by Martha Marks
“How bad’s the damage?”
“Bad. The barracks are flooded.”
“Where’s everyone now?”
“The injured men are in a storage room. We made them as comfortable as possible.”
“And the others?”
“I sent them to the barn, though I’m afraid the roof may not hold. It’s leaking in several spots.”
“Why didn’t you bring them into the house?”
“That’s always been forbidden, miss.”
“Well, it isn’t now, and you should know that. Go get them!”
<><><>
Soon Alexander returned, leading a dripping group into the atrium. About half of the slaves had followed him.
“I can’t get the others out. That woman,” his voice was taut, “the one from the farm. ‘Etrusca’ she calls herself. She’s been haranguing them about demons from the sea. Now they’re afraid to leave the barn.”
“Tell them I insist.”
“Sorry, miss, but I tried that.” Alexander sounded weary. “They don’t even hear me. She’s got them in some sort of trance.”
“Then I’ll go. No!” she said as he began to protest. “You just find places for the ones who came. Anywhere but upstairs or in the library.”
She took his hooded cloak, pulled it over her head and shoulders, and set out for the barn some ninety steps from the peristyle. Lightning provided perfect illumination. So buffeted that she feared she might unwittingly imitate Icarus and take flight, she gripped the flapping cloak at her neck and above her knees and bent into the gale.
“This isn’t the Roman way of doing things,” she muttered to herself, with a curse for the irate god hurling fire bolts over her head.
But even as she sloshed through the muck on her way to do battle with the sea-demons of a slave’s imagination, she couldn’t help smiling.
Wouldn’t Annia love to see me now?
The barn doors were open. Wading through ankle-deep water, she found several dozen terrified slaves in the rear. Streams of water poured through sagging timbers. She saw lightning through the roof.
The woman from the farm was crouched near the outside wall, her thin, battered arms raised toward the sky, her puffy eyes shut as she held forth in a high-pitched wail that Theodosia didn’t try to understand. The others seemed oblivious to anything but Etrusca’s howls.
“Get up!” Theodosia shouted over the din of creaking timbers, splashing water, thunder, whinnies, wails, and moans. “Get up this instant!”
Realizing that the only solution was to force Etrusca outside and on to the villa, Theodosia pushed through the crowd, took her hands, and tried to tug her to her feet.
Toughened by a lifetime of labor, Etrusca resisted without obvious effort.
Theodosia grabbed her emaciated shoulders and shook her. At last, the woman opened her eyes and fixed them, wide and wild, on Theodosia’s face. Senseless words continued to tumble from her mouth.
“Be quiet!” Theodosia commanded, desperate to get out before the roof gave way over their heads. She shook Etrusca again. “On your feet! You’re going to the house!”
She discovered that night how quickly frustration and fear can outwit self-control. Cold, wet, and afraid, she seized Etrusca’s lacerated wrists and yanked them repeatedly, without success. Furious at her own failure, she drew back her hand and slapped the hysterical slave in the face. Then—horrified at having done what she loathed in others—she made a quick decision to abandon Etrusca and all the others and return to the house alone.
The slap, however, had its effect. Etrusca stopped wailing and stared at Theodosia… almost as if she recognized her. Her eyes blinked several times. Her mouth closed.
Changing tactics, Theodosia wrapped an arm around the woman’s shoulder, reached out with the other hand to help her stand, and began talking softly of the comfort and safety to be found a few steps away.
They were halfway to the barn door when Alexander came in.
“Make sure the others follow,” Theodosia said to him.
All was going well until they stepped outside. Etrusca slowed, eyed the sky with the same wild look as before, and began to wail again. Theodosia tightened her grip, determined to press on. A few steps later, a massive flash split the darkness. Etrusca screamed, jerked free, and raced back toward the door, where Alexander caught her.
“Knock her out if you have to,” Theodosia called to him over the thunder, “but get her to the house. I’ll see to the others.”
