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What Matters Most (Light in the Empire)

By Carol Ashby

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Chapter 1: The Assignment

The Urban Cohort guard station in Subura, Day 1

From his desk drawer, Titus Flavius Titianus lifted the dagger that started it all. The source of soul-piercing grief, but God had used what came after to give him treasures on earth and in heaven that he’d thought were impossible.

He traced the pattern of interwoven vines on the brass handle. There was a certain beauty to it until a man thought about what it had done in Arcanus’s hand. But it wasn’t the dagger that was evil. It was only a tool. That’s all any weapon was. It could be used to defend or destroy. It was the heart of the one who used it that made the difference.

Four more days, and his time of service as tribune of the XI Urban Cohort would be over. He no longer regretted spending his military years catching criminals instead of fighting Rome’s wars. He was ready to retire from public life and look after business and family as an ordinary man.

The growl of a throat clearing drew his gaze to the optio in the doorway. "What is it, Gellius?”

Only four days, and that would be a question he’d never ask the junior officer again. It was hard not to smile, but he maintained the aloof expression he’d always worn while on duty.

“Prefect Saturninus is here to see you.”

Titianus drew a deep breath and stopped short of releasing it as a sigh that Gellius would hear. He could count on one hand the times Saturninus had come to one of his guard stations in the last three years. He’d always left Titianus with a thorny problem needing an immediate solution. What could the Urban Prefect want from him with only four days left?

He returned the dagger to the drawer and shut it. The last thing he needed was questions about it from Saturninus. The murder of a teacher of rhetoric had interested his commander only because Titianus suspected the freedman of the prefect’s friend who wanted to be consul. When Arcanus was robbed and murdered before Titianus could question him, Saturninus had ordered the investigation dropped.

The prefect’s glare as he told Titianus to spend no more time on an unimportant matter made that an order he wouldn’t risk disobeying. Justice had been mostly served, and his main suspect was conveniently dead anyway.

“Bring him to me.” Not what he wanted to say, but today he had no choice.

Wearing a frown that was more than halfway to a scowl, Saturninus entered alone.

Why hadn’t he brought the young tribune who was to be Titianus’s replacement?

Titianus stood. “Prefect.” He struck his chest with his fist. “How can I help you?”

Saturninus closed the door behind him, slid the bolt across, and pointed at Titianus’s chair. “Sit.”

An odd command, but Titianus lowered himself into his desk chair. With so many years of practice, he could keep his mouth straight and his eyes calm, but his heart rate ramped up with each step the prefect took toward him.

Saturninus stopped at the edge of the desk. He was already looking down at Titianus, but he tipped his head slightly to press the point of his superior rank home. “My acceptance of your resignation…I’m withdrawing it.”

Titianus fought the urge to cross his arms. Instead, he clasped his hands and rested them on the desk. Saturninus didn’t like questions from subordinates. Silence was the best way to wait for this commander’s explanations.

The slight flare of Saturninus’s nostrils revealed the prefect was not eager to keep him around. So had the beaming smile when he toasted the end of Titianus’s years of faithful service at the last monthly dinner for the tribunes of the Urban Cohort and the Praetorian Guard.

Saturninus cleared his throat. “Hadrian has learned there may be …irregularities in how some imperial business is being conducted. When Turbo and I were reporting on situations worth his notice in Rome, you came up.” His snort was soft, but the disapproval was clear. “Your reputation for incorruptibility seems to have impressed the Praetorian Prefect, and he told Hadrian you were the man for this task.”

The corner of Saturninus’s mouth twitched. “So, it appears you have one more case before you can resign.”

Titianus steepled his fingers and rubbed the side of his nose. Irregularities in imperial business. A tactful way of saying someone of great importance in the governmental hierarchy had done something he shouldn’t. Someone with power to strike at anyone who got in his way, and that could come directly or through his supporters.

A year ago, he would have welcomed this assignment. Any chance to clean up corruption would have fired his enthusiasm and sharpened his focus. If he made enemies doing what was right, so be it. But a year ago he was a single man with no one who would be hurt if his investigation exposed someone too important to punish.

But if he refused, would that start the questions about why he’d changed? About Who had changed him? Would his faith be revealed and his whole familia be put at risk?

Turbo’s recommendation had pinned a target on Titianus’s back. Only one answer to an emperor’s request was possible.

“My return to private life can wait until I serve Rome and Emperor Hadrian by resolving this problem. I withdraw my resignation for now.”

“Good. Officially, you’ll still report to me, but Turbo will provide you the details to begin. He’ll expect you in his office at the fortress tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll be there, prefect.”

