Mistress of Rome

  “I see.” The Vestal’s eyes ran over his armor, the sword at his side, and the four Praetorians at his back. He felt very large and male and clumsy. “I will assist you myself. No man is permitted to walk un-escorted on Vesta’s ground.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Paulinus caught sight of another Vestal, pausing curiously to look across the long atrium. “She can escort us instead.” Always better to choose an unprepared guide. “Madam, please come with me.”

  The younger Vestal came, meeting his eyes straight on. “Is there trouble?”

  “No. I just have a few questions.” The last time this girl had seen a Praetorian, Paulinus remembered, was probably when the guards had appeared to drag away the Chief Vestal in chains, to be buried alive for breaking her vows. He smiled reassuringly. “No arrests. Just an informal inquiry.”

  She looked to the older Vestal, who nodded. “I will be pleased to answer your questions, Prefect.”

  “I’d like to see the House of the Vestals.” Get a feel for the place, the Emperor had told him. “I’ve never seen the inside before.”

  “Then it wasn’t you who conducted the arrest of our former Chief Vestal?”

  “No. That affair was handled directly by the Emperor.”

  “And this?” She tilted her head. “A follow-up? To see if the rest of us have become corrupted?”

  “Are you?”

  She looked back at him. “How much do you know about the Vestal Virgins, Prefect?”

  “Enough.”

  “I wonder.” She turned, white veil fluttering, and led him down the long pillared atrium. Tranquil pools in the middle reflected rows of white marble statues, and Paulinus gestured his Praetorians back as he caught up to his guide. Her head reached his shoulder, covered by a white veil, and the white robes draped a slight body. She walked swiftly and quietly, hands folded at her waist, and her sandals made no sound on the marble floor. She led him away from the sunlight of the atrium, through a maze of marble corridors. “Our sleeping chambers.”

  She eased open one narrow door after another. The cells were bare, white-marbled, identical. One was occupied: a middle-aged woman sitting upright and staring at the opposite wall, barely breathing.

  “What’s she doing?” Paulinus asked, and realized he was whispering.

  “Meditating.” His guide closed the door. “When not occupied by our duties, we reflect upon the mysteries. Now if you’ll follow me—this is where we eat.”

  Another bare room, empty except for a long carved table. Another Vestal sat before a plate of rough-grained bread and figs, eating without greed. She glanced over with tranquil eyes, then looked away.

  “The schoolrooms.” His guide stood back from another door, and he looked in to see two little shaven-headed girls bent gravely over scrolls. They wore white robes and coarse sandals: miniature copies of their elders.

  “Why cut their hair?” Paulinus watched the girls confer over a tablet. With their clear young faces and shaved heads, they looked neither female nor male but something in between, something . . . not entirely human. Already they had the still movements and passionless eyes of the older Vestals.

  “They shed their hair as they shed all other worldly possessions. When they become Vestals in full, it is allowed to grow back.”

  He wondered what color his guide’s hair was under her veil. “They’re very young.”

  “They come between the ages of six and ten, and spend ten years training.” She shut the schoolroom door and set off down another hall. “Then they enter into ten years of service. After that, ten years of training the young in turn.”

  “What are your duties?”

  “We prepare the flour that is used for all city sacrifices. We gather water from the sacred spring in our temple grove. Above all, we tend Vesta’s fire—in a sense it is Rome’s hearth.” She smiled as they turned back into the central atrium with its double lane of white marble statues. “There are other duties, but I’m afraid I may not tell you about them.”

  “Fair enough.” He studied the row of statues as he passed—former Vestals, he assumed. Young and old in their marble-carved forms; short and tall, fat and thin, but somehow they all looked alike. The carved Vestals gazing over the atrium with their serene marble eyes seemed no different from the living ones who passed below in their goddess’s duties. His guide could have climbed up on a plinth, settled her white robes, and become indistinguishable from her dead sisters.

  “Would you like to see the Temple?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  A round and simple room, nothing more. There was a discreet curtained area where wills and other important documents were stored—the Emperor’s among them, Paulinus knew. But there were no mosaics, no ornamentation, no bloodstains from elaborate sacrifices. Just an undraped altar in the round temple’s center, and a flame burning in a bronze bowl.