Working her way in and out, barking orders like a centurion in battle, she herded the crowd of terrified slaves through the storm to her villa.
Marcipor was waiting for her with a blanket. Tossing the sopping-wet cloak she was wearing onto the floor, he bundled her into the dry wrap. Lucilla brought a towel for her hair.
The marble floor was slick with water as the atrium and the dining room—and even the alcove dedicated to the household gods—filled up with dripping bodies. In the wind that howled through the atrium, Theodosia heard her ancestors protest the desecration of their sacred space.
She was about to go upstairs to change when an agonized cry rose from the other side of the center pool. Etrusca raced toward the peristyle as the man from the farm sprinted to stop her.
A few moments later, Theodosia reached the struggling pair.
“What’s the matter now?”
“My baaaaaaaabyyyyyyyy!” the woman wailed.
The eyes that had won Theodosia’s mercy as they stared at her from Nizzo’s scaffold now pleaded with her for still more compassion.
“What’s wrong?” Theodosia said again, her voice much less harsh.
“Our girl ain’t nowhere here,” the man said as he clung to Etrusca. “She got left in the barn!”
Etrusca was still screeching, trying to break free.
“I’ll go see if I can find her,” Alexander said.
“No!” Etrusca cried. “I go!”
“No!” Theodosia again traded her blanket for Alexander’s cloak. “I’ll go look for her.”
Alexander started to object, but Theodosia cut him off.
“Don’t argue! I caused this mess, it seems, so I’ll fix it.” She flung the cloak over her head. “You’re not the only one who’s had a tough time tonight.”
Turning away, she confronted the man from the farm.
“What’s your name?”
“Nicanor, mistress.” The slave made an awkward attempt to bow while keeping his grip on Etrusca.
“Nicanor, listen to me. I’ll find your baby, but you must quiet this woman and keep her quiet. There’ll be no place in my household for her if she can’t control herself.”
Theodosia retraced her steps to the barn as what was left of her delicate sandals disintegrated in the mire of the driveway. Stefan had shut one of the doors and was struggling against the gale to close the second. He stared in astonishment as he recognized the face under the coarse woolen cloak. Then they both darted into the barn.
Dropping the hood to her shoulders, Theodosia plucked at the strands of hair plastered to her face. Water ran down her cheeks and dripped from her nose. Stefan had been soaked hours ago; now Theodosia was every bit as wet as he.
He shook his head.
“Gold. Silk. Emeralds. Mud. Bare feet. Slave’s cloak. Quite a sight!”
Theodosia smiled into his eyes.
“I dressed up just for you.”
Stefan held her gaze for so long that Theodosia began to wonder what might happen next. It was an oddly intimate moment.
A woman and her coachman...
Alone in the barn at night...
In a thunderstorm...
What would it be like to spend the night out here with him?
Shocked at herself, she dropped her eyes.
“I came to look for the child from the farm.”
Together they poked through the hay and into nooks filled with tools. The horses whinnied and shied away as they moved among them.
&nbs
p; After a while, Stefan found the child cowering in an overturned barrel in an empty stall.
Theodosia cuddled the girl to her chest and folded Alexander’s cloak over her. Unable to cover her head with the toddler in her arms, she submitted to the full blast of wind and rain as she emerged into the storm.
Stefan won his duel with the door and ran up beside her... two drenched refugees eager for sanctuary.
“There’s a blanket and a jug of good wine waiting for you inside,” Theodosia said. “You’ve earned them tonight.”
Etrusca sobbed when Theodosia put her daughter into her arms.
Acknowledging Nicanor’s thanks, Theodosia dropped the cloak to the floor once more, reclaimed her blanket, and shooed Lucilla upstairs to get some dry clothes out for her.
Having settled most of the other slaves in the dining room, Alexander was standing in the atrium with Stefan.
Theodosia stepped over beside them.
“You found places for everyone?” she asked her steward in a tone that forgave his previous petulance.
