Mistress of Rome

  “I suppose it is. Trusting you with his wars and his women . . . One doesn’t think of Emperors having friends, but he’s made a friend out of you, hasn’t he?”

  “No.” Paulinus smiled down at his horse’s dappled neck. “You can’t be friends with a man like him.”

  “Why?” Curiously.

  “Oh, he’s just—” Paulinus fumbled for words. “If you could see him at the front, you’d understand. He’s not like those generals you see droning heroics over cups of warm wine and never getting close enough to smell it. He’s right there in the thick. The legionnaires, they’d do anything for him. He’s one of them. A soldier.”

  Thea cocked her head. “People say he’s a god.”

  “Maybe he is. If there’s any man on earth who’s a god, it’s him.” Paulinus looked sideways at her. “What do you think?”

  “Oh, I’m a Jew,” she said lightly, fanning herself. “We only believe in the one God. Anyway, it’s strange to think of sharing a bed with a god, like Leda or Europa.”

  “I—well, maybe it’s none of my business, but—” Paulinus felt himself reddening, and looked down at his horse’s mane.

  “Paulinus.” The low, rich voice was amused. “I will never tell the Emperor that you used to visit me for anything more than my music.”

  “That wasn’t what I was thinking of.” Though it was something of a relief, no doubt about that. “It’s the rumors about him. Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “. . . I see.”

  “The rumors about his niece,” Paulinus burst out. “Filthy rumors, and he just snorts and says that gossip lives on no matter how many people you execute. But people shouldn’t talk about their Emperor that way. Just because he was kind to her—”

  “Did you ever meet Lady Julia?”

  “Not since I was a child. By the time I got my appointment as Prefect, she was living in Cremona, for her health. She was mad, you know—I saw the reports from the previous Prefect, who kept files on everyone in the palace. She went about muttering nonsense, starving herself, crawling off to the Temple of Vesta to try to sleep under the altar . . . Even when I knew her as a child she was strange. She’d scare herself to death with the things she dreamed up out of her head. She wasn’t—wasn’t normal, although I’d never tell the Emperor that. He won’t hear a word against her. He never had any children of his own, you see, so he took her as a daughter instead.”

  “. . . But she died of an abortion, didn’t she?”

  “No.” Paulinus remembered the private report he had read, the description from the doctor in Cremona who had afterward fled in fear of his life. “It was suicide—she cut her stomach open. She lingered, and the infection—. After that, people would say it was a botched abortion. My father was there; he tried to put the truth out, but who listens to the truth when lies are more interesting?”

  A rather uncomfortable silence lapsed after that. Athena shifted on her cushions, rearranging the plum silk curtains to shield her face from the sun. “I saw your stepmother in the palace a few days ago, Paulinus.”

  She’d sought to find a less awkward subject. Hardly her fault she’d found a more awkward one. “Lepida?”

  “Yes. She said she was coming to see you.”

  “Well, she didn’t.” Paulinus leaned down to brush a bit of dirt off his boot. “She’s—we’re not really on good terms. I see her sometimes, but . . .” He trailed off again.

  “Personally,” Thea said in candid tones, “I’d rather be on good terms with a viper than Lepida Pollia.”

  A mile or two of silence. Thea’s painted fan moved slowly back and forth.

  “Lady Athena—Thea.” Paulinus felt his voice burst out of him.

  “Have you ever been—well—I mean—have you ever—really wanted someone? Wanted them like water in the desert—even when you knew all their faults, every single one—and it didn’t matter?”

  He saw a deep swell of pity in her eyes, and looked away. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’ve wanted someone like that.”

  “. . . How long did it take to forget?”

  She shook her head slowly, the fan ceasing its motion. “I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No . . . Maybe if I’d married and settled down, but—” A shrug. “You should marry, Paulinus.”

  “Oh. Well, it’s not me. It’s—it’s my friend—Trajan’s his name—”

  “Of course.”

  He found it easier to ride ahead of the litter, after that, than meet her eyes.

  THEA

  GIVEN Domitian’s taste for simple living, I was surprised at the beauty of his villa in Tivoli.

