The Shadow of Ararat (7 page)

"Ah," said the Duchess, "Krista is here at last."

Thyatis turned and observed a young woman crossing the bridge. She wore a simple white shift, though it was of a good fabric and edged with a pale-orange trim. Like Thyatis she was a deep tan, with her dark red-brown hair done up in coiled braids. At first sight, there was something of the Duchess's look to her dark eyes and lips, but Thyatis saw that they were not blood relations. The girl was a slave, marked by a thin jeweled collar and a barely subservient attitude. In her hands, she bore a broad bronze platter filled with cheese, fruit, and bread. Bowing prettily, she placed the food before the Duchess and knelt on the grass. Unbidden, she opened two small ceramic crocks, one of jam and one of fresh butter. Thyatis realized that she was quite hungry. The summons to meet her unseen and unmentioned employer had come at dawn, and breakfast had been a forgotten detail in a busy morning.

"Now, Krista, look at this young lady and tell me if she can be made more attractive than she is already."

Krista did not speak for a moment, completing the preparation of the bread and butter, which she offered first on a porcelain dish to Anastasia, who gravely accepted a single piece, and then to Thyatis, who restrained herself mightily and took only two. The slave sat back on her haunches and appraised the visitor with sharp brown eyes.

"Well, her breasts are large enough, I suppose," she began.

Thyatis was still smarting at the cool commentary of the slave hours later when she at last emerged from the baths that were sequestered under the villa. While she had waited in increasingly furious silence, the slave had detailed all of her obvious and not-so-obvious failings at the prompting and delight of her mistress. After two hours of discussion during which Thyatis felt ever more like an insensate lump, at last they concluded. Anastasia had bidden Krista take her guest to the baths and then make her presentable for evening company. It had taken every scrap of control not to clip the smug little girl behind the knees once they were out of sight of the garden and then ram her perfect little face into the nearest stucco column repeatedly until Thyatis felt better. But she had not, and had suffered the attentions of the bath servants in grim silence.

Indeed, Krista had joined the attendants in preparing her hair and anointing her face, arms, and shoulders with subtle powders and dyes. The skilled fingers of the girl were a wonder, and Thyatis at last, grudgingly, felt the tension that had ridden with her all day seep away into the soapy warm water.
At least I have breasts you can see,
she grumbled to herself as the dressing attendants arrayed her in a simple-looking green gown and understated jewelry. One held up a mirror for her and she was amazed to see what looked back out at her.
Maybe, maybe there is something to all this,
she thought.

For a moment, the servants and slaves left her sitting alone on a bench set into a casement window. Velvet pillows edged with seed pearls surrounded her, but the stones were still cold under her hands. Below her, the steep side of the house looked down on rooftops below and a scattering of firelights in the gathering evening gloom. The sky was still flushed with sunset.

So much like Thira at dusk,
she thought, thinking of the school she had labored in for four years. She felt very sad and empty for a moment, missing the clear blue waters of the sea around the island and the simple, almost pure life within its marble walls. Her fingers tested the weave of the gown, feeling the lushness of the fabric. Fingertips brushed against the necklace of gold and the jewels that were buried in it.

This dress is the price of
Pater's
whole farmstead,
she thought, and the bleak memory that rose in her mind's eye brought tears to her eyes. The bracelets and rings would buy and sell her brothers and sisters ten times over.
Why did I escape!
She wailed silently to herself.

The moment was broken by a light touch on her shoulder and she looked up into Krista's brown eyes. "Don't cry, mistress," the girl whispered, concern in her voice, "you'll ruin the makeup." Thyatis nodded and stood up. The slave checked her hairpins, the drape of the gown, and anointed her with one last dust of facial powder. "Please follow me, the Duchess is waiting."

Thyatis eased back fractionally from the low table that still held a variety of dishes. Porcelain Chin plates and bowls gleamed under the shuttered lanterns, blue and gold etched designs crawling out from under the remains of roasted grouse, walnut-stuffed dormice, three kinds of grilled fish, two kinds of salad, and the shattered remains of an army of sliced fruits dusted with honey-sugar. For a moment she closed her eyes and savored the subtle taste of the spices in the cream custard she had just finished.

