The Raven and the Rose Read online

  THE RAVEN

  AND THE ROSE

  by

  DOREEN OWENS

  MALEK

  As Lovers Reunite

  It seemed an eternity to Julia before the outside door opened and Marcus came through it, his eyes locking with hers as he closed it behind him.

  Her feet barely touched the floor as she ran to him; he folded her into his arms and said, concerned, “Tears? Why are you crying?”

  I was just thinking about the chance we’re both taking. This is so dangerous,” she murmured against his chest.

  “Say the word and I’ll let go,” he replied, holding her off to look at her.

  Julia dropped her eyes. “I can never say that word, Marcus. Why?”

  “I think there’s a good reason.”

  “What is it?”

  “Fatum nos coegisse credo,” he replied. “I believe that fate brought us together.”

  She looked up at him and nodded.

  “Then why question what we both sense to be the work of the gods?” he said. “Accept it as a gift.”

  Julia buried her face against his hard shoulder. “It’s difficult to live so much of my life without seeing you. When I’m not with you I think––oh, terrible things.”

  “And when you are with me?”

  “Then I forget the rest of the world.”

  He bent his head to kiss the side of her neck. “I’ll make you forget it completely, “ he said softly, his lips soft and caressing. “All of it. Just give me the chance…”

  THE RAVEN

  and

  THE ROSE

  Doreen Owens Malek

  Gypsy Autumn Publications

  PO Box 383

  Yardley, PA 19067

  www.doreenowensmalek.com

  Copyright 1994 and 2012

  by Doreen Owens Malek

  The Author asserts the moral right to be

  identified as author of this work

  All rights reserved. No part of this book, except in the case of

  brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, scanning or any information storage retrieval system, without explicit permission in writing from the Author or Publisher.

  First USA printing: 1994

  All of the characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  About the Author

  New Releases by Doreen Owens Malek

  Chapter 1

  Roman Republic

  February, 44 B.C.

  “Here’s your shield, centurion,” Lisander said. “I rebound the edge with new leather. I think it will hold. Take a look.”

  The tall dark man accepted the shield from the Greek slave and examined the workmanship carefully, then nodded.

  “This will do. You can put it in my supply chest.”

  The slave departed with the shield and the soldier went back to lacing up his sandal, sighing heavily.

  Marcus Corvus Demeter was tired of war. He had joined the Roman army when he was seventeen and he’d been fighting continuously for the last eleven years. The front of his body was covered with scars from various campaigns against barbarian tribes. The muscles of his forearms were as hard as flint from hauling a forty pound pack on the march, as well as carrying a leather clad shield and a six foot lance into battle. There was no extra flesh anywhere on his frame, as the army consumed little more than wheat biscuits and water laced with vinegar during a campaign, and while the soldiers were at rest in winter quarters they maintained almost the same diet. There had been some opportunity for the temptations of the vulgar city to find their way onto his bones at social events, but Marcus never ate much at leisure either. Like all Roman soldiers, he prided himself on staying in top fighting trim and disdained the chubby city dwellers for their excesses.

  He finished strapping on his sandal and stood erect, topping the others milling around the barracks by at least a head. Demeter was from the Roman province of Corsica, had a Greek name, and looked it. He was dark and handsome, in the Macedonian way, with glossy black hair, smooth olive skin, and large almond shaped brown eyes. His arched nose, along with his coloring, gave him his nickname of “corvus”, meaning “raven.” He was the descendant of Greek sailors who had plied their trade across the Mediterranean three hundred years earlier, intermarrying with the Etruscans living on the sunswept islands to the west of Italy. He stood out from his fellows for his height and for his exceptional courage, which had won him many accolades from his general, Julius Caesar, now the unacknowledged dictator of their country.

  Marcus automatically checked his weapons as he dressed, the sword sheathed on one side of his leather belt and the short knife on the other, thinking about the uneasy state of the Roman “republic.” The Senate still sat, the magistrates still issued edicts and the citizens still voted, but since the death of his rival Pompey four years earlier, Julius Caesar alone had ruled the most powerful nation in the known world.

  And there were many who were not happy about it.

  “Marcus, do you want to come along with us to the forum?” Septimus Valerius Gracchus called to him, tossing him a ball of amber, which the men used in the storage chests to scent their clothes. “Cicero is giving another speech denouncing Mark Antony.”

  Marcus looked at his friend, who was a tribune, and the scion of a noble house, one of the hundred or so families of patricians with three generations of magistrates in their past. Septimus would be expected to run for public office and serve in the Senate in order to inherit his father’s considerable wealth. But while he was doing his obligatory term in the army he was on an equal footing with Marcus, who had saved his life in Cordoba and marched beside him for many hundreds of miles. Their friendship had endured through Gaul and Spain and Britain, where the natives painted their faces blue with woad and, like their continental cousins the Gauls, fought with a fierceness that astonished even the seasoned Romans.

