B007IIXYQY EBOK (135 page)

“Ah. I should have guessed that would be your reply. Nothing about you is quite normal. But that is good. It is what makes you so valuable. Scaurus, the Praetor who is arranging the next games, has already told me he wants you to fight an Indian tiger on the first day, but we’ll put a day between that event and the day you face your regular opponent so you’ll have time to regain strength—”

“A tiger? A beast?”
she said in quiet puzzlement. “You mock me.”

“Not at all. It is an honor! You must do it. It will be wildly popular. In the spring games a woman killed a Mesopotamian lion. The mob loved it. Scaurus wants to outdo that. You’ll have a month to train with the animals. Don’t fret over it; it will come naturally to you, I’m certain. The stories they tell of you! The ignorant are going about saying you’re a daughter of Hercules, begotten on a Nereid. But the best was that you tongue-lashed Aristos right after you won, and challenged him to fight you! Imagine, Aristos.
People will believe anything, will they not?”

“Erato,” she said, bracing herself for an eruption of rage, “that one is true.”

Erato’s smile vanished. Then it returned, hopefully. “A small jest, Auriane? Lying near death has given you an odd sense of humor.”

She looked down, not replying; tension gathered in the room.

Erato’s eyes hardened to steel. “Auriane, are you telling me truthfully that you challenged Aristos?
What in the name of the infernal host
for?”
He stood up violently, loudly upsetting his bench; the blanket dropped from his shoulders and collected at his feet. “You stay well off from him.”

He took several clipped steps in her direction. “There are simpler ways to destroy yourself, if that is your wish. Hear me now. You will not sport with him or mock him or have anything whatever to do with him, I order you.” His huge fists were drawn back, battering rams ready to smash the gate; the blood drained from his lips. Instinctively Auriane prepared to defend herself, planting her legs apart, scanning the room for anything that might be used as a weapon.

“Oh, stop that!”
he said, relaxing slightly, turning away and running a hand fretfully through his thick black hair. “You look like a cat ready to spring. I’m not going to hit you. But you must understand, there’s a limit upon how much I can bring Aristos to heel. Madden him, and he’ll have one of his cutthroats all over you soon as one of my guards so much as blinks his eye. Now, what words, exactly, did you say to him?”

She repeated her words, closely as she remembered—she saw little to gain by covering the truth when he could have questioned any number of witnesses.

“Nemesis and Mars, not one of those cursed blood-debts. That’s where your people least have their wits about them. Well, I won’t have that here. Anyway, your life is not your own to dispose of. I’ll hear no more on this.”

Her eyes were clear, soft, direct as a hawk’s. “Do not stand in the way of my fate, Erato,” she said quietly. “Or I will not fight for you again.”

“That is wonderful. When the guards come for you, you’ll just say, ‘I’m in no mood today, off with you now.’ Just where do you think you are,
my petted princess? Do you remember a war…being taken captive? Or perhaps you think your people won?”

“Stop laughing at me. You can have me dragged out there, but you cannot make me perform like your tame animals. It is not my captive body you need, but the way that I fight. What good am I to you if I decide to use the sword you force into my hands on myself?”

“Enough of this,” he said, turning his back on her. The truth was, he realized, she could make things perfectly miserable for him by doing as she threatened. Unfortunately, the cunning wench was discovering she was not without powers of her own in this situation. She had brought him a measure of the respect he sought, and helped still the questions concerning his fitness as the school’s Prefect. Would his position be as steady and secure without her? It unnerved him to think about it. The thought of losing her raised a superstitious dread. A dim, hidden part of him said: We rose together; we will fall together.

He decided his best course was to let this thing fall of its own weight. Why struggle with that stubborn pride if it could be avoided? There was no danger really—the crowd would not tolerate such a match, and Aristos would never agree to it.

