He sat up. “We must not do this again. We must wait until you’re released from your duties as a wet nurse. And that will only happen when Lord Mastarna returns. I don’t want to betray his trust.”
She frowned, frustrated he should retreat back to observing an unfair vow. Determined to persuade him to change his mind, she rose and kneeled on the pallet, bending and running her tongue along the channel between the muscles of his chest and abdomen to his groin. She heard his sharp intake of breath as she grasped the snake’s tail, his body responding as she planned. “And this serpent? What does he want?”
“You are wicked.”
“No, I’m hungry. And so is the snake.”
CRISIS
THIRTY-TWO
Caecilia, Veii, Spring, 396 BC
The stench hovered in a pall, death and ordure and smoke intertwined with the sadness of weird keening desolation. Caecilia gagged and pressed a kerchief saturated with her lily perfume to her nose as she sat beside Tarchon in the royal carriage.
Bodies were piled in the street, ready to be fed into pyres. The cadavers were stacked high, a grotesque fuel for fires that otherwise used dung for combustion. A city of the living was being turned into one of the dead. Exhausted, survivors tended the sick and dying, wondering if they would be next. Caecilia’s eyes pricked with tears to see how many of the corpses were those of children. The red scourge marked the young as its favorite victims.
People trudging along the pavement stopped when they saw their queen, bowing their heads as she passed. Some were emaciated, death’s heads instead of faces, their lips cracked, eyes bloodshot. All wore dark mourning clothes. The rainbow of blue and green and brown denoting class distinctions had disappeared. Everyone was equal now, unified by grief.
Caecilia signaled the driver to stop and called to Arruns to lift her down. He shook his head. “No, mistress.” She pursed her lips at his disobedience, but before she could insist, Tarchon restrained her. “He’s right, Caecilia. Even with twelve lictors, your safety can’t be assured.”
She shrugged him away. Since she’d declared her own war on Rome, there’d been no hostility toward her from the people. She only wished their acceptance did not go hand in hand with defeat. “I want to speak to them.”
“What are you going to say that will make a difference? There is no more food to give, no medicines to offer, no wood to provide. You come with empty hands. What use is royal sympathy?”
“At least they’ll see that I have not forgotten them or fear them. Unlike Feluske, who locks himself away. He may be a general, but he is spineless.”
“There’s good reason to fear the red scourge. I suffered from it and survived when I was a child in Tarchna. Can you claim the same protection?”
Caecilia shook her head. The thought she might contract the disease terrified her, but she couldn’t let fear keep her from her duty. And she believed Vel would feel the same. “Palace walls will not protect any of us from the sickness. Many are already stricken within. All I can do is hope that Queen Uni does not wish me to die just yet.” She extended her hand to Arruns. “Help me to the pavement.”
Tarchon grasped her shoulder. “I said no.”
His vehemence surprised her. She hesitated, debating whether to let her own obstinacy challenge his, but then she decided to heed him, her courage failing as she heard the hacking coughs among those standing nearby.
“Move on,” she ordered the driver. Once again, she pressed the kerchief to her nose. Raw sewage ran along the gutters, and she glimpsed side streets piled with human waste, flies hovering and rats scampering over it, while scabrous dogs, too diseased to be eaten by humans, slunk into alleyways. Caecilia prayed the cisterns would not be contaminated. If so, there would be thirst as well as hunger.
With the influx of peasants who’d fled from the brutality of the Romans, the city teemed with people. All sought accommodation now they were bereft of their land and their livelihood. Those without relatives were sleeping in the open, their makeshift shelters forming slums.
Caecilia felt helpless. There was a pull toward futility, only her belief in Uni sustaining her. And yet, why was the deity so cruel? Why had she seemingly forsaken her people? It had been over a month since Vel had left. At least with the arrival of spring, she knew he would be in Velzna at the congress. She tried not to think what would happen if he failed.
In the forum, Caecilia noticed a scaffold with four bodies dangling from nooses, flies crawling over sightless eyes and protruding tongues.
“They’re thieves who stockpiled food and then sold it at extortionate prices in the black market,” said Tarchon. “I’m trying to see justice is served even though our world is disintegrating around us.”
Caecilia turned her head rather than view the criminals, always queasy at such sights. A crowd had collected. The people held out their hands, beseeching, their voices plaintive. This time she did not heed the prince’s restraining hand on her shoulder. She ordered the driver to stop and shrugged Tarchon away. Stepping down into the street, she walked to the platform where the town crier would normally stand to make proclamations. Arruns hurried after, signaling the lictors to form a cordon at its base. With a scowl, Tarchon joined her. “Mastarna will kill me if you’re harmed.”
Ignoring him, she held up her hands. She was surprised at how obediently the people ceased their pleading. A quiet descended, the only sound that of a flapping awning that had come loose on a deserted shop.
Caecilia scanned the host of the wretched who were now her subjects. “Veientanes, I see your suffering, and my heart bleeds for you. I see your children dying. I have faith, though, that King Vel Mastarna will relieve this city.”
A man, eyes hollow, called out, “But when? When will he come?”
“Only the gods know for sure, but I believe in my husband.”
A woman pushed through to the front. “The gods have forsaken us, Aemilia Caeciliana. And what offerings do we have to appease them? There are no animals to sacrifice, no wine to pour libations.”
“Then we must promise them a reward if they answer our prayers. And when the lucumo returns, and supplies once again flow, we will lavish gifts upon them.”
There was a silence again. The flapping of the awning seemed even louder. She scanned the weary faces, praying blank stares would not turn into glares, that skin and bone would not rise up and attack her. Then she remembered the ambition and cruelty of the enemy generals. “Do you wish to surrender?” she called. “Do you wish to relinquish Veientane land and kneel to the Romans? If so, then speak, but consider whether it’s better to die a citizen of Veii than a slave of Rome. Is it not better to live in hope of rescue than exist in despair forever?”
Tarchon leaned close. “Enough. There’s no point to this.”