‘How did you learn to read and write?’
‘Mostly in secret. I was tall even as a young man and my masters made a sport of beating me. I noticed that the educated slaves were treated better, so I educated myself. By day I carried my masters’ litters and cleaned their chamber pots; by night I read Plato.’
‘A resourceful young man.’
‘I did what I had to do to survive.’
Vita sat up suddenly and braced herself on her arms. ‘What did you just say?’
Ven paused, confused. ‘That I did what I had to do to survive.’
‘And the winter before? When your father died and your mother was taken—what did you do then?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When you remained at your settlement alone, did you not believe that you were doing what you had to do to survive?’
Her eyes searched his, but he could not determine what they sought. ‘I could have survived and still saved my mother,’ he said.
‘That is not what I asked. I asked you what you believed. Did you believe that if you tried to find your mother, you would die?’
‘Yes, I suppose I did believe that,’ Ven said.
‘Then why do you blame yourself for your mother’s death?’
Ven blinked. ‘Because...it was my fault.’
Vita shook her head. ‘I stayed with Magnus for ten years because I did not believe that I deserved better. I think that you have spent many years doing the same.’
Ven shook his head. ‘That is not true. Twice I have tried to escape Rome.’
‘But were you really trying to escape?’
Ven gasped at the suggestion. ‘Of course I was.’
Memories flashed before his eyes, visions of himself running half-heartedly through the streets of Rome, stopping to ask which way was north. Really he had never expected to return to his home, for it did not exist any more. He had destroyed it.
She was watching him so steadily now; he feared to look away. ‘When Lepidus gave you the scars on your back, did you weep?’ she asked.
‘What? No. Of course I did not weep. A real man does not weep beneath his punishment.’
‘And when you received the tattoo across your forehead, how did you feel?’
‘I felt nothing. Nothing at all.’
‘Not even the terrible tapping of the needle against your skin?’
Of course, he remembered that. How could he ever forget? ‘I did not care.’
‘Why did you not care?’
‘Because... I deserved it.’
Vita expelled a breath. There were tears in her eyes; they were making his own heart feel weak.
‘Do you forgive me for contracting myself to Lepidus?’ she asked suddenly. ‘For binding myself to a man I abhor? For acting against all honour and the truth inside my own heart?’
‘Of course I forgive you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you did it to survive.’
‘Then why can you not forgive yourself?’
‘Apologies, I do not—’
‘You have been punishing yourself for years for a crime you did not commit,’ said Vita. ‘You did not have a choice any more than I did. You believed that you would die trying to save your mother, just as I believed I would die if I did not escape Magnus’s wrath. You were just trying to survive. Your mother’s death—it was not your fault.’
She gave him one last, long look, then shook her head and lay back on the bench. He found himself gazing at nothing at all, for everything was blurry. ‘It was not your fault,’ she had said. The words floated in the air all around him, insisting on his consideration. After everything he had told her, that was her conclusion? That it was not his fault?
He went over her argument in his mind, trying to find the holes in it. She had compared his decision to hers: as something inevitable. ‘You were just trying to survive,’ she had said. He had never thought of it that way. Mostly, though, he had never even considered that his own fear might have been forgivable.
It was not your fault. The words were warm, like steam. For the first time since he could remember, he felt his heart rest.
She reached out her hand and he took it. Now the warmth that surrounded him seemed to pour into him through the vessels of her delicate fingers. This woman. This thoughtful, honourable, wondrous woman. What had he done to deserve her in his life?
‘You are beautiful, do you know?’ he said. ‘In every possible way.’
And I love you, by the gods.
She smiled and shook her head dismissively. ‘Rhetoric,’ she whispered.
‘Truth.’
Why would she never let him praise her? He gazed at her figure: her womanly breasts and her soft, forgiving flesh. The clean white loincloth wrapped about her gorgeous curves seemed to highlight their sensuous beauty. She was a goddess in every way. Divine.
‘Why do you stare?’ she asked. She pulled her hand away and squeezed her arms around her chest.
‘Forgive me, but I love your body. Looking upon it is like looking upon a garden.’
She laughed. ‘In that case, you are either desperate or mad,’ she said. ‘Or lying.’
Her smile was a mix of gratitude and regret, as if she were at once thanking him for his compliment and offering a silent apology.
It was altogether wrong. How could a woman as lovely as she feel it necessary to apologise for herself? ‘I wish I could make you see yourself from where I am standing,’ he said.
Now her uncertain smile became a true frown. ‘I fear the sight.’
‘Your body is everything my own body is not. You are round where I am straight, short where I am tall—’
‘Fat where you are thin?’ she interrupted. She laughed bitterly.
‘Not fat,’ he said. ‘Lush.’
She turned her face to the side, her expression pained. ‘You do not have to mollify me. I know that I am no Venus.’
Ten years with that beast of a man, thought Ven. How could he convince her of her own beauty?
An idea struck and he switched to Latin. ‘I fear we have not completed the discussion of my education.’ He dribbled oil on to her stomach and gently ran the strigil down the length of it.