  It was a jewel of white marble: colonnaded walkways and terraced gardens, urns of lilies and pools of quiet water, rippling mosaics and silver nymphs in niches. A luxurious and solitary hideaway tucked a mile or two from the exquisite town of Tivoli; a place where a man with no privacy could be alone. Domitian had arrived a day or two after me, and for once there were no crowds of courtiers or busy secretaries. Except for silent slaves, the Emperor of Rome and I were utterly alone. Strange.

  “We’ll dine on the terrace,” he ordered me. “One hour.”

  I dressed carefully in a pink-marbled room that might once have been Julia’s, choosing a plain white robe with a silver girdle under the breast, my hair hanging down my back and no jewelry but Larcius’s welded copper ring on one hand and a single massive pearl on the other. How nice to take a break from my careful performance toilettes. I pushed the rouge pots and fingernail varnish aside, and glided out to the terrace on bare feet. Two silver couches were drawn up beneath a shaded willow tree, underlaid by the rushing sound of the river below.

  The Emperor was already waiting, leaning back on one elbow on his couch as he glanced over a pile of scrolls. “A Vestal Virgin,” he remarked, noting my white robe.

  “No, just a girl on vacation.” I climbed up onto my own couch, tucked my feet up under me, and helped myself to the dishes the silent slaves brought out in a noiseless stream. Ostrich eggs, flamingo tongues, fallow deer in rosemary, sugared hazelnuts, pastries in cream, an old red wine in a jeweled flagon—quite a change from Domitian’s usual meals of beef and bread and beer. There were other changes, too, I noticed. Silk cushions on the couches when usually he despised silk . . . solid silver dishes when he usually ate from clay . . . and instead of the usual wool tunic he wore a barbarically colored robe of some exotic eastern silk.

  He glanced up, then, and caught my eyes. “Admiring me?”

  “Yes,” I smiled.

  “ ‘Yes.’ ” He tasted the word. “You’d say that to any man. How many have you had?”

  “What?”

  “How many.” His gaze unsettled me: not quite expressionless, not quite detached. “Come, Athena, take a guess. A hundred?”

  “I don’t know.” Evenly. “Now, I have only you.”

  “Excellent reply. Glib, convincing, and noncommittal. You could be a senator, if you weren’t a whore.”

  “I—”

  “What are you, twenty-four? You must have had a young start.”

  “Caesar—”

  “How young? Twelve? Thirteen? When did you learn to lie so well?”

  I set down my goblet. “What a beautiful view you have. May I look?” I went to the edge of the terrace without waiting for an answer. There was a sullen streak of red in the sky, all that was left of the sunset, and a moon coming up over the roof of the villa. I looked down, past my bare feet. The terrace had no rail, just a sheer marble edge dropping fi fty feet or more to the smooth-flowing river.

  “Dangerous,” said Domitian, behind me. “Isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” I turned and looked at him. “But I’ve got good balance.” He gazed back for a moment, then rose and crossed the terrace to my side, his barbaric robe crackling. “A lovely view,” he said. “In the morning the mist comes up off the river in a cloud, like Jupiter when he came to Danae. Quite beautiful.” He stirred my hair with his fing
ers.

  “Did you come here often with Julia?” I blurted without thinking.

  “Julia?” He said the name as if he’d never heard it before. “No. She didn’t like the terrace—afraid of falling. Not like you.”

  He wrapped my hair into a rope around his hand. “But you’re not Julia, are you?” Gazing absently out over the river, he pulled my head back with a jerk that brought tears to my eyes. “Julia wouldn’t stand on the edge.”

  The pressure on my scalp eased as his hand loosed my hair. I stood frozen as he traced the side of my neck, stroking it almost, this man who never touched me casually. I felt his hand running the length of my neck, felt him breathing behind me, and I was still stupidly surprised when he seized me by the throat and squeezed.

  “Are you afraid?” he asked, and his eyes were those of a curious child’s.

  My toes scrabbled on the bare edge of the terrace. “No.”

  “You’re lying.” His hands hardened on my throat.

  “Maybe.”

  “You’re terrified.”

  “No.”

  “Do you know what I do to liars?”

  I was beginning to get a fairly good idea. We swayed on the bare edge of a fifty-foot drop. I was going to fall.

