Mistress of Rome (11 page)

“Don’t laugh; it’s not funny. Well, I suppose it is, but . . . I take it back, about wanting you to get wounded. I’ll worry more than ever, since you’re fighting in another fortnight. Does it hurt?”

“It’ll still carry you to bed.” He scooped her up to prove it.

“You could just let me
walk
to bed.” Thea snuggled her head against his shoulder.

“I’m a barbarian.” Murmuring against her throat. “We always carry our women off like sacks of grain.”

“If you’re capable!” She poked his bandaged shoulder.

“Capable?” He flung her down across the bed, tickling her until she shrieked.

“All right, all right, I take it back! Stop it, you’ll kill me!”

“Good,” he growled, and covered her mouth with his.

Grabbing moments with Thea was surprisingly easy. There was hardly a day she couldn’t snatch an hour away from running errands in the forum and steal up to Mars Street. As the nights got longer and darker, she began slipping out of the house and through the garden gate to meet him. “Stay out of sight,” she warned, her bare arms prickled with gooseflesh in the cold. “If Lepida sees us—”

“You shouldn’t come, then. Not safe.” He drew her inside the warmth of his cloak and gripped her tight, a tumble of incoherent endearments running through his mind; all the things he wished he were clever enough to say properly.

“What is it?” Her eyes saw right through him.

“Nothing.” He pulled her close again. He didn’t know how to tell her that his knees dissolved every night when she ran through the door of his cell to land laughing and breathless in his arms. There were no words. All he could do was show her.

“Arius,” she laughed when he wrapped his arms around her. “I can’t breathe.”

He’d never had another woman before her, but that wasn’t why she turned his bones to water. That was just Thea herself.

 

 

 

Y
OU’RE softening,” Gallus said with disapproval. “Yes, yes, I know you’re still packing them in, but I know you, boy. You’ve gotten cautious, that’s what. And caution doesn’t win points in the Colosseum.” Sighing. “It’s the Pollio slave, isn’t it? Don’t look so surprised, dear boy. I know she’s giving you something else besides letters these days. Well, better Lepida Pollia’s slave than Lepida Pollia, but still . . . if she’s the one who’s making you lose your form, I’ve half a mind to send her packing—”

Arius had both hands around his
lanista
’s throat before Gallus could blink. “Don’t,” he said. “Or I’ll squeeze.”

“That’s the spirit!” A rapidly purpling Gallus patted Arius’s shoulder. “A little more of that in the arena, please. You can, ah, let go of me now, dear boy.”

He hated to admit Gallus was right, but Thea wasn’t good for him. Not that he’d told her so, but he’d lost his edge. Still, his luck had held so far. Every time the games attendants dragged a fallen enemy off through the Gate of Death, he’d been able to think,
a few more weeks with Thea.

“I’ll bet you say that to all the ladies,” she teased him one night when he said as much. “ ‘A few more weeks with Sulpicia, with Cassandra, with
Lepida
—’ ” She shrieked as he tipped her over onto her back, trapping her between his arms like a mouse under a cat.

“None before you,” he whispered into her ear, “and none after.”

“None before me?” She cocked her head in genuine interest.

He shrugged. No need to tell Thea about the demon, and what the demon whispered that a man should do to his women. Thea and the demon didn’t belong in the same room. He smoothed a hand over her face, and wasn’t afraid of hurting her anymore.

Some evenings she sang for him, drawing his head into her lap and stroking his hair as she crooned the melodies of Greece and Judaea and Brigantia. Her rich alto resounded in the pit of his stomach, washing up through his spine and sinking into every muscle until he fell asleep wrapped in the music of her hands and her voice. “Witch,” he told her. “That voice of yours is a wand.”

Sometimes they lay with their hands entwined on the pillow between them, silent as the circles of standing stones that marked the holy places in Brigantia, and her eyes swallowed him up whole. “What are you thinking?” he asked, as his hand memorized her cheek, her throat, the fall of her hair. She always shook her head, pressing her body hard against his so there was no space left between them, and they fell asleep intertwined like the roots of a tree. When he woke, her eyes would be open already, and her mouth curved in a smile that made him shiver with pleasure.

