Mistress of Rome

  But: “My steward tells me you have a lovely voice, child.” The pleasant patrician voice surprised me, and so did the kindness of the eyes that assessed me. “He heard you singing on the windowsill of some deplorable waterfront establishment. What he was doing down in that quarter of town I shan’t ask, but whatever his recreational tastes, his musical judgment is almost as good as mine. Tell me, can you sing ‘Cythera’s Eyes’?”

  After an hour’s recital in the sunny little atrium, my delighted new master—not, apparently, a pimp—called for the plain freedwoman who was more or less his wife. “Penelope, wait until you hear the newest acquisition. What’s your name, child? Thea? She’s marvelous! Who would have thought? She’ll have to have lessons right away. A voice like that has got to be trained, nurtured, polished—can you play the lyre? Lessons for that, too. We’ll launch you as a singer. Think of it!”

  “Oh, shut up, Larcius,” Penelope laughed. “You’re confusing the poor girl.”

  She explained it all as she helped me move into a little room so airy and clean that I felt every bit the dirty whore in it. “Larcius buys musicians, you see. It’s his hobby—‘Larcius’s Stable.’ This house is stuffed full of flutists, drummers, lute players, a boy choir. Don’t give me that look, dear, the choirboys are for singing in this house. Nothing but the best for Larcius; he’s got a very good eye for talent.”

  “What’s in it for him?” I said cautiously.

  “The pleasure of hearing you sing.” She patted my hand. “And you needn’t worry about any of that, my dear. He doesn’t bother the slaves. He’s got a stuck-up wife in Rome, not that he ever goes to the city, and here he’s got me. Now, when is the baby due? A few months? You just put your feet up—”

  My baby came early, screaming like a demon and wringing me out like a wet tunic and my new master could hardly wait to begin my instruction. “You’ll have to study this closely, child—Aristoxenus’s Harmonics. It’s critical that you understand enharmonic microtones—”

  “Larcius, really,” Penelope chided. “She only finished pushing a baby out thirty-six hours ago. And that’s a big baby there,” she added, eyeing the puce screaming bundle that was my child.

  “Very big,” I’d said feelingly.

  “But she doesn’t even understand the difference between the highest note of a parthenios aulos and the lowest of a hyperteleios!” Larcius protested.

  “I want to begin my training,” I broke in before Penelope could protest again. “I want to start now.” Arius’s son had come into the world howling the house down, chewing ferociously on his own wrist, his hair already showing in russet-colored spikes along his soft head, and I could hardly look at him without a knot of love and longing and pain rising in my throat. Much easier to think about the notes of a parthenios aulos than about what I could possibly name my new son.

  Larcius plunged me into work. He bought me singing lessons and lyre lessons, criticized my technique minutely, taught me the tricks of performing. “Don’t pander to the audience, Thea. Bring them in to you.” How did he know so much? He was a patrician trained in Roman law who had never performed for an audience in his life. “Do admit, though,” he said when I argued. “About music, I’m always right.”

  Penelope bathed me in milk to bleach the brown out of my skin, washed my hair in sage and elderflower decoctions to give it gloss, anointed my hands with butter to soften the old calluses. “You’re an artist now,” she said as she taught me the rules of fine dining and elegant conversation. “You’ll need a performance name. Something cool and dignified, I think. Calliope, perhaps, or Erato—the muses of epic verse and poetry . . .”

  So I went from Leah of Masada, to Thea of Arius, to a nameless waterfront whore, to Larcius’s newest nightingale—and on the whole, life was good. All Larcius’s musicians wore a little welded copper ring carved with his name, but otherwise his ownership sat lightly on us. So lightly, it was hard to believe five years had gone by. Five years of singing lessons, of practicing with my lyre, of chatting to guests and arguing with Larcius over song interpretations. Five years of musical engagements: intimate suppers demanding hushed love ballads, rowdy faction parties where only cheerful drinking songs would be heard. Five years.

  As I’d done every night for the last five years, I finished armoring myself in my gray gown and silver bracelets, collected my lyre, and went to check on my sleeping child before going out. He was just five now, and he had a name, but it wasn’t his father’s. I never, ever thought of his father anymore.

