Archive of Our Own

 Ladies, you deserve

To have a temple built you: all the swords

In Italy, and her confederate arms,

Could not have made this peace.

CAIUS MARTIUS, ACT V, SCENE III

We will meet them,

And help the joy.

SICINIA (Sicinius in some versions), ACT V, SCENE IV

***

Virgilia remembers how it was to taste the echo of herself in her husband's kisses, the tart sweetness that touched her mouth like wine. How it felt as he took on that flavor, his tongue gliding to gather every drop among her intimate folds, to tease out every quiver and squirm from her, as her hands knotted in his hair and closed at the nape of his neck to pull him closer.

Valeria is not so aggressive—she lets Virgilia learn the way around her body slowly, fingers cradling her head, at times pressing or tugging a lock of her hair to guide her, but patient and even gentle, taking every touch as a gift.

Virgilia tastes Valeria, sometimes finding the echo of herself in the other woman, but above all she tastes the difference in their sweetnesses. Valeria is rich, the scent of her heady; the heavy sighs she makes as her dew wells around Virgilia's tongue with a savor of tang and musk, the rose-petal plumpness and deep color of her, have all become familiar and precious.

This is not a betrayal to her grief. It is not a betrayal of her husband. What good would her chastity do him? What good had her chastity done him in his absence, in his exile, when she wore a widow's weeds prematurely? And she and Valeria both know that Virgilia has done enough for Caius Martius' memory.

She does sometimes fear that she betrays Valeria, now. By bringing ghosts to bed with her, by seeking them, by finding them unsought.

Seeking Caius Martius before, she had gone to the Volscian encampment where he died, had found the man whose passions killed him. And sometimes when she kisses Valeria she must fight the echoes of kissing the man who once tasted her husband's blood. Closing her eyes in the mid-afternoon, she sees the flame-gold walls of that tent, inside which—Volumnia always bragged of completing a mythical husband's labors but Virgilia has done it. Has killed the man Caius thought himself destined to end, the man who slaughtered him; she took revenge on behalf of her husband, her other self, the best of her flesh. But she hadn't found him there, in the enemy's arms. At best she found fragments, secrets of a life already over.

Now she finds…something different.

***

Valeria's hands had washed the blood from her after she'd stumbled home. Gentle, almost caring, acting from pity, Virgilia thought at the time. What else did they have to hold them together, these two women with so little in common?

But for fragile moments Virgilia had nothing to hold her together except Valeria's hands, soft hands softly touching, in their wake scented oil and harsh soap replacing blood and grime, and then water rinsing even that away, revealing her own skin again. The other woman was so gentle. Virgilia held back from questioning why that was so—what Valeria feared had happened to her or feared that she had done; and she held back, too, from asking why Valeria bothered to aid her in the first place. Perhaps it was only ordinary decency.

She wanted to thank her, but her mouth was too dry, too hollow for words.

Valeria stepped out, and low words carried from the hall. Virgilia was too tired to continue washing by herself. She thought of slipping under the surface of the bath, not a thought born out of despair but simply curiosity. It was an option, and she wondered what it would be like.

Tullus Aufidius had not outlived Caius Martius by much. Perhaps that was his good fortune; at the least it was fitting. She had the sense, from what she had seen of him and of her husband, that each man was a frame as essential as a skeleton to the other—and however jagged a sharp-edged, shattered rib may stab against flesh, it is far preferable to living boneless. But Virgilia could not regret the thought of living on. Unlike Aufidius, she had not thought her victory would make things better. It had been vengeance for her husband, defense for herself. And now, far away in Antium, she had made another widow. She could not even summon the energy to grieve for it.

Valeria had returned. Through the door to the next chamber Virgilia glimpsed a couch with fresh sheets laid over it, while a waiting body servant fussed with a tray of oils and sponges. She swallowed hard and dipped her head beneath the water. She heard the pulse of waves displaced by her body and her own pulse beating dully in her ears. The sounds cleared her head.

When she resurfaced, Valeria had crouched by the side of the bath, waiting for her.

Their eyes met, Virgilia blinking water from hers. Some of it salty. She did not want to go into that room, bare, with her marks to be seen by strangers. There were secrets she didn't yet want known, pain she could not have witnessed.

Valeria's hand traced the rim of the tub, an absent gesture, without her gaze dropping. Softly, she said, "Would you like me to see to it?"

"To…"

"I'll send the woman out, if you would rather have me instead."

Oh. Virgilia sank back. The simple offer should not be so overwhelming. Yet it was kind. Knowing virtually nothing, Valeria sensed her need for privacy. And if Virgilia accepted—it would be letting her in, where no one else was allowed.

But someone had to be. She could bear these secrets herself, but she was not certain she had the strength to rise out of the water on her own.

She held her hand out to Valeria. "Yes. Yes…Thank you."

Valeria draped a drying cloth around her shoulders and came with her into the next room, not holding her but with an arm hovering ready to if Virgilia needed the support. First she took up a brush and combed her hair so that it wouldn't tangle as it dried. Then Virgilia let the cloth drop and lay down on the couch. She rested her chin on her hands and let Valeria look over her. Beneath the blood, which wasn't hers, the only harm she had taken was a set of bruises along the back of her legs from when Aufidius had shoved her to the ground. She felt the ache of them but didn't know how bad they looked. Valeria was silent; there was no way to judge from her reaction.

Her fingers skimmed Virgilia's ankles, so light as to be ticklish. When Virgilia twitched from it Valeria took her hands away entirely, then returned them with a firmer touch. Her palms were soft and slick with oil warmed against her skin. It was soothing, almost pleasant. But then she rubbed at the first bruise, and Virgilia's teeth furrowed her tongue to hold back a yelp. Long ago she had done similarly for her husband, for tenderness won in warfare and elsewhere; she had been prepared for it to hurt. The merciless nature of that sting, jarring down to the bone, was nonetheless sudden, impossible to truly be ready for.

Valeria adjusted her touch again, and a few more caresses from her fingers eased the pain. Virgilia's tension, though, did not drain away with it.

It was not even that she minded the pain so much. Her husband had known pain enough. Not a little of it at Tullus Aufidius' hands. And at her own—but that, even if it came about as a consequence, a strange passion shared among all three of them, was different. The anguish that went with and drove beyond pain, that she had never given. Not to him. Jupiter, she would have spared him any if she could. It was a thought that haunted widows—had he suffered?

She had wrapped the wound in his throat, where it had been slit like a victim's at sacrifice to celebrate a victory.

She had heard Aufidius' bragging confession.

Of course Caius had suffered.

He would not have expected anything else. But had it come too sudden, nonetheless? Had he feared it? Would he have shirked, if given the chance? Did it matter?

He had died to spare Rome. And she had avenged him.

Her bruises, her small pains, were worth it. 

Valeria's hands were not gentle anymore—they pressed as if trying to rub something out of her with each stroke. She still did not know how Virgilia got these marks. She simply trusted her reasons. And beneath her attentions, Virgilia felt safe. She let that be for now, sinking into the warmth and rhythm of the massage as she had earlier sunk into the water. Even as she did, she couldn't help wondering what would happen when Valeria heard the news.

"All right, then." A hand beneath her arm helped her to rise. Valeria took the long linen cloth from where it had dropped at the foot of the couch and helped wrap it around Virgilia's body, knotting it up at the shoulder. Even in this business, her touch was not as brisk as a body servant's. Virgilia caught a glimpse of her expression and saw, mingled with the pity she had anticipated, something brighter.

***

She saw it again the next day, when Valeria came to "see how well she did." It was after the news had broken through Rome of the death of Tullus Aufidius. The look Valeria gave her—when she did not seem to realize her regard was returned—seemed one of admiration.

But if pity alone had not moved Valeria, neither did mere admiration. Virgilia did not return her visits because she wanted pity or admiration, either. There was companionship—borne of secrets (never voiced but surely, now, known) and shared experience (they had gone together to plead for Rome, another thing they had not spoken of but would not forget) and other similarities. Valeria, Virgilia has always thought, is not only a virgin but a virago—a woman of her own, not in service to any other, not beholden by any definition. It may be that very unfetteredness that caused her in the end to reach out. To the widow of Caius Martius, another unfettered woman. To Virgilia, specifically.

