He met her eyes then and waved his hand drunkenly. “I free you, then. I’ll buy your paper from her father. I can do that much at least before I go back. Just look after Julia. Is Octavian here?”

“In the stables. I wasn’t sure if he should go back to his mother and . . .”

“Look after him too. He’s my blood and I made a promise. I always keep my promises.” His face screwed up in anguish. “I want you to stay here and run this house. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but when I am I want you to talk about her. You knew her before I did and I want to know everything.”

He was so young, she thought. Young and foolish and learning that life could be bitterly unfair. How long had she waited for love before finding it with Tubruk? Cornelia would have freed her to marry and he would have asked once he’d gathered his courage. Now there was nothing left for her, and the girl she’d nursed as a baby lay still and quiet in another room. When she had the strength, Clodia knew, she would be the one to wrap Tubruk’s battered body and clean his skin for the last time. But not for a while.

“I’ll stay,” she said, and wondered if he heard her.

Chapter 42

                  CHAPTER 42                  

Cato stood in the forum under a dark sky, his toga stripped from his shoulders to reveal a mass of white flesh that shone with running beads of water. His back was marked with stripes where the whips had fallen, the pain only an echo of the anger and disgust he felt for the petty men who had brought him down. Not one of them would have disdained to act as he had, if the opportunity had come. Yet they glared and pointed at him as if they were not of his breed at all. He sneered at them, holding his head high even as the executioner came forward, the long sword gleaming in his hands.

Pompey looked on without a show of the pleasure he felt. He had delayed joining Crassus to see this task finished. He would have preferred to see the fat hands nailed to a wooden beam and displayed in the forum for a lingering death. Such an ending would be more fitting for Cato. At least there had been pleasure as Cato’s family were sold into slavery despite his cries. The house had been given over to the Senate, and the funds raised by its sale would go some way toward financing the legions Pompey took with him against the slaves.