  I hear you’ve been paying court to a lute player recently. Or was it a dancer?”

  Paulinus rubbed his jaw self-consciously. “Do you know everything, Father?”

  “I keep my ears open, boy.” Marcus’s voice was amused.

  “She is a very great artist,” Paulinus said firmly.

  “I have no doubt of her artistry, whoever she is.” They turned out into the vine-veiled garden, Paulinus shortening his stride to meet his father’s patient limp. Ferns glowed green in the sunlight, the blue-tiled fountain trickled placidly, and slaves moved past with jugs and baskets of laundry. They all had a smile for their master. “Isn’t it time you married?” Marcus continued. “I should like a daughter-in-law.”

  “Bring a woman into the Praetorian barracks? The household gods would shatter.”

  “She could live here while you were on duty. The house is big enough for two.”

  “Is it?” Paulinus said doubtfully.

  Marcus laughed. “Lepida’s not the jealous sort. She’d be glad of the company.”

  “But she has friends of her own, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes.” Briefly. “Not always the kind of friends I’d wish for her. A girl her own age, in the same house . . . it would do her good. And it would do you good, boy.”

  “A bachelor like you, singing the praises of marriage?” Paulinus smiled.

  “I am now.”

  Paulinus looked at his father: the image of his austere Imperial grandfather in simple rough tunic and sandals, radiating contentment. Marcus smiled. “Care for some grapes? We’ve a fine harvest this year. So the steward says, anyway.” He paused by the trellised vine climbing around the garden’s pillars. “I’m trying to learn more about grapes. Thinking of writing a treatise, comparing the decay of the Republic to the decay of the vineyards in the fall. But I don’t even know if vineyards do decay in the fall. All I know is that ripe grapes appear on my dinner table regardless of season. Here, try these.”

  Paulinus tried a grape. Sour and seedy. “I read your last treatise, on the declining birth rate and its solutions. Bit over my head, of course.” He perched on the marble rim of the fountain. “What did the Emperor think of it?”

  “The Emperor?” Marcus found another withered cluster of grapes. “I’d be surprised if he’s heard of it at all.”

  “Emperor Vespasian always read your treatises.” Paulinus quietly slipped half his grapes into the fountain behind his back.

  “Domitian is no great reader. And if he does get around to reading it, I doubt he’ll look on me with any favor. He dislikes political speculation.”

  “It’s just proposed solutions for the birth rate. What’s political about that?”

  “He may see it as a criticism that he has failed to produce an heir.”

  “Oh.” Paulinus digested that. “The Empress—well, ten years married and nothing to show but a few miscarriages. He’d be within his rights to divorce her—but you pushed to have her reinstated, so you must have thought her a wiser choice than . . .”

  “Than?” A dry look. “It’s not the Empress you’re asking me about, is it, boy?”

  “Well—it’s none of my business, I’m not denying that—but even down here we get rumors . . .”

  “You mean the rumors that Domitian has turned his gaze toward his niece Julia.”

  “I didn’t think anything of it. People talk. But—well, he did execute her husband for treason . . . and Emperors have married their nie
ces before. Emperor Claudius’s fourth wife—”

  “Who poisoned his mushrooms. Not a very good precedent to follow.”

  “Well, Julia wouldn’t poison anybody’s mushrooms. I remember that much about her from when she was a child.”

  “Yes. The Emperor is quite fond of her.”

  “. . . How fond?”

  “It doesn’t do to believe too many rumors.” Marcus stirred the grape leaves with a gentle finger. “The Emperor executed Julia’s husband, and since then has endeavored to make it up to her through his own rather abrupt brand of kindness.”

  Paulinus remembered the little princess who had been his childhood playmate: a solemn straw-haired girl, always the willing standard-bearer in his games. “I didn’t really think those rumors could be . . .”

  “Then why did you ask?” The dry tone returned.

  “Well—my friend Verus, he’s served palace duty. He didn’t believe any of the rumors, either, but he said—” Paulinus stopped. “He said—you could see Lady Julia shrink. Every time the Emperor came into the room. Like she was afraid of him.”

