Ven knew better than to mistake the man’s detachment for uninterest, however. He was watching and listening carefully, for that was what he was paid to do. He would report everything that transpired back to Lepidus. If Lepidus did not like what he heard, Ven would pay in lashes.
The door swung open and Ven heard Vita gasp. ‘Oh, Ven!’
There she was, the woman who haunted his thoughts. She was as lovely as he remembered, though there were shadows around her eyes—and one eye in particular. By the gods, what had Magnus done to her now?
She stepped forward as if to embrace him, but he shook his head subtly and stepped backwards in an effort to deter her.
‘I feared I would not see you again,’ she said. Her warm grin nearly melted his bones. ‘And now here you are. The gods are kind.’
He averted his gaze to the ground. ‘Greetings, Domina.’
‘Domina?’ She studied his face. ‘Is everything well, Ven?’
‘Everything is well, Domina,’ he said. ‘I have come with my Scythian associate.’ He glanced back at the Scythian, trying to make her understand. ‘We wish to deliver you a message from my master, Lepidus Severus.’
Ah, she seemed to say.
‘Would you like me to read the message aloud, Domina?’
‘I believe I can read it myself,’ she said. She plucked the wax tablet from his hands, then glanced behind her. ‘Come, Avidia, let us read together.’
A tall, curly-haired woman stepped behind Vita and flashed Ven a wink. The two studied the text for a long time. ‘I do not understand,’ Vita said. ‘Lepidus requests an audience with me?’
Ven nodded. ‘He insisted that it should take place today if possible, or tomorrow at the latest.’
‘But why?’ Vita asked. ‘Why would he wish to meet with me alone? And in such a hurry?’ She was searching Ven’s eyes, pleading for more information, but the Scythian was listening and Ven did not know how to proceed. How could Ven convey the depths of Lepidus’s wickedness in a single look?
‘I do not know, Domina, but he has also asked me to deliver you this amphora of Massilian wine, as a token of his goodwill.’ Ven gestured behind him.
Avidia gasped. ‘That is the size of a shipping amphora!’
Vita studied the expensive gift with suspicion. ‘What is this about?’ she whispered in Celtic.
Ven bit his tongue. Hard. So hard, in fact, that he could feel warm blood filling his mouth. He knew that if he uttered a single word in the Celtic tongue, the Scythian would report it to Lepidus.
‘Apologies, Domina, I do not understand,’ he said. He glanced behind him at the Scythian. ‘Please accept the wine along with my master’s ardent desire for you to call on him as soon as you possibly may.’
Vita’s eyes flashed and she returned to Latin. ‘Please thank your master for this most generous expression and tell him I will call on him this afternoon on one condition.’
‘Yes, Domina?’
A small, sly smile streaked across her lips. ‘That you be there to answer the door.’
* * *
Later that afternoon, Vita stood outside Lepidus Severus’s large home in one of Rome’s most illustrious neighbourhoods, feeling meek. Towering above her were four columns supporting an imposing triangular pediment carved with the muses.
Vita closed her eyes and pictured the world inside. She saw a grand atrium flanked by rooms populated with slaves at work. Beyond them lay the well-appointed tablinium in which their master received his clients.
She envisioned the spacious office giving way to the garden at its far end—a paradisiacal realm of fruit trees, fountains and life-size statues in various stages of repose. The garden was surrounded by a shaded peristyle walkway along with more rooms for the master’s wife and children. Every morning the lucky inhabitants awoke to the sound of birdsong and the soft trickle of water that never ceased to flow.
An island of tranquillity amid Rome’s dirty streets.
Vita pictured all this because she had grown up in a home much like the one she beheld and her heart swooned with the memory of it. As a girl she had gone about her days as a spoiled patrician daughter, with tutors and social calls and endless hours of weaving.
But in the end she was not a patrician at all, for Vita’s father, a senator of Rome, had fallen in love with Vita’s mother on the day he had purchased her.