  “The flame of Vesta.” His guide’s voice echoed quietly around the room. “The eternal flame. If it goes out, we are subject to charges of negligence.” She walked to the altar and reverenced the flame with a curiously liquid movement. Paulinus stood silent. How many men were privileged enough to catch a glimpse of this silent female place?

  They don’t need us, he thought. They’ve created a whole world without us. A good world.

  “Have you seen everything you wished?” His guide returned, tilting her head up at him.

  “Yes.”

  His Praetorians marched outside, but Paulinus found himself lingering in the entrance. His guide seemed content to linger with him, hands folded at her waist. Her lashes were pale—probably her hair, too, under the veil. “You’re happy,” he asked suddenly. “Aren’t you.”

  “Yes. Are you?”

  “Me? Of course.”

  “Of course. Will you be returning here, Prefect?”

  He hesitated. He’d abandoned his note-taking halfway through the tour of the temple, but every image was stamped clear. There was no corruption here, no hidden vices, no oath-breaking. But—“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’ll be returning.”

  She did not seem surprised. “Until we meet again then, Prefect.”

  “Paulinus Vibius Augustus Norbanus.”

  “I am the Vestal Justina,” she returned.

  “I’ll be back.” Formally. “Without my guards, next time.”

  “I am always here.”

  PAULINUS spent his summer in a saddle. Riding out to the Praetorian barracks to supervise training. Carrying the Emperor’s dispatches back to the city. Journeying to Tivoli for long fireside evenings at the Villa Jovis. Those summers alone at the villa were good for the Emperor, Paulinus thought. He looked happier, more relaxed, lounging easily on his luxurious couches and rarely far from a smile. Thea’s influence, probably. She was constantly at his side in Tivoli.

  “She’s a wonderful girl,” Paulinus said enthusiastically one evening after she’d gone to bed.

  “Correct.” The Emperor’s eyes turned inward, gazing at the lamps. “She’s a slave and I dislike slaves; she’s a Jew and I dislike Jews; she’s full of secrets and I dislike secrets . . . still, there is something about her, isn’t there?”

  Paulinus smiled to himself. The words were harsh, but he heard the affection behind them.

  “I’m glad he has you,” Paulinus told her the next morning after the Emperor disappeared into the tablinum with his petitions and ledgers. “You’re good for him, Thea.”

  “So I am.” She twisted a spray of jasmine from the bush that climbed around the atrium pillars. “He leaves all his shadows for me, leaving the sunlight for the rest of you. He’s very sunny when he wants to be, isn’t he? Even to me sometimes. Just now and then, he’ll go back to that brusque soldier I first met . . .” A shrug. “Disconcerting.”

  “He relies on you, you know.”

  “I hope you don’t want me to beg favors for you, Paulinus. Domitian might rely on me, but he never takes my advice. He didn’t even take my advice on his treatise about hair care.” br />
  “What did you advise him?”

  “That it didn’t become an Emperor’s dignity to write a manual about hair.”

  Paulinus laughed. “Maybe he doesn’t take your advice, but I can see why he loves you.”

  Her head turned, and for a stunned instant he thought he saw savagery flick across her eyes. But it disappeared so fast . . . and then she threw her head back and smiled brilliantly. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Yes, he loves me. Who could doubt that? And I hear he’s found a bride for you, now.”

  “Yes. A young widow of the Sulpicii—twenty-six, no children, bringing half of Tarracina and Toscana for a dowry.”

  “Are you talking of a wife or a horse?” A short laugh. “How stupid men are.”

  Paulinus blinked. “Have I displeased you?”

  “Oh, no. How can you do that? You’re one of the most powerful men in the city, and you don’t see anything.”

  “Thea”—cautiously—“are you feeling well? It’s been very hot lately—”

  “So I’m ill now, am I? Well, it’s a short step from sick to crazy. That’s what you thought about Julia.” She stalked back into the villa in a billow of saffron silk.

  Paulinus wondered if he was ever going to understand women.

