When Gambling (Love and Warfare Series Book 2) Read online

  “Those are magnificent horses.” Eric ran his gaze over the steeds.

  “Try them if you like.” Marcellus tossed the reins to Eric.

  Moving off the chariot, Marcellus swept his gaze over Edna and Cara.

  Under his gaze, Cara became acutely aware of the coarse brown smock she wore. Why did men like this even talk to her and Edna?

  Eric leaped onto the chariot.

  “Have you ever ridden a chariot?” Victor looked at Cara.

  She shook her head.

  “Give her a ride, Eric.”

  The horses strained against the reins as Eric gripped the leather, pulling back against the steeds. “If you wish,” Eric said, his gaze on the horses, not her.

  Ride a chariot! Cara gazed at the exotic platform, so different from the lumbering work carts that hauled supplies across town.

  Eric moved to the right, making space for her. Cara stepped closer and he reached down for her, holding the taut reins in just one hand as his bare arm bulged with the effort.

  Her boot felt rooted to the dirt. Touch a patrician? Then again, one doesn’t say “no” to a noble.

  She touched her hand to his and he closed his fingers around hers. Her knees wobbled as he pulled her up. His bare chest almost touched her now, and he was huge.

  Heart pounding, she found footing on the light wicker weave. Eric gave the steeds their head. The reins draped over his big hands. He leaned forward. His sweaty arms bulged again as he pulled the horses left, circling the curve.

  The wind tangled in her hair, ripping off her palla. She smiled at him. “You drive as swiftly as Hercules.”

  He jolted away from her. For one moment he stared at her, then the chariot rounded another curve. Eric urged the horses faster.

  With an earsplitting crack, the wheel gave way and spun away from the chariot. The floor lurched and her fingers flew off the wicker as she fell backward.

  Her senses pounded, heart throbbing, darkness closing in.

  Eric dropped the reins and lunged for her.

  They plummeted together. He hit the ground first as he pulled her against the protection of his body. His shoulder hit the ground and she crashed against him, then they started rolling away from the chariot.

  The motion stopped, leaving her laying on top of him, her head against his sticky chest as his arm wrapped around her.

  She jumped off him, but her heart kept thundering.

  Her body shook.

  She heaved for breath, as when her mother died, and she had her first of these spells. As always, the shame-filled thoughts pounded against her wits.

  It’s your fault your mother succumbed to fever. You shouldn’t have let her labor so hard.

  The darkness closed in.

  Dread swept over her.

  A scream stuck in her throat.

  Cara couldn’t make the thoughts stop. You’re not virtuous like Pruella. Even God wouldn’t want you.

  Why did these spells happen? Pruella’s mother would call her possessed.

  “Sorry about the spill. That was as stulte of me as Icarus’ mistake.” Blood mixed with dirt across Eric’s bare forearms and back, bruises already forming where his body had hit the ground first. He extended his hand to her, like Hercules.

  Her heart slowed. She gripped Eric’s hand and the warmth of his skin drove back the darkness as the thoughts faded. She breathed again. “Icarus?”

  “The Grecian myth about their escape from Crete. I saw the site of the legend last year on a trip to Greece.” His taut muscles brushed her back as he helped her stand. “Walk a little. See if anything hurts.”

  “Will you tell me about it, please? And Greece? I need to know for when I go there someday.”

  Eric looked at her. He stood so tall and was built like a Celt, though his brown hair and the fine linen wrapped around his thighs marked him as a Roman. He had the deepest brown eyes. “When? I doubt I’ll ever see you again, especially after I gave you that tumble. Are you sure nothing hurts?” He touched her elbow, steadying her.

  “I’m well, thanks to your heroics, and you’re the one who won’t want to see me again after those gashes.” She indicated just under his ribs where blood oozed. If she had warm water and marigold oil, she’d bandage that for him.

  He shrugged. “I needed a few scars. Don’t want to look weak.”

  “You could never look weak.” The field faded as her gaze connected with his, like two souls joining hands.

  “We have to go, Cara,” Edna called from across the track. “I’ve got the merchant’s wedding.”

