Pausing at Pilate’s door, I summoned the full power of the spell, then pushed firmly. He stood at the window, looking out onto the garden. As he turned, his eyes widened at the sight of me. “You are very lovely, Claudia,” he spoke softly.
I said nothing but stood just inside the door. He raised a brow questioningly. “What is it?” In a few quick strides he had crossed the room. He lifted my chin, looked into my eyes. My arms swept up around his neck, my body arching against his. Blindly, eyes closed, I sought his lips. After a time Pilate gently broke my grip and stood back to look at me. His blue eyes glittered.
“I love you, my husband,” I whispered as he undid the clasp of my palla, “so much I love you—so very, very much.”
CHAPTER 16
Two Trials
Pilate and I lay together on the couch, legs entwined, opening a scroll. Once again we lived a life of companionable domesticity. The potion had worked beyond my wildest dreams. I recited the incantation faithfully while Rachel made twice weekly trips to the Iseneum for magic balms. I was certain my marriage depended upon Isis’s grace. Once the goddess allowed me to conceive a son and carry it to term, Pilate would surely be mine.
The spring and early summer had been marked by unseasonable storms. Ships had been lost at sea. Now, at last, one had reached Antioch bearing a scroll written several weeks before. My heart gave a happy tug as I recognized the loops and flourishes of Mother’s hand.
What can Tiberius be thinking! Instead of imprisonment, Piso and Plancina are at home, casual and carefree as though charges of murder and treason had never been leveled against them. Now they plan a dinner party. That ostentatious house of theirs overlooks the forum where all can watch…thousands of sesterces being spent on gold paint. It is an outrage, an absolute outrage!
“Look here.” Pilate pointed further down the scroll. “What’s that about Martina?”
I folded back the papyrus and read aloud: “We have just received word from Brundisium that the witch Martina died shortly after disembarking. A tiny vial of poison was found clenched in her hand.”
“That’s bad.” Pilate frowned. “She was the chief witness against Piso.”
“What do you think happened to her—suicide or murder?”
He shrugged lightly. “It hardly matters. Plancina’s involvement is lost forever. The mystery of Germanicus’s death may never be resolved now.”
I put down the scroll. “The nerve of those people!”
Pilate retrieved it. “Your mother tends to be outspoken.”
“Outspoken!” I drew back. “You know—everyone knows—that Piso was responsible. Tiberius is linked to it too. I know he is.”
“My dear”—Pilate stroked my shoulder lightly—“knowing a thing and committing it to papyrus are quite different. Your mother has not only placed herself in jeopardy but now her words could be used against us.”
“Don’t you want to know what’s happening? My father swore to avenge—”
“Yes, yes, I know. Your father was Germanicus’s man. Everyone’s well aware of that, too aware. Marcus would be wise to forge new alliances and we as well.”
I tried to keep my voice steady. “You mean alliances with Tiberius?”
“One must be practical.” Pilate’s finger traced a lazy circle around my breast. “Vengeance won’t restore Germanicus to life.”
A WEEK LATER, IN THE MIDST OF A DRIVING RAINSTORM, A SAILOR appeared at the door with a scroll under his cloak. Soon he was inside the kitchen drinking a cup of undiluted wine while Pilate and I poured over a letter from Tata. Tiberius had begun the trial with instructions to the Senate: “Did Piso cause Germanicus’s death or merely rejoice in it? If there is proof of murder, so be it, but if Piso merely failed to respect his senior, that is not a crime, though I—in my deep sorrow—will renounce his friendship, closing my door to him forever.”
“Tiberius is so sanctimonious! Just listen to this: ‘He asked the Senate, “Did Piso incite his troops to mutiny? Did he make war to recover the province for himself or are these lies spread by his accusers?” ’ His accusers—that means Tata and Agrippina. How can Tiberius say such things?”
“Very easily, my dear. The emperor can say anything.”