  “Oh, she is,” said Marcus. “But she’s terrified of everything. She still sleeps with a lamp in her room, because she can’t bear the dark. And even when Domitian is being kind, he sometimes frightens. These rumors, perhaps they only gained credence because Lady Julia herself believes in them.”

  “Believes in—?”

  “You haven’t seen Julia since you were ten years old. She’s . . . not the same since her father died. She was always fanciful, but now she talks of eyes in the dark and sings to voices that aren’t there.” A pause. “The slaves say she starves herself. The Emperor had to have her forcibly fed, and she collapsed into hysterics and tried to tear her own hair out.” Marcus’s stern senator’s gaze flicked up to his son. “This is for your ears only, Paulinus.”

  Paulinus nodded, swallowing. “What are you saying? You mean Lady Julia is—”

  “Mad,” said Marcus. “Though I like to hope she’s only floundering out of her depth in a world too sophisticated for her. I could say the same for Lepida.”

  Lepida? Paulinus seized gratefully on the change of subject. “Why did you bring her all the way down here, Father? I heard she was the toast of Rome.”

  Marcus grimaced. “These grapes are terrible.” He tossed the cluster into the fountain. “Your stepmother may look lovely and worldly, Paulinus, but she’s still very young. Her freedom went to her head, and she fell in with—well, a fast crowd. I should have stopped it, but I didn’t want to deny her her youth just because I’m old and tired and want to spend my evenings in a library. And she looked so happy, skipping off to her parties. It’s hard to deny her anything.”

  Paulinus had a sudden vision of Lepida, laughing and oblivious in the middle of a viper pit. “What happened?”

  “We dined at the palace every week. I shouldn’t have taken her, but she begged so prettily . . .”

  “And?”

  “She caught the Emperor’s eye,” Marcus said simply.

  A brief pause. “Oh,” said Paulinus.

  “I didn’t think anything of it, at first. He watched her, but he watches everyone. But then last month Lepida received an Imperial invitation: dinner at the palace, without me.”

  “What did you do?” Fascinated.

  Marcus shrugged. “Sent word back that she was ill, and would be going to the sea to recover. We left for Brundisium that evening.”

  Paulinus collected his thoughts. “How did she take it?”

  “Stormed and cried a bit.” Marcus lowered himself to the fountain rim beside Paulinus, resting his hands on his knees. “I don’t think she realized what that invitation meant. She’s an innocent in some ways. All she knew was that I was taking her away from her parties and fun. But she’s settled down this past week.”

  “But Father, you don’t even seem to hold it against him—the Emperor, I mean. That he tried to have your wife.”

  “Oh, he tries to have everyone’s wives. Domitian likes anything in a stola. But unlike many of our previous Emperors, he doesn’t much mind if a woman—or her husband—says no. There are always plenty of women in the world for him. He’s back in Germania beating the Chatti now, and has probably forgotten Lepida exists.”

  “I don’t understand him.”

  “Who understands an Emperor? An Emperor, Paulinus, is a man accustomed to absolute and godlike power. A man who plans for the good of thousands too often to consider the good of one. Even the best of Emperors is like that; even Emperor Augustus the God, our ancestor. Domitian is no Augustus; he’s tricky and odd-tempered like all the Flavians. And he’s no god. But I’ve seen eight men wear the purple, and Domitian wears it better than many. I wasn’t much impressed with him as a boy, but he’s turned into one of the best administrators I’ve seen, and a fair general as well.” Marcus looked at his son. “Will you do something for me, Paulinus Augustus?”

  “Anything, sir.” Formally.

  “Watch over Lepida for me. I don’t like to leave her, but I’m due back in the Senate in two weeks. She’ll need company.”

  “On my honor.” Paulinus snapped his best salute, realized he still had the grapes in his hand, switched hands, and nearly lost his balance on the fountain rim. “Well, you can count on me,” he offered.

  “I couldn’t ask for more.” Marcus smiled. “Now, what do you say we find ourselves some wine instead of these terrible grapes, and make a proper toast?”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  They wandered out of the atrium, pacing identically with their hands clasped behind them, the twisted shoulder brushing the straight.

