Arts of Dark and Light: Book 01 - A Throne of Bones (79 page)

She smiled to herself, more than satisfied with his answer. He wasn’t merely intelligent, he was sensible, which her father had always told her was the rarer trait of the two. And who could fault him for lacking ambition when it seemed likely to lead him to an early grave? Better yet, he had an instinctive understanding for the inherent weakness of his House, their rigid pride in their outdated traditions.

“House Valerius is not the only House Martial, my lord. Have you forgotten that house Severus fields two legions of its own?”

“I had, actually. Or rather, I had never considered that I might serve with another legion besides our three.”

“It is hardly unheard of, at least for those who are weighed down by Valerian pride. It may be your House tradition, but it does not hold the force of law.”

“Tell my uncle that,” he laughed, a little bitterly, but his demeanor brightened with unexpected hope. ” Fulgetra, and what is the other, the third legion? Do you think your father would find a place for me in one of them?”

“For his son-in-law? I have no doubt of it. My brother Regulus was with Legio III when he was a tribune, and Aulan now commands Fulgetra’s knights.”

“My brother did the same in XVII,” he said. “That’s what got him killed. He defeated the enemy’s captain of cavalry in a duel and led his horse in a charge that scattered the goblin army, and my uncle had him executed. For that, they made him consul suffectus!”

“I am sorry for your loss,” she told him, and she found that she was almost sincere even though she had laughed when she’d first heard the news. “But I think you need not fear a general of House Severus doing the same. We revere courage. We do not sacrifice it to our pride or to cruel and stupid customs.”

“Virtus et civitas,” he cited her House’s motto. Courage and citizenship.

“You see, you already know what it means to be a Severan, my lord Valerius.”

Sextus tilted his head. “I had thought that, were we to marry, you should become Valerius, not I Severus.”

She placed a hand on his chest and smiled up at him. “My name is Severa, is it not? And it will be Severa still, should I marry you. As yours will be Valerius, in any case. The question at hand, my lord, is whether you intend your name to one day be Sextus Valerius Illustris or something more akin to Sextus Valerius Pusillus. Do you wish to always be known as the wastrel son of Valerius Magnus, or do you want to become your own man?”

He grinned again, in that skeptical manner she was beginning to find increasingly appealing. “My own man, or your own?”

“If we two are to become one, is there a difference?” She stepped back from him and folded her arms. “I will be perfectly frank with you, Sextus Valerius: The man I marry will walk the cursus honorum, and one day, he will take his rightful place on a chair at the front of the Senate. His sons and grandsons will be soldiers, senators, and consuls in their year. If that is not the manner of man you intend yourself to be, if that is not a future to which you are willing to commit yourself, then you may walk freely from this place with your conscience clear and tell your father that you found me to be wholly unsuitable as a prospective bride.”

He blinked at her, mutely. “Um, you come with an unusual dowry, Lady Severa.”

“It’s not a dowry, Sextus Valerius. It’s a price. You are handsome, you are said to be charming, you have considerable promise, and my father has his own reasons for seeking this alliance between our Houses. So I have no objection to your suit so long as you promise me one thing. Just one thing.”

“The handsome and charming young suitor quails before asking the obvious, until a phrase springs unbidden to his mind. Virtus et fortunus….”

“Don’t play the clown, Valerian,” she snapped.

“Very well, my lady of the notoriously sweet Severan temper, do tell me the price I must pay for your fair hand and a place in your father’s legions.”

She glared at him but found that it was hard to maintain her annoyance in the face of his insouciance.

“Promise me that you’ll declare for tribune this year. Next year, if it’s already too late. That you’ll run for quastor when you’re of age, and that you’ll aim for consul when the time comes.”

“I can promise that I’ll run,” Sextus said slowly. “But you know I can’t promise that I’ll win. Tribune and quastor, that’s no problem. But a lot will happen before I turn forty. The giants of today’s Senate will not rule tomorrow’s. Magnus will not be there. Patronus may not be there. I won’t have the benefit of having the support of the first and second men in Amorr and all their hundreds of clients.”

“Don’t you understand, Sextus Valerius? You won’t need them, because I intend for you to be the first man in Amorr. When the time comes for you to run for consul, you won’t have Magnus and Patronus behind you, but you will have me…. That is, if you still want me as your wife.”

He regarded her coolly for a moment, his eyes unreadable. Then he smiled again. “Now that I’ve met you,” he said in an unexpectedly husky voice, “I can’t imagine wanting anyone else, my lady Severa.”

To her surprise and more than a little alarm, he stepped forward without warning and pulled her to his chest, crushing her lips against his. The enthusiasm and practiced ease with which he kissed her sent the blood rushing to her ears. She felt as if the world had suddenly been reduced to nothing but heat and pure physical sensation. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, or even what she was supposed to do, but she was entirely sure that she did not mind it.

When he broke off the kiss and stepped back, she found herself tottering, off-balance and confused. She was further surprised when, instead of kissing her again, he abruptly cleared his throat and bowed formally to her.

“My lady, I do thank you for your courtesy in granting me this audience. By your leave, I shall inform my father that I have no objections to the proposed marital alliance between our Houses.”

She straightened out her gown and somehow managed to respond in an equally dignified manner. “Please do so, my lord Valerius. For my part, I shall inform my father of the need for House Severus to be prepared to provide its full support for a candidate in the tribunal elections this winter. However, I should be ever so grateful if you would first do one more thing for me.”

“Anything, my lady.”

She smiled demurely up at him. “Do that again, my lord.”

CORVUS

The walk from the forum to the splendid manor of Gaius Cassianus Longinus, the head of House Cassianus, was not a long one, but it was made longer by the respectful silence maintained by Caius Vecellius and his men as they marched alongside him and to his fore and aft. Their grim faces warned off senators and commoners alike, and they brusquely dismissed the few brave souls who dared to try to approach Corvus despite the silent warning.

