Roman Dusk (7 page)
Authors: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Tags: #Fantasy, #Fantasy Fiction, #Fiction, #General, #Historical, #Horror, #Occult & Supernatural, #Historical Fiction, #Vampires, #Rome, #Saint-Germain
Brunius Tercitus Manus
“I do apologize for calling on you so late at night,” said Ignatia as she faced Sanct-Franciscus across the atrium of Olivia Clemens’ house; the lights from the oil-lamps made unsteady shadows on his face and hid his expression from her. She had on a long, peach-colored stola that took brightness from the lamplight, with a palla of forest-green linen over it. “I had hoped it would not be necessary, but …” Her words trailed away into a sigh. “Your steward was reluctant to disturb you.”
“He is always most punctilious,” said Sanct-Franciscus, no sign of aggravation about him, though he wished Rugeri were here; in the last century-and-a-half, Rugeri had learned his ways. Rugeri knew when to disturb him, and for whom.
“You must wonder why I am here,” she began, and halted gratefully as Sanct-Franciscus shook his head.
“Your mother is doing poorly again,” said Sanct-Franciscus, recognizing the worry in Ignatia’s eyes.
“Yes,” she said in a mix of relief and chagrin. “She has been miserable for many hours, and asking for you for almost four of them. If you were still at your villa, there would have been no expectation of bringing you to help her, but as you are now living inside the walls, she has been urging me to seek you out since sunset. I know that you believe you have an obligation to us through my uncle, but I am certain we have presumed upon your friendship so much in the last month.” She made an abrupt upturn of her hands to emphasize the futility she felt. “I tried to help her without imposing on you at so late an hour, but my mother insisted, in spite of all my efforts. Nothing will ease her but your presence, or so she says.” She stared at him. “I gave her the tincture you prepared, but it seems to have made little difference, and she will not be soothed, no matter how much I do for her, or what the slaves do for her.”
“Have you tended her all day?” Sanct-Franciscus could see how darkly her eyes were ringed and how tired she was as she moved toward him.
“She needs someone to care for her; her weakness keeps her in her bed unable to lift a cup; her hands shake when she touches her blanket,” said Ignatia, answering him indirectly. “And she doesn’t trust our slaves to do what she requires.”
“So the answer is yes, you have been caring for her all day.” Sanct-Franciscus moved a few steps nearer to her. “You would like me to come and treat her, in part so you may have a little rest for yourself.” There was only kindness in his observation, but she winced.
“I am not a feckless or ungrateful daughter,” she said sharply.
“No, you are not,” said Sanct-Franciscus, his hand extended to her. “You are devoted to your mother, as you were taught to be. But that does not mean that you … that you can continue to wait upon Adicia without aid or respite. You look worn out, and if you are, it will mitigate against the quality of your care.”
Ignatia nodded fatalistically. “You have the right of it; twice I measured out the wrong amount of the syrup of poppies, and that could have been dangerous to her,” she admitted.
“Who gave you the syrup of poppies?” Sanct-Franciscus asked, thinking that while it might calm Adicia, it would not benefit her for long.
“Xantheus the Athenian; Octavian brought him to the house a week ago, and he recommended syrup of poppies.” Ignatia’s face grew red with embarrassment. “I told him we should have sent for you, but when Octavian takes a notion, he can be stubborn.”
“Octavian?” Sanct-Franciscus repeated, surprised. “I would not have expected him to do anything so conscientious.”
“He did; Xantheus is one of the Christians Octavian spends his time with,” said Ignatia. “He has embraced the teaching, and believes all Christians are more worthy men than those who worship other gods.”
“How has your brother dealt with all this travail your mother endures, given his new religion? Beyond bringing Xantheus to minister to Adicia? I had heard Christians are merciful.” He could tell that there was a lack of concern in Octavian, and that troubled him.