Neither of them wanted to be alone. And increasingly, neither wanted to be long apart from the other. Though they had not always gotten along, Virgilia began to look forward to afternoons of Valeria's sometimes brazen, often irreverent, yet usually good-natured and always high-spirited conversation. News from throughout the city was no longer a distraction, because she no longer had anything to be distracted from. Perhaps—she could admit it to herself now, or at least raise the question—she had allowed herself to become, if not too infatuated her husband, too unwilling to be fascinated by anything or anyone else.

Caius had hated the common people, distrusting their fickle minds, their lowly desires and grubby ambitions. Virgilia had agreed with him. Against a world that seemed arrayed against him in all its dangers, she had remained dauntless by his side. But Rome is also the home of their family, their friends. It was Rome that Virgilia, Valeria, and Volumnia had humbled themselves, and risked much worse than their pride, to save. Rome Martius had died for. Rome that remains full of friends, that is in love with the ladies it regards as its saviors (even, perhaps especially, without knowing the truth of Aufidius' death).

The Senate had offered them all honor and any privilege for the asking. Volumnia spoke for them all—but, rarely for her, she had conferred with Virgilia and Valeria first. Virgilia had nothing to say but her thanks. Valeria suggested, softly, almost meekly, that thanks might best be offered to the gods. And so Volumnia had requested a temple be built for Fortuna Muliebris, the Luck of Women. In that she showed a sort of unwonted meekness herself, to thank mere luck for their victory. Yet thanks was owed, and so she even promised to pledge a share of her own fortune to the construction. Valeria pledged the rest. What Virgilia had, a mere allowance from the Marcia family's lands, they urged her to keep for her son.

She had kissed Valeria's cheek in thanks—not for the money so much as something she could not openly name. Volumnia had seemed surprised to see the other two women so close. Virgilia couldn't blame her. The change had surprised her, too.

Valeria had been at times impatient with Virgilia's withdrawn silence, which she no doubt regarded as haughtiness. But with her, Virgilia found herself able to overcome her reserve, and the lady is hardly thoughtless by nature. The afternoon of the bath had shown that, and so did the ensuing months, as she remained patient and unflagging in the face of Virgilia's grief. She was cheerful, but when she saw that quiet would be better received, sometimes the two women only sat for an afternoon in silence, sewing or spinning or sitting to catch the breeze in the courtyard.

When Virgilia broke down weeping in front of her, Valeria had wrapped her arms silently around her. Her touch was as before, not entirely gentle but safe, and Virgilia clung back in desperation.

"I do not even know what I am crying for," she hiccupped after one particularly embarrassing outburst.

"I might have a guess," Valeria said, with a small, kind smile.

"But I wasn't even thinking of him." Sometimes hours at a time went by without her thinking of him. Knowing this was how her loved ones would want it, Virgilia tried to view this tendency as a good one, worth encouraging. "In fact, I was thinking of—Well, of you. How pleasant it was that you could visit today." Her tears had soaked the shoulder of Valeria's gown. She felt the wetness of them beneath her cheek as she rested her head there again.  "How glad I was to see you."

Valeria brushed back strands of hair that had clung to her face. "And you're confused—why are you crying when you're happy?"

"Precisely." Valeria had voiced the thing troubling her with such clarity that Virgilia found herself smiling in answer.

"I did the same, after my mother died. It was in happiness that I missed her most. Even if I could not remember, I sensed something missing."

"I think I let it get too quiet. It—catches up to me, unless I'm doing something."

"Too quiet? You?" Any sting the teasing might have held was canceled by the warmth of Valeria's embrace. All her tears had poured out. For a few moments Virgilia was, simply, happy.

Not that Valeria could drive the underlying grief away. Virgilia felt safe in her arms but not safe from that. Nothing on earth could make her safe from that. But it did not matter.

It was not so much a surprise as it could have been when companionship turned to desire. Virgilia had already learned that lust and grief did not drive each other out, at least not where she is concerned. She never felt ashamed for that. By then her heart's loyalties were clear. She carried ghosts, but she did not betray the past.

And so she was not ashamed when the sensation that stirred her at Valeria's touch became more a thrill than comfort.

It happened in the midst of an embrace.

She felt it in Valeria's greeting, and again when their hands and limbs brushed in passing, as they sat together sewing a piece to hang in the Senate hall. It was vast, and pools of fabric fell over their laps and at their feet. She found herself watching the shadows where they deepened, following the drape of fine-woven cloth over Valeria's legs. When they were done for the day, Valeria held out her arms for Virgilia to fold piles of embroidery into. She found herself holding her breath as their hands brushed.

"Oof!" Valeria sighed as she dropped the heavy weight into a basket.

Virgilia leaned back on the couch, rolling out a tightness in her shoulders. When Valeria sat behind her, she stilled, aware of the heat, the nearby softness of the other woman's body. Valeria threw her arms around her. "Well, that's done!"  

The words stirred strands of her hair. She curled in the embrace, letting her fingers rest on Valeria's wrist. The moment of celebration passed, but the hold lingered, and Virgilia hardly dared move, feeling the moment draw on, sensations awakening that she had thought were left behind. Sensations beyond the touch-hunger of longing, an ache that only deepened.

She knew the touch of a would-be lover, and how it differed from a friend: hesitant, light, as if holding something precious, as if afraid of the consequences of holding too hard. When Valeria was about to release her, Virgilia's grip tightened on her wrist.

"Please. Hold me."

Valeria's chin brushed her shoulder as she leaned forward, seeking her expression. "My dear, are you…"

"I'm well. I'm not crying. But hold me."

It was not safety she sought in the embrace anymore. How strange, though, that a touch on the outside of her flesh seemed to fill empty spaces deep within. Not all of them. But she felt now an inner motion, a stirring that went beyond comfort. What she had lacked most of all, since Caius' death, had been excitement—light and vibrant. Mingled with it, curiosity. And desire.

She leaned back against Valeria, feeling the length and curve of the other woman's body against hers. Soft weight rose against her back as Valeria inhaled sharply, a line of bee-sting pleasure tickled where her fingers traced Virgilia's shoulder and the length of her arm.

She thrust her shoulders back as if unfurling wings, baring more of herself to that touch. She let Valeria's hands caress her, until finally she guided the one she still clutched down to her parting thighs.

Valeria's rapt gasp sang at her ear, and Virgilia turned her face to her.

"Will you kiss me?"

It was the kiss of would-be lovers: lips fluttering against each other, uncertain, tender, as if they might shatter from too much pressure. But then Valeria opened her mouth, and her tongue glided against Virgilia's and drew it in.

Valeria's taste was not poetically sweet, and she was nervous—they both were—so that the kiss at first had a powdery quality, soft but dry. Yet it was comforting, too. She smelled and tasted clean and somehow warm; Virgilia thought of cinnamon. The fingers of Valeria's free hand threaded through her hair, supporting the back of her neck, and Virgilia tried to return the touch only to tangle in her intricate braid. Valeria pulled back enough to shake her head and laugh quietly.

"Shall I take it down?"

"May I?" Virgilia asked.

"Yes, but be careful."   

Valeria leaned her head back as Virgilia found the end of the braid and began to work it loose. A line of tension pinched the bridge of her nose, but as the strands of her thick, long hair began to fall free without tangling or pulling, it eased out. Smiling, Virgilia dropped a kiss to her bared neck. And then their mouths met again.

In happiness she should miss him most. But her soaring heart could not summon that tribute—to remember him, yes, and even in the midst of Valeria's kisses she thought briefly of the heat of his, the red taste of his mouth. His memory was part of her happiness. But not his absence—she was too full of Valeria to think of any absence at all.

Valeria's hand moved where she had invited it, slipping under her skirt, and though Virgilia felt the welcome heat and pressure of it, the rush of pleasure and the wet tangle of their mouths distracted her too much to know what precisely Valeria was doing. Only that it was good. That the tide of it spread up the delta between her thighs until her legs trembled, and inside she trembled, too. Her muscles closed hard around Valeria's seeking finger, and they both caught their breath, then sighed, almost laughing in joy and relief. That they had found this, that they were each allowed it.