  Victor flicked the loose ends of Edna’s hair. “You have to go. She could stay.”

  “Don’t even think about it.” Edna mock-struck her fist against his shoulder. “Cara, now. I’m late.”

  Cara turned a pleading gaze up to Eric. “Next time I come, will you tell me about Greece?”

  He smiled, the expression as warm as his hands had felt. “All right.”

  “Victor.”

  Finishing the wine in one swallow, Victor followed his father’s angry voice into the tablinum.

  Hunched over the table, the old man glared at the world with his crippled leg gathered up beneath him. “Found out anything from the Paterculi boy?”

  Victor slumped onto a stool. “I’m beginning to doubt Eric knows anything about his father the legate’s shipping enforcement.” Why wouldn’t the youth participate in any of the vices common to patrician males?

  “Legate Paterculi’s soldiers seized three more of our smuggled shipments this month.” Like yesterday, Father upended the table and wood splintered against tiles. “If you ever want to get out of this accursed province exile, I’d suggest caring.”

  “What do you wish me to do?” Victor glowered at an ivory tusk hanging from the wall. Eric should be embarrassed at how little he’d seen of worldly ways, but instead, he made his own choices, swatting away his ridicule.

  “Find out if the Paterculi raids are random or if they suspect us and are targeting our merchant ships. If Eric doesn’t have information, we’ll use him for extortion against Legate Paterculi to pay the Viri’s demands.”

  The Viri demanded a percentage of each smuggler’s haul in payment for their protection, and the Viri killed those who didn’t pay. The plaster wall dug into Victor’s back as he squirmed. “Eric just wants to win an athletic competition. Do we have to use him?”

  “Weakling. You’ll die in a hovel in northern Britannia with that infirm philosophy.”

  Victor dropped his gaze to the tile. Would that he didn’t care about his father’s ridicule. “All right.”

  His father leaned forward. “Then let me explain the plan….”

  Chapter 2

  Rhetoric – the ability to communicate useless knowledge and bore thousands with a single speaker.

  Eric shoved back against the wall as the Grecian rhetor droned through the cumulative lesson.

  Lavish furniture dotted the room. Several dozen young men sat on couches and chairs.

  Eric’s twin brother, Wryn, took the stage. “The battle of Thermopylae teaches us lessons to apply to modern conflicts such as the Dacian wars. Spartan strategy required that – ”

  The rhetor, a spare man of diminutive height, smiled. Wryn would get high marks and earn Father’s praise, again.

  A fly buzzed across the arched ceiling as Eric stared at his scribbled notes. He shifted his gaze to the youths scattered around the room. Two score and the rhetor. Sweat built on Eric’s hands as the sentences on the yellow wax swam before his eyes.

  Wryn finished and the rhetor pointed to Eric.

  Eric pressed his sandal against the tile. First principle of oratory, exude confidence. Failure.

  “Stand here.” The rhetor took the tablet from him.

  Eric gulped down rising acid. All around, eyes bore into him as perspiration built underneath his tunic.

  The rhetor coughed. “You may start now.”

  Start? Yes, he’d picked a topic. What to
pic? His wits went blank. Eighty eyes stared at him.

  The rhetor allowed no notes. Real rhetoricians spoke from their enormous reserves of intellect. Ha! The Paterculi intellect had skipped him.

  A pudgy youth snuck a biscuit.

  Eric’s stomach churned as his midday meal threatened to reappear. “Bread.”

  “What about it?” The rhetor stared across his thin-bridged nose.

  “Bread causes wars.”

  “What?”

  “Hunger is a human drive.” The ground swayed under Eric’s feet. “In the Republic, Socrates said something about soldiers bonding by eating together.”

  The rhetor glared at him. “Take your seat. My time is too valuable to waste on fools.”

  Failure. Eric sank back onto his stool. He examined a crack in the grout as the others spoke, all doing better than he. At least he excelled at the pentathlon.

  The rhetor thumped the table. The man’s voice alone could make one’s head ache. “And now for your final marks.”

  Finally! Eric dropped his stylus. At eighteen, this was, hopefully, his last year of formal instruction, though Father would have tomes of Dacian war news to press upon him. Nothing made sense about military strategy. The maps, the figures, the tactics of warfare, they all mixed together in a muddled mess.

