Night of the Wolf (44 page)

“Does he explain things to you, too?” Maeniel asked.

“No,” she whispered, then looked back furtively over her shoulder. “Come,” she said, rising. “I know a place where we can talk and not be disturbed. I was going there when I saw you and stopped to ask about the garden.”

“From all I’ve heard, Caesar is a jealous husband. He said something about his wife being above suspicion.”

She started to laugh again and then whispered, “Calpurnia, hush! He’s not jealous, not of me anymore. And that was just an excuse to divorce his wife and marry me. You see, he’d seen me at dinner in my father’s house. He needed something to cement his relations with my father at that time and, having seen me, he decided he had to have me. But the only way he could get me to his bed was through marriage and he always gets what he wants. Both his friends and his enemies found that out about him long ago. Shh! Follow me.”

He couldn’t imagine where she could be going. This garden was a closed courtyard, a columned porch bordered on two sides. The rooms under the porch were the only entrances and exits. Two high stone walls edged at the top with caltrops bounded the back.

The moon shone brightly for a moment and, when it did, he saw a spot where the walls met and one shadowed the other. It seemed a very dark area, but two large rose trees in pots were set to each side where the fabric of the two walls met. They were beginning to bloom and a few white flowers could be picked out even in the darkness.

“Do you know,” she said, pointing to the rose trees, “that you can make flowers from different plants? A gardener made these for me from the dog rose and the four seasons rose. They are very pale, almost white. The place I want to go is between them. Let me see if it’s open.” She strolled forward to the corner of the two walls and . . . vanished.

He reared back and then thought,
I have been among men too long I know what this leads to.
He walked forward and the inky shadow swallowed him, too.

“Oh, good,” he heard her say. “I’ve never shown this place to anyone before. I wondered if you could get in, too.”

“Yes” was his low-voiced reply. “I have been here before.” And he had, the time he chased the chamois from the cliff and fell. He had been near death. But he remembered the giant trees and, from above, the waterfall; the bracken and other ferns near the basin of the falls; then the mosses, growing on the inner rim. But, above all, he remembered the water seeming to glow in the dark.

It hadn’t been quite night then, when he visited before, but it was now and when he looked up, the giant pines were open enough in their branching so that he could see the sky was clear and the half moon floated alone in solitary splendor. Yes, the water did glow. Its cold, blue-tinged fire appeared just after it began in the cliffs high above. The eye could follow the hazy moving light as it descended and then foamed in the basin at the foot where it yielded a glow so bright it was possible for him and Calpurnia to see each other. At this distance, over fifty feet away, the light was diminished, but still present as a background to the trees and rocks around them.

She shivered, rubbed her arms, and said, “I should have brought a wrap.”

He pulled off his military mantle, removed the clean toga, and handed it to her. “Here,” he said. “It’s probably one of your husband’s. Antony and I used his baths and the attendants gave us clean clothing.”

“The baths! What happened that you had to bathe? Are you a friend of Antony’s?” The second question was posed with some alarm.

He hastened to quiet her fears. “No, and after tonight I don’t think I want to be one.”

There were some rocks grouped near the brook that marked the overflow from the pool at the base of the falls. Despite the falling water’s light when it became a stream winding off among the pines, all that remained of its fierce radiance were clusters of flashing pinpricks as it struck the pebbles and cobbles scattered along the stream bed, rather as if a thousand fireflies danced over the rippling water, driving off the shadows under the giant trees.

She chose a rock shaped like a chair and sat down. He picked out a formation of layered stone with a flat top.

He recounted all that had happened after they crossed the Tiber including the dance between the two young people in the garden.

“Mmm, I wish I’d seen that part,” she said.

“I don’t know about the morality of a pure wife . . .”

“Please,” she said, pushing one hand out in a stop signal. “Whenever men begin to talk about morality, I know they mean sex. The things
they
do to each other—or, for that matter, to women—aren’t important.
They
are never immoral, only other men or women.

“Look at Antony. He probably thinks what the two of you did when breaking in there was just fine, while the two young people are filthy degenerates. If he could find out who they were, he would punish them regardless of their motives. Possibly they were slaves forced to act out this play, but most likely they were only poor and needed the money they brought home for doing their little dance.”

