Domina Victrix

Chapter 21: 23 AD, Syria and Armenia

Eleni clutched her son and wiped her tears as Augurs set up an altar in the atrium of the Antony family's country home. So far, all the gods had been useless. Mark Antony had one job from beyond and he had botched it as badly as he had Actium. The Emessan royal family had been sometime allies of his but had transferred allegiance to Octavian after that battle. Before her marriage, her grandparents had told her all about Mark Antony, and none of it was flattering. A compulsive drinker and gambler, a spendthrift and sex fiend, his one and only talent was as a cavalry leader. So far, his grandson, General Marcus, was a far better commander and administrator, but even he was proving powerless to save Bolt.

Eleni sat through the ceremony and told her handmaid to pack a picnic lunch for one. She wrapped up little Marcus, took the basket, and walked to a grove of wild olive trees on a bluff overlooking the River. She and Bolt had come to this spot many times during their honeymoon and she was certain she had conceived here. She laid the baby on the blanket to let him stretch and feel the breeze. She heard Sejana calling her name but ignored it. Sejana made her way through the trees and stood looking down at her, hands on hips.

"You're not the only one missing him and pissed off about it," she said. "Taking it out on the rest of us won't help him come back."

She held out a tablet.

"Victory said he wrote this before he left Lucius' camp."

Eleni took the tablet with Bolt's personal emblem of a stylized lightening jag that he had designed. Tears gushed down her face as her stomach churned. Sejana knelt down beside her.

"Eleni, we don't know anything yet."

"I know he's dead," she said. "Grandfather will order me home and give me to the Herods."

"Is that what this is all about?" Sejana asked. "Are you more upset about Marcus being captured or about what might happen to you after?"

Eleni sobbed.

"Father might try to stop it, but he's out there, too, and Alexion! None of them are coming back!"

"I think I can fix some of this," Sejana said. "Tryphaena knows your grandmother and I'm certain she can find out some more information."

Eleni opened the tablet and tried to read it before passing it to Sejana. She read her son's words and winked back some tears of her own. They pondered what Bolt had written.

"I wouldn't want to be married into the Herods, either," Sejana said as she closed the tablet. "And I'm in the same situation. If Gaius is killed, my uncle will bid me home and turn me out to who knows in Rome. There's nothing either of us can do to stop the Fates spinning as they will."

Eleni dried her eyes and looked at her mother-in-law as though seeing her for the first time.

"But whatever happens, I know that I have had the love of an exceptional man, and so have you. And for all his faults, Mark Antony sired an amazing group of people. And your Marcellus carries that legacy. He will always carry that legacy. Remember that."

Eleni scrubbed her face dry and blew her nose on a napkin.

"Your husband asked you to stay strong and keep his memory alive," Sejana said. "Those are your orders from him. He's learning military life the hard way, and now so are you."

...

Julia wrapped her shawl around herself and knocked at the door of Old Burrus, the father of Centurions Aelius, Aemelius and Aeneas Burrus. He had been Primus Pilus of the Twelfth for many years before heart failure ended his career during his first evocatio, or post-retirement service, soon after Baalbec. Now he lay propped in his bed, staring out the window at the bare wall of the apartment block across the street. His wife had died days before the army left and he was dependent on neighbors for help.