"Yes," Virgilia whispered, urging her. "Yes…" She raised her arms, helping Valeria take her dress from her.

Though no longer hesitant, Valeria remained gentle. Her touch was as warm and even as slick as it had been that day in the baths, and as before it seemed to ease something out of Virgilia. She was generous, letting herself be guided by Virgilia's return movements and soft, half-vocalized requests and directions. Virgilia reflected now that she had always been lucky with generous lovers—a thought that brought no pain, but encouraged her to give back.

When she returned Valeria's caresses, she did so without hesitation. Yet she wasn't sure what to expect. She ran a finger down the length of the hot, wet cleft, its proportions a little different from hers. She knew, though, what it meant when Valeria breathed out and let her legs fall open wider, her hips rising to press her flesh against Virgilia's exploration.

She slipped inside easily, felt muscle contract around her. This was something she had never done before—

"Did you ever put your fingers inside him?" Mocking words in a rough Volscian accent. "Feel how hot and tight he was?" Bitter with envy and rage.He'd had her husband, like a woman he'd sneered, by force, thinking to dishonor him—and her too—but she had taken revenge and proven him wrong, wrong for underestimating her not least. Wrong to misestimate Caius Martius, too. Still his challenge echoed—

A grip seized her wrist, soft but tightening. "Easy," Valeria gasped.

Virgilia stilled, realizing with horror that her fingers had curled as if attempting a fist. She let them straighten and started to draw out, but as she did the powerful channel around them tightened. Valeria's head fell back with another sigh as she released Virgilia's hand. 

"Just so," she murmured.

Virgilia stroked, letting her thumb press against the swollen nub at the forefront of Valeria's cleft. She straddled her, legs entwining, thighs pressing near. Valeria raised a hand to Virgilia's breasts, brought one nipple to a peak by mirroring the circles rubbed between her hips. She met Virgilia's eyes before applying her mouth.

When making love to her husband, Virgilia had taken him—like a woman takes a man, for what that was worth, yet unquestionably with power that was hers. Hers the hands that guided and sometimes struck and scratched, hers the flesh worshipped, the body serviced. And she had enjoyed it. Now she made Valeria tremble, oh yes. But it was not with a sense of conquest. She shared pleasure with her, received it as a gift, but not a surrender. She pressed in with her fingers, growing slick and scented—and then she was released by Valeria's mouth and could bring down her own, tasting, weaving her tongue over Valeria's folds. She licked over the span of her, curiosity and excitement rising, until a hand in her hair gently drew her attention up. They found each other in an embrace, limbs wrapping close and tangling.

They didn't wrestle, but writhed together, striving—as one, for the same goal, without even a pretense of struggle. Yet it was rapid, urgent, approaching even roughness. Virgilia could be gentle, even in love, but that came after. And she was never mild.  

The uncoiling climax that wracked her was not gentle nor mild, either. Valeria's came soon after, and like Virgilia she was quiet even in the midst of it, but as her flesh contracted in a rhythmic tide one hand swept over the surface of the couch, grasping at the embroidered covering. Eyelids fluttering, she sucked in a long breath, her chest heaving beneath Virgilia. And then she looked up at her and smiled.

They didn't dress right away, but curled side by side on the couch. As before, Valeria was at her back, with her fingertips and knuckles stroking Virgilia from shoulder to spine, collarbone to breasts.

"You're always very good at this," Virgilia murmured, pressing into the touch like a satisfied cat.

"It pleases you?"

"Oh, yes. Thank you."

"Hmm." The sound stirred the small hairs at the back of Virgilia's neck. Valeria brushed her hip, a ticklish moving up and forward, making her stomach shake with vulnerable laughter.

Virgilia fought to steady it and speak. "No bruises to soothe out, this time."

"I am glad."

"Not that bruises in love are always a bad thing." She looked over her shoulder. Fine lines creased the skin between Valeria's eyes, but eased out as she watched.

"Perhaps not. But I am glad not to have caused any, all the same. Unless you should desire…?" Her fingers contracted, not quite pinching, a little hesitant to, and the kindness of the gesture made Virgilia's eyes smart more than her skin.

"It's not necessary." She grasped Valeria's hand and raised it to brush the knuckles against her lips. "I didn't mean to confuse you—but I…" The words melted away, and she did not strain after them. No correction was needed. "I am content," she said.

Some time later, they rose. Valeria's hair fell about her shoulders, as Virgilia had never seen it before; having it loose seemed her true nakedness. Virgilia helped to comb the rich strands out and braid them once again, with the help of Valeria's directions and a mirror. When they were done and dressed, there seemed no sign of what had just passed. Except, when she bent to kiss Valeria's cheek, she felt the warmth of a flush beneath her lips, and though she drew away something of the touch seemed to remain. She knew it would not be for the last time.

***

The contrasts are obvious—both Valeria's fineness and her femininity set her apart from Caius. Her build is slighter, and almost everything about her is softer. Her limbs are cooler, free of the fire that beat off Caius like a perpetual fever, though when she curls around Virgilia she is more than warm enough. She carries herself with equal confidence but a greater sense of self-ownership, of certainty in her own flesh. Her deep brown skin is unscarred. From foot to brow, Virgilia has followed the gradations of her flesh without finding a single flaw.

Here and there, the occasional crinkle—like the crow's-feet that form when she laughs. Though older than Virgilia, Valeria often seems more inexperienced, discovering things with studious intensity and infectious joy.

  It is that where she differs from Virgilia most, whatever the small distinctions between their bodies. Valeria is more graceful and more gracious than she is. Persistent, but patient, and at times surprisingly kind. She seems in love with everything, and permits herself to be burdened by nothing. Virgilia used to become frustrated with her for this. No longer.

If anything, she fears she is mild, too free of frustration and of intensity. She can return Valeria's passion well enough when invited, but seems unable to prompt anything from herself. She is a fire banked to ashes. She has no anger left. Little hunger, either. Valeria's kisses and caresses can bring her out of it, but it can't be Valeria's portion to always draw her out of her stillness and silence.

She thanks the gods when she can cast fear aside and raise the low, hot fire. It is fear that holds her back, she concludes. Valeria is lovely and Virgilia feels lust for her as well as affection, both as true as any she had ever shown her husband. But that is where fear comes in, because even in the midst of love she can remember. Not only Caius but Aufidius. His rough kisses and brutal grip, their hard words and the keen edge of steel in her hand.

She had gone to the Volscian camp seeking a last sensation like a parting glimpse from her husband. She had wanted him back. But she cannot have that. From their wedding night she had known that all they had between them, she and Caius, was destined to be left unfinished. And so he lingers, too. She does not try to raise his memories, though she doesn't fear them like those of Tullus Aufidius. There is no reason to—Caius never frightened her. Sometimes Virgilia finds tantalizing echoes, and she knows she always will. She can live a life in echoes, especially when it is leavened by new sweetness.

"And what troubles your solemnness now?" Valeria's tone is light, but not teasing this time. Her eyes gleam but meet Virgilia's steadily. She's curious, and willing to offer what ease she can. 

Virgilia shakes her head, then bends it to nuzzle Valeria's warm-scented skin. Her mouth tracks over the other woman's full breasts, drawing husky laughter from the back of her throat. Her hands run along Valeria's sides, soft and smooth as silk.

And she feels a flash of frustration with herself as memories press, this time brought on by a lack of anything connected to them.

"I'm bringing ghosts to bed with me," she confesses.

Valeria catches her hand. "My dear." She rises on her elbows, looking down the length of her body to meet Virgilia's gaze again. "My dear," she murmurs. "I know. Do you think I expected you to leave them behind?"

Her fingers slide down Virgilia's forearm, up to the curve of her shoulder; then, as she draws her closer, down her back. "The past is always there," she says. "For all of us. We're hardly likely to escape it. So why should we begrudge its presence?"

Because it hurts like a wound. "Because it can distract from what's before us." She returns Valeria's embrace, then moves her hand lower. Valeria's leg hooks over her hip, baring her inner thighs to her reach.

