Page 31 of Of Love and Treason
“I’m not incapable of navigating.”
“Forgive me, I didn’t mean—only when I ran into you the firsttime, the Praetorian came.” He trailed off. “I didn’t know if you were meeting... someone.”
“Not this time,” she said. “Titus—the Praetorian—is an old friend. On the rare occasion he’s nearby, he walks me home.”
“Do you live near here?”
“Cedar Street. Do you know it?”
“No.” Valentine patted something—a satchel? “I’m headed to the Quirinal Hill district. Is it on the way?”
“For part of it.”
“Can I walk with you?”
Iris hesitated. She didn’t know him, not really, and Tribune Braccus’s attack left her uneasy at the thought of even walking on a busy street with a strange man. But she desperately wanted answers—if he could, or would, give them. A busy street was as safe as she was going to get. She started walking. “Why do you talk to me?”
“What do you mean?”
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and tugged the edge of her palla lower over her face. “Most people ignore me or, if they must talk to me, act as if I am an imbecile.”
“That sounds frustrating and lonely.”
“Sometimes.”
Water ran in rivulets down the street, chilling Iris’s feet. She wasn’t sure how to broach the subject of his god, so said instead, “You never came back to the bakery.”
“I’ve had early meetings with clients lately. I’ve been dying for a raisin pastry.” There was a dull thumping sound as he patted his stomach. “Though goodness knows I don’t need them. As my aunt so kindly reminds me.”
Metal pans clanged as they neared Minotaur’s Table, warm smells curling through the open doorway and onto the street. Iris’s stomach growled.
“You’ve mentioned your aunt twice now. Does she live with you?” She pressed her arm over her stomach, hoping he hadn’t heard.
He hesitated. “I live withher, more like. She raised me after my mother died and my pater—well, that’s a long story.”
“I’m sorry,” Iris murmured. “I lost my mother too. Do you work in the market?”
“I’m a notarius. Left or right on Alta?”
“Then you work in the Basilica Julia? Take a right on Alta, left on Cedar Street.”
“You know it?”
“It’s my favorite building in the Forum.” She held up her hand, palm toward him. “The Basilica Aemilia is beautiful, too, with all those pink-and-black-speckled columns, but the Julia holds my heart. Pater used to take me there to watch the trials when I was little.”
She sensed his gaze and immediately felt heat climb into her cheeks. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I’ve never met a woman with such passion for architecture before.”
“Much less a blind one?”
He didn’t say anything.
She traced her finger over the rippled scar on her temple that her palla had slipped back to reveal. “I haven’t always been blind, you know. I tried to see the world from the top of an aqueduct and fell.” Her stomach rolled the way it had when she’d taken those first hesitant steps after Titus. He’d been right. The city from that perspective did steal her breath. And then the strength in her knees. The sight from her eyes when the view rushed up to meet her.
She stopped in the street and turned to face him. “Which brings me to the questions I have for you.”
His swallow sounded like it hurt. “Yes?”
