The Patrician's Fortune- A Historical Romance (34 page)

“You will wait here,” intoned the butler.

Only because he chose to. Damon roamed the atrium. It had been six months since he’d last seen his mother, the longest he’d gone since finding her. After his manumission, finding his family had been his first priority. Jared had offered assistance by using his influence to locate the slaver who had handled the transaction for his family. The man had proved to be a poor record keeper and no entries for either himself or his sisters were found. Damon’s bitter disappointment had been tempered at the discovery of a bill of sale for one thirty-year-old woman named Chryse to a Greek resident of Alexandria.

Damon had been thrilled. After all, he’d spent the better part of his servitude living with Jared in that very city. The thought that his mother may have passed him on the street or labored in a nearby household all those years had filled him with hope.

Night and day he’d followed leads, questioned informants, honing skills he’d later employed as a spy. Finally, after three months of intensive searching, he’d received information that a woman named Chryse known to be from Rome was living in a modest villa on the outskirts of the city. Nearly sick with excitement he had raced to the designated street only to discover the house to be a brothel and the mother he’d not seen in eight years was the proprietor.

Echoes of emotion still rang at the memory. Shame, horror, renewed anger at his father—at his
mother
for circumstances she’d had no more control over than he. He’d thought to walk away, just leave, but too many years of yearning for a mother’s comfort gave him the strength to knock on the door. Once he’d recovered from the shock of finding his mother in those circumstances, he’d forced himself to listen to her tale.

Sold into sexual servitude by the Greek entrepreneur who had purchased her, his mother had spent two years catering to the desires of wealthy clients. Smitten by his beautiful and profitable slave, her master had granted Chryse her freedom and on his death, willed her the establishment.

She was a Roman matron, Damon had angrily reminded her and she, given the same temperament as her son, had vehemently reminded him that it was her husband, a Roman
equite
of good name and noble family who had put her into this position and—he could still hear her voice choking with emotion—sent her children into slavery. One did what one must to survive she’d added in a strained whisper.

Damon thought of his own choices. Survival. Some of the hardest choices in life stemmed from that one goal.

“Damon, my son.”

Damon turned to the sloping steps leading to the upper floor and watched his mother glide down them. Chyrse was still a beautiful woman, her face only slightly creased at the eyes which were as silver gray as his own. Roused from sleep, she wore a plain robe of turquoise and her rich, brown hair was pulled back in a simple braid. Her face was free from the heavy makeup of her trade presenting Damon with the mother he’d always loved.

“Mother, you look well,” he said, accepting her embrace and kissing both of her smooth cheeks.

“I am always well when I see my children.” She gripped his hands and searched his eyes. “Lita?”

Damon glanced down at their clasped hands. “She remains in Tertius’ household.”

His answer seemed to deflate Chryse and for a moment, the illusion of youthfulness paled. She forced a smile, patted his hand. “I know you will earn her freedom soon. You have worked so hard, first for Tullia who, thank the gods, thrives with her new husband. You will see our Lita free.”

He took a steadying breath. “Mother, I am no longer in service to Tertius.”

Chryse’s brave expression crumbled and Damon could almost hear her hopes crashing to the tile beneath their feet. Old feelings of responsibility and guilt surfaced, gnawed at his heart which clutched at the look of despair in his mother’s eyes.

“I...I do not understand,” she said in a hoarse voice.

Damon looked around, noted they were alone save the bug-eyed servant though in this type of establishment the walls were known to have ears. “Is there some place private we can speak?”

Chryse hesitated then nodded and after giving her man instructions to have refreshments brought to her chamber, laced her cold hand in Damon’s and led the way up the stairs.

Damon balked at entering his mother’s sleeping chamber, not with the knowledge of what occurred there most nights. Chryse’s lips tilted into a rueful smile. “Come. I have an anteroom that is most comfortable.”

Damon followed her into a spacious room lined with couches of red silk. A golden lyre lay on an equally sumptuous pillow, easily at hand to entertain the house’s guests. There was plenty of room for dancers, he noted or other entertainments he’d just as soon not consider with his mother playing a role.

