going to say that I sometimes think he's the personification of everything that is rotten in the Empire, but that would be giving him too much importance. He's simply an evil little man with too much power and too much money. "

Luceiia got up and crossed to the side table on which the wines rested. She picked up the jug again and replenished my cup.

"The Seneca family is immensely wealthy, Publius, and wealth is power. We Britannici have learned that about the Senecas to our cost over several generations. But an evil little man? You told me he was a great, hulking brute of a fellow!"

"He is. He's big and strong, well muscled and in good shape. That's not what I meant by 'little. ' I meant it more in the sense of mean and petty. " She sat down again. "Never make that mistake, Publius. This man is not petty. No Seneca is petty. Mean, malicious, malevolent and cruel, yes, but not petty. And your thought was far from foolish. He and his whole clan are the personification of all that is sick in Rome. It has been bred into him. Unfortunately, as a family, they are far from unique. I have heard Caius say many times it is those very attributes you describe that have brought down our country and the Empire. All the corruption, all the vices, all the faults and all the weaknesses of Rome are centred in its so-called nobility, and the Seneca family is typical of its worst excesses. You have made a bad enemy there, I am afraid. You say he returned to Constantinople?" I nodded. "Good, " she said, emphatically. "Let us all hope he stays well away from Britain in the future. In any event, you are not likely to come face to face with Quinctilius Nesca around here. " As she finished speaking, the major-domo came into the room and announced that we had only half an hour to be prepared to welcome our guests. Luceiia excused herself and left immediately, leaving me to make my way back to my quarters.

I walked slowly, thinking about the amazing depths I had discovered in this remarkable woman in so short a space of time, and as I walked I caught sight of my own reflection in the marble walls of the room I was passing through. I stopped and looked at myself, trying to raise my right eyebrow the way she and her brother raised theirs.

"That, my friend. " I said to my reflection, "is the woman you are going to have to learn to live without for the rest of your life. Forever. Unless you can find some miraculous way to win her. " But guilt squirmed in my belly with my lust and in my heart with my swelling love, and I refused to allow myself to contemplate what Caius's reaction would be if he were ever to discover my presumptuousness in daring to dream about his baby sister. Dinner that night was both a delight and a trial. I was "on parade" —

under inspection as surely and as thoroughly as I had ever been under Caius's command in the army. I fought my natural aversion to meeting strangers and tried with all my heart to be friendly and affable. To my surprise, I seemed to be successful, and I found myself enjoying the attention being lavished on me and responding to it in a way that I had never been capable of before.

Of course, it goes without saying that I had Luceiia to thank for my new-found ease. She glowed that night with enthusiasm for everything I had ever done, it seemed. She led the dinner conversation with an infallible knack for making me and my opinions the centre of the evening and the standard against which all other opinions and experiences must be judged. And all through the long, formal meal I was aware of her presence, her shimmering beauty there at the opposite end of the table. There were sixteen people seated there, and I have long since forgotten who they were, although I came to know all of them well in the years that followed. Only three people stand out in my memory, because they all stayed at the villa that night: Meric the Druid, who was far less outlandish and barbaric than I would have guessed; Domitius Titens, a local landowner and former tribune with whom I later became fast friends, and Cylla, his beautiful and waspish wife, who sought then and forever after until her death to take me to her bed.

That she failed to do so is no great source of pride, for it was not my steadfastness that kept me from her willing body — only circumstance at first, and loyalty later.

She began her assault on me at first meeting when, in that way that women have, she let me know in no uncertain terms, yet only with her eyes, that she would rut with me at my whim. Her husband was oblivious. Not so Luceiia, however, and I was later witness to a series of smiling, verbal thrusts that would have disembowelled a mere man. I missed the start of this exchange of savage wit and feminine venom and could only assume later, in the light of things Luceiia said, that Cylla had made a lewd comment about the convenience of the arrangement Luceiia and I shared, alone together in the villa. Luceiia made little of the comment at first, dismissing it as unworthy of response. Cylla, however, was persistent, going on about it with envious tenacity until Luceiia decided she had had enough, and told her so. It was at that point that I approached them, unwarily, and heard their exchange of pleasantries before they noticed me. I pretended to have heard nothing, and they abandoned their dispute when, shortly afterwards, we were called to dine.

By the end of dinner, I was again enmeshed in Luceiia's beauty and had lost all awareness of Cylla's charms. I thought no more about her until she came to my bed in the small hours, awakening me and throwing me into a panic.

I had been dreaming of Luceiia, feeling her there beside me in the bed, warm and strong and silken, and then suddenly I was no longer dreaming. The breast I was fondling was warm and real, and the body pressed against my swollen penis was alive and urgent. I awoke very quickly, and must have called Luceiia by name, for a laughing, whispering voice said, close to my ear, "No, not Luceiia. Luceiia isn't here. " And as I struggled to raise myself on one elbow, blustering in sleepy panic, I heard Luceiia's voice say, "Ah, but she is, my dear, and you, I think, are in the wrong bed. "

By the time I had sat up and shaken myself completely awake, Cylla was gone, and Luceiia spoke from the doorway of my room.