  That afternoon Thea was gone. “Off shopping?” he asked the Emperor.

  “Visiting my niece Flavia, probably.” Not looking up from his scrolls. “Why don’t you send a guard for her? I’ll want her after dinner.”

  “I’ll go myself,” Paulinus smiled. Lady Flavia had joined his childhood games with Julia, too—he wondered if she’d remember him. Once they’d stolen a wine flagon from their mothers at the Circus Maximus and gotten drunk at the age of six . . .

  The ride to Lady Flavia Domitilla’s villa took Paulinus’s bay mare an effortless fifteen minutes. He dismounted at the doorway, dismissing his Praetorians to the house and leading his mare around toward the stables at the back. He came around the edge of the garden—and stopped.

  Thea stood in the dust of the stable yard, trailing her fine silks heedlessly in the dirt, her hair spilling down her back. She had both hands planted on the shoulders of a dirty russet-haired slave boy, and was speaking in low fierce tones.

  “—don’t care what your excuse is this time, you cannot go around knocking people down! You’re very lucky to live here, and as long as you do so then you will obey Lady Flavia when she asks you to—”

  “She’s not my mother!”

  “But I am, and I won’t have you behaving like a barbarian!”

  They glared at each other.

  “Why don’t you show me your new sword drills now?” she said in softer tones. “I really do want to see them, and—”

  Paulinus took a step forward. “Lady Athena?”

  The smile slipped off her face as if someone had wiped it away. “Paulinus? What—what are you doing here?”

  “Who’s he?” The boy turned his glare on Paulinus.

  “He’s no one,” she cut in before Paulinus could answer. “Go back into the house.”

  “Mother—”

  “Don’t argue with me!”

  The boy threw Paulinus another glance before turning toward the villa.

  “Who’s that, Thea?” said Paulinus levelly.

  “He’s no one. What’s it matter to you?”

  “It matters because I’m Praetorian Prefect and I’m supposed to know what goes on in the Emperor’s household. What goes on behind his back.”

  The belligerence faded out of her eyes, replaced by fear. “Vix doesn’t matter to the Emperor. He’s just a little boy.”

  “He’s your son.”

  “I said, he’s nobody.”

  “He’s your son.” A hesitation. “Surely he can’t be the Emperor’s?”

  “God, no.” Shuddering. “His father’s dead. Does it matter?” Her eyes flicked up at him. “Vix lives here, with Lady Flavia. I see him when I’m in Tivoli. It’s harmless!”

  “Then why are you afraid?” Pause. “The Emperor doesn’t know, does he?”

  “No. He doesn’t.”

  “Why? Surely he wouldn’t care if—”

  “I don’t know if he’d care or not. I don’t know. Maybe he’d shrug and say, ‘Who cares if you have a bastard brat?’ But maybe he wouldn’t.” Her eyes flicked up. “He doesn’t like children. He doesn’t like reminders that I’ve had other men before him. And I don’t think he’d like seeing the proof that another man got a strong son on me when the Emperor of Rome has not. You know him as well as I, Paulinus Norbanus. What do you think?”

  Paulinus’s brain skittered to a halt.

  “I’ve seen Vix three times in the past year.” Harshly. “Three. When he learned to use a sword I wasn’t here to applaud him. When he knocked Lady Flavia’s son unconscious in sparring practice I wasn’t here to thrash him. When he fell out of a tree and broke his arm I wasn’t here to bandage him. But even three times in a year is better than nothing.”

  Paulinus looked at her.

  “Don’t tell.” Her eyes pleaded nakedly. “Please don’t tell.”

  He thought suddenly that out of all the months he’d lived by her side at the Domus Augustana, he’d never seen her face open up like it had when she smiled at the russet-haired boy.

  “Oh, gods.” He raked his hair out of his eyes. “I’m supposed to fetch you back to the Emperor’s villa now. But I’ll give you an hour. All right?”

  A smile broke across her face. She looked more abruptly beautiful, standing there in her dusty robe with her hair hanging down her back, than she did decked in all her jewels. She stood smiling for a moment, happy as a child, and then she turned and ran into the villa after her son.