  Father said he had to learn it to have a career, but he didn’t want a political career. He wanted to start his own pentathlon training school right here in Camulodunum. The only problem was, Paterculis didn’t run training schools, they became statesmen.

  Students wound their way around furniture as the rhetor called out names. Pushing through them, Eric grabbed a tablet that bore the name Paterculi and headed for the door.

  The still afternoon air hung over the street like a tomb, the wet heat fogging the horizon. Two streets from the house, Wryn caught him. Refuse lined the edge of the street, sending a reeking odor into the hot air.

  Wryn jerked to a halt in the middle of the road. “How could I have failed the military strategy course?”

  A cart driver jerked his sorry nag to the left moments before he’d have run into Wryn. Wryn peered more intently at his tablet. “Oh, wait. These are your grades.” Shoving the tablet toward Eric, he grabbed his own.

  Eric glanced at the new tablet. Failure. Again.

  Wryn skimmed his long fingers down his own tablet, probably all meritorious achievements. Father favored Wryn for a reason. “I can’t believe you failed military strategy.”

  Jaw clenching, Eric kicked a rock. “I scored higher than you in Greek literature.”

  “You’re supposed to pass all the tests.”

  Silence hung in the air as no answer came to Eric’s tongue. He’d burned through dozens of rush wicks pouring over the military strategy instructions. The figures simply wouldn’t come together. He turned down the side street that led to the training grounds.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Not home. I don’t need Father and you yelling at me.”

  “Coward.” Wryn’s voice vibrated through the alley.

  Not a coward, a failure. Eric kicked a protruding cobblestone. A man turned up the cross street. “Victor?” Eric squinted into the afternoon sun.

  “Coming to the training fields today?” Victor called out.

  Eric nodded and turned to Wryn. “Want to try your discus throw against mine?”

  “I have smugglers to catch. Also, I detest the Ocellis.” Wryn rested his hands on his belt. “And remember, there’s the Dacia speaker tonight.”

  “I was trying to forget.” Shops closed in around Eric as he strode toward the training grounds. Perhaps a wrestling bout would dull the humiliation of this afternoon. He also had to take a look at Marcellus’ chariot, which he, like a fool, had broken showing off. Though how could he regret that? She’d called him Hercules.

  Hercules didn’t even drive a chariot. The bewitching girl apparently knew nothing about Greek myths, or him.

  Still, no one had ever called him Hercules.

  He shook his head, clearing it. Five months until the Londinium pentathlon. A win there would gain him entrance to the Olympic Games next summer and the credentials to open his own training school. Perhaps then, he’d earn Father’s approval.

  Cara looked toward the forge. “Father, would you let me find work as a nursemaid and go to Greece with one of the merchant families?”

  “Nursemaid? If you wish to tend babes, marry Conan and have your own.” Father dipped a red-hot blade into cold water. Conversation paused until the hiss and the steam abated.

  “I don’t wish to tend babes. I wish to see Greece.” She’d settle for seeing any place outside of Camulodunum. Cara twirled the stylus between her fingers. Yesterday, Eric had described the Parthenon for her. She’d never met someone as eloquent as him.

  “You’d not see anything beyond the four walls of a nursery. Girls only subject themselves to servitude when they have no dowry.”

  As if marrying Conan and tending baby after baby of his didn’t equal servitude? “In the evenings, though, I could tour the land. See Athens, the Parthenon.”

  “As a woman alone with no protector?” Father ran his finger down the newly-forged blade. “Madness.”

  “I’d take care.”

  “Care?” Father spun on his heel. “You need a man’s sword arm to halt bandits and unscrupulous lechers, not care.”

  “But, Father, I want to.”

  “No more of these foolish notions, Cara. I won’t have my only daughter assaulted wandering foreign lands.” Father wrapped a piece of cloth around the blade.

  Alas for that plan. Cara snapped the wood cover shut over the wax. “I’m heading to Edna’s.”

  “Take some nails with you.” Father bent over his anvil. “Their roof is collapsing and I know they can’t afford to fix it.”