It is a long time before she thinks again of the past, or of scars.

"Was I selfish, to begrudge anyone else the sight of them?" she asks Valeria. The question is abrupt; their conversation has since strayed to lighter matters. "Martius' scars, I mean, when he stood for consul? They made him reveal them. At first I thought I only begrudged it because he did, because they hated their show but now… I believe I was selfish, more than a little."

"Romans are strangely moved by scars," Valeria says.

Virgilia lifts her head from her bosom. This is not her usual gossip.

Valeria's expression is distant, solemn, though there is warmth in her voice. As if long-banked ashes were being stirred to life. "Remember Lucretia."

Virgilia is not certain if it is an order, a question, or a favor asked. "A little. Menenius Agrippa has just been teaching my son about the fall of the Tarquins."

A smile flits across Valeria's face. "He must enjoy that, the noble boy."

By noble she means any number of things—young Martius is his father's son. For Virgilia, too, this summons a smile that cannot linger. "It suits his sense of…adventure. And of justice, in the end."

"I saw how Lucretia sought justice." Valeria shifts as if to roll on the mattress, but catches herself before overturning Virgilia where she is cushioned. "I was there."

Virgilia had forgotten; though not much her senior, Valeria is old enough to have seen events firsthand.  

"And what I was not there for, my brother told me." Her fingers stroke through Virgilia's hair, but her gaze remains distant, long years distant. "She summoned him, along with Junius Brutus, and her husband and her father, to her home in Collatia. She wore mourning, and her eyes were red. But her tears had been done beforetime. With her first words she asked them for vengeance. She told them—what Sextus Tarquin had done, how he came into her chamber at night with a sword and with threats—"

She breaks off as Virgilia's body tightens against hers.

"Well," she says more softly, "she told them and asked them for justice."

Virgilia nods, clinging to that, to justice in the end. What Valeria has to cling to, if there is any such thing, she cannot be sure.

"Pledge me your solemn word that my attacker will not go unpunished," Valeria quotes. "I begged my brother to tell me everything, the exact words. But even he could not remember what they said next—the four men, outraged, yes, but also uncertain. Minds racing with the implications. To punish the son of a king…an unpopular king, too…well.  Yet it was also shameful to the family, to admit what had happened to her. For so long Lucretia was famed for being chaste."

So is Valeria, in some circles. Virgilia cannot say if the shudder that runs down their bodies, as if to shake off some nasty crawling thing, started in her flesh or in the other woman's, or what precisely it comes at.

"They had left their swords and knives, scabbarded, slung over their couches. As they talked, as they dithered, Lucretia leapt up, and drew one, and stabbed it into her heart. Without a word, my brother said.

"They carried her body to Rome. They lay it out in the hall where the senate met, but the place was open to all on that day. They wanted everyone to see what Tarquin had done."

Virgilia strokes Valeria's shoulder, meaning to comfort, but a muscle jumps beneath her hand in a way she recognizes; she lets go. To think she had imagined, not an hour before, that Valeria is unburdened.

Valeria is virtuous, and she has survived more or less whole, but nobody who has lived these years in Rome—these past twenty years and more—is free of their own memories. For some witnesses they weigh more heavily than others.

"A general election was held. They voted, all those men—some had their wives cheering them, and some their mothers, and my brother, of course, had his sister—" But she does not smile. Her mouth grows only thinner on these words. "—The Tarquins' monarchy was at an end, even as Lucretia lay on display in the forum.

"I was there. In the days of the monarchy, of course, women had no place as tribunes or senators. But even then, I liked to watch and listen.

"They had left her in the dress she died in. Do you know, though my brother called it mourning I have never been so certain. It was humble cloth, to be sure. But pure white, and so sheer you could see her flesh through it. Like the robe of a candidate."

Like the robe Martius wore, then, presenting his scars to the people. Something deep within Virgilia cannot stop leaping and trembling. This is about the baring of wounds, the violation of bodies—the sacrifice of them, too, and just partly, after all these things, about justice.

"I've always worn a shawl or cloak around." Valeria nods at the one mounded at the foot of the bed. She claims to get cold easily, though Virgilia has never noticed it. But she knows the heat of her embrace, the surface of her skin—what can she say about what lies deeper? She chafes the hand she holds now, as if it might be needed, as if mentioning an inner chill has summoned it. For one reason or another, Valeria does not dissuade her. "The senate's hall has thick walls and is always in shadow, it has been always as cool as winter. But that day, I knelt by her as they took the vote. I lay my cloak over her, as high as I could without covering the wound. And I hid her nakedness, but not her face. It was only for modesty. I thought at the last that she was owed that much.

"I was young then," she says. "So it seemed simple to me, and I did it without hesitation. No one stopped me. I am not even certain anyone noticed."

Her fingers entwine with Virgilia's, and her tone lightens again in the way it has, a cadence of cheer and gravity to balance each other. "Your husband, too, was young. A mere sixteen when my brother led Rome's troops to battle against the kings."

"He met Tarquin himself on the field." He had never spoken to her of it—they didn't speak of his battles, not when they were together in private—but it was one of the few accounts he would not squirm at when related in public.

"He did. And they say Tarquin walked with a limp after the fact—though personally—" here Valeria lowers her voice conspiratorially, and Virgilia wonders who she has spoken to about this, and why—"I have often suspected Martius struck a little higher than the knee. Shall Menenius tell your son that story, Virgilia?"

She laughs, whooping with it until it rises like a howl of war. "Perhaps, in any case, you should," she tells Valeria, but the laughter still ripples between and under her words, and comes again in their wake. The story has a bitter humor, weak and dry, but also a justice crude and direct and very much lacking elsewhere. Her husband was a terror on the battlefield. She enjoys thinking of that terror descending on Sextus Tarquin, rapist by sword and threat. Such vengeance was like Caius, too.

Valeria smiles with her, but her words are soft among the laughter. "I still remember her expression. Lucretia's face was handsome, a poet had once called her skin smooth and golden as precious oil; her eyes, they say, were dark like night. And she wore a look of…fearless anger. As if it were not her own heart she struck at."

She shakes her head. As Virgilia's laughter dries up completely, Valeria kisses her—deep, open-mouthed, but gentle. "There," she says. "I have brought ghosts to bed, too."

***

"Yes," she whispers, hips bucking, hands grasping at the silken blanket sent sliding off the bed's edge from their action. "Yes, lover."

At her urging, Virgilia lets her fingers slide deeper. The passage is always easier than she expects—closing tight around her, but permitting each motion with grace. They move together in a building rhythm, Valeria rising to meet her strokes, grinding against the pad of her thumb. She's moving ever faster, but Virgilia isn't ready yet to be drawn on at her pace. Instead, she removes her hand, drawing a mewl of disappointment from her lover. But she makes up for it as she grasps Valeria's hips and brings her mouth down between them.

She licks away the juices that pour around her lips—this is always wetter than she expects, the taste and texture silken, vibrant, different. She feels the surge of Valeria pushing near her, rolling in her grip. The lady makes no sounds of disappointment now. She sighs, the familiar husky music of her pleasure. The sighs rise and roughen as Virgilia's tongue laps deep along her cleft, as her lips purse and suck. When she adds her fingers again, welcomed into that wet tightness, the sharp cry from Valeria startles her.

"Yes, lover, please…"

Her entire body bucks against Virgilia's mouth and fingers, jarring. But then Virgilia stops trying to guide it; instead she moves with Valeria's thrusts, meeting them, then following them. Valeria has never before been so unrestrained. The sight—and the sensations, her lips smeared wet as their flesh meets, her fingers griped and released—and the sound, those cries that only continue rising—makes Virgilia ache and pulse with excitement.

But as Valeria's voice reaches a carrying pitch, Virgilia thinks suddenly of who might hear them—the servants of the house, and even her family. In an unthinking rush she brings her free hand to Valeria's mouth and closes it. One finger even pushes past her lips, and Virgilia feels the suction of Valeria seizing hard on it as her climax runs over them both.

It is violent, an extreme Valeria had not experienced before. Virgilia removes her hand as soon as she can, as the last muffled cries ease. That was not the sort of roughness she intended, at least without knowing whether it would be welcome.

