"Thank you, Gordianus. You comfort me." She touched my hand. My face flushed hotly.
Maecia noticed. "You need a cool drink, Gordianus. Come into the garden. We're drinking honeyed wine."
She led me down a hallway and through a colonnade into bright sunlight. The woman in the garden sat with her back to me. She wore a matronly stola and her hair was styled much like Maecia's. She looked over her shoulder. For a moment I failed to recognize her smiling face. I sucked in a breath when I realized it was Aemilia.
Maecia sat beside her and the two linked hands. A slave brought another chair and poured me a cup of wine, for which I was grateful. My face was still flushed and my mouth was suddenly dry. I had come prepared to see Numerius's mother, but not his lover.
The two of them seemed to be in unaccountably high spirits, holding hands and practically beaming. Perhaps it was simply the weather, I thought. Perhaps it was the honeyed wine. But why was Aemilia dressed as a married woman? As I observed the loose folds of her stola, I noticed a telltale swelling at her belly.
Aemilia saw the expression on my face. She grinned.
"You kept the baby," I said, my voice hardly more than a whisper.
She patted her belly proudly. "Yes."
"But how? I thought…"
"My mother insisted that I get rid of it, at first. But Maecia wanted me to keep it. It's Numerius's child, after all. Maecia went to see my mother. It wasn't easy, but the three of us found a solution."
Maecia explained. "We devised a little fiction. Numerius and Aemilia were secretly married, you see, behind everyone's backs- why not? There's no one to say that they weren't. I even had the marriage recorded officially; the bribe was ridiculously cheap. As Numerius's widow, there's no reason Aemilia shouldn't have his child. That's why she's living with me now, as my daughter-in-law. And when Pompey, and Aemilia's father, and my brother and sons all come back…" Her eyes misted and there was a catch in her voice. "When they come back, they may not be happy with what happened behind their backs, but what can they do but accept it?" She sighed. "These things are so much easier to work out, with all the men out of the way."
I nodded dumbly. Another conspiracy! More deceits and secrets and schemes- but meant to save life, not destroy it. From the foyer, I heard Mopsus and Androcles burst into giggles, joined by Cicatrix's braying laughter. The noise was infectious. Maecia patted Aemilia's belly and the two of them laughed as well.
I sipped my honeyed wine, and heard the echo of gods laughing.
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