Maeniel didn’t answer. Her statement seemed perfectly logical to him. “They seemed to be enjoying themselves,” he said, “showing off their skills of serpent handling, balance, and dance. And, if it culminated in pleasure for them both, well, so much the better. But,” he began to rise, “I’d best be going. It must be growing close to dawn and your servants will be looking for you.”

“Oh, there is no time here.” She sounded completely unconcerned. “I’ve come here when I couldn’t bear the explanations, the headaches, the . . . I suppose despair is the word for it . . . any longer. I’ve remained several days, but whenever I’ve returned, no one has missed me. Neither sundial nor clepsydra—the water clock in the atrium—had changed. So, you see, no one will miss me.”

“What drove you back?” he asked.

“Hunger, thirst. You see, I’m afraid to eat or drink here, especially that water.” She pointed to the falls. “I drank some once; the poppy sometimes leaves me with a raging thirst. For a few hours, no one could see me, but I became visible in the baths and frightened my maids—they were in the tepiderium having a drinking party—almost to death. Living among slaves is a problem. Even my freedwomen don’t trust me.

“Caesar has simply become too powerful. I am only a moon to his sun, but they will believe I have more power than I do when he begins to kill them. They will not come to my house, but their wives will, as the wives of those soldiers came to Caesar’s officers, beseeching them to spare those they loved. So they will come to me and never believe I cannot help them. Never believe how little attention he pays to anything I say. They will never understand that my tears and pleas are as vain as theirs. He is inexorable. He will destroy them soon. I know, I have seen it in my visions and they never lie.

“So, you see, this place here is my only refuge. I won’t let Philo’s friend poke a hole in my skull. If the headaches and visions stop, I might lose this place. The pain is so terrible that, when Philo gives me the poppy drink, it opens the door. That’s why, as soon as the drink tames the pain, I rise from my bed to seek this place. It is the pain that makes it possible for me to come here. Someday soon, when he starts killing them, I will come and drink deep at the pool and return no more.” Then she sat silent and pensive in the cool darkness.

“You are very beautiful,” he said quietly.

“Yes, and it’s a misfortune. It drew his eye. But here in this place where no one can touch us, would you like to make love to me?”

“Yes. I was afraid to ask.”

“So was I,” she said, rising. She dropped the toga, then undid the shoulder pins on the chiton and the soft garment fell with a whisper to the ground among the ferns.

He spread the dark mantle on the ground. She looked up, her arms covering her breasts modestly. “While no time passes there,” she said, “it passes here. The moon is low and I think it will soon be dawn.”

He embraced her and, even in the darkness, his lips found hers. Then he knew that whatever women he had known or would know, none would ever bring him such grace and gentleness. Later, lying together, they watched the sunrise over a forest of pines that stretched away toward the horizon.

She said, “Go now,” and kissed him good-bye near the pool. Before he reached the portal, he turned and tried to get one last look, but she was lost in the fiery light of the rising sun.

Then he found himself in the garden and, without looking back, strode through the atrium toward the entrance of the house. He retrieved his sword from the guard, who sent two soldiers to escort him to the house of Manilius and Felex.

A short time later Clea, Calpurnia’s freedwoman, checked and found Calpurnia’s couch empty and the maids asleep. She didn’t awaken them. Their mistress seldom went far. Clea found her sitting in the garden on the bench, her head thrown back, sleeping in the last pale light of the setting moon.

She returned Calpurnia to her room, removed her dress, and combed out her long hair. While slipping the carmisa nightgown over her head, she noticed something she’d missed, a tuft of pine needles in her hair. She gently removed it and eased her lady down on the bed and covered her.

While shaking out the silk chiton, a dried fern frond fell to the floor. Clea carried the frond and the pine needles to a brazier glowing in the corner and dropped them on the coals, then touched an amulet she wore at her neck. She was a devotee of an Eastern goddess, a valued initiate into her mysteries.

She had been a slave welcomed by the other initiates because such worshipers were a valuable investment. Those who began as slaves often rose to great importance and affluence since they were trusted by their powerful owners. This was true of Clea. Calpurnia trusted her and she would never betray that trust.