Across the table, Anastasia delicately peeled a plum and sliced it into thin strips with the edge of a fingernail. The Duchess smiled fondly down at Krista, who knelt at her side. Her languid gaze on Thyatis, she idly fed the slices to the girl one by one. Thyatis shuddered as the violet eyes assessed her. She felt alone and close to some unknown danger. Yawning, she stretched and shifted amid the pillows, her right leg sliding out and flexing. Her right hand dropped down to rest on her thigh, only inches from the knife she had managed to keep with her through three changes of clothing and a bath.

Anastasia finished with the plum and waited a moment while the slave washed and dried her hands with a soft towel. This done, the girl gathered up the plates and removed them in almost complete silence. When the last tinkle and clatter had died away, the Duchess stood up and moved to the low wall that separated the dining platform from the edge of the tower wall. Thyatis took the moment to shift again, bringing her feet under her. For a long time the older woman stood at the railing, staring out over the roofs of her own townhouse, its garden, the stables behind it.

Her house stood on the edge of the Quirinal hill, raised up both by nature and man. Below her the city spread away in darkness toward the Tiber. The blaze of lights of the Forum stood to her left beyond the bulk of the mausoleums and temples. The other hills of the city were a sprinkling of lantern lights, bonfires, and torchlight. At last she drew the drapes, closing in the little dining deck that rode atop the highest building in her town estate—no more than seven paces across, a rich wood-lined summer room with a tiled roof and sconces of black iron to hold the torches and lanterns. Despite the season, a cool breeze ruffled the cotton drapes. Anastasia knelt again at the table and poured new wine from the amphora into her cup, and then Thyatis'.

"The city seems so empty now," she said, her voice even and unconcerned. "The plague took so many." She paused. "Of course, the poor suffered the most, and it was before you came to the city."

The Duchess sipped her wine.

"I was newly married then, to the Duke, and he brought me to the city from his estates in the north. He wanted to see the theater and speak with his friends and patrons at the Offices." She drank again.

"He died, of course, when the coughing sickness came. No, that was later. It must have been the bad one that killed him, the one that made you drink and drink yet hold nothing. Yes, he was the one who died in the night, not the day." Thyatis sat very still, her eyes watching her hostess like a hunting bird. The Duchess was speaking dreamily, almost as if the words were spilling from her lips unbidden.

"No matter, as I said, it was before your time in the city. Come, drink with me."

Thyatis raised the cup to her lips, but only wetted them with the dusky red Falernian.

"I remember the first day that you came to the city," Anastasia said, smiling quietly.

Thyatis struggled to keep surprise from her face. She barely remembered that first day—only a confused memory of blinding sun, the crack of a whip, hoarse shouts, horrible fear, and the taste of blood in her mouth.

"You were in a coffle with twenty or thirty others brought in from the provinces, hands bound behind your back, only a slip of a girl in rags. Just one of dozens of children sold to the market to pay the debts of a poor family. You had pretty hair, though of course it was matted and rough. Your legs were strong and you had not surrendered yourself yet. That struck me the most, I think, that you were so new to the chain that you had neither received a brand nor had the life beaten out of your eyes."

Thyatis blinked, coming back from a distant grim memory. In the moment of inattention, Anastasia had moved around the table and now knelt at her side, long fingers running through the younger woman's hair. Thyatis struggled to keep from flinching away.

"Your hair is much nicer now," she said, brushing it back from Thyatis' high cheekbone and neck. "You are better kept." Anastasia rose and returned to the other side of the table. Now she sat, wide awake, no longer dreaming of ancient days. "There is work for you."

The older woman paused, thinking, then continued: "The state has come to a critical period. The Emperor sits easily upon his throne here in Rome, all of his enemies in the West humbled. The people have recovered some of their spirit that was lost in the plagues and the civil war. The fisc, of a wonder, maintains a surplus of coin, and the provinces are beginning to be profitable once again. Despite the unmitigated disasters of the last three hundred years, the Empire has survived and, even now, prospers. It is a dangerous time for the Senate and people of Rome."