‘Is that so?’ She smiled. ‘Well, in that case please go on.’
‘My education did not end with reading and writing. After that, I went on to rhetoric.’
‘Ah, so you did study rhetoric!’
‘I did and confess that in the arts of rhetoric I had many teachers.’
There was only one part of her that had not yet been scraped clean. He dribbled several drops of oil on to her breasts and paused.
‘From my Roman masters I learned how to speak in circles, to placate when appropriate, to confuse when necessary and, most especially, to lie. Lies are easy for me now: I have discovered that they are the true language of Rome.’
‘I do not disagree,’ she said.
He switched back to his native tongue. ‘You accused me of flattery and suggested that I am a liar. I do not deny that I speak untruths, but I only do so in Latin. I could never speak a lie in my mother tongue. Little of me remains from my youth, but I will not soil one of the only things I have left of it—the language of my tribe.’
‘The language of your innocence,’ she muttered.
‘If I speak to you in the language of the north, you can be certain that I speak only what is in my heart.’
He stood above her and looked deeply into her eyes. ‘When I say you are a beautiful woman, it is not because I am trying to flatter you. You dishonour me by suggesting otherwise. Though you may not see that part of yourself, you must accept that I believe my own words.’
He was fully clothed, yet had somehow taken off all of his furs. Though he wore a slave’s short tunic and loincloth, he was in anothe
r sense utterly naked, just as she was. Each had been stripped bare by the other. Disrobed and scraped clean. Exposed.
She blinked, and he saw a tear roll down her cheek. ‘What do you want from me?’ she asked.
Chapter Ten
‘I want nothing at all,’ he whispered back. He glanced at her oiled breasts and handed her the strigil.
Vita felt shaken to her bones. She had never felt closer to a man in all her life. It terrified her. ‘Nobody says such kind things without wanting something in return,’ she said.
‘I want nothing.’
Then why do you make me care for you? That was what she wished to ask.
‘It is possible to serve someone without expecting anything in return,’ he said. ‘Did you want something in return from Lollia Flamma for choosing not to expose her adultery?’
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘It is enough to know that she will not suffer, yes? That she has avoided a terrible fate?’
She blinked up at him. She could see his spirit so clearly now. It was as strong and beautiful as the northern sea.
‘I am grateful to you...beyond words,’ she said.
For wanting me. For protecting me. For bringing me back to life.
‘It is I who am grateful,’ he said.
She laughed. ‘For sparing your decadent domina?’
‘For these moments we have together.’
She studied the strigil in her hands, then gave it back to him. ‘I would not want you to leave the job unfinished.’
She lay back and told herself not to fear. It was just a strigil and there was nothing unusual about a servant cleaning a woman’s breasts.
But he was not a servant and, as he gently placed the curved blade at the edge of her flesh and began to move it across her skin, her heart beat harder. He was touching one of the tenderest parts of her and he was doing so with more care and attention than she would have ever done for herself. It was as if she were not being cleaned, but worshipped.
‘Lepidus does not deserve you,’ he whispered.
‘Rome does not deserve you,’ she said.
‘Such hyperbole.’ He edged down the slope of her breast. At the boundary of her nipple, he wiped off the excess oil with the cloth. ‘You speak like a true Roman.’
‘I am a true Roman. At least—part of me is.’
He moved the strigil to the side and lifted the edge of her breast with reverent care, then moved the strigil along the tender flesh. Releasing her breast, he looked up at her. ‘I am thinking of a kind of metal,’ he began, ‘a precious mix of silver and gold. They mine it in the province of Egypt. Do you know it?’
‘Electrum?’
‘You are as that strange metal. Roman and barbarian in equal parts. Rare and beautiful.’
‘You accuse me of hyperbole, yet you speak like an enraptured poet! Surely you want something from me. Tell me, what is it?’
‘I do not want anything from you, but I do want something for you.’
Vita smiled gamely. ‘Please tell me what it is so that I may fulfil your wish.’
‘I want you to find your freedom.’
In that moment, the sun ceased to stream in from the high windows and the caldarium grew ominously dark. It was as if time had suddenly resumed its passage. ‘Go now,’ she whispered. ‘Return to Lepidus.’
Ven’s voice was less than a whisper. ‘You must escape him soon, before you share his bed. Before you have paid the cost.’
Vita closed her eyes. How was it possible for a man to know a woman so well? Though perhaps it was not a man knowing a woman, but one injured soul knowing another.
‘I do not wish to speak of it further,’ Vita said. ‘My freedom will come five years from now. It is the only choice.’
‘It is not the only choice. “You must escape Lepidus.” You said that to me once, do you remember? Let us escape together, Vita. Let us find our freedom together.’
Her heart was pounding now. This was madness. ‘But your scar. Did you not say it was an unacceptable risk?’
‘No risk is too great—not any more.’
‘I do not understand. What has changed?’