But at her apologies Valeria shakes her head, smiling. "As well you kept me circumspect." The words are breathy, soft as empty air, and slow in coming.  

"And you did need to be," Virgilia whispers.

"That was…" Valeria lies back on the pillow, and Virgilia watches the pulse flutter in her smooth-skinned throat in counterpart rhythm to the breath swelling her breast. "It was my first time feeling quite…like that."

"At the climax?"

"Yes," she says, even now light with the echo of it.

"You were very…" Virgilia's heart hammers as though she has been running, as though she had been the one wracked with pleasure moments before. Her ribs are tight about her lungs, but it doesn't seem to matter; the ache is wonderful. "You hadn't, before…"

With the smile breaking across it, Valeria's face seems to glow. "My own hands just weren't the same."

"Your hands have been very good in my experience," Virgilia says without gallantry, without blushing. She is smiling, though. She feels the expression pulling her cheeks tight.

"Yes, it's different when there's someone else."

Sitting cross-legged beside Valeria's long limbs, Virgilia looks up. "And there's been no one else…?"

"There hasn't ever been much chance." Something in Virgilia's expression makes Valeria laugh ruefully. "Well, I could have made the opportunity, I suppose. I've hardly been secluded."

At this Virgilia feels a more unwelcome tightness cross her features. She had been teased, often enough, for how willingly she once secluded herself. One more difference between the two of them.

Valeria's hand skims her thigh just above the knee. "Some girls, they practice. Before getting married. Of course, I never married, and so…"

Virgilia had practiced, as she put it—just a little, with a close playmate who had also been affianced within months. It had taught her more about her own body, about what it liked, and offered an outlet of companionship and physical pleasure at a time of anxiety for any young woman. Even now a faint warmth spreads through her at the memory. "My friend, Iulia… But with her it wasn't quite like that, either."

"We're more mature now. More experienced."

Virgilia nods, laughs lightly alongside Valeria. "It does help, the experience." She had never been able to make Iulia cry out as Valeria did just now. A flush suffuses her, of pride and renewed lust.

"I imagine that's why the girls practice with each other." Valeria's tone is droll; of course there are other reasons. The young women who explored pleasure with each other were not merely practicing. Such sweet, quick-snatched intimacies were good in themselves.

For Valeria, who never married, perhaps they seemed best of all.  

"You know," she says—in the fresh, bright voice with which she offers the juiciest gossip, a tone that prompts Virgilia to lean forward to hear better—"such stories are told about just who chose to practice with whom, even going back decades. Or sometimes whispers pass of trysts much more recent. Many of them have their impact on the Senate floor. It happens between men, too."

Virgilia nods again, stretching relaxed in the bed beside her. Men, women—the wonder to her is only that anyone could expect anyone to choose. It's more complicated between men, she suspects, at least among the less sophisticated, who carry beliefs about the implication of every position taken. These would be contemptible if not so violently held. And she dismisses the line of thought firmly. But as a light, passing thing—physically, though the bonds it formed lasted—why, even the most bigoted in Rome could at least adopt tasteful deafness to such rumors, while others wore fond smiles at memories of their own, or exchanged glances across the room.

Through Valeria, Virgilia has come to appreciate the fun of harmless gossip, of learning loosely-held secrets that illuminate people suddenly from new angles. It creates a sort of friendly, if one-sided, intimacy. Rome is more interesting than she had thought, and she has grown more fond of it. Her judgment falls only on those who are cruel, or too full of judgment themselves.

Valeria continues speaking, though her tone grows softer: "At the time, I heard your husband spent some nights with Titus Lartius before your wedding."

Virgilia's head comes up. "Did they?"

A shrug. "They were certainly fond enough of each other.  I know Titus was distressed at his exile…and his death."

Virgilia had not noticed; she'd noticed little of any of her fellow mourners. She knows Lartius in passing—a tall, well-shaped man near her age who has achieved a high rank despite his youth. No surprise if Caius admired him for that, nor for his handsome form. And he was conscientious. He wrote letters to Volumnia keeping her abreast of campaigns, and no doubt Valeria has also received her share of intelligence from him. Perhaps even about this, or enough hints of it to draw her own conclusions.

Valeria's hand presses hers. Her brows are furrowed with concern. She hadn't intended to hurt, though in times past Virgilia might have interpreted this revelation ungenerously, assuming it came from jealousy at the mention of Iulia. Such petty revenges would prove no good, though—and this warm afternoon of all times has not given Valeria reason for jealousy. As they lie together,  naked bodies pressed close, Virgilia squeezes her hand in return and smiles. It's a small smile. For a moment, she thinks, At least he knew one time with another man that was good. That wasn't forced, brutal…

But once again what she has learned fades at its edges to what she does not, cannot know. "To be honest," she says, "it's a sweet thought. I'm glad to hear of it."

"Titus is a good man," Valeria says. "I've been happy to see him bear his head up in the Senate once again these days. He appears well…"

"These past months have been kindly." The words are not brittle, but her tongue feels tender shaping them. True, she has seen more kindness than she dared to expect in the darkest days now behind her. In the end, though, it is only so much.

Valeria nods. "As for Martius—well, I believe we all agreed he seemed very eager to make your wedding night special."

Valeria is trying to prompt Virgilia's smile to grow. For that purpose, this is the wrong thing to say. And yet Virgilia is glad she said it, because the thought stirs up a pain that has been buried unspoken for too long. At last there is someone to hear.

"It was one of the sweetest nights of my life." She releases Valeria's hand, tossing loose hair back over her shoulder. It bares her eyes, which she feels swelling with tears.

Valeria's smile falls.

"In truth, it was." She presses the other woman's fingers again for just an instant, long enough, she hopes, to reassure. Then she gets out of the bed and crosses the room to burrow through one of her trunks.

"What are you going for?"

Facing her neatly folded clothes, strewn with herbs and textured with brilliant weaving and embroidery, makes it easier to speak. "On our return from the Volscian camp—the songs, the flowers that awaited us—at that moment, even at that moment, I thought it felt so much like a wedding procession."

They had walked the long street, its winding way over the hills made narrow by crowds, the red walls hidden by the mass of people staring, waving, shouting. Glad cries falling around them like the petals tossed from baskets or plucked loose from garlands and thrown about. Red as drops of blood, floating down to strains of distant music. Her son's hand tiny and cold in hers, Valeria's hand warm on her shoulder. Volumnia striding at the head of them, shoulders straight, mourning cloak hanging from them like a victor's train.

Menenius met them in the street. Volumnia grasped his arm, but he walked with his head inclined low, and did not raise it after she told him the news from the Volscian camp. Martius had refused to see him when he went; was shame at that failure, contrasted with their success, the reason he withered now? Or was grief?

And at the forum the senators were waiting to greet this victory procession. This, Virgilia realized with another rain of petals, was what her husband's mother had sought all her days: a victory procession, and herself at the center of it. She had tried to win it vicariously through her son, and now, undreamed-of, acclaim and honor were her own.

Only much later did Virgilia remember Tullia. Tullia, last queen of Rome, a Tarquin. The day her husband came to power, supplanting her father, she had come across the corpse of the deposed king in the road. When her driver would not proceed, she took the reins from him and drove the chariot over the body of her own father, and returned to her household, victorious, marked with his blood.

At the time, she was conscious of none of this, and so Virgilia did not understand her inclination to check for bloodsplatters on their skirts. Beside her, her son's small voice rose to join the song. Welcome, ladies, welcome…

Even the plebian tribunes had come to share in their joy, with broad smiles and eyes red as if from weeping. Cymbals clashed and glorious flames danced in the forum's great braziers. Virgilia felt their heat on her face, smelled the flowers smashed soft and sticky beneath her feet. Her ears rang with the shouts.

And Caius Martius was dying even as they drowned out his exile with cries of welcome, even as his mother and wife and child processed into Rome in triumph.

