The Sword of Revenge Read Free

seeing the lubricious graffiti, or hearing the ribald comments of the lower classes regarding the match; the views of his father’s peers were passed on as jokes to Titus by his gleeful contemporaries as they practised martial arts in the Campus Martius. Observing Lucius now, Titus saw a dry stick of a man who looked and acted as though sensual passion was something alien to his nature – hard to believe he had fathered a son of his own. Yet he had not been alone; Quintus had been dead set against the betrothal, and had let his younger brother know just how much he resented the replacement of his late mother by a girl younger than he, who he saw as a nonentity looking to bask in his father’s fame and fortune.
    Lucius eventually looked from Claudia to Titus,the expression turning to a thin smile, tempered with a hint of curiosity, as if the older man was saying, ‘I know who you are, but what are you like?’ The stare was returned in a direct way that had the censor dropping his head into a reverential pose, this as Quintus began the prayers to Jupiter and Juno , the premier God and Goddess of the Roman pantheon. Titus, with a silent plea to Honos , God of chivalry, honour and military justice, looked up at the death-masks of his ancestors, lit from below by flickering oil lamps, with his father’s the most prominent in a line that stretched back hundreds of years. He felt a surge of pride, for in his world the family was everything – the means by which a man achieved immortality – and he prayed next to the Goddess of the Future, Antevorte , that one day his own deeds would elevate the Cornelii name and that when his descendants said prayers at this very altar before the mask of his own likeness, they would do so in the same spirit that he did so now.
    The first ceremony was over quickly and the party, led by Quintus, moved out into the atrium. Gathered there were those who had come to pay their respects, but who were not of the Cornelii blood, or close enough for inclusion in the private family prayers. Cholon Pyliades stood off to one side in the line of the family slaves. He had been close to Aulus, even closer than Claudia, havingserved him as a body slave in Greece, Spain, here in Rome and in Illyricum. The Greek had been sent away from the debacle at Thralaxas by his master, given a codicil to the Cornelii will that would be read out that evening, a duty that had saved his life. Given how bound he had been to the man whose death they were commemorating, it was disappointing that Quintus had not seen fit to allow Cholon to attend the private ceremony at the family altar. That would have been fitting for such a loyal servant, but knowing his brother as he did, Titus suspected that such a thing, an act of pure nobility that would have been second nature to their father, would never occur to him.
    Senators, magistrates and soldiers of legate, tribunate and centurion rank were assembled, all with their heads covered and all quick to bow to Quintus. There were members of the class of Equites present too, as well as representatives of the allied Italian provinces. Aulus Cornelius had never actually championed the cause of the knights and the allies as they sought a share of Roman power, yet he had been inclined to listen to their grievances without dismissing them out of hand. Other men were there for less respectful reasons; as the richest man in Rome, Aulus had lent money to support many a speculative venture. Those in his debt would now be wondering if his son and heir would call in such high interest loans.
    As a younger son Titus received the odd sympathetic look, following on from those given to his stepmother. His brother was now head of the Cornelii household, and as such he was accorded the respect due to a man of huge wealth, great lineage and one who would in time surely rise to be a power in the land.
     
    The funeral party emerged into the street to the odd shout, but mostly to a reverential murmur from