Mistress of Rome (36 page)

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.

T
HE 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 this 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.”

“Like this? Hey, we’re both left-handed. What are the odds?”

“—so he’s sitting on his judge’s chair in the courtroom”—Paulinus’s hands sketched a quick picture—“and a pleb woman is swearing up and down that the inheritance should go to her and not to the plaintiff because he isn’t her son and heir, as he’s claiming. And the Emperor asks her, ‘Is this the truth?’ and she nods, ‘Yes, Lord and God,’ and he says, ‘Good, then you can marry him. Right now, on the spot, and the inheritance will be shared between you.’ ”

The Vestal Justina smiled, her eyes crinkling. “And what did she say?”

“She fell to her knees begging to be let off. So the Emperor judged that the plaintiff was her son after all, and the inheritance went to him.” Paulinus shook his head. “And do you know what he told me later? The Emperor, I mean. He said it was a trick he’d stolen from the legal records of Emperor Claudius. Claudius himself couldn’t have pulled it off any better. That woman’s face when he proposed she marry her son—”

Justina laughed, and Paulinus felt rich. She didn’t laugh often. Smiled a good deal, slowly and quietly, but rarely laughed. He settled back in his chair with a sigh.

“Tired?” She looked still and cool in her white robes, blending against the pale marble walls.

“I’m always on the run these days.” He smiled at her. “I wouldn’t mind a day in your position—sitting still in a white room watching a flame.”

“Oh, it’s a bit more than that. But it is peaceful.”

She
was peaceful. He’d gotten into the habit, these past months, of dropping in on her. The Imperial investigations of the Vestal Virgins were officially closed, but he still visited every few weeks, just to talk to Justina. To sit in the public room, in full view as any Vestal must be when speaking to a man, and speak for a while in quiet voices about nothing very important. “I’m to be married,” he said suddenly.

“I’d heard something of it. A girl from the Sulpicii family?”

“Yes. Calpurnia Helena Sulpicia. The Emperor is hosting our betrothal feast as soon as the augurs find an auspicious date. She’s a widow—quite young, though, no children.”

“Is that all you can say of your future wife?” Justina asked.

“I hardly know her. She seems pleasant, though, and I’ve got to marry someone.”

“Do you?”

He shrugged. “If I stay unwed much longer, people will start thinking I prefer boys.”

“Quite a few soldiers do.” The cool voice was amused, and he shot her a sideways glance. For a priestess, she was prone to comments of distinct worldliness.

“My friend Trajan does,” Paulinus said ruefully. “He says men are easier than women. He’s probably right, too, but it’s not the way for me. I’ll marry Calpurnia Helena Sulpicia, and have sons.” He looked at her. “Did you ever regret it—not marrying?”

She blinked. “Well—no, I was—I never even thought about it. I was, well, nine years old when I was chosen. I certainly wasn’t thinking about marriage then. And then the Vestals swallowed me up, and I never looked back. Anyway, Vestals do marry sometimes. After they’ve served their thirty years and retired.”

“Really?” It was his turn to be taken aback.

“It doesn’t happen often—it’s considered bad luck to wed a former Vestal. But our former Chief Vestal was planning to marry when she retired. She was executed instead.”

Paulinus looked Justina straight in the eye. “She should have waited, instead of taking him as a lover.”

“Oh, he wasn’t her lover. They’d known each other for years, but she never broke her vows.”

“The Emperor handled the case himself. Do you think he would have convicted her without ample evidence? You don’t know how careful a jurist he is.”

“You don’t know how seriously Vestals take their vows.” Her voice cooled.

Paulinus opened his mouth—and reminded himself it was impolite to argue with a priestess. “I would never wish to impugn the Vestals.” Carefully.

“And I would never wish to impugn the Emperor.” A crooked little smile tilted her mouth. “Let’s not argue.”

