by Martha Marks
“Don’t gawk!” Otho snapped at Marcipor. “Pour her some wine.”
Theodosia started at the sudden harshness in his voice. Marcipor’s hand trembled, she noticed, as he obeyed.
“First, a toast.” Soft-toned again, Otho raised his cup and looked her up and down. “To as lovely a woman as I’ve ever seen, in or out of Caesar’s court.”
Theodosia felt another surge of fire. Otho’s eyes lingered on her breasts, as if the searing blushes had burned away her stola and tunic. Speechless, she shook her head.
“You don’t believe me?” Otho said with overly dramatized shock. “Tell you what... we’ll ask that Greek.” He shifted his eyes to Alexander. “What have you to say on the subject, Greek?”
It wasn’t a question, but a command.
Theodosia caught a momentary flash of dismay on Alexander’s face. It would be impudent for a slave to praise his mistress’ physical charms to her face, and equally impudent for him to denigrate them. Yet he was required to obey the order.
“Come now, Greek, speak up!”
Alexander mumbled something inaudible.
“Never knew the fellow to be so shy. Hmmm. Maybe he’s taken a fancy to you himself.” Otho chortled loudly. “Shame on you, Greek! Such a hot-blooded fellow!” He looked at Theodosia. “Well, trust my judgment. I’m famous for my taste in women.”
“I thought you were famous for your courage in battle.” She was relieved to turn the conversation away from herself.
“I’m famous for both.”
“Does your refined taste extend to anything other than women?”
“Horses. Sculpture. Slaves.” Otho wagged a finger in Marcipor’s direction. “Take this boy, for example. Father gave him to me when we were ten... because I asked for him. An excellent choice, as I’m sure you’ll agree. What was it they were calling you back then, boy?”
“Phaon, my lord.”
“Silly Greek name. So, when he became my boy, I changed it to Marcipor. A more appropriate Roman name.” Otho scrutinized the slave. “I’ve often been sorry I gave my boy to Gaius. Wouldn’t mind owning him again some day. Is he working hard enough to suit you?”
Ostensibly, Otho was addressing Theodosia, but his eyes never left Marcipor’s face, and his voice carried a teasing familiarity that could only be directed at the slave he was raised with.
Marcipor studied the floor as Otho regarded him with the cool superiority of an aristocrat comfortable with his power.
This doesn’t look like the relationship between a slave and the master that—how did Lucilla put it?—Marcipor hated to leave.
“Is my boy working hard enough to suit you?” Otho repeated, shifting his eyes to Theodosia.
“I find his work satisfactory.”
“Well, that’s good to know!” Otho’s voice bubbled with sudden mirth. “And you, boy, what have you to say about your new mistress? Has she had occasion to beat you yet?”
“She is a kind mistress, my lord.” Marcipor looked directly at Otho. “And no, sir, she has not yet had me beaten.”
<><><>
At dinner that night, Theodosia found Otho charming once again. The uncharacteristic meanness that he had displayed in the pergola had vanished. It was fun to have company, and Otho’s presence drove unpleasant memories of the day’s activities from her mind.
“Why in blazes did you go to the farm?” Otho asked as Selicio served him seconds of the roast lamb.
“To see it. It does belong to me, after all.”
“Our dear Gaius never put himself to so much trouble. Had you warned Nizzo you were coming?”
“No. I surprised him the same way you surprised me this afternoon. Have you ever met Nizzo?”
“He came to report to Gaius occasionally while I was here, but I doubt he even knows who I am.”
<><><>
After dinner, Theodosia and Otho strolled to the pergola. The wind had picked up since afternoon. Now it whipped across the rocks, lifting her hair, swaying the trees, and spraying everything with a salty mist. Juno the moon had chosen to go elsewhere tonight.
Theodosia stepped to the wall, looked down at the hard-pounding surf, and inhaled the pungent smell of fish.
Otho wrapped an arm around her waist and bent to her ear.
“Don’t you know it’s dangerous to be out with a lustful lad like me?”