I hated Pilate’s condescending tone, as though speaking to a child, but I didn’t give up. “What about this—Tiberius’s summation—it’s disgusting: ‘I grieve for my nephew and always will. But I offer the accused every opportunity to produce evidence to establish his innocence or Germanicus’s wrong.’” Germanicus’s wrong! “Who is he trying to fool? Everyone knows what happened.”
“Let’s just hope none of it reflects on our position.” Pilate kissed me lightly on the forehead and went off to meet with Governor Sentius.
My heart felt empty as I rolled up the scroll. My husband’s cynicism frightened me almost as much as Tiberius’s culpability. Germanicus had been his friend as well as a generous patron. Did that count for nothing?
The winter storms continued, big thunderheads rolled up over the sea. Confined to the house by rain, I thought of little but the trial. How would its outcome affect my parents? Pilate’s words sprang often to mind. Roman alliances were treacherous, a false move often fatal.
Another scroll arrived, this one from Agrippina, her bold, obliquely slanted script praising my father, a chief witness against Piso in the Senate hearings. Tata had described the proconsul’s mysterious death in detail, not forgetting the outspoken pleasure both Piso and Plancina had shown. Finally, he had reminded the Senate of the war the former governor had launched after the success of his murderous plot. The evidence was undeniable, only the poisoning charge remained to be refuted.
Piso is so insolent, so sure of himself. “Are you calling me a magician?” he asked, all the while shuffling a small bundle of scrolls, flashing the royal seals so that anyone sitting nearby could see them. Your father asked that they be opened, but Tiberius hastily ruled against the motion. The Senate watched in amazement as the defendant passed the scrolls to the emperor. If anyone doubted there was a connection between the two, they knew it then. Surely we were seeing the very orders that cost Germanicus his life.
“What a fool!” Pilate laughed, looking over my shoulder. “Piso has just signed his own death warrant.”
“Wait, there’s more—”
At the very moment the Senate was on its feet, backing your father, demanding that the scrolls be opened, a messenger announced that Piso’s statues had been torn down and dumped beside bodies of executed criminals. Tiberius hastily adjourned the session. You should have seen him, Claudia, the man was purple with anger. Much as Tiberius may want to protect his accomplice, this is a mandate from the people. Plancina has upheld her husband’s innocence—swearing to share his fate whatever that may be—but this afternoon, instead of going home with him, she went off with Livia.
The trial was all I thought about as a series of violent storms closed the port. The suspense was unbearable. Finally, Pilate came home with a scroll that had been carried aboard a newly arrived military ship. “It’s from Selene,” he said.
I saw the seal was broken. Pilate hadn’t waited. I looked at him with surprise and then alarm as a frown creased his forehead. Mother’s letter picked up the thread of the trial, which, I realized from the date, was already history. The message had taken six weeks to reach us. Seals can be broken, then repaired. Who else might have read it? I was beginning to think like Pilate. My eyes anxiously scanned the scroll. An angry mob waiting Piso’s arrival…Tiberius suddenly hostile, aggressive, conducting the interrogation himself…Question after question…Piso a broken man carried out of the courtroom…his next day’s defense written in a trembling hand…Piso discovered at dawn, throat cut, sword at his side…a sham investigation of Plancina…Two days and then dismissal…Livia’s triumphant smile.
I looked up at my husband. “How could Livia, Germanicus’s own grandmother, consort with his murderess?”
Pilate shook his head impatiently
. “Claudia, Claudia, she’s a tyrant. Don’t you know that by now?” After a pause he added, “I wouldn’t care to be in Agrippina’s sandals.”
And what about my sandals? Once so proud of my connections, did Pilate now consider me a liability?
SITTING BEFORE THE COSMETIC JARS THAT MULTIPLIED DAILY UPON my dressing table, I gave a surprised shriek as the first eyebrow was plucked. After that I sat patiently. A new slave worked with the quick, polished delicacy of an artist, dusting my face lightly with powdered white lead, plucking and darkening the newly arched brows with antimony, shading my cheeks with rouge and smoothly applying accents of kohl to my eyelids.
