The market was congested, its air laden with aromas of basil, chives, and dill. Barrows were bright with the colors of asparagus and radish. An array of geese and partridges hung from their feet, heads dangling, while salted fish lay heaped in baskets.
Pinna walked through streets clogged with traffic. The calls of vendors were noisy and insistent. There was a feeling of good humor among the shoppers. News that the riddle of Lake Albanus had been answered was on everyone’s lips. The key to placating the gods was known. Veii was destined to fall.
She listened to snippets of conversations that made her swell with pride.
“With Camillus now an interrex, Rome will soon be back on course.”
“Why didn’t the Senate listen to him before?”
“We need him to be a consular general again.”
There was also talk of the wondrous Etruscan soothsayer. Artile was no longer hidden. He’d taken his place beside Camillus this morning as both men traveled in an open carriage to the Forum. The seer preened, superior again. The senators had declared he was correct to have advised Rome to irrigate the Latium floodplains.
There was another reason for the buzz of excitement. A debate was to be held in the Comitium even though the calendar did not prescribe the holding of an assembly. The Forum teemed with male citizens gathered to listen to the speakers.
Yesterday, after the long spring evening ended, Camillus had returned home from the Curia elated. He’d taken her breath away as he’d hugged her, his exultation infectious. Pinna shared a sense of his power. It was as potent as a drug, as thrilling as a surge of desire. “Elections are to be called, Pinna. I’ll stand as a candidate. I’ll lead an army again.”
He’d ripped the joint of pork kept aside for him. He drank no wine, wanting to keep clearheaded. And then he’d taken her, voracious and urgent, before falling into a dead sleep. Three hours later he’d risen to plan his address to the citizens of Rome. She knew he wished he could be declared dictator. But there was no emergency, only good tidings. With the secret of Lake Albanus revealed, the steps Rome needed to defeat its enemy were clear.
She glanced up to the looming heights of the Capitoline Hill. Having been privy to the discussions of the Furian brothers, Pinna was keen to watch Camillus in the Comitium today. And so she decided to scale the Hundred Steps to see if she could spy him from above as he addressed the convention. She would not be able to hear him, but there would be satisfaction in seeing her lover on the speakers’ platform.
Threading her way through the hustle and bustle, she reached the bottom of the stairs. She looked upward, daunted at climbing them with a heavy basket. She was puffing by the time she reached the top.
She gazed beyond the sanctuary’s wall to study the portico of the Great Temple and its pediment. At the apex, Jupiter rode his quadriga with its four white horses. An image of the red-and-black-columned temple of Uni skimmed her memory. In Veii, Queen Juno challenged Rome’s divine ruler in magnificence. Would the Veientane counterpart submit to being Jupiter’s consort when her city was captured?
Pinna glanced sideways to the Tarpeian Rock. She shivered at the sight of the barren ground at the cliff’s edge. She imagined Aemilia Caeciliana sobbing for mercy as she struggled not to be thrown off. It would be a horrible death. A flight of terror, then the pain of hitting the ground, back and neck broken.
Curbing her thoughts, she concentrated on looking beyond the place of execution. On the twin peak opposite, the fortified citadel on the Arx Capitolina was lit by full sun. Pinna saw sentinels at the guard posts keeping an eye on the city below, while others scanned the horizon beyond the outer wall, ever wary of external threat.
She scanned the vista of the seven hills. Her own past could be plotted here in the swells and dips of land: the dank caves of the Esquiline where she and Mama huddled in destitution, the lupanaria on the Aventine, and Camillus’s house on the Palatine. The history of her degradation and salvation lay side by side.
She surveyed the swarm of people below. The market produce was bright with color, but otherwise Rome was shrouded in somber hues. Constant war had taken its toll. She recognized the dark togas of grieving fathers, sons, and brothers. And widows could be identified wearing double-folded cloaks, one end thrown over their shoulders. A symbol of mourning. An emblem of pride. Their husbands had died for Rome.
The Comitium was packed. Each tier of the circular arena was crammed with citizens, while senators congregated on the Curia steps, shuffling to make space to view the orators. The Republic on display.
A number of politicians had mounted the speakers’ platform. Even from a distance she could recognize her Wolf. Medullinus stood together with Scipio and Spurius, the two other interreges who would govern until the elections were called. The tall, straight-spined Calvus was also there. Pinna could not see his expression, but his manner conveyed his usual contempt of patricians. He stood apart from the four others.
Suddenly, a horseman galloped toward the platform. There was something familiar about him. From the wide, angular shoulders and length of his body, she thought it was Drusus. The crowd parted to let him through lest they be trampled. The politicians moved to the edge of the podium and bent to listen to him.
A trumpet sounded in the distance. A short succession of urgent blasts. Pinna frowned, looking toward the source of the sound. It was a siren from the watchman on the Janiculum Hill across the Tiber. Pinna’s heartbeat quickened as the sentry on the Arx echoed the frenzied alarm. It was a warning signal. Rome was under attack.
Panic exploded. Women screamed as the crowd in the Forum shoved each other to head toward the citadel. Pinna glanced toward the markets. Stalls were pushed over, awnings pitching sideways, feet tripping on tangled ropes, barrows of vegetables sent flying.
Like a mice plague, people emerged from pot-holed alleyways, offices, shops, and houses. All possessed the same intent: to reach the safety of the three-sided Capitoline cliffs and the fortress on the Arx. Pinna watched in horror as the throng converged on the Sacred Way, jostling and elbowing each other, jamming the Clivus Capitolinus, the single dusty road from the Forum.
Pinna searched for her Wolf. He’d commanded Drusus to dismount and was now sitting astride the steed’s back. Managing the reins, he controlled the beast in the roiling crowd, digging his heels to urge the animal to charge toward the Aventine’s vulnerable gates. He was shouting at people to stand aside, not attempting to avoid anyone in the stallion’s path. There was much for him to organize. Makeshift wooden bridges across the Tiber needed to be dismantled. The gates around the perimeter locked. The ramparts manned.