“Better not to court disaster, then,” said Camillus, turning to face his brothers. “I trust you’ll both agree to nominate me as one of the three interreges? And support my candidature for consular general.”
Spurius sank into his chair again, fatigue overcoming him. “Of course, I’ll support you.” He turned to Medullinus. “I know this is a blow to you, but at least we’ll have one of our family in power.”
Pinna saw loathing in the oldest brother’s gaze as he glared at her Wolf. He had been bested. Pinna doubted he would either forgive or forget. He snatched the scroll from Camillus’s fingers. “You will only be interrex for five days, remember, and then you must pass on authority to the next of the two interreges until the elections are held.” He remained sullen. “But know I’ll never support you being made a dictator.”
Spurius rubbed his neck. “Why do you carp on this? Camillus knows there’s no crisis, only a way forward.”
Medullinus bent and placed the papyrus on the table, dipping the stylus into the inkwell. For a time, the only sound in the room was the scratching of his pen. Pinna thought the point might break with the force of his strokes. He handed it to Camillus who waved it at Pinna. “Get this delivered.”
She bridled, stung by his peremptory manner. Walking across to him, she curtsied in an exaggerated way. “Yes, master.” At her obeisance, he paused, finally aware how he was treating her. He clasped her wrist before she could move away. She waited, thinking that at last he would introduce her to Spurius as his de facto wife. Instead he smiled and let go of her. “Thank you, Pinna. That will be all.”
Swallowing hard, she hastened into the atrium to find the majordomo. She had thought her Wolf was proud of her. She’d heard him challenge Medullinus for insulting her before. Tonight he’d made her feel worthless. No more than a maid who had a talent for soothing a man’s pain. She had grown prideful. She was deluded to think the society in which her Wolf lived would ever accept her. Boundaries of rank were set in stone. Peasant and patrician. Concubine and master.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Lying awake, staring into blackness, Pinna could not forget her Wolf’s brusqueness. She worried he was tiring of her.
After dinner, he’d accompanied the travel-weary Spurius to his home. As yet he’d not returned. He’d been keyed up when he’d left the house, his discontent dispelled now that his faith in Artile had been vindicated. The prospect of holding high office again was within his grasp. He was one step closer to achieving his quest to conquer Veii.
Restless, she rose and lit a lamp and crept through the slumbering household to the storeroom next to the garden. The chickens were settled on their roost, the air redolent with the smell of soil and herbs.
The linen chest was squeezed between amphorae of oil and grain sacks. In the lamplight, Pinna delved inside the box, drawing a palla shawl and stola overdress from it. The garments were the symbols of a female married citizen.
Jealousy surfaced even though Pinna knew it was a dead woman she feared. Camilllus’s wife had been a univira. Honorable. Untainted. She’d lain with only one man, her husband. And if he’d died before her, she may well have shunned marriage for the rest of her life, devoted to him beyond the grave.
Placing the palla shawl on a crate, she donned the stola. The fine wheaten-colored cloth slid over her night shift. The material billowed around her tiny frame and pooled around her feet.
She tied the ribbons at her shoulders, then peered inside the chest again. There was a tunic with a flounce sewn into its hem, emphasizing the patrician’s respectability as well as her flair for fashion. She selected two sashes, cinching the first tight under her breasts and the other around her waist before arranging them so the fabric draped in folds.
Was his wife beautiful? Was she young? Kind or haughty? Her Wolf said theirs had been an arranged marriage. He claimed there was no passion between them.
Again Pinna inspected the contents of the chest, noticing the woolen fillets to braid into her hair. Yet another privilege of a matron. Were her locks lank or lustrous? Thick or thinning? Did he run his fingers through them as he did through hers?
The sound of the door creaking startled her. Camillus stood on the threshold. In the cold of early morning, wisps of his warm breath lingered in the air. “What are you doing, Pinna? I returned to find you missing from our bed.” He stepped inside, raising his lamp higher. His quizzical expression turned to surprise as the light revealed her red-handed in his wife’s clothes.
She froze as he examined her. He placed his lamp next to hers. “She was taller than you. She lacked your curves.”
Stricken with guilt, Pinna fumbled with the drawstrings, but he reached across and stayed her hand.
“Is this what you want? To be able to wear a stola and palla?”
She bowed her head, humiliated to be exposed in her fancy. She waited for his anger but instead his touch was gentle. He brushed her lips with his fingers, his other hand smoothing the pleats of the dress until he rested it on her waist. “Because that is what I want also. I want you to be my wife.”
She was unsure if she’d heard him correctly. Her stunned silence provoked laughter. “Well, what do you say?”
She wanted to forget the sin that stained her. She wanted to say yes. Then she remembered Genucius, the sour aftertaste of his threat spoiling the sweetness of the moment. “I can’t, my Wolf. It wouldn’t be wise. What would your family say? Your sons? Your friends?”
He wrapped his arms around her. “I don’t care what they think.”
She shook her head, drawing back within the circle of his embrace. “Yet you were reluctant to introduce me to your younger brother yesterday.”
He frowned. “Was I? It was not deliberate. I was excited to hear his news. Don’t you see? I will be a general again. No longer powerless.”
She felt ashamed she’d doubted him. She could feel the energy within him even though he’d been awake all night. She was touched that his first thought on returning home was to find her. His request that she tend to Spurius now seemed trivial. He had things of greater import than her feelings on his mind. Nevertheless, the same qualms about the differences in their rank assailed her. “My Wolf, I’m a farmer’s daughter. You’re a nobleman.”
“No, you are Lollia, daughter of Gnaeus Lollius, a soldier of Rome. And now you will be the wife of Marcus Furius Camillus.”
She bowed her head, unable to face him, but he hooked his finger under her chin, guiding her to look at him. “Pinna, don’t be afraid. It’s not against the law for patrician and plebeian to marry anymore.”