By law, they could never marry, nor could her father dignify the partnership in any way. They could not be even be seen in public together, lest her father’s reputation suffer. Like the tattoo on her mother’s neck, the stigma of her mother’s enslavement remained until her dying day.
Soon after her mother’s death from fever, Vita’s father had married and his new wife would not accept Vita’s presence in their home. Vita was a Roman citizen, but she was not respectably born and so her father had sent Vita away as best he could.
Still, the home he had endowed her with had never been her own. It had always belonged to Magnus.
Now Vita wiped her cheeks and tried to arrange her hair. She did not blame her father for what he had done. He had loved Vita and had tried to secure her future. How could he have known that he was marrying her to a man who had been twisted by his own greed?
It was no use dwelling on the past, or so she had finally learned. Besides, she would be seeing Ven soon—the only reason she had agreed to this meeting at all.
In seconds, he would answer the door and, for a fleeting moment, their eyes would meet and she would feel that strange, excited feeling inside her stomach. It was possible that without thinking he might utter a word or two in their shared tongue. He had done it before, after all, had accidentally called her beautiful, and for that possibility alone she wanted to look her best.
Still, she feared her appearance was not what it could have been. It was stiflingly hot and the coal dust that Avidia had so carefully applied to Vita’s eyes that morning had been running down her cheeks all afternoon.
She imagined she looked something like a Gorgon after a long day in the Underworld and supposed that in some sense she was. She and Avidia had traversed the squalid Subura neighbourhood all that morning, reaching for a dream they could not seem to grasp. They simply could not produce enough coin for a place of their own, even in the most affordable part of Rome.
‘The Massilian wine!’ Avidia had exclaimed on their way back to the Aventine. ‘I can sell it in the tavern and pocket the profits. It will make up for our shortfall and soon we can try again.’
It had been a clever, risky idea, to which Vita had agreed instantly, though she doubted she would ever see her unlikely friend again.
Freedom is the prize, she told herself now and scolded herself for her vanity. She should not have agreed to this silly social call. She should be pounding the paving stones while it was still light, searching for a place of her own.
She lifted her fist to the door and tried to conjure her most sociable grin. ‘Greetings, Good Lepidus,’ she would say. ‘It is an honour to be invited into your lovely home. You would not have an extra room to rent?’
Surely he had summoned her here to confront her about his wife’s affair. Yes, your wife is having an affair with my ex-husband. That was what Lepidus expected her to tell him and then he would ask her to supply him with all the sordid details.
She had long since resolved to tell him nothing. How could she? After learning what his wife was doing, the old man was likely to divorce her instantly and, by law, the poor woman would not be able to marry again.
No, Vita would not say a word. She would delicately dance around the subject, explaining that her divorce with Magnus had been a long time in coming and she knew nothing about any affair with Lollia.
She would thank him for the wine and take her leave, and thus could return to more urgent matters—such as survival itself.
She lifted her hand and k
nocked upon the door.
Tap, tap.
Slowly, it creaked open and all at once she was glad she came. There was Ven, looking tall and strong and unmercifully handsome. She moved towards him for the traditional greeting—a kiss on the cheek—then remembered how inappropriate that would be.
‘Welcome, Domina,’ he said, stepping backwards.
‘Hello, Ven.’
She followed him through the entryway past a well-muscled guard seated beside a litter. Apparently, Lepidus was rich enough to employ men to carry him around Rome and a glance at Ven’s muscular physique suggested that he was often one of those men.
Now he ushered her into a spacious tablinium where Lepidus appeared to be extracting himself from his desk chair. Behind him stood several busts atop pillars, along with a rather lifelike statue of some broad-chested personage.
Except that it was not a statue. It was a perfectly motionless man—the same man who had accompanied Ven to her house the day before. The Scythian. Ven fell into place beside him while Lepidus finally rose to standing. The ageing equestrian managed a polite bow.
‘Vita Sabina, thank you for coming. Please, sit.’
He motioned to the chair in front of his desk. As she took her seat, she stole a glance at Ven, but he did not meet her eyes.
