Pompeii. Part 20

"I already told you, Mother," Isabella interrupted. "Quintus has taken a woman."

Cato cleared his throat. "She told you of her disguise?"

Isabella laughed. "Do you think we are blind, Quintus?"

There was a beat of silence and then Cato spoke her name, low and quiet. "Ariella. Turn around."

She pivoted to her new master, aware that she had little choice in this or any matter.

His eyes on her were as kind as his mother's had been, but strangely the kindness only raised her ire, perhaps because she understood none of it.

He studied her. "You are angry." It was not a question, so she did not answer.

Isabella and Octavia seemed to sense that they should retreat, and did so. But Cato did not seem content to speak with her in the open courtyard. He grasped her arm and pulled her toward the nearest receiving room.

She followed, mute.

The room was furnished to impress, with couches, sculptures, and painted panels that reached the lofty ceiling. The high windows opened to the west, and the room was still dim in the morning hours. Cato did not release her until they were well into the room, away from the door, and then he turned on her and took a deep breath, as though preparing for an attack.

Ariella waited, letting her resentment build again, preparing the sharp words she would use, the only weapons she still retained.

"Ariella."

She had expected arrogance. Flippancy, even. But her name was soft on his lips. Apologetic. She fought to hold onto the rage.

He dropped his eyes, as though the shame were his own. "When I saw you under his foot in the sand . . ." He breathed heavily. "I-I could not watch it happen again. I had to do something. To remove you from the arena."

She found her voice, icy and hard. "To keep me as your pet, then. Since I would not be your campaign prop."

His eyes returned to her face now, and roamed over it as though to search out any injury. "To keep you safe."

Ariella licked her lips and swallowed, fighting that curious mixture of fear and anger-and something very different his presence always caused.

He stepped closer. "I did not know what else to do." His eyes went to her bandaged arm, and then his hand touched the knot that held the dressing. "May I?"

She said nothing. He stood so close, she did not trust herself to speak, or even to move.

With gentle hands he untied the knot, unwound the strips of rag, and touched the reddened skin around the crossed cuts with his fingertips. Ariella bit her lower lip to hold it still.

"It should heal well. But you should try to keep it at rest awhile." He rewrapped the rags, still standing a breath away.

"That will not be easy." He stood so close, she spoke over his shoulder, focused on the wall behind him. "The life of a slave is not one of leisure."

He finished with her bandages but did not step back. His eyes were on her face again, and when he spoke his voice was so low she nearly missed the words, only a breath against her ear.

"I did not know what else to do."

CHAPTER 31.

With the dawn of each new day, Cato's priorities returned to him as sure as the sun reached through the high windows of his bedchamber.

Free his sister.

Defeat Nigidius Maius.

Avoid Ariella.

And not necessarily in that order. Indeed, the latter was becoming a challenge.

This morning he dressed quickly, anxious to begin the series of meetings awaiting him through the day-meetings with prominent citizens who had each been subjugated in some way by Maius, and whom Cato was attempting to sway to his side of the election. If time allowed, he planned to find his way once again to the old Jewish slave who had become both teacher and friend through days of furtive meeting.

He met Octavia and Isabella in the morning room, already dining on cereals and oranges being served by Ariella.

Her appearance in the days she had been part of his household had ceased to be a shock to him, as it was the first morning after he bought her from Drusus. Isabella and Octavia had taken Ariella under their collective wing at once, refusing to allow the disguise to continue. They dressed her in the finest robes a slave could be given, then decorated her in the way of women, with baubles and glittering things Cato could not name. And she no longer smelled of leather and metal, of the sweaty training barracks. Instead, the scent of the gardens sometimes lingered when she bent over him to serve his wine or pa.s.sed him in the courtyard or back halls of the house. Her hair, too, had begun to grow out since he had first met her, wavy and thick, and he found it rather complementary to her pet.i.te features. Only the metal collar made her position clear.

