Domina Triumphans

Chapter 21: Lugdunum, Londinium, Antioch, and Rome

Carada picked up a mortar in Antylla's stillroom and began grinding a mixture of peppermint leaves and caraway seeds. She was eleven going on twelve, the same age as Urracca and Beutilla. The girls were friends and all would begin formal apprenticeship in the summer. Both of her grandmothers had been healers and Carada wanted to follow that example. Too bad her parents would not be there to see it.

She began ticking off the milestones they would miss. Next year, she would begin wearing longer tunics and her hair up. At some point, Cyllin or Iolarix would choose a husband for her and she would marry. Children would come after that, and they would miss all of it. Her father would be dead, either strangled or crucified, and she did not put it past the Romans to enslave her mother and sisters. Her work in the stillroom over, she wandered to the lararium and found the figurine of Sucellos, god of prisoners, slaves, captives, and those condemned to die.

"Please, spare my father," she whispered. "Take Sego. His lies started all of it."

Nervius cane out of the schoolroom for a latrine break and saw her. She was short and dumpy, with straight blond hair and grey eyes. Nobody thought she was pretty. But she at least listened and seemed interested when he talked about history or science. He had a plan in mind to fix his parents and siblings and wondered where Carada fit it. He sat down on the bench beside the shrine.

"What are you asking them?" he wanted to know.

"I need the gods to kill Sego," she said.

"They should get Antonillus, too," he said.

"Then, you'll have to be King," she said.

"Screw that," he said. "Gaius can have it."

"And what will you do?"

"Study and travel," he said. "Want to come along?"

Her eyes lit up and she smiled.

"Maybe, but we'd have to be married and you don't want a wife."

"Depends on who she is," he said.

Antylla found them.

"Carada, do any of you speak the Hibernian dialects?" she asked.

"Abonos' father was a Gael from Hibernia," Carada said.

Nervius poked his head in the schoolroom door and jerked his thumb at Abonos. He came with a polite nod to Antylla and heard her out.

"I speak some of my father's dialect, but nothing complicated," he said.

"I can keep it simple," Antylla said. "You and Carada are with me."

"A pleasure, Riona," Abonos said.

....

Urracca pulled the straps of a satchel over her shoulder, ready to be done with this trip for awhile. A journey of a few weeks had taken months, thanks to constant storms and a couple of near shipwrecks. Their vessel slid into a mooring at Ostia, Rome's port. They would stay here, so that Sego could meet with the Emperor and Iolarix, who was bringing Caradoc and his family to Rome. Urracca squeezed Sego's hand, knowing he would rather be on his way home.

They made their way down the gangplank, the earth swaying beneath their feet. They had been forever on a ship and it would take awhile to get their landlegs back. The fact that she was now pregnant did not help. As Sego and Afranius rounded up the servants and looked for porters, she kept an eye out for anyone trying to spot them. An aged houseman came toward her.

"I'm from Senator Antonius' household," he said. "Might you be Princess Urracca?"

"Yes," Urracca said.