Protected by the Knight's Proposal

by Meriel Fuller

  ‘It is obviously an excuse to busy the legions,’ Magnus commented. ‘Without a war to fight, the soldiers will have nothing to do.’

  ‘That is not the reason for the wall, either,’ Lepidus muttered, continuing to peel his grape.

  ‘Its purpose is obviously to control trade,’ said one of the husbands. ‘Taxes over battle axes.’

  ‘That is not the reason, either.’ Lepidus held up the peeled grape and studied it, as if holding a miniature world in his hands.

  ‘Surely it is for defence,’ said another husband. ‘Those barbarians in the north are a different breed. Or have we already forgotten the Battle of Teutoburg Forest?’

  Across the room, one of the Germanic women gasped. The oyster she was opening shot into the air. It soared over the couches to the far wall, where it landed at the foot of a bust of the first Emperor.

  Someone laughed. Another groaned.

  ‘A bad omen,’ Lepidus said.

  There had been a sudden roll of thunder outside—a late summer thunderstorm—and the Germanic women shrieked. They shoved their trays at Vita and rushed from the lounging chamber in a panic.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Vita had cried and they had replied that the banquet was cursed.

  It seemed they were right, for the rain began to pour through the atrium ceiling so effusively that it soon began to overflow the pool designed to catch it. An embarrassing flood filled the atrium, reaching all the way to the entrance of the triclinium where Vita’s guests reclined.

  ‘Too bad I forgot my fishing net,’ one of the husbands jested and Magnus said something about Vita neglecting to empty the cistern regularly. ‘We would not have a flood if my wife would keep this house properly.’

  The statement was utterly untrue. Vita emptied the cistern of its collected rainwater on the kalends of every month and Magnus knew it. The flood was a result of the build-up of sediment—too much sediment for Vita to be able to dispose of on her own. She had been urging Magnus to hire someone to remove it for years.

  Vita had been unable to say anything in her own defence, however, because by that time her arms were nearly collapsing beneath the weight of the two heavy oyster trays she held.

  ‘More oysters, anyone?’ she asked, with perhaps a little too much cheer. Her guests only stared into their cups.

  ‘I will return in just a moment,’ she told her guests, then waded across the atrium towards the kitchen, trying to keep her spirits up. It was then she remembered the Falernian. A cup of fine wine could solve most crises and Falernian wine was the finest there was.

  When she rounded the corner of the kitchen to fetch the special amphora, however, she discovered it lying empty on the floor beside the slumbering cook.

  ‘What have you done?’ Vita shouted, but the woman only snored.

  Her heart pounding, Vita ran out of the kitchen towards the entry hall. She needed a breath of fresh air and a moment to collect herself. Swinging open her front door, she rushed outside, crashing headlong against a barrier that might have been Hadrian’s Wall itself.

  She gasped and stumbled backwards, nearly tripping on her own feet. ‘Curses!’ she gasped. Regaining her balance, she peered up at a broad-chested pillar of a man standing motionless outside her door. The rain poured down over his short brown hair, plastering it to his skull and continuing down his stony profile.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she commented, but he made not a single movement to acknowledge her. She wondered for a moment if he was even alive. He seemed more statue than man: a rain-chiselled warrior, frozen in time.

  ‘Is there something wrong with you, sir?’ she asked. ‘Can you hear me?’

  He slid her a glance, as if noticing a tossed apple core.

  ‘Are you not going to apologise?’ she asked.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For bumping into me!’

  ‘I did not bump into you,’ he stated, returning his attention to the pouring rain.

  By the gods, he was right. It was she who had bumped into him. What was wrong with her?

  ‘Apologies,’ she said. ‘I am not myself today. I have just come to get a breath of air.’ The man stared out at the pouring rain, unmoved. ‘My banquet is a disaster, you see,’ she continued. ‘The food is bad, the service has escaped and there is a flood in my atrium.’

