B007IIXYQY EBOK (49 page)

“Junilla! I trust you fare well.” He kept a formal distance between them; to come closer, he knew, would be to put power into her hands, and he did not want to feel again that ambivalent desire muddied with futile pity. She smiled languidly, feeling secure in her place. A year of maturing had only heightened the startling perfection of that face.

She said silkily, “Ah, you are still beautiful, my husband, though too thin. Come close”—she gestured delicately—“I don’t have lice.”

He stayed where he was. She shrugged as if it were no matter, then eased her eyes shut as if even using her sight cost her too much effort. “I trust you’ve not listened to the ugly stories spread about by those who are jealous of me. You know, I scarcely slept while you were imprisoned—”

“Yes, so I have heard,” he said quietly. “Save those loving words for more credulous ears.” Even though her whole nature caused him to shudder, that opulently cushioned body was undermining him—she was all animal’s underbelly, tender and exposed, begging protection, that soft, rosy flesh glistening from sweat and steam. He had to sharply remind himself it was illusion—let any who try and protect her beware.

He tossed her the silken tunica that lay folded next to her.

“Arise and dress,” he said firmly. “There is no reason for this absurd marriage to continue for another day. We must divorce.”

Her eyes flashed open. “Surely you are too
sophisticated
to believe those lies.”

“I fear your weapons have fallen behind the times,” he said without rancor, realizing one benefit of his ordeal was that he had shed the last of a lingering concern that despite any amount of education, he would never be sophisticated enough for this world. “I do not know how much of the tales are true, and it is not at issue. My procurator has prepared the documents; you shall be richly provided for.”

Her look suddenly became soft, diffuse. She gave an elaborate cat-stretch that seemed to call every muscle of her body into play, then sat up with shifting, undulating movements as if she were underwater, making certain he had a chance to look long at her abundant breasts before she let the masseuse help her wriggle into a tunica. It hardly concealed her; a flush of pink was visible where the thin cloth was stretched across her breasts. Slowly she ran her tongue over her lower lip as if she licked honey from it, then pulled free one of her silver hairpins so that coiled locks of black hair sprang free and wriggled to her shoulders. She was a sleek and lovely Medusa.

“You cannot mean this,” she said, shaking her head with a teasing sulkiness that also mocked him. “Not
now.”

“Now?”

Those eyes were two beautiful wounds. “I…I just got you back.”

“You mean, you just learned you have a husband who not only is alive but—great good fortune!—very much in favor with the Emperor’s son. You see me not at all. You see a poor investment that has turned round and become a good one. You see high office and honors and how the city will envy you. When I was
not
in
favor, you tried to murder me—that
is what your devotion is worth.”

She drew back a little, eyes delicately registering affront.

“So now you accuse me of attempted murder…. Perhaps you would like to accuse me before Domitian.”

“I do not care to see what you can manage to get Domitian to believe. I know the truth,” he countered sharply, then turned away, silent a moment before he went on in weary exasperation, “Junilla, I did not come here to judge you, that is for the gods. I want only to be quit of you and continue my life. That wedding was a mockery forced on us both—”

“Nero gave you to me. Nero gave me this house. It is mine and you shall not thieve it from me!”

“Madness! Junilla, there is no need to see this as a great blow to your pride. This is not an act of war, and I do not despise you. I intend to provide you with a fine house of your own and all the servants you need. You shall want for nothing. And never mind that under the circumstances the law allows me to keep the whole of your dowry—I shall return to you the whole of it.”

“The truth is you think yourself too good for me,
Endymion,
you rat that wallowed in slime.” His generosity in the matter of the dowry was puzzling; not knowing what to make of it, she read it as weakness, and this redoubled her contempt for him.
“You
presume to put
me
aside? Go back to the festering sink you crawled out of. Go tread clothes in a vat of piss and drown in it!”

“I will listen to no more of this. You will be out in three days.” He swiftly turned about to go.

“You are in love with the Emperor’s concubine, Caenis—that hag that keeps the civil accounts and robs people. You’ve had her many times, don’t deny it. Put me aside, and you can be certain everyone at the Palace learns of it.”

“Threaten all you want if it pleases you. Diocles will oversee the organizing of your possessions.”

“Diocles is gone.”

“What?”
he whispered, turning round and slowly coming back until he stood over her.
“What are you saying?”

“Yes,” she whispered, a flare of triumph in her eye. “He was worth more than I got for him but—” She was stopped abruptly by the look in his face—she saw she was pouring pitch on a fire already hotly blazing. This was a part of his nature she had not seen—the avenging passion in those eyes was an elemental force not to be opposed. Swiftly she revised the opinion that his returning the whole of the dowry signified weakness. She had no notion what
it signified, other than extreme eccentricity.

“Where is he? Tell me at once,” he said quietly.

In that voice she sensed power of unknown strength held in abeyance, and slowly she arose, edging away from him. A part of her rejoiced that she had hurt him, but she had erred in determining the dose—it had somehow reached dangerous levels. This man was incomprehensible to her. He behaved as though she had murdered his son.

“Only at Aurelia’s. How can you be so upset about a servant? Really.” Unconsciously she protectively pulled a drying cloth about her to conceal her breasts. His great contempt roused in her a normally dormant loathing of her body.

“You will leave
now.
Or I will have you forcibly removed.” His voice, though still soft, had the finality of the executioner’s stroke.

To Junilla it seemed a hero of ancient tales took possession of him. Now that Marcus seemed so thoroughly to detest her, love for him washed over her in a flood. It was a poisoned love that festered and burned, but love enough to cause her to stand mute and still, transfixed by him as she saw him anew. He was Hector, he was Achilles, and she, a trembling prize of war awaiting his will.

