Rome: The Emperor's Spy: Rome 1 by M. C. Scott Page A

likely would depart with as little. Anyone who lived hand to mouth as she did knew the feel of a denarius without needing light to look.
    Quietly, she gave it back to him, wrapping his fingers closed again. ‘Did you steal it? Is that how you scraped your face?’
    ‘I earned it.’ He could hear the stubborn pride in his own voice and hated it. ‘I didn’t steal it, I earned it.’
    ‘Oh, Math …’ She pulled him close again and this time he let her. ‘Please be careful.’
    They sat in silence for a bit, breathing in each other’s warmth while the horses moved around them.
    She was so like his mother. He made himself think of the differences, so that he would never confuse the two: Hannah was dark-haired where his mother had had hair the colour of ripe corn. Hannah’s eyes were a deep brown, his mother’s had been blue-grey, like a mackerel’s back. Hannah was, he thought, maybe ten years younger than his mother, more Ajax’s age, ten or fifteen years older than Math. Hannah spoke Greek first and then Latin and a faulty Gaulish while his mother had spoken three different dialects of northern Gaul for preference, Greek when she must and Latin only under sufferance. Hannah was trained in philosophy and medicine; she spoke to Ajax of Isis and Osiris and of Socrates and Plato, Pythagoras and Demetrius as if they were all alive, gods and men alike. Math’s mother had told him tales of the heroes of Britain who were dead for the most part, and had taught him the daily rituals by which the gods of oak and river were remembered. He chose, for the most part, to forget those now that she was dead.
    But one thing the two women had in common was that their time in his life was short. His mother had already gone and Hannah, he knew, would leave soon, Ajax had said that she wasn’t the kind to stay long in one place, or with one man; that it didn’t do to fall in love with her. He had been speaking, it seemed to Math, largely for himself.
    Hannah moved a little, and Math caught a brief scent of something else in the wood smoke.
    ‘What were you celebrating?’ he asked. He felt the searching quality of her look and said, ‘I can smell roast lamb.’
    ‘Ajax said you were quick.’ She looked down at the straw. ‘It wasn’t me. Someone was celebrating on my behalf.’
    She was less still, suddenly, as if a stone had been thrown into the pool of her soul, ruffling the surface. Math sat, waiting.
    In a while, she said, ‘A friend of my father’s has searched for me for over half a year. Today his journey ended. He gave a feast to show his gratitude.’
    Math said, ‘You don’t like lamb.’ Hannah didn’t ever eat meat; it was another way she was different from his mother.
    She nodded, ‘He doesn’t know that. My father died before I was born. My mother returned to Alexandria to give birth to me and see to my childhood. I have never met any of my father’s friends until today.’
    They were quiet a while, listening to the horses’ slow eating. Hannah said, ‘His name is Shimon. He wants me to go back with him when he leaves.’
    ‘Will you?’
    ‘I don’t want to.’
    ‘But you might?’
    He thought this was the first time she had considered that. She reached up and teased a tangle of hair from Sweat’s mane. ‘I might.’
    Math picked a piece of straw and sucked on the end, tasting the flavours of autumn and frost. He thought of how Ajax had changed when Hannah came and would change again if she left.
    He said, ‘Ajax says everyone who comes to Coriallum is running from something. It’s as far away from Rome as a man can get.’
    ‘Or a woman?’ Hannah’s eyes were sharp in the grey light. ‘Might we not be running towards something?’
    ‘He didn’t say that.’
    They were quiet a long time after that. Math stared up to the dark roof space.
    ‘If we win the race tomorrow, Nero will send us to Alexandria to train,’ he said eventually. ‘All his horses go there first, then he picks the best to