Mistress of Rome

  “Still dreaming of war and glory on the Rhine?”

  “Every night. I wake up just as the Emperor’s awarding me a laurel wreath and a triumph. If only we’d been with him at Tapae!”

  “Sounds like they managed to cut a swath without us.”

  “Well, Domitian’s taking after Emperor Titus, I’ll say that for him. Get Rufus Scaurus talking about his campaigns with Titus in Judaea; he’ll tell you the best stories—”

  When Paulinus was a boy, his great dream had been to save the Emperor’s life. To leap in the path of a poisoned arrow, drag down a charging assassin, slay an entire barbarian horde. Silly boyish dreams. Yet . . . to serve, just to serve! “To be a Norbanus is to serve,” his father had taught him. To make his father proud would be better than any laurel wreath or triumph.

  “Hey, wake up. Time to go bow and scrape to Father and his lovely, lovely wife.” Wink, wink. “I’ll give my regards to Antonia for you.”

  “Athena.”

  “Maybe I’ll give her something else, too—”

  Paulinus flung a scraper at him.

  LINUS!” The cry went up as soon as he stepped over his father’s threshold, and something assailed his knees. Paulinus laughed and leaned down to hug his four-year-old half-sister. “You’ve grown up, Vibia Sabina! Practically a lady.” He ruffled her brown hair and she giggled. She was little, bird-thin, and bright-faced, and her birth had delighted him; he’d always wanted a sister. She was frail, and she fell into mild bouts of epilepsia, but her giggle was delightful. Marcus watched them both with a smile as he limped across the atrium with its blue-tiled pool and intricate mosaics.

  “Sabina, where is your curtsy?” Lady Lepida glided in, all rose-red silk and pink pearls. Such a pretty little thing herself; Paulinus could hardly believe she was Sabina’s mother. She looked too soft and doe-eyed to lift a child in her arms, let alone bear one. Sabina’s little monkey face straightened, and she broke away to bob solemnly. He saluted her, Praetorian fashion, and winked.

  “Much better,” said Lady Lepida. “Run along, now. Marcus, your guests are here.”

  Sabina disappeared in a flash of yellow, her mother a bird of paradise gliding behind her into the triclinium of gray-veined marble. Marcus turned in Lepida’s bright wake. “I’m sorry I didn’t write earlier, Paulinus. A sudden arrival, I know.”

  “I did wonder. Change of plans?”

  “Yes,” said Marcus briefly. “I’ll explain later. Now, I believe you know most of my guests. Drusus Aemelius Sulpicius, Aulus Sossianus, that obnoxious young Urbicus from the septemviri—he’s clever, though . . .”

  His father’s dinner parties were infrequent and pleasantly similar. The same low-voiced guests reclining on their cushions, the same simple supper, the same white-bearded orator declaiming Greek verse (why were Greek orators always white-bearded?), the same philosophical banter back and forth across the couches. When he was a boy, these dinners had always bored him cross-eyed. They still did, but now he knew his father’s table fed the best minds in the Empire. Once anyone started quoting Plato (and they always did) Paulinus was utterly lost, but there was something comforting about lying here on the cushions watching his unassuming father so easy among the great minds of Rome. Comforting knowing that your father was just as brilliant as you thought he was when you were a boy.

  He looked better these days. Neater, more distinguished. Lady Lepida’s influence, of course. Paulinus looked over at his stepmother.

  She reclined against the cushions eating grapes from a silver bowl, the taut line of her throat very young and unprotected somehow. She’d barely said a word all evening. Paulinus felt a rush of sympathy for her. Naturally she must feel out of her depth, married to such a brilliant man. She really was very young—twenty-one, only two years younger than himself. And she hardly looked any older than she had at sixteen when he had first seen her in the red bridal veil. He smiled at her across the table.

  LEPIDA

  I hadn’t been so bored since—well, I don’t know when. Boring Marcus and his boring friends and that boring Greek orator and all their boring speculation about the Fate of the Empire. Every time I thought they were finally winding it up, someone would start up again on Plato. Or one of Marcus’s awful treatises.

