To Love Again - Bertrice Small [18]
“You will remember what I have said, my dear, won’t you?” Quintus Drusus asked his wife as he handed his son to the waiting nursemaid and arose from her bedside. “Our child must be your first consideration.”
Antonia nodded, her blue eyes wide with surprise. This was a side of her husband she had never seen, and she was suddenly afraid. Quintus had always been so indulgent of her. Now, it would seem, he was putting their son ahead of her.
He smiled down at her. “I am pleased with you, Antonia. It has been a terrible time for you, but you have been brave. You are a fit mother for my children.”
He left her bedchamber and made his way to his library. The house was quiet now, without his stepsons running about. In a way, it was sad, but in a few years’ time the villa would ring again with the laughter and shouts of children. His children. A single lamp burned upon the table as he entered his private sanctuary, shutting the door firmly behind him. Only the gravest emergency would cause anyone to disturb him once that door was closed. He had quickly trained the servants after his marriage to Antonia that this room was his sanctum sanctorum. No one came in but at his invitation.
“You did very well,” he told the two men who now stepped from the shadows within the room.
“It was easy, master,” the taller of the two answered him. “Those two nursemaids was easy pickin’s. A little drugged wine, a little fucking, a little more wine, a little more—”
“Yes, yes!” Quintus Drusus said impatiently. “The picture you paint is quite clear. Tell me of the boys. They gave you no trouble? They did not cry out? I want no witnesses coming forward later on.”
“We throttled them in their beds as they slept, master. Then we placed their bodies in the atrium pond. No one saw us, I guarantee you. It was the middle of the night, and all slept. We made that pretty tableau for everyone to find before we done the children. Quite a wicked pair, those girls looked,” the tall man continued. He sniggered lewdly.
“You promised us our freedom,” the other man said to Quintus Drusus. “When will you give us our freedom? We have done as you bid us.”
“I told you that there were two tasks you must perform for me,” Quintus Drusus answered him. “This was but the first.”
“What is the second? We want our freedom!” the tall man declared.
“You are impatient, Cato,” Quintus Drusus said, noting his look of distaste. It amused Quintus Drusus to give his slaves dignified, elegant-sounding identities. “In nine days’ time,” he continued, “my son will be formally named, and a ceremony of purification will be performed. It is a family event to be celebrated within the home. My father-in-law will come from Corinium; my cousin Gaius and his family from their nearby villa. It is my cousin and his family that I want you to study well.
“There is a Celtic festival in May. I remember it from last year. Gaius Drusus allows his slaves their freedom that night from sunset until the following dawn. I intend to pursue the same custom. On that night you will eliminate my cousin and his family. As an extra incentive, you may steal my cousin’s gold from a certain hiding place I shall reveal to you when the time comes. In the ensuing uproar it will take several days for me to discover that those two new slaves from Gaul that I recently purchased are gone. Do you understand me?” He stared coldly at the pair, wondering if there was a way he could eliminate them as well and save himself the possibility of ever being discovered. No. He would have to rely on these two. If he was any judge of men, they would flee as fast as they could back across the sea to Gaul.
“Beltane,” Cato said.
“Beltane?