Corvus barely even saw them.

His son was dead. Everything paled into nothing before that harsh, cold, unthinkable reality. His mind leaped from one image to the next. A red-faced squalling infant triumphantly presented to him by his wife’s slave. A boy, confessing shamefacedly to stealing a pair of honey cakes and accepting his punishment without a murmur of protest. A military tribune, standing tall in his legionary armor. A man, standing proudly next to a pretty young woman, his left hand lashed to her right. What distressed him most was that in all the images his memory recalled to him, he could not clearly picture his son’s face.

He wanted to fall to the ground, to tear his clothes from his body, to beat at the ground, to roll in filth and shriek curses at the heavens. Instead, he marched on, his head unbowed, his emotions controlled, and howling rage in his heart tightly suppressed.

When they reached the gate, he parted company with Vecellius and the others and was escorted inside by Longinus himself.

The manor was splendid, both within and without, but its expensive statuary and intricately painted tiles barely registered with him. When they reached the triclinium, he saw that he was the last to arrive, and that the other four potential conspirators, including his fellow consul, Titus Manlius, were already there.

Aside from himself and Longinus, three other Houses Martial were represented. Andronicus Aquila and Lucretius Caecilius were the recognized heads of their houses, whereas Gaerus Tillius, like Corvus himself, was the military commander of House Gaerus. His father, Gaerus Albinus, was well into his dotage and would soon relinquish what little authority he still held. Titus Manlius was there as a representative of the Lesser Houses, but despite their greater numbers they were of little significance because they represented only Senate votes, not legions. Three of them, Longinus, Caecilius, and Aquila, were ex-consuls, while Gaerus was only thirty-eight and still two years shy of being eligible. At fifty-five, Longinus was the eldest of the group, but he was still hale and hearty, and a force to be reckoned with in the Senate.

Between the six of them, they were the effective council of the clausores now that Magnus had withdrawn from public life. Even a year ago, Corvus would have found it impossible to believe he would find himself a valued member of such an elite gathering, but any sense of accomplishment it might have given him was overshadowed by the emptiness that filled him now.

How he would face Romilia and tell her of the news seemed to be a much more urgent issue than the one they were there to discuss? That wasn’t actually true, of course, they were hardly the first parents in Amorr to have ever lost a son, and yet the feeling of dread inspired by the thought of telling his wife rendered him nearly mute. Was this how Magnus had felt?

“You look grave, Corvus Valerius,” Longinus said.

“These are grave matters,” Corvus said. He had no intention of sharing his pain with them.

“Grave matters indeed,” Aquila said. “I suggest the question is whether we are speaking of one grave or many. Between us, we represent no less than nine of the fifteen House legions. Eleven of the seventeen, if we count the two City legions. Even if Patronus has the full support of the other Houses, which he does not, he can mass no more than six.”

Longinus frowned. “I fear you are getting well ahead of events, Marcus Andronicus. There is no call to speak of legion against legion now. We know little more than rumor and innuendo, some of which is deeply troubling, to be sure. But as yet we can’t separate the truth from the fantasies. In every generation there have been whispers that this praetor or that proconsul is setting himself up for a king, and never once have the whispers been more than the fever dreams of an overly fearful Senate! Surely you cannot seriously contemplate the risk of a civil war over mere gossip.”

“Mere gossip?” Tillius half-rose from his couch. He was the youngest participant, and he looked younger than his years, but he possessed a fearsome reputation that prevented his elders from discounting his opinion. His savage repression of a brief rebellion in Orontis four years ago had kept not only the Orontines in line ever since, but the inhabitants of the two neighboring provinces as well. “We all know what Patronus is after. Everyone knows. That ludicrous vision of Greater Amorr he was trying to sell with the Lex Ferrata Aucta was simply his way of trying to buy support from the allies and provincials. He’s determined to put the crown on his own head before his pompous idiot of a son takes over House Severus!”

“Don’t underestimate Regulus,” Longinus advised. “He is young, pompous, and foolhardy, but I can remember when the same might have been said of your brother, Corvus. Speaking of whom, I do hope you can persuade Magnus to return to the Senate soon. You have been an admirable replacement—please don’t think me ungrateful. But I am sure that, with both Valerian brothers leading the defense of the citizenship, we would not need fear Patronus’s machinations.”

“I’m afraid not even a fraternal alliance would help at this point.” Aquila shook his head and reached for the wine to refill his goblet. The Lex Ferrata wasn’t more than Patronus’s attempt to sound out the Senate and demonstrate to the waverers among the auctares that his way is the only one that will work. I have it on impeccable authority that his real campaign will begin in the new year, as soon as the festivals are over.”

“Impeccable authority?” Tillius asked.

“Indeed,” Aquila answered, refusing to rise to the bait. “Make no mistake, my friends: The auctares will have their men among our party even as we have ours among them. That is why what we decide here tonight must never be shared with anyone else—not your clients, not your sons, and not your wives.”

“In that case, I do hope we decide against civil war, Marcus Andronicus,” Caecilius said drily. “While I have the utmost faith in our martial prowess, I fear we six shouldn’t amount to much against the Severan legions.”

Torquatus and Longinus laughed and saluted Caecilius with their goblets.

“Amorr has never known civil war, and it never shall, so long as we decide wisely,” Aquila declared rather primly. “Or rather, if we have the courage to do what must be done.”

Torquatus and Longinus fell silent, and the others looked around the triclinium at each other. Every man in the room had been a tribune and a general in his day. Each of them had fought with the legions, killed, and watched impassively as men under their orders marched forth to die. War was something they all knew well. But when it came to murder, that was a very different matter.