  Marcus and Septimus had survived many hazards in their years together.

  Marcus shook his head. “I’m tired of that windbag,” he replied.

  “Every time I walk through the forum he’s tearing apart yet another one of Caesar’s friends. Pompey was murdered in Egypt, his cause is dead. Hasn’t anyone told that speechmaker yet?”

  Septimus grinned. “Don’t you find Cicero amusing?”

  “No.” Marcus tossed the ball of amber into his clothes chest and dropped the lid.

  “I’ve told you before, Marcus, you must learn to develop a sense of humor,” Septimus said, wagging his finger at his companion. Shorter and stockier than Marcus, with unexceptional features, he was nevertheless attractive, with the easy charm and confidence of the well born. “That’s what comes of growing up in the provinces. We city dwellers have learned to take these orators lightly.”

  A ten year old boy ran breathlessly into the barracks and skidded to a stop in front of Marcus.

  “Marcus Corvus Demeter,” he said hastily, impressed with the importance of his mission, “Imperator Caesar requests your presence at noon at the porta publia of the Senate.”

  “Take it easy, Appius,” Septimus said, ruffling the boy’s hair. “Your father will not disinherit you if you walk at a stately pace to deliver your messages.”

  Appius was a
magistrate’s son learning warfare as a page to the army.

  “Does the Imperator need an escort?” Marcus asked, fastening his deep red cloak, its garnet color adopted by the practical Romans to conceal the bloodstains of battle. It hung from the shoulders of a short sleeved, knee length tunic of similar red, covered by a leather breastplate and skirt guard. His metal helmet was decorated with a standing ruff of garnet feathers. He picked it up and placed it under his arm.

  The boy nodded eagerly. “To the Aedes Vestae. You are to report to Tribune Drusus Vinicius at the outer gate of the camp for your orders.”

  “Caesar must be changing his will again,” Septimus said, laughing. “I only hope that means he’ll be leaving some of his money to me.”

  “At least he’s consented to an armed companion,” Marcus replied. “He has too many enemies to wander around without his bodyguard the way he often does.”

  “You’ll take good care of him, I’m sure,” Septimus said. “Well, I’m off now. Remember you’re coming to my father’s house for cena tonight.”

  Marcus nodded. Cena was dinner, the only formal meal the Romans ate. They were great snackers, snatching a flat bread filled with cooked vegetables while conducting business or a honeycake from a vendor on the way to the forum in the morning. But cena was a formal and elaborate meal, a relaxation from the cares of the day and a chance for the family to get together and discuss the local gossip, of which the people were inordinately fond. Guests were frequently invited and it was an honor for a provincial like Marcus to be asked to the home of Senator Valerius Gracchus.

  But Marcus was a war hero, and had saved the life of the Senator’s only son.

  “Hurry, hurry,” Appius said, dancing in place. “Caesar will be waiting.”

  Marcus smiled at the boy. “It’s not noon yet, but you’ve done your duty, Caligula,” he said, using an affectionate term, “little boots”, to describe the child. “I’m sure Lisander can find some work for you to do.”

  The boy dashed out and Marcus pushed his way through the military throng in the Campus Martius courtyard to the northern guard house, where Vinicius gave him his orders. When not at war, the army barracks in winter quarters was like a men’s club, where the soldiers came and went at their leisure and in fact could live elsewhere if they pleased. Only a direct order such as the one Marcus had just received interrupted the respite meant to restore strength for summer, the season of war. As soon as the red flag was seen flying from the citadel above the temple of Janus, the men reported for duty. And once they took the sacramentum, the soldier’s oath, only death or the end of the war could release them from it.

  In May, Caesar was planning to invade Parthia.

  Marcus walked out into the street, which was a narrow warren winding through close buildings leading to a main artery, the Via Flaminia. The Campus Martius, or field of Mars, was named for the god of war and lay between the River Tiber and the city proper. As Marcus walked toward his destination he observed the life of the metropolis teeming around him.

  The scene was one of ceaseless bustle, movement and dust and incredible noise. Carriages were barred from the city during the day, but the litters which were their substitute clogged every passage, the nobles within them peering out through the curtains at the enclosing crowd. Businessmen hawked wares from stalls and citizens lingered on street corners to discuss that consuming Roman passion, politics. Slaves of all sizes and races hurried everywhere, running errands, trailing their schoolboy charges, carrying supplies and babies and bundles and jugs of water. Two Senators in white togas striped with reddish purple preceded by their lictors, or assistants, cut a path through the more dully dressed rabble, avoiding the morning Senate session to make their way to the forum and listen to Cicero. People parted ranks when they saw Marcus; in a city with no standing police force, the army was often called in to settle disputes, and his centurion’s uniform bespoke authority.

  “Corvus, look sharp!” someone called to him, and as Marcus turned he caught an object tossed in his direction. It turned out to be a ripe bundle of figs tied together by their stems with a piece of thin twine.

