by Martha Marks
“Under torture? Both of them?”
“Of course.”
“You had your own slave tortured?”
Otho’s eyebrows rose in a display of offended integrity.
“I’ve never been squeamish when it came to justice.”
“There’s no justice in torturing a slave. You just keep it up till you get the confession you want or whatever other twisted information you’re looking for.”
“You question the emperor’s justice?” A heavy pause. “Be glad you were never questioned, Theodosia. It could have happened. Anyway, Manlius supervised the interrogations. He’s good at it, and thorough. Even Emperor Claudius was satisfied.”
Theodosia decided to try another approach.
“Marcipor said you grew up with Manlius, so you must know—”
“When have you spoken with Marcipor?”
“A bit earlier. In the kitchen.”
Otho slammed his palm on the arm of his couch.
“That boy talks too much. I’ll put a stop to it.”
Oh, Marcipor... forgive me!
“What did he say about Manlius and me?”
“Just that you were friends as children. Nothing else. You’ve no cause to punish Marcipor for that!”
“That’s for me to decide, isn’t it? He’s my boy now, not yours.” Otho gave her a malevolent smile and took another drink. “I didn’t see much of Manlius for a while. He was stationed in Greece for five years.”
“What part of Greece?” For some reason, she knew the answer.
“Corinth. He used to be first deputy to Junius Gallio, the governor. It never hurts to have an important father, you know. Gets you special posts and privileges.”
“Does this have anything to do with my case?”
“The governor decided to check on you, so he contacted his former subordinate, Manlius Aquila, in Rome.”
“Why?” For some reason, she knew the answer.
“You wrote and asked questions about an old criminal case. Something about that Greek who later ran away.”
So, that’s it. Trying to help Alexander, I ruined myself.
“Your claim of relationship to the previous governor made the current governor curious, because when he’d served under your father, Aulus Terentius Varro only had a son, and his wife had recently died. It didn’t take long for some elderly clerk to remember that—shortly after his wife’s death—Governor Terentius Varro bought a female slave who’d caught his eye in the market.”
“There’s no reason to assume that slave had anything to do with me.”
“He bought her ten months before you were born.”
Otho’s voice faded as Centurion Manlius’ words slipped into Theodosia’s memory.
“It may help to authenticate certain documents.” Gods, did my own ring condemn me?”
“You’re saying they found a bill of sale?”
She held her breath and waited for Otho’s answer.
“No... although they searched hard enough for one. But the staffer in Corinth was sure of his facts, and his description of the woman Varro bought in March matched the description of the woman he took to his villa that summer... who gave birth to you the next January.”
“But no written evidence from Greece?”
“Nothing. I understand they read every document in the Varro strongbox, hunting for that bill of sale.”
Beloved Juno, smile on Alexander and his family, wherever they are.
“But even if that woman was my mother, how could they be sure she was a slave when I was born? Maybe Father freed her before that.”
“They turned up plenty of testimony that he treated her as a slave from the moment she arrived at his villa to the hour of her death.”
“Who testified to that?”
“You can’t expect me to remember minute details from so long ago.”
“You remember everything else.”
Otho grinned, taunting her.
“Tell me, damn you!”
“Well, Nizzo for one.”
I knew I was right.
“Nizzo was most helpful throughout the investigation. And those old slaves they questioned after your arrest... they all agreed with him.”
“When did this begin to come out?”
“Early that December. I first heard what Nizzo was saying from Manlius a couple of weeks before Saturnalia.”
“Before you made that last trip to my villa?”
“I warned you that day, remember?”
“You threatened me.”
“I told you I could save you.”
“You tried to force me to marry you.”
“Yes, I did, although—looking at you now—it’s hard to imagine why.”
Theodosia turned her back then, wishing she didn’t hate Otho and Nizzo and Flavia and Servius Silus so much. That would make it easier to think clearly.
“So... what was this evidence you turned up that proved I didn’t murder Gaius?”
“Well, after Flavia convinced the emperor that you would provide amusing entertainment, I had to make Calchas confess he had lied that December.”
Theodosia’s mouth fell open.
“You had him tortured again?”
“Oh, it didn’t last long. He readily admitted he invented the whole thing about your hiring thugs to kill Gaius. Said your girl never made any such statement.”
“And that single slave’s recantation was enough to get me out?”
“It happened to coincide with His Majesty’s wishes.”
“You are despicable. I remember telling you I’d rather rot in prison than spend a single night in bed with you. Even now—knowing full well what that means—I would make exactly the same choice.”
She heard Otho rise. He strutted around, leering at her.
“Unfortunately, little Theo, you no longer have that option. You will sleep with me whenever I wish it. And I can hardly wait to hear you play for us this evening.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Theodosia shivered as Scopan led her into Nero’s private dining room. The one-shouldered, radish-red tunic they had forced her to wear was uncomfortable and only emphasized her pallor and gauntness. She clutched her cithara for moral support, wondering if she could manage to play anything at all.
The sight of another gilded room no longer impressed her, but the ostentatious number of servants in attendance on nine people made her jaw drop. Behind the three couches stood a waiter for every diner. Others moved about the room with enormous gold salvers, bowls, and pitchers. Still others stood at attention against the side walls... as if waiting to do something that someone else might somehow have forgotten.
The enormous, purple-clad figure of Nero shared the center couch with two women, one of whom Theodosia recognized as the Empress Octavia. Six other guests lounged on cushions that sculpted a purple arc around the table. In front of them, a troop of nearly naked dancers had reached the climax of an erotic dance.
Theodosia was trying to steady her nerves when the emperor gestured in her direction.
“Look what’s flown in to amuse us!” It was the over-enunciated effort of a man trying to sound sober. “Our little songbird from the Carcer Tullianus!”
Scopan propelled Theodosia into the clearing as the dancers swept around them toward the door.
“Bow before His Majesty,” the freedman said.
Theodosia gripped Scopan’s arm and managed a wobbly obeisance.
Otho was lying at the upper end of the right couch. Theodosia couldn’t focus her eyes; all she saw in the blur was his smirking face.
Only after she had lowered herself to the cushion that a slave had set on the floor—with her inflexible left leg sticking out to the side—did she take in the complete scene on the center couch.
Dressed all in white, the Empress Octavia was toying with the remnants of her dinner, looking bored. Theodosia’s eyes shifted to the other woman sharing the emperor’s couch.
There—between Nero and Otho—lay th
e loveliest human being she had ever seen. The young woman was fair, with delicate eyebrows and spidery hair spilling over the intricately beaded gold bands wrapped around her head. Dangling from her ears were enormous pearls encased in gold filament. The diaphanous yellow silk of her stola drifted about her as she lay on the purple cushion. It was a while before Theodosia recognized Poppaea Sabina, whose curiosity about Stefan had caused so much trouble at that ladies-only dinner party years earlier.
What was it Marcipor once said? That Otho was—what word did he use?—“smitten” with Poppaea Sabina.
So, here she was... a yellow flower set in an imperial purple vase.
Poppaea had been eyeing Theodosia. Now she reached over to caress Otho’s arm.
“This is the one you’re sponsoring in the competition?”
Otho nodded and lifted her hand to his lips.
“She looks dreadful!” Poppaea’s silk fluttered as she stroked his cheek. “Does she play well?”
“That’s for you ladies to decide,” Nero mumbled. “If you like her, we’ll have to...” His sentence faded into incomprehensibility.
“What if we don’t like her?” Poppaea said.
“Oooooh, you will! She does things nobody else can do.”
Theodosia’s head jerked around as her throat contracted.
This is more than I can bear!
For there lay Flavia—a fluff of pink on the left couch—between Lucius Sergius Silus and a man Theodosia didn’t know.
“But suppose we don’t?” Poppaea sounded petulant.
Nero shifted his bulky body to address her.
“Then we’ll have to decide what else to do with her.”
“Singing’s all she’s good for,” Otho said, “unless you consider warming a stable hand’s straw a useful occupation.” He snapped his fingers in Theodosia’s direction. “Come on, girl. What are you waiting for?”
At first, it was terrible. Hot with humiliation, Theodosia kept her eyes lowered, not wanting to see how her audience responded. She began with the old Greek ballads, added some lyric verses, and ended with her interpretation of an ode that had been popular in Emperor Claudius’ court right before she went to prison. Silently thanking the gods for music—which always had the power to erase her surroundings—she soon felt as if she were playing and singing for herself alone.
“Is that really the Varro imposter?” Poppaea asked when Theodosia had finished. “I met her once, but this woman looks so much older!”
“She does have talent,” said the man beside Flavia. “Those Greeks are something else, aren’t they?”
“Come here, girl,” said a blonde woman in pale blue lying beside Otho.
Theodosia laid her cithara on the floor, rose with difficulty, and made her way to the right couch. Only up close did the obvious falseness of the woman’s wig identify her as Annia, the wife of Cornelius Sulla.
“Oh, my… I hardly recognized her.” Annia’s voice was syrupy. “What an immense come down!”
Meanwhile Sulla, on the other side of his wife, lifted the hem of Theodosia’s tunic to inspect her twisted left knee.
“However did the poor thing learn to walk again?”
Why don’t you just ask me?
But she knew it would never occur to an old-guard patrician to ask such a human question of a slave.
Just when she thought the emperor was going to dismiss her, Theodosia heard Flavia’s voice once more. For the first time, she looked at her former friend. Flavia held her glance briefly... an odd expression in her eyes. Then she turned to Nero.
“But that’s not enough, Sire! You promised you’d select a poem.”
Theodosia wanted to bash Flavia’s delicate nose, bloody her pretty pink stola.
Gods, how I hate her! I hate them all!
“Yes, yes, select a poem.”
Nero waggled a finger at the slave standing behind him. The man hurried out of the room.
“Poor little Theo.” It was Otho, oozing false sympathy. “She must be worn out by now.”
“You would have her stop?” the emperor asked.
“Oh, no!” Poppaea rubbed a hand up and down Nero’s arm. “We must decide if she’s worthy of the big competition.”
So, Theodosia returned to her place on the floor. Soon the slave arrived with an armload of scrolls. Nero made a show of shutting his eyes and blindly selected a scroll. Then he unrolled the parchment and randomly pointed to a spot on the page. The slave delivered it to Theodosia, his finger carefully fixed at the same location.
It was a Latin ode by Horace... one she had never seen before. She skimmed the poem, then raised her eyes to Nero and announced the title before she began to sing. The melody came with surprising ease, the notes bubbling up from some fountain deep within her. This was what she always did best—although it had been years since she’d tried it—and suddenly she relaxed.
She found a pair of lines with which to construct a chorus and spun out an intricate pattern around them, harking back in increasingly elaborate echoes to the rhythm of her chorus. And by the time she drew out the last note and strummed her final chord, Theodosia was sure she had won a chance to compete at Nero’s banquet.
The only thing she didn’t know was whether that was a reason to laugh or cry.
<><><>
“Theodosia.”
She was making her way to the kitchen when the whisper spun her around. A fluff of pink slipped into the circle of light under a wall sconce.
She’s beautiful, damn her. And she’s got it all now.
Married to a rich and influential man...
Savoring her position in the emperor’s court...
Living in Theodosia’s home...
Conversation with Flavia was the last thing Theodosia wanted. Without a word, she resumed her lopsided walk down the passageway.
“Theodosia!”
Theodosia stopped and turned around again.
“Why don’t you just snap your fingers? Little Theo always obeys.”
“My dear, don’t talk like that to me!” Flavia hurried forward and pulled her into an alcove. “Gods, they’ve hurt you so! Listen... I’m trying help you.”
“Sure, you’ll help me, won’t you?” Theodosia was barely able to speak for the rage she felt. “Just like you helped yourself to my villa.”
“Oh, no... you don’t understand! I wouldn’t have—”
“You would! You’d have done anything to live there. You said so over and over. Don’t think I don’t remember.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understa—”
“Well, it’s yours now, so what more do you want of me? Haven’t I lost enough? Suffered enough? Been humiliated enough? Do you have to rub my nose in it?”
“Oh, my dear, you’ve got to listen! They’ll come looking for me any moment now. This competition is your chance.” Flavia’s voice was already low, but she dropped it to a bare whisper. “Someone’s going to be there! It’s too dangerous to say the name, but—”
“I don’t care who’s going to be there.” Theodosia was determined not to let Flavia hurt her further. “And I don’t know why you’re doing this to me.” Then—stunned as a couple of pieces of the puzzle came together—she raised her cithara. “You found this in my villa and had it smuggled into the Carcer Tullianus.”
Flavia nodded... so round and soft and refined in her pink silk stola. Theodosia felt so scrawny and coarse and cheap in her radish-red tunic.
“Can’t you see why?” Flavia asked. “Don’t you understand now?”
“Of course!”
I’ll find a way to get my villa back from you.
“Go ahead and enjoy my humiliation, Flavia, but don’t expect me to contribute any more to your amusement than I have to.”
Flavia’s forehead wrinkled, but before she could respond, Theodosia turned and walked out on her.
<><><>
The sun’s first rays penetrated a crack at the edge of the tiled roof. Theodosia stretched one arm up to to
uch the cheery finger of light on the wall above her head.
She had lain awake all night, her first night out of the Carcer Tullianus, listening with amazed pleasure to the grunts and snores of the two hundred-odd women in the stuffy attic. It was a relief to be surrounded by other human beings, whatever their social status or degree of cordiality.
And they definitely had not been cordial last night when the sharp-spoken freedwoman who ruled the women’s barracks led Theodosia to the bed assigned to her. The pockmarked scullery maid in the next bunk stared with open hostility and turned her back when Theodosia smiled at her. She had expected curiosity—they were bound to know who she was—but this antagonism baffled her. Eyes followed each clumsy step she took, yet no one said a word to her. They held themselves apart as if Theodosia still belonged to the master caste.
But none of that mattered. She stretched again, relishing the straw mattress and the sense of freedom. Never mind that technically she was a slave. Release from prison was the first step toward true liberty.
According to Scopan, the emperor would dine elsewhere tonight, so Theodosia would not be called this evening. She had been told to practice all day and tomorrow, too, for tomorrow night’s competition. But she had other plans for some of that precious time. For a couple of days, at least, she would be relatively free of constraint.
Who knows how long that will last? Better take full advantage of the time I have.
During the night, she had set a series of goals for herself.
Uncover the rest of the Otho-Nizzo plot.
Prove her innocence.
Regain her freedom and her name.
Get revenge on those who had set her up.
Take her villa back from Flavia.
Soon the freedwoman rang the bell to summon the women from their sleep. Theodosia stood in line to splash her face in a bowl of cold water. Then she combed her hair with one of the thick wooden combs hanging from ropes attached to the wall and bound it behind her head, as she had been instructed.
After the others had hurried out, she hobbled downstairs with her cithara, ate breakfast, and made her way to Scopan’s desk.