  She did not know why she had felt the need to confess herself to him. He was a stranger, likely a bodyguard for one of her guests, and surely did not care to hear of her woes.

  Still, tears began to fall down her cheeks, mixing with the rain. ‘My husband loathes me. Our friends find me ridiculous. No matter how much I try, I can never please them.’

  She gazed out at the rain, wishing it could somehow wash away the memory of the banquet from her guests’ minds, as if it had never taken place. She wished she could wash away the memory of the last ten years, in truth.

  ‘My reputation is in tatters,’ she said, ‘and so is my marriage.’

  She searched his face for some sign of a response, but it remained as still as a mask. She followed a drop of rain down the bumps of his arms and on to the paving stones at his feet.

  She wiped her cheeks and turned to leave.

  ‘There are worse things in the world,’ he said.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  He shook his head, dismissing the words.

  ‘Apologies, but what did you just say?’ Vita insisted.

  She moved into his line of sight and gazed up at the features of his face. To her surprise, they were broad and pronounced, like those of a politician or man of the stage. His strong triangular nose in particular caught her eye. It tapered to an unexpected point, giving him an erudite appearance that was reinforced by his wide, thoughtful mouth.

  That mouth—it seemed full of opinions, though his lips seemed far too sensual to support anything it said. She wished to see his eyes, but still he would not meet her gaze. It was then she noticed his forehead. Three thin black letters were tattooed across its wide expanse. FGV, they read. Runaway.

  She should have guessed it. He was a slave for one of her guests, most likely Lepidus, who was the highest-ranking man there. It was probably Lepidus who had ordered the man’s tattoo, for the old equestrian architect had many slaves and was known for his brutal punishments. Vita felt suddenly very foolish.

  ‘You are right, sir. There are worse things in the world,’ she said. ‘Much worse things. My apologies.’

  Finally, he looked at her and an unwelcome rush of warmth spread beneath her skin. His brownish-green eyes were large, yet perfectly proportionate to his other outsized features. Still, they dominated his face, along with all of Vita’s attention. They seemed to see inside her somehow.

  ‘My guests are probably missing me,’ she muttered. ‘Again, my apologies.’

  She should have been more careful in stepping around him, but in her haste she misjudged the distance between them and somehow her hand grazed his.

  She jumped to the side, startled. It was as if she had just passed her hand through a blaze. She could still feel it burning as she rushed back through the door without even bothering to close it behind her.

  She was halfway down the entryway hall when she heard the man call back to her.

  ‘Do not despair,’ he said. ‘All will be well.’

  She pretended not to hear, but the words echoed in her mind, fortifying her, and she could not get the vision of his earthy green eyes to leave her memory.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Magnus demanded as she stepped back into the triclinium. ‘We need more wine.’

  ‘There is no more wine.’ She did not recognise her own voice: there was no apology in it. ‘We have plenty of posca, however,’ she added, reaching for a pitcher of the bitter, vinegary drink. Magnus scowled.

  ‘No wine?’ someone whispered and she noticed several sets of rolling eyes.
There was a smattering of tsks from nameless lips.

  ‘I fear we must take our leave,’ Gaeta blurted, adding, ‘on account of the rain.’

  ‘We must also depart,’ Numeria piped up, ‘before the Appian is plugged with mud.’

  ‘And the frogs!’ shrieked Lollia. ‘They will turn the streets into a theatre of corpses!’

  Thus the banquet ended even before the first hour of night—a mark of shame if ever there was one.

  * * *

  Now, many hours later, the shame of Vita’s failed banquet seemed small in comparison to the humiliation represented by the loincloth in her hands. It seemed that Vita’s husband had taken his latest lover inside their very home.

  Still, she felt no closer to determining when the tryst had occurred, or who the woman was, though she did remember watching Magnus’s eyes assess Lollia from behind as she departed with her husband and their towering bodyguard across the rain-washed plaza.

  It had been right before the moment when Magnus had turned to Vita and slapped her hard. ‘Useless woman,’ he had said, then he, too, had strode off into the grey glow of dusk.

