Chapter 5

Gerard's Freedom, the restaurant where Quad directed the driver to take him and Corvus for lunch, turned out to be an unpretentious steakhouse set on a rise overlooking a wide expanse of white sand, blue water, and tanned bodies. It wasn't what Corvus would have expected of a patrician restaurant. There were no white tablecloths or golden forks and the slaves who served their lunch appeared to have been chosen more for their competence as for their attractiveness.

Still, the food was good and the view worth seeing. Plebeians walked along the boardwalk dressed for the beach, which was to say close to not at all. Some of the women wore tiny string bikinis that barely covered their sex and their nipples. Others wore only the thong, leaving their breasts bare. They came in a seemingly endless parade, heading in both directions.

Corvus tried not to stare. He'd seen plenty of bare breasts - on TV and in magazines, but very rarely in public. It was traditional for women to expose their breasts when they were married and for their children's first consecration. But that tradition had been fading in recent years as a new wave of modesty swept the empire.

After a few minutes, he managed to raise his gaze from the parade of tits to the women's faces. As he did, one smiled at him and changed her path, heading directly towards him. She took a half dozen steps before Quad gave a faint shake of his head and she turned again, walking past.

Corvus frowned. "Did you just ... cockblock me?"

Quad gave another small shake of the head "I meant to mention this before we got here, but I got distracted by the riot. Gerard's Freedom caters pretty much exclusively to patricians and well-off plebes. The girls parading past with their tits out are advertising. As long as you keep your eyes below the neck, they'll keep walking. If you make eye contact for more than a second, they assume you're interested."

"They're prostitutes?" Corvus asked.

Quad shook his head. "They're looking for a longer-term arrangement. The whole boardwalk is lined with places for men to sit and look for a mistress."

Still smarting from the interference, Corvus pressed the issue. "What if I was looking for a mistress?"

"If you want a mistress, these girls are too expensive for you," said Quad. "You'd be better off with a courtesan."

Now, Corvus was really confused. "I thought courtesans could make fifty thousand denarii a year. How much do these girls make?"

Quad leaned forward. "How much do you have?" Corvus must have still looked baffled because he went on. "These girls don't think of themselves as professionals. They're looking for a boyfriend who happens to be rich and probably married. A lot of them will have exactly one relationship before they take whatever they've tucked away from it, get married, and settle down. If you try to settle an income on them like you would a courtesan, they think it's vulgar. They expect you to shower them with gifts, give them a place to live, pretty much whatever you can afford. For a guy in my position, that makes sense. But it doesn't scale up."

"Castores!" Corvus had a disturbing thought. "I hope that's not what Marcus thought I meant I wanted with Regula."

"Who?" Quad picked up his menu, considering the options.

"This ... girl I went to school with," said Corvus. "A plebe girl. Marcus asked if I wanted him to make some sort of arrangements for the two of us meet unofficially. I hope he's not trying to get her to be my mistress. She's got expensive tastes and i can't imagine they'd get less so if she knew how much money I have now."

Quad frowned and put the menu down. "Normally, I'd say not to worry. A slave, even a steward, would know better than to promise more than you explicitly offered. But that one ... Marcus, he's always been a bit above himself. Nobody really understands why the general puts up with it, but I hear it's been that way since Britannica."

"I should reign him in ... at least on this," said Corvus, unsure how a conflict with his father's steward would play out.

"You should have him flogged pink," said Quad by way of agreement. "But you might want to check with the general first."

As careful as Corvus was not to indulge too heavily at lunch, he still walked away from the table pretty well buzzed. He'd only had one mug of beer, but every time he looked away from it and back, it was full again.

"What would you do if you had a big pile of money dropped on you?" he asked Quad as they reached the limo.

"How big a pile?" The centurion held the car door for him.

"Thirty thousand denarii." Corvus climbed into the car.

Quad followed him and closed the door. As befit a bodyguard, he seemed to have drunk significantly less than Corvus. "I'd start by setting up a dowry for my sister. She's a beautiful, intelligent young woman, but she inherited the family chin."

Corvus raised an eyebrow. He hadn't said anything about Quad's chin, which was so square as to be almost cartoonish and had a cleft deep enough to swipe a charge card through. "That's ... unfortunate for a young woman, I imagine."

"It will benefit her sons more than it has her," Quad acknowledged.

"All right. What else?" Corvus felt he was warming to the subject.

"Well, the family vineyard has never been fully operational." Quad rubbed his enormous chin. "It would take about twelve thousand denarii to get everything up and running, which would greatly benefit my family going forward."

"All right. Let's say you were forbidden by the gods from doing anything boring with it like dowries and home improvements ... then what? I'm looking for ideas."

Quad closed his eyes for a moment before speaking. "Well ... it would get me a little more than halfway to a Gloria Wasp. I imagine selling the vineyard and bankrupting my family would cover the difference."

Corvus gave a low whistle. "That is one hell of a car. Isn't it? I don't think it ever occurred to me that anybody actually owned one. I've only seen them in those spy movies."

"They only make seven hundred a year," said Quad. "You've got to be somebody just to get on the waiting list. Having the money isn't enough. Rich plebes have to settle for the Hornet."

