The Golden Dice - A Tale of Ancient Rome Read Free

between thumb and forefinger to make her face him. “I wish you could see yourself as I do. Then you could never doubt me, Bellatrix.” He traced a line between her breasts, then examined the pendant around her neck. “Remember why I gave this to you? To remind you that you are brave.”
    The locket was an amulet he’d given her when they’d first married. It had become a love token that she treasured. The huntress Atlenta was depicted upon it, a mortal who’d also fallen in love with a husband she’d been decreed to wed. Caecilia had only learned of her story after she came to Veii. She fingered the charm. Vel claimed she was like the mythical girl—a warrioress, a bellatrix—but she doubted she deserved such a nickname.
    She encircled his neck. “Forgive me for being foolish?”
    He laid her back upon the soft mattress, nuzzling her neck. “I already have.”
    Glossary
    Cast

THREE
     
    The flames ripped along the wood as the torch was set to the pitch, the fire consuming the thick oxhide sides of the siege towers, wooden struts burning, acrid black smoke billowing.
    After a long year of deprivation the Veientanes gathered on every side of the city, the sound of their shrieking saturating the air. Escaping the prison of their homes they streamed down the roads sloping from the plateau. Beneath a wintry sun, they traversed woodland and stream to reach the Roman fortifications to set them afire. There they hacked at the vestiges of war left behind by their enemy to fuel the blaze: dismantling wheeled shelters and mantlets, stripping stockades of stakes, and wrenching pickets from trenches.
    Now as night fell, Caecilia and Mastarna watched their rampage from the heights of the citadel. A line of bonfires stretched around the walls, a circle of liberation, some mere pinpricks twinkling in the distance, others nearer that were roaring, fierce and bright. Directly across from the acropolis was the greatest conflagration. Like a malignant boil on the skin of the city, the main Roman camp sat on the rise beyond the dark strip of river. In the darkness, its fences and guard posts glowed deep red.
    Observing this unleashing of hatred, Caecilia leaned the back of her head against Vel’s chest as he stood behind her, the familiar scent of his sandalwood perfume and the circle of his arms making her feel safe. She felt her relief that she was not among the Etruscans, then silently scolded herself for thinking of them by that name. It was what the Romans called them. The people of Veii referred to themselves as the Rasenna, and Veii was only one of many cities in which they dwelt. Rome considered itself mighty, but in truth it was a township compared to such a metropolis as Veii. This did not stop its onslaught. Valor and persistence had brought many of its larger enemies down.
    Caecilia shivered a little from both cold and disquiet. Mastarna drew his tebenna cloak around them, its heavy folds covering the yellow of her fine woolen mantle. She had learned not to speak to him of her fears. How she was anxious that the brittle respect paid to her by his people would one day crack.
    There was another reason why she did not want to mingle with the Rasenna. She knew that over this long day retaliation had merged with religious fervor. The pyres were raging, the fires hot enough to cause cheeks to flush and muscles to loosen, and the Veientanes were drinking strong, unwatered wine laced with freedom. The Winter Feast of Fufluns had begun.
    The beat of drums and the weird rising moan of the bullroarers heralded the commencement of the ceremony. Led by horse-tailed satyrs and wild-eyed maenads, the wine god’s followers donned grotesque masks of stag, boar or goat. Frenzy followed as copious drafts of vinegary wine were consumed. Then, desiring revelation, the believers stripped and rutted before the fires, seeking to attain oneness with the divine, worshipping the potency of the sacred phallus, believing the power of coitus was a