A Villa Far From Rome

by Sheila Finch

  “Do they have a dog?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Catuarus has a dog. And Beech pulled me out of the water.”

  “Catuarus?” She stumbled over the word. “What a dreadful name!”

  “Not a dreadful name! Catuarus is my friend.”

  “Today you’ll meet Roman children.” She emphasized the word.. It would be difficult bringing up a child to be Roman so far from Rome. Niko would have to continue helping! At least Greeks were civilized.

  Men carrying heavy loads on their shoulders, others driving donkey carts, walked the road that led from the port up to Noviomagus. The men waved and Lucia waved back. They made the rest of the short journey in silence.

  Her spirits rose as they passed through the south gate. Noviomagus was a small town, not that much larger than Pyrgi, but the buildings were recognizably Roman. She saw a group of legionaries marching down one street, red cloaks fluttering in the cool breeze. No sign of the centurion. She was annoyed with herself for these thoughts about the centurion, but Tiberius was old enough to be her father, and dull, and the prospect of year after year with him was frightening.

  The youth led the horse to the centurion’s house.

  Gracila was delighted to see them, embracing them both as soon as they dismounted, drawing them through the atrium to an inner room.

  “You must be hungry!” She clapped her hands to summon a slave and ordered food. “And this is the little girl?” She tilted Lucia’s chin up to study the child’s face. “Beautiful! Such eyes! Such golden curls– ”

  Gracila stopped suddenly and glanced at Antonia.

  Of course she would’ve heard the gossip. Antonia had been here long enough to know that chatter about the affairs of others, especially those in high places, was just as rife in Noviomagus as it was in Rome. Anybody who didn’t suspect whose daughter Lucia was had to be blind and deaf. It was a small matter. She didn’t have to care about their opinion.

  “You poor child,” Gracila said. She took Antonia into her arms.

  Gracila smelled of the little imported eastern lily, a perfume she remembered her mother had once worn. There were tiny lines at the corner of her eyes, again like her mother. Lines also bracketed Gracila’s lips as if the mouth had been drawn down by sadness many times; her mother had those too. The woman was a courtesan – even with her sheltered childhood she could recognize that! – but Antonia clung to Gracila, wracked by an urgent homesickness.

  Two children entered the room, the toddler she’d seen on her first visit and a boy about Lucia’s age. They stood uncertainly in the doorway. A dark-skinned slave girl with a tray of dainty foods, small biscuits, olives and figs, and a pitcher of wine, hesitated behind them.

  “This is Lucia,” Gracila said to the little boy. “Caelius, take her and show her your animals.”

  The boy held out his hand, and Lucia went away with them.

  “Delamira, take the baby with you,” Gracila said, and the slave girl carried the toddler away.

  “Now, we’ll enjoy the food, and we’ll talk.”

  “I envy you. You have so many servants.”

  “Oh! That’s an illusion. I had to find a new girl when the previous one got sick and died of something I hadn’t heard of before. It’s quite strange. Marcus says some new legionaries joined the Augusta from Palestine and they were sick with the same thing when they got here. I hope the gods aren’t punishing us for something! But enough about servants and soldiers.” She drew Antonia over to a couch, not letting go of her hand.

  “It’s very kind of you.”

  “Nonsense. I need company or I shall go mad in this dreary climate. And it’s good for my son to practice his manners. His father takes him to be with the army too much.” She stopped and gazed at Antonia. “My dear, you’re so far from home, but don’t weep.”

  “You’re far from home too.”

  “Tut! I’m older and I’m used to it. Far better than following the legion around in the north where the tribes are ferocious and it rains all the time! We’re happy to be left in peace in this backwater – at least, I am. Marcus would probably prefer action, if you asked him. It’s not easy to be at the mercy of the emperor’s will. But now you’ve made your eyes red. First eat. I’ll have the girl bring my cosmetics and we’ll amuse ourselves.”