Lepidus folded himself back into his own chair and sent her a thin-lipped grin. ‘I trust you had no trouble finding the house?’
‘None at all,’ replied Vita. ‘The Domus Severus is well known. A splendid abode.’
‘Very kind of you to say. And I trust that your husband does not know of this visit?
‘He is my ex-husband now, I am afraid, and, no, he does not.’
‘You must forgive the secrecy. It is just that it is a matter of a rather delicate nature, and you know how small the city is.’
‘Over a million souls,’ said Vita with a half-hearted grin, ‘yet it often feels as if there are only a hundred.’
‘Ha!’ croaked Lepidus. ‘Clever woman. Well, I will get right to it then. My new wife is having an affair with your husband and has been for some time. I believe she is trysting with him right now, behind the laundress at the Forum Boarium.’
Incredible, thought Vita. Lepidus wasted no time and apparently employed very skilled informants. ‘I must admit that I am not surprised.’
‘That is not the worst of it, I fear,’ Lepidus continued. ‘It appears that now Lollia is pregnant with your husband’s child.’
Vita blinked. ‘Well, that is a surprise.’
‘I doubt she has told him yet,’ said Lepidus. Vita caught the slightest tremble in his lower lip. ‘They plan to meet again tomorrow during the Vulcanalia festival, at the bonfire outside the Temple of Vulcan.’
‘Forgive me,’ said Vita, ‘but how do you know all this?’
‘I am a resourceful man.’
Lepidus leaned back in his chair and glanced up at the fair-haired Scythian. ‘And my wife is a careless woman—though the way that she and your husband carried on at your banquet was nearly proof enough.’
‘I confess I did not see it,’ Vita admitted. ‘Not at first.’
‘Well, perhaps you are too quick to see the good in people. Your husband, for example. I take no delight in telling you this, but I once heard him called the Virile Vigile of Rome.’
Vita nearly laughed. ‘I have known of my husband’s dalliances for a long while.’
‘Surely you must have thought of divorcing him before now.’
‘I have, but ours was a cum manu contract.’
‘Ah! How very quaint. So your father’s household will not take you back?’
‘My father is deceased.’ She heard a tremble in her voice and sucked in a breath. Strange. It was no longer Magnus’s betrayal that brought her near to tears, but this—her imminent destitution.
‘And Magnus will not return your dowry, I suspect?’
‘He will not.’
‘Then I believe our predicaments are rather alike, for I cannot divorce my wife either—not without sending my career into ruin.’
‘I am sorry to hear that.’
He took a thread of his beard between his fingers. ‘Do you know why I grew this beard, Vita?’
Vita shook her head. Just behind the old man she could see Ven’s long, muscular legs. If only she could follow those legs to his torso and then up his chest to his face so that she could look into his eyes and feel their comfort.
‘I grew this beard in honour of our illustrious Princeps, Emperor Hadrian.’
‘A wonderful way to honour him,’ she replied.
‘When Emperor Hadrian took the purple, I knew that there was a kindred spirit at the helm,’ Lepidus continued. ‘You are an uneducated, unworldly woman and cannot truly appreciate the significance of what I am about to tell you, but I will say it anyway.’ Lepidus lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Our intrepid Emperor harbours the passions of the Greeks—that genius civilisation. He loves everything Greek: philosophy and rhetoric, art and theatre, and most especially architecture.’
Vita feigned surprised interest, though, of course, she already knew everything that Lepidus had just told her. It was widely known that Hadrian was a Homer-loving Grecophile with a penchant for hunting and beautiful men. By whispering it like a secret, Lepidus revealed his own lack of worldliness.
Now the old man tilted his eyes to the heavens. ‘All my life, I have followed my passion for designing strong, lasting things. I do not wish to brag, but I am a great architect, perhaps one of the greatest that Rome has ever seen.’ Lepidus blinked and appeared to wipe away a tear.