“My brother does not handle such misery as our mother experiences very well. It was unusual for him to bother to fetch the apothecary; ordinarily he leaves such things to me. He came to pray for her before he left for the day, but he has refused to take a turn waiting upon her. He says it isn’t fitting for a grown son to tend to his mother in such intimate ways.” She looked away from him. “If you cannot come, then I suppose I must try to find Artemidorus.” Since the death of Galen, this Greek physician was much in demand among Roma’s nobles, and known for his autocratic ways and exotic prescriptions. “Not that he is likely to call at so late an hour.”
Knowing he was being goaded, Sanct-Franciscus said, “I will get my case and come with you. If you will allow me to summon a slave?” He clapped his hands, and in answer to this, Tigilus came into the atrium. “I am going with this young woman to care for her mother, who is ill. I may be gone until sunrise. If you will bring my leatherstrapped chest from my second room? The one that contains my medicaments and other medicinal supplies.”
“Of course, Dominus,” said Tigilus, nodding as he turned away.
“Do you have your biga with you, or should I order mine readied?” Sanct-Franciscus asked Ignatia.
“My biga is outside, and Philius is walking the horses.” She stared at him. “You will not wait until morning, then?”
“You say your mother is suffering now. What use is it to wait longer to alleviate her discomforts?” Sanct-Franciscus touched the silk of his Egyptian kalasiris. “I will fetch a pallium from my private room, for covering.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Vitellius, if you would—bring a cup of warm honied wine for my guest? She will benefit from it, even though the night is not very chilly.” He hoped it would calm her a bit, allaying her worst fears and making way for sleep to come, for clearly she needed sleep.
Coming out of the shadows, Vitellius ducked his head to Sanct-Franciscus. “Yes, Dominus.”
“I will return directly,” he assured Ignatia, and went to the vestibule to get his linen pallium, which he tugged over his head and let it fall over the silken kalasiris. He moved into the light from the cluster of lamps above the door.
“Leaving? And from your house instead of mine?” asked a soft voice from the broad couch in the outer part of his private room. “You have no need to escape me; I must return to my own house in a short while. My night isn’t over yet.”
Sanct-Franciscus paused and looked back with a rueful smile. “Ah, Melidulci,” he said softly, “if I thought you would linger, so would I.”
From her place amid the wonderful confusion of sheets, Melidulci laughed, a rich laugh, warm as ripe fruit. Her pale hair—a gift of nature, not of the dyer’s skills—shone in the glow of the lamp-light, wheat on gold. “You have a way with words, Sanct-Franciscus, I give you that, and you don’t fall on me like a ravening wolf, as so many do.” She stretched out one arm to him. “It might be worth spending the night.”
“You were the one who said you must be away at midnight, and I have arranged for a chair to return you to your own door,” he said, smoothing the front of his pallium, adding with a regretful smile as he reached out to touch her cheek; his fingers lingered, eloquent of his reluctance to leave. “Sadly, you and I both have demands upon us. We would have had to say good-night shortly in any case.”
Melidulci shook her blonde curls. “If only all my Patroni were as thoughtful as you are, my life would be far more delightful. As it is—” She glanced at the aureus on his pillow, and without seeming to pay much attention to it, said, “Oh, you are most generous, Dominus.”
“It is no more than you deserve,” said Sanct-Franciscus, returning to the bed and bending down to kiss her lovely, reddened mouth; it was an expert kiss, artful and subtle, full of promise and sensuality, awakening and tantalizing, but revealing little of either him or her.
“You are a worthy man, Patronus, for all your oddities,” said Melidulci as he moved back from her.
“I thank you for your high opinion, and your lack of questions, considering everything,” said Sanct-Franciscus as he once again made for the door. “And I thank you for coming to me, Melidulci. I appreciate your kindness.”
“Kindness!” She laughed softly. “If you knew what I do about most men, you would do as I do every time I leave here, and thank Venus and the lares for giving me a lover who is more aware of my pleasure than his own, and who is not embarrassed to have me in his house,” she said with a tinge of world-weariness in her voice. “You have no concept of how rare a thing that is.”
“As I have told you, your pleasure is my pleasure; I have no other,” he said, smiling at her. “What you achieve, I achieve, and only what you achieve.”
