The Rebel & the Ruler by Leilani Darling

Author:Leilani Darling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Speedy Publishing LLC
Published: 2013-10-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

“All right,” she said. Her voice was cold, but she halted. “You have my attention. For five minutes.”

They sat on a street-bench, keeping a few hands-breadths of distance between them. A squirrel scampered up to their feet, hoping for crumbs, as Valerius began.

“My brother Marcus and I were raised by our grandfather Verus on a lavish run-down estate. Today Marcus is – ” He stopped himself. If he told her that his brother was about to be Emperor, her distrust of him would become total. “Marcus is an important official in Rome.”

“Why should I care about your childhood? You said your middle name is Severus. Why do you have that name? He was one of the generals that destroyed our city.”

“That was Junius Severus. I’m not related to him.”

“You and your Roman names. You’ve renamed our holy capital city and our entire land. You call our Judea ‘Syria Palestina.’ How dare you? Palestina means land of the Philistines. There are no Philistines any more. They’re an extinct tribe. Our king David defeated them more than a thousand years ago. You Romans just picked a name that you knew would insult us. This is Judea, this is Israel, and it is always going to be so. Goodbye again.”

“Stop. I need you to hear my story,” he said, then added in a lower voice, “I have no one to talk to.”

Samara looked at him suspiciously, then sat down. “Go ahead,” she said softly.

He felt a thrill. She had agreed to listen to him! He had few people to talk to, except for Marcus, whom he hadn’t seen in two years. Boyhood memories came flooding into him.

“Marcus and I lost both our parents when we were scarcely more than boys.”

“Both of them? What happened?”

“The plague,” he said in low tones.

“Oh, Valerius, I’m sorry,” she said, and he felt his heart grow warmer, touched by her empathy.

“Our grandfather was an ex-Consul and was the first person to disillusion me about Rome. He never stopped bragging about his one-year term in the Capitol city, serving as its supposed ruler. It didn’t take me long to realize he was just a figurehead for his overlords. His office meant almost nothing in terms of power, yet it carried prestige. Never have I heard anyone brag so much about so little! His estate, though, was full of streams and forests for us two boys to explore on endless summer days.”

He told her what it was like to grow up as a princeling, and about the day he and his brother were excited about a plan they’d concocted to do something they knew would upset everyone, including the Emperor.

It felt good to remember the years of tender companionship with his brother. As he reminisced, he decided to share as much of it as he could with Samara now. There were parts of it he couldn’t say to her. Or at least not yet.

He enjoyed thinking about the forests and rolling fields on their grandfather Marcus Annius Verus’ estate in the countryside two days north of Rome.

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