Page 65 of Of Love and Treason
The accident had been his fault. How could he punish the man who had undone his guilt?
He squeezed his eyes shut, the familiar shame shrouding him as the memories surfaced.
He’d been showing off. Worse, he’d been showingheroff.How stupid.How arrogant and selfish. He might have been the youngest Praetorian recruit, but none of the other men could boast a girl like Iris. So, perhaps she wasn’t his girl—not like that—but one could dream, pretend, and Iris had never balked at exploring the city with him and his friends. She’d regarded him with such trust in her eyes when he assured her that walking along the top of the Aqua Marcia was perfectly safe, that they would only climb the low portion, that the view of the Basilica Julia from the top of the aqueduct would thrill her. That others did it all the time. And she’d taken his hand and followed him.
His stomach rolled and sweat beaded his neck.
They’d not gone far when she’d tugged at him to stop, and when he’d glanced over his shoulder, her face was white, body trembling, then crumpling. The memory blurred, shards remaining. Her hand jerking from his. The flash of pale-orange fabric disappearing over the edge. The scream—hers, or his—dying with a sickening thud from below.
He thought he’d killed her. After all this time, the fear and shame still drowned him afresh as he recalled the image of her face, purple and swollen beyond recognition. Why Quintus had allowed him to remain in his house after that baffled him still. And now Valentine had returned what Titus had taken away. Even as a wave of envy swept over him, he knew he could not repay that gift with a charge of treason and a death sentence. What would his father have done? The lawful thing? Or the merciful thing? Why did they seem to be at odds?
Titus would have to divert the investigation away from Valentine somehow. At any rate, he couldn’t tell the trecenarius that his suspect already sat in prison. He needed to get Valentine out of prison and out of the city before anyone found out.
When Titus muttered the password at the gate of the Castra Praetoria, the guard responded that he was needed at the prisonblock. Titus crossed the forty-acre compound at a jog, warding off the absurd feeling that he was going to his own punishment. Now, surrounded by the strength of Rome’s army, his decision to give Valentine time to depart seemed foolish.
The prison warden masked his twisted upper lip by letting the hair grow over it in a bushy black line.
“Name?” the mustache asked.
Mars and Jupiter.“You know who I am, Sidus.”
“Just following procedure.” Sidus shrugged. “If we don’t have law and order, we have nothing. Name?”
Titus twisted past him and strode down the hall as Trecenarius Faustus stepped through a doorway, shutting the door behind him.
Faustus grinned. “Got us a centaur.”
It took Titus a moment to realize he was referring to the standard of the II Parthica legion.
“Found him mouthing off in a tavern about The Cupid. Thought you might find out what he knows. We’ve given him the preliminary beating.”
Titus gave a nod and swung open the door to the questioning room. Every imaginable instrument of torture covered the walls. A man hung in the center of the room, wrists shackled to short chains above his head. The red welts covering him from head to toe streamed with blood and slowly purpled. Trecenarius Faustus shut the door behind Titus but didn’t join him inside.
Titus and the prisoner were alone.
“What’s your name?” Titus kept his back turned and studied a neat row of short-bladed daggers resting in a leather case on the wall.
“Petro,” the man grunted. “I am a freeman, not a slave. It’s against the law to torture me.”
“Not where treason is concerned. You’ve been talking about The Cupid?”
A defiant tilt of his chin. “Everyone’s been talking about The Cupid.”
Titus shrugged and trailed a finger down the row of stained handles. “But not everyone has been brought here.”
“Question away, Speculatore. I don’t know anything.”
“No?” Titus turned away from the daggers and shifted his attention to the brazier of coals. He gave the bellows a few pumps until they glowed red-hot and selected a brand from the wall, shoving it into the coals. “Have you been released from your legion?”
“I served my twenty-five-year term.” The words came slightly slurred through his swollen lip. “I’ve been a good soldier. I haven’t done anything deserving of this.”
“The trecenarius seems to think otherwise.” Titus pumped the bellows again, feeling the heat roll toward him, singeing the hairs on his arms. He lifted the brand, the end glowing yellow.
The ex-soldier licked his lips and watched the end of the brand as Titus twirled it carelessly.
“I said The Cupid was a good man, whoever he is.” The man didn’t take his eyes off the brand. “The legionnaires are going to have a difficult time fighting for an emperor who will not respect their rights of citizenshi—” The last word ended in a roar as Titus jabbed the poker beneath his arm.
“Guard your tongue when you speak of the emperor,” Titus growled. Yet the man spoke truth. Emperor Claudius Gothicus, though he’d started as a general himself, would not long hold the loyalty of his legions if he continued with the marriage ban. Titus didn’t understand why he did not hurry to pass the draft. Perhaps the illness had addled his mind.
