A green glade abutting a holt peered into sight.
Hardien turned to his behind. Lifting the hide as he lowered his head, he looked into the carriage.
Ariadne had fallen asleep, huddling herself under a satin quilt in the rear, her head bobbing. A few locks of auburn hair veiled her oval face and her features so delicate it softened the hardest of men. Hardien skipped a breath. Clucking his tongue, he looked away, his chin tucked to his chest. Julius, he thought, even the gods, perhaps, were jealous of your possession, endowed or earned, so they part them from you by terminating your lease. Uncertain whether to begrudge or lament, he chuckled with a sigh.
Melita, a slave girl in waiting, saw him looking. "Should I wake the lady?" she whispered in Kygerian.
Hardien shook his head, drawing a forefinger to his mouth.
"It's ok," said Ariadne as she slowly peeled open those feline eyes. "I'm already awake."
"Since when did you learn Kygerian?" asked Hardien, his voice surprised.
"Since you put the two around me."
"Apologies if they have caused you any inconvenience."
"What inconvenience?" She shrugged, the colors of her eyes shifting between amber and lime green in a shaft of the morning sun sliding through the window. "About the place we're going," She changed the subject. "A herb house, you said?" The quilt fell off her shoulders. She handed it to Melita and put down her feet.
Hardien nodded. "You know my father trades herbs with Lord Remus."
"Why Remus?"
He licked the back of his teeth, displaying a smile that strained his cheeks.
The draft horses neighed, shaking the carriage to a halt. Hardien looked ahead and leaped off. Circling to the side, he unbarred the door on the side and whistled. A slave man rushed forward and bent forward on four, forming a stepping stool with the flat of his back. Hardien looked up at Ariadne inside. "My lady," he said, lending her an arm.
She refused, however, asking for the slave to rise in Kygerian. "I'm Lady Ariadne Minerva Uranus, wife of General Julius Pompeius Gaius, and I need no stool to get off a carriage."
Panicked, the slave man looked to Hardien for instruction.
Hardien bored into her eyes. "You've heard the lady," he said in Kygerian.
As the slave man scurried away into the background, Ariadne vaulted off the carriage with an arm over her belly. Her face scrunched up while a whimper escaped from her clenched teeth. Clamping a hand to her mouth, she stooped over to the side and vomited.
"Cabiria! Melita!" commanded Hardien, his brow tight.
Ariadne raised a hand, then slowly straightened her back. All the confidence she had exhibited only a few breaths ago shriveled in a smile too stubborn to crumble. Wiping a rivulet from the corner of her lips, she turned to the verdurous glade bristled with baby's breaths. Her eyes roamed over it before stopping at the beige rotunda crested with a dome. "What else have you been trading, save herbs?" she asked, her nose sniffling.
"We trade with Lord Remus here only what your father demands," Hardien replied. Then, sweeping his eyes to the front, he tipped his head at the rotunda. "This place belongs to House Scipio in name."
"But in truth?"
Hardien winked. Turning to the back of the rotunda that led to a hexagon bandstand in clusters of many carnations, he flicked his eyes at her in tow, beckoning her to follow.
She hesitated before her feet halted. It must have been a while since she last saw grass this green.
Hardien picked a carnation from the cluster and crossed his arms, hiding the bulb in the crook of an elbow. "Tell me, my lady, how familiar are you with the Renanian history pre-civil war?"
A light frown arched her brow. "You have to be more specific."
"If I remember clearly, on the eighth anniversary of the Huronic War, the Senecans had proposed to marry Princess Selene to either a consul's son for peacekeeping. But it was all for a farce, was it?"
"The Senecans had breached the Treaty of Losgart first by gathering a war fleet near Turis."
"But a Senecan would tell you the Treaty had them divested of their livelihood, and if they didn't rebel, they could die."
"How else do you provoke rebellion if you don't convince the people it's either a craven death or else?"
"Provided it needs to be provoked." Hardien chuckled. Leaping up three stairs in one stride, he swung his head at a stela on one side of the hexagon. "Regardless," he continued. "If the Consulship refused the marriage, they would have to punish the Senecans by imposing provisions even less possible to fulfill, leaving the Senecans no choice but to rebel. But if they accept, well, I've heard Princess Selene is malformed."
"Facial birthmark isn't malformation."
"Tell the man who has to marry her," he japed frivolously, his tongue clucking. "You're a clever woman, my lady, and you know what I mean. Of all the beautiful grandaughters of Hasdrubal, they chose the ugliest for this marriage. One cannot easily overlook the slight."
"So the Senecans meant for war, and there they had it. A year after the proposal came the Second Huronic War, and we lost it," said Ariadne as she proceeded up the stairs. Stopping before the stela, she squinted at the inscription of a poem:
You asked me,
How much I love you?
