Mistress of Rome (39 page)

Only when the watery spring sunshine wavered away behind the vineyard did they stab their blades point-down into the earth and flop beside them. “We’ll start shield work tomorrow.” Arius passed a water jug. “Takes time, getting used to the weight.”

“What kind of shield?” Shields marked a gladiator’s class: a big shield for a
murmillo
with a long sword; a small round shield for a
thraex
with a little curved blade. No shield at all marked a
retiarius
, a net-and-trident man—as far as Vix was concerned, the lowest of the low.

“Big shield. You’ll be a heavyweight.” Arius sized up his pupil with a judicious eye. Vix had grown like a vine—his head topped Arius’s shoulder, and at nearly twelve years old he was as compactly muscled as a pony. He’d be a big man someday.

Vix dunked his face in the water jug and mopped his forehead off with his arm, a gesture he’d picked up from Arius. He had also hacked his hair short, like Arius, and had started begging to drink unwatered wine as Arius did. Arius found himself oddly startled. He’d been many things in his life: a barbarian, a laborer, a gladiator, a slave, an entertainer, a monster. But he’d never been anyone’s hero.

“Y’know my mother’s coming to visit?” Vix was saying. “Lady Flavia got a letter.”

“When’s she coming?” Arius tilted the water jug so the dog could get a drink.

“Next month. End of May. You’ve never met my mother, have you?”

“No.”

“She’s awful,” Vix said darkly. “She’s
strict
. You’ll like her. Hey, can we go one more before dark?”

“Why not?”

“I’ll disarm you again.”

“Don’t get cocky.” Arius hid a smile as he clouted Vix over the ear.

M
ARCUS had just paused below the steps of the Capitoline Library when Calpurnia Sulpicia called his name. “Marcus, is that you?”

“Calpurnia.” Turning away from a hired litter where he had paused to have a word, Marcus smiled at his prospective daughter-in-law. A blue
palla
draped her shoulders, two slaves trotted at her back with fan and sunshade, and she had a basket on her arm like any Roman housewife. “How delightful.”

“Was I interrupting?” Calpurnia gestured at the hired litter. A woman’s pale emerald-studded hand had just twitched the gray curtains shut, and the litter-bearers were moving away at a trot.

“Not at all.” Marcus did not elaborate. He shifted a load of scrolls to the other arm, balancing on his bad side as a harried-looking pleb woman brushed past in pursuit of her children. A bright spring morning, and every woman in Rome was pressing toward the forum. “What brings you out, Calpurnia Sulpicia? Shopping?”

“Yes, for earrings. I lost a stone out of my jade dangles.”

“Buy topaz instead.”

“Pardon?”

“Topaz,” Marcus advised. “You have lovely hazel eyes. Wearing a yellow stone so close will make them look gold. Have you seen much of Paulinus lately?”

“No . . . he’s been busy.”

Marcus studied her. “He’s been neglecting you, hasn’t he?”

“Oh no.” Fidgeting.

“Yes, he has. Has he even seen the augurs for a wedding date?”

“Of course. We thought perhaps last September, but my mother was so ill then that it seemed better to put everything off—”

“She’s better?”

“Yes, now. So it isn’t Paulinus’s fault, you see.” Smiling. “Just bad luck.”

“He could try harder.” Sternly. “Betrothed two years—bad luck or no, your family would be within their rights to look elsewhere for you.”

“Not when the Emperor himself wants the marriage. And besides—” A smile squeezed Calpurnia’s hazel eyes. “My father said I could choose my second husband for myself. I want to marry Paulinus.”

Marcus felt a surge of exasperation with his son. A fine girl like this waiting for him—pretty, well-bred, intelligent, understanding—and he couldn’t take the jump. “I’ll speak to him.”

“No need for that, Marcus. I don’t mind, truly.” Calpurnia’s slaves shifted behind her, adjusting the sunshade over her head, but she seemed in no hurry to move on. “Are you just coming back from the library? I was there myself not a week ago, reading your treatise. The one on the system of adoptive Emperors.”

“Did you?” Marcus smiled. “What did you think?”

“I thought it was very well reasoned. Only I didn’t really agree about the necessity of veto power in the Senate. If the Senate can overturn the Emperor’s authority, then who will respect him?”