  Paulinus wondered if he was falling in love with her. Gods, that would be inconvenient.

  “Paulinus Vibius Augustus Norbanus!” He turned and saw Lady Flavia standing at the garden gate. “I don’t think I’ve seen you since we were ten years old. Come into the garden where it’s cool, and tell me all your news.”

  He started for the house. And realized that, for the first time in his three years as Praetorian Prefect and Imperial confidant, he had a secret from the Emperor.

  Twenty-three

  TIVOLI

  THE gardener known to everyone at Lady Flavia’s villa as Stephanus was just bending down to wash his face in the water trough when a stone sailed out of the bushes and stung him on the shoulder.

  He turned in one smooth instinctive movement, knife leaping from his belt to his hand, and lunged. Among the prickly bushes he caught a handful of rough tunic and yanked. Solid weight crashed into his knees. He staggered, losing hold of the tunic, and when he regained his balance he found himself looking at a nine-year-old boy.

  “I knew you weren’t no gardener,” the boy crowed.

  Arius let out a long breath. The cool autumn breeze had been raising gooseflesh on his arms all day, but now he felt warm. His body was never cold when it expected a fight.

  “When gardeners get scared they drop their shovels and swear. They don’t go pulling knives and charging.” The boy crossed his arms over his chest, looking Arius up and down. “Barbarian.”

  Arius grabbed for him. The boy skipped back out of reach, grinning.

  “I know you, boy.” Of course there were dozens of slave children running over Lady Flavia’s spacious villa, but this boy looked familiar. “You spar with Lady Flavia’s sons.”

  “I know you, too. Saw you once in the Colosseum. Your last fight.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Arius bent and picked up his knife. “I’m Stephanus. One of the vineyard gardeners.”

  “I saw the Barbarian—”

  “You’re imagining things.” Arius cursed his luck. He’d been so careful, keeping to himself behind the vineyard, hardly coming to the house at all except to make the occasional report to Lady Flavia. The other slaves of her household hardly saw him enough to know him as a gardener, let alone a gladiator. And now th
is boy who had barely seen him in either identity had recognized him.

  “You got a three-legged dog, just like the Barbarian,” the boy persisted. “And you got a scar on your arm, right where he had his gladiator tattoo—”

  “Lots of people burn themselves. Lots of people have dogs, too.”

  “Hey, I know how the Barbarian moves! I saw him! Maybe I didn’t recognize you at first ’cause of the beard, but I knew the first time I saw you that you didn’t move like any goddamn gardener.” The boy’s eyes devoured him.

  “Scram.” Arius sheathed his knife and stalked back to the water trough.

  The boy dogged at his heels. “Teach me.”

  “What?”

  “Teach me! I want to be a gladiator.”

  Arius looked at him. “What kind of moron wants to be a gladiator?”

  “I do.”

  “Go away.”

  “C’mon, you’ve got to teach me! I get lessons from the guards that teach Lady Flavia’s kids, but they’re all dozers. Been a year since I learned anything new.”

  “I said scram.”

  The boy lunged and took Arius around the knees. Arius hit the ground rolling, but the boy grabbed his wrist and tried his best at an arm lock. “Teach me,” he panted.

  Arius heaved a shoulder and sent the boy flying. In another second he had a knee on the boy’s chest and a hand around his throat. The young ribs bent under his weight, but small hard fists plugged at his solar plexus. Arius twisted away and cut off the boy’s air. The young face turned purple under its sunburn, but the boy didn’t beg.

  Abruptly Arius loosed his hold and sat back.

  The boy sat up. “Got inside your guard, didn’t I?” he wheezed. Arius rose. “Come back tomorrow.”

  “Why not now?” Scrambling up. “I’m Vix.”

  “Stephanus.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Whatever your theories,” Arius warned, “don’t go spreading them around to the other slaves, or I’ll beat you bloody. Hear me, boy?”

  “Kill me if I talk,” the boy promised. “Start now?”

  “Draw your knife,” Arius said, wondering why he was doing this. “Too slow. You should be able to get a knife out of the sheath and into someone’s stomach before they can inhale. Angle the blade in more.”