Page 96 of Trial of Bronze and Blood
“I’m merely relaying to you what I overheard.” The bard shrugs. “Either way, I doubt someone brought one as a pet.”
Marcus grunts. “I believe the Phaedrans capable of anything.”
Cato nods. “We’ll find a way to prepare ourselves for that. Anything else?”
“Well, there’s a rumor among the Phaedran soldiers that your praetor”—he winks at Marcus—“was seen with a whore two nights ago after the festival, which apparently is very unlike him.”
Dru surprises Marcus by laughing. “And here I thought I’d be known as a murderer, not a whore.”
Cato coughs, nearly choking on his last bite of food. “Don’t tell me you’re the whore in this sordid gossip.”
“I am, unfortunately.”
Heat rising up his neck, Marcus cuts in. “Some of my men saw us catching our breath after running from the brawl and assumed the worst.”
It isn’t exactly the truth, but he doesn’t want to implicate Dru with what really happened.
Dru leans back in her chair, a glint in her eyes. “Being caught in a provocative embrace with me is your idea of the worst?”
His cheeks warm and he glances away, unable to look her in the eye. “Of course not.”
“Very convincing,” Cato comments. “But it’s not as if the rumor can hurt your chances in the rest of the trials, Marcus. If anything, it humanizes you, makes the people think you’re more like them than theyfirst thought.”
“Why wouldn’t they think that already?” Dru wonders.
“This is getting interesting,” the bard says, popping a green grape in his mouth from the bunch on the table.
Marcus ignores the bard. “Most know I come from the Imperium, and as such, assumed I would be as depraved as any other man from there.”
“And you never gave in to that depravity?” Dru wonders, watching him intently.
“I’ve been tempted,” he admits, leaving the second half of his statement unsaid. “But there are many ways to kill a king, and placing oneself in the good graces of the praetor in an intimate fashion is one such way.”
Dru leans forward across the table. “Not even once?”
In a few moments of weakness, yes. But I only thought of you while I was with them.
“Oh, come now, Drusilla,” Cato chides. “You can’t expect the man to admit it outright. It’s been six whole years.”
Dru’s gaze lingers on Marcus, as if trying to divine the truth of him by his expression alone.
“Dru?” Sabina interrupts from the front of the palace, the doors remaining open behind her. “Do you have time today to train me?”
Finally, Dru releases him from her scrutiny.
Out of the corner of Marcus’s eye, the bard stares longingly at Sabina; she doesn’t spare him a glance.
“Of course.”
Dru gets to her feet, and the two of them head out without another word spoken.
“I’m going to rest,” Cato tells them. “All this studying has tired me out.”
Marcus laughs. “Your poor tutors.”
Cato sniffs. “I’m going to ignore that for the sake of restoring my energy.”
With that, he heads to his chambers and shuts the doors. Leaving Marcus with the bard.