“Lustful lads don’t frighten me. Life in the Subura isn’t for the timid, you know.”
“So, if lustful lads like me don’t frighten you... what about this lustful menagerie that Gaius collected out here?”
“If my slaves are lustful, they do a superb job of hiding it from me.”
“For now. This is—what—your fourth day here? I wonder how you can sleep at night with all these oversexed fellows hanging around. And not kept under lock and key either, as they should be.”
“I sleep quite well. But what makes you think all the men here are oversexed?”
“That’s what Gaius bought them for.”
“Not Alexander!”
“Well, no. Gaius bought him to manage his business. But he’s probably the only one Gaius wasn’t buggering. If his boys weren’t inclined to it naturally, he trained them himself.”
“He trained them?”
“With a stick. Or a whip. Or both.”
“To make them—” Her voice cracked as she pulled away from him. “Gods, Otho, I knew Gaius was abusive, but I... Gods, that’s awful!”
“No, that’s life... for a slave. Anyway, the practice came from Greece. Our Greek boys were the ones who taught it to us, so they can’t complain much now, can they?”
“Well, it’s perfectly fine if they want to do that, but to force them...”
Gaius was even more repulsive than I thought. No wonder somebody wanted him dead.
“What about Marcipor?” she asked.
“That’s what Gaius wanted him for.”
“Was he ‘inclined to it naturally,’ as you put it?”
“Marcipor? Hell, no! He couldn’t keep his eyes—or his hands—off a girl in my father’s household.”
“You knew that, and still you gave him to Gaius?”
“Of course. I’m generous to my friends.”
Theodosia curled her fingers around a vine and gave it a shake.
Did he force Stefan? Little Lycos?
Alexander’s words came back to her in the wind.
“Have you ever loved someone you were powerless to protect?”
Another shake on the vine.
And what was it Stefan said? “Alexander’s no killer, but even if he were, he wouldn’t kill you.” Blessed gods, I think Alexander did kill Gaius, to protect Lycos. And I don’t care a bit if he did.
Otho wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her hair.
“Sweet, innocent Theodosia. Weren’t you curious why Gaius sold all those women your father kept around the place? And speaking of Aulus Terentius Varro... now there was a notoriously lustful lad. Especially when it came to buying—and forcing—voluptuous slave girls!”
“Don’t talk about my father like that!”
Father forced the slave girls?
She extricated herself again and dropped into a chair.
“Alexander told me that Gaius sold off all the women because he didn’t want servants who’d known him his whole life.”
“Don’t you remember what I told you a few days ago? You can’t believe a thing that Greek says. He’ll lie to you every time.”
“I don’t think he meant it as a lie. He was trying to shield me from something even more unpleasant.”
“Don’t be a fool! He doesn’t give a damn about you. He hates Romans. He’d like nothing more than to see you as dead as Gaius.” Otho sat down beside her. “I’m worried about you, Theodosia. You’re much too trusting... jaunting off to the farm with him. Ever think what he might do to you out there in the woods?”
“I came back safely, didn’t I?”
“Today, yes, but tomorrow?
Gaius was reckless, too, and look what happened to him.”
“I don’t care what happened to Gaius.”
What a relief to say that!
“He was vile,” she said. “He deserved to die.”
“I told you, I saw that Greek in Rome the day Gaius was murdered. I talked to him.”
“Alexander admits he was there but denies seeing you.”
“That’s another lie.”
“He says he was back here by midnight. I believe him, Otho.”
“Then you are just as much a fool as Gaius was, and you’ll soon be just as dead.” Otho’s eyes narrowed. “Turn that Greek over to me. I have friends among the guards at the Carcer Tullianus. The professionals there will put him to the question. They’ll get the truth.”
“You think I’d let them torture the most valuable slave I own?”
“He should’ve gone on the rack after Gaius died. I’d like to know why that didn’t happen.”
“Enough of this!” Theodosia felt lighter, released from her fear.
