Arria realigned her shuttle. ‘It is an image of the most beautiful woman in the world, Domina,’ she said.
‘And who might that be?’ asked the woman.
‘My mistress, Domina. The beautiful Vibia Secunda.’
The woman smiled. ‘What a good little slave you are,’ she said and patted Arria on the head before sauntering away.
Arria could sense Cal step closer. ‘Why did you just lie to that woman?’ he asked.
‘I did not lie.’
‘You did, for I have met the most beautiful woman in the world and I can tell you it is not Vibia Secunda.’
‘Indeed? Then who is it?’
‘It is you.’
Arria’s shuttle slipped from her fingers and he knew she smiled. ‘You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,’ he added. ‘You are a goddess.’ He heard her suck in a breath. He had failed to show her the pleasures of the flesh, but at least she would know how beautiful she was before they parted for ever.
‘You did not answer my question,’ she said. Her voice was so soft he could barely hear it.
‘What question?’
‘Have you missed me?’
Cal paused. He had missed her more than the grass missed the rain. He had missed her in seconds that passed like hours and hours that passed like days. He had missed her with every cubit of his body and all that was left of his soul. But to tell her such a thing would only increase both their misery.
‘I see,’ she said after a long silence and he caught sight of a tear running down her cheek.
Curses on his very soul. He would have given anything to take her in his arms and wipe away her tear and tell her the truth: that he loved her, that he would always love her. That she was the most divine miracle to have ever graced his miserable life.
But that was not what she needed now. She needed strength, armour, a strategy. She needed to get tough, to face the coming years like a warrior. And he would help her to become that warrior, no matter how badly it hurt him. He would give her what he had failed to give his wife: a way to survive.
‘You must understand that although there are no bars or locks in your new home, it is still a prison,’ he said.
‘You think I do not understand that?’ she asked. ‘Do you know how many times I have wondered how I might get myself past the guards?’
‘Cease!’ he hissed. He lowered his voice. ‘Clearly you do not understand, or you would not be saying such things! The consequences of escape are worse than a simple beating. You are a member of the most noble domus in Ephesus now. If you attempt escape, you will shame your new familia. Do you know what the punishment is for such a thing? Execution—torturous and humiliating. Do you understand now?’
She said nothing, though he could hear in her shallow breaths that he had frightened her. ‘What I am trying to tell you is that such a fate need not be yours. If you remain in your familia’s good favour, you will be warm and safe for the rest of your days.’
‘This is not my familia. And I do not wish to be warm and safe while my heart slowly turns to stone. I wish... I wish...’
‘I know what you wish.’ It is what I wish, too. ‘But you must accept the fate you have been delivered.’
She squeezed the warps of her loom between her fists. He lowered his voice. ‘If you fight against it, your anger will destroy you, Arria. I fought against my own fate and all I earned was pain. You must forget me.’
‘I will never forget you.’
An elderly man draped in an elegant toga wandered behind Arria and paused to watch her work. As Arria moved her thread through the shuttle, her shawl slipped off her shoulders to reveal the stains of two large bruises.
A fire exploded inside Cal. Gods, no. Please not that. He held his breath until the old patrician moved on.
‘Who did that to you, Arria?’
‘Did what?’
‘Who gave you those bruises?’
She pulled the shawl back over her shoulder. ‘The governor,’ she whispered. ‘But he did not harm me. It was just a warning.’
A warning. So she had already fallen out of the governor’s good favour, if she had ever enjoyed it at all. Arria had no idea the danger she was in.
‘I would do anything to get you out of here,’ he said. He should not have said such a thing. Such words were dangerous to a slave’s soul.
‘Then tell me how we do it,’ she said.
‘It is impossible. Even if we could somehow make it past the door guards, we would be pursued on horseback. Fugitive slaves cannot hide in Ephesus. We would be immediately captured and returned for a reward.’
‘It is worth the risk.’
‘You do not know what you are saying. You do not know the governor.’
‘I think I have an idea,’ Arria said, rubbing her arm.
‘He colludes with Brutus and Oppius on the fights and games. He demands torturous and unnatural kills. He is a depraved man. You must never cross him, Arria. Your future here depends on it.’
‘It is no future worth having.’
‘I will not be a part of anything that causes you harm.’
‘Being without you causes me harm.’
He shook his head and felt another brick of his resolve go tumbling. She was still his Arria—despite the fine shawl and matching tunic. Her wit was still as quick, her spirit as fiery, her arguments still as convincing as any academic’s. It would be a long while before they broke her down, if they ever did at all. ‘You will be safe here,’ he said without conviction.
‘Freedom is more important than safety.’
Damn her. She had no idea what she was saying, what she was doing to him, to her own future.
And yet somehow he loved her for it.
‘Meet me in the garden at the first morning hour,’ she said, ‘when the moon is high and the music is loud and the guests are deep in their goblets. Then we can plan our escape.’
More bricks were tumbling now. He struggled to retrieve them. ‘Arria, you do not understand. There is no escape.’
