She blinked owlishly at him with her wide blue eyes. “Will you stay with me?” she asked, her small voice muffled by the mask.
Lucius shook his head. “I can’t. You know I have to ride with Uncle. But Attia will stay with you.”
Attia met Rory’s eyes and tried to smile, but it was a painful effort.
When Sabina had told her that the household would be leaving Rome, Attia had nearly gone mad with desperation. She couldn’t afford to leave the city, not now. Her body was almost completely healed, and she’d only been waiting for the right moment to kill Timeus and escape the estate. She still needed information to find Crassus, but now all of her plans were drowning in Timeus’s damn courtyard. A part of her hoped that maybe, just maybe, she would be left behind. But as Rory’s nursemaid and the champion’s nighttime companion, there was no chance of that.
It had taken the household three days and three nights to make the preparations to leave, and Attia had needed every second to rein in her frustration. I’ll kill Timeus and find Crassus, she promised herself. No matter what it takes. She’d snuck into Timeus’s study one last time and taken one of the maps, which she’d smuggled away among Rory’s things.
In the child’s small room, Attia watched as Lucius swept Rory up into his arms with a big smile, cradling her against him like a glass doll.
The rain had eased a bit, becoming more a curtain of heavy mist than an actual downpour. But the slaves had still been forced to erect a makeshift bridge to bypass the flooded courtyard. The rest of the household waited by the main gate. Timeus sat astride a reddish brown Iberian stallion, the rain creating rounded droplets in his white hair. Valeria retired to her own closed cart.
Nearly the entire household was journeying to Pompeii—the house slaves, the garden slaves, Timeus’s private guard, and of course, his gladiators. Altogether, there were close to a hundred people scattered through the column of wagons and horses that made up the caravan.
Another group of men stood at attention along the road, and Attia frowned at them as she passed. Each man palmed the rounded hilt of a gladius and sported a distinct tattoo on his left shoulder: SPQR, Senatus Populusque Romanus. The Senate and the People of Rome. They were soldiers—members of the Roman infantry who still bore the symbols of the Republic even though Princeps Titus had all but called himself emperor. Attia couldn’t decide if their presence made the caravan more secure or more dangerous.
Lucius lifted the bundle of linen that was his sister into a closed cart before moving aside so Attia could follow her in.
Attia blinked rapidly while her vision adjusted to the surprising darkness. It took her a minute to realize there was a second door a few feet away from the one she’d just used. It was easy enough to open, and she entered the main compartment. Narrow slits in the sides of the cart let in tiny shafts of light that didn’t reach the floor. They were barely enough to see by.
“Here, take my hand,” Rory said. Her small form was little more than a shadow. “Don’t be afraid. You’ll get used to the dark.”
Attia smiled, knowing the child couldn’t see. There were few things she feared, and the dark had never been one of them.
*
Xanthus walked unchained at the rear of the caravan, flanked by soldiers in front and behind. Beside him, his brothers were bound together with iron shackles that were already cutting into their wrists. But from the sound of their constant banter, they hardly noticed.
They’re used to it now, Xanthus thought bitterly.
“Why are we moving so damn slowly?” Iduma complained. “At this rate, it’ll take us a month to reach Pompeii.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Albinus said. “You know the rains always worsen the roads.”
“I’d rather walk in the rain than be carted around like an invalid,” Lebuin said.
A few yards ahead, Lucretia walked beside one of the carts. Instead of her usual sheer black gown, she wore an opaque gray dress that clung to her body and a long veil over her hair. Her hips swayed with each step. When she turned her head, Xanthus saw that the light rain had washed away a bit of the kohl she often wore around her eyes. With her face almost bare, she looked much more like her twenty-one years and less like the woman whose soul had withered in Timeus’s bed. Xanthus realized suddenly that he had never seen Lucretia smile. He wondered if she still remembered how.
Fingers snapped in front of his face, and he turned to look at his brothers. “Xanthus, have you been listening?” Gallus asked.
“To your whining? No, not really,” Xanthus said.
Iduma rolled his eyes. “You never listen. And here I was talking about how you’re such a great mentor to us all.”
Xanthus smiled. His brothers’ teasing rarely failed to lighten his mood, whatever the topic. “I’m your mentor, Iduma? I’m touched, truly.”
“Don’t be too flattered,” Albinus said. “We all know how low Iduma’s standards are.”
Their laughter echoed down the caravan.
*
They stopped just before dusk, and Attia found the sudden stillness disorienting. Her limbs cried out with the need to stretch, to walk, to move. Trying not to wake Rory, she opened the doors at the back of the cart and jumped out. Her sandaled feet sank a few inches into the cool mud. The rain soaked her hair and tunic within moments.
Attia saw that they had made camp in a clearing surrounded by trees almost a half mile from the main road. Sunset still lingered on the western horizon, but slaves had already begun to hang dozens of lanterns on sturdy poles throughout the camp. The carts, wagons, and people had been positioned in a sort of three-ring formation. The slaves and servants filled the large outer ring, huddling in tiny, tattered tents that were somehow meant to accommodate as many as five people. The guards’ larger tents formed a smaller ring within the first. And in the very center stood Rory’s cart and three tents that looked more like pavilions than anything else, each twelve feet high. This inner circle was undoubtedly where Timeus and family would sleep. The Roman soldiers who accompanied the caravan hadn’t erected any tents at all. They simply strolled around the edges of the camp, seemingly oblivious to the rain.
Sabina approached with an oilskin cloak held over her head. “I’ll stay with Mistress Aurora. You go to the champion.”
Attia sighed. She no longer distrusted the gladiator as fiercely as she once had. But their last few nights together had been awkward and stilted. She dreaded finding out what tonight would be like. She turned around and stared out through the rain. “Where exactly am I supposed to go?” she asked as Sabina draped the oilskin cloak over her shoulders.