Camillus’s face was painted with vermillion, his hair crowned with a laurel wreath. His feet were shod with red shoes with gold crescent buckles. The purple-embroidered robes were draped elegantly. Some other woman had finished her needlework.
The creases around his eyes and mouth were deep with the broadness of his smile. He wore a bulla to protect him from the envy of men and gods. A triumphing general was the only adult male who could wear one. Similar charms decorated the harnesses of his steeds and vehicle, double protection against evil and malice.
She partly covered her face with her shawl, not willing to risk him recognizing her, but she need not have worried. He avoided eye contact with the people, keeping his gaze focused above their heads as he waved.
The chariot passed by. Pinna realized it was the last time she would ever see him. And there was sadness underneath her sense of freedom. She wondered how long this faint yearning would last, or whether she could ever forgive him for changing. For no longer being her Wolf.
The legions of Rome followed, dressed in their tunics and togas, led by their officers. Genucius had trimmed his bushy beard and combed his unruly hair. He may have been a knight but true power was denied to him. Would he cause trouble for Camillus after all? She saw Marcus, his face grim beneath the gold mural crown with its turret decorations. Her heart ached for him, knowing the gruesome role he must play this day.
The common soldiers were smiling, joyous to enter the city and greet their families. Proud of their victory. Content with their loot. Pinna despised them for the murder they’d committed. Following tradition, they called out praise to Camillus as well as ribaldry at his expense. She knew joking would turn to anger when they discovered the general who’d championed them had also betrayed them.
The parade wended its way up the Clivus Capitolinus to assemble in the sanctuary precinct. In its wake, the gossip started. Their disapproval of Camillus’s golden chariot and four white horses. How the dictator had rivaled the king of the gods. Did he now wish to be Rome’s monarch?
The scene in the palace returned. How he’d stumbled while invoking the gods. He’d claimed he’d suffered a minor fall in place of a greater calamity for Rome. She doubted he’d averted disaster. The people would be furious over the tithe no matter how many horse races, games, and feasts Camillus provided. The city would once again be riven by internal divisions. Civil war might even ensue.
A roar distracted the crowd from their rumormongering. Pinna looked up. Lusinies’s corpse had been thrown onto the steps leading from the Carcer to the Arx.
The roar turned to hateful howling and fist shaking. Calls of “traitor” and “bitch” and worse. A lump formed in Pinna’s throat as she spied the frail figure of Amelia Caeciliana. Despite filth caulking her clothes, lank hair, and hollow eyes, the queen retained her dignity. Pinna both pitied and admired her. She wished Caecilia did not have to become a desolate spirit unable to merge with the Good Ones. She vowed to placate the specter by offering her violets and roses each year.
Thia stirred, fidgeting in the sling. It was time to go. The baby was too young to absorb this tragedy, but Pinna did not want to acquire the memory of Caecilia’s final moments.
She began threading her way through the crowd. Clouds were darkening over the Senate House. Rain threatened to dampen the celebrations.
She didn’t relish venturing onto the Esquiline. As a tomb whore, she’d become inured to traipsing past the rotting corpses of criminals and paupers. But she’d never grown used to the mewling of abandoned children. Or their ultimate silence. Their deaths always tore at her. More so because she was impotent to save them. She could not breastfeed them. And she and Mama never had food to spare. Pinna hoped Mater Matuta would bless her today for being able to rescue a child at last. It would take all her nerve, though, to search for a replacement matching Thia’s size. She’d already steeped swaddling clothes in perfume in the hope it would disguise the smell of any decay. She prayed Aemilius’s inspection would be as perfunctory as Marcus predicted.
Struggling to break free of the crowd, she finally retreated into a side street. She was perspiring beneath the weight of the tunic, stola, and palla. How strange that she wore the clothes of a respectable matron. From now on she would masquerade as the widow of a veteran who’d lost his life at Nepete. And she planned to enter Mater Matuta’s temple in Satricum, believing the goddess would forgive a whore when protecting another mother’s child. The deity always encouraged sisters to embrace their nephews and nieces as closely as their own children.
With Marcus’s patronage she could live comfortably. She would slide into obscurity. Thia’s identity as a Veientane princess had to remain hidden although the child’s features might betray her race. At least the Latins did not hate the Etruscans.
There would be no more men. Nor did she want one. She knew she could not replace him, no matter how much she scoured away the vestiges of feeling for him.
Behind her, the shouts peaked into frenzied anticipation of the final push from the rock. She said a prayer for Caecilia, her heart saddened. She kissed Thia’s head, settling her into the sling. The seed of love for this babe had already flowered. A new life lay ahead of them. Neither of them would be alone or unloved. The night moth’s soul was free. She had a daughter.
SIXTY-EIGHT
Caecilia, Rome, Summer, 396 BC
The light was blinding. Caecilia blinked; flashes of color disoriented her as she emerged on the threshold of the Carcer. The baying of the crowd rang in her ears, a city frenzied with rage. A venting of ten years of war, plague, and famine centered on her.
Shaking, she raised her shackled hands to cover her eyes as she was pushed onto the steps leading to the Arx. She stumbled, then righted herself, her eyes adjusting to the sunlight. She closed them again as she skirted Lusinies’s body, murmuring a prayer for him, the horror of his strangled death throes in the Tullanium still vivid. The soldier assigned to accompany her gave her a nudge.
Her tread was heavy. She wondered how many others had made this climb. The stone steps must be impregnated with the sighs of the condemned. She clenched her teeth, determined not to reveal her despair.