All of it was quite disturbing, and almost he suspected his mother and sister of confounding him purposely. He nodded a morning greeting to the two of them, and each smiled sweetly. Surely they had placed Ariella here this morning in antic.i.p.ation of his arrival.

For Ariella's part, she continued to ignore him. He could not understand her att.i.tude any more than her appearance. She seemed to always be about, almost as though she followed him in his movements through the house, and yet she did not speak to him nor even look at him unless necessary.

And she was sad, this he could see.

"Mother, Isabella." He lowered himself to a cushion and ladled his own wine into a bowl before Ariella had a chance to attend him. "What plans do you two have on this lovely summer day?"

Isabella shrugged. "I thought I would hang about the doorways of your receiving rooms and listen to your meetings."

Cato narrowed his eyes. She was only half-jesting. Isabella's curiosity of the workings of politics had become insatiable. "And if one of those men should take offense at your listening ear, and draw a dagger against it?"

She gave him a sly smile and shrugged. "Perhaps Ariella has been teaching me the way of the warrior."

Cato glanced sharply at Ariella, but the slave's eyes were on Isabella, and her tiny smile and shake of the head were for the girl alone.

"I'll not have any sister of mine-"

"Oh, hush, brother." Isabella laughed. "I am only teasing. My, but you are so sensitive of late!"

Cato grabbed at a hard crust of bread and bit down on it, then cursed at the pain.

Ariella's glance flicked to him for a moment, but her amus.e.m.e.nt had fled and he saw only resentment, which pained him more than the crusty bread.

Later in the day-after an exhausting round of n.o.blemen, civic leaders, and wealthy businessmen had paraded in and out of the house, in turn rejecting or supporting him-Cato found Ariella in the kitchen, kneading dough.

Octavia held sway in all things domestic in Cato's house, and he had not specified how Ariella was to be put to use. Beside a position requiring learning, such as a tutor or overseer, a kitchen slave had the most chance to move about the house and the city at will, and Octavia had placed Ariella here for the relative freedom, no doubt sensing that the girl was special to her son.

He watched from the doorway as her arms, well-muscled from the months of training with a sword, pounded and flipped the tanned lump until it was silky smooth.

"You attack the dough as though it were your enemy."

She startled, and her reflexes clearly remembered their training. Her floured fists jerked to chin-height, she took a step backward with one leg, bracing her weight, and she was once again Ari of the arena. But the reaction lasted only a moment. She returned to her bread the moment she saw who had startled her, the gladiator dissolving once more into a woman.

Cato leaned against the doorway and folded his arms. "I must remember not to come upon you in the dark."

She did not look up, but he could see her face flush red. She does not appreciate the reminder.

Already he had forgotten his morning objective, to avoid her. "You have been nearly silent since coming here. I have never found you with so little to say."

She did not pause in her kneading. The ball of dough fell from her hands to the floured board, sending a puff into the air around her hands. "Perhaps the company has grown dull."

He could not help smiling again, but was glad she did not see it. This provocation was closer to their former interactions than anything since he brought her to his house. "Hmmm. Yes. My mother and sister can be quite tedious."

"Your mother and sister are the best thing about the Catonii."

Ah, a little flare of anger, perhaps. It pleased him, not only to see her spirit still alive, but to hear her praise his family, even at his expense. "I would agree."

She did glance at him then, as if to judge if he were mocking. He drank in those eyes for the brief moment he had them, before they returned to rest upon the dough.

"Yet still you are always angry, Ari. Would you truly have preferred to remain with those clods, to remain in danger? At least you are safe here."

She kept at her kneading. "Safe, yes. Forever safe. But never free."

In the days since purchasing her, it had of course occurred to Cato that he could give her freedom. Such a thing was done occasionally, when a slave had served faithfully for many years, perhaps. Or saved enough to purchase his own freedom. But to buy a slave then set it free immediately? It was not done. What effect could it have on his campaign? He had already drawn attention to his interest in the young gladiator, Scorpion Fish. It would come out that he had bought the fighter. And then to set him free? And if it were revealed that Scorpion Fish were a woman? It showed a certain softness of heart that would not recommend him as a worthy rival of Nigidius Maius.

