"And what do you know of Rome?" he asked her, amused.
"I sat with my brothers and their tutor for many years," Cailin said. "I learned the history of Rome and of my native Britain."
"Can you read and write?" he questioned her, fascinated.
"In Latin," she responded. "The history of my mother's people, the Dobunni Celts, is an oral history, but I know it, my lord."
"Jovian told me little of your background, Cailin. Your Latin is that of a cultured woman, if a bit provincial. Who were your people?"
"I descend from a tribune of the Drusus family who came to Britain with the emperor Claudius," Cailin said, and then, as they lay together, she told him her family's history.
"And your husband? Who was he? Also of a Romano-Briton family?"
"My husband was a Saxon," Cailin said. "1 married him after my family was murdered at the instigation of my cousin Quintus, who wanted my father's lands. My cousin was unaware I had escaped the slaughter until I came with my husband, Wulf Ironfist, to reclaim what was rightfully mine. Wulf killed Quintus when he attempted to attack me. It was his wife, Antonia, who betrayed me, but you already know that part of my story, my lord."
"It is amazing that you have survived it all," Aspar said thoughtfully.
"Now you know everything about me. Zeno has told me that your first wife was a good and an honorable woman. What he did not say about the wife you now have is more of interest," Cailin said. "If you would tell me, my lord, I should like to know."
"Flacilla is a member of the Strabo family," Aspar began. "They are very powerful at court. Our marriage was one of convenience. She does not live with me, and frankly I do not even like her."
"Then why did you marry her?" Cailin asked curiously. "You did not need to marry again at this time, my lord. You have one grown son, Zeno says, and a second son as well as a daughter."
"Did Zeno mention my grandchildren?" Aspar demanded with a certain humor in his voice. "My daughter Sophia has three children, and my eldest son has four. Since Patricius, my youngest, shows no signs of wanting to be a monk, I can assume he, too, will give me more grandchildren one day when he is grown and wed."
"You have grandchildren?" Cailin was astounded. He did not look that old, and his behavior was certainly not that of an old man. "How old are you, my lord Aspar? I was nineteen in the month of April."
He groaned. "Dear God! I am certainly old enough to be your father, my little love. I am fifty-four this May past."
"You are nothing like my father," she murmured, and then she boldly pulled his head to her and kissed him softly, sweetly.
His head swam pleasantly with her daring. "No," he said, his gray eyes smiling into her violet ones, "I am not your father, am I, my little love?" He kissed her back; a long, slow, deep kiss.
Cailin's senses reeled. Finally, when she recovered herself, she said, "Tell me more about your wife, my lord Aspar."
"I like the sound of my name upon your lips," he said.
"The lady Flacilla Strabo, my lord Aspar," she insisted.
"I married her for several reasons. The late emperor, Marcian, whom I placed upon the throne of Byzantium and married to the princess Pulcheria, was dying, and there were no heirs.
"Marcian came from my own household. He had served me loyally for twenty years. When I realized his end was near, I chose Leo, another of my household, to be the next emperor. I needed certain support from the court, however. The patriarch of Constantinople, the city's religious leader, is a relation of the Strabo family, and family ties are strong here. Without him I could not have hoped to place Leo on the throne. To ensure his support, and that of the Strabo family, I married the widowed Flacilla. She was pregnant with a lover's child at the time, and was causing her family untold embarrassment."
"What happened to the child?" Cailin wondered aloud.
"She miscarried it in her fifth month," he said, "but it was too late. She was my wife. In return for my aid, the patriarch and the Strabo family supported my choice of Leo. Of course, other patrician families followed suit. This allowed us a peaceful transition from one emperor to another. Civil war is unpleasant at the least, Cailin. And Flacilla is to all outward appearances a good wife. She has taken my little son, Patricius, in her charge, and is a very good mother to him. He is being raised in the Orthodox faith. I hope to match him with the princess Ariadne one day, and make him Leo's heir, for the emperor has no sons."
"What do you want of me, my lord, I mean other than the obvious?" Cailin asked him, and then she blushed at her own audacity. Still, her life since leaving Britain had been so unsettled. She needed to know if she was to have a permanent home.