With Rachel’s assistance, she gathered my hair and bound it loosely back, securing it with jeweled combs and plaiting the remaining locks into one thick braid. This was deftly woven with seed pearls, then placed in a serpent’s coil on top of my head and sprinkled with gold dust. Sipping snow-chilled wine, I regarded the stranger who looked back at me from the mirror’s polished metal surface. In half an hour I’d been transformed into a creature of sparkle and artifice, a worldly woman, at least in appearance.
Inwardly, I was torn with doubts. My stomach fluttered with nervousness. With each new garment I bought, each new alteration to my appearance, however subtle, I worried—what if Pilate didn’t like me that way? And now the governor’s banquet…Marcia would be there, of course, flirting with Pilate all the while watching me with those cold, mocking eyes. My hands felt moist as I reached for an almond-stuffed fig on the silver tray beside me.
“You look beautiful, domina,” Rachel assured me.
“Yes? Really? Unfortunately, there are so many beautiful women, stunning women. You saw them at our party last night. Pilate was surrounded.” I sighed, remembering the long bare arms, the dark-lined eyes, the laughing, reddened mouths.
“He was their host,” Rachel reminded me. “What would you have him do?”
I heard approaching footsteps. It was Pilate, I knew his brisk step. As he entered the room, I rose quickly to greet him. “Do you like my hair?” I asked eagerly. He took the finger of one of my hands and turned me slowly about, while I looked back over my shoulder, unwilling to miss the slightest expression on his face.
Pilate seemed surprised. “Yes, my dear, you’re lovely. You’re always lovely, but you do look different…”
“Isn’t that good?” I asked, my face stiff under its armor of paint. “Surely you don’t want to see the same old Claudia night after night.”
“You are never the same old Claudia, you constantly surprise me.” Pilate picked up my new palla made from a fabric that looked like molten gold. “That’s the thing I love most about you,” he said, placing it about my shoulders.
THE GOVERNOR’S HILLTOP HOME WAS SUMPTUOUS. CROSSING THE mosaic floor, a swirl of rose and lime, lavender and gold, I felt dizzy. There was Marcia, her lips wine-coated, dark and startling against porcelain skin. I saw the malice in her amber eyes and realized that the liaison must be over and Pilate the one who ended it. Suddenly the evening became a personal triumph. With a hand resting lightly on my husband’s arm, I moved easily from one group to the next.
In this luxurious enclave far removed from the noise and smells of the city, talk centered around recent events in Rome. Sentius shocked us all by announcing that Tiberius had condemned the venerable Titus Maximus, one of Agrippina’s staunchest champions. The patrician had been executed without a trial, his body hurled down the Stairs of Mourning, a ritual punishment for traitors, then cast into the Tiber.
“What reason did he give?” I asked, pretending that I hadn’t felt Pilate’s warning nudge.
“The emperor’s will is reason enough,” the governor reminded me.
“My, it would appear that friendship with Agrippina could be injurious to one’s health.” Marcia stood at her husband’s side watching me, her words almost a purr.
A sense of foreboding for my parents and Agrippina overcame my earlier pleasure.
While I was chatting with Governor Sentius, my gaze wandered beyond him to a far corner where Pilate talked animatedly with Aurelia Perreius, pure and perfect, flawless as a cut gem, and married to the wealthiest knight in Antioch—some said in all of Syria. Her tranquil poise was broken suddenly by a bubbling laugh. Oh, what was so terribly amusing? I longed to interrupt them, to claim him, but forced myself to continue a conversation with Sentius. Finally, I succeeded in bringing it to a courteous close, but by then Pilate was out of sight. The room felt stuffy, the sound of so many voices oppressive. I wanted to get away, if only for a moment.
My jewel-encrusted sandals made soft crunching sounds on the walkway as I moved rapidly between close-trimmed box hedges, laurel trees, pomegranates and ancient pines. I sat down on a secluded bench overlooking a pool. Opposite me, a marble Venus looked down upon a bed of pale pink roses. I thought of Mother, who loved the color pink above all others and revered Venus for the gifts the goddess had bestowed upon her. If guilt by association was Tiberius’s game, then surely my parents were a prime target. I wished Mother was with me, safe and wise. There was so much that I longed to talk to her about. I had never felt more alone.
