Valley of Decision by Lynne Gentry

wife.
    In one corner of the spacious room a slave waved a plumed fan. In another corner his faithful bodyguard stacked heavy stone pavers. Under cover of darkness, he and Kaeso had stolen the stones from one of his mother-in-law’s extensive garden paths. Oh, how he hated that his father’s gambling debts had forced him to forfeit his family’s home and move in with his wife’s mother.
    Maximus inhaled deeply, pressed his back to the floor, and then bent his knees. “Place the stones here, Kaeso.” He patted his chest at the indentation just below his breastbone. “I must work on strengthening my projection.”
    His bodyguard’s eyes flitted between him and the stack of pavers. “These stones are heavier than they look, master.” Muscles rippled beneath the sheen of Kaeso’s soot-colored skin. “If you are crushed to death and I am forced to serve Mistress Hortensia, Ishall follow you into the depths of Hades and make certain you are unable to recite a single word in your next life.”
    The tall, broad-shouldered, shiny piece of marble scowling down at him had been with Maximus since his mother killed herself after his noble birth. When Maximus reached the age of needing a playmate, Kaeso had been purchased to become the young master’s personal slave and companion. Thirty-five years later faint traces of the slave’s North African heritage remained in his accent. Maximus had learned that Kaeso had been cut from his mother’s womb by a raiding Roman war party and forced to serve the imperial troops patrolling the southern frontier until he was ten. Poor Kaeso had been angry about the injustice ever since.
    Maximus found it easy to forgive Kaeso’s ill temper, for he too suffered from a life of forced service. Had he been master of his own life, he would have joined a theater troupe years ago and traveled the world with his beautiful wife. Instead, his marriage had saddled him with an ambitious mother-in-law intent on his rise in public office. He prayed to the gods that Hortensia would not live forever. Then he and his lovely Aeliana could do as they pleased.
    Maximus waved his servant forward and patted his bare chest again. “The stones, Kaeso. Add one at a time if you fear me so fragile, but if I’m to be heard by those watching from the theater’s cheap seats I must strengthen my voice.”
    â€œHere’s to your last breath.” Kaeso straddled his chest, and then slowly lowered the paver.
    Air whooshed from Maximus’s lungs. “Oh.” He fought the idiotic tremors of panic and quickly set to work enunciating the drills his acting teacher had given him. Executing the last run of rhyming words had limbered his tongue to perfection when he heard the distinctive click of a woman’s heels upon the marbled hallway. He waved his hands. “The stone, Kaeso. Quickly.”
    â€œGalerius Maximus.” Hortensia breezed into the room, a foulwind that singed the fine hairs upon his chest. She strode to his side and peered down her nose. “Whatever are you doing casting about on my fine carpets like some sort of plebeian?” She snapped her fingers. “Aeliana, come talk sense to your husband before he exposes himself as an utter fool and shames my house.”
    Maximus scrambled to stand, intent on impressing Aeliana to root for him in these regular duels with her mother. “I’m quite capable of standing on my own two feet.” He smoothed his loincloth.
    â€œThat remains to be seen.” Hortensia’s gaze traveled from his hairless chest to the stone in Kaeso’s hands and then on to the pile in the corner. “Are those the new garden pavers I had imported from Egypt?”
    Heat flushed Maximus’s cheeks. “We’ll put them back when I’ve completed my exercises. I promise.”
    She was not amused. “Does your foolish behavior have anything to do with that despicable