‘Before I met you, Vita, I was...different. Each year, the seasons changed, but in my heart it was always winter.’ He stared up at the painted ceiling, as if searching for the right words. ‘That is how a slave survives, do you understand?’
‘I understand,’ she said. She thought of her mother. She could count on one hand the number of times Vita had seen her smile.
‘Since I met you, there has been a change of season inside me,’ Ven continued. ‘I laugh with acquaintances and smile at strangers. I pity the helpless and grow angry at small injustices. I bite my own tongue and pace across floors. I see colours everywhere—the crimson of the sunset, the azure blue of the sky.’ He gazed into her eyes. ‘The colours of a woman’s eyes.’
‘I see them, too,’ Vita whispered. ‘The colours.’
‘I do not know myself any more. Every time I imagine Lepidus touching you, I think of how I might kill the man. I see it so clearly in my mind—how easily I might wrap my hands around his fleshy throat. It is dangerous, this new season inside me. It is as if I grow weaker.’
‘Not weaker,’ she whispered. ‘More alive.’
‘Escape is the only way. Life is short and happiness shorter. We must seize it now, while it is in our hands. Together.’
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, then placed it upon the bench.
‘Tomorrow you must tell me your answer,’ he said. ‘We have nearly run out of time.’
And then he was gone.
* * *
That night, Lepidus’s back was still too sore to ask anything of Vita and for that she thanked the gods. They returned to their room inside the large mansion and he instantly fell asleep on the wool-stuffed mattress. As soon as she heard his snores, Vita stretched out on the floor beside him and tried to arrange her thoughts.
Escape Lepidus? She had never even dreamed of it—perhaps because she knew she could never do it on her own. But the instant Ven had made the suggestion it had seemed inevitable, like the cry of a newborn babe.
Freedom. Suddenly it was within reach, and she would not be alone in her effort to grasp it. She would have help; she would have Ven. He would be by her side—the strongest, ablest man she knew—and it seemed that he would not escape without her.
She opened her eyes and gazed up at the timbers. Despite her efforts to distance herself from Ven, she felt closer to him every day.
Still, she could not help but wonder if this was some new kind of test. She had bound herself to Lepidus because she had no choice, but if she escaped with Ven, she would be bound to him as well. It would be a welcome bond, of course, but a bond none the less, for she would owe him her very life. They would be making a contract between their hearts.
What would happen then? She wished the old sibyl were there to advise her. She cared for Ven—she feared that she loved him—but she did not trust her own emotions. She had loved Magnus long ago, had she not? How could she be sure that Ven would not come to loathe her just as Magnus had done?
‘Seek your freedom first,’ the wise old sibyl had said. ‘Everything else will come.’
If freedom was the prize, then would escaping with Ven be another grave error?
* * *
She had been up most of the night thinking of such things and slept in until well past the third hour. Thankfully, Lepidus slept in as well. When he finally awoke he was not eager to get out of bed.
‘That wicked woman made my back feel worse!’ he howled. ‘Tell her to bring me some tea. And get me a hot towel and some willow-bark oil. From now on, there will be no other hands upon my flesh any more but yours, Vita. Where are my clean loincloths?’
Vita fetched Lepidus a clean loincloth,
then opened the door to their chamber and gently coaxed Zia awake. It was customary for slaves to sleep outside their masters’ chambers, but Vita still hated seeing Zia there—especially when Ven and the Scythian were always granted a servant’s room.
‘I will purchase the supplies if you can get the tea,’ she whispered to Zia, making the motion for tea. ‘Drink one yourself before you return.’ Zia shot her a grin, then hurried off to the mansio kitchen while Vita set about her errands.
* * *
By the time Lepidus was dressed and ready for his day, it was already time for the midday meal. They strolled about the town for a while enjoying the breeze, then took a late lunch inside a large, well-provisioned tavern.
Day became night and they began drinking wine. ‘This Gallic vintage is quite good,’ Lepidus commented, adding that it seemed to help the aching in his back. Vita made sure to keep his cup full and, by the time they arrived back in their room, the old man was happily drunk. He collapsed upon the mattress just as he had done the night before and Vita took her place on the floor beside him. She fell into a deep sleep.
* * *
When she awoke the next morning, she opened the door to wake Zia, but the Dacian woman was not there. Believing her to be on some private errand, Vita returned to the bedchamber and waited another hour. When she opened the door again and still did not see her, Vita became worried. She searched the mansio and its surroundings; Zia was nowhere to be found.
When she finally returned to their bedchamber, Lepidus was sitting up in bed. He yawned absently. ‘Where have you been, Vita?’ he asked.
‘Searching for Zia. She has disappeared.’
He did not seem worried by the news.
‘Did you notice anything unusual last night?’ Vita asked.
‘Not really, though she may have been unhappy when I commanded her to pleasure me.’
Vita stared at Lepidus, who only shrugged. ‘I took her in the hall so as not to disturb you. She was rather reluctant, I must say. I am afraid I had to be rough with her.’
Vita pressed her back against the wall, trying to keep her knees from buckling.
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