Free Nobilissima by Carrie Bedford Page B

I let it go suddenly. The sight of the blood brought hot tears to my eyes.
    “Poor Rome,” I said quietly. “Our noble city sacked and despoiled, her streets awash in blood.” I put my hands in front of my eyes to try shut out the images of violence that I had seen while Sylvia and Aurelia held each other in silence.

 
    Chapter 10
     
     
    We pushed the couch back away from the wall and Aurelia and I sat together while Sylvia paced the room as though measuring the dimensions, muttering under her breath.
    There was a loud knock at the door, and a Goth soldier opened it without waiting for an answer. He said something unintelligible and allowed a young girl to enter. She was carrying a tray of wine and food. Her face was pale, her eyes round and large and there was a smear of soot on one cheek. She curtsied delicately and put the tray on a small table near the couch. I recognized her as one of the senator’s servants.
    “Are they treating you well?” I asked her and the girl looked at me in astonishment, as though I had just materialized from the wall. I guessed that she wasn’t used to being spoken to by her employers.
    “Yes, Nobilissima,” she stammered. “My father is a German, though he has fought for Rome for nearly ten years. The Goths are taking anyone of German birth into their household and army. They told me I’d be safe here.”
    “I am glad of it,” I said gently.
    “I hope you enjoy the food,” replied the girl. “It’s running out quickly, but they said you were to have as much you wanted.”
    I thanked her and waited for her to close the door.
    “Sylvia, Aurelia, eat something,” I said. “We’ll need all our strength to survive the coming days, I suspect.”
    “Marcus will come to find us,” said Aurelia. “We will be free soon, I am sure of it.”
    Sylvia poured some wine into the three goblets on the tray and we each took one.
    “I drank from this goblet once before,” I said, looking more closely at the etched glass. “I was invited to a banquet here to celebrate Gardius’s daughter’s betrothal. There was music and poetry reading and everyone talked of the great philosophers of Rome. It was just last year and now it seems like a century ago. Is that life going to disappear forever?”
    Aurelia put down her goblet, and embraced me. “I doubt that our lives will ever be the same again,” she said. “But Honorius will send his armies when he hears of this insult to Rome. We’ll drive out the barbarians and reinstate law and order. We just have to be patient.”
    “Patience is not one of my greater virtues,” I said with a tight smile.
    “I know that,” agreed Aurelia. “But we’ll do our best and meanwhile, we must eat and sleep.”
    I could not eat, but must have slept, and awoke to find the dinner platter cleared and a new tray of day old bread with a jug of warm milk on the table. Pale grey sky showed through the opening and a dank smell of smoke and soot hung in the air. I threw off the cloak I’d slept in and gazed in dismay at my gown, which was rumpled and torn, the hem stained black with the blood that clotted it.
    “I have to change, “ I said. “I wish I could bathe. Imagine a hot tub of scented water, with clean linens to step into.”
    Aurelia laughed. “Your optimism may be dented, but your imagination isn’t, I’m glad to see. Here, Sylvia will find you a clean gown in that bundle of hers, and you must eat this morning because you didn’t last night.”
    We ate the bread hungrily, though it was stale, and drank the milk, which was still fresh. Sylvia helped me dress, rebraided my hair and pinched my cheeks to put some color into them.
    “Perfect.” she declared. “You look imperial again.”
    I prepared in my head the speech I intended to give when our captors arrived, but as the morning wore on, I had nothing to do but pace from one end of the room to the other.
    “They can’t mean just to leave us here,” I cried. “I need to contact