How long I've loved you?
Oh, darling,
My love is real
And my feelings true,
The moon be my witness.
You ask me
How much I love you,
How long I've loved you?
Oh, darling,
My love hasn't changed,
My feelings for you remain,
The moon be my witness.
My heart sings at hearing your voice,
My head spins at seeing your eyes.
And you ask me
How much I love you,
How long I've loved you?
Well, think about it, my love,
And take a look,
The moon be my witness.
"Over the eight years," Hardien went forth while she perused. "The Senecans had overtly improved the designs of their war vessels, making them smaller, lighter, and faster to tackle the heavier Renanian ships. This was proven a great success given how your father adopted much larger claws to emulate Augustus' fleet in the First Huronic War. While the size inspired gravitas, more weight also made it easier to capsize."
"I don't need your recap on his idiocy."
"Nor I intend to give you any."
Pivoting around on her heel, she turned to look him in the eye, her brows drawing close.
He smiled and dropped his gaze. Keeping his arms folded, he sauntered back and forth. "After Ugrait Hasdrubal's visit, we had another year of peace before the break of the Second Huronic War. Do you know what stayed it?"
"Stayed it?"
"You sound surprised."
"And you're spinning a yarn."
"Ain't all history a yarn?" he countered. "When Marcus assigned his men to write about your mother, what words did they use to describe her?" Taking a pause, he rejoiced in her silence. A flock of geese clucked leaving for the north, heralding a new spring as they glided between thin strokes of clouds. Everything changes year in and year out, and yet nothing ever changes, like the stories we made up. Harrowed by the nonchalant coming and going of time that seemed both purposeless and inescapable, Hardien sighed at the sight of garrulous geese disappearing windward into the deep blue sky.
He whirled back to her, his head tilting toward the stela. "Remus Scipio wrote and read this poem on the banquet the Consuls held for Ugrait Hasdrubal and his daughter," he resumed. "Dedicating the poem to the princess, he professed that like flowers, love comes to bloom on its own terms. Moved by the verse, Ugrait Hasdrubal vowed peace, that Seneca would not stab again at trading with Turis with their wheat and silver. Only King Melquart ain't keep his craven son's vow. And save Ugrait, nobody truly meant peace."
Glancing between him and the carvings, Ariadne scoffed. "Remus knew Ugrait Hasdrubal didn't want the marriage for his daughter, but being the craven he is known for, he'd always choose his house over his daughter. And being a craven, he was easily swayed by sentimentality. But Melquart Hasdrubal wasn't going to back down just because his craven son did. He wouldn't jettison what he'd planned for eight years over a poem. Keeping this in mind, Remus did what he had done so the Renanians would have the time to prepare for the pending war. But other than keeping the credits for himself, he let Marcus take it."
"Bullseye." Hardien grinned. "That's how your father rose in rank to Tribune Admiral in the Second Huronic War."
"But what good is there for Remus?" she asked in flat cadences, her face strained, betraying nothing.
"A very good question." Clucking his tongue, Hardien circled behind her. "You know the mole Remus made Ulpius implement in Lorenzo's camp?"
"The kitchen boy who sent us all the false information?"
"Well, yes, but he ain't meant to." Hardien shrugged. "A well-trained spy, he did have his information verified. But gods know where Lorenzo found himself an advisor much cleverer he figured out who the mole was."
Ariadne shook her head. "He didn't have to."
Hardien cocked a brow.
"Suspecting infiltration, he had everyone on his camp fooled just to verify the wrong information for the kitchen boy," she snorted. "I have a hunch we'll be seeing more of this advisor, and Lorenzo is nothing but a pawn to him."
Gnawed by ineffable qualms, Hardien quirked his brows. Should he welcome a new player such as brilliant and fearsome? He recalled the first time Father sent him to meet Julius two years ago. The risk of such undertakings was about as promising as was the prospect of its reward. Out of the corners of his eyes, he espied Ariadne looking his way.
"And about the mole," she continued. "So what Remus helped implement him? It doesn't answer the question of why he should help Marcus thirteen years ago."
"You know why Remus implement him?"
She thought for a second. "He had business with my father-in-law. If Lord Augustus goes down, the Scipios shall too suffer."
Hardien bobbed his head as if in agreement, his mouth a pout.
"You don't seem convinced."
"Do you know when Remus wrote this poem?" He cast another glance at the stela.
"Why?"
"You didn't answer my question."
"Prior to the banquet?"
Hardien smiled. "But how long before the banquet?"
Her mouth quirked, long lashes fluttering incredulously.
"Remus wrote it on the night your mother gave birth to your little brother," he continued, his voice unhurried.