Mistress of Rome (37 page)

“My friends!” Domitian came toward us, his ruddy face beaming. “Delighted to receive you. Marcus”—a friendly nod—“Lady Lepida”—a kiss to the cheek(!)—“the lovely bride”—a press of Calpurnia’s hand. “You are all welcome!”

“So pleased,” murmured the Empress, all emeralds and silver at his side.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Paulinus strode through the doors, still shrugging the folds of his lawn synthesis into place.

“Never mind, never mind.” Domitian threw a friendly arm around Paulinus’s shoulders, and I wondered if the rumors were true—if he really was going to name Paulinus his heir. Last year a prefectship, this year an heiress, next year an Empire . . . Certainly Domitian was closer to my stepson than to anyone else in all Rome.
Emperor Paulinus Vibius Augustus Norbanus . . .
incest laws or not, I
would
marry my stepson if he became Emperor!

“Well?” Domitian said good-naturedly as Paulinus hesitated over Calpurnia’s hand. “Kiss your betrothed!”

Calpurnia offered up her cheek. Flushing, Paulinus bent down and brushed it with his lips. His eyes flickered toward mine, and I shaped a mocking kiss at him. He flushed and looked away.

“Paulinus.” Marcus stepped forward. “Good to see you, boy. It’s been too long.”

“Father.”

They stepped toward each other, eyes not quite meeting as they hugged. Paulinus stepped back as if he had been burned, dull color rising high in his cheeks.

I giggled.

We’d barely arranged ourselves on the silk-cushioned couches before a stream of food and music and entertainers flooded in. Sugar-glazed fruit heaped high in silver bowls, whole roasted peacocks with their vibrant tail feathers still in place, honey-brushed pork stuffed with sage and rosemary and gobbets of its own flesh. Drummers danced before my eyes, and sweet-voiced choirboys from Corinth, and lithe brown acrobats climbing toward the ivory ceiling on each others’ shoulders. Slaves shoved food onto our plates as soon as we cleared them, and Domitian roared at us to eat up, eat up. He gestured with the peacock’s crispy, feathered neck, grease spots already staining his priceless purple robe, and I realized he was drunk. Old Falernian flowed around us like the Tiber, and as the heat gathered under my skin it seemed entirely natural to let my hair loosen and my
stola
slip off one shoulder. Now
this
was more like Lupercalia!

The Emperor was telling stories of Paulinus’s bravery, shouting out that here was the best friend a man ever had, and he’d have the whole world know it. Paulinus was glassy-eyed, matching the Emperor goblet for goblet. Calpurnia’s cheeks were flushed, her gown crumpled as she sprawled uncomfortably across her couch. The room was too hot and there was too much food and too much wine, but the music soared in a bright ribald stream and the Emperor loomed over us like a vast bloated god, so we shoveled food into our mouths and poured wine down our burning throats and coughed out bursts of hysterical laughter.

Marcus sat cool and chill beside me, and as I glanced over at him dizzily I saw that his eyes weren’t on the Emperor or his son, but on the Empress. The Empress, equally cool and chill on the end of her couch, and gazing right back at him. There was something important about that tense speculating gaze, but the room was spinning around me and everything was hilarious and I couldn’t stop laughing at Calpurnia’s broad perspiring face. I tossed down another goblet of wine, half of it slopping over the mosaics, and flopped over on my back to laugh up at the ceiling. My
stola
slipped off the other shoulder, baring my breast, and Paulinus’s glazed eyes fastened on it.

“A betrothal ring for the bride!” Domitian roared. “Paulinus, don’t tell me you haven’t given it to her yet? Here, let me.” He fumbled for Calpurnia’s shrinking hand and shoved a sizable ruby onto the wrong finger. “Betrothed! Time to kiss her again, Paulinus. No, no, not like that!”—as Paulinus planted a smeary peck on Calpurnia’s lips. “I suppose I’ll have to do this for you, too”—and the Emperor kissed Calpurnia, teeth mashing against her lips. Her muffled squeak disappeared into the mocking drumroll of the musicians.

“Caesar,” the Empress said sharply, speaking for the first time all evening. “You’re frightening the poor girl.”

“Frightening?” The black Flavian eyes narrowed. “What would you know about kisses? Cold as an icicle—wouldn’t melt in a volcano, you scheming frozen—”

The Empress rose from her couch, not a hair out of place. “Thank you for a delightful evening,” she said at large. “Marcus, Lady Lepida. Prefect Norbanus, Lady Calpurnia. Good evening to you all.”