“That conversation shouldn’t take very long, so your replacement will be waiting in your office after you finish with Turbo. You can teach him what’s required to do the job like the other tribunes.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “Do not try to make him into another one like you.”

Saturninus stepped back from the desk and walked away. Titianus rose, but he didn’t salute. “As you wish, prefect.”

When Saturninus closed the door behind him, Titianus sank into his chair. Elbows on the desk, he clasped his hands and rested his forehead against them.

God, help me do whatever I must, but please protect those I love from the anger of powerful men if I succeed.

Chapter 2: Freed, but for What?

The Gallus villa north of Rome, morning of Day 1

At the desk by the bedchamber window overlooking the flower garden, Sabina set aside the silver-tipped pen. Her brother Septimus had given it to her as a wedding present. At the Lenaeus School of Rhetoric, he’d used it daily with the inkwell made of lustrous red clay encircled by cream-colored vines. He’d told her to remember him every time she used them. Who would have thought such trifles would become treasures, bringing back memories of a happier time?

She capped the inkwell and blew gently on the papyrus until the shine on the last letters vanished, proclaiming them dry. With the sheet held at arms’ length, she scanned her latest poem. Another ode to add to the collection no one would read but her.

Almost no one. Filomena, her lady’s maid, would read it to her later so she could hear with her ears the cadence of the words that had sung inside her head.

A movement drew her gaze to a break in the curtain of leaves in the closest tree. A newly fledged bird wiggled its wings, its chirps rising in pitch until its mother pushed a moth into its mouth. Then mother flew away to find another insect, and baby stilled to await its mother’s next gift.

Oh, to be as free as the creatures of forest and field. Sabina drew a deep breath and released it as a sigh. Six years ago, at the age of sixteen, she’d moved with eager anticipation from her father’s town house to her new father-in-law’s villa.

It wasn’t a love match, but she’d never expected one. She was a Flavius Sabinus. It was a political alliance between two leading senatorial families. Grandfather had arranged it, as he did almost everything. She’d met her betrothed only once before the marriage ceremony. Marcus Gallus was twenty-two, handsome, and muscled. and he laughed at all the right places as he and his father conversed with Father and Grandfather.

Each time he looked at her, his eyes lit with approval. That triggered a blush, and a teasing smile joined a raised eyebrow or wink before his attention returned to the older men.

She’d said almost nothing. Nervous as she was, her voice would have betrayed her. With close family, her stutter was barely noticeable. With strangers, it slowed her speech until some looked away and started talking with someone else. With her newly betrothed, magnificent in his shiny brass cuirass and aura of confidence, she’d feared it might make him think her too slow-witted to wed.

Mother always said the stutter wouldn’t matter. Just listen attentively, nod in agreement, and make herself silently pleasant. She was pretty and graceful, and that plus the Sabinus name was enough to make any young nobleman eager to marry her. Father said more than a dozen fathers had asked Grandfather about uniting the two families. She was a matrimonial prize.

But being desired for the wrong reason was far worse than no one wanting you. The last six years had proven that.

Beside the desk sat a small wooden chest carved with vines and flowers. After lifting the chain holding its key over her head, she unlocked it and added the sheet to the stack. Tomorrow she’d write an ode to the nestling and the faithfulness of its mother. Her mind would fill with wonderful words, whirling and dancing inside her. With pen in hand, she’d wait for just the right ones to capture the tiny creature’s attempts to leave its tree-bound existence and fly.

If only it were that easy for her to be free.

The door swung open, and Filomena stepped through and closed it. “A horse courier just came. Terrible news from Britannia. Master Marcus…he’s dead.”

Sabina’s hands flew up to cover her mouth. “How?”

“Vitula said it was a hunting accident. His horse threw him when a boar charged, and his neck broke.”

Sabina sank into the desk chair and closed her eyes. She’d been counting down the days until he would return from Britannia, but it wasn’t because she wanted him back.

The handsome young man who made her feel wanted with winks and smiles before the marriage ceremony had come to the bridal bed two hours late and stumbling drunk.

With slurred words, he declared what he wanted, and when she tried to speak, the words wouldn’t come. As she struggled to get past the sticking letters, he mimicked each repeated sound and every pause. That only made it worse.

When he told her it wasn’t worth the wait to hear what she might say, she stopped trying.

What should have been the happy beginning of a shared life together became something to be endured until he would join the Legio VI Victrix in Britiannia six months after they wed.

“Where is his mother?”

Asinia Marcella thought Marcus the embodiment of all perfections. She joined her son in mocking Sabina’s speech, and they thought it good sport to see who could be meaner. When he left for Londinium and no grandchild was on the way, she proclaimed Sabina at fault and sought consolation in continuing to berate Sabina for her many defects, real and imagined.

