She pressed his forehead to his. “Soon, Vel. The birth of our daughter was hard. I’m not yet healed. Aren’t you happy with what I can do for you in the meantime?”
He kissed her brow. “I’m sorry to be impatient.” Stepping back, he placed his hand on his sling. “And I want to be able to carry you to bed. We both have wounds that need mending.”
Caecilia smiled and clasped his hand. “It’s time to get ready to visit the Great Temple.” Then she laughed. “No more stalling. I must paint your face.”
They moved inside. Semni had finished feeding Thia and was rocking her against her shoulder to burp her. “I’ll go now, mistress.”
“Wait,” said Mastarna. “Let me hold my little princess.”
The nursemaid handed the swaddled baby to the warrior who cradled her in the crook of his uninjured arm, careful the child’s head was supported. The seven-week-old was tiny against the scarred flesh of his forearm. He bent and kissed both of the child’s cheeks, crooning. The tenderness was incongruous in such a hardened man. Caecilia had never seen Vel dote so on his sons.
Thia’s mouth curved upward.
“Look, she’s smiling, Bellatrix.”
Caecilia nodded, glancing to Semni while Mastarna’s head was bent over the babe. The women exchanged a smile. Neither would dare tell him it was more likely to be wind.
He touched the silver amulet fastened around the baby’s neck by a fine chain with the figure of the huntress Atlenta embossed upon it. It had once been Caecilia’s; now her daughter wore the talisman. He kissed Thia’s brow. “May this charm always protect you from the evil eye.”
“Come, Vel, your daughter needs to sleep.”
Reluctantly, he surrendered the infant to Semni. “Take care of my princess.” His deep, resonant voice was soft. The baby stared at him, enrapt.
Caecilia led Mastarna to his chair and sat opposite him. Dipping a brush into the red lead, she smoothed the pigment across his face. His features were rugged and scarred. She’d once thought the almond-shaped eyes of the Rasenna people strange; now all of her children except Arnth were graced with them.
She could hear a familiar clicking noise as she tended to him. He was fiddling with the two golden dice he secreted in the sinus fold of his tebenna cloak. They were his talismans. Old and worn and smooth. He would jiggle them when he was worried, the sound marking his tell. She laid the brush aside and placed her hand on his to still his fidgeting. “What troubles you?”
He stared at her for a moment but did not reply. Then he stood and smoothed his tebenna, ensuring its folds were even. “Do I look sufficiently regal?”
She frowned at his evasion. Nevertheless, she surveyed him in his regalia, thinking he was not above vanity. The purple tunic and cloak with their gold embroidery declared he was king. In Rome, a triumphing general wore such garb. The Rasennan kings who had once ruled there had introduced their subjects to the custom, a stately and elegant apparel the Romans adopted readily from the people they called the Etruscans.
Caecilia had been raised on the tales of oppression of those monarchs. How they were ousted as tyrants, and then the Republic was founded. Until she was eighteen and married into Vel’s society, she’d despised the Etruscans as her enemy. Now she gladly lived among the Rasenna.
She also rose. Smiling, she smoothed the cloth across Vel’s broad shoulders and murmured reassurance. She did not tell him that she was also apprehensive, praying that, one day, he would wear such robes in Rome’s Forum. For the goddess Nortia had given her a sign she kept secret from her husband. Her destiny was to return to her birthplace. And the only safe way to do so was as the wife of a conquering hero.
TWO
Queen Uni towered ten feet high above Caecilia as she knelt before the goddess she’d once worshiped as the Roman Juno. The sculpted face of the terra-cotta statue was serene in the muted sunlight of the sanctum. There was no indication in the deity’s expression she could be ferocious—a warrioress greater than Caecilia could ever be. But the lightning bolt the sky goddess brandished heralded her power. Only the celestial king, Jupiter, wielded a thunderbolt in Rome.
A decade of war had taken its toll. The terra-cotta that clad the columns and roof rafters of the vast temple was cracked, the red-and-black paint fading. Caecilia hoped the immortal would not be displeased the privations of war meant her quarters were no longer pristine.
Despite the neglect of her surroundings the divinity still looked regal. The Veientanes revered her too much to disregard her person. Her goatskin was not tattered, and she wore a diadem and pectoral of gleaming gold. Rings of silver and turquoise bedecked her fingers, and her lapis eyes were deep blue.
Gazing at the divine queen’s apparel made Caecilia conscious of her own. Vel was not the only one who was uncomfortable with donning the purple. Yet she could not deny she enjoyed the feel of her fine woolen chiton, its bodice tight, revealing the curve of her breasts and defining her nipples. Its hem was a solid band of cloth of gold. Beads of amethyst and pearl encrusted her heavy purple mantle. She knew her father would hate to see her this way, dressed flagrantly instead of garbed in the modest stola of a Roman matron, wearing a crown instead of covering her head with a palla shawl.
She touched her tiara. It was exquisite. Finely beaten golden leaves overlapped each other with strands looping down beside her cheeks and ears. Its fragile beauty both captivated her and made her nervous. She did not want to be the first Veientane queen to damage it.
“How much longer are you going to pray?” growled Mastarna. “I want to get this service over and done with.” She frowned and glanced across to him. He was pacing the cell, impatient, as always, with ceremony and ritual.
Caecilia hoped the goddess would forgive him his irreverence. “We must placate and praise Queen Uni first, Vel. You don’t want to incur her disfavor.”
Nearby, Lord Tarchon was watching the king with furrowed brow. Mastarna’s oldest son was also dressed in royal colors. The prince’s good looks were in stark contrast to the craggy features of his adopted father. The bruises suffered in his last battle had healed. His face was unscarred.
In profile, Caecilia could see the straight brow and nose so distinctive of the Rasenna. His dark oval eyes were long lashed, his lips naturally curved upward as though the gods had decreed he should always look contented.
At twenty-seven, Caecilia always thought it odd a man who had just turned thirty could be her stepson. Yet there was a special friendship between them. They were more like brother and sister. And she regretted he and Vel were always at loggerheads. She wished her husband would be more approving of the young cousin he’d taken into his home to raise.
“Caecilia is right, Father. The protectress of our city must be placated before we seek a sign from her.”