At the bottom of the chest she finds the small cosmetics jar, filling her palm with its round, smooth weight. It isn't very heavy; she handles it with care as she carries it back to the bed. She kneels again beside Valeria, who leans close. When Virgilia lifts the tiny lid, the old sweetness of roses breathes up around them. They are from the single flowers that bear only a few petals, larger than her thumbprint, and hold their scent a long time. Their bloody red has dimmed to a gentler shade. Some are ragged-edged.

"My son had gathered these as we walked. I discovered him at the end—he was tearing them to pieces, leaving a trail behind us." She laughs shortly at the memory, not from any humor in it. Her son's more riotous habits have been curtailed by sharp words from his grandmother, who has lost her taste for swords even in play. Instead, she and Virgilia and Menenius seek opportunities to entertain the boy with quieter games and lessons in mathematics and history. To the latter he's taken well, and Virgilia keeps considering asking Valeria to share her own stories—a consideration she must put aside now. Valeria's mouth is drawn narrow.

Young Martius still has these occasional outbursts, angry and instinctive violence. And Virgilia cannot scold him for them, because she understands too well. "He was confused, frustrated—they were thrown at him, and he didn't know why, and they were so fragile, and perhaps he had found it all dull, I can't say.

"I don't know why I wanted to save them," she admits.

Valeria grasps a few dried petals delicately in her fingertips, drops them rustling to her palm, raises her hand before her face. Her nostrils flare as she takes in the dusty, heavy perfume. 

"They gave us garlands of flowers at our wedding," Virgilia says. "I didn't like them. They prickled. We cast them to the foot of our bed and let them be burned with the other refuse, after." The words are rougher in her throat than she expected; she had not realized how deep regret runs.

Valeria's fingers part, a sieve through which dry, ruddy rain falls. "I've never married, of course." She licks her lips. "I don't say that seeking sympathy. Rather… In ignorance, I have taken some things too lightly, I think."

Virgilia frowns. "If anything, I—"

"Rivaled Penelope, I told you often."

She smiles. "Not the worst model, surely."

"No. I meant no harm by it—or little harm, at least. But I didn't understand you, Virgilia. Friendship, companionship I knew, but such unchanging passion…seemed unreasonable." She still cups an empty hand. "They call me chaste, and I was never so shut in as you."

"It was by my choice, though."

"Yes. I understand that now. I understand…devotion. And the urge towards it." Valeria smiles. "I understand some things about chastity, too. And the ways in which it suits me." And the ways it doesn't, she has no need to add, as she rests naked in Virgilia's bed.

But… "Devotion?" Virgilia asks.

Valeria picks the petals she dropped from the sheets. "That day. In the Volscian camp."

Virgilia has to ask, "Which?"

"When we were there together."

She nods. "You saw everything."

"I did."

How she had embraced her husband and pleaded with him. And demanded, too, inwardly praying he would as ever be eager to obey her will. She tried to save them—all of them, perhaps, even Caius, whatever was left of him in the bloody bitterness to be saved. And in the end Virgilia cannot say that she succeeded. Volumnia had prevailed, and Martius' wife was only a piece to play in her argument. Perhaps the crucial piece, perhaps not. Martius' reasons for surrendering would forever be unknowable. And so they had parted. He had embraced her, she still remembered his voice breaking, saying Wife…

The warmth of his last kiss, stinging with undried tears. He had been afraid at the last—caught by his mother, trapped by Aufidius—and there was nothing she could have done for him, and she cannot blame him for sparing her no further thought.

"Virgilia." Valeria's hand brushes her shoulder, light and swift, bringing her back. "I saw the look in his eyes when you walked away. My dear—"

They are holding each other, clinging hard enough to hurt.  

"My dear, my sweet dear lady. And he looked at me too—caught me watching, saw me at your side. Our eyes met…and then he looked to you again, and perhaps he knew my gaze would follow." Their foreheads press, and she is so near she sees the crystalline bead on Valeria's beating lashes. "In earnest, Virgilia, I think he did mean something by it. I know I did."

"You think he would have you look after me?"

"I know he would have you looked after."

"Yes…" Virgilia had tended his wounds, guided him in love, soothed his gall, ruled him in her own gentle way—but he was looking after her, too, in his. Untutored in gentleness, except for what he had learned from her, yet he knew service, and how to protect.

Valeria shakes her head. "Though I think he was under the mistaken impression that you enjoyed all my busy, giddy visits."

"I have learned to." She traces the curve of Valeria's neck, feeling her hair brushing soft and heavy on the backs of her fingers.

"I came for more than pity. I would have come without him…I would have come even if it was forbidden, forbidden by anyone but yourself."

"Of course you would. Didn't you come when Penelope would do nothing but shun you?"

They laugh together. "But sweet lady, how could I resist? Ithaca had the only queen worthy of the title."

Virgilia leans back, a pang tightening around her heart. It feels full, from this last unlooked from glimpse of her husband, and even more from Valeria's revelation. She grasps the other woman's hand.

"Just as practice is not always meant for a husband or a wife," she says, "neither is a wedding always needed to mark devotion." Yet it still deserves recognition.

Her free fingers move over the sheet, gathering pinches of the rose petals. She lets them fall over Valeria's shoulders, whispering down her breasts and back. They fall into her naked lap, land on her thighs and tremble at the shiver that passes over her.

Virgilia presses with a rose-filled palm, letting the rough, dry petals rasp softly over Valeria's skin, leaving the trace of their scent. She nuzzles close, smelling Valeria's clean, warm salt-sweetness mingled with the older musty perfume. The skin where they were rubbed seems flushed beneath its duskiness, tinted by the powder of the petals or from blood brought to the surface by the caress, she cannot say. But now she wants to leave such a trace everywhere. She runs her hands over Valeria's yielding thighs and firm shoulders, full breasts and flat stomach.

Valeria holds very still, perhaps startled, but her eyes follow the movement of Virgilia's hands. Petals fall over her hair, her cheeks, her parted, trembling, laughing lips.

They roll into brittle beads, more likely to snap before wrinkling and wrinkle before tearing. The rough texture is a delicious contrast to Valeria's body. Virgilia cups the soft skin at the apex of her legs, felt the wetness beading, slick and silken flesh underneath crisp hair and dried roses.

Valeria's fingers grip her wrist. A question waits in her eyes.

"Yes," Virgilia says. "I want this."

These petals were mocking loss even as they fell. Let them do what good they can now.

Valeria nods. With a flex of her hips, her groin rubs against Virgilia's palm. Leaving her wrist, her fingers interweave with Virgilia's, guiding them to where she wants them. Virgilia slips inside her again, and this time moves in the way that had such effect before. There is a twist to the fingers, one that leaves Valeria gasping, muscles seizing around her.  Virgilia parts her own thighs, and lets Valeria in between them. They glide together, their flesh slick with sweat and more.

She pinches up a last handful of petals and sends them over Valeria in final benediction. One settles, its descent halted as a fragile edge catches on a strand of Valeria's hair. It tumbles as they kiss, falling to Virgilia's lips, caught in her mouth as it opens, cut and mashed against teeth. Its flavor is sweet as its fragrance, but earthier, with a hint of nuttiness and of sourness.

They fall back against the bed, her fingers still seeking inside Valeria, legs tangling, riding against each other. The smell of woman, clean and intimate, mixes with the perfume of old roses, and it is the same sweetness—light but filling Virgilia to the bottom of each breath.

Valeria's breathing comes high and rough again, her breasts swelling against Virgilia's chest, and as she drops her mouth to latch on one brown-bud nipple she hears the swallowed cry. She is not used to unquiet lovers. Even in passion, she is nearly silent herself. But she likes to hear what escapes Valeria's discipline and caution; likes to know she's responsible for it. As she sets her aim, and sets about bringing Valeria to another wracking climax, they crush the dried-out roses to dust beneath their bodies.

***

 "Come to the Senate with me," Valeria whispers into the hollow of her shoulder.

"What, now? I'm hardly dressed for it."

A painless pinch at her hip punishes the irony. "At any time, Virgilia, you'll be welcome. Menenius, Lartius, and I would value your voice…or your silence."

"You'd have me there to speak?" She startles in Valeria's arms.

"To be seen, at the least."