‘If we cannot escape, then we can at least steal some time together now. Some life.’
He was shaking his head. Another brick. A dozen. ‘I have not agreed.’
‘In the garden, then,’ she said and he thought he saw the edge of a smile. ‘I will see you soon.’
Chapter Twenty-One
The patricians were praying. Cal stood at the edge of the atrium and watched them out of the corner of his eye. They had gathered around the pool to honour Vesta, the one goddess in the Roman pantheon without an earthly form. At the far end of the pool, the governor’s wife stood behind Vesta’s flaming hearth. She lifted a bowl of pigs’ blood to the heavens.
‘We offer you this sacrifice, Sacred Vesta...’
Pitiable pig. Its death squeal had nearly shattered Cal’s ears. Soon it would be dressed and cooked and would be basking in the dining room surrounded by exotic fruits.
He wondered how his own corpse would look in such a display. The thought might have been laughable, if he were not a gladiator considering whether to defy a Roman governor. If he indulged Arria’s wish, there was a chance they would be discovered together and a distinct possibility of leaving this banquet with his head on a spike.
Not that he would mind. He would gladly give his head for one last night with her. It was her head for which he feared. It was much prettier and more intelligent than his, and she very much deserved to keep it.
He glanced at her now, standing tall beside her loom, bowing reverently. Her black clothing was meant to dissolve her into the shadows, but was having the opposite effect. She appeared elegant and stark behind the painted matrons, who clustered around the pool in their pinks and creams and blues, watching their own reflections. She hovered behind them like some dark, magnificent spirit. An ageless goddess among fatuous g
irls. A phoenix among peacocks.
He could not meet her in the garden.
The risk to her future was simply too great, no matter how much he ached to touch her one last time, to blanket her with his kisses. The thought of Arria stung by the governor’s lash ached worse.
Not that she could not endure such a fate. She had proven herself stronger than any woman he had ever known—Roman or otherwise. Labouring in the cold workshop without rest had not defeated her, nor had her beating, nor the knowledge that she faced ten long years of misery until her indenture was over.
He wondered what secret source of hope kept her going. It was as if she had been forged in fire, then polished by hardship and fate, and had somehow come out gleaming.
She was gleaming now in the torchlight. Her bowed head was tilted slightly, revealing the place where her neck met the back of her ear. It fascinated him, that shadowy borderland of flesh. He had failed to kiss her there in their night together and regretted it mightily. It had not been the only place he had failed to kiss.
He had tried to forget her. He had enumerated her faults in his mind: that she was Roman, that she could never be his, that every step he took towards her drew him further from the memory of his wife. It had been an exercise in frustration.
Everywhere was Arria. Arria with her hairpin. Arria touching his chest. Arria telling him that he could not die, as if simply saying the words would make them so. He wanted her too much to ever leave her and he loved her too much to ever stay.
Love. It was a strange word to come to mind, but its rightness warmed him like secret sunlight. He loved her and in another life he would have wooed her and wed her and worshipped her for the rest of his days. He loved her and he would do anything to keep her safe.
He could not meet her in the garden.
He could not put her at risk. If he did, then he was no better than the young, foolish man who’d put his own wife at risk so many years ago. The world was cruel and he needed to protect Arria from it—by protecting her from impossible wishes.
He could not meet her in the garden, not there in the shadows, where he could run his fingers over her face one last time, memorising its contours. He could not meet her and finally taste the skin of her neck or follow its long sinews to the other places he yearned to kiss. He could not meet her and caress her one last time, feel the weight of her breasts, to cradle them as he traced the taut field of her stomach and then down to the place where he knew she ached for him.
What had she said exactly? That being without him harmed her more than whatever harm could come of being with him. A clever turn of phrase. A handy argument. She had no idea the danger she invited by harbouring such a belief.
Though the idea was not senseless. He had clung to the memory of his wife for years because it was the only thing that brought him joy. If one did not find a source of joy, then the hours became endless and forgettable, like a vast, scorched field. Was that not what life was? Moments of joy and pain connected by miles of forgetting? The key was to focus on the joy, was it not?
Meet me in the garden, she had said.
‘Goddess of Earth, Keeper of the Family, Vesta the Pure...’
Later that evening, the Honourable Nerva Traiania Secunda would meet the gladiator they called the Dalmatian Dragon in her private chamber and whisper sweet things in his ear.
‘Vesta the Clear, Vesta the Clean, Vesta the Chaste...’
Later that evening, many of the white-robed men currently lost in prayer would do much the same, stealing away with the lovely young dancers already assembled at the edges of the room.
‘Virgin Mother, Keeper of the Flame...’
Virgin mother? How was that possible? By the gods, the Romans were strange.
Though Cal could not judge them too harshly, for soon he would be among them. Later that evening, he, too, would be sneaking in the shadows, stealing a bit of life where he could get it.
A bit of Arria.
Meet me in the garden, she had commanded and all he could do was obey.