“I do not want to fight with you on this day,” he said affably as his practiced friendliness returned. He approached her then and closed war-weary hands round her shoulders. “I am too old and tired, and you are too high-strung. You may not believe it, but I love you like a daughter when you’re not being mule-headed. I owe a great debt to you. You fought well for me. You got that swine Musonius Geta off my trail. I promised you a favor—I’ll wager you thought I forgot! I’m always
good for my promises. What do you wish? Name it.”

She tensed, feeling blood beat in her temples. Should she really ask it? She debated furiously, then leapt into the dark.

“I would have you…conduct me to a certain house at nightfall, and trust me to return at cockcrow.”

He looked blankly at her. “And trust you to
return
?” He gave a forced laugh. “What is this? You’ve more surprises than a farce.”

“Stop playing with me. You know I must return.”

“You are right. You are perhaps the only woman or man I’ve ever encountered addled enough to return to this place without coercion. Nevertheless, you go nowhere without guards.” He frowned. “
Whose
house?”

Auriane hesitated, reluctant to speak that name. But she knew that some sort of relationship existed between Marcus Julianus and Erato similar to that of a battle-chief and his companions, and such loyalties were never betrayed.

“To the house of your patron, Marcus Arrius Julianus.”

“
What
?”
he said softly, in his eyes the flat, stupefied look of a man struck in the stomach. By Charon, Erato thought, how does she even know of him? When he had wondered in the past if Julianus’ interest in her might mean he felt love for her, Erato had dismissed it as exceedingly unlikely. There must be another, odder reason to account for it—for what use would a cultured man like that have for a creature who was, in spite of her rude charms, still an illiterate half-beast?

“Do you know what you are saying, you little fool?” Erato’s voice was a rough shove. “His position is precarious. He is important to great numbers of people. You are an imperial slave, and to tamper with you is in violation of the law. Did it occur to you that every little misdeed he commits is likely to be used against him by his enemies?” His voice rose to a hoarse shout. “I won’t allow you to risk the safety of the only sane man in the government for the sake of your foolish notions.”

“I think he should be allowed to choose for himself what risks he wishes to take. By what law
do you choose for him?” She spoke these words with more spiritedness than she felt. Something shrill and hurt in her tone made her realize how great was her fear that Erato’s assumption was right: This meeting was of great account to her, and of little account to Marcus Julianus.

But her words unleashed just enough doubt in Erato to give him pause. He sat down slowly, still scowling, while he considered whether he dared risk interfering with what might well be, after all, what Julianus wanted.

He stole a covert glance at Auriane then, regarding her in a way he hardly had since first he saw her—simply as a woman rather than as a skilled performer in the arena. Furtively he ran his gaze over the swell of a well-formed breast, the curve of a sturdy hip, then down that intimidating length of leg. He decided at once: No, this one is not made for bed. Oh, I’ll give her that face, that is understandable, it would shame a nymph. But the rest of her? Too tall, too tough and sinewy, too scarred. How can a man’s passions be roused by a woman capable of knocking him down? In the dark he wouldn’t know if he lay with a wench or wrestled with a mountain cat. And she’s got a will as unyielding as that body. No. Nature fashioned this one for war, not love.

Auriane knew she had been assessed and found wanting. Erato’s gaze was a rough hand feeling fruit to see if it was ripe and rejecting it with a brusque toss.

With a slightly shamefaced smile Erato probed, “And… he truly wants this? You’re certain of it?”

“You are vile.” She spun round, arms crossed over her breasts and stood with her back to him. At that moment her wound began to ache deeply, as if just to remind her it was there, so she would not forget the dismaying new sense of vulnerability it brought.

“All right, then,” he said soothingly, reminding himself of how obsessively modest barbarian women were. “Don’t take it to heart so. I’ve offended you without meaning to. I mean no insult or harm. You have it, then—that is, if he
agrees to it.”

Perhaps it would even be good for her, he reasoned. Every physician agreed that sexual activity was a sort of tonic, lending strength to the muscles and a sense of well-being; was that not why they regularly sent prostitutes around to the men? Why would it be much different with her?

