Beloved (30 page)

“It is indeed a burden for me, beloved,” he said honestly. “I cannot lead my armies if I am worried every minute that you may be in danger. There are hardships on a military campaign you cannot possibly know, Zenobia. We simply cannot carry along all the fripperies and slave girls necessary to a woman’s comfort.”

Cassius Longinus sat back in his chair, a wicked smile lighting up his aesthetic face.
This
was going to be quite enjoyable.

Zenobia sighed a long patient sigh. Walking across the room, she stopped before a cabinet, reached in, and withdrew two broadswords. Turning about, she tossed one to the very startled Marcus. “Prepare to defend yourself, Roman!” she said, loosening her long stola and stepping out of it. Beneath it she wore only a thin white linen camise.

Longinus muffled a deep chuckle. Reaching for his goblet, he quaffed down the sweet red wine, and then, his brown eyes darting between the queen and Marcus, he watched to see what would happen.

“Zenobia! Have you gone mad?”

“No, Marcus, I have not. I was born and bred to be a warrior. It is true that I have yet to taste battle, but I am capable, as any of my guard could tell you had you ever bothered to ask. You, however, doubt my capability. Since you do I must obviously prove myself to you. I am now prepared to do so, so you had best defend yourself, my darling, lest I slice off an ear!” She punctuated her speech by whirling her sword in ever-widening circles over her head.

Marcus Britainus was momentarily surprised, but, realizing that she was serious, quickly stripped off his toga and his long tunic, keeping only his short tunica interior to cover him. He was somewhat annoyed by her actions. She was a woman! Why could she not behave like one, and remain home in Palmyra while he took her armies out and subdued the Eastern Empire? Too late he realized that it was he who had brought about this confrontation. If he had simply agreed to her accompanying them and let it go at that—but no! He had to behave like a great masculine brute. He knew her competence. He could not allow her a false victory, for she would know. Wondering how good she really was with the broadsword, he leapt forward, his blade on the attack.

With a grin Zenobia moved backward but a step, and then,
rather than taking an attitude of defense, which was what he had expected, she rushed forward, her sword cutting through the air with a loud whooshing noise, and it was he who was forced to retreat. He parried blow after blow, and quickly discovered that she was not only adept with her sword, but tireless. With a leap he got behind her, but she was equally quick, and instantly turned to defend herself.

Metal clanged as weapon met weapon, and they were both soon dripping wet with their exertions. Longinus sat watching, totally fascinated by the spectacle before him. It did not even cross his mind that they might unwittingly hurt each other. Zenobia’s concentration was grim as she parried his blow, staggering somewhat for he had put his entire weight behind it. Still she would not give him the victory for she was angry. How could he love her the way he did, and yet be so unaware of the warrior she was? It infuriated her!

He was surprised at her skill and her stamina. She was one of the finest swordsmen he had ever encountered; but the battle was getting them nowhere. Eventually one of them was going to draw blood, and that thought frightened him. He could not bear to hurt her.

“Zenobia! Give over, my darling. I was wrong, and I freely admit to it.”

“What?” She lowered her blade and looked at him. Her wonderful breasts were rising and falling with her exertion.

“I was wrong,” he repeated. “You are a warrior, a great warrior, but I am terrified that I might hurt you. Please let us stop this battle. If necessary I will concede you the victory.”

“You will concede me the victory?!”
Her voice was filled with righteous indignation. “I
win
my victories!”

He saw it coming and, heedless of the danger, he leapt swiftly forward and wrenched the broadsword from her hand. “No!” he shouted. “No, you little savage, I won’t allow you to hurt either yourself or me!” And he flung both weapons across the room.

Furiously she launched herself at him, nails extended to rake his face, but he caught her wrists and squeezed until he saw the pain leap into her eyes. But she would not cry out. Instead her gray eyes darkened until they were almost black in her anger. He was just as angry. Yanking her into his arms, his mouth fiercely savaged hers, stoking the fires of her body until the nipples of her breasts were as hard and as sharp as her swordpoint had been.
The desperate need to retaliate was deep within her, and furiously she bit his lips.