For a second, the fragrance of pine filled the cubiculum as the brown needles glowed red and fell to dust. It wasn’t the first time. Clea had found similar things caught in her lady’s dresses and hair. It had happened before and she knew there were neither pines nor ferns anywhere in the garden.

Philo went to see Lucius when he returned from Caesar’s house. It was chilly and very near dawn. He looked in on Octus first and found the older man sleeping. Alia welcomed Cut Ear back. He was grumbling, but she put him to bed anyway.

Philo found Lucius pacing the floor, nervous, but by no means would he admit it.

“Do you think I should bathe?” Lucius asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“With women, bathing is better.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with her,” Lucius stated, loftily.

“Oh?”

“No!”

“Bathe!” Philo insisted.

“No perfume. No pomade!”

“Yes, fine. Bathe.”

“Shave?”

“With women, shaving is better.”

“I hate to wake Octus. I’ll shave myself.”

“No, better you should wake Octus than cut your throat. Besides, he might feel it deeply should you not call on him when in need of his specialized services. He would be hurt. Deeply hurt.”

“His hands shake sometimes.”

“That’s because he’s afraid of your sister. He’s not in the least nervous about you.”

“I’m not sure that is a compliment. In fact, looked at in certain ways, it’s not. Caesar said—”

“Do not quote Caesar to me.” It was Philo’s turn to be lofty. “Should you begin to do so on any regular basis, I would be forced to return to Greece. Almost anything can be observed from a variety of viewpoints. Some of which will make the most virtuous and laudatory actions look, at best, stupid and, at worst, meretricious and deceptive.

“He does not fear you because you, as he and almost everyone in the household has observed, can be irritable, depressed, or angry, but you are almost never spiteful and never, by any means, cruel. Your sister is vengeful, spiteful, and extremely cruel.

“Now, bathe, shave, and dress. The woman is at Gordus’ establishment. She was seen there a short time ago and it is widely known some sort of entertainment using her . . . talents is planned for this afternoon in the arena at the gladiatorial school. A private showing for Caesar, Antony, and several hundred of his senatorial and knightly friends.”

“Oh, no!”

“Yes. I’ll go call Octus.”

“Cut Ear?”

“No, let him sleep or whatever he and Alia do. You may need him later in the day.”

A half hour later, Lucius and Philo left for the ludus.

Dryas was awakened about an hour later by Aquila. He handed her a cup of warm beverage through the open barred door of the cell.

“Posca?” she asked.

“No, Marcia put this together. I don’t know what’s in it. You can get sick on posca. I did when I was in the legions. But you can’t get drunk. I know, I tried.”

“That’s probably how you got sick,” Dryas said.

“Yes, it’s vile.”

Dryas tried Marcia’s mixture, white wine with a few herbs steeped in it. She tasted mint and wintergreen, gently warmed. “Nice,” she said.

“Almost anything’s better than posca, but I don’t know if you should be in a good mood when you go down to greet this . . . Lucius.”

“Who is he?”

Aquila looked as if he didn’t know what to say. He shifted his feet and bit his lip. “Probably . . . probably he’s your real owner.”

Dryas looked up at him. “And?”

“He is the brother of Fulvia, the woman who paid me to capture you.”

“What does he want?”

“I don’t know, but just in case he wants what I think he does . . .” Aquila extended one of the daggers he’d taken away from Dryas when he searched her.

She pushed it away. “No, the time for such things is past. I can’t take that way out.”

“Why not?”

“Your safety, Gordus and Marcia’s safety; and they have a son and married daughter with children of her own. I have my honor and honor will not allow me to let others pay the price of my irresponsibility. So, please, close the door and let me dress.”

Aquila shook his head and withdrew.

Dryas did dress. The cell was a lot more comfortable. Marcia had changed the bedding, burning the tick and sheets where Priscus died, and she’d found clothes for Dryas. A clean tunic—carefully sewn from used linen, it is true, but then dyed a warm brown ocher or rust. A palla made of finer wool—yes, often washed and somewhat worn, but mended and also redyed a dark blue and decorated with braid at the edges—and a pair of sandals, laced at the center with finely cut leather uppers, and worn with woolen socks.