Thyatis raised an eyebrow at this last statement. Anastasia nodded, her lips quirking in a quick smile. "No greater trouble has ever come to Rome than under the reign of an Emperor without pressing concerns. It is in such times, when the future seems unlimited and rosy, that grand plans and visions intrude into the business of maintaining a vast state, stretching thousands of miles from the dark forests of Britain to the sands of Africa. Experience shows, again and again, that the hubris of the Emperor—the quest for some unguessable destiny—is a sure road to disaster. We are now at such a point again as faced the Divine Caesar or the great Emperor Trajan or the first Aurelian. It seems like the tide, repeated over and over again."

Anastasia paused, pulling her hair back and binding it in a loose fillet of dark blue silk. In the dim light of the lanterns, and now the moon peeking through the gauze drapes, she seemed burdened by a great weight. Her hair tied, she lay back among the cushions.

"If this is the will of the gods, there is nothing that a mortal can do. But if this is the doing of men, of their ego, of their vanity, then there is much that a mortal woman can do. There is much that I can do. There are things that you can do." Anastasia's voice was a low burr, echoing from the peaked roof of the little room.

"I serve the Emperor, though I have no office. All those who serve me serve him, and through him the Empire itself. We operate outside of the strictures of the law, as you did so recently in the dyers' district. I have known the Emperor for a long time, and he has my complete loyalty. Yet..."

She stopped and sat up. Thyatis put down the cup of wine, meeting her gaze.

"What do you know of the Emperor and his brothers?" Anastasia asked.

Thyatis shrugged. "What anyone knows. Galen is Emperor and God. His younger brothers, Aurelian and Maxian, are his left and right arms, extending his reach to all corners of the Empire. In time, when Galen dies, Aurelian will take his place on the Purple and will become a god himself. One presumes that Maxian will serve him as well."

The older woman sighed, shaking her head. "To be expected, I suppose. Let me tell you of them:

"
Primus
, Martius Galen Atreus is our Emperor and God. He is the Emperor of the West, as decreed by the Divine Diocletian in the separation of the greater Empire into two halves. I do not know if your studies covered history, but this was done to resolve problems of rule that the old Empire experienced due to its sheer size. Galen is the son of a regional governor, Sextus Varius Atreus, who was long the administrator of the region of Gallia Narbonensis in southern Gaul. During the most recent civil war, Galen and his brothers were successful in leading the Spanish and African legions against the other pretenders, Vatrix and Lucius Niger, to capture Rome and drive out the Franks and Goths.

Anastasia paused and sighed.

"Even dreadful events can bear good tidings with them. The plague that took so many Romans slaughtered the Frankish and Gothic tribes. Too, the principalities beyond the Rhine frontier have grown strong enough to halt the advance of the tribes farther east. Galen was very lucky in battle to win the Purple. He is, to my experience, wise and cunning. He seems to understand the mechanisms of rule as well as any Emperor in the last two centuries. That he has two capable siblings who have not, yet, conspired against him, bodes well.

"
Secondus
, the next younger brother, Aurelian Octavian Atreus. A brave fellow, though well nigh heedless in battle—some would say the perfect commander of the
equites
. Well loved by his elder brother. By all accounts and experience, he is utterly loyal to Galen and to the Empire. It is he who will be our next Emperor, for Galen has yet to have any children. Aurelian, on the other hand, has a thriving brood of yelling brats, all as strong as horses and as much like their father as peas in a pod."

Anastasia paused again, her look grim, and she took a long drink from her own cup. A light breeze came up, parting the curtains, and she rose. Pinning the curtains back, she savored the clean night air. From the distance, the sound of bells and gongs echoed from the nearest temple.

"Look," she said, "the priestesses of Astarte are rising to meet the moon."

Thyatis looked out, kneeling next to her patron on the cushions. Far away and below, in the swale at the northeastern end of the Forum Romanum, the domes of the temple of the goddess of the moon were lit by hundreds of candles. All else in that district was quiet and dark, but now the moon had risen high above the Latin hills and the pinpoints of light rose as well, one by one, into the dark sky.