Hero of Rome by Douglas Jackson

Author:Douglas Jackson [Jackson, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780593065129
Google: bcQLQgAACAAJ
Amazon: 0552162582
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2010-02-14T18:30:00+00:00

XXIII

By the time Valerius rode up to Lucullus’s villa it was past midday. He’d been surprised by the message from the Trinovante but the opportunity to see Maeve banished all thoughts of tiredness. And he had another urgent reason to talk to her. He had made his decision on the long ride back from Venta: he loved her too much to leave her behind. They would be married and he would take her to Rome. He had thought long and hard about the effect the marriage must have on his career and the impact on his relationship with his father. The old man might even disinherit him. But someone who had faced death in a shield wall was old enough to make his own decisions. If he couldn’t survive on his legal work, he could take up a commission in an auxiliary unit. All that mattered was that they would be together.

The white-walled building was clearly visible from some distance and it was just a feeling at first, but a soldier’s feeling he’d learned not to ignore. The fields stood empty when they should have been full of workers either ploughing or planting. There should be smoke from the villa kitchen, but there was none. Now he noticed the open door that would normally be shut. He rode forward with his hand on his sword, allowing the horse to make its own pace. In front of the house he slid from the saddle and stood for a moment, absorbing an almost breathless stillness that made him reluctant to breathe himself.

‘Maeve?’ His voice echoed from the walls. The darkened doorway suddenly seemed very dangerous. Carefully, he drew his gladius and walked towards it. A sharp snap made him flinch and he looked down to see shards of a broken pot beneath his feet. He recognized it as Lucullus’s favourite bowl from Gaul, the red clay one with the gladiators fighting below the rim. Here membered discussing the design with Lucullus; the Briton’s eagerness to be a Roman had been tempered by an inability to comprehend a society which delighted in making two men fight to the death. The inner door lay ajar by only a few inches and Valerius carefully used the point of the sword to push it open and give him a view into the next room. Empty. No, it was more than empty. The place had been stripped. All Lucullus’s fine busts and statues were gone. The bare end walls puzzled him until he realized what was missing. They’d even cut the paintings of Claudius from the plaster, leaving jagged-edged cavities as the only reminder of their existence.

‘Maeve?’ He heard the nervousness in his voice. Please. Not that. ‘Lucullus?’ He moved through the villa, methodically searching each room and in each finding the same story. Until he reached Lucullus’s bathhouse.

Lucullus had always been a tidy man. Even the second set of accounts he kept hidden from the tax collectors was maintained in the fussy, meticulous Latin handwriting he took such pride in, each column of figures straighter than any temple pillar.

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