Clearly amused at the sight of a Roman heiress soaked to her skin, Alexander nodded. He was soaked now, too; the scar on his jaw glistened with the dampness. Theodosia smiled to herself, realizing that tonight she no longer felt even remotely afraid of him.
What do I care if he did kill Gaius? Under those circumstances, I would have killed him, too.
She pulled off her earrings, unfastened her necklace, and deposited them in Alexander’s hands.
“Put those away. Then... go pour a pitcher of Falernian, bring three goblets with you, and wait for me in the library. Tonight,” she said, deliberately paraphrasing his words of yesterday, “you are—both of you—my invited guests.”
Alexander and Stefan stared at her in disbelief. Slaves not did sit or take refreshment in their owner’s presence.
“In my own house,” she said, “I can break any rule I please.”
<><><>
Alexander stood up when Theodosia Varro entered the library.
Hard to believe that’s the woman who bedazzled us on the stairway.
The Varro heiress had put on a tunic that a housemaid might wear to mop the floor. Her still-wet hair was tied back with a ribbon.
“Ready for that wine?” She motioned to the ruby-serpent pitcher and cups that Alexander had placed on a table.
“Sounds like you’re ready, miss,” Stefan said.
“Yes, I am. I’m ready for some friendship, too.”
Stefan made no response. Neither did Alexander.
“Why can’t we be friends,” she demanded, “the three of us?”
“No reason at all,” Alexander said, “as long as you’re sure you know what you’re doing. You’ve already acted in a most un-Roman way tonight. Sure you want to continue the experiment?”
In reply, Theodosia filled all three goblets, handed one to each man, took the last for herself, and lifted it in toast.
“Here’s to a part of the experiment that I think I will enjoy very much. It can’t be any more disconcerting than dinner with my peers.”
She drank, but neither Stefan nor Alexander made a move.
“Look,” she said after a few moments, “I’ll not force you to stay here if you’d rather be with the others. I would appreciate it, though, if you’d stay and give this little experiment in friendship a chance to work.”
Alexander turned to Stefan and delivered a set of mock-patrician lines, aiming for the aplomb of the best actor in Rome.
“What about it, my friend? Shall we cancel our plan to hit the hot spots of Caere tonight? We can always go another time. Weather’s rather foul for traveling anyway, don’t you think?”
Theodosia and Stefan both laughed at that, and Alexander was glad he had found the right note to put them all at ease. Raising his cup to his lips, he took a sip. The sweet bouquet of rare white Falernian flooded his senses. He shut his eyes to savor the precious liquid that had always been saved for the Varros and their guests.
Since Alexander had the key to the wine-storage room, he could easily have taken some. But it was a matter of honor to him not to cheat. When he was free—he had been promising himself for eight years—he would buy a jug of top-quality wine to share with Antibe.
He opened his eyes and watched as Stefan tasted something other than vinegar wine for the first time in his life.
“What’s this?”
“Falernian,” said Alexander. “You’ve got a cup of the finest in your hand, my friend. Don’t spill it.”
Stefan nodded impudently in their mistress’ direction.
“Is this what she drinks every day?”
“No,” said Alexander. “It’s saved for special occasions... like this. But her everyday stuff isn’t bad either.” He glanced at Theodosia Varro to make sure she wasn’t offended by their blatant insolence. The grin on her face reassured him. “Not a bad life, eh?”
“I guess not.” Stefan sipped his wine. “If you can’t do no better.”
Still grinning, their mistress sat on the couch, kicked off both sandals, and tucked her feet under her tunic.
“There are two chairs,” she said, stating the obvious.
After a brief hesitation, Alexander sat. It was difficult to break the habits of slavery.
Stefan lowered himself into the other chair and remained quiet.
“You shouldn’t treat us this way, miss,” Alexander said after an interval. “It’s bound to make things harder for us tomorrow, back in the real world. Harder for you as well.”