  “I found your views on the declining birth rate quite interesting, Norbanus,” Senator Sulpicius or Gratianus or somebody boring would say, and off they’d go for another hour, talking about Marcus’s awful boring treatise, which I’d had to read last year just to keep him happy. Of course they all pressed him to read aloud from it, and thank goodness he refused, even though I could tell he was bursting with conceit. How simple he was. They didn’t care anything about his treatise; they were just hoping for another free meal. Anyone could see that. Anyone but my stupid husband.

  Paulinus was the last to leave. He insisted that Marcus take him upstairs first to say good night to Sabina. Just sickening, the look on their faces as they gazed down at the little bed. I didn’t see why they were so fond of her. She looked nothing like me. One could hardly even take her out in decent society, not the way she fell into seizures in public places. Twitching, foaming brat. I should have known any child of Marcus’s would be deformed. And she was Marcus’s child; I’d made sure of that.

  “I thought it went very well, my dear,” Marcus said as we waved Paulinus out at last.

  “Yes, darling.” I smiled, and he raised my hand to his lips. I leaned forward and kissed him, and he cradled my face in his hands.

  “Stay with me this evening?” I said archly. I had my own bedchamber—I’d insisted on it!—and Marcus never presumed without my invitation, but I allowed him regular access. These little shows of affection kept him happy, and my bills paid.

  “My pleasure. After I’ve told Sabina her bedtime story.”

  Sabina, always Sabina. He doted on that stupid child. I sometimes wondered if having her hadn’t been a mistake. It wouldn’t do to be replaced in his affections by my own daughter, would it? But I smiled and murmured, “What a good father you are,” and kept on smiling until his footsteps had faded off into her room, and then I poked my tongue out in his direction.

  I stamped off to my bedchamber, regarding my reflection in the polished steel mirror as Iris stripped the pins from my hair. The rose-red gown suited me. I had the complexion for red, and not many girls did. Even the Imperial Lady Julia had looked sallow under her red bridal veil. My bridal veil, now . . .

  My wedding day had been an enchantment. The white gown, the crimson veil, the procession, the sacrifice at the shrine—everything was perfect. Well, except for Marcus; he just looked old. Still, I found I could ignore him quite easily. At a wedding, the bride is the star. I even had a pair of gladiators to duel in my honor.

  No, not the Barbarian. He’d been whisked away by his lanista on a tour of the provinces. Afraid of me, no doubt, and what I’d do if he dared show his face in Rome. Well, he should have been afraid. I would have thrown him to the lions without a moment’s hesitation, and I still would. If he’d dared show his face at my wedding—!

  Well. It was a marvelous day. Simply marvelous. But the night . . .

  Marcus by rights should have carried me over the threshold, but he was too old and feeble. Paulinus carried me instead, and then everyone bowed out and left me alone with my new husband in the dark bedroom.

  “Your hair—?” As I slid my red veil off, Marcus had gestured to the tumble of short curls that it had taken Iris and her hot tongs most of the morning to create. After Arius sheared me, I’d kept my head carefully covered until the hair grew a little.

  “Oh, I got dragged off into a dark alley by a very nasty old woman with shears.” Artlessly. “My hair is probably adorning some bald matron’s wig at this very moment.” That was the story I gave my father, too, when I came home from the gladiator barracks with my hair chopped within an inch of my head. Oh, I could have gotten Arius thrown to the lions, but I’d have had to explain to Father why I’d gone
to his room in the first place, and even Father’s indulgence had limits . . . No. Better to deal with Arius in my own time.

  But by the time he’d come back from his yearlong tour of the provinces, Father had been promoted from organizer of the games to praetor—and I had no chance. Well, I’d get my revenge someday. I always did.

  “At least they only took your hair.” Marcus had been properly concerned, and I gave him my most bewitching smile. His eyes softened, and he took my hands. “Lepida, let me make something clear to you,” he said as he sat down beside me. “What happens here is for you to decide. If you want this marriage to be in name only for a while, I understand that.”

  “Don’t be silly, Marcus.” I made my voice rich and teasing. “I want to be a proper wife. With children . . .” I embroidered on those themes for a while, and watched his eyes get soft, and as soon as I leaned over and kissed him, well, that was that.