‘I have been divinely inspired to participate in the construction of countless temples, bridges and roads. You cannot glance around the Forum without seeing one of the great works that my brilliant mind has helped bring to fruition. After my father died, my mother once suggested to me that I had in fact been sired by a god.’
Sired by a god? Now Vita really could not look away.
‘I do not think it an accident of the gods that I was born to live during the reign of Hadrian. By wearing this beard, I am signalling my part in his great works to come. It is also why I married Lollia.’
‘For her father’s connection to Hadrian?’ Vita asked.
‘Indeed, and that connection has already borne fruit, for I have been promoted to Chief Military Architect in the north. Very soon I shall be setting sail for Britannia to help build a wall nearly a hundred miles in length, the greatest wall the world has ever known.’
Vita vanquished a grin. It seemed that anything Lepidus touched would be the greatest the world had ever known, though one of Vita’s tutors had once told her of another, much longer wall somewhere in the mysterious east. ‘A great honour,’ she said.
‘It will be a long trip to Britannia,’ he continued. ‘Seven days by ship to Narbo, in Gaul, then ten more days over land and several more by sea to Londinium. Finally I will make the long trek north to the Roman fort at Coria, where I will reside for a minimum of five years overseeing construction. And that is why I have asked you here today. I would like you to come with me.’
Vita blinked and sat up in her chair. Behind Lepidus’s head, she saw Ven’s legs tense.
‘While I cannot divorce for reasons we have discussed,’ Lepidus continued, ‘I would like to offer you a concubinage.’
Vita nearly gasped. It was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. ‘I am sorry, I do not understand.’
‘You are a noble woman, Vita Sabina. I have watched you put others before yourself, endure suffering and public shame, and act honourably and discreetly, like a good Roman woman should. Just look at you there, sitting so stiffly and properly in your chair. In some ways you remind me of a soldier—always working for the dignity and good of Rome.’
Vita opened her mouth to speak, but no words came.
‘Perhaps you are not skilled in the arts of entertaining,’ Lepidus continued. ‘Perhaps you are not high ranking or well educated or even close to the physical ideal, but I am willing to overlook those things. You speak the language and that will go far in helping me interact with the barbarians at Coria.’
‘Coria?’
‘It is not a beautiful woman that I will need in that place, but a loyal, uncomplaining Roman protectress with thick, strong arms and a barbarian tongue. That is you.’
Vita nearly laughed aloud. No matter how many ways she had imagined the purpose of this meeting, she never would have guessed it to be this: a recruitment.
‘I do not know what to say—’ she said, but Lepidus would not let her finish.
‘I confess that when Lollia told me that she overheard you speaking to Ven in the tongue of the north, I nearly jumped. It is as if the gods have brought us together to achieve the important purpose with which I have been tasked. Please, will you not demonstrate for me?’
Vita frowned. She felt as if the room were spinning.
‘Say something to Ven in the tongue of the north,’ Lepidus goaded. ‘I only wish to hear that repulsive accent.’
Finally, she could look at Ven, only now she barely wished to. She had just been insulted in a dozen different ways and felt a familiar blush of shame invading her cheeks.
But then Ven bent his head and somehow caught her gaze and she felt instantly anchored to the ground. ‘Um...hello, how are you?’ she asked him in Celtic.
In a cheerful tone, Ven replied, ‘Lepidus is a dangerous man. Do not accept his proposal.’ He nodded his head, as if he had just wished her a good morning.
‘Wondrous,’ Lepidus mused. ‘How well does she speak it, Ven?’
‘Well, Dominus, but with a strong Caledonian accent.’
‘Are the Caledonii your tribe?’ Lepidus asked.
‘They were the tribe of my mother,’ said Vita. She turned to Ven and switched to Celtic. ‘I would not become this man’s concubine if my life depended on it.’
Ven gave an interested nod. ‘Tomorrow morning at the baths,’ he said. ‘I will meet you below in the hypocaust. I have something to give you. It will help you survive.’
The Roman Lady's Illicit Affair Page 8