Eventually Love
Chapter Seven
Having heard of the grisly fate of her erstwhile captor from Quintus' early morning visitor, and having inferred that the big, pale man was responsible, Tasa gazed up in awe and nascent adoration at him.
After the frosty reception she'd got when she asked after her fellow slave girls, Tasa didn't dare glance up at the raging senator who was now insisting that Quintus use her as a man uses his wife. Instead, she went to stand beside her…her betrothed and slipped her tiny hand into his huge fist. She didn't know if she wanted to thank him or defend him in some way but she did want him to know that she at least stood beside him, in solidarity.
Quintus snatched his hand away from the girl's and stepped to the side without looking at her.
Tasa hung her head in dejection and Quintus stood as silent and immobile as if he were truly carved out of marble, while the senator continued to snarl and snap like a hunted wolf at bay. Tasa thought he was probably scared of Quintus and over-compensating with aggression.
Eventually there was a pause for breath and Quintus took a pace forward, making the other man swallow hard and step back.
'You may marry us if you wish it,' Quintus said with finality. 'But I will not touch the girl until her child is born.'
The senator stared for a moment, puzzled, and then burst out laughing.
When he stopped, he nodded and smirked. 'You're worried you'll create another Born,' he scoffed. 'Don't be an idiot, Quintus, you can't create anything. Not a son, not another strix, not even a half-breed, NOTHING! You're a sterile hybrid – like a …like a mule.'
There was more laughing from the visitor but Quintus' bunched fists were the only outward hints that he was experiencing an internal struggle not to kill the senator.
Tasa was trying to make sense of the visitor's last outburst. What was a strix? Was that what Quintus was? Why couldn't he create a son? Why did he use the word 'born' like he was naming a thing? Was he saying that Quintus was a 'born', whatever that meant, or that he had already produced one? It definitely sounded like this man thought Quintus was a hybrid. Part human, he must be… look at him! But then, what was the other part?
Eventually, the forced laughter subsided and the visitor, no longer even bothering to fake a smile, gestured towards Tasa with his head. 'Why have you dressed her like a whore?'
'A toga was all I had. I thought she could pass as a little girl.' He looked her over. 'A very fat little girl,' he conceded.
'No, no, no. That won't do at all. The girl will be my daughter-in-law, called by my name. She needs a stola. No…it should be a long tunic until your wedding. Go and fetch one of my daughter's. Her loosest fit. In fact, bring my daughter too. And a slave girl. Someone will have to look after your wife and the house.'
Tasa's eyebrows raised in surprise. She had presumed that all the domestic duties would be her responsibility. But most astonishing was that this extravagantly-dressed man was indicating that Quintus was his son.
Quintus stared, clenching again for a moment and then silently walked out the street door. As he left Tasa alone with the man in the toga, the latter shouted after Quintus, 'And where the hell is quartz?'
Quintus hesitated for a fraction of a second but otherwise pretended not to have heard.
Faustus Sertorius' Domus
Quintus must have been spotted by the family's guards because he was greeted at the open door by Faustus' secretary. A loyal male slave of many years' service named Paulus. Paulus should have been rejected from such visible public duties on account of his squint so Quintus didn't wonder at his gratitude toward his master. He still despised him for it, though.
'I am here for Lucia,' he announced coldly.
Paulus bowed respectfully but remained in place as if waiting for more explanation before surrendering his master's virgin daughter to such a creature.
Quintus looked lazily around the magnificent atrium before sighing and adding, 'The senator wishes her to attend him at my home.'
Paulus bowed again and obeyed without further demur.
Quintus took a seat uninvited. He knew he would have to wait for a young woman to get ready this early in the morning but it was several minutes longer than he had anticipated before Lucia Sertorius arrived. It was not worth it.
Lucia was not ugly exactly but she was not well-groomed. It was obvious she had only been roused from sleep by his summons, possibly not completely, judging by the ill-suppressed yawns. Her dress was on but not neatly arranged, her gold lunula was askew and her hair in particular had clearly refused to submit to the slave-girl's brush. Propriety had been sacrificed to expediency and the tangled mane had been hastily restrained by the dual measures of a headband and hairnet.
Quintus barely noticed and didn't care. He nodded, instructed the hovering Paulus to follow quickly with a slave-girl and an appropriate garment, told Lucia to follow him and turned and left.
Lucia glanced nervously at him but obeyed quietly. Quintus had that effect on people. He certainly had that effect on her. She tried to remember that he was her adopted brother and that he had recently acquired a wife. She wondered what she would be like.