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Contents (82)
  1. Under The Eagle
  2. Under The Eagle
  3. Under The Eagle
  4. Chapter One
  5. Under The Eagle
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Under The Eagle
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Under The Eagle
  10. Chapter Four
  11. Under The Eagle
  12. Chapter Five
  13. Under The Eagle
  14. Chapter Six
  15. Under The Eagle
  16. Chapter Seven
  17. Under The Eagle
  18. Chapter Eight
  19. Under The Eagle
  20. Chapter Nine
  21. Under The Eagle
  22. Chapter Ten
  23. Under The Eagle
  24. Chapter Eleven
  25. Under The Eagle
  26. Chapter Twelve
  27. Under The Eagle
  28. Chapter Thirteen
  29. Under The Eagle
  30. Chapter Fourteen
  31. Under The Eagle
  32. Chapter Fifteen
  33. Under The Eagle
  34. Chapter Sixteen
  35. Under The Eagle
  36. Chapter Seventeen
  37. Under The Eagle
  38. Chapter Eighteen
  39. Under The Eagle
  40. Chapter Nineteen
  41. Under The Eagle
  42. Chapter Twenty
  43. Under The Eagle
  44. Chapter Twenty-one
  45. Under The Eagle
  46. Chapter Twenty-two
  47. Under The Eagle
  48. Chapter Twenty-three
  49. Under The Eagle
  50. Chapter Twenty-four
  51. Under The Eagle
  52. Chapter Twenty-five
  53. Under The Eagle
  54. Chapter Twenty-six
  55. Under The Eagle
  56. Chapter Twenty-seven
  57. Under The Eagle
  58. Chapter Twenty-eight
  59. Under The Eagle
  60. Chapter Twenty-nine
  61. Under The Eagle
  62. Chapter Thirty
  63. Under The Eagle
  64. Chapter Thirty-one
  65. Under The Eagle
  66. Chapter Thirty-two
  67. Under The Eagle
  68. Chapter Thirty-three
  69. Under The Eagle
  70. Chapter Thirty-four
  71. Under The Eagle
  72. Chapter Thirty-five
  73. Under The Eagle
  74. Chapter Thirty-six
  75. Under The Eagle
  76. Chapter Thirty-seven
  77. Under The Eagle
  78. Chapter Thirty-eight
  79. Under The Eagle
  80. Chapter Thirty-nine
  81. Under The Eagle
  82. Chapter Forty

Cato had found himself responding to the slave girl’s smile while the legate’s wife had been speaking and now he snapped his eyes back.

‘Oh no, my lady! Never!’

‘You could have fooled me!’ Flavia laughed. ‘You look like a pair of lovestruck puppies. Honestly, you youngsters only ever have one thing on your minds. You’re worse than rabbits.’

‘No, my lady!’ Cato’s blush deepened to a most unbecoming crimson. ‘I assure you I had no intention—’

‘Peace, Cato! Peace!’ Flavia raised her hands. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m sorry. There, I’ve embarrassed you. I apologise. Do you forgive me?’

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘Oh dear! I really have upset you. I just hope I can make amends when you call round later on. Can’t leave you walking around the base with that look on your face, it’d damage morale.’

‘I’m all right, my lady.’

‘Of course you are. Well, I’ll see you later on then.’

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘Come, Lavinia!’

Lavinia. Cato savoured the name a moment and, as he watched Flavia lead her new purchase away, the slave girl glanced back and winked at him.

Under The Eagle

Chapter Eighteen

The legate’s house was in turmoil, packing cases lay strewn about his private quarters and the household slaves laboured to bed down every breakable item between layers of straw. The slaves, fearful of Flavia’s wrath — she had a fierce temper when provoked and was not above having a slave flogged when the circumstances warranted it — handled the pottery and china with as much care as possible. Besides the breakables, Flavia had to make arrangements for the packing of the linen and personal items of furniture — all of which was being shipped back to Vespasian’s house on the Quirinal in Rome. Flavia and Titus were to accompany him as far as the Gaulish coast and return home once the campaign was launched. By that time the witch-hunt for the surviving members of the Scribonianus conspiracy should have died down and some sort of normality would have returned to the social scene. And Rome was the best place for Titus since they must begin thinking about his education in the near future. Vespasian favoured a strictly vocational training in law and rhetoric and wanted Flavia to begin looking for a tutor as soon as possible. Through the tangle of packing cases and piles of straw weaved a maid-servant, trying to catch Flavia’s eye.

‘What is it?’

‘Someone to see you, mistress. One of the soldiers,’ she said with evident distaste.

‘Who?’

‘An optio.’

‘Cato?’

‘Yes, mistress, that’s what he said his name was.’

‘Very well. I suppose I could do with a little break from all this packing.’

A nearby slave raised his eyes heavenwards.

‘Show the optio through to the study. I’ll be there in a minute. Make him at home and offer the boy something to drink.’

‘Yes, mistress.’

===OO=OOO=OO===

‘I was just thinking about you,’ Flavia said as she breezed into the study, wearing a light silk stola. The room, like most rooms in the legate’s house, was heated by a hypercaust system and Cato was relishing the warmth it provided in the moments before Flavia’s entrance.