  And fall I did—on my hands and knees, on hard marble as he swung me away from the edge. I dragged air through my bruised throat in rattling breaths. I looked up at him.

  He regarded me for a moment. Then he smiled, that charming Flavian smile that softened his grim face. “You’ll admit it,” he said cheerfully. “You’ll admit it—that you’re afraid. Time for bed.”

  He scooped me up in one hard soldier’s arm.

  I woke slowly. Bruises. Pains. A man’s hand on my bare shoulder. I wrenched away, nearly tumbling off the bed. But the man was a fair-haired Greek in a slave’s rough tunic, and he smiled at me in a friendly sort of way. The Emperor was nowhere in sight.

  “Who are you?” My voice rasped in my own ears.

  He just smiled again and began to straighten up the room, putting the pillows and sheets back in order. He paused when he picked up the dress I’d left on the floor, wrinkling his nose at the stains.

  “Throw it away,” I said.

  He looked at me with such immense sympathy, standing there with the ruined dress in his big hands, that I turned my face away. He’d probably seen it all before. I didn’t protest when he picked me up. I doubt I could have walked alone.

  He carried me into the little green marble bathhouse that adjoined my bedroom. The pool was already steaming hot; someone had lit the coals. He dunked me in the warm water and bathed me like a baby, scrubbing me with a soft cloth and combing camellia oil into my hair. His fingers were gentle on the bruises.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  He smiled, and lifted me out of the pool. Patting me dry with a towel, he wrapped me in a robe and carried me outside. I shook my head quickly.

  “No, I don’t want to go—not the terrace—do you know where the Emperor—”

  He made reassuring noises, gesturing around the empty terrace. There was only one couch drawn up, only one bowl and goblet laid. Below the marble edge, the mist was rising up off the silver river—Jupiter coming to Danae. Beautiful.

  I covered my face with my hands.

  Dimly I felt the big slave settle me on the couch. He gathered up my wet hair, and I felt the teeth of a comb stroking through the damp strands.

  I rocked back and forth in the warm May sunshine, my eyes squeezed shut against my palms.

  “Hello, my dear.”

  I looked up so sharply I nearly fell off the couch. But it wasn’t Domitian. It was a little rotund man of about thirty, round-faced, a fringe of ironed curls over his forehead.

  “I’m Nessus,” he said, beaming. “The Emperor’s astrologer. You must be the new concubine? Very pleased to meet you. And no, the Emperor isn’t here. Gone on some official business, I believe. He should be gone all day.”

  I nodded a stiff greeting. I couldn’t form a single word, but Nessus didn’t seem to notice, plopping down on a carved stool opposite my couch and sticking out his plump sandaled feet.

  “Athena, isn’t it? Knew it was some sort of goddess. You’ve met Ganymede, I see. That’s him combing your hair. An apt name, isn’t it?”

  I looked up at the slave, who smiled over my shoulder. Ganymede—“beautiful youth”—it was apt. He had dark-blue eyes and wheat-colored hair and a form like a golden Apollo. His hands were very gentle. “Thank you,” I said hoarsely.

  “He’s a mute,” said Nessus. “Naturally mute, as it happens, though it hardly makes any difference since the other slaves in this villa have had their tongues removed.”

  I looked at the little astrologer. “You’re no mute.”

  “Yes, well, I’m not a slave. As good as one—no one wants an astrologer these days, so I’m bound to my Imperial pension. Are you going to eat those rolls?”

  I pushed the food toward him. “Why—why does no one want an astrologer?”

  “Because it’s against the law, of course. The Emperor has officially exiled astrologers. But he has found my services useful all the same—quite natural; I am the best—so he has found it convenient to keep me at his side. It’s a good job as they go: The food is delicious, the wine plentiful, and the pay regular.” He smeared honey on a roll. “Now your story. I’m quite famished with curiosity.”

  “I’m a singer. He saw me, he liked me, he brought me here. That’s all.”

  “You must learn to put a little verve into your storytelling, my dear. Don’t be afraid to brag. I myself am an inveterate bragger. There must be something special about you, or he’d never have chosen you in the first place. What’s your secret?”