"Why?" She turns to see her companion. "And how long have you been maneuvering in the Senate?" As the great Publicola's sister, Valeria has been at its every session the past fifteen years and more, though rarely to interject. To many who remember the old days, a woman's place is in harmony, and the senate floor is not renowned for such. Valeria had joined with Menenius to both defend and temper Martius' rages against the tribunes. She has sometimes cheered some public-spirited, unopposed measure, or fluently condemned one obviously foolhardy. Otherwise, Valeria observes. She is one to write and receive letters, keeping apace with both the dramatic and the intricate details of a political campaign.

Now Virgilia thinks she can glimpse one of her own.

"I've offered my guidance as long as I've thought it necessary." A corner of Valeria's mouth draws down ruefully. "Perhaps not long enough."

"Well." Virgilia swallows, dry-mouthed at the stress placed in Valeria's words. Necessary. "I must at least wait until my mourning is over."

"Isn't it? After, what, eight months?"

"We have been permitted ten." Ten mouths is the longest period of mourning allowed by the law, and to receive it for a man positioned as complicatedly as Caius Martius—even as a husband, even a son—has been a minor triumph of politics. Virgilia wonders now who all had a hand in it.

Valeria nods. "I can tell you this much—first, your lady mother is not waiting out the months before reentering the field, cloaked in black as she may be. And some are glad to have her there. Menenius… He is as well-spoken as he ever was, though not as liberal, and even so his voice does not carry so far anymore."

"Something in him broke," Virgilia said, "when Martius refused to see him."

"Yes. But Lartius is still strong. And Comenius has a friendly ear for the three of them, now."

"What are they doing?"

Valeria laughs, with both humor and lingering rue. "Bringing hell."

Virgilia startles, though perhaps this should not be so surprising. "Against the tribunes of the people?"

"Them especially, but I would say no one has been made especially comfortable. It's not only revenge. Heaven knows Sicinia and Brutus have tried to ingratiate themselves, and though it's easy to see why, it's no less obnoxious. Yet the people have felt their power, and we all have felt the people's power, too. Everything's in chaos, no more than half-formed, as if our politics were the substance of primordial days."

And perhaps they are. All that has gone before has only lain the foundations of a stage. And on it, what players?

The politics of the plebeians caused her husband's exile. Yet it had been neglect and deprivation by the patricians that made the common people so dissentious. And even to their own, the noble can be something less than openhanded. Women might urge harmony in the senate, but at their homes they praised war like any high priestesses with their gods. It had been patricians' wars, noble wars, that Caius Martius threw himself into, their scars that marked his body—and Virgilia had hated this nobility of violence ever since she first saw those scars in her husband's flesh. She can forgive his tyranny, but not theirs. The bloodlust of Rome, like the lust of the Tarquins, has broken and spoiled, and not even all of the trampled have thought to protest.

Yet gone are the days of Lucretia, of women who could only make demands on the conscience, and through violence, and by aiming that violence against themselves. Sicinia Veluta's an old model of politician, treacherous as beslimed cobblestones, but perhaps a newer model for woman. Power she undoubtedly has, gathered in whatever doubtful ways, and power she holds as an individual—no-one's wife, or daughter, or mother.

Virgilia realizes her gaze has become not only distant but speculative. Valeria is returning it.

"I'm tired," the lady says, "of merely witnessing."

"I, too." Virgilia lightly sighs away an old pain. "I'm tired of being left to listen at doors."

"While fate is being decided within?"

Certain fates. Virgilia nods.

If she goes to the Senate, it will not just be for vengeance against the tribunes and the plebeians or even the warlovers. It will not just be for revenge. Volumnia is now a patron for peace, after leading the truce with the Volsces, but her ambition has grown too great to trust. And by Jupiter, the people are as shifting as the tides—but like the tides, they shift in accordance with nature and natural impulses. Empty stomachs might seem beneath the concern of the patricians, even now, but Virgilia sees how easy they could be to answer. How simple it might be after all, to bring some measure of concordance. There will never be love between the two classes of Rome, and there might not even be lasting peace. But if, for a moment, there might be…

And even if she is no longer a wife, she is a daughter, and a mother, and these things are not the sum of her but neither are they inconsequential. If Volumnia's star is rising, her daughter-in-law might rise with it. There she would have the chance to preserve what she can. To protect her son from the risks of violence, exile, assassination, war.

"Should we decide fate for ourselves?" she asks Valeria. And answers herself, "Who better?"

She traces Valeria's neck and shoulders, sensing strained muscles softening beneath her touch. Her fingertips glide down across her breasts. They press a moment against the pulse she feels there, as if taking measure of it.

"You already have," she murmurs.

Valeria scoffs warmly, "As if you had nothing to do with that."

"It was your idea that saved Rome. Your idea to go to my husband."

At the time, Valeria had credited it to the gods. In retrospect, Virgilia is uncertain how much she meant it—how much she felt her idea came from divine inspiration, and how much she only claimed it did to strengthen her argument. It was an appeal to Volumnia's pride, to say that a god had answered Rome's prayers through her. Perhaps an appeal to Virgilia's pride too;

but Virgilia would have said yes to anything that would let her see Caius' face one more time, and Valeria knew that also. 

"My words would have done nothing without you," Valeria says now.

"I am here to implore you to attempt something," she had said then, "that will be not only the salvation of ourselves and the whole Roman people, but which will bring you, if you agree, greater glory than was earned even by the daughters of the Sabines, when they converted their fathers and their husbands from mortal enmity to friendship and peace."

The mention of the Sabines echoes powerfully in her memory. It is easy to forget that Rome was built on more than bloodshed—that at its roots are also forgiveness, and love so all-encompassing it surpasses betrayal. Sometimes peace requires the sacrifice of nothing but enmity. Some victories are bloodless.

Not every one, though.

Can glory make up for that?

"What if I've had my fill of power?" Virgilia asks.

Valeria's fingers follow the curve of her body, trembling with the swell of a harsh breath.  "Have you?"

By Jupiter, by Juno, by Mars, she has not. Not enough power to protect, to guide, or to satisfy. She is not thinking now of her gloved hands tight around Caius' throat, the look in his eyes as he went to his knees before her, the embroidered cloth wrapped, binding around his wrists. She stands once again behind a closed door, hearing raised voices command a future she knows holds disaster. She stands once again silent. She does not think of soaring cries, muffled against her palm and summoned by her fingers. She cannot think of the dust of roses, the marks of kisses, of bruises.

She thinks of bruises.

She says harshly, "Those who stand for Consul must show scars."

Valeria does not turn away from her harshness. Her words are steady, clarion: "I'm sure if you wish to stand, you will have something persuasive to show them."

The marks from Tullus Aufidius, which her caress had soothed, have long ago faded away. Yet Virgilia thinks for an instant that she means them. As if those are the only wounds Valeria has seen her bear.

"What if I would begrudge anyone else the sight of them?" She asks this more gently. Her fingers stroke Valeria's cheek, lingering beneath the lashes of bright-shining eyes.

"Then don't do it," Valeria says without a hint of uneasiness. "I cannot command you. I would not."

"You only encourage, inspire."

"One does not need to be Consul to rule." 

She sinks back on the cushions, picturing it. To stand in the street asking for voices, for those slips of paper hardly bigger or less crimson than rose petals. She could do it in widow's weeds instead of that crude, revealing tunic of humility. They would not expect her to smile. She could meet the faces of those—women and men both—who had hated her husband, and admire her. She could not fawn over them, that is not the sort of love she can show. But she has learned a sort of fondness, and true concern. For the most part, those lessons have been in the lap of Valeria.

Virgilia turns to the other lady now and smiles. "Yet I think you would be the better Consul."

Valeria laughs, bending to kiss her shoulder. "I'll follow your term."

"Or we could serve together." 

The kisses move lower. Valeria's breath warms her. "Then shall I save you a seat when the Senate next convenes?"

"Yes," Virgilia says. But she does not promise she will come. She is sure Valeria recognizes this omission, but she does not press to fill it.