At least, this was what he chose to give himself as the reason for not letting her go.

"Better safe and alive." He crossed the room and stood before her, on the other side of the table. "You can make a home for yourself here. We will treat you well." He indicated her clothes and jewelry. "You have seen this already."

She blinked a few times, still looking down. Was it possible that she shed tears?

"This will never be my home. My home is in Jerusalem. The city you have destroyed."

Cato inhaled, feeling the bite of her anger, wishing he could deny its truth. He circled the table and fumbled in a pouch at his belt.

Ariella kept her eyes on his hands. "What are you doing?"

He reached for her neck, for the metal collar fastened there by Drusus. "Something I should have done long ago."

The key was tiny, and the click of release soft, but as the collar fell away in his hands, Ariella's relief was palpable. She studied his eyes, too close to be safe. "Thank you."

He backed away. "Perhaps Pompeii cannot feel like home, but what about the old man? Jeremiah, was it? He is one of your own. Like family?"

The name elicited a small smile. "I should like to see him again, to see if he is well."

Cato poked a finger into the dough, which had begun to toughen with the excessive kneading. "And I should like to see those people again, to inquire about my sister. So we shall go together."

The closest thing to happiness he had yet seen crossed her face. "I would like that."

"You do know what they are, do you not?" She had not seemed to understand the symbol of the fish when they had seen it together that night.

She lifted the board that held the dough and slid the loaf into the domed oven in the corner of the kitchen. "They are Christians. Gentiles who claim that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, but that he came for all people."

Cato inclined his head, surprised at the concise explanation. "Is this something you also believe?"

She turned back from the oven and dusted the flour from her hands. "I do not believe in anything."

Cato chose not to argue, but there was something there. Some flicker of doubt, of curiosity. He recognized it because it had started that way in his heart. But he would not yet speak of his own nearness to accepting this radical faith.

He waited until it grew dark that evening, several hours after the evening meal had been served and cleared, before he sought out Ariella. He found her bent over a pot of thyme in the atrium, clipping its fragrant leaves.

"Ready, Ari?"

She straightened and placed the snipped herbs and the knife in a small basket, then set it on the paving stone in front of the plant.

Cato accepted this as her silent way of agreeing without having to speak. He extended an arm to allow her to walk ahead of him, and did not miss the look of surprise as she pa.s.sed.

They were both silent in the dark street. He had been so determined to avoid this girl. How did he keep finding himself alone with her?

The night air was warm and the city was quiet, save the activity that spilled its noise from the occasional tavern or brothel. Moonlight poured down on the stones and lit up the white cat's eyes like silvery pearls. Occasional footfalls sounded behind them, as though their own pa.s.sage through the city echoed from the stone homes that lined the streets.

They crossed half the city toward Seneca's house before he spoke. "It is the first time I have left the house today."

She did not answer at once. "No need to leave when the city comes to you."

"Not so willingly as I would like."

They turned into the street where Seneca and his wife Europa had their home, and reached their door. Again Cato heard the echo of footsteps behind them. He turned, curious if they had been followed.

Two dark figures shot from a doorway.

Cato raised an arm and stepped between Ariella and the two men.

They lumbered toward him, snarling like rabid dogs. They were two ugly beasts, both with more fat than muscle and matching rotted teeth.

Robberies in the street were uncommon, but perhaps this attack was not about money. He squared his body against them, unsure how he could take them both. "Stay back, Ariella."

But she was beside him a moment later, then in front of him, flying like a barbarian warrior at the thug closest to her. Cato started forward to intervene. The other attacker blocked him and Cato turned on him.

It seemed only an instant later that Ariella was behind her man with a choke hold around his neck. She dropped him, unconscious, to the ground. Cato had taken more punches than he had landed.

Ariella leaped onto the back of the second man and pulled him backward. Cato aimed a kick at his exposed belly.

Somewhere behind them, Cato heard a door open and the shouts of women.