If she’d been an ordinary Roman woman, she wouldn’t have had to bear it. But she knew better than to ask Grandfather to let her divorce him. He would never sanction a disruption of his alliance with Lucius Aurelius Gallus merely because Gallus’s wife was meaner than a weasel.

Asking Father to ask Grandfather wouldn’t have changed that. Family reputation was more important to both of them than her happiness.

But no matter how cruel Asinia had been, no mother deserved to lose her son.

“I heard wailing coming from the atrium.”

Sabina rose and took Filomena’s hand. “Ss-stay here out of sight. I don’t want Asinia doing something to you to strike at me.” She squared her shoulders. She’d never gone to the games to watch gladiators fight, but was this how they felt before walking out onto the sand?

Onto the balcony and down the stairs, her feet carried her where she didn’t want to go. The philosophers claimed true courage wasn’t the absence of fear. It was doing what should be done in spite of it. Grandfather and Father would expect her to rise above personal feelings and speak condolences to her husband’s grieving mother, even if some part of her wasn’t sorry she’d never see Marcus again.

The wails Filomena heard had quieted into sobs, but Sabina was still able to follow them into the peristyle garden. Asinia sat in her favorite wicker chair, face in her hands, shoulders shaking.

What to say? If Marcus had been a man she could love or even one she could like, Sabina would have knelt at her mother-in-law’s feet, taken her hands, and joined her in heartfelt tears. But any display of grief on her own part would have to be faked, and Asinia would know it.

With slow, deliberate steps, she approached the grieving mother. Five feet from her, Sabina stopped and cleared her throat. “I’m s-sorry.”

That was both true and short enough that she sounded almost normal.

Asinia’s hands dropped to the arms of the chair and gripped them tight enough to whiten her knuckles. “Sorry? No, you aren’t.” Pain vanished from the woman’s eyes. It was replaced by fury. “You never cared for Marcus. You were worthless as a wife. You utterly failed in your duty to give him an heir. It’s your fault I have no grandson to love as I loved him.”

She pushed off the arms and rose. “I should never have let my husband bring you into this house just to seal an alliance with your grandfather.”

Sabina clamped her jaw. It wasn’t her fault Marcus had failed to father a son. Even when he condescended to lie with her, he left as soon as he finished to take his pleasure with someone else. How she longed to argue with the vixen who’d made sure he had access to anyone he wanted, but the words hung in her throat. Past experience had taught her it was better to say nothing.

Asinia took a step toward her, and Sabina stepped back.

As Sabina moved farther out of striking range, Asinia shook her finger at her. “But maybe you would have ruined any child by passing on your defects. A noble Roman must be an orator, and no one wants to ll-listen to ss-speech like yours.”

Sabina’s eyes narrowed. For six years, she’d put up with this woman’s abuse because Grandfather had decreed it. But Marcus’s death ended the formal alliance. She was free to return to her father’s house…until Grandfather decided otherwise.

“Ll-lend me your carriage and bodyguards.” She tipped back her head to look down her nose as Asinia had done to her every day since she came. “I’ll leave today.”

The woman who’d tormented her for six years swept the tears from her cheeks and scowled. Her nose wrinkled as if smelling something five-days dead. “Nothing could please me more. Take only what you brought when you came. Nothing my son gave you should leave here."

What her son gave her? Only cruel words and physical neglect. He’d preferred the slave girls to their marriage bed, and she didn’t even have a child to make up for six years with this gorgon and her son.

But perhaps that was better. Grandchildren belong to the paterfamilias, and Lucius Gallus never refused his shrew of a wife when it was easier to give in to her demands. Asinia would have kept every grandchild to ruin as she’d ruined her son. Sabina would have been forced to leave them behind with the jewels that were only given to her to show off the family wealth at banquets.

“My gg-grandfather’s money bought the Horatius ss-scrolls.” She took a deep breath. “And Ss-statius’s Silvae.” Another deep breath. “I’m taking them all.”

Shoulders squared and head high, she strode from the room.

One small trunk for the scrolls, the chest holding her own poetry, a chest for the few personal items she’d brought with her, and another trunk for everything else. She and Filomena could be packed in an hour and on their way back to Rome.

Like the baby bird in the tree, she was on the verge of freedom. She stepped into her room, closed the door, and tipped her head back against its sculpted panels. Filomena stared at her, but she couldn’t keep her lips from curving into the happiest smile in years.

Freedom. That would be the glorious theme for tomorrow’s first poem.

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