***

She wears crimson the first day she leaves the house without wearing dull widow's gray. A tunic flows to her feet, cut off the shoulders to reveal the black sleeves of her undergown. The black is purely because she finds the color's simplicity pleasing; she doesn't intend to resist the Senate's edict against ostentatious mourning. The wealth of red silk may appear ostentatious in a different way, but that, she thinks, she may be forgiven. Such public presumption is unlike her. She finds that, like the brilliant crimson, it suits.

A servant welcomes her in the atrium of Valeria's home. "The lady is in her bath."

"I'll wait," Virgilia says. "Will you show me there?"

With only an infinitesimal flutter of eyelash, the servant leads her to an antechamber at the back of the house, comfortably appointed. Once she is alone, Virgilia goes to the inner door and raps lightly. "My lady?" she calls through the door.  

"Virgilia!" Her name sounds with ripples of laughter and water. "I'll be out in a moment—or you may come in, if you like."

In answer, she pushes the door open. A mist of wet warmth kisses her, heavier yet cleaner than the midsummer heat outdoors. Valeria reclines in the marble basin at the center of the room, resting her elbows on its lip. As Virgilia enters, she rises to attention, small waves licking at her arms and breasts.

Virgilia smiles. "Please, don't get out on my account." She strolls along the wall of the room. A tray of figs lays out, small and sun-ripened. She chews one, swallows its grainy sweetness in almost one bite. Valeria makes a pleased hum; she likes to see Virgilia show appetite. A chest rests open, and upon peering inside Virgilia grins at a glimpse of the robe she gave Valeria a few months ago—crimson silk embroidered in rich purple.

Perhaps Valeria notices the same silk adorning her now, because her face breaks into a grin. "Out of mourning, my dear—and you look lovely."

"Then we shall match." She takes out the robe and drapes it near the bath. Then she steps away, reaching for the ribbon securing her gown beneath her breasts. Valeria's eyes follow her fingers. The ribbon draws free, and folds of silk fall loose, making it easy for Virgilia to shrug out of the gown and let it slide to the floor with a fine-woven whisper. She pulls the black undertunic up by inches, then over her head.

Valeria's voice is somewhat lower than usual, but perfectly steady as she says, "The temple of Fortuna Muliebris on the Via Latina is almost complete. Will you attend the first ceremonies?"

"If you want me there."

"Well, in a way it is our honor."

Bending, Virgilia lets her breath out in a hiss. Then she smiles thinly. "Well, it was certainly meant to be. Though I hear it has less to do with us now, and the state has completed it at its own expense."

Valeria's eyebrows hike. "It's a kindness to my purse, at least."

Virgilia shrugs. Waves of water lick her testing fingers as Valeria leans forward.

"But I imagine you know all this because of your mother. Volumnia's not pleased?"

"She…finds it suspect." The building of the temple seems to be an attempt from some in the Senate to placate her, if not to defang her. Volumnia is sensitive of her pride, and Virgilia at least understands that.  "It would have been a great show of public spirit on our parts."

"More than we've done already?" Valeria doesn't sound doubtful, but instead curious.

Virgilia sinks into the bath, not without her breath catching at its temperature. Yet she settles, letting the heat seep inwards. Valeria may be more sensitive to the cold, but that has made her skillful in the means to banish it. The steaming water unknots tension and sends contentment through to the bone.

"And perhaps it would be a better use for our funds than the state's," she muses aloud. "At least as far as the common people are concerned." Volumnia's worst suspicions, that the tribunes agreed to have the temple expenses covered with public funds as one more way to discredit her and rouse the people, sometimes don't seem so ill founded.

"When you walked here, did you see the writing on the walls?"

Virgilia blinks. "I read what I passed by." Which in itself marks a change from earlier times when she would hurry past, gaze averted. Silent and wrapped in silence, not letting Rome's constant war of politics be her concern.

"And did you see any outcry against this temple, or how it's paid for?"

Moments pass as she scans her memory. But she would not have forgotten such a thing. "No." She rubs hot water over her arms. "I wonder why not."

Valera shrugs. "Perhaps some would rather have fortune than bread."

Her tone holds no mockery. Instead, she seems introspective.

"Perhaps." Virgilia stretches her leg in the water, a sweep deep below that hardly ripples the surface. Her toes find the soft skin of Valeria's calf. But meanwhile, she chews her lip.

"What are you thinking?" Valeria asks.

"Would you rather have Fortune than a few more coins in your purse?"

The lady's eyebrows rise, mirroring the corners of her lips. "Would you have us build a second temple of our own? Or make the Senate to accept our funds by force?"

Virgila has to smile at that last image. It's perhaps not entirely a kindly smile. She would like to make a gesture that wouldn't dare be dismissed.

"Not an entire second temple," she says. "Only the heart of one. The goddess herself."

Valeria remains cheerfully supercilious. But before she can say whatever tease she has in mind, Virgilia pinches the flesh of her leg lightly between her toes, while above the water she says with perfect evenness, "We should build and dedicate a second image of Fortuna Muliebris. With our own funds, and in our own names."

Valeria licks her lips. "It would be an impressive presentation."

"Wouldn't it?" She slides her foot up further.

Valeria's eyes widen at the sensation, but for a moment her gaze slips to the puddle of crimson silk on the floor. "You may have a genius for public gestures, Virgilia."

She smiles at the flattery. The flush heating her neck and cheeks may be caused by it, or else only by the heat of the water. Or from a different heat. The sole of her foot gently presses the apex of Valeria's legs. She draws the toes down against sensitive flesh and lets them wiggle.

"I think it's time for me to play something more than the idle housewife," she says. "Although…" Her touch curling, uncurling, making Valeria's breath catch. "I have always had a genius for private gestures."

"Yes." Valeria chuckles throatily. "Oh, yes."

As she focuses on the motion of her foot and what she is doing to the other woman, Valeria's eyes fall shut. Light from the windows presses on the lids, and she sees only the clean ruddy-golden glow of her own sun-pierced skin.

She feels strangely empty. But it's a pleasant hollowness, a wineskin ready to be filled with a new vintage. An emptiness like hunger, like desire. Valeria makes another throaty sound, not quite laughter anymore, and rolls her hips against Virgilia's touch.

And then that touch is gone. Unable to stand the span of water between them anymore, Virgilia comes in a rush across the bath and settles herself between Valeria's legs. They close around her, even as Valeria huffs in surprise. Virgilia can move quickly—at times her reflexes have surprised even herself—but with Valeria she is usually slower, more deliberate.

Well, she is yet deliberate. Her fingers stroke Valeria's hips and thighs beneath the waves, pressing inward. She kisses away a rising gasp as her thumb circles the sensitive bud, swelling hard and hot.

It is good, feeling her own power to please. Learning what good she is capable of. Still learning—her powers have changed with the years, and some of her pleasures too. They will continue to, she knows.

"And so," she whispers, her lips tracking along the curve of Valeria's smile, along the angles of her cheeks and chin. "Will we do it? Raise our goddess? Make our impressive gestures? Do you still keep a seat in the Senate for me?"

"Yes." Valeria almost growls it, taking her aback. Her hands stroke along Virgilia's waist and spine, soothing but eager. Their breasts crush together as each woman takes a deep breath.

Virgilia realizes she is trembling. She doesn't try to resist or disguise the tide running through her, desire and an awareness of her own capacity that approaches awe.

"Shall it be so?" she asks.

Valeria's fingers stroke across her shoulder blades, raising shivers of a different sort, an almost excruciating sweetness that even so eases and succors. "Take courage," she says. "This is a gift, and Rome will not be ungrateful."

The sweetness coils, tightening within her. Her heart leaps. With a surge, she brings their lower bodies together. "That may come later," Virgilia says. "Right now, I am not concerned with Rome."

Letting her lashes fall, as if at a confession, Valeria says, "Nor am I."

She brings her hands up, tracing the bones of Valeria's hips, circling her navel, cupping her breasts. They rock together, a slow and steady rhythm without urgency. Their bodies speak for them, encouraging, promising, saying yes to each desire almost before it is asked.

And for this moment, it is only the two of them. As she feels the building rush of climax, tastes the warmth of Valeria's lips, hears the roughening of her breath that only grows, louder and higher and more triumphant—Virgilia holds herself a moment, stillness within motion, poised between what is past and what is yet to come.