  “My secret?” I curved a hand around my throat. “I don’t remind him of Julia.”

  “Ah.” Nessus’s bright little eyes flicked in quick sympathy to my bruises. “A strange girl, Julia. Such a fragile thing, but she stood eight years of his—” He cleared his throat hastily. “That is, she wasn’t as fragile as she looked. Could have bowled me over with a feather when she died. I would have sworn it wasn’t her time to go. I’d read her horoscope, you know. Well, she took fate into her hands, she did. Some people can do that.” He sighed and bit into a peach.

  “You read her horoscope?”

  “Yes. And her palm, too. Tell you the truth, I like palms better than stars. Not so much mathematics involved.”

  “Could you read mine? I want to know how soon he’ll get tired of me.”

  His gaze flickered at my raw voice. He held out his plump little hand and I gave him mine.

  “I’ll forgo the mystic chanting and hand-waving I usually do at times like these.” Nessus’s eyes raced over my palm as matter-of-factly as a clerk reading a scroll. “The past first . . . a hot place, hot and dry. A six-pointed star—ah, indicating the race of David! so the hot place must be Judaea. A city full of death, bodies piled three and four—yes, Judaea does have some unpleasant history. Let’s skip that part. Afterward, new cities and new people; a new name. Music; that’s a constant. Runs through the hand like a gold thread. A few old hatreds. Old loves, too, goodness. A warrior, I see—carved his way deep into this little hand of yours. Applause around him like a cloud; does that mean anything to you?”

  “No,” I said hoarsely. “Keep going.”

  “After the warrior, a child—oh, don’t stiffen up, I won’t tell. More children, but that’s edging into the future. Yes, a whole mess of children.”

  “Whose children?” Not Domitian’s children, not his, oh God, not his. I thought of the Egyptian paste of auyt gum and acacia tips that could block conception; the tinctures of pennyroyal and rue that would end a pregnancy if the paste failed. Whore’s tricks, learned in my time on the waterfront, and I’d use them gladly. No child of mine would ever be Domitian’s.

  “Doesn’t say whose children. It’s a palm, not a genealogy. Now, there’s a crown at the base of the finger
. We both know who that is. The lines here are cross-hatched—a time of trial approaches.”

  “How long?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know. Some time, I believe. A period of hardship, outcome uncertain. More than that—” He folded my fingers over my palm and pushed it back at me. “A gnarled past, m’dear, and a gnarled future. I’m sorry.”

  “Some time?” I repeated. “How much is some? A long time?”

  Ganymede patted my head.

  “It’s times like this I hate seeing the future.” Nessus pushed the plate back at me. “Here. Have a bun.”

  Nineteen

  THEA

  GANYMEDE prodded me into going shopping. I visited the more fashionable of Tivoli’s shopping forums, and even with a veil over my face everyone knew me.

  “My lady, some perfume?”

  “Some rouge from India?”

  “Silks to make your skin glow!”

  I walked woodenly through the forum, pointing at whatever I wanted. I chose things that would keep their value, gold figurines and ivory ornaments, things small enough to be carried out the door in a hurry. Ganymede trailed at my heels like a patient dog, carrying the growing mound of packages. Pleb women whispered behind their hands at me; patrician ladies arched their plucked brows; a pair of legionnaires elbowed each other. Everyone cleared out of my way.

  Jewels. I walked into the nearest shop, pointed at a tray of rings, and before the shopkeeper’s bemused eye began to load them onto my bruised hands. Two or three per finger, gold and silver and pearls—

  “Bracelets, my lady?”

  “Yes.” I slid handfuls of ornate bands over my arms until I looked like a shackled criminal, then clasped three or four necklaces about my neck. “The Emperor’s stewards will see to your bill,” I said, and walked out with my king’s ransom. The ransom that might buy me a future when the Emperor tired of me.

  Please, let that be soon.

  I crossed the road toward the nearest seat, a cool marble block by the Temple of Jove. A cart pulled up sharply to avoid hitting me, but no one swore or shook their fist. I was the Emperor’s woman; who would touch me? The red-and-gold armored Praetorian who marched at my back wasn’t there to protect me, but to keep me from running away.