“And what if the Emperor’s decisions are wrong?”

The discussion did not wind down for a half an hour. “I’d better get back,” Calpurnia said at last. “My mother will worry.”

“Come to dinner next Thursday?” He straightened his crooked shoulder a little, smiling. “I’ll see if I can’t track down that son of mine.”

“I’d be delighted. And I’ll buy those topaz earrings.”

“Wear them when you next come to dinner.”

 

C
ALPURNIA’S coming Thursday?” Sabina hopped into Marcus’s lap almost before he had settled behind his desk. “Good. I like Calpurnia. Her clothes are all soft, not scratchy and fancy like Mother’s. And she’s nice. She has a nephew with epilepsia, and she showed me some breathing exercises to do when I get a headache.”

“Did she?” Marcus stroked his daughter’s hair.

“I’m glad she’s marrying Paulinus. I wish she could move here.”

“Why won’t she?”

“Mother wouldn’t let her. Mother isn’t here, either, but she wouldn’t let Calpurnia move in.” Candidly. “She hates Calpurnia.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Mother doesn’t like other women if they’re pretty. Like Aunt Diana—she
really
hates Aunt Diana because she’s so beautiful and men like to look at her even more than Mother. But Calpurnia’s pretty, too, so Mother would never let her move in here.”

Marcus laughed. “What an imp you are.”

“Though Mother may move out to Tivoli permanently, with the Emperor spending so much time there. Calpurnia can come visit us more after that.”

“You see a good deal, don’t you, Vibia Sabina?”

“Because no one ever notices me.” A serene smile. “You’d be surprised how much I hear.”

 

G
OOD afternoon, Lady Athena.” Paulinus bowed formally. “The Emperor desires me to tell you that he has been detained in the city. He will join you in two days’ time.” He looked away before he could see the naked relief spring into her eyes.

“Then will you take me to Lady Flavia’s villa?” Thea whirled to grab up her
palla
. “Ganymede, get the litter! You’ll come, too, Paulinus? If I have a Praetorian to clear the road I can be there in fi fteen minutes.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“But I haven’t seen Vix in—”

“I don’t like it. It’s secretive.”

“Paulinus, please!”

He looked at her. Lady Athena, the Imperial mistress, swathed in pearls and jade and cloudy green silk, her neck chafed by a welded silver collar. He thought of the girl who stretched herself woodenly under a panting madman at a drunken banquet, looking at the ceiling with drug-swollen eyes. He thought of the girl who had stood in a dusty road smiling and scolding at her son simultaneously.

“All right.” Roughly. “I’ll take you to Lady Flavia’s.”

Her face opened, and he couldn’t bear to look at her.

All the way down the road she sat upright in her litter, foot drumming against the cushions, eyes stretching eagerly out over the blooming green hills. “Almost there?” she asked like an impatient child.

“Almost there,” said Paulinus, and thought of the Emperor. The Emperor looking at him just that morning with trust and, yes, with love: “Whatever would I do without you, Paulinus?”

“You were born to serve,” Nessus had told Paulinus, reading his horoscope. “Right arm of Emperors, never Emperor yourself.”

He had never thought serving an Emperor would be easy. But he had not imagined it would be as hard as this.

Justina
, he thought.
Justina, tell me what to do.

“Thea!” Flavia laughed from the door of the villa, flanked by her boys and the usual clutter of slave children. “It’s been too long. Yes, yes, Vix is well—he’s off with Stephanus, of course; he’s never anywhere else these days.”

“Yes, this famous Stephanus I’ve heard about.” Thea tumbled out of the litter before the slaves could lower it to the ground. “I’ll have to meet him.”

“Well, you won’t have long to wait.” Flavia pointed at the north end of the garden, where one tall figure and one shorter one had just rounded the edge of the wall. “Jupiter and Mars, in the flesh.”

“Vix!” Athena gathered up her cloudy green gown and ran. The boy stopped, let out a shout, and bolted toward her. They collided halfway.

“Mother.” With difficulty Vix pulled free long enough to speak. “I want you to meet somebody. My friend. Stephanus.” Waving a hand at the gardener who stood leaning up against the wall. “It’s a long story, actually—I’ll tell you later. I let him teach me a few fighting tricks . . . Mother?”