  Somehow, she managed a few bites of food, a few sips of wine while Gracila chattered on. It was comforting to let the older woman steer the conversation. The tensions and unhappiness of the past weeks dropped away and she relaxed. Responding to Gracila’s questions, she told stories of her parents and the villa in Pyrgi, the grapevines on the hillside above the sea, the funny escapades of her brothers, how they swam like the fish and raced horses like the wind. But that reminded her of the fine stadium her father built the year the emperor came to take part in the horse races, and she was silent again.

  Gracila patted her cheek and stood up. “Time to play!”

  She went to the door where another slave hovered and spoke in a low tone. Gracila was soft and round as a pillow, but her movements were lithe and smooth as befitted her name. The girl returned with a tray full of marble pots, jars made of glass and alabaster, and bowls of scented water.

  “Come,” Gracila said. “Sit here in the light and hold this mirror.” She indicated a bench by the window and handed Antonia a good quality polished bronze mirror with mother-of-pearl inlay on the back. She picked up a small brush that nestled between two jars, one of rosy cream, the other with a more golden hue like summer sun on wheat. “Now, which shall we use?”

  She had never used anything other than a very light oil of the olive’s first pressing to keep her skin smooth and give it a faint sheen. Her father had forbidden anything more showy. Whether this was because he’d thought her still too young, or because he didn’t want her drawing attention to herself in her disgraced state, she didn’t know. A little of both. She had no idea what most of the sweet smelling cosmetics were for.

  But yes, she did know what they were for! They were meant to attract a man. Her heart pounded again.

  “I shall choose for you.” Gracila tipped Antonia’s face back turning it a little from side to side, considering.

  Gracila set about mixing elements, then stroked cream into Antonia’s cheeks and up to her brow, finally dusting a fine powder over them. The cosmetics filled the room with the thick scent of roses and lavender and the more delicate scent of lilies of the valley. She picked up a boxwood comb set with tortoiseshell and teased Antonia’s hair into curls around her finger using a thicker cream and arranged them on her brow.

  “I had no idea there were so many things to choose from.” Antonia breathed deeply of the flowery scents.

  “This is just a selection, suitable for your young colors.”

  “How do you know to do all this?” She watched her appearance change in the bronze mirror that added its own rosy gold hue to her reflection.

  “When I was younger, I was an entertainer – for lack of a better word – and my city was built on fantasies. A woman learns fast in a place like Pompeii.”

  “Tell me what it was like to be in Pompeii.”

  “Oh, the living was fine! Streets of grand houses, and shops filled with everything a heart could wish for. The smell of bread baking from the shops, and meat roasting on spits. Beautiful people passing up and down the streets, and the sea sparkling where the streets ended. Musicians and jugglers and everyone enjoying all that the gods give us. I was born there, you know. My mother was an entertainer before I was born, but I never knew my father. Pompeii was a wonderful place to be a child!”

  “Did you – I mean –” She felt her cheeks flaming. She wanted to ask Did you meet him there? But that would be a terrible violation of manners, considering what Gracila had just said.

  “Yes, my dear,” Gracila said gently. “Like everybody else with a couple of gold coins to rub together, the legions’ best came to Pompeii to enjoy their free time.”

&n
bsp; Embarrassed, she tried to steer the conversation away from the quicksand it had stumbled into. “You’re very good with the cosmetics!”

  Gracila dabbed a spot of color on Antonia’s lips. “When you aim to keep a young eagle like Marcus in the nest, you don’t forget the little tricks.” Gracila’s face passed into shadow.

  She realized in that moment that Gracila must be older than her centurion. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “I’ve embarrassed you.” Gracila set the cosmetics aside and took both of Antonia’s hands in hers. “What a poor hostess I am.”

  “Think nothing of it.” Antonia admired her transformation in the bronze mirror.

  “Tell me, have you never painted your face before?” Gracila lifted an eyebrow. “Surely your mother –”

  “My father wouldn’t allow it.”

  “Poor child!”

  “He was very stern. Especially after –”

  Gracila stroked her arm gently. “And you were very young, from the age of your daughter.”

