A Villa Far From Rome

by Sheila Finch

  Editors’ Choice Selection

  Historical Novels Review

  A VILLA FAR FROM ROME

  Sheila Finch

  A VILLA FAR FROM ROME

  Copyright © 2016 by Sheila Finch

  All rights reserved. This book, and any portions thereof, may not be reproduced without written permission except in the case of brief quotes embedded in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact Hadley Rille Books.

  Ebook Edition

  Print Edition also available.

  Cover art © Yana Dhyana

  Published by

  Hadley Rille Books

  Olathe, KS 66062 USA

  www.hrbpress.com

  contact@hadleyrillebooks.com

  For my niece, Caroline Scallan.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As usual, my gratitude to the members of the Asilomar Writers Consortium who have supported, guided, encouraged and celebrated with me over the years. In particular: Rose Hamilton Gottlieb, Jon Russ, Daniel Davila Houston, Grant Farley, David and Mary Putnam, Barry Slater, Kendall Evans, Harry Lowther, Samantha Henderson, Lydia Bird, and Deborah Kolodji.

  PROLOGUE

  [Pyrgi, near Rome, AD 61]

  Father said she was too young to go to the chariot races at the new stadium her family built, though her three brothers were allowed to go, Titus younger than she. Father said she was too young to attend the banquet where the emperor would sit at their table.

  She watched them return, late afternoon sun streaming over her brothers’ shoulders, laughing, their faces red, sweat plastering their hair in tight curls, their new tunics dusty. Talk spilled out of her brothers’ mouths: Chariots tangling – the crowd roaring – horses lying on their sides, shrieking, legs beating uselessly in the air – the charioteers slashing the harness with their short swords. And the emperor, driving through a gap in the middle of the chaos, winning the laurels. Valentinus punching Julius in his excitement at the telling. Julius shoving Titus to the floor because he was older, bigger. All three wild with laughter.

  Only Father wasn’t laughing. His face stern, he’d gone straight to his study, summoning his Greek secretary. Mother went to her chamber, proclaiming a headache from the sun. The slaves and the freed servants they’d brought with them from their house in Rome rushed to and fro readying the banqueting chamber. The smell of meat and fish roasting with garlic already filling the house. More dishes being prepared than she had ever seen before – she had no name for most of them. More servants hired to serve them. Musicians! Dancers! Even a juggler to entertain the royal guest. The emperor would arrive and the banquet begin when the sun was fully down. The emperor, who right now was bathing, his slaves preparing clean robes in the guest chambers Father had built especially for him on the side of their house that had the best view over the valley and the family’s grapevines to the dark sea.

  She hadn’t seen the emperor yet, but the silly house slaves who’d been allowed to witness his coming that she’d been denied – confined to her chamber with her nurse like a child! – prattled of his fine features. His glorious curls gilded by the summer sun. His piercing eyes. His witty talk. He was so young, they said. And strong, brave, godlike.

  Her heart fluttered like one of her caged birds. Why were they denying her this great celebration? Soon the house would fill with guests from town – it wasn’t often that the emperor came so far from Rome to their small town. Even Titus would be allowed to be there! Why was she banned from feasting her eyes on the emperor too?

  She would defy her father and watch from behind a column in the great chamber where the painted Muses danced on one wall and the Fates spun their thread on another. Once the banquet started and the wine was flowing, no one would think to look for her. It was dangerous to defy Father, his anger flashing like lightning over the family. She would bribe old Cassia – her nurse had a weakness for sweet figs dripping honey – to let her peek for just for a moment. She was not an infant to be sent to bed early when guests arrived for fear she’d embarrass her parents.

  She was almost grown up now – a young woman.

  Later, while her old nurse slept, gorged on honeyed figs steeped in wine, she crept through the flickering shadows of the wall torches, the noise of the hired musicians, the servants hurrying to and from the kitchen carrying amphoras full of wine, the best of the harvest. She hid herself behind the thick columns. Across the hall, the emperor reclined on his couch, the slaves filling and refilling his cup. Her brothers slumped, loose muscled as if they not the emperor had taken part in the races earlier. Her father, his back to where she hid, sat stiff as a statue. She could not see her mother.

  And the emperor – every bit as beautiful as a young god as everyone had said, a carving of the young Apollo wreathed in golden curls – looked up, his eyes lit with inner fire, catching her gaze. Silence filled the hall, all motion seemed to stop. Heat flooded her face, her breath tangled in her chest, but she could not tear her gaze free of him.

  He raised his cup to her and drank.

  How scary it was to lurk here where she had been forbidden! At any moment her father could turn and see her. Heart pounding, she crept away, back to her room where old Cassia lay snoring on the floor at the foot of her sleeping couch. Trembling, she slipped out of her robe and lay down, knowing sleep would not come now.

  She had looked upon the face of a god

  .

  The candles burned low. The small window that looked out to the low hills was still dark when he came in. She saw him in shadow, unloosening the brooch that held his toga, She felt the weight of his body slumping on top of hers, his hand clamping her mouth shut, the rhythm of his hips grinding against her, his teeth catching her brow, her cheek, the hiss of his peppermint-scented breath in her ear, My little slave girl, my pretty little slave!