He paced the room, felt his mother’s quiet gaze following him. How much should he reveal, he wondered. She could be endangered too and despite his reservations about her profession, he had no desire to lose her again.

A sleepy-eyed maid arrived with a platter filled with exotic fruits, honey cakes and cool, red wine which he poured into a goblet and downed in two long swallows.

“Son, tell me what has happened,” Chryse said, sipping her drink in a more leisurely fashion.

He did, skimming over the details of his near execution the mere mention of which had Chryse paling, to his rescue by a
new
employer and his plan to spirit Lita away from Tertius.

“Jared has promised the use of his ship, mother.” Damon finished.

Chryse nodded thoughtfully. “It must appear as though I’d planned to leave all along as sudden changes in habits always arouse suspicion. I can conceal Lita as one of my ladies. Oh, Damon. Please do not look so distressed. It is merely a ruse. I would never force your sister into anything she did not wish to do.”

“You’d be surprised how much a ruse can turn into reality,” he muttered into his goblet.

Chryse studied him for a long moment. “This new employer of yours. What do they demand in return for your rescue.”

“She asks nothing,” Damon squeezed his eyes shut. He did not wish to get into the specifics of Julia and their agreement.

“She?” purred Chryse. “You like this woman.”

“She is an employer,” Damon snapped, not liking the way his mother watched him. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“You have feelings for her.”

“No,” Damon fought to keep a fierce expression on his face, but his mother’s steady, look bored into him. With a heavy sigh, he poured another generous draught of wine into his goblet. “Yes, she is a good woman.” A goddess, he almost said, “I’ve promised her protection in a personal matter.”

“She is patrician, your lady?”

Damon nodded sullenly. He was in no mood for a lecture on patricians.

“They come in all manner,” Chryse said conversationally, “I’ve served all types over the years. Not all of them are haughty or domineering.”

“So I’ve been told,” he answered, taking another drink of wine.

“Ah, Damon. I can not presume to advise you on matters of the heart. But son, I implore you to remember who you are. You are a son of the noblest equestrian house in Rome.”

Damon gave a derisive snort. “Mother, we’ve been through this before. It doesn’t matter what I was born to. My birthright counted as nothing on the auction block.”

Damon glowered when Chryse slammed her goblet on the table. “Damon Primax, no one can take your heritage from you. You must believe it here,” she put a fist to her chest. “Believe in yourself as I have always believed in you.”

Damon looked hard at his mother. “How could you believe in me? I did nothing to stop father! I knew he was gambling, selling pieces of our home out from around us.” He rose and threw his own half empty chalice against the wall. “I did not stop him from tearing our family apart.”

“Vesta, forgive me,” Chryse whispered to the heavens before leveling her gaze at her son. “You’ve blamed yourself all these years? You were but eleven years old!”

Damon fisted his hands. Years of suppressed rage, bitter guilt, bubbled like a caldron in his chest, threatened to choke him. “I should have told you,” he snarled. “I should have stopped him. Damn the man!” He turned anguished eyes to Chryse. “My inaction sent us all to the slave pens!”

Chryse rose and walked swiftly to where he stood. Damon held himself rigid as she wrapped her arms around him. He did not want her sympathy.

“Son,” Chryse said, her voice trembling, “it is I who should ask your forgiveness.”

“Mother...”

“No, let me finish.” She guided him back to a couch and urged him to sit. Damon did so reluctantly. “It is I who should ask your forgiveness.” she said sternly, when he started to object. She gave him the same censoring look she had when he was a boy. Damon clamped his mouth closed.

“I knew Felix had problems controlling his weakness in the gambling dens. I thought that if I worked harder at being a good wife, he would stay home, be proud of me, of his family.” She pursed her lips and looked down at her tightly clasped hands. “I turned a blind eye to it all. Even when he bartered my dowry, I refused to see the truth.”

Damon looked down at his mother’s bent head. Gods, she had been bearing the same guilt as he for all these years.

Tears stained her cheeks when she raised her head and looked at him. “Son, your father was a good man and we were right to give him our love. It was a curse of the gods that our love was not enough to save him from his own recklessness.”