Gaius died because he was twisted and cruel, like a viper. I’ll live because I deal humanely with my slaves.
“I’ve got a question for you,” she said to change the subject. “If you’re such a lustful lad, why aren’t you married yet?”
“Oh, I will be soon if my old man gets his way. Says he’ll disinherit me if I don’t wed General Aemilius’ daughter. Aemilia’s thirteen and flat as a floor, but her old man is Father’s best friend, so I’m to marry her.”
Theodosia stood and returned to the wall overlooking the sea. Otho followed, slipped an arm around her shoulder, and took her hand.
“I’ve told Father I won’t have her. Told him that a year ago, after Gaius and I ran into you on the street. Remember that? ‘Theodosia Varro,’ I said to Father that very day, ‘is the only wife for me.’”
Theodosia shook her head in disbelief.
“When I was just Gaius’ paupered half-sister?”
“Pauper or not, it was a beautiful woman I saw that day.”
And he planted his lips on hers.
<><><>
The kitchen was a bi-colored patchwork of chaos as a score of green-clad slaves belonging to Tribune Marcus Salvius Otho crowded around the tables, eating dinner with the brown-clad Varro servants. Their voices were subdued. No one wanted to disturb the tribune, who considered silence one of the cardinal virtues in a slave.
Alexander came in later than the others, having taken a bath to get rid of the farm grit and spent an hour alone in his room.
Otho’s got marriage on his miserable mind.
It was all he could think of tonight.
He filled a bowl with stew from the kettle, took a chunk of black bread, and poured a cup of the sour wine that was the slaves’ standard beverage. Dodging a few stout fellows in green, he picked his way through the crowd, inhaling the fragrant steam rising from his bowl. Rabbit stew would never replace the herbed roast lamb on Theodosia Varro’s table, but it was a far cry from the verminous pottage that Nizzo’s laborers were forced to eat.
He spotted Stefan, Lucilla, and Marcipor sitting with Calchas, the tribune’s body servant. Marcipor and Calchas were old friends from Senator Salvius Otho’s household. Calchas was another Greek... a quiet, nervous fellow, as were all those who served the same master. Right now, he was whispering across the table, as if afraid his voice would carry to the pergola.
Stefan slid closer to Lucilla to make room for Alexander. Lucilla slipped her hand through his elbow and snuggled up to him.
“He’s been preparing for this visit for two weeks,” Calchas was saying under his breath. “I’ve never seen him so picky about his clothes.”
“You can see he’s determined to have her,” Marcipor said. “What’ll his father say?”
“Threaten to disinherit him, like he always does.”
Stefan laughed loudly, then ducked his head as the others shushed him. Despite the reprimand, a grin spread across his face.
“That won’t matter if he marries Theodosia Varro!”
“You won’t be laughing if he does.” Alexander tore his bread in half. “We’ll all be right back where we were before.”
“Well,” Lucilla said, rubbing her fingers up and down Stefan’s arm, “I think it’d be great if she married the tribune.”
“Then you’re mad!” Alexander dug a spoon into his stew.
“No, I ain’t mad. I’m thinking about her, which is more than you can say. All you’re worrying about is who’s going to be your next master.”
“Maybe that’s something you should worry about, too.”
“Hey, I’m the one who attends our mistress every night, sees how lonely she is. It ain’t right for a young lady to be living out here with nobody but us. She needs friends, and we can’t never be that to her.”
“I can think of a couple dozen other patrician men I’d rather see be her friends... or her husband. For her sake, as well as ours.”
“Well, I can’t see much difference in any of the rich Romans I know.” Lucilla squeezed Stefan’s arm and smiled into his eyes. “They all think they’re gods, don’t they?”
Calchas gave a soft, resigned chuckle.
“Far as we’re concerned, I guess they are.”
“Far as you’re concerned, you mean,” Alexander said.
“Far as my master’s concerned, I mean,” Calchas said, “and I’m sure as hell not going to be the one to tell him otherwise.”