Corvus was silent and thoughtful for several minutes before finally saying, "I could actually buy one if I wanted to. Couldn't I?"

Quad winced. "People in your position are pretty much the only ones who can buy them." He didn't hide his envy.

"I should probably learn to drive first," said Corvus.

"Corvus, I'm glad you're here." General Gallicus met the two younger men in the front entry hall as if he really had been waiting for them to return. "I have a matter I'd like your advice on."

Quad went to attention the moment he saw the general, holding a fist over his heart in salute. Gallicus tapped his collarbone with his knuckles in response. "If you will excuse us, Centurion."

After the officer had left the room, Corvus said, "I take it my mother isn't here?"

"She's with her wedding consultant at the Temple of Vesta of the Hearth, discussing camera angles," said Gaius. "I could wait for her to return, but I don't want to give offense by delaying an answer too much."

"And who would we be offending?" Corvus followed his father up a flight of stairs leading to his office. Malcolm fell into step with them on the landing.

"Plautus Iunius," said the General. "He sent a messenger today with a request for hospitality."

Corvus nodded. "The proconsul's son. He's an ambassador. Isn't he?"

"In Bohemia, yes," said Gaius. "When his mother was named proconsul, a position had to be made for him, but he has some ... black marks in his history that make him unfit for the senate. He was given a posting as remote as could be found. My participation in his shaming has always kept relations between our families cold."

Corvus nodded. As they stepped into the general's office, Malcolm shooed the other slaves who'd been working there and closed the three of them in. Corvus raised an eyebrow at the slave's presumption that he was welcome to overhear this conversation when Quad wasn't, but Gaius didn't even glance his way.

"So, to extend a holly wreath to the Iunii, I invited his daughter Crispa to be my date at your wedding..." said Corvus.

"And he took the opportunity of that invitation to request hospitality for himself and his retinue in the week leading up to the wedding," Gaius filled in. "The only reason he could need that much time is if he's planning to do some politicking while he's here in the capital. And he would be doing it from my house, which means that people would assume he had my blessing."

"But if you refuse him, any good my invitation may have done will be undone and then some," finished Corvus. "A moderately clever move on his part."

Gaius sat down heavily in his chair. "His courier is downstairs waiting."

Corvus nodded. "What is your inclination, General?"

"To throw the man out on his ear and promise his master a kick in the ass," said General Gallicus. "When I was a young centurion, I would have done it and damn the consequences. I ... know better now, but I don't know the proper course of action."

In the outer office, a phone started ringing and no one answered. The general gestured, "Malcolm, will you get that, please? I'm afraid we've thrown all the slaves out."

"Of course." Malcolm gave a little bow and went into the other room.

Corvus sat across from the general. "Have you ever read Annius's 'Bella Political?'"

Gaius shook his head. "I'm not familiar with it."

"It was required reading in my house," said Corvus. "I had it memorized by the time I was thirteen. In it, Annius says that the best way to make an ally of an enemy is to ask a boon."

"So, Iunius read Annius?" the general asked.

"If he did, he didn't understand it," said Corvus. "This is far too much to be just a boon. But, I would say Annius's remedy will work for it just as well. My advice, father, is to give the man more than he asks for. Host him with all honors. Prepare the best rooms for him. Fete him while he is here. Show him every courtesy."

Gaius frowned. "Won't that make it look all the more like I approve of him?"

Corvus shook his head. "General, everyone knows your houses are at odds. If you receive him casually, it may suggest a thawing of relations. If you receive him with all honors, it will only seem that you are extending him courtesy and hoping to cause no offense."

The general considered that for a while and finally said, "My inclination is still towards a good ass-kicking."

"There will likely be other opportunities, I imagine," said Corvus. "But, tell me. What part did you have in the man's discredit and why do you dislike him so?"

Gaius gave a little snort. "He and I served in the legion together in Scotland. We held one of the far outposts with five hundred men. It was a dreadful, drafty, little castle like only the Scots can built and we could barely keep three hundred men there at a time, much less five hundred. So, we would rotate in and out. One afternoon, our divisions were bivouacked in this ghastly little town that was really just a wide, muddy spot on the road, too close to the woods. Right about noon, two thousand painted Scotsmen came tearing out of those woods, howling like the savages they are. Plautus practically shit himself. His men were motor infantry and he ordered them to fall back to the main fortifications. Mine were foot and I ordered them to stand their ground. I wasn't about to give the Scots our backs for two miles. And for the love of Mars, we had heavy machine guns and kevlar."

He shook his head remembering. "I don't blame him for bugging out when he did and, in my report, I said it was a 'tactically-sound retreat.' Hell, he brought back all five hundred men after a couple of hours. But our commander at the time decided it had been cowardice in the face of the enemy, demoted him, and had him lashed. His career never recovered."

"But, you stood up for him," Corvus pointed out.

"Yes, after the fact," said Gaius. "But if I'd withdrawn my men to the castle at the same time he did, there never would have been a charge of cowardice. In his formal inquest, our commander compared him to me over and over again ... and not favorably."