“That’s right,” the Emperor muttered as she drifted out. “Get out of here—frigid scheming bitch—” He beckoned a pageboy violently, and I watched with hazy eyes as he emptied a packet of little crushed leaves into the wine flagon. “What’sat?” I giggled.

“Herbs—Indian, I think—” He downed an explosive mouthful. “Makes—makes colors—Paulinus, here—and Calpurnia—”

“I don’t want any,” she said distinctly.

“DRINK!” The Emperor thrust the goblet into her hand so half the wine slopped over her expensive gown, and she drank. I reached over to wrest the cup away, feeling Marcus’s disgusted eyes as I drained the dregs. Old Falernian, with something bitter at the bottom.

“Good,” the Emperor panted. Sweat crowned his forehead. “Feels, feels—good—hot in here—music—SOMEBODY FETCH ME ATHENA!” he shouted.

Warmer all of a sudden. Mosaics twisting and swirling like they were alive. My body grew hot and loose.

“Oh, gods, I feel sick.” Calpurnia half fell off the couch and vomited by a rosy marble statue of a bathing Artemis.

I felt a quick rustle on the couch next to me as Marcus rose. “I think I’d better take Lady Calpurnia home, Caesar. She isn’t well.” He cupped a hand around her elbow, lifting her up. “Paulinus—”

But Paulinus sprawled panting and flaccid across the couch, his pupils swallowing up his eyes. “Y’re beautiful,” he mumbled to me. “Y’re beautiful—”

“Good night,” said Marcus, and he dragged out the reeling Calpurnia.

Paulinus’s curls were moving. Twining around like snakes. I put out an interested finger, pulling back before I could be bitten. He rolled over and seized my wrist, attacking my shoulder and throat with his mouth.

“ATHENA!” the Emperor roared, and I looked up over Paulinus’s shoulder to see Thea gliding through the door in apricot silk, at first pinprick-tiny like at the end of a tunnel, and then suddenly looming huge. The stone at her throat had grown into a vast black mouth. As Paulinus fumbled with stupid fingers at the clasp of my
stola
, the Emperor grabbed hold of Thea’s arm, so hard his fingers left white marks on her flesh. “Drink,” he whispered, forcing the goblet against her teeth. “Drink—we’ll see what kind of goddess you are—” and as she choked on the wine he kissed her, eating her with his teeth and his hands.

My
stola
ripped, and Paulinus was a panting, sweating beast on top of me. I raked my nails, drawing blood that shifted colors in my eyes. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Emperor doing something to Thea, Thea half-clothed and turning her head away on the cushions . . . Paulinus was hot hard invading flesh above me, diamond drops of sweat falling from his face, his eyes two dark pits, his mouth a square agonized hole. I rolled my eyes dizzily to look at Thea, crushed under a panting sweating beast of her own, and her eyes snapped open and met mine.

Eyes locked while our bodies writhed. The world cleared around Thea’s face; Thea’s white, hating face not two feet away. Blood on her lip, her hair a tangle of sweat and silver chains, her eyes dilated by the drug. Hated her—hated her—a leap of answering loathing in her eyes—speared down by hard male flesh, both of us, or we’d have leaped for each other’s throats. Rocked and pinioned, we still reached out, clawing across the space. Her fingers crushed mine, trying to break bone, and I sank my nails deep into her knuckles and neither one of us would look away. Her eyes were the last thing I saw before the colors crashed in around my head.

 

I
’M going to be sick again,” Calpurnia wailed, stumbling against Marcus’s crooked shoulder.

“Then go ahead and be sick,” he told his prospective daughter-in-law. She retched, lurching against the doorway, and Marcus steadied her. “Here, into the atrium. Fresh air will clear your head.”

“I—I should get home—”

“Sit first.”

She staggered into the atrium and collapsed onto the first bench, cradling her head. Marcus called a slave, sent for a flagon, and pushed a goblet into her hand. “Drink.”

“No more wine, I can’t—”

“It’s water, not wine. Sip slowly.”

She drank. Four hours ago, she had been a fresh-faced young girl in a new blue dress; now she was a wine-stained mess with her tangled hair descending down her back and an earring missing. She looked down at herself, flushing as she brushed at a vomit stain on her hem. “Oh, gods, I look like—”

“Never mind. How do you feel?”