  “Twelve,” she said. The word sounded to her ears like a stone dropping into a pool.

  Gracila took both her hands in her own. They were both silent for a while.

  “I should go,” she said. “It’ll soon be dark. Night comes so quickly, now that summer has passed!”

  Gracila let go of her hands. “Take these cosmetics with you.”

  As if she’d been listening for her cue at the door, the dark slave girl appeared with Lucia by the hand and the older boy behind her.

  “Ma,” Lucia announced, breaking free of the girl’s hand. “Caelius has a pony!”

  “She is so taken by animals,” she said, glad for a change of subject.

  Gracila smiled. “You must come again and bring her so she can ride.”

  “I hope we will! And you must visit our poor little house.”

  “Gladly!” Gracila said.

  Outside on the twilit street, the Regni boy held Snowmark’s reins. They stood awkwardly together in the vestibule for a moment.

  “Think of me as a friend.” Gracila bent to kiss Antonia’s freshly painted cheek.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “I need a friend.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  He sent the stable boy to fetch a milking stool and waited in the raw cold outside the storage shed, now doing duty as a prison. The morning sounds of Snowmark and Stormfellow moving about in their straw in the next-door stable comforted him with their familiarity. He wasn’t looking forward to a fourth day of wrangling with his prisoner, an exercise that would probably yield as little outcome as the previous visits.

  Thinking over the futility of that first visit and the subsequent ones, he despaired of finding a solution that would appease both the Belgae and the Romans and not bring trouble on himself. He didn’t have a lot of experience with prisoners; either he’d killed on the battlefield, or the Romans had taken those they wanted as hostages. This situation didn’t offer such clear-cut choices. The charge of intent to create rebellion was probably trumped up, but it didn’t matter.

  The boy returned. He was the same age as his own son, Amminus; they’d been friends. He didn’t remember the lad’s name; he’d always relied on Breca for things like that.

  He took the stool. “Remember to empty the pisspot today.”

  “He threw it at me yesterday!” the boy protested.

  “We’re not savages. We don’t return ugliness for ugliness.”

  The boy scowled and pushed up the heavy bar that fastened the door. Togidubnus went inside.

  He found his prisoner slumped on the hut’s one stool, a chain around his ankle and fastened to a link on the wall, an empty bowl that had probably contained goat’s milk on the floor by his feet, and a stinking pisspot in one corner. One window, high up, admitted a little light. The Belgi was short, dark haired and sallow skinned; like many Celtic males, he’d grown his mustache into a grey-brown waterfall that signified a warrior. The two tribes were not close relatives – and certainly not friends – but in the blood they were both Celts. Tarvos had fought with Boudicca, and the Romans would not forgive that even if Togidubnus was inclined to be lenient.

  He set the second stool out of range of the captive and sat. “Talk. Give me a reason why I shouldn’t have you killed.”

  “You aren’t my tribe’s chief.”

  “Perhaps not. But I’m your captor.”

  The man spat, narrowly missing his boot. “I don’t make deals with traitors.”

  “We’re at peace with Rome. The queen was a rebel. You were on the wrong side.”

  “My people will never be at peace with these invaders who occupy our land.”

  “Better make your peace with them. We have as much to gain from them as they have from us.”

  “Maybe they’ll make me a king too?” The man’s eyes glittered angrily in the light from the high window. “Kill me and be done with it. That’s what your Roman masters want.”

  “It’s not what I want. Help me resolve this problem.”

  The prisoner turned his face away in silence.

  He hadn’t really expected to break the impasse so easily. He was surprised that the Belgae hadn’t learned of the capture of one of their princelings by now. Worse, that a neighboring chief was holding him. When that happened, the time for diplomatic solutions was gone. Pride and ambition would come into play, long-held jealousies and suspicions would surface, the peace between rivals would be shattered. And he had no doubt whatsoever that Marcus Favonius would bring the legion in and slaughter them all.