Damon could argue that an honorable man would have conquered his vices but as he looked into his mother’s grief-stricken face he forced those feelings aside. He folded her into his embrace. “The past cannot be changed. What matters most is that Lita be reunited with you...with us. Are you willing?”

“

*****

Damon eased forward and peeked through the small window into the cramped room, careful to angle his head so that no shadow disrupted the meager light, alerting the occupants to his presence.

A two-beamed vertical loom took up the larger portion of the space with the surrounding walls supporting baskets filled with a spectrum of colorful dyed threads. Four meager lamps and the lone window barely provided enough light to see, much less perform the intricate work of weaving cloth. But then his sister was so talented in her craft, she’d be able to create cloth with her eyes closed.

Lita had been the last and the hardest of his family to locate. At nine years old she’d been sold to a wealthy textile merchant where she had learned the skills of making cloth. Excelling at weaving intricate designs, Tertius paid a large sum for the young girl when the merchant retired to his rural estate. Damon had just missed finding her before she fell into the Senator’s greedy hands.

He remembered his first glimpse of his dark-haired sister sitting on the ground before a similar loom, expertly using wooden weaving combs to push the weft threads up to create a tighter weave. She’d used other terms such as pin beaters and warp threads and
spatha
or weaving sword. He could still hear her laughter as he’d looked at her dumbfounded, saying he preferred a real sword to some wooden replication. While the tools were a mystery to him, the beautiful things she did with them amazed him to this day.

Lita had barely remembered her elder brother and was at first skeptical then thrilled when he announced he was going to see her free. That had been three long years ago and it was a miracle to him that she had kept any faith in him at all.

“Do you wish more of the blue thread, Lita?” asked a girl no bigger than his sister had been when they’d been sold.

“No, the threads are even now and we can begin weaving,” answered Lita, stepping away from the loom into his line of vision.

Damon ran a critical eye over his sister’s slender form. She looked fatigued, more than usual though Tertius had never been an easy master. The bastard’s greed kept her at the loom for hours each day. It would have been impossible, Damon thought gloomily, for him to have ever been able to work off her slave price.

“Haven’t you begun the tapestry yet, girl?”

Instantly, the child’s eyes fell to the floor as Sirrus filled the doorway. Damon could see the girl trembling and his gaze flew to Lita. While she did not look at the steward, neither did she cast her eyes down in submission. A bolt of pride shot through Damon, but his hands curled into fists as Sirrus stepped into the room.

The steward ordered the young slave girl out and approached Lita. “You are so sad these days, pretty one.”

“Sad? No, only worn to the bone doing our master’s bidding.”

“Oh? I thought perhaps it was because you missed that bastard brother of yours.”

Damon’s heart clenched at the grief that flashed across Lita’s features before she concealed her reaction.

“He is on the master’s business. He is often occupied for great lengths of time.”

Sirrus chuckled darkly. “But not this long.”

The bastard was baiting his sister. He was purposefully playing on her emotions, no doubt with the intention of informing Lita of his death. Damon’s hand fisted on the hilt of his knife and mentally calculated how he would dispose of the steward’s hulking body. He was saved from deciding when Sirrus was summoned from within the
domus
.

“Return to your work,” he growled. Lifting her chin with one beefy finger he added, “We will continue this later.”

Lita glared after him then sank to the floor looking the very picture of despair.

Damon had little time left. “Psst,” he hissed through the opening.

Lita raised her head and looked around in confusion.

“Psst. Lita, it is Damon.”

Her gaze flew to the window. With a smile she hurried toward it.

“Damon!” She exclaimed in a loud whisper, catching his hand with hers. “Oh, Damon. You are all right.”

“More or less,” he answered. “I haven’t much time. Tertius believes me dead as does Sirrus...” He’d kill that bastard when this was done. “I’m certain that was what he was about to tell you.”

“Dead? I don’t understand.”

“I will give you the details later. For now you must know that in seven days, I will come for you. I am taking you to mother and then to freedom on a ship sailing for Alexandria.”