He thought for several long minutes. "I loved my first wife," he began. "When Anna died, I thought that I should never again care for a woman. I certainly do not like Flacilla, but I serve a purpose for her. Her social stature is practically as high as the empress Verina, for I am the General of the Eastern Armies, and the First Patrician of the Empire. Flacilla, in turn, mothers my orphaned son, but that is all she does for me.
"I am powerful, Cailin, but I am alone, and the honest truth is, I am a lonely man. When I saw you that night at Villa Maxima, you touched me as no woman has ever really touched me. I need your love, I need your gentleness, and I need your companionship in my life. Do you think that you can give it to me, my beauty?"
"My grandfather said I had a sharp tongue, and I do," Cailin told him slowly. "I am practical to a fault. If there is any gentleness left in me, my lord Aspar, you are possibly the only one to see it. Now what I must say to you will sound hard, but I have learned in the last year to be hard in order to survive. You are not a young man, yet I am your slave. If you should die, what will happen to me? Do you think that your heirs will treat the slave mistress of their father with kindness? I think not.
"I believe that I shall be disposed of with all the other possessions that you own that will be considered unnecessary. Can I love you? Yes, I can. I believe you to be kind and good, but if you truly care for me, my lord, then make provisions to keep me safe when you are not here to do so yourself… Until that time I will serve you with all my heart and soul."
He nodded quietly. She was right. He would have to make arrangements to protect her when he no longer could. "I will go to the city tomorrow and arrange for everything," he promised her. "You will be free upon my death, and have an inheritance to keep you. If you bear my children, I will provide for them, and recognize them as well."
"It is more than fair," Cailin said, relief sweeping over her.
When she awoke in the morning, Aspar was gone from their bed.
"He has gone to the city," Zeno said, smiling. "He says to tell you that he will return in several days' time, my lady. He has also told me that you are to be considered mistress here, and we will obey you."
"My lord Aspar is a generous man," Cailin said quietly. "I must rely upon you, Zeno, to help me do what is proper and correct."
"My lady's wisdom is only excelled by her great beauty," the elderly majordomo replied, pleased by her tactful response and the certainty that everything would remain the same.
Aspar returned a few days later from Constantinople. Within a short time it was obvious to his servants that he intended to make Villa Mare his primary residence. He left only to attend to court business and oversee his duties as general of the Eastern Armies. He was rarely away overnight. He and Cailin had settled down to a very quiet domestic existence.
Cailin was surprised to learn that Aspar owned all the farmland about the villa for several miles. There were vineyards, olive groves, and wheat fields, all contributing to the general's wealth. He thought nothing of helping out in the fields, or working to harvest the grapes. She rather suspected he enjoyed it.
***
In the city, Aspar's absence from his elegant palace was not noticed at first, but the empress Verina, a clever woman, kept her ear to the ground in all quarters. She and her husband had not the advantage of inheritance
to keep their thrones safe. Aspar was important to them. Although an excellent public servant, Leo was not a master of intrigue at this early point in his reign; but his wife, raised in Byzantium, knew that the more one knew, the safer one was. A servant's idle gossip caught her ear at first, and then she heard it again, this time from a minor official. The empress invited her brother Basilicus to come and visit her.
They sat on a terrace overlooking the Propontis, called by some the Marmara, one afternoon in late autumn, sipping the first of the new wine. Verina was a beautiful woman with ivory skin and long, black hair which she wore in an elaborate coiffure of braids that were fastened with jeweled pins. Her red and gold stola was of rich materials, and the low neckline showed her fine bosom to its best advantage. Her slippers were bejeweled, and she wore several ropes of pearls so translucent they seemed to shimmer against her skin and gown. She smiled at her brother.
"What is this 1 hear about Aspar?" she purred.
"What is it you have heard about Aspar, my pet?" he countered.
"It is said that he has closed up his palace and now lives in the countryside outside the city," the empress said. "Is it true?"
