Page 125 of Firebird
Stefanos and his dog, Amica, chased the sheep back into the pen. We’d told him a thousand times that Amica could do it by herself, but he refused to let her do it alone. So here I was at the top of the hill above our new home, sitting on the green grass, watching a gangly boy and his dog herd sheep.
“What’s that smile for?” Julian lowered himself behind me, straddling his legs on either side.
I placed my hands on his woolen pants as he wrapped his arms around my waist and bent forward to kiss the side of my neck. There was an unsealed scroll in his left hand.
“Word from Trajan?”
“Yes. What’s that smile for?”
“Stefanos.”
“Not for me?” He curled his fingers into my ribs and tickled.
I laughed and squirmed until he stopped and buried his face in my hair as he always did. He practically commanded that I leave it down all the time, which was ridiculous because it was a hassle and in the way. Nevertheless, I left it down more often than not.
“I love how happy and carefree he is here,” I finally told him.
Julian watched with me, seeming to see what I did. When I turned my head to look at him, he wasn’t smiling. He was frowning.
“What is it?”
“It’s a shame is all.” His timbre dipped, his expression thoughtful. “He should be able to be this way anywhere. Not just in Britannia, a foreign land so far from his home.”
This weighed hard on Julian. He accepted full responsibility for the failure of their plot to overthrow the emperor and his followers. Even though he said none of the allies directly blamed him—or that’s what Trajan told us—the fact was that it would be more difficult to get to the emperor now. We both knew that. Ciprian had given us little choice, but it didn’t make the current state of affairs any better.
“What of Rome?” I asked soberly.
He heaved a sigh. “The consul Valerius just pushed a new law through the senate.”
“And?”
“No Roman may leave the city without direct permission from the emperor.”
I scoffed and half turned in his arms. “How could he enforce such a law?”
“He’s enlarged his praetorian guard. Special recruits from Legatus Drussus’s legions.”
“What does that mean?”
He swiveled his amber-gold gaze from down the hill to me. “Drussus is as cruel as they come. He’s given orders to kill any Roman trying to fly out of the city at night. He’s also assigned deathriders to guard the skies.”
“But they never discovered any of your allies, have they?”
“No more than Marcus and Phillius.” Those were the two senators who had been seen by Ciprian’s slave and named in the report to the emperor. They’d been killed when they refused to give any other conspirators’ names before the praetorian guards had then gone to Julian’s home the night we fled.
“Thank the gods Trajan’s quick thinking saved himself that night.”
“Indeed.”
After Trajan had killed the final praetorian guard, he’d watched us fly away, then rushed to the emperor’s palace. But he waited in the shadows until we’d had enough time to flee beyond anyone following us and until the shouts of alarm could be heard at the top of the hill. That was when Trajan rushed into the palace, covered in blood, still in half-skin—knowing it was against the law.
When the praetorian guard shifted into half-skin and captured him, the clamor of noise bringing the emperor to the entrance, he told the emperor that Julian was a traitor. That he knew he was going to Ciprian’s to take back his slave girl, and when Trajan went after Julian to stop him, he’d attacked Trajan.
That explained why he was in half-skin and bruised and battered. Trajan had declared angrily that Julian was a traitor. Somehow, being the first one to bring the emperor the news made him more believable. Igniculus didn’t suspect Trajan as part of Julian’s alliance, as far as we knew. If he did, Trajan wouldn’t be sending us messages through our connection in Londinium.
He’d taken up speaking out against Julianus Dakkia in the forum, that it was a heinous betrayal that a general killed another general for a mere slave girl. Interestingly enough, Trajan said he could see who agreed with him and who did not by the looks in their eyes when he spoke out against us. He’d already rallied more allies to their cause that way.
Julian lifted the scroll. “Do you know they actually elected him tribune of the senate?”