  The pain that ripped through her like fire.

  Afterwards, he left as silently as he had entered, and she lay in the tangled bed linens, feeling the warmth of blood on her thighs as the rising sun slid through the window across the still sleeping nurse. Her body ached. Her mouth tasted of peppermint

  She would not allow herself to cry.

  She had just turned twelve years old.

  CHAPTER ONE

  [Noviomagus, Britannia, AD 66]

  “I don’t like this at all,” Breca said for the third time. “He’s far too young.”

  “I was hardly much older than Amminus, my heart, when my father sent me to live with the emperor. I survived, didn’t I?” Togidubnus patted his wife’s arm as he passed through the room.

  “But Rome is so far away!”

  “No further than it was when I was there.”

  “Don’t make jokes, Togi,” she said. “We know nothing about this emperor.”

  “What’s there to know?”

  He stopped in the doorway to his study where he had been assembling documents recounting his memories of the most recent campaign against the rebel queen Boudicca that he wished to present to the emperor. The small house was quiet in the early spring afternoon; seagulls heading back to the channel waters from foraging expeditions to the chalk hill country were the only sound from outside. He loved this little house his father had built, sheltering them like a mother hen with her brood below the Downs and so close to the sea.

  “Please, Togi,” Breca said. “I beg you. Don’t take the boy.”

  He’d heard rumors that Rome was losing its taste for the wilder parts of its far-flung empire; the cost of retaining the legions based in Britannia was an increasingly unpopular expense. The emperor, so the gossips said, was considering pulling the legions out. In Togidubnus’s view, that would be a disaster for both Rome and the people of these islands. It was important
to secure ties with Rome.

  “It’s only a year. One year to teach him the ways of a ruler.”

  “A Roman.”

  “We are all Romans now, my heart.”

  “They will never think of us as anything but barbarians. Surely you see that? I have a very bad feeling about this.”

  “What’s to fear? It’ll make a man of him.”

  Sending the boy to the Roman court was a good idea. He himself had benefitted immensely from spending a year of his adolescence under the tutelage of Emperor Claudius, a man who’d been – he thought – unfairly judged by his own mother as a “monstrous specimen” due to his physical infirmities. At Claudius’s court, he’d become proficient in Latin – and there was no way to succeed without speaking the Mother Tongue of the Romans, no matter how much his wife wanted to cling to the old ways and words. He’d gained protection and favor shown in the name he’d returned with: Tiberius Claudius Togidubnus. The world from now on was going to be Roman. His oldest boy would do well to grow up Roman. But Breca was a princess of the Regni, and a descendant of a long line of Druid priests, and not as comfortable as he with Roman rule.

  Voices outside the long, unshuttered windows drew his attention. His two sons were playing with a young brown-and-white dog; twelve year-old Amminus – but the emperor would have something to say about that name if he liked the boy! – throwing a hunk of bone for the dog. Catuarus, four-years younger, stood laughing under an oak, grabbing the bone away from the panting dog as fast as she retrieved it. Sunshine flooded the river meadow with soft gold, the scent of the nearby sea drifted inside, white butterflies swooped among the spring flowers. The weather was good for traveling the long distance from the little harbor of Noviomagus Regnorum to Rome’s port at Ostia.

  “Remember, Breca, I met this emperor while I was at Claudius’s court. He was a young boy. I seem to remember him excelling in sport, especially with horses.”

  “That tells me nothing. Many a monster has been good with horses.”

  “Enough!” he said sharply.

  She came to him, contritely, and laid her head on his breast. His put his arms around her. They remained in each other’s embrace for a moment listening to the sound of the boys at play.

  He wouldn’t speak to her of his own ambitions. He was a princeling, a chief, as his father had been, of the Catuvellauni, rewarded with this house in the territory of a related tribe for their long service to the Romans. He’d taken Breca to be his wife. The Regni had been without a king for several years; if their council of Elders could be brought to see that closer relations with Rome were beneficial for the tribe, the election next Beltane could go his way. And some day, his oldest son would need this Roman education to lead the land and its people.

  “I have such fears, Togi,” she said, her voice muffled by the fold of his tunic.

  He stroked her hair, soothing her. “He’ll be all right, my heart. The emperor will make a warrior of him. And one day he’ll be a fine leader in my place.”

  “Sulis grant the truth of that!”

  He kissed the top of her head. “You must remember to call her Minerva. Someday, I’ll build a temple dedicated to her for you.”

  “It’s only the ramblings of a foolish woman who loves her husband and dreads his absence.”

  “Never foolish. Tell me, descendent of a long line of Druids, shall I return triumphantly from Rome?”

  A shadow passed across her face and she turned away from him. “I see you return in good health. The rest is – darkness.”

  “A night journey! With my beloved wife holding a lamp, lighting the way to our bedchamber, no doubt.”

  She slapped his arm, but he saw the smile she tried to hide from him.