  ‘Useless woman,’ Vita muttered now, touching one of the loincloth’s golden beads. It was not the first time Magnus had called her that, nor would it be the last.

  In truth, she had never questioned the epithet. Magnus was the paterfamilias of their household, after all, and he knew best. If he said she was useless, then she was—it was something she had always accepted.

  Now she wondered if the label was truly warranted. It was true that her hostess skills were not the best in Rome. Nor was she a good cook, or a clever conversationalist, or even close to young or pretty any more, but was she really useless?

  She could sew, after all, and quite well. She earned enough sesterces from the sale of her fine capes that she was able to keep their household stocked with oil and wine. She covered the costs of their other expenses as well, including the services of the fuller and baker, and even the annual demands of the tax collector. The proceeds from her sewing supported their lives in many different ways, so why did Magnus call her useless?

  She lifted the loincloth to her nose and breathed in the scent of the cloth. Lavender, perhaps mixed with a bit of myrrh: it was the smell of a useful woman.

  ‘I want a divorce,’ she spouted. She looked up, vaguely expecting a thunderbolt to strike—or a hand against her cheek.

  Instead, she caught the alabaster gaze of her venerable great-grandfather. Her father had gifted her the bust on her wedding day and, though she rarely visited it, now she gave it a soldier’s salute.

  ‘Permission to speak, Commander.’

  ‘Permission granted,’ said her illustrious ancestor. ‘State your subject.’

  ‘My husband, Commander,’ said Vita.

  ‘What is the matter?’

  ‘He has been faithless to me throughout our marriage. He does not see the contributions I make to our household. He finds me loathsome and is often compelled to deliver me blows. He calls me useless.’

  ‘I see,’ returned the hollow-eyed centurion, who had once served in the army of Julius Caesar.

  ‘I wish to divorce him,’ she said, ‘with your permission.’

  ‘I have no argument,’ replied the visage. ‘Where will you go?’

  Vita had no idea.

  In Rome, the vast majority of marriages were sine manu unions. The wife went to live with her husband, but remained beneath the control of her father throughout the marriage, making divorce easy and common. To leave her husband, a woman simply packed up her dowry and returned to her father’s home to await her next pairing.

  But Vita’s father had insisted on a cum manu contract with Magnus, transferring his authority over Vita, along with her dowry and all her possessions, to Magnus himself.

  ‘If you divorce Magnus, you will become homeless,’ remarked the centurion.

  ‘I am aware, Commander.’

  Too aware. It was part of the reason she had stayed with Magnus all these years. When her father had given her away to Magnus for good, he had supplied Vita with an unusually generous dowry: the very home in which they lived. It was the reason Magnus had agreed to marry her at all, though she had not known it at the time. She had mistakenly believed he had married her out of fondness.

  ‘I will find somewhere to live,’ she repeated, as if simply saying her desire aloud could somehow make it come true. ‘I will do that first, then I will divorce him.’

  ‘A sensible plan, but are you certain?’ asked the bust. ‘The Rubicon River, once crossed...’

  Vita nodded, aware that she would likely spend the rest of her life living in squalor, struggling to survive on her own. It was a reality that had kept her tethered to a man who did not want her for too long, but not any more. There were some things in life more important than comfort—dignity, for example.

  She held the loincloth above the lamp as if illuminating a sacred text. Two small initials came into view. They were as white as the fabric itself: L.F.

  Lollia Flamma—Magnus’s latest lover.

  Mystery solved. Vita scolded herself for not seeing it sooner. The young, raven-haired socialite was the highest ranking of Vita’s female guests that night and also the most beautiful.

  She remembered how Magnus had watched Lollia depart that evening. He had departed himself immediately afterwards, had probably followed Lollia all the way to her home. The two had then sneaked back to Aventine Hill together and made love in Magnus’s tablinium while Vita slept.