  “From Judea,” the fruit seller said, saluting him. “The best. Enjoy them.”

  Marcus reached for the bag of coins at his belt, but the vendor waved him away.

  “Pro bono,” he said. “For your past services to the state. Just make sure you keep the barbarians away from Rome on your next campaign.”

  “I will try,” Marcus replied, always amazed when some stranger recognized him. He did not think of himself as well known, but in a brutal world where a country survived or succumbed on the strength of its fighting force, highly successful soldiers were national celebrities.

  Marcus stopped at a stall which boasted a hand lettered sign reading, “In just today from Pompeii.” Fresh trout and carp and flounder hung on hooks above urns of garum, the fermented fish sauce the Romans used with everything in their cooking, and flasks of must, the pressed grape husks that served as filling in desserts. He moved closer to examine the wares and bought a bottle of garum marked “Optime,” the very best, to bring as a gift when he attended dinner that evening. He stowed it, and the figs, in the capacious pockets of his cloak, and then walked on, pausing beside a stable to wipe his brow with the back of his arm. The day was a warm one for February and the sun was arcing overhead.

  The smell of horse dung made him wrinkle his nose. Romans venerated cleanliness, and did their best to maintain it, despite the refuse problems associated with close to a million people living in cramped quarters. The teeming insulae, or low rent apartment houses, flimsily built and often on fire, were the source of the worst contamination. There was no running water above the first floor and tenants dropped offal into the streets from the roof during the dark of night, since there was a stiff fine for littering. The insulae were behind a row of shops on the Via Sacra, but Marcus fancied he could smell them too. They were a sanitary challenge to the entire city, the subject of much Senatorial legislation concerning the best way to improve them.

  From what Marcus had seen of the living conditions there, he doubted that passing laws would make much of a difference. People who could not afford anything better would flock to the insulae no matter what restrictions were enacted. Civic pride was a national mania, but it was at odds with the desire of every Roman citizen to live within the city, which meant clogged streets and crowded houses. From the estates on the Palatine hill, where property of a quarter of an acre was considered sumptuously large, to the tiniest cell of the insulae, the population battled disease and dirt, but remained in place. Refuse was hauled away by slaves pulling wagons, homeowners and shopkeepers were required by law to sweep their properties every day, and a vast system of drainage ditches swept away liquid waste and carried it underground. But, even so, it often seemed to the city bound residents that the litter was winning.

  Marcus squinted in the sunlight and looked around, turning toward the sound of running water. The Romans countered the heat and dust of their environment with the purity and renewal of water; in the massive public baths, in the 11 aqueducts which carried millions of gallons of bubbling freshets down from the hills, in the thousands of fountains, public and private, which sparkled and murmured in the Italian sunlight, they brought the source of cleanliness close to home. Rome was a city which streamed with water.

  Marcus walked over to the fountain nearby and splashed his face. The statue at the center of the marble basin was of Diana, goddess of the hunt, her hair bound with a leather thong, a quiver loaded with arrows strapped to her back. Water cascaded from her outstretched hands into his. As he turned away he sidestepped a slave bending to look at a poster tacked to the footing which advertised a gladiatorial show.

  The people pressing in around Marcus as he dried his face with the hem of his cloak made up a human rainbow. In the crowd he saw blacks from Carthage and Utica in North Africa, emancipated Gauls with ruddy complexions and bristling red hair, dark eyed descenda
nts of Etruscans like himself, golden Greeks from Corinth with pale complexions and Alexandrian ringleted hair, all of them wearing the toga of citizenship. Racial prejudice did not exist in Rome, but civic prejudice was the republic’s greatest flaw. There were only citizens and non-citizens, and the former regarded the latter as one step above chattels. Therefore it was the ambition of every slave and freedman to attain civilitas, citizenship, which allowed one to vote, register in the census, participate in the swell and murmur of public life. Otherwise you were a slave to be ordered about and dominated, cared for, if you were lucky, but merely in the way a faithful dog is maintained by its master.

  Marcus had been born a citizen, which forever separated him from the rabble that swirled around him as he made his way past a grove of statues and the praetor’s tribunal to the curia, where the Senate met. Only citizens could wear the toga, the long draped cloak which distinguished the important people from the rest; the latter, dressed in simple woolen shifts, outnumbered the former three or four to one. Slaves were mostly members of conquered tribes who’d been captured as booty. They were brought back in chains to Rome by the victorious legions to be sold at auction. Since Rome’s conquests ringed the Mediterranean, which its citizens called mare nostrum , “our sea”, there were slaves everywhere.

  Marcus, like most citizens, gave little thought to the slaves. There was always the hope they could become citizens, through a noble deed, purchasing liberty after many years of savings, or emancipation by a grateful master. But the majority did not attain freedom, and they lived out their days serving those whose only difference from them was membership in a republic which boasted the most powerful and victorious army in the world.