The last trickle of blood sizzled on to the flames and Vesta hissed her gratitude. Freedom was more important than safety—that’s what she had told him. What she had really meant was that desire was more powerful than doubt. And love? Love, he feared, was the most powerful of all.
* * *
Would he come? She could not be certain. He had been so hesitant to agree to her request. Did he desire her still? That was the real question—one whose answer she could not divine. When he had called her the most beautiful woman in the world, he had stolen her very breath. Now as she passed another hour shivering amidst the ferns, she was beginning to think that he might not have meant it.
You are the most beautiful woman in the world, but...
She was not so inexperienced that she did not recognise a placation. Was that not what Zeus told Hera when she caught him with the lovely Io?
‘You are the most beautiful woman in the world, dear Hera. And this woman? She is but a cow!’
There were many such divine ‘cows’ at this banquet: splendid patrician goddesses who painted malachite on their eyes and dabbed wine dregs on their lips. They sought to conquer gladiators like Roman soldiers sought to conquer soil. They were probably circling him right now, jockeying for position around their magnificent divine bull.
Arria pressed her back against an old oak and stared up at the sky. He had to come. He was her pigeon after all. He had kissed her on the lips, had called her by her name. Had wanted her. But she had been waiting in this garden so long now that she had begun to grow roots.
And if he did not come, what then? Would she simply go on? Spend her days working diligently at her loom—warm, well fed and grateful for the life she had been given?
She knew that she could not. He had given her a taste of what it meant really to live and she knew she would not rest until she got herself free.
She believed her chance was coming soon. That evening after the Vestal prayer, the governor had announced that he had received communication from his brother-in-law, the bellicose Emperor Trajan. The new emperor would be paying a visit to Ephesus as part of his tour of the provinces. He would arrive in time to preside over the Festival of Artemis, including the gladiatorial bouts scheduled for the opening day.
Hosting the Emperor would be a great honour and a staggering responsibility. His large military escort would need to be provisioned and its officers wined and dined. There would be chaos—wild, wonderful chaos—and in it, Arria vowed to find a way out.
Arria heard voices somewhere close. Panicked, she scrambled up the trunk of the oak as a man and woman passed beneath its branches, then quietly moved on.
Arria had hardly begun to breathe again when a silent figure stepped near, the moonlight shining on his smooth round head.
‘Cal?’
‘Arria? Where are you?’
She edged down the tree trunk, taking the last few cubits in a jump.
‘You must be a goddess,’ he whispered, shaking his head and catching her by the waist. ‘You are always falling out of the sky.’
‘I do not always fall out of the sky.’ She pouted, joy flooding her heart. ‘Sometimes I emerge from watery places, like urns for example.’
‘That you do,’ he said, his voice husky. ‘You are my Venus from the foam.’
She conjured a clever reply, but when she opened her mouth to make it she discovered his lips on hers. And then he was kissing her hungrily, his breath hot, his hands stealing over her body like thieves.
It was everything she wanted, everything she had dreamed of since last they met, and all the threads of herself seemed to curl into perfect knots and the world seemed bright, despite the darkness, familiar, despite the strangeness, and somehow complete.
‘I feared you had abandoned me.’
‘As long as I live, I will not abandon you,�
�� whispered Cal.
‘You must always live, for you are my pigeon.’
‘Your what?’
‘My hope, my wings.’
‘And you are the home towards which I fly,’ he said.
There was no light by which to see, but as they kissed, she remembered him. Not in the simple ways one person remembered another—not just the shape of his body, the scent of his breath, the tenor of his voice. This was a deeper, more elemental remembering. Like the memory of fresh air, or sunshine, or laughter. She remembered him like she remembered happiness.
He kissed her more fiercely, his tongue growing bolder, plundering her mouth, taking what it wished.
‘Do you see what you have done to me?’ he asked.
Did he not know what he had done to her? Heat radiated through her body, along with a relentless, bubbling joy. It was as if she were a pot of barley mash and he the dancing flames beneath it.
He squeezed her closer, crushing her breasts against his chest and curling himself around her. ‘I fear this moment’s end,’ he said. ‘I fear that I may never see you again.’
‘Then our fears are the same,’ said Arria. ‘But let us seize our happiness now, for it strikes where it pleases.’
‘You are a sorceress,’ he intoned. He was kissing her behind her ear—soft, wicked kisses that were melting her bones.
‘How do you expect me to stand when you are doing such a thing?’ she whispered.
‘I do not expect you to stand at all,’ he answered, then whisked her up into his arms.
‘Cal!’
‘Shush, my sweet,’ he said, cradling her like a babe, ‘lest they come after us with their golden goblets.’
‘Am I not heavy?’
‘You are exactly the same weight as the lightest boulder I ever hewed from the Quarry of Luna,’ he said and she could almost see his wry smile. She gave his arm a playful punch, then nuzzled against his chest. He smelled of wine and incense, and that delicious, dusty maleness that was all his own.
‘Did anyone see you leave?’ she asked.
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