Paulinus, turning to go, looked back and stopped. Thea had halted dead in the road, gazing before her as blindly as a statue.

He followed her eyes. The gardener. Just a gardener, in an earth-stained tunic and a short dark beard. Gazing back at the elegant woman in her silk and jade and pearls.

She swayed. Paulinus took a step forward. “Mother?” Vix blinked.

Slowly the gardener came forward, his big callused hand rising toward her face. His fingers brushed her cheek, dropped away.

She made a sound low in her throat.

“Mother?” Vix’s voice was small.

“Thea,” said the gardener. “Thea.”

She took a step toward him, dropping her silk skirt in the dust.

The gardener reached out, his rough fingers just stirring the ends of her hair.

Paulinus couldn’t say who moved first. But the gardener’s arms were around her waist, and her face was pressed hard against his chest, her hands at his hair and his shoulders as if she were trying to convince herself that he was real. In the dust of the road they swayed, clutching each other and babbling incoherently.

Flavia moved first. “Oh, goodness.” She clapped her hands. “All right, everyone. Boys, into the house. Paulinus, go home. Vix, go stab something. I imagine your mother and father want some time alone.”

“Father?” The word broke simultaneously from Vix and Paulinus.

“Well, I assume that’s what he is.” She looked at Vix consideringly. “I knew you reminded me of somebody. And here he was, on my villa the whole time. I
am
dense.”

Vix looked from his mother to the gardener and back again. He looked suddenly very young and uncertain.

“Into the house,” Flavia said kindly.

He went in like a sleepwalker. The Emperor’s niece turned to Paulinus. “Well? Haven’t you got anything to do?”

“I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on her!” He pointed at Thea, murmuring what looked like rapid explanations against the gardener’s mouth. “Who’s he?”

“Vix’s father, I think. Don’t they look alike? Amazing none of us noticed before.” She shooed at him. “Go away, Paulinus. Come back in a few hours.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I serve the Emperor. Always. I can’t let his woman take up with some other—”

“Moving a little fast, aren’t we? Five minutes of reunion and you’re assuming a full-blown liaison?”

“What else am I supposed to make of it?” The gardener had his hands tangled deep into Thea’s hair, his forehead leaned against hers.

“Oh, shut up, Paulinus,” Flavia snapped. “Make anything out of it that you want. You were a prig when you were five, and now you’re even worse.” She marched into the house.

He looked irresolutely back and forth.

“Paulinus.” Thea came toward him in short tremulous steps. “Paulinus, give me an hour.”

“I won’t help you betray the Emperor!”

“In the name of everything that’s holy, I swear I’ll betray no one. Just give me an hour to explain. For the love of God, give me an hour.”

She looked open and joyful and young. The gardener, waiting behind her with folded arms and a smile splitting his face like the sun, could have been any lover of fifteen instead of a work-bowed man of nearly forty.

Something about his face . . . under the beard and the dark hair . . . ?

Oh, never mind. He was a slave. A common slave, who had loved the Emperor’s mistress back in the days when she had been a common slave girl. Thea ran back as lightly as a girl, her hand slipping instantly into the gardener’s, her head touching his shoulder.

In an hour she was ready, standing barefoot and alone in the doorway of the villa. There was no sign of either her son or his father, and she stepped back into the litter with perfect calm. Paulinus threw the reins of his horse to one of the Praetorians, and settled in opposite her.

“So?” he said.

“I told him I have a jealous lover.”

“Did you say who?”

“No. I couldn’t even say the name. They aren’t two names that belong on the same breath.” She fiddled with the litter’s silk cushions.

“I told him to ask anyone else on the villa if he wants to know.”

“So what now?”

“That depends on you.” She folded her hands, looking with absolute stillness out through the curtains.

“Me?”

“Will you tell the Emperor or not?”

Tell the Emperor.
“He’ll kill you,” Paulinus said suddenly, and there was no excusing or apologizing or explaining away the bald words.

“Oh, yes.” Calmly. “And he will kill the man you know as Stephanus . . . and our son. He might punish Flavia, too, for allowing us to meet. So the choice is yours.”

“That isn’t fair.”

“You serve him.” She turned her eyes back, away from the curtains. “I am owned by him, but you
serve
him. Nothing is fair.”