Free The Wedding Shroud - A Tale of Ancient Rome by Elisabeth Storrs Page B

true,’ he said. ‘Veii has long wanted Rome just as much as Rome wants Veii. It is a temptation, is it not? Twelve miles away, our cities lie a god’s footstep apart. They are lovers separated by the river in between.’
    ‘They are no lovers.’
    ‘Of course they are. They long to hold each other, to possess and control. To be as one. Only both vie to be the husband not the bride, the lover not the beloved.’
    ‘Then you think Veii is now the husband just as you are to me?’
    ‘Things are not so simple. We represent the joining of those contrary lovers for peace.’
    They were distracted by Arruns pulling the hare from the spit. The aroma was delicious, prompting her appetite. She watched how the Phoenician sliced the meat. He was as dextrous with a carving knife as he was with his sword. Suddenly her brief hunger abated, remembering how the boy’s belly had been filled with iron.
    ‘Why did you volunteer to wed me, Mastarna?’
    He leaned over and poured more water for her, the action protracted as though he was deciding if he would answer at all or merely tell her what was best she should hear.
    ‘I agreed,’ he finally said, ‘because I was asked to do so by a friend and because I was prepared to take the risk.’
    ‘Risk?’
    ‘Yes, Caecilia. My father was killed at the last battle of Fidenae by your ancestor, the great Mamercus Aemilius. I have dishonoured my family by marrying an Aemilian. I risk losing the respect of all my tribe.’
    *
    Arruns arranged some meat upon her plate and added figs and berries, but she could not eat, stunned as to why her husband did not want to avenge his father. If Tata had been slain by Mastarna’s kinsman she would have added vengeance to her duties, no matter how many ghosts would cling to her forever. And who was this friend who could convince Mastarna to deny retribution for his clan?
    She tried a mouthful of the greasy meat but found it hard to swallow. In comparison Apercu noisily sucked the bones free of flesh and complained when there was too little to refill his plate.
    Nibbling the blackberries, she noticed her palm was scored by dozens of tiny scrapes from gripping the tiny slivers of gravel. It was only when she fingered the grazes that she felt the pain, felt, too, that her wrist hurt from where the bandit had held her. There was a bruise forming in the shape of his fingers upon the skin, and her body ached from being wrenched and grabbed. Today her hurts had gone unnoticed, but with weariness they were revealed.
    The shock of the menace and gore and death of the day returned. If she had not had the gravel in her hand, what would have happened? Her hands began shaking. She clasped them tightly in her lap, taking a deep breath, willing herself not to cry.
    Mastarna was watching her, and when he spoke it was almost as though he’d read her thoughts. ‘I do not regret killing the bandits today, Caecilia. Or begrudge Arruns adding your raider to his list.’
    ‘Because they were Gauls?’
    ‘No, because they would have made you their bride before me.’
    She stared at him, unsure what to reply. She was used to being a possession. Her father’s, her uncle’s and now his. She did not think of herself as anything other than something to be owned, but when he reminded her of his rights, the heady freedom of talking with these men beside a campfire faded. His words reminded her, too, that the bandit’s possession of her would have been brief and shared. The stink of the boy as he grasped her, a stink of fear as great as her own, returned. Would he have been first, or would the others, his elders, have only let him have the scraps?
    She stood up, wanting to be alone. The mouthful of hare she’d eaten sat heavily within her, and for a moment surged again into her gullet. She forced it back down, not wanting him to see her vomit twice that day.
    As he led her back to her tent she worried briefly that he might wish to claim her, but she was too weary to cope with