“Bitch!” he murmured against her mouth, and then his kisses grew soft, and filled with such intense passion that she could feel the anger flowing from both their bodies as another, sweeter need rose and took its place. The arms that had been locked tightly about her loosened, and she slipped her own arms up and around his neck, molding her lush soft curves to his hard body. How long they remained standing there kissing, she never knew; but suddenly he was drawing her camise off, his big hands caressing her back, cupping her buttocks, drawing her tightly against him, letting her feel his deep and hungry need.

“Longinus,” she managed to whisper, wanting very much to satisfy his need and the equally deep need within her.

“Longinus is gone,” was the answer, and quickly looking about the room, she saw that Marcus spoke the truth.

“Not here, not now,” she whispered again, somewhat shy that they might be discovered.

“Here and now,” he answered, drawing her down onto a couch.

“Please, Marcus …” she pleaded.

“I very much please,” he answered her, and then she felt his hands beneath her bottom, lifting her slightly, felt the hot tip of his shaft rubbing against her womanhood, felt herself encouraging him onward, and knew that she was lost.

There was no subtlety, for the need between them was too great. Again, again, and yet again he drove himself into her, and it was, he thought, like plunging into boiling honey. The sweetness flowed from her until he thought it could come no more; but yet again it flowed and in the end it was she who weakened him, and filled him with such delight that he cried out.

Her hands reached down and raised his face from her shoulder. She loved gazing into his eyes when they lay locked in passion. Kissing him with gentle little kisses, she said once more the words he never tired of hearing from her lips. “I love you, Marcus! I love you! Never leave me! Never!”

His sapphire-blue eyes bore into her, and told her all that his lips could not say at this tender and yet fiery moment. The deep and desperate loving began again, and she felt him growing and filling her with such pleasure that she believed for a long moment that death was but an instant away. Nothing, she reasoned, could be quite that wonderful, but he certainly was. Again, and yet once more he led her down passion’s path until the rapture burst over
her in a shower of tiny golden lights. Then she tumbled into a velvet abyss of warm, loving darkness that enfolded her, rocked her, protected her.

When she came to herself once more he was looking at her with a bemused expression. “Did all of this come about simply because I questioned your prowess with a broadsword?” he asked.

Weakened by his loving, she could only manage a soft chuckle. Unable to resist, he bent and tenderly covered her face with kisses. “I adore you, my Queen,” he said quietly. “I adore you, beloved!”

“Then I have won this victory myself, Marcus,” and her voice held a teasingly triumphant note.

He laughed then. He couldn’t help it, for she had so very neatly outmaneuvered him. “You have won the victory fairly, beloved,” he admitted.

There came a discreet knocking at the library door, and Marcus rose from the couch, snatching up his long tunic, sliding it over his big frame, reaffixing his toga. He looked to Zenobia who had as quickly redressed in her graceful long, white stola with its wide belt of gold squares studded with turquoise-blue chunks of Persian lapis. She nodded, and he said, “Enter!”

Cassius Longinus returned to the room, saying, “I assume you have reconciled your differences now, my children. It seemed to me when I was forced to hurriedly depart that you were well on your way to doing so.”

They both laughed, and Zenobia replied, “We have indeed reconciled our differences, Longinus, and I have easily won the victory.”

“Indeed the queen is invincible,” the smiling Marcus agreed, and it seemed as if his words were prophetic of the months to come.

Palmyra’s legions moved across Syria, subduing all rebellion in the name of the Roman Empire. Asia Minor was firmly cowed, and only then did Zenobia return to her oasis city.

There she found that in her absence her son, the boy king, had grown into a young man. He was fully as tall as she was, and so closely resembled his father, Odenathus, that it almost hurt her to look at him.

“Is it that I have been away so long,” she marveled, “or have you really become a man?”

“I have become a man,” he answered her. Gone was the squeaky
voice of change that had bid her farewell. Now his voice was deep and sure.

“He has your knack for government,” Longinus said quietly. “He has begun to rule, and rule well.”

“Only under your guidance, and that of Marius Gracchus,” the sixteen-year-old king replied graciously.