  The two boys tumbled into the room, punching each other’s shoulders, grabbing at ears and hair, laughing. The older of his sons was tall, pale of face and hair, and very thin, bones sticking up in awkward places as if he were the son of an impoverished iron smelter instead of the chief of the Regni. Yes, Amminus would benefit from the discipline of Rome. He was too much devoted to books. In Rome, they’d put flesh on his bones with martial exercise such as only the Romans knew, make him stand up straight, like a man, instead of slouching like an untaught girl.

  “Are you prepared for the journey, Amminus?” he asked.

  The boy nodded, avoiding eye contact with his father. “I didn’t have much to pack.”

  “Why so glum-faced? The sea journey alone should make you happy. You boys have grown up in boats and on the water since you were babes.”

  “I’ll go instead!” The younger son was sturdily built, muscular, copper haired and dark eyed like the ancestor he was named for, his cheeks flushed with good health. He’d make a good warrior some day. Time enough for that later. There’d been a girl between them, but she hadn’t lived to see her fourth birthday. His wife had compensated by spoiling the boys and over-protecting them, especially Amminus.

  “He’s right,” Breca said. “It’s a very long journey. And why must you travel by sea the whole way? Wouldn’t it be better to take the land roads to Rome? Amminus has a weak stomach. If you encounter storms, he’ll suffer.”

  “Bandits by land!”The younger boy slashed about him with an imaginary sword.

  “I’ve made my decision. I’ve arranged passage with a merchant leaving on the high tide tonight, and we’ll take it. No more arguments!”

  * * *

  A full moon rose over the little harbor as the family made their way down to the merchant’s ship, Amminus holding his mother’s arm, Catuarus skipping ahead. The salt smell of the tide, high and about to turn, filled his nose. An owl glided silently over his head. Minerva’s bird; a good sign.

  “Be more cheerful, my heart.” They’d reached the lamp-lit quay where two house servants waited for them with a chest filled with clothes for Amminus to wear during a year in the emperor’s house. “I’ll return before you know I’m gone. I’ll bring you treasure from Rome.”

  Breca pulled her wool cloak tighter round her shoulders, but said nothing. He saw the glint of tears in the moonlight. There was nothing to fear. She’d foreseen his return and her second sight was never wrong.

  “Don’t forget to tell the emperor how you defeated that bad Queen Boudicca!” Catuarus said. “Tell him about the battles and the blood and how you killed –”

  “Don’t be foolish!” Amminus interrupted.

  “No quarreling now. That would be a most unfortunate memory to take with us. Amminus, take your leave of your mother. The next time she sees you, you will be a man.”

  Breca embraced her older son and whispered in his ear as the younger one leaped about them in excitement. She let Amminus go and he made his way cautiously aboard the rocking ship. The boat’s master stood with the mooring rope in his hands, eager to be off on the tide.

  “Breca – ” He took her in his arms.

  But she put her fingers over his lips, silencing him. “No need for talk. I shall pray night and day until you return.”

  “A very long prayer indeed! But thank you. I will keep your memory safe in mine.”

  He kissed her, then boarded the boat without looking back.

  CHAPTER TWO

  [Rome, AD 66]

  Rome was much larger – and noisier and dirtier – than Antonia had imagined. She had few memories of the city she hadn’t visited since she was ten, but she’d grown up believing it must be paradise from the way her mother lamented its loss. And the streets! Instead of the careful, clean lines of Pyrgi, the little town on the Tuscan coast where their country villa stood, the city’s jumbled streets, some new, some obviously in blackened ruins, seemed intended as a vast labyrinth. On both sides of a narrow, rubble strewn passage, tall new buildings shut out the sun. Stopping to catch her breath, she eased the sack containing a little bread and everything she still owned off her back. Once, the family had owned a house here in Rome. Lost along with the villa in Pyrgi after her father had gone bankrupt.

 
The buildings on this block were new but hardly attractive, so crowded together. None were less than two storeys in height, some more than four, all apartments, stacked on top of each other the way a child might stack blocks. She couldn’t imagine living like that. They faced inward, presenting blank, white walls against which a variety of merchants and hucksters spread their wares, shoddy leather goods and cheap trinkets, flagons of wine of such inferior harvest her father would not have given it to the servants. Here and there, the blank walls were broken by open shop fronts where flies swarmed over the hanging carcasses of sheep and goats and the stinking piles of fish.

  “We would do well to find a room to spend the night,” Nikolaos said. The Greek who had been her father’s secretary shifted the sleeping child from his left shoulder to his right. “It’s been an arduous journey, and you need to rest.”

  They had been traveling for the better part of a week, sometimes on foot, sometimes given a ride by a farmer with an oxcart who took pity on them. Though it was still early in the year, the city was already as hot as an oven preparing to bake bread, She ached all over, but they couldn’t stop now.

  “Time to rest after I speak with the emperor!”

  It had taken her years to find the strength to make this decision to confront the emperor, years filled with tears and recrimination, her mother’s lamentations, her brothers’ scorn, the servants’ whispered spite, all overshadowed at last by the family’s decline into bankruptcy, the auctioning off of the family estate, her father’s eventual suicide. Years in which she was forced to grow up too soon into womanhood and reluctant motherhood. The father must acknowledge his child.

  “I doubt we could gain access to the palace at this late hour,” Nikolaos said.