“So you insist. And if it is so, I would every man have such affliction.” She waved him out of the room. “I must dress, and that is a very unstimulating thing to watch.” Unselfconsciously, she slipped out of the bed. “Odd, isn’t it, when watching undressing is often the best part of the act?”
He stopped in the doorway. “Melidulci, you deserve your name. You are honey-sweet in every way.”
Her laughter rippled again. “Of course it suits me: it’s why I took it, although it fitted me better fifteen years ago, when I was just beginning in the lupanar.” The smile she gave him was less alluring and more genuine than previous ones had been; he went to the door so she could be alone to pull on her stola and palla.
Before he left the room, Sanct-Franciscus said, “It will suit you all your life long,” feeling a touch of regret that she should be so proficient in the arts of the body and so wholly indifferent to the joys of intimacy. Still, she was able to bring him more nourishment than dreaming women, and for the time being that would have to suffice.
“You present an unusual appearance,” Ignatia remarked as she caught sight of him approaching.
“Well, I am a foreigner,” he reminded her. “And although the night is mild, it is windy.”
“And you will appear less foreign, since few will see your foreign garments with a pallium over them,” said Ignatia shrewdly. “Have you had difficulty?”
“A little,” he answered.
Vitellius appeared again, bearing a steaming cup. “As you ordered; it took a short time to heat.”
“The humiliora are afraid of foreigners,” said Ignatia, then taking the cup, held it up. “Do you keep a pot of this in the kitchen at all times? Your cooks must find that demand a hard one to meet.”
“On such blustery nights as this, I like to have something to give my guests other than cool wine or broth, especially since, as you have noticed, many Romans view foreigners as uncouth. This provides me the opportunity to show them I have some graces.” He was an exemplary host and both of them knew it.
“That may be so among the newest honestiora, but you are like one of the old gens,” Ignatia conceded as she drank. “If you keep the old ways, you are a credit to Roma.” She held out the cup to him in salute. “Thank you.”
“Some Romans have excellent cause to be wary of all outsiders.” Sanct-Franciscus did not point out that the lower classes and the newly elevated upper classes were not the only ones who were resentful and suspicious of foreigners; he went to the foot of the gallery stairs, waiting for Tigilus to bring him his case.
“You must tell me what I can do to assist you once you reach our house,” said Ignatia, raising her voice enough to be heard.
“I will not know until I see—oh, thank you, Tigilus.” He took the case from the stocky slave. “If you must send me word, I will be at the Villa Laelius.”
“To Villa Laelius. Of course. I will not disturb you unless there is urgent need,” said Tigilus, and ducked his head. “The sedan-chair will be here shortly. I will see your … package is delivered safely.”
“Yes,” Sanct-Franciscus agreed. “You know the destination.”
Tigilus coughed discreetly. “That I do.” He rubbed his hands together. “Do you have any other orders to leave with me?”
“If you will have the holocaust stoked and fired at noon, I will use the caldarium upon my return.”
“Do you think you will be back by midday?” Tigilus asked.
“If I will not, I will send you word, and you may change the time you ready the holocaust.” Sanct-Franciscus made a sign of dismissal and went back across the atrium to where Ignatia was finishing her wine. “When you are ready, Filia Laelius.”
“So formal; that’s unlike you,” she said, setting the cup aside on the rim of the atrium fountain. “And I am too old to be filia,” she added. “I am twenty-four, not seventeen.”
“I did not want to appear overly familiar, not in front of a new household, as this is for me; they might misunderstand. Doma Ignatia,” he amended, thinking that the arbitrary severance from youth at twenty-one was often misleading, and never more than in cases like Ignatia’s.
She nodded toward the broad corridor to the outer courtyard. “This must have been a splendid place before it was walled. You could see most of the grand villas on the hills, and the Tibrus.”
“I suppose it was,” said Sanct-Franciscus, his memories of Olivia’s house welling in his mind; for more than a century it had been one of the most beautiful houses in the city: Olivia had transformed it over a century ago, during the reign of Traianus, when magnificent buildings were all the rage, when she had made her first return to Roma after her death and reawakening in her tomb near the Via Appia.
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