“Strange,” Zenobia mused. “I had thought that you would prefer the military, like your father.”

“I have not yet had the chance, Mother. You and Marcus have led the armies these many months.”

“You were too young to go,” she protested.

“But I am no longer too young. I will take the armies into Egypt when they go this winter. Palmyra’s kings have always been good generals.”

“No,” she said quietly.

“What? Do you love war so, Mother?”

“I can see now that only your body has grown, Vaba. Your mind is yet that of a child.”

“I am the king, and I
will
lead the armies!”

“I am the queen
, and you are not yet of age. Until you are, my word is supreme in Palmyra! There is danger all about you. I will do everything in my power to protect you until you have a son of your own.”

“I will choose my wife,” he said, and she knew in that instant that he already had. She invoked the gods that the girl be suitable.

“Who is she, my son?”

“You will approve, Mother. It is Flavia, the daughter of your friends, Antonius Porcius and his wife, Julia.”

“Flavia Porcius? She is but a child, Vaba.”

“She is almost thirteen, Mother. She has already begun her woman’s flow.”

“I don’t want to know how you know that,” Zenobia said, shocked, and behind her both Longinus and Marcus smiled. The young king might look like his father, but he was his mother’s son in that he was determined to have his way.

“Nonetheless she is my choice for a wife, and I will wager even you could not choose a more suitable girl. She is Palmyran-born, of reputable family, and ready to bear children. More important to me, however, is the fact that she loves me and I love her.”

“Then why do you want to rush off into battle?”

“I must prove myself worthy to rule Palmyra; to myself, to my
people, and to Flavia. Until I do I am only your son, and that is simply not enough for me. I must be a man in my own right.”

Zenobia turned away so he might not see her tears. Vaba was indeed becoming a man. Gently he put his arm about his mother. “You have given me the greatest gift any woman could give her child. You gave me time to grow, time to learn, time to play. But now the time has come for me to earn my place. All your life you have been so good, so loyal, so generous. Do you not want a life of your own? Do you not want to marry Marcus? You are yet young enough to have children, and I believe that like any man he wants a son.”

She blushed at his words. He, her firstborn, her baby, was chiding her, but when she turned to give him a sharp reply she saw how earnest he was, and instead she said, “You are right. You shall lead our armies into Egypt this winter while I remain behind to rule this city in your stead.”

It was going to be devastating, she thought. Both Vaba and Marcus, two of the three males she loved best in this world, away from her this winter; for of course Marcus was still commander of the legions, and would go to guide Vaba in military matters. Then suddenly she thought that it was not so terrible after all. Egypt would be easily subdued, and Vaba would have his first taste of battle. He would return to marry Flavia Porcius, then she, Zenobia, would be free to marry Marcus Britainus. Together they would guide the young king and his wife in their rule of the Eastern Empire. Zenobia smiled. When Vaba’s first child was born she would declare her son Augustus, supreme ruler of the Eastern Empire. With all the lands from Egypt to Asia Minor under their rule, who would dare to dispute them? Certainly not Rome, weakening Rome with its succession of soldier-emperors, and its northern and western borders constantly challenged by barbarian tribesmen.

Later she sighed within the comfort of Marcus’s arms. “Soon we shall be able to marry. Make this Egyptian campaign a quick one, my darling!”

“Do I not always do my best to oblige you, beloved?” he teased her, his hot mouth finding a ready nipple. Slowly he sucked on her sweet flesh, taunting her with his tongue while his fingers moved to torture her in yet another sensitive spot. They loved almost without ceasing in that short period between military campaigns. Zenobia allowed her son and the Council of Ten almost complete freedom while she and Marcus locked themselves within
the love chamber she had created for them. They could not be sated in their consuming desire for each other.

Less than a month before Palmyra’s legions were due to depart, a trusted household slave of the Alexander family arrived from Rome, bearing tidings from Marcus’s mother. The slave had been admitted into the queen’s private apartment, and stood staring in amazement at the colorful, rather explicit frescoes that adorned the walls. Watching him, Zenobia thought that the Alexander household in Rome was sure to get quite a report.