"I would not know, sister dear," Basilicus replied. "I have not seen Aspar socially for months now. I see him only when we have mutual court business to attend to, which is infrequently. Why would you care where Aspar lives, Verina? Although he is responsible for Leo's ascent, you have never cared particularly for him. I know for a fact that his presence irritates you for it only serves to remind you that he is responsible for your good fortune."
"It is said there is a woman living with him, Basilicus," the empress said, ignoring her brother's astute observation. "You know that Aspar's wife, Flacilla, is my friend. I would be very distressed to have Flacilla embarrassed by her husband's peccadillos."
"Nonsense, sister, you are simply consumed by curiosity," Basilicus replied. "If indeed Aspar is living with some mistress, nothing, I suspect, would please you more than to drop a hint in Flacilla's shell-like ear, thereby enraging her. You know that Aspar agreed to marry her only if she would remain discreet in her little adventures and not embarrass her family again. Aspar is not a man to install a mistress in his house, but if indeed he has, then by living in the country he is making an attempt to be circumspect in his affair. Besides, there is nothing wrong with a man taking a mistress, Verina. It is my opinion that our good general deserves a modicum of pleasure in his life. He will never obtain it from your dear friend Flacilla, who takes lovers like some women gather flowers in a field, and with less discretion, I might add."
"Flacilla is young yet. She is many years her husband's junior," the empress said. "Aspar could not keep up with her, I assure you."
"She could not keep up with him," Basilicus said with a laugh. "Aspar is known to be a prodigious lover, my dear sister. An eighteen-year-old could not keep up with him, I am told by most reliable sources. Besides, Flacilla has two grown daughters. She is hardly in the first bloom of youth herself."
"She had her children when she was fifteen and sixteen," Verina said in defense of the lady. "They were fifteen and sixteen when she married them off last year. That only makes her thirty-two. Aspar is at least twenty years her senior. If he has taken a mistress, it will make my poor Flacilla the laughingstock of all of Constantinople. You must find out!"
"Me?" Basilicus looked horrified. "How could I find out?"
"You must go to visit Aspar in the country, Basilicus. Perhaps these rumors are nothing more than that, rumors, but if they are true, then I must inform Flacilla before she is shamed before the court."
"Go to the country? Verina, I detest the country! I haven't left the city in several years. There is nothing to do in the country. Besides, Flacilla should be delighted if Aspar has taken a mistress. It will keep him occupied, amused, and uninterested in her affairs. She almost caused a dreadful scandal again last week when the young gladiator she had been amusing herself with decided he was in love with her after she attempted to discard him."
"I didn't hear that," the empress said, annoyed and curious as to why her network of spies had not reported this rather interesting tidbit to her. "What happened, Basilicus? I can see you know every delicious detail. Tell me at once, or I shall have you blinded!"
He chuckled and, pouring himself another goblet of wine, began, "Well, my dear sister, your friend Flacilla had taken a young gladiator to her bed whom she had first seen at the spring games. A Thracian named Nichophorus; rather beefy I thought, but those muscular thighs of his were irresistible, I suspect. As is usual with Flacilla after a few months' time, familiarity began to breed contempt. She grew tired of her muscular Adonis and, besides, her eye had lit upon Michael Valens, the young actor. Our Flacilla was struck anew by Cupid's dart."
"What happened to the gladiator?" Verina demanded.
"He caught them at the very same trysting place Flacilla had once shared with him," Basilicus replied. "She is not a woman of great imagination, is she, sister? You would have thought she would have chosen another site to carry on her little passion, but no, 'twas the very same spot. Nichophorus, informed by some mischief maker, found them there. He howled and raged, beating upon the door of the chamber in which your friend and her lover were cowering. Finally he broke the door down.
