Free Call to Juno (A Tale of Ancient Rome #3) by Elisabeth Storrs

around him and bid them go back to their chores.
    Semni squeezed his bicep. “Aren’t you going to tell them we are to be married?”
    The piper began playing again. Routine returned. Arruns led Semni by the hand into the hallway. Nerie toddled after his parents, sucking his thumb.
    The Phoenician halted, standing inches from her. “I’ll marry you when we can lie together as man and wife. Until then it’s best we live apart.”
    “Why? I did what you said. I confessed. You said you would wed me. You said you loved me. Or is it because you want another woman now that you can’t . . . ?”
    Lacing his fingers through her loose knot of hair, he pulled her to him, crushing her against his chest. Then he kissed her, his lips hard against hers. It was the first time he’d embraced her since they’d made love six weeks ago. She stirred with need for him. She echoed his movement, her hands cradling the back of his skull. She felt his heat, wanting to stroke the muscled body beneath his uniform.
    “Me!” Nerie tugged at her skirts. The lovers broke apart, staring at each other, Arrun’s dark resinous eyes intense under the hooded lids. Ignoring the boy, he leaned his forehead against hers. “Do you really think we could share a bed without breaking our vow to the master? It could be two years until the princess is ready to be weaned.”
    Semni knew he spoke the truth, but all she could think about was that she’d only lain with him once and wanted more of him. “The king’s decree is unfair. I want to bear your baby, Barekbaal.”
    Arruns smiled at the use of his birth name but shook his head. “Not until this siege is over. It’s enough that Nerie was born into war. I want no more of our children to face the threat of death at the hands of the Romans. Perhaps the gods have done us a favor in preventing us from lying together.”
    “Me! Me!” Nerie’s persistence distracted her. She hoisted him onto her hip. “A woman cannot fall pregnant when her milk is flowing.”
    Arruns’s face resumed its somber lines, his feelings once again masked. “Well, we can’t test whether that’s true without disobeying the master.” He stroked Nerie’s head and then turned to leave. “It’s time for me to return to Lord Mastarna.”
    Resentment surged as she watched him go, thinking the gods were punishing her for a past wrong that she’d righted. Then she remembered the fury of the king, and what might have been her fate. She hugged her son.
    The tightness in her breasts told her she needed to feed Thia. She headed for the nursery, but as Semni rounded the corner into the living quarters, Cytheris barred her way. She could smell the strong scent of aniseed on the maid’s breath.
    Semni averted her gaze as she tried to pass.
    Aricia’s betrayal had caused threads of gray to grow in Cytheris’s ankle-length plait even though she was only in her thirties. To know her daughter had been faithless to Lady Caecilia had caused her much sorrow. Today she’d learned Semni’s act of bravery in thwarting Aricia’s plot had been built on deception.
    “I need to put Nerie to bed and then feed the princess.”
    Cytheris placed her hands on her hips. “Thia can wait a little longer. I want you to know the mistress may forgive you, but I never will.”
    Semni shifted Nerie’s weight. The boy was drowsy after all the excitement, his head against her shoulder. “I said I was sorry. What more can I do? I will not make the same mistake again.”
    “Well, I don’t believe you. You’ve always been selfish and careless. You were early ripe and you’ll be early rotten. You cuckolded your old husband and bore him a bastard. Then you drank yourself silly and slept with any manservant who’d have you once you were given a chance of a new life by the mistress.”
    Semni winced at hearing her sins set out in plain sentences. “Nerie was born from my worship of the wine god at the Winter Feast of Fufluns. It was a sacred union. And