“I can handle it.”
They sat quietly as rain pounded the windows and thunder rocked the house. Once again, it was Alexander who broke the silence.
“Didn’t you enjoy the party?”
“Not really. I felt out of place all evening.” She gave him a lopsided smile. “Probably the same way you two feel right now. It wasn’t the Flavians’ fault, though. They did their best to welcome me into their social circle. Do you know the wife of Publius Cornelius Sulla?”
“By sight. She’s a lovely woman.”
“Her slave girls grow lovely hair.”
Alexander laughed, knowing he was expected to, and glanced at Stefan, who looked puzzled.
He doesn’t get it.
“Care to tell us what happened?”
“It’s hard to explain. Annia was hostile from the instant we met, as if she came prepared to dislike me. I can’t imagine why.”
Alexander set his cup on the table.
“Want to hear my theory?”
“Sure.”
“Well... just think about her. She’s beautiful, and she knows it. Comes from a comfortable family that married her off to rich old Sulla before she was sixteen.”
“Just like Flavia, about to be married off to rich old Sergius Silus.”
“Exactly. So, there she is—with her nice house and her children and slaves—feeling satisfied with her life. Then she hears about you... younger, equally lovely, fantastically wealthy, and with the remarkable bonus of having complete control over your fortune and your fate. No one is going to force you to marry anybody, and you don’t need to snag a rich old man to be wealthy for the rest of your life.”
Theodosia Varro picked up the pitcher and poured more wine into all their cups, but she said nothing.
Alexander took another sip, then continued exploring his theory.
“And, of course, the lady Annia knows that you’ll soon have the cream of Roman nobility lined up at your door with marriage proposals. If you haven’t already,” he added pointedly.
“No. Not yet.”
“You will. Very soon.” He paused. “So you see, miss... old Sulla was the best deal she could get. But you...”
He gave her a chance to reply, but she just gazed at him, so he pushed into territory that he knew might be dangerous.
“There probably isn’t a well-born unmarried male in Rome who hasn’t spent the last two weeks weighing his chances with you. It’s only a matter of time
before they all show up. Let’s hope it’s not all at once!” He laughed at the chaotic potential scenario. “The process has started already, you know, and you’ve only been here five days. You could marry a prince and wind up as empress someday, if you set your sights that high. Is it so hard to imagine why someone like the wife of Sulla might be jealous?”
“Is that what you think, Alexander? That I’m out to parlay my name and inheritance into an ‘important’ marriage? Well, I’m not. But even if that were the case, would it make any difference to you?”
“None, except... well, certainly you realize that... I mean, surely you know this matter of your marriage is... it’s never...” Alexander floundered to a stop, waving his hands a bit and shaking his head.
How much should I say? She keeps asking for friendship. Don’t friends tell each other the truth?
He took a deep breath and plunged ahead.
“Truth is, we have as much at stake in your choice of a husband as you do. More, really. You’ll always have some degree of legal protection. We won’t. And while some men would make fair, reasonable masters, others definitely would not. So you see, miss, no matter how well you treat Stefan and me right now, we know we’ll soon have a new master. Can you blame us for wondering how he’ll react when he learns you’ve shared your wine and your friendship with two of your male slaves?”
“Do you want me to submit a list of candidates for your approval?”
“Of course not. And I really don’t think you’re looking for a title. My guess is you’ll choose a man whose company you enjoy. He needn’t even have much money, since you’ve got plenty of that.” Alexander sipped his wine. “I’m only telling you this so you’ll know what we’re thinking when a Tribune Marcus Salvius Otho comes calling.”
“Or a Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus the Younger,” Stefan said.
“Oh, Stefan... not Titus, surely!” Theodosia Varro laughed. “He’s so young and immature.”
“Mature enough for you to have to stand on tiptoe to kiss him goodbye tonight.”
The mistress ducked her head. Even by lamplight, Alexander could see that familiar flush creeping across her cheeks.