"Michael Valens, no hero, fearful that his beautiful face would be destroyed, escaped through a window naked as the day his mother had birthed him, I'm told, leaving a semi-garbed Flacilla to contend with the outraged gladiator. He railed loudly against her, cursing her and naming her a whore to all who would listen. The innkeeper finally called out the guard, who chased after Nichophorus as he ran screaming after Flacilla's litter, which was making its way down the streets of the city at an unusually great rate of speed." Basilicus laughed. "The captain of the guard and his men were, of course, bought off by the patriarch. The scandal was hushed up. Nichophorus was sent to Cyprus. It is a very good thing Aspar was not in the city when it happened. He warned Flacilla when they married that if she caused any public scandal, he would send her to St. Barbara's Convent for the rest of her life."
The empress nodded. "Yes, he did, and the patriarch agreed to support him in such an instance. The Strabo family is not just a little annoyed by Flacilla's indiscreet behavior, and their patience is worn thin by her. Hmmmmm, I wonder to what use I may put all this information, but of course the puzzle is incomplete until I know exactly what is going on at Aspar's villa." Her amber eyes glittered wickedly. "You will leave in the morning, brother."
He groaned as he arose, kissing her hand. "The empress's wish is my command, but Verina, I will expect the favor of my choice for this little task I undertake on your behalf. Remember that!"
"Within reason, Basilicus," she purred, smiling broadly after him. He was such a good brother, the empress thought fondly as she watched him leave. Whatever was happening at the general's villa, Basilicus would obtain the entire story, analyze it, and return to her with it. If she could not decide how to use his information, he would be able to advise her. They were very close, and always had been.
Basilicus left the city early the following day. He traveled in a large, comfortable litter, preferring not to ride in the warm sun. To his surprise, he napped most of the way, awakening as they entered through the gates of the villa. Zeno, the majordomo, greeted him politely, recognizing the prince from his own days at the general's house in Constantinople.
"Where is your master?" Basilicus asked.
"He is walking by the sea, my lord," Zeno replied.
Basilicus was about to tell Zeno to send a servant for Aspar, but instead decided that he might learn something of value if he took his friend unawares. "Thank you, Zeno," he said. "If you will but direct me." He followed the majordomo through the atrium of the villa and across the interior garden, out into a large open garden that looked over the Propontis, and beyond into Asia.
"There is the path, my lord," Zeno told him, pointing.
Basilicu
s hurried along the gravel walkway. It was a marvelous day with a flat, bright blue, cloudless sky above. The autumn sun was warm, and about him the damask rosebushes sported a mixture of late blooms and large, fat, round red-orange rosehips. Then he saw them-Aspar and a woman, laughing together upon the beach. The woman wore a white chiton and was barefoot, as was her companion, who was gatbed in a short red tunic. The sea was almost flat, a mixture of azure, aquamarine, and teal-green stretching like an iridescent fabric across to the hills on the other shore. Above them the gulls mewled and cried, swooping to the water and then pulling up sharply to soar in the windless sky.
Basilicus watched them for a long moment, enchanted by the picture they made, and then he called out, raising his hand and waving at the couple. "Aspar, my friend!" He stepped from the pathway to the sandy beach and began walking toward them.
"Jesu!" Aspar swore softly beneath his breath. "It is Basilicus."
"The empress's brother?" Cailin replied. "Did you invite him?"
"Of course not. He has obviously heard something, my little love. He is a clever, and a sly fox. He has come with a purpose, you may be certain. I can only wonder at what it is."
"He is very handsome," she observed.
Aspar felt a twinge of jealousy at her words. He had no cause, he knew, to doubt her. She was simply making an observation, and yet he felt resentful. He did not want to share Cailin with anyone, he thought, as Basilicus finally reached them. "Is there some emergency that you invade my privacy?" he said ungraciously to his friend.
Basilicus was somewhat taken aback by the unfriendly tone of the general's voice. Dear lord! Caught between his sister's unbridled curiosity and the annoyance of the most powerful man in the empire. No one would envy him his position at this moment. "There is no emergency," he said. "I simply felt like a day in the country, Aspar. I did not believe my arrival would cause you to behave like a bear with a sore paw," Basilicus replied, put off but determined to remain.
"Your guest will be thirsty and hungry, my lord," Cailin said quietly. "I will go and make certain that Zeno has refreshments prepared." She nodded politely at the prince, and left the two men on the bench.
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