Glancing up, I saw a man standing in the shadow of the archway. How long had he been there watching? “Who—who’s there?” I demanded, rising to my feet.
He moved forward into the light of a flaming torch. “Don’t you remember me?”
“No.” I hesitated uncertainly, wrapping my palla closer about my shoulders. “Are you a guest in this house?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“I didn’t see you.”
“But I saw you.” His voice was deep with a slight accent I couldn’t identify.
He was handsome in a rough-hewn way and quite tall, possibly a head taller than Pilate. There was something…familiar? Creases bracketed the stranger’s mouth as he smiled. “It was a long time ago. Rome. The games. You lifted your thumb for me.”
Memories flooded back, engulfing me. Livia and Caligula’s scorn, my panic. The young gladiator’s face, smiling, confident, so, so…masculine. Then the sudden certainty that he would win. The excitement, the bloody conflict. Two triumphs, his and mine. “Oh, my goddess! It cannot be. You are not that gladiator!”
He drew closer, bowed slightly. “I am Holtan. Did you never know my name?”
I brushed back a tendril of hair that had escaped from my elaborate headdress. “Of course, I’ve never forgotten it, but the Holtan I remember was hardly more than a boy. He was, I recall, a slave.”
“Boys grow up. This one is no longer a slave.”
I looked into his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to meet you.”
I stared at him in shocked silence.
“Why should that surprise you? I have always wondered about the little girl who predicted my victory.”
“I remember that day too—you’ve no idea—so much happened afterward. Everything changed for me, for my family, almost overnight.” I tilted my head to look at him. “What about you? Why have you come to Antioch?”
“I was lucky. You were lucky for me. The last time you saw me was the first of many victories. Eventually I bought my freedom and a few other things.” He smiled again briefly. “I came to Antioch for the games. I fought yesterday.”
“And won, obviously. I wish I’d known.”
“You don’t attend the games?”
“Not often.” I fell silent, studying him. He was dressed in white, his tunic and toga of the finest Egyptian linen judging from how they draped. The toga was held in place by a ruby brooch, the largest ruby I had ever seen. “You must have everything you desire now.”
“And so must you.”
I shook my head, smiling at the irony of his words.
“You still have your beautiful smile.”
I fought a foolish desire to run my fingers over the cleft in Holtan’s chin, to touch the indentations in his cheeks. “Women must find you irresistible.”
; He shrugged. “Some enjoy flirting with danger.”
“What about you? Why continue to risk your life now that you are free?”
“Why not? It is one way—the only way for most of us—to make a lot of sesterces in a hurry. You wouldn’t know about that, you have always had wealth.”
“Not always, I assure you.”
“But now.”
“Now I don’t find sesterces very important. They buy nothing that really matters.”
“Like your husband’s loyalty?”
I felt suddenly ill. Was my life such public knowledge that even a wandering gladiator knew of it?
“No one told me,” he said as though reading my thoughts.
“Then how did you know?”
“I saw you as I came in. Your eyes so intent, watching him with that blond woman.”
“You saw too much.”
“In the arena you learn to read signs. A shifting glance means life or death.”
I paused a moment. “Will you be in Antioch long?”
“I should leave tomorrow for Alexandria…unless…”
“Impossible!”
“You are impossible.”
Our eyes caught and held. “It would never have been possible,” I said, wondering if that were true.
“Your husband is a fool.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“A fool to take you lightly—to cause you pain. A fool,” Holtan repeated, his voice thick with anger.
I brushed his arm lightly, looked away, fearful of tears.
He placed his hands on my shoulders. “Pilate merely plays. I know his kind. He likes rich women, likes their power. Perhaps he uses that to his advantage. It is only a game. You are the one he loves. How could he otherwise?”
My eyes met his. For a second I swayed forward, then caught myself and broke free.
Not daring to look back, I ran across the garden, back to the lighted room and the sound of Pilate’s voice.
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