  It wasn’t horrifying at all. Nothing to turn anyone’s hair white. Marcus was just what I expected. Gentle. Tender. Considerate. A little too considerate. I don’t want to be treated as if I’m made of glass. I like a little . . . handling. But of course I sighed and gazed up at him adoringly and said he was wonderful, and he never suspected that when I closed my eyes it was because I couldn’t look at his bare crooked shoulder without being disgusted. But it was worth it, because he let me do anything I wanted. Go anywhere I wanted. Spend anything I wanted.

  I sighed and ran the silver comb through my hair. What glorious years those were. Marcus trudging off to the Senate every day and me running off to dinner parties every night. Really, sometimes I felt quite fond of Marcus. I hadn’t thought to stay married to him so long—I could easily have moved on to someone younger and handsomer within the year—but I learned fast that a permissive old senator is better than a jealous young soldier.

  “You don’t mind if I go out?” I always made sure to ask him every so often. “I do love parties and plays, darling. I’m just not brilliant and intellectual like you.”

  “No, you’re young and lovely and utterly charming.” He kissed my cheek. “So go enjoy yourself.” I always thanked him sweetly before whirling off to my round of parties. What parties! Wine and music and handsome men who paid me compliments, men who pressed around my couch and told me I was beautiful, men who wouldn’t have looked at me the year before, but who all wanted me now because I was Lady Lepida Pollia and I had a dozy old husband who let me do whatever I liked, and I’d made myself into the most beautiful woman in Rome.

  I learned how to paint my face so I looked elegant rather than provincial. I learned how to knot my stolas carelessly at the shoulder so the silks looked as if they were about to slide off altogether. I learned how to sway and lounge inside those silks. I learned how to laugh with my eyes and promise unspecified delights with my lashes. I learned the drawling court jargon that revealed at once who was in the know and who was not. I learned that my father was considered rather gauche, really, and it was better not to be seen with him by anyone who counted. I learned about the potions one could swallow to prevent children. I learned that a married woman could do anything she pleased as long as her husband didn’t care, or at least didn’t see. Oh, I learned a lot.

  “How can you bear to leave Sabina?” Marcus asked me, hanging besotted over the cradle after our daughter was born.

  “I don’t want to smother her, darling.” And off I went in jade silk or sapphire, revealing more of my shoulders than ever—thank goodness the baby hadn’t thickened my figure!—to meet with senators and soldiers and tribunes, because a married woman with a child indisputably her husband’s can do whatever she pleases.

  “I’ve waited so long for you,” Lucius Marcellus groaned, and Aulus Didianus, and that rather marvelous African trident fighter who never spoke much but was more than ready to handle me. I was quite put out when Arius killed him in the arena.

  Marcus never suspected a thing. That was another lesson I learned. And how wonderful it all was, the parties and the jewels and the banquets and the men. Lepida Pollia, the toast of Rome. I’d always known it would be that way. Always. No less than I deserved.

  And then—over. All of it. Stuck in Brundisium, a pretty little seaside town with airy summer villas and a sapphire-blue harbor and far too many exotic languages reverberating around its docks; a hundred leagues from Rome. And Marcus—ever-amiable, ever-obliging Marcus—suddenly a stone wall.

  Iris’s voice broke in on my thoughts. “Your sleeping robe, Domina?”

  “Yes.” Suddenly I was sick of the red stola. Red the bridal color, the color I’d worn when I’d married Marcus. Marcus, whose fault it was that I was stuck here.

  Iris clumped away, and I contemplated my reflection in the polished steel. I looked utterly enticing. My hair had even grown out again, down toward my waist in a shining blue-black cascade. How could my husband refuse me anything?

  WHAT happened then?” Sabina murmured, yawning. “We’ll finish the story tomorrow, sweetheart. You’re half asleep.”

  “No’m not . . .” She yawned again, and Marcus stroked the feather-brown hair. It was as silky as Lepida’s. He smiled, thanking his wife silently for giving him Sabina. His first wife hadn’t wanted children; Paulinus had been an accident for which she’d heaped blame on Marcus. “Well, I hope it’s my fault, Tullia,” he had said, trying to make a joke of it, and she had grabbed up a marble bust of his father and heaved it at him.

  “Well, I’m not Tullia,” Lepida had teased in her rich voice. And in the first year of their marriage: Vibia Sabina.

  “Good night,” he told his daughter softly, and withdrew.