  Snagging a sack, Cara exited and scurried around tilting carts and potholes. On the left, a pile of ashes and burnt boards marked the spot where yet another hearth fire had flamed out of control. Almost naked children played in front of run-down houses. When Mother lived, she’d woven cloth for the street children and helped the ones who would freeze by winter without it. Cara smiled at the memory. She should weave cloth for the children too.

  The door to Edna’s hovel hung open. Within, Edna’s mother stood over a boiling kettle. She had a wooden laundering paddle in her hand, but she looked ready to use it on Edna. “I caught you with a man.”

  “We were just talking.” Edna clasped a squirming child to her hip.

  “Talking passionately. Which leads to kissing, illegitimate children, and destitution. Peddlers are renowned for their lewdness.”

  “What if I want to pursue diversion? Find love mayhap?” Edna jounced the squirming child.

  “You think I don’t know the foolhardiness love drives? And I, at least, got marriage papers.” Edna’s mother grabbed the cauldron’s handle.

  “Barely, if the rumors are true.”

  “You hush up, Edna. I’m your mother and I will have your respect.”

  “You have my work from sun up to sun down. One would think that’d be enough.” Turning to Cara, Edna shoved the child into Cara’s arms and then grabbed the cauldron handle.

  The child slammed its skull into Cara’s chest as she followed Edna and her mother outdoors and thought of another excellent reason to say “no” to Conan’s offer.

  After emptying the cauldron into a basin, Edna wiped red hands on her worn-out skirt.

  “The peddler wasn’t even handsome, you know. I just wanted a cheaper price on his wares.”

  And if the peddler had been handsome? Like Eric at the training fields. Cara twirled her finger into a loose strand of hair and decided not to voice that thought aloud. “My father sent you a gift of nails for the roof.”

  “Your father is a good man.” Edna’s mother eyed the broken roof and sighed. “Though it’s no task I can do.”

  A whistle cleft the air. A man approached from the south
, swinging a leg of meat dripping blood. He was young and built sturdy, but he had a thickset face.

  Edna’s mother smiled. “Alexandros.”

  “Dinner.” Alexandros forced the meat into her hands. One of Edna’s barefoot younger siblings tackled him.

  Grabbing the child, Alexandros swung him up. “If I close my shop an hour early, I can use those nails to fix your roof.”

  “You’re too good to us,” Edna’s mother said.

  “Least I can do after your husband saved my life.”

  Whirling around, Cara stared at the young man. She hadn’t thought anyone in this whole town held a good opinion of Edna’s father.

  Edna’s mother made a face.

  “I know,” Alexandros said. “Not the best husband, but you should have seen him when he saved my life. I was lost and chilled to the bone when I fell into that hunter’s snare. Your husband cut the ropes and hauled me out.”

  Edna’s mother shifted the beef shank. “Speaking of husbands, when will you take a wife?”

  Ears turning red, Alexandros laughed. “I’ve considered it. Know any girls who pine after me?”

  Cara blinked and looked more closely at the man’s ruddy face. Stiff cow hairs stuck to the animal blood staining his thick hands. Unlike this man, Conan focused on his feelings toward her, rather than her thoughts on the matter.

  Edna’s mother wiped her work-worn knuckles on her scant dress. “There’s my Edna.”

  “Mother!”

  “Ha. As if she’d take me.” Alexandros smiled and flicked a pebble toward Edna.

  Edna snagged it. “You wouldn’t want me.”

  “True, I’d prefer a wife I could trust when I turned my back on her.” His black eyes held merriment.

  Edna tossed the pebble back. “Why are you turning your back? Face not handsome enough to hold a woman’s attention?”

  “Edna, that was rude.” Her mother glared at her.

  “Yea, listen to your mother.” The pebble fell through Alexandros’ fingers as he turned away and plodded back the way he’d come.

  With a shrug, Edna swiveled to Cara. “Want to serve at the dinner tonight?”

  “What dinner?”

  “I’m catering for Victor’s father and we’re short-staffed. It’s good pay and you should see the houses at these events. Decorated past believing; glass, gold, candles.”