  He went out of the shed and the boy secured the bar over the door.

  He saddled Stormfellow himself. The wind was picking up and the air grew colder. He took the Roman road that led west toward Clausentum, leaving it where the track lead over the marsh to the land that was an island at high tide. Today it was ankle-deep in fog rising from the marshes.

  * * *

  Breca’s uncle and her aunt, her mother’s sister, had raised her when her own parents perished in a black fever that swept the countryside one winter long ago. She sat with the old Druid on cushions arranged around the fire in the center of the round house, spinning fibre from the mass of wool on a distaff. Firelight gleamed on the copper and silver torque around her neck and on her bracelets. He’d given them to her. Was that a good sign? He was hesitant to think it so. She glanced at him as he entered the house, then turned her eyes away.

  He knew his presence was disturbing to them, but Regni traditions of hospitality over-ruled their distrust. They would hear him out, but whether they could help him was in doubt.

  “Sit, Nephew,” Breca’s uncle said.

  The house was warm from the central firepit, warmer than his own Roman house with its inadequate hypocaust. An obviously pregnant cat, fur mottled in the firelight, slept beside the pit. Finely woven wool tapestries covered the walls, some with elaborate embroidered hems in red and deep blue. Sleeping benches with heaped wool blankets followed the curve of the walls, and shelves above them stored pots and cooking vessels, some bronze, some ceramic with incised and burnished decoration. The house of Arto and Adraste was only a little bigger than others in the village, but its furnishings were better, befitting the high status of the Druid and his wife.

  He glanced over at Breca and saw she’d been looking at him too. She looked away. This strangeness between them must not go on much longer. He tried to put his love for her into the look he sent her way.

  The aunt came inside the house, her arms loaded with herbs she’d been collecting. She acknowledged his presence and brought him a cup of warm beer with honey. He was never quite at ease around her. Her name, Adraste, referred to an Old One, a war goddess that Boudicca herself had worshiped and to whom she’d sacrificed Roman prisoners. Sometimes, looking at the old aunt’s fierce expression, he imagined the warrior queen’s spirit inhabiting her. He’d always thought she’d be dangerous to offend; now he wondered uneasily if he hadn’t already offended by his
ready adoption of Roman ways.

  And Arto, named for the bear that roamed forests to the north, was a priest. If there were a solution to be found to his dilemma, it would be here – if they’d be willing to share it with him. He had no illusions about what they thought of his attempts to bring Roman ways to Celtic Britannia. But they were wise, and their counsel was more precious than gold.

  Wind gusting over the roof sent a downdraft of wood smoke to fill the house. Arto coughed and Adraste offered him honeyed beer to ease his throat.

  Catuarus was dispatched to bring more firewood. Togidubnus used the time to describe the events of the night on the Downs, between the land of the Regni and the land of the Belgae, where the Romans had captured a Belgae princeling who’d fought on Boudicca’s side. He told of the days spent fruitlessly questioning the sullen captive. Telling the story in the Old Tongue lent it an almost bardlike, heroic quality, missing from the same story recited in Latin. Breca, he was heartened to notice, never took her eyes off him during the telling.

  “The charge is a serious one,” Arto said when he’d finished his telling. “Rome can’t afford to turn a blind eye to rebellion. Why have they turned him over to you?”

  “I’ve thought about that, Uncle, but I’m no closer to the answer.”

  The old Druid settled a heavy blanket woven in a green and blue plaid over his shoulders. His face was deeply lined in the play of firelight and shadow, but his eyes were sharp. “Obviously you can’t kill him. That would invite war with the Belgae – something we haven’t seen for two generations.”

  “He’s unrepentant about his support of the queen. I suspect there are others among his people who are still sympathetic to that lost cause.”

  Arto shook his head. “The thunder of terrible events like that is heard for many generations. Who is to judge the rightness of the cause?”

  He was uneasy with the question. The Druid didn’t support him, fearing he was far too close a friend of Rome. The irony was that Rome thought he was too much a Celt.