Sometimes she traced the map of scars on his body: the ragged lattice of whip marks over his back, the puckered marks of stones and lacerations on his feet, the sharp lines of blades and tridents marking his shoulders. “And this one?” she would ask.

“Slave driver broke my elbow with a club.”

“And this?”

“Knife fight in the Subura.”

“And this?”

“The tattoo for Gallus’s fighters. Supposed to be crossed swords.” Thea peered at it. “Looks like crossed carrots.” She fingered the scars and the tattoo, smoothing them gently so he felt clean and young and not too bitter to be happy.

“Don’t fancy her myself,” a Thracian told Arius, watching Thea swing out into the street. “Not enough hip on her. That mistress of hers; the Pollia girl—now there’s a sweet mouthful.”

Arius knocked the Thracian’s head against the wall, but not with the black fervor of the past. The demon whined on its leash but seemed very far away.

Y
OU’VE got a lover, haven’t you?” Lepida asked suddenly one evening as I stood behind her combing her hair.

My pulse leaped, but I kept the silver comb moving. “Pardon, my lady?”

“A lover, Thea. A man. You do know what those are?” Oh, she was foul-tempered this winter. “Who is he?”

“He?”

“Oh, don’t give me that blank look. You know exactly what I’m talking about.” I saw her blue eyes narrow in the mirror. “No secrets between maid and mistress. Tell me.”

You’ll have to give her something.
“How did you know?” I asked, lo w-voiced.

“It’s obvious, really. Dreaming through your errands, smiling into the soup. And you were gone far too long at noon today for a simple shopping trip. So—who is he?”

“Um. He’s—” Damn her sharp eyes. I pulled the comb through her long black hair again, wishing I could yank it all right out. “He has a tavern. In the Subura.”

“A tavernkeeper in the slums? Oh, Thea, what a prize. What else?”

“He has, um, black hair. He’s from Brundisium. He has a scar over his knuckles. From when a drunk pulled a knife.”

Lepida laughed. “And does he want to marry you? No, let me guess: He’s married already!”

I took my cue, muttering, “Well, she’s gone most of the time. They don’t get on.”

“I’m sure they don’t. From gladiator to tavernkeeper, Thea—I always knew you had low tastes. In fact—” She twisted, eyeing me. “Lift your hair off your neck. Goodness, a bruise of passion?”

“He loves me hard,” I murmured in Greek, and hid a smile of foolish happiness.

She caught it, and something in her face soured. “Run along back to your slums, then!” she snapped, and whirled back to her mirror.

Too close
, I thought as I put down the comb. But to Arius that night, I just laughed. “Don’t worry, I put her off the scent. Maybe it’s a good idea she noticed. From now on whenever I run off to you, she’ll think I’m running off to the tavernkeeper.”

“So who’s this tavernkeeper?” He bit my earlobe. “Can I kill him?”

He fought in the Colosseum a fortnight later. An enormous Trinovantian; a close and grueling fight. They slashed and battled across the sand for twenty minutes. I couldn’t have moved to save my life, but Lepida was too busy sulking to notice my frozen figure.

“Really, I don’t see what everyone makes such a fuss about,” she pouted. “He’s just a big ugly barbarian.”

“The mob dotes on him,” Pollio said absently. “Do admit, he’s splendid. He’s got the Trinovantian on his knees—”

But for all Arius’s disdain as he stalked out through the Gate of Life, he was bloody and winded. And a voice in my head whispered,
How long before he’s killed?

I prayed at every temple in Rome. I visited witches and astrologers and fortune-tellers. I spent the coppers I had earned singing and bought charms by the armload. I wore down my knees praying to every god and goddess I’d ever heard of, and quite a few I hadn’t. Arius was highly amused by my efforts, or pretended to be.

“You only believe in one God,” he pointed out one long night.

“Yes, but my God is the god of the Jews,” I said, curling against him under a scratchy blanket. “He’ll look out for me because I’m one of the Chosen People, but He doesn’t care a thing about you.”

“I don’t care about him.” Arius ran his hand up the length of my back, leaving a trail of tingles and shivers. “So we’re square.”

“Who are your gods? Maybe I can pray to them.”

He propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at me with the rare boyish grin that utterly banished his usual stoniness. “There’s Epona. Goddess of horses.”

“What can she do about the Colosseum?”

“Artio, then.”

“Who’s she?”

“Goddess of the forest. Also of bears,” he added gravely.

“Be serious.”

“There’s Sataida. She’s the lady of grief.”

“That’s better. I’ll tell her not to kill you off and come paying me any visits.”

“You’d grieve?” His grin slipped away.

I didn’t say it aloud. That would be to tempt God, who doesn’t like to take second place in any human heart. But Arius’s sword-roughened hand slipped through my hair as if to feel my thoughts on his fingers, and then he caught me up so hard and close that I had no time for any thoughts at all.

 

 

 

A
RIUS?” I whispered through the dark. No answer. I felt the whisper of his breath on my bare shoulder.

Careful not to wake him, I turned my face into his hard chest. I closed my eyes against the blackness. And I spoke, softly and formally in the Hebrew of my childhood.

“Arius. Arius, Arius, Arius, I love you. I love you.

“I love the way you rub the scar on the back of your hand when you’re nervous. I love the way you make a sword into a living part of your body. I love the way you burn your eyes into me, as if you’re seeing me fresh every time. I love the black streak in you that wants to kill the world, and the soft streak that is sorry afterward. I love the way you laugh, as if you’re surprised that you can laugh at all. I love the way you kiss my breath away. I love the way you breathe and speak and smile. I love the way you take the air out of my lungs when you hold me. I love the way you make a dance out of death. I love the confusion I see in your eyes when you realize you are happy. I love every muscle and bone in your body, every twist and bend in your soul. I love you so much I can’t say it out loud in the daylight. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

I breathed in the smell of his hair, the exact texture of his skin. Took him whole inside me. Murmured, finally, a prayer.

“God keep you safe.”

And I slept.

O
NE against six!” Lepida fanned herself prettily with one hand. “I can’t wait. Goodness, when will they finish off those zebras so we can get to the fun part?”

My hands shook as I poured her wine. Distantly I heard the crowd roaring, the snap of the whips from the arena, the animal screams. The Agonalia games, celebrating the double-faced god Janus who ushered in every new year. A wild beast hunt raged in the arena below, striped zebras being hunted by teams of spearmen. But the zebras were just a prelude to the big show: Arius the Barbarian pitted against six Spaniards.

One against six
, I screamed inside.
One against six!

Lepida had talked her father into it. “I know it’s against the rules,” she’d cooed. “But what a fight it will be! The crowds adore desperation.”

“Beat them.” I’d seized my lover’s face between my hands that night, hearing my voice rising and hating it. “Promise me you’ll live. Promise!”

He held me hard, made love to me fiercely, but he didn’t promise. Too wise for that. After three months with him, I should have been too wise to ask.

“Thea, hurry up with that wine.”

I passed the goblet over with cold fingers. In the arena the dead beasts had been raked away, and the midday executions were briskly progressing. Preparation for Arius and the Spaniards. I reached under my tunic for the faded ribbon I’d strung about my neck that morning. Hanging from it were a dozen charms and medallions, spelled to ward away violent death. Purchased from old crones and astrologers, witches and fortune-tellers, to buy my lover his life.

Dimly I heard the voice of the games announcer: “. . . bring to you . . . champions of Lusitania . . . the SPANISH SAVAGES!”

Out they charged to a surge of applause: six sleek and vicious fighters, swords glittering in the sun, purple plumes nodding, bowing and waving and strutting for the crowd. Their breath puffed white in the cold.

So many. God, so many.

“. . . and now . . . wilds of Brigantia . . . undefeated champion . . . ARIUS THE BARBARIAN!”

They’d given him a little platform to fight on, something to even the odds, and he sprang up on it hefting his shield. Utterly calm, indifferent to the wild cheers raining down on his head, indifferent to the cold. But so small next to that terrible horde of Spaniards. So terribly mortal. I thought of Vercingetorix the Invincible, who hadn’t been so invincible after all because he’d died in the arena like an animal.

The starting trumpet blared. The Spaniards swarmed up the sides of the platform. As one the crowd in the stands surged forward, shouting encouragement. My heart dropped into my stomach like a stone.