the construction here in Iol-Caesaria, you can make better use of stone than I can!”
It is an astonishingly generous gift. “I’m so grateful. Truly, I cannot tell you how glad I am to have you here for the Saturnalia. I only wish it didn’t mean we’ll have to face your father’s wrath come springtime.”
“Oh, Selene, you need not worry about my father’s wrath. Did you really believe that I let a sailor of low birth bed me just so that I might blackmail him into sailing across the narrow strait?”
I know the look in her eye when she means to tell me something vital and the hairs rise on my nape. “How should I know what to believe when you play such games with me?”
Julia gives a rueful smile that fades into sadness. “I’m sorry I deceived you. It’s just that I wanted time with you that belonged only to me. Time I didn’t have to share with my father.”
Disentangling myself from her, I begin to sit up. “I need you to explain yourself . . .”
She sighs with regret. “I half convinced myself that I was acting upon my own desires instead of being pushed like a piece upon a game board between men vying for power. I hope you’ll forgive me . . .”
“How can I forgive what I don’t understand?”
“Fine. I’ll make it plain. I left Agrippa at my father’s command.”
“At your father’s command?” But that makes no sense at all, unless . . . “So the emperor means to break from his alliance with Agrippa. Has he grown so powerful in Rome that he no longer needs his best general?”
Julia gives a delicate shrug. “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been in Rome since my marriage, and my husband censors my letters. But my father has ways of getting word to me through the soldiers. It was my father who gave me the means to leave Agrippa and come here.”
The grinding gears of imperial intrigue have grown rusty in my mind, but now they start to turn again. “ Sweet Isis. Your father must be planning some move against Agrippa. Is there to be another civil war?”
Julia stares down, twisting her betrothal ring around and around the fourth finger of her hand. “I don’t know. I only know this is the only mission my father has ever set for me other than to marry the men he chooses and bear children for them. I couldn’t refuse him.”
It doesn’t surprise me that the emperor would use Julia’s desperate need for approval against her. But it does surprise me that she remains so stubbornly loyal to such a father. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me. It is, I begin to think, the Roman way. “Meanwhile, your husband returns to Rome, unaware of the trap . . .”
She has too long been the daughter of Augustus for my implication to startle her. “I cannot believe that Agrippa is in any danger. My father cannot mean to make a widow of me a second time. He simply intends for a new ordering of their partnership. A new understanding. A negotiation . . .”
The emperor once described Julia as a kind of hostage that his powerful and increasingly independent general held against him; now, with Agrippa returning to Rome with his legions, the emperor has sent Julia to me for safekeeping, and I wonder at the significance of that. “Why here? Why did he make you flee to Mauretania?”
“It was the nearest client kingdom, though I’m sure there are other, more personal reasons.” She doesn’t say what those reasons are and I don’t ask. We’re both too shrewd for that.
“But, Julia, Agrippa has your children . . .”
“They’re his children, or so he insists. My loyalties aren’t torn, Selene. I am of the Julii . I must do as my father commands. As must we all.” Her eyes are strangely intent on me now, all the gaiety gone from them. Then she says quietly, very quietly, “I have never understood what passes between you and my father.”
If I have my way, she never will, for it is something too wicked to name. Something I have banished to the past, buried in my dark
It is an astonishingly generous gift. “I’m so grateful. Truly, I cannot tell you how glad I am to have you here for the Saturnalia. I only wish it didn’t mean we’ll have to face your father’s wrath come springtime.”
“Oh, Selene, you need not worry about my father’s wrath. Did you really believe that I let a sailor of low birth bed me just so that I might blackmail him into sailing across the narrow strait?”
I know the look in her eye when she means to tell me something vital and the hairs rise on my nape. “How should I know what to believe when you play such games with me?”
Julia gives a rueful smile that fades into sadness. “I’m sorry I deceived you. It’s just that I wanted time with you that belonged only to me. Time I didn’t have to share with my father.”
Disentangling myself from her, I begin to sit up. “I need you to explain yourself . . .”
She sighs with regret. “I half convinced myself that I was acting upon my own desires instead of being pushed like a piece upon a game board between men vying for power. I hope you’ll forgive me . . .”
“How can I forgive what I don’t understand?”
“Fine. I’ll make it plain. I left Agrippa at my father’s command.”
“At your father’s command?” But that makes no sense at all, unless . . . “So the emperor means to break from his alliance with Agrippa. Has he grown so powerful in Rome that he no longer needs his best general?”
Julia gives a delicate shrug. “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been in Rome since my marriage, and my husband censors my letters. But my father has ways of getting word to me through the soldiers. It was my father who gave me the means to leave Agrippa and come here.”
The grinding gears of imperial intrigue have grown rusty in my mind, but now they start to turn again. “ Sweet Isis. Your father must be planning some move against Agrippa. Is there to be another civil war?”
Julia stares down, twisting her betrothal ring around and around the fourth finger of her hand. “I don’t know. I only know this is the only mission my father has ever set for me other than to marry the men he chooses and bear children for them. I couldn’t refuse him.”
It doesn’t surprise me that the emperor would use Julia’s desperate need for approval against her. But it does surprise me that she remains so stubbornly loyal to such a father. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me. It is, I begin to think, the Roman way. “Meanwhile, your husband returns to Rome, unaware of the trap . . .”
She has too long been the daughter of Augustus for my implication to startle her. “I cannot believe that Agrippa is in any danger. My father cannot mean to make a widow of me a second time. He simply intends for a new ordering of their partnership. A new understanding. A negotiation . . .”
The emperor once described Julia as a kind of hostage that his powerful and increasingly independent general held against him; now, with Agrippa returning to Rome with his legions, the emperor has sent Julia to me for safekeeping, and I wonder at the significance of that. “Why here? Why did he make you flee to Mauretania?”
“It was the nearest client kingdom, though I’m sure there are other, more personal reasons.” She doesn’t say what those reasons are and I don’t ask. We’re both too shrewd for that.
“But, Julia, Agrippa has your children . . .”
“They’re his children, or so he insists. My loyalties aren’t torn, Selene. I am of the Julii . I must do as my father commands. As must we all.” Her eyes are strangely intent on me now, all the gaiety gone from them. Then she says quietly, very quietly, “I have never understood what passes between you and my father.”
If I have my way, she never will, for it is something too wicked to name. Something I have banished to the past, buried in my dark
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