Read Online A Bitter Chill by Jane Finnis - Free Book Online Page A

attention. She needn’t have worried, we were all ears. Even the cat looked interested.
Decimus Plautius Curio to his dear father and mother, greetings. I have some marvellous news, which I hope will make you both happy for me. I’ve decided to settle here in Brigantia for good, because I’ve met the most wonderful girl, and have asked her to marry me. She’s the kind of girl I’ve always wanted, beautiful, intelligent, and practical too, ready and willing to help me make a success of my new life in the north. We are both so happy, and plan to be married next year. Do say you’ll come to the wedding and give us your blessing.
    She gave a contemptuous snort. “My blessing, indeed! Does he seriously think I’ll give my blessing to the marriage of my son to a native peasant girl?” She turned to me. “So you see the problem, don’t you?”
    “I see that you don’t want your son making a marriage that you consider unsuitable,” I said carefully.
    “‘Unsuitable’ is putting it mildly. Decimus is well aware of his duty. He must make a marriage that will help his political career. We’ve already arranged a future wife for him, as he knows full well, a girl from the Fabius family. Most of the Fabii still live in Italia, and he’ll join them in Rome. With their influence and money he’ll get into the Senate as a matter of course, as his father did.”
    I wanted to say, maybe the poor boy doesn’t fancy a political career, if it means leaving Britannia and having his life, and his wife, organised for him by his mother. But apart from that not being my business, everyone knows that with these rich senatorial families, the marriages are nearly always arranged by the parents, often when the prospective bride and groom are mere children. What those children might or might not want didn’t count.
    “Well, Aurelia Marcella,” Sempronia barked, “you’ll help us, I trust? You’ll tell me where my son is?”
    So the runaway hadn’t given his dear mama his new address. I didn’t blame him. “He’s in this district somewhere?” I asked.
    “Obviously. That’s why we’re staying here.” She absently stroked the cat’s head. “He’s got a house between Eburacum and some obscure little town—Stone Bridges, is it, Horatius?”
    “Oak Bridges?” I suggested. “That’s our nearest town. About a mile from here.”
    “Yes, yes, that’s right. I’m told it’s a small place. Nothing there.” Oak Bridges isn’t a bad little town, but if you’re a grand lady from Londinium, that’s how the place would strike you, I suppose.
    “He says he’s going to start trading! ” She almost spat the word out. “He says—where is it now? ‘Eburacum is an expanding town, with a lot of new property going up. I’m sure there’s a fortune to be made in trade, and I hope to move there….’” She threw down the scroll violently, making the cat twitch its ears. “I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous. Members of this family do not go in for trade. ” She made it sound like the worst kind of abomination, treason, or cannibalism, or maybe both at once. “So we’ve come to find him and forbid this whole ludicrous enterprise, and insist that he returns home with us, and does his duty.”
    “That’s where I come in,” Horatius added. “Forbidding and insisting are always more effective when they’re backed up by the majesty of the law.”
    Now I saw why Sempronia had brought her lawyer and her ailing husband with her. The classic way to persuade a runaway son to do his duty would be to threaten that if he didn’t obey his parents, he’d be disinherited, cut out of his father’s will without a copper coin.
    “What I don’t know,” she said, “is exactly where to find Decimus. It’s near here, so presumably you do. You’ll give me directions to his house, if you please, and we’ll go there tomorrow.”
    “I’m sorry. I don’t know anyone called Decimus Plautius Curio.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous!