by Martha Marks
It had been years since Theodosia’s catastrophic last ride, and this horse was a far cry from her beloved Lamia. His back was wider than any horse she had ever ridden before. Tomorrow, the muscles in her legs and hips would stab like knives, but for now she was thankful to take the pressure off her throbbing joints.
She made her way without incident out of the Subura, along the Via Sacra, past the forums of Julius and Augustus to the Pons Aemilius... the ancient bridge where the Via Aurelia crossed the gusty, swollen Tiber.
Only then did things begin to go wrong.
The bridge was guarded. Theodosia backed the horse into a cluster of shrubs and counted the men by their smoking torches. There were seven—two of them mounted—just this side of the bridge.
Suspecting that Nero would order the road leading to her home guarded more carefully than the others, she turned the horse toward the city, intent on finding another route. But then the two mounted guards left the group at the bridge. Once again, Theodosia guided her horse off the pavement, stroking his stout neck in a plea for silence.
After the soldiers splashed past, she surveyed the situation. There were no more horses near the bridge.
Time for courage.
She kicked her mount into a trot and approached with as much nonchalance as she could muster.
“Halt!” shouted a voice as she drew near.
Grateful that her old ally, Juno the moon, had seen fit to be elsewhere tonight, Theodosia pulled her horse up some distance from the guards.
“Where you headed, fellow?” the voice said as the torches began moving forward.
Gambling on their curiosity, Theodosia sat still, measuring her opportunity as the bobbing line of lights drew closer. Her nose wrinkled at the acrid odor of blazing pitch, but with each moment that she waited, the gap between the five men and the bridge grew wider.
Finally—when she dared wait no longer—she kicked the horse as hard as she could with her right leg. The animal whinnied and lurched ahead.
Theodosia leaned low over his neck, smacked the reins, and rammed through the smoke and fire and soldiers. There was a pungent smell of burning wool... a bright flame at her shoulder that sputtered and died in the downpour. She kicked again and sent the horse racing across the bridge, out into the blackness of the Via Aurelia.
She heard the guards cursing as they ran after her, their breastplates clinking fainter and fainter. Flashes of lightning illuminated the road ahead. Theodosia’s main fear was that the dray horse would lose his footing on the slick stones, but there was no way she could let him slow down. Fleet cavalry riders might be after her even now.
The horse was breathing heavily. It was obvious that he was used to steady pulling, not the quick burst of speed she had demanded, so after a while she eased up on him. With luck and a gentler pace, maybe he could hold out till they reached the villa. Or Caere, at least.
Caere!
Theodosia lifted her head in sudden comprehension.
“You’re to ride with me to Caere... escape with the others... tomorrow will be too late!”
Oh, gods, that’s why Titus was wearing his uniform at the banquet, instead of a toga… to make sure nobody would stop us on the road. It would’ve been so easy!
And he was trying to tell me... Alexander and Antibe aren’t at the villa after all, but somewhere in Caere. Vespasian’s house, most likely.
Clever Flavia! Antibe’s illness was just a ploy to get Alexander out of the palace. Flavia must have dropped him off at Vespasian’s house in Caere, where Antibe was waiting. Titus was supposed to take me there... then Alexander, Antibe, and I would have been gone by morning.
Juno, it would’ve been so damn easy!
She rode a bit further, then gasped at a new thought.
Do I even want to go with them? What kind of odd threesome would we make? Alexander and his wife and his former mistress... who now owes her life to him.
But there were few options. She had to go somewhere.
A lightning bolt crashed into the forest on her right, and the horse lurched in terror onto the left shoulder. Theodosia held on and guided him back to the road. He had kept up a steady pace for over an hour now and might not have much strength left, but she had to push on. Caere lay only a few miles beyond.
Theodosia knew this stretch of road well. Not far off lay the rugged land—and the villa—that had once been hers. She could smell the sea in the rain on her face. Tears of longing and nostalgia overflowed her eyes, but she shook the mood off.
Concentrate! Don’t get sentimental now!
To give her mind something else to do, she began singing one of the poems that Alexander had brought to the banquet, the first one she had selected... that haunting, perfectly rhymed lyric about lovers reunited under perilous circumstances. She sang it over and over, very softly, with an inexplicable, growing sense of elation.
She was about to cross a small stone bridge at a stream when her ears picked up the muffled beat of hooves on the pavement ahead. A squad of mounted soldiers emerged from the dark before she reached the bridge.
Theodosia held her breath and offered another prayer to Juno. She couldn’t hope to outrun them; she’d have to bluff her way through.
Slouched under his hood, the laborer on the exhausted hack halted on command.
“No,” he said with a yawn, he’d seen no one on the road.
“Yes,” the soldiers posted at the Tiber had questioned him already.
“Yes,” he was headed home to Caere.
“Of course,” he’d notify the local authorities if he saw anything unusual.
Apparently satisfied, the officer in charge ordered his men to let the sleepy fellow through.
Pulling his hood down further against the rain, the laborer nudged his horse past the long line of soldiers who sat atop their mounts, eyeing him closely as he moved between their columns.
If I make it through this, I’m safe.
A short distance along the road, however—just when she had begun to breathe normally again—Theodosia heard new sounds in the darkness behind her.
A sudden disturbance among the soldiers...
A clatter of hooves heading in her direction...
A single voice shouting obscenities...
Without pausing to consider what she was doing, she tugged her horse off the road and plunged into the woods. The profane shouts and hoof beats followed and grew louder.
Theodosia recognized the voice and knew she was headed for the ride of her life. Otho was pursuing her into the thicket.
Chapter Thirty
It was with bittersweet ambivalence that Alexander came back to the house where he had served as a slave. Here he had found renewed self-respect in his expert management of the Varro estate. Here he had been slapped for teaching a child to read. Here he had met Theodosia Varro, alternately argued and jested with her, and grown to love her.
The servants were asleep when Flavia’s carriage pulled up; they had not been advised that she would be home tonight. Even the new steward, sleeping now in the cubicle that Alexander remembered so well, missed his predecessor’s return.
Only Nicanor was in on the plan. For weeks, he had been riding to Caere to buy food and wine for two friends living in the necropolis. Now he rushed through the atrium, bowed low to Flavia, and threw his arms around Alexander.
This had been an awkward, stressful night for Alexander—more than just the ordeal in Nero’s palace—as the runaway slave and the Roman lady who was helping him escape once again tried to make conversation in the carriage.
There had been much to talk about on the journey into Rome from Caere, where Alexander had joined Flavia... his first getaway with Stefan and Lycos... the months in Antioch... Theodosia’s physical and mental condition... details of tonight’s plan...
But the return trip to Flavia’s villa was something else. The easy banter of those long-ago days in Theodosia’s pergola could not be recaptured. Flavia Domitilla was a slave owner herself now, a wealthy woman marr
ied to the emperor’s counselor, and the sister of a rising star in the eagles. Although she had guarded Alexander’s secrets and done her best to secure Theodosia’s freedom, Flavia was still very much a Roman.
Alexander knew he would always be a slave in her eyes.
And if I hadn’t gotten away when I did, I’d be her property now, too, just as Nicanor is.
Flavia handed her cape to Nicanor in the atrium, then turned to Alexander with a smile as she gestured around.
“It’s all the same, see? No changes that you’d notice.”
Alexander’s eyes climbed the marble pillars, taking in the frescoed walls before shifting to the stairway, lit by a single lamp. His mind’s eye saw Theodosia on that stairway, on her way to Vespasian’s party... radiant and flirtatious in her deep green silk... sparkling with the emeralds that Alexander had selected for her.
“No,” he said, unable to control the irony that crept into his voice. “No change at all, my lady.”
Flavia frowned, and for a moment he feared he had offended her. Then the smile returned and broadened to a grin, giving him a glimpse of the impish girl he remembered.
“Well, we shouldn’t have long to wait. Titus,” she said, letting him in on the last part of her secret plan, “has promised to see Theodosia safely to the necropolis. She and Stefan should get here in plenty of time.”
Flavia turned to Nicanor.
“Go watch for them. Let me know the instant they arrive.”
Nicanor bowed again and disappeared into the peristyle.
“Well, Alexander, where shall we put you while we wait?”
Do I dare ask for some time in the library?
His glance must have betrayed his thoughts.
“The library?” Flavia guessed.
“Would you mind? I used to spend a lot of time there.”
“I know. Sure, why not? I’m going up to change.”
When she was gone, Alexander stepped through the library door and closed the sapphire-colored curtain. There was a lamp burning on a table by the couch. He felt his way to the desk and sat down... enjoying the renewed contact of his fingers with the fine, polished wood. Reminders of the past—sight, sound, smell, and touch—were everywhere.
The old house quivered under Neptune’s fury as rain pounded the glass panes and lightning pulsed through the black sky.
Just like that other stormy night.
Alexander turned his eyes to the couch where Theodosia Varro had sat... playing her cithara and singing to her two spellbound slaves.
Thank the gods she’s safe with Titus!
<><><>
Needles of rain stung Theodosia’s face as she maneuvered the tired horse through the undergrowth. Rubol’s long cloak billowed in the wind and repeatedly snagged on the branches, forcing her to stop each time and jerk it loose. Finally, she untied the cords and let it drop.
She heard Otho cursing in the dark behind her. His horse was surely faster and more agile than hers, but Otho would be just as blinded by the downpour as she, so she felt no panic.
Besides… she had two major advantages. She knew exactly where she was, and she knew exactly where she was going.
It had come to her in that brief, peaceful interlude before she encountered the soldiers at the second bridge, when Alexander’s evocative refrain—“And she met her lover where the dead heroes lay”—began resonating in her mind.
The Etruscan necropolis lay buried in the woods on the northeast side of Caere. Under normal circumstances, Theodosia could have found it easily. But in this storm, the trip was anything but easy, and—even if it were—she couldn’t go there straightaway. She had to lose Otho first.
Free of the encumbering cloak, she leaned forward and started talking to her horse, patting his neck, asking for one more burst of speed. Little by little, the animal responded, pushing steadily through the brush until at last Theodosia heard what she was listening for... the splatter of rain on water, mud, and stones.
Memories of another horse and another riverbed swept over her.
I’ve made it this far. Mustn’t panic now.
She wrapped her arms around her mount’s sturdy neck and by the pressure of her elbows guided him down the embankment. In the distance behind her, along with the splash of a different horse’s hooves, she could still hear Otho’s threats and curses.
Once in the riverbed, she again asked the dray horse to give her a bit more, and they sped off in the rocky corridor as the wind whipped her sopping-wet hair and tunic.
A couple of miles downstream, the river bent abruptly to the right, and in another flash of memory—a sunny summer ride to the necropolis... a picnic at the bend of the river... her own remark about that bend: “almost like a sign from the gods”—she saw her best hope to shake her pursuer.
She let the horse slow a bit for better footing, then tugged the reins firmly to the left. With remarkable strength, he surged up the embankment and burst over the top, snorting as if his lungs were about to explode. Theodosia pulled the exhausted animal into a patch of bushes and waited for the sounds that would tell if her ploy had succeeded.
Moments later, she heard the other horse splash by at full speed through the water. As Otho’s shouts faded around the bend, Theodosia patted her horse’s heaving neck once more and let him rest while she made sure her knife was still securely strapped to her right thigh.
She had no idea how far Otho might follow the river before realizing he had lost her, but with luck he wouldn’t know exactly where it had happened. If her sense of things was right, the necropolis lay just a short distance away through the woods.
The rain was beginning to subside. With no sign of Otho, Theodosia eased the pressure on her mount. But if the ride was slower, the brambles were thicker than before, and by the time she spotted the first beehive-shaped mound, her face, arms, and legs were scratched and bleeding.
Antibe will wonder why such a scrawny, scraped-up woman was worth risking their lives.
That thought made her chuckle a bit. Well past vanity—and resigned to Antibe’s presence in her life from now on—all Theodosia wanted at this point was rest and something dry to wrap herself in.
The ancient tombs stood black and silent against the retreating storm.
Alexander and Antibe... where can they be?
Theodosia slid off the horse’s back, looped the reins over his head, and began leading him along the muddy, murky street of the dead. His hoof beats echoed against the tombs as the fragrance of crushed mint rose from underneath.
Halfway down the street, Theodosia heard a crunch behind her. She had been through too much to panic now, even though she knew that both she and her horse were too tired to struggle further. The footsteps might be Alexander’s... or Otho’s.
Either way, my journey’s over.
She turned and held her breath for an endless, mind-numbing moment. Then she sobbed in relief and disbelief as Stefan reached out of the darkness and took her in his arms.
<><><>
Stefan sat down beside Theodosia on a stone bench in the same underground tomb that they had explored with Alexander years before. She snuggled gratefully into the blanket he had draped around her.
He hasn’t changed a bit. I can only imagine how dreadful I must look to him right now.
“I wasn’t expecting you to come alone,” Stefan said.
“And I wasn’t expecting to find you here.”
“Expecting the emperor, maybe?”
“Maybe. After tonight, I wouldn’t be surprised at anything. When will the others get here?”
“They’re waiting for us at the villa. If you hadn’t gotten here soon, I’d have had to go on without you. That would’ve been tough!” He took her hands. “I didn’t return from Greece just to leave you behind again.”
“Gods, Stefan, you know what they’d do to you if they caught you. Whatever made you come back?”
He pressed her bony hands between his own enormous ones, then bent and kissed them.
“And she met her lover where the dead heroes lay.”
A cold chill ran down Theodosia’s spine.
So, Alexander’s long-lost lover wasn’t metaphorical, after all, but literal... meant to be Stefan.
She shuddered with sudden guilt. Stefan had risked his life to come back for a woman who for the last two years had dreamed only of Alexander. And Alexander had risked his life—and Antibe’s, too—so Stefan and Theodosia could be together. Stefan couldn’t have come back alone, couldn’t have pulled this off alone; he was even more recognizable than Alexander. So... Alexander had stepped into the mouth of the Roman lion for the sake of two friends who, he assumed, loved one another.
Oh, Juno, help me!
“Stefan, you shouldn’t have... I’m grateful—I really am!—but to think of you and Alexander and Antibe... all of you running such horrible risks for me. I couldn’t bear it if—”
“Antibe?”
“Isn’t that her name? Alexander’s wife.”
“Antibe ain’t here. Where’d you get that idea?”
“The messenger at the banquet said Alexander’s wife was ill.”
“So, you believed—”
“Well, I saw it was a ploy to get him out of there, but when I realized he’d sent me clues, I just assumed they’d be hiding here. It never occurred to me that you would also—”
“Alexander’s at the villa with the lady Flavia, or at least he should be by now. But, miss, Antibe is dead.”
“Dead.” Theodosia’s mouth formed the sound, but the word made no impression on her mind.
Dead?
“She died in Syria years ago.”
Antibe? Dead?
“And his son?”
“That’s the happy part. Niko’s alive. Alexander bought his freedom with two of your rubies. Niko and Lycos are both safe with friends in Greece.” Stefan released her hands and stood up. “We should leave now. It’s not long till dawn, and we’ll ruin the escape plan if we’re late.”
Theodosia rose, reluctantly leaving the warm blanket on the bench.