She drank again. “My head feels like Vulcan’s own anvil.”

“That should pass. You threw up most of the drug.”

“Thank you—for getting me out of there.”

“You looked a trifle overwhelmed.”

She shuddered, and Marcus thought of her shocked face as the Emperor’s mouth bore down on hers, all wet sharp teeth. “Is he always like that?” she burst out.

“No.” Marcus sat himself beside her on the marble bench. “Tonight was . . . exceptional.”

“I can’t go back there.” Brushing uselessly at her gown. “Not ever.”

“You saw the Emperor at his worst tonight. Tomorrow, when the effect of those Indian leaves wears off, he will have forgotten all about this evening and will treat you exactly as he treats all other women: he will ignore you.”

“I still can’t go back.”

“As Paulinus’s wife, you’ll have to.”

“Then I won’t marry Paulinus.” She looked up in desperate apology. “It—it isn’t him. He seems perfectly pleasant when he’s not—”

“But surely he doesn’t care much about marrying me, and I can’t—can’t deal with this life. Banquets and drinking and—and Indian leaves. Oh, maybe my family’s been around since the Republic, but I’m a country girl.” She leaned forward. “I grew up in Toscana, with vineyards and ponies and swimming holes. It’s supposed to be a great thing for me, marrying the Praetorian Prefect, but I don’t belong in palaces. Not palaces like
that
.”

He thought she might burst into tears, but she looked away and controlled herself. Country-born, but patrician-bred.

Marcus considered his words. “Perhaps you won’t believe me, considering what you’ve seen tonight, but this isn’t Paulinus’s world, either.”

Calpurnia looked at him.

“My son is a simple sort: a soldier, an idealist, a good Roman. It’s a great honor, his position as Prefect, but he’s floundering. If someone were to help him find his feet, he’d be grateful.”

“You want me to do that?”

“I think you could do that,” Marcus said gravely. “You’re a fine honorable girl, Calpurnia Sulpicia. I don’t have to know you long to see that. My son needs a girl like you. He knows it.”

“Maybe so.” She pleated a fold of stained silk between her fingers. “But it’s not what he wants. What he wants is—” She bit her lip just in time. She might not have known Lepida long but then again, one didn’t have to.

Marcus looked at her baldly.
Yes. Your betrothed wants my wife.

They both looked away.

“May I ask a favor of you?” Marcus spoke as formally as if he were quoting a point of law in the Senate. “Think long and hard before you end the betrothal. That’s all I ask.”

Calpurnia looked, twisting the ruby around her finger, and Marcus thought she would strip it off then and there. But she offered her hand instead. “All right, Senator.”

“Marcus, please.” He took her hand in both of his, and smiled. “And thank you.”

Y
OU’RE late,” Arius greeted Vix.

“Had to rub down the horses.”

“Run twice around the vineyard to warm up. Then start drill number five.”

They sparred in the spring rains, slipping through liquid mud. Sparred under scorching midday sun as summer advanced, sweat slicking the hilts of the wooden practice swords. Sparred until the muscles screamed, until the bones creaked, until the palms of Vix’s hands split and Arius staggered home wondering why he was doing this at all.

Maybe because his life behind the vineyard had gotten a little too quiet. Maybe swords and drills and practice bouts had gotten into his blood, like it or not.

“When do I get a real sword?” Vix complained.

“When you earn it,” Arius growled, just as his brothers and endless gladiatorial trainers had growled at him.

“I have earned it!”

“Show me.”

Vix launched an overhand attack. Arius clipped the wooden blade out of his hand and sent him sprawling.

Vix scowled. “Just because you’re bigger.”

“If you’d stepped inside and gone low, you’d have thrown me off balance. Keep pretending you’re a big man when you fight, and you’ll die. Fight like a ten-year-old boy, you might be able to kill someone someday. Quit trying to impress me.”

Vix swore. “Again?”

They circled briefly, then closed. Vix stepped under the swing of the sword, throwing his weight against Arius’s side. The Barbarian staggered briefly; Vix brought the wooden sword up to clip his jaw.

“Better. Again.”

“Yeah, and don’t pull your blows this time.”

Vix tried the same trick and came up against a solid wall of shoulder. He swung his wooden blade around in a hasty swing; Arius seized his arm, jerking him off balance, and the joint in his shoulder came apart with a pop. Vix yelled.

“Lie facedown and lift your arm straight back.”