  “Marcus?” Lepida called as she heard his footfall outside. “Darling, do come in. It’s cold in that corridor.”

  What warmed him was her smile of welcome as she turned from her mirror, her black hair loosed down her back and the dimple winking in her cheek. “Sit down, Marcus. I’ve heated some wine.”

  He smiled back, and let her draw him into the warmth.

  Nine

  THE bout was a Thracian with a net and trident, famed in Silicia but shaking with nerves to be facing the Barbarian in the Colosseum. Arius killed him fast and indifferently with a blade through the shelf of the jaw and stalked out through the Gate of Life. The fans cheered, and the demon went yawning to sleep at the back of Arius’s mind.

  “Very good, dear boy.” Gallus hardly looked up from his accounting as Arius came back to the barracks doctor for his usual examination. “Go get drunk if you like. Try to be back before dawn, will you?”

  There was the usual riot of games fans at the tavern, the usual smash of wine jugs and windows. They knew to keep their distance—it was July, the streets boiling under a blazing brass sun, and everyone knew the Barbarian’s temper was black and short in the heat of summer. A girl approached him with a nervous giggle. “I’m Fulvia,” she said breathlessly as he drank straight from an ale cask. “You’re the Barbarian, aren’t you?”

  He looked at her. Blue eyes. Fair hair. She’d do.

  “I saw you today in the arena. You’re a wonderful fighter—”

  Arius jerked a thumb toward the stairs where the innkeeper let him use a room. She giggled and raced for the bed. An undemanding girl. She didn’t mind when he turned his face to the wall afterward and fell silent. None of them did, those dozens of girls who had shared his bed these past years. They seemed disappointed if he talked, as if talking took the mystery away. They wanted the Barbarian brooding and silent and intact.

  That was all right with him. He didn’t want to talk to girls anymore. Not ever.

  He used to see Thea everywhere. Every dark braid of hair had been hers, every narrow hip balancing a basket. His hopes had leaped and crashed a dozen times a day. Agony, but he missed it. Agony was better than forgetting.

  Her face slipped his mind now, the exact arrangement of eyes and nose and mouth escaping him. He sometimes sat with his eyes squeezed shut, trying to remember until his head ached. If
he forgot her face, he’d forget everything: the way she’d touched his scars, the way she’d coaxed him to talk, the way she’d convinced him that things like demons and blood and nightmares weren’t real.

  She was probably dead by now.

  He left the blond girl soon after, padding silently through the stinking back alleys to Mars Street. Gallus’s thugs let him in without a word: the star gladiator had no curfew. Gallus even gave him a small allowance. It had all become very civilized, except for the killing part.

  His dog yipped as he came into the room. She lay curled on his pillow, gnawing a hole in a leather gauntlet. “That’s the third set of gauntlets this year,” he growled.

  The gray bitch wagged her tail and hopped nimbly down to the end of the bed. She’d lost a leg to that pack of street dogs, but managed quite well on the other three. He lowered himself into bed with a groan, abused bones protesting, and the bitch curled herself neatly behind his knees. “You’ve got a nose for the soft spot, haven’t you? Worthless dog.” He tweaked her silky ear, and her dark gaze reminded him helplessly of Thea.

  THEA

  GRAY gown, silver bracelets, braided hair: my armor. “Thea?” Penelope poked her head of gray curls into my neat little chamber. “You know you’re to sing at the faction party before Senator Abractus’s dinner?”

  “Yes, I’m all ready,” I answered, twisting a last bracelet into place and looking for my lyre.

  “Larcius is lending you a big slave for an escort. Those charioteers can get rowdy.”

  “Dear Larcius,” I smiled. My master. How I loved him.

  After Lepida Pollia discarded me like a stained dress, I’d gritted my way through three months in a waterfront brothel. Three months of sweating grunting men: endured until they finished, forgotten as soon as they left me. My growing belly saved me; my pimp forced potions into me to make the child slip, but I vomited them up. When my belly made me too unwieldy for whoring, my pimp clouted me over the ear and looked about for someone who might take me off his hands. I was bundled off to a rather lovely little villa overlooking Brundisium’s busy forum and was soon gazing at my plump and pink-faced new master. Just another pimp, I assumed.