  LEPIDA

  I was destined to be a royal mistress. “Lady Lepida Pollia the Emperor’s mistress”—how much better than “Lady Lepida Pollia the senator’s wife.” From the moment I first laid eyes on Emperor Domitian, I knew he’d be mine. All I had to do was, well, get him.

  “My wife, Caesar,” Marcus had introduced me at my first Imperial banquet. “Lady Lepida Pollia.”

  I curtsied very low. “Lord and God.” That was how he liked to be addressed: Lord and God. I wouldn’t mind being addressed as Lady and Goddess. Yes, I would like that very much.

  I watched him all night, while Marcus droned on about taxation. Domitian was not unattractive. Tall. Heavy-shouldered. Ruddy-cheeked. A military air, but not so stiff-necked as Paulinus. Distant with his noble guests, laughing with his generals. As for his Empress, well, she might as well have been a statue for all the attention he paid her.

  Not that she was my only competition. I’d heard the rumors about Domitian and his niece. If the rumors were true—if she had drawn him away from his once madly adored wife—then she had to have something remarkable.

  Well, I watched her all evening and saw nothing fascinating. A wispy child: flaxen-haired, straight-bodied, wide-eyed, and silent. How pathetic. And how strange. After huddling on her couch like a rabbit for nearly two hours, she suddenly got up and wandered to the far end of the dining hall, muttering to herself. Conversation came to a complete halt as the Empress rose, took hold of her arm, and led her back to the couch. “Eat, Julia,” Domitian ordered impatiently, and she attacked the plates like a starving dog, cramming food into her mouth until her cheeks puffed. Never taking her round colorless eyes from her uncle, as if she feared he’d stab her with a table knife. Domitian turned back to his generals and didn’t glance her way for the rest of the evening. I ignored Julia after that, too, and soon she was hardly coming to the Imperial dinners at all. The little freak.

  Marcus had an inexplicable sympathy for her. “She was always frail,” he said after one evening when Julia had spent the entire meal coughing into her wine cup and gabbling nonsense words whenever anyone tried to talk to her. “Poor Julia.”

  “Poor Julia,” I agreed. A freak, and mad. Even if the Emperor ever had been interested in her, he certainly wouldn’t be now. High time for someone new to move in. He had many mistresses, but non
e who lasted.

  I’d last.

  “Lady Lepida.” His dark eyes focused on my purple silk stola, just a shade lighter than his own Imperial cloak. “How regal.”

  “Thank you, Lord and God.” Instead of demurely dropping my gaze, I boldly stared back at him.

  “Do you sing, Lady Lepida?” He addressed me abruptly across a roast peacock later that evening.

  I savored the little lull in conversation as heads turned toward me. “No, Lord and God,” I said in the low, rich voice I’d practiced in the atrium as a girl.

  “Pity.” He turned away, snapping his fingers for the wine decanter, and I leaned forward to call after him.

  “They say gods have keen ears for music.”

  His eyes lingered as I turned away casually, sliding over on my back and bending all my attention, all my charms on the dining companion at my right hand, a young tribune who nearly upset his goblet in his eagerness.

  Another gaze lingered besides Domitian’s: the long dark eyes of the Empress. Pretending to be amused. I knew she was writhing with jealousy.

  The following week, a summons. An Imperial freedman in white lawn and gold bracelets, with the announcement that I, Lady Lepida Pollia, was invited to dine alone with the Emperor the following evening. I yawned my thanks as if I’d had a thousand such invitations before, and as soon as he bowed out I danced with joy, whirling around the conservatorium like a giddy girl.

  Giddiness, of course, had to be put aside at once. There were weapons to be assembled: blue to emphasize my eyes, or red for drama? The pink pearls Marcus had given me on my wedding day, or my sapphires? Musk perfume, or rose? I took out every gown in my wardrobe and reduced the bovine Iris to tears before I decided on bloodred silk, with gold bracelets on both arms and one ruby at my forehead. Sophisticated, sensual, alluring . . .