  Ha, ha, ha!

  Vita waded towards the centre of the atrium and glanced up to observe the sky.

  Holy Minerva, it was beautiful. Most nights, the smoke of a million cooking fires clogged the air of Rome, but tonight the smoke seemed to have been swept away by the rain, revealing a swathe of glittering stars.

  They seemed endless and full of possibility—like freedom itself.

  She was going to divorce Magnus. Perhaps not today, but soon.

  She had held out for years, telling herself that she did not need his affection. It was enough to live in a fine home in a respectable neighbourhood with high-ranking acquaintances and a husband whose profession was admired.

  Still, what did any of it mean if she did not have her own dignity? She turned the loincloth over and over in her hands. Four walls, a bed mat, a secure place to keep her sewing—it was all she needed.

  Finally, she had decided. She would find herself a place to land, then she would fly from Magnus’s life and never look back.

  ‘Do not despair,’ she whispered to herself. ‘All will be well.’

  She closed her eyes and in the place of stars she saw a man’s green eyes. They were staring into her soul, reassuring her.

  A sound split the silence. A tiny peep echoed from somewhere near, followed by a high-pitched giggle. Vita froze.

  There it was again—another peep—though this time it was deeper and throatier and much closer to a moan. Perhaps the drunken cook had begun snoring again.

  ‘Oh, Magnus,’ a soft voice cooed.

  Perhaps it was not the drunken cook.

  ‘Shush, woman,’ whispered Magnus. His voice emanated from the triclinium where the banquet had taken place. ‘You will wake my wife.’

  Vita held her breath. He was there in the triclinium lounging area with Lollia, not five paces away, in flagrante delicto!

  Vita glanced about, wondering where she could conceal herself. If she waded out of the atrium into one of its surrounding rooms, the lovers would be sure to notice the sound of her squeaking sandals on the tiles. If she stayed put, they would soon pass by the atrium and see her there.

  She had to hide, but where? She stepped on to the edge of the cistern and gazed down into its dark floodwaters. ‘Come, we must get you home,’ she heard Magnus say.

  There see
med only one place to go. Vita took a deep breath, then slid downwards into her home’s flooded rain well.

  She held her breath as water surrounded her and mud enveloped her to the thighs. She could hear the sound of footfalls and whispering voices above her. They seemed to be moving away from her. They were leaving, thank the gods. She had done the right thing.

  Still, she hated herself in that moment. She was helpless, a coward. Even in this small unused corner of her home was the record of her failure—so much sediment that Vita could barely move.

  She reminded herself that it was not all her fault. Magnus had ignored the cistern as well, never once offering to help her clean it. Thus the sediment had accumulated: the collected detritus of a marriage gone bad.

  Her breath was running out. The movement above her had ceased and so had the whispers. The two lovers had finally departed, or so she hoped, for she could no longer hold her breath. She pushed herself to the surface, gripping the side of the cistern and drawing in air as she opened her eyes.

  There they were—her husband and his lover—standing at the edge of the flooded area, staring down at her.

  Magnus opened his mouth to speak, then burst into laughter. ‘Vita? Have you gone mad?’

  Vita lifted herself up out of the cistern and stared down at her mud-drenched skirt. She wondered briefly if the answer to his question was yes.

  ‘You are a thing of the swamp!’ He laughed and nudged Lollia, who laughed softly, then cast her guilty eyes to the floor.

  ‘Is that all you have to say, Husband?’ asked Vita. Her heart was pounding.

  ‘What more is there to say?’ He turned to Lollia. ‘Apologies, my darling. As you can see, my wife has lost her wits. Come, let us flee this madhouse.’

  Her husband took his lover’s hand and moved to leave.

  ‘I divorce you, Magnus,’ Vita muttered.

  Her husband turned. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I divorce you, Gaius Magnus Furius—for your cruel heart and selfish ways. I divorce you for betraying me all these years. I divorce you, as Jupiter is my witness. We are divorced!’