A Slave To Kings

Chapter 4

Noah stood on the gravel expanse in front of the villa’s porticoed entrance, flanked by many outsized marble urns full of trailing scarlet hibiscus, the air heavy with their scent. Serafina was tiny and slender, dressed in cream silk, her dark, grey-streaked hair elaborately styled and dressed with jewelled pins. He saw Sam in her immediately. How strange it must be for him to see how his mother would look now, had she lived, for Serafina and Sofia had been twins, and his aunt surely saw her sister in this, her only child.

She held tightly to his hands. ‘Samuele. Sofia’s letters were always so full of you.’ She shook her head. ‘Looking at you now is like seeing her all those years ago … seeing myself then, too, of course. None of my own children have such a likeness.’ She touched his face. ‘You’ll meet them all this evening when they join us for dinner.’

‘I look forward to it.’ Sam brushed away a tear. ‘This seems the only good thing to come from my exile. To see you like this and meet my family here. I can’t thank you enough for welcoming me so warmly and my companions, too.’ He turned around and beckoned to Penny. ‘Come and meet your great-aunt,’ he said in English.

Penny went to them, smiling, hugging Serafina when she bent to kiss her. ‘Thank you for having us here.’

Serafina patted her face. ‘I’m so very glad to meet you, Penelope.’ She turned back to Sam, though she continued to speak in English. ‘You must introduce me to your friends and then I’ll have someone show you all to your chambers.’

Sam’s room at the back of the house had a large balcony and a fine view of the grounds with the backdrop of the city beyond. Noah had soon joined him there after he had quickly bathed in his much smaller room at the side, looking out over olive groves. Sam was still in the bathtub when he entered without knocking.

He opened his eyes and smiled. ‘I hope you weren’t seen.’

Noah laughed. ‘Strange how easily old instincts come back.’ He knelt beside the bath and gently touched the ugly scar on the front of Sam’s shoulder. This was the poisoned wound that had come so close to killing him. He bent to kiss it.

Sam placed his hand on Noah’s face, before moving it round to the back of his head to pull him down for a kiss. And then for rather more than that. ‘Did you lock the door?’

‘I most certainly did. I’d prefer not to scandalise your aunt quite so soon.’

‘But you do intend to scandalise her at some point?’

‘I think we must tell her about us …’ And then he stopped talking for a while. How intense their coming together was now when they knew how little time remained for them. Later, Noah lay holding Sam close in the fading light. Someone had tried the door, presumably to light the candles. Thank Christ he had, indeed, thought to lock it. He laughed thinking of it.

Sam turned his head, opening his eyes. ‘What?’

‘No matter.’ He sighed. ‘I should go and get ready for dinner.’

Sam sat up. ‘My aunt wishes to talk to me afterwards. She wants to know everything about my situation. I’ve made her aware there may be some danger attached to my being here, but she needs to know the full extent of it, I think.’ He ran his hand down over Noah’s chest. ‘And, as you are part of my situation, I agree she needs to know about you, too. So, I’d like you with me when we talk.’

‘Very well.’ He swung his legs to the floor and began to dress. ‘I sincerely hope she won’t banish me immediately.’ He lit the candles himself in the twilight.

‘Let’s hope not. But we have no choice, do we?’ Sam left the bed and began selecting clothes for dinner, already unpacked into cabinets and wardrobes by servants. ‘We can’t explain so much of what happened without including your part in it.’