P
AULINUS’S proposed bride was no threat at all to me. Lady Calpurnia Helena Sulpicia was as sturdy as a pony, with square hands and a snub nose. A year older than me, too. I’d worried considerably that I’d lose my stepson to some sly sylph of a fifteen-year-old, but this ample widow was not worth worrying about. I’d met her on a handful of occasions but had never spoken with her for long. Now the year had turned, however, and it was Lupercalia and the Lupercalia festival was a time for lovers, so the augurs had finally fi xed a betrothal date for Paulinus and his little pony of a bride.

“My dear, what a very
interesting
gown,” I greeted her as she entered my hall dressed for her feast at the palace. “Blue? Such a bold choice, with skin like yours.”

“Thank you, Lady Lepida.” Her voice was placid. “Could you check the clasp of my bracelet? It’s come loose.”

I bent over the clasp. Her sapphires were bigger, bluer, and better than mine—I’d worn blue for the banquet, too. “It’s not loose at all.” I searched her face, but the wide hazel eyes were innocent as a child’s. No one would ever write odes to
her
gemlike gaze. I loosened the clasp of my
stola
to show a little more shoulder, arching my neck. “Paulinus will be late, of course. He’s so taken up with his duties.”

“I’m sure he is.”

I was about to launch another attack—on her hair, this time; an unremarkable mouse blond for all that it was tied up in knots of jewels—but I heard the uneven footfall behind me and turned to face Marcus.

“Lady Calpurnia.” He smiled, kissing her hand. “I’ve just received a message from Paulinus; he’s tied up in guard duties and says he’ll meet us at the Domus Augustana.”

Calpurnia nodded. She didn’t seem disappointed, which displeased me. How much more fun it would have been if she’d fallen madly in love with him. I could have dropped a few hints here and there about his feelings for me, tortured her for months with the uncertainty of it all . . .

“Father!” Sabina skimmed in from the atrium. “Father, you forgot to let me fi x your tunic.”

“So I did.” He bent down, allowing her to adjust the crisp folds. “Do I pass muster now?”

“Perfect.”

“Your daughter, Senator?” Calpurnia turned toward Marcus, not me.

“Yes. Vibia Sabina, meet Lady Calpurnia Helena Sulpicia.”

Sabina showed her gap-toothed smile. “I’m very pleased to—”

“Curtsy, Sabina,” I snapped. “You’re eight years old; you should know better.”

“Lepida,” said Marcus coldly, “she’s nine.”

“Well, if rudeness isn’t adorable at eight, then it’s not adorable at nine, either.”

She curtsied. I saw her eyes shut for a moment, dizzyingly. “If you’re going to have a fit, have it upstairs,” I ordered. “I won’t have you embarrassing our guests.”

“Lovely to have met you, Vibia Sabina,” Calpurnia said as my daughter sidled out. “I look forward to seeing you again.”

“Now that that’s over with—” I pulled my ice-blue
palla
up around my shoulders. “Shall we go?”

Calpurnia and Marcus looked at me. I knew the expression on Marcus’s face quite well: cold, hooded scorn. Calpurnia’s square face held disapproval. Who did they think they were? I ignored them on the ride to the palace, twitching the curtains of the litter aside and watching the plebs celebrate Lupercalia outside. Always such fun, with the wilder men racing about in loincloths cracking whips, and lovers stumbling from dark corner to dark corner. Last Lupercalia I’d had four men clamoring for my festival favors, and they’d made me a bet I couldn’t take them all on . . . I had them all and two to spare! More fun than this Lupercalia looked to be. Marcus was already droning about Senate business, and Calpurnia was
encouraging
him.

The lights of the Domus Augustana blazed, drawing us in. Domitian usually hosted formal banquets at the new palace with its massive state rooms and extravagant fountains, but Paulinus had the honor of being feted at the Emperor’s own private palace. Slaves leaped forward to take our cloaks; jeweled freedmen drew us down glistening passageways to the triclinium, which had been transformed into a vision of orchids and laurel and dazzling crystal and solid-gold dishes. For Paulinus, the Emperor had spared no luxury. He had even forsaken his usual plain tunic for a gold-embroidered purple robe worth more than a month’s grain shipment from Syria.