<><><>
Theodosia leaped out of bed as a massive thunderstorm slammed full force into her villa. The room flashed with yellow-white light as a torrent of water blasted across the open western balcony. The walls that for a hundred years had defied Neptune’s fury shuddered in trepidation.
“Get back in bed, miss,” Lucilla said as she ran out of her bedroom. “You’ll be sick for the general’s party!”
Lucilla got drenched struggling with the shutters.
Theodosia sent her to dry off, then pulled up her blanket and snuggled in to muse about the disturbing green-eyed tribune in the bedroom down the hall. After a while, she drifted back to sleep, dreaming of making love in this bed, in this storm, to Marcus Salvius Otho.
<><><>
They ate breakfast in a recess off the peristyle as a cold rain battered the roof and splashed through the terra cotta downspouts into the cisterns. Despite the heavier stola that Theodosia had put on this morning, she shivered several times. Finally, Otho wrapped his arm around her.
“Better?”
Theodosia nodded and leaned into him, welcoming the warmth of his body. She sat up straight later as a houseboy, his hair and tunic soaked, came scurrying through the colonnade, plainly perplexed as to why Alexander considered the arrival of a wagonload of slaves from the farm important enough to interrupt the mistress and her guest.
“You really are a fool,” Otho said after Theodosia had told him the story. “Poor Nizzo, having to work for a woman.”
“‘Poor Nizzo’ tried to buy the farm from me.”
“Thinking of selling it to him?”
“Not even the tiniest parcel.”
“Why not?” He kissed the top of her head and gently pulled her toward him. “I’d sell, if I were in your shoes. Keep this old villa as your hideaway, then come to Rome with me and live like a lady.”
“But how would the slaves out there fare if someone didn’t hold that brute accountable?”
“They survived when Gaius was alive, and he never laid eyes on them. Only a woman would think the way you do.”
“You sound like Alexander, except he puts it more tactfully.”
“First time that Greek ever told the truth about anything.”
<><><>
Otho ordered out his entourage at midday, when the rain subsided. A fine mist hung below the still-threatening sky as Theodosia accompanied him to his horse. Suddenly—right in the middle of a cluster of slaves—he seized her shoulders and pulled her close. His hands slid to her
waist and hips as he bent and gave her a long, passionate kiss.
The heat of a hundred fires shot up from Theodosia’s neck. She tried to push him away, but Otho was too strong.
When he finally released her, she stepped back and looked around. Old Jason, Stefan, Alexander, Lucilla, Marcipor, a trio of other houseboys, and all of Otho’s green-clad men stood watching. He could have bid her farewell inside the house, or in a less embarrassing way.
Theodosia started to remonstrate, but Otho’s sly grin stopped her.
Damn the man! An audience was exactly what he wanted.
Chapter Eleven
Neptune tossed his trident about the heavens all afternoon, bellowing in rage—as Lucilla put it—at not being invited to Vespasian’s party. Theodosia laughed, but she also kept an eye on the brooding storm.
When Theodosia emerged from her bath, Lucilla dried her and smoothed a rich cream over her skin. Then she combed her hair and pinned it into the loose curls that her mistress liked. With Lucilla’s help, Theodosia slipped into a gold-colored linen tunic, then into the stola that Lucilla had fashioned of Sordus’ deep-green silk, and finally into an elegant matching palla and sash, both edged with gold braid.
“You’ll be prettier than anyone at court, miss, like the tribune said.”
“How’d you know he said that?”
“Word travels. Are you going to marry him? He sure is handsome!”
“Well, don’t get any ideas. Stick to your own kind.”
“You still say I can have anybody I want at the villa?”
“Of course,” Theodosia said absentmindedly as a deafening crack announced the arrival of yet another thunderhead. “Now... fetch my new sandals, perfume, and the jewelry.”
Theodosia had asked Alexander to dig into her strongbox and find jewels appropriate for the green silk. He had selected an heirloom necklace of emeralds and gold and a matching pair of looped earrings that dangled provocatively over her shoulders.