“I’ll send word when I’ve arranged a day with him,” Erato went on. “May your gods help you if this is some moonstruck idea of your own and you make me look the fool before him. And not a word of this to anyone, mind you, not even that cook’s girl who shares your quarters. You’ll go to the physicians beforehand, so they can give you whatever they give to prevent you from adding to the population. This city’s too overcrowded already, a man can hardly get through the streets. Don’t look so woebegone! Aren’t you, as usual, getting what you want?”

Auriane said nothing, still mute with humiliation.

He hesitated, then ventured, “Am I forgiven? No?
Oh, come now! Well, off with you then. You confound me—I know not what else to say.”

Once she was returned to her cell, Auriane’s anger soured to dull anxiety. Erato’s quick dismissal of her as a woman gave flesh to her worst imaginings and real life to the vague doubts she had begun to feel since her recovery. It was a chill reminder that there was much about the attitudes and desires of these people that differed greatly from those of her own. It was quite likely, she considered, that
all
of them thought a woman should look a certain way, and that this expectation might be a wall beyond which they could not see. She knew powerful men carefully chose and collected lovers, both women and boys, searching the slave markets for the loveliest, the most perfectly formed. Among these people, perfection was enshrined—they sacrificed only pure, unblemished animals when they wished especially to please their gods; their sculptors chiseled nymphs to delight the eye with bodies smooth and white as an egg, such as nature rarely fashioned. Any person with a deformity, a limp, or a stutter was quickly a laughingstock. And these people painted their faces as painstakingly as they painted their walls, because apparently nature never made a face quite fair enough. In her own country she would have proudly shown to a husband the evidence of her many wounds. But cities bred leisure, and love became a pastime, not a bond that must aid survival. In this place she was a chipped vase, a smeared painting, an unraveled tapestry. A man could not live here all his life and not be touched by its yearning for unmarred beauty. The thought, once framed, nudged its way in and stayed. At times she was almost grateful to Erato, for he prepared her in advance for cruel disappointment.

Sunia watched Auriane questioningly while she brooded. Finally Auriane explained herself, haltingly, painfully; when she was finished, she angrily tore off her garments to show Sunia her naked body.

Sunia regarded it with unabashed awe. “Your whole life is writ upon it. So is the life of our people. The Ash in summer is not more beautiful, nor are the lilies. If any man does not see it, you must turn from him.”

“Nobly said. But it is a hard truth to live.”

CHAPTER L

T
HE FOLLOWING SPRING BROUGHT MORE THAN
fevers and rain. The generations living in the milder era to follow would know this time as the Terror.

Its cause was the revolt of Antonius Saturninus, who was at that time serving as commander over the two Rhine legions quartered at Mogontiacum. Saturninus had long known that Domitian meant to put him out of the way, ever since he learned his name was on the rough copy of the list. He grew weary of the cruelly drawn-out game and decided to strike first. In Upper Germania he had witnessed first hand the army’s growing animosity toward the Emperor and judged there would never be a better moment to save himself and his country. And so he made his desperate attempt to gain the world’s highest throne. To make certain the two legions under his command transferred their loyalties to him, he impounded the soldiers’ compulsory savings, which were deposited in the military chest at the fortress’s headquarters building. The episode bore little resemblance to Marcus Julianus’ cautious scheme to bring about a change of government; it was more the audacious gamble of panicked prey that rushes in for a surprise kill when he senses his tormentor is wounded.

Domitian knew at once this was the gravest danger he had faced in his reign. His agents informed him that as many as ten of the legions stationed in the northern provinces might be involved. From hour to hour he waited to hear that they had formed up under Saturninus and were marching on Rome in a body. The legions of the East would probably remain loyal, but they were too distant; if they set out at once they would not arrive in time to save his throne and his life. He could not drive from his mind the knowledge that Nero, confronted with a similar situation, panicked and committed suicide. But Domitian was of a different nature; when cornered he stowed his fear in an airtight place until the crisis was past—where it grew potent in the dark, preparing to torment him at its leisure. While danger still threatened, he was a creature of cold deliberation, able to strike brutally and hard.