“I love you.
Monster
…
”

She flung herself at him. He caught her and held her fast as she kicked and bit; all the while he called out loudly for her litter. When it arrived, she abruptly ceased struggling, though still simmering with her need to have and hurt; she was amazed herself at how completely her feelings for him had been turned about. She despised him still, but now for his cruelty in denying himself to her. There he stood, so beautiful in his fine fury, so maddeningly independent of her that she could not bear it. She must leave her mark of proprietorship upon him for others to see.

“Marcus, my husband,” she said as she settled herself in the litter, her voice now coquettish and sweet. “My first act after this outrage will be to see Veiento recalled from exile. And when he returns, he will kill you.”

“As you wish,” he said with cool indifference. “Your effects will be sent after you tomorrow.” But within he felt a small twist of fear. Had Junilla
that
much influence? She had. With Domitian she had what he counted an incestuous father-daughter relationship, and though Domitian criticized her, when in her presence he could deny her nothing.

Smoothly the bearers lifted her aloft. Her whole mind was in ferment. Her soul was divine; had not Nero assured her of it? And this house was her palace, as the Golden House had been Nero’s. Marcus would be punished horribly for this. Her divinity demanded it. She would have him and chastise him. He wins this bout, but there will be others.

She drew back the litter’s silken curtains and leaned out, eyes innocently wide. “Go and look at your library, Marcus. It was a cold spring and I was short of money. I hope you don’t mind too much—I burned the last of those useless books for fuel.”

Junilla left him in peace for a time, and there was no sign of ill on the wind until the spring of the third year of Vespasian’s reign, when an urgent summons came from the Emperor, commanding Marcus Julianus to come to a private audience.

Vespasian’s purpose was mysterious; as Julianus readied himself, he swiftly considered what this might be about.

Had Veiento worked some mischief against him? For Veiento had indeed been recalled from exile, in the previous autumn. On the day he returned, Julianus encountered Junilla in the street as she was bound for her seaside villa with an entourage that halted foot traffic for an hour; she leaned from her litter and gave him a knowing nod and a smug smile, then drew a hand across her throat, to let him know Veiento’s recall was her doing.

Or was this to be some sort of imperial reprimand? For he had stood for no offices in the Senate and turned down every post offered to him; the organization of his Academy had become the whole occupation of his spirit. Or perhaps Vespasian merely meant to offer condolences for the death of his wife. After putting Junilla aside, Marcus Julianus had married again, knowing his father’s ghost wanted children and immortality. He lived with Claudia Valeria for one year—a union marked with kindness and haunting sadness but not much passion. She died in childbed, their infant girl soon after, and it was rumored Junilla had murdered Claudia Valeria by sending a midwife who tended her with cloths taken from the corpse wrappings of fever victims. But by that time all manner of evil things were said of Junilla, and he did not credit half of them.

The mystery of the summons intensified when the Chief Palace Chamberlain conducted him not to the regular audience chamber but to a humble workroom adjacent to the rooms of the imperial architect-engineers, where the Emperor spent much time overseeing the numerous building projects he had initiated. The room was windowless, unpainted and small, furnished with rough benches and a great cluttered worktable covered over with inkpots, rules, architectural plans and maps.

For long moments after Julianus was announced, the Emperor Vespasian was oblivious to him, lost in a plan and elevation drawing set apart from the rest, making notations, frowning deeply, comparing it to a cost report. The Emperor was humbly attired in a tunic of rough, undyed wool; he had the look of the sturdy peasant he proudly proclaimed he was. His face had a pleasantly battered look; it was like some rough model in clay with the refinements not yet smoothed in. Those hands, bare of rings, were farmer’s hands that might have fertile earth still clinging to them. He was hardy and stubborn as the roots of an old oak, but it was a good-natured stubbornness. For a ruler he was remarkably slow to take offense: Once as he was carried through a crowd, a barefoot philosopher shouted obscenities at him that might have made a mule driver blush, and Vespasian’s only punishment was to shout worse obscenities back.

“Julianus. Good!” It was a voice that held the promise of humor even in his soberest moments. Julianus bowed low and greeted him with all his titles, while Vespasian nodded quickly as if he did not care what his titles were, and resumed studying the plan while motioning for Julianus to come close.

“I’m forced to divulge to you a family matter of a rather humiliating nature,” Vespasian announced jovially, “so before I spill my tawdry family secret and you think less of me, first come look at my masterwork! ‘He could not control his sons,’ I hear the talebearers prattling, ‘but he
could
build for the ages.’”

Julianus smiled amicably as he obeyed, and was immediately caught up in the architects’ rendering before him, deciphering with trained skill the delicate multicolored webbing of lines, swiftly decoding the triangles that represented staircases, the mazes of vaulted passageways, the great clear space upon which this ordered universe of lines converged—an elliptical arena. He knew at once what it was: Vespasian’s most beloved project, one he was obsessed with seeing completed before his death—the city’s first permanent stone amphitheater. Construction had already begun on the site where Nero had created a private lake for his pleasure barges. Now called
Amphitheatrum Flavium,
it would eventually be known as the Colosseum after the colossal image of Nero left standing nearby after the new rulers leveled Nero’s sprawling Golden House. Julianus was seized with a disturbing vision of how it would look when complete: a brooding, malign mass, determinedly eternal—and he shuddered as though at the not-too-distant cry of a wolf. Vespasian’s most loved child would swallow nations whole, gulp down rivers of human blood. For a moment quick as the burst of a freshly lit flame, he had the sense of being the one sighted man in a city of the blind.