A Villa Far From Rome

by Sheila Finch

  The day called to her, sweet and mild. She felt well enough to take a walk by herself. She draped a warm Regni cloak over her shoulders – How thin she’d become! Bones sticking out all over -- But she was alive, and it was spring. She stepped outside. Under the blossoming trees, daffodils splashed the earth with gold, and at the edge of the grass that surrounded the house, right where a stand of oaks and elms held off the east wind, a patch of blue so brilliant it hurt her eyes. Shading her eyes as she came closer, she found a riot of tiny bluebells under the trees. She took a moment of pleasure in them. The flowers she remembered from her native land were bigger, splashier, but their colors and perfumes were no more beautiful than the demure blooms of this island so far from Rome. The sky too was different; Rome’s sky was hot and brassy, a dazzling, burning blue, but here even the bluest sky was tempered by puffs of white cloud. The insight surprised her; she was growing accustomed to her new home. She might even come to love it someday.

  A stranger was walking up the path from the sea, a Roman, by the look of his toga and high-laced sandals more suited to Rome than to rough Britannia. He was a short man with a well-fed look about him, carrying an armload of scrolls, and behind him a slave staggered under the weight of several lumpy looking bundles. Another, younger man followed, tall and thin, his skin dark as if he spent much time in the sun, his long nose showing the sudden turn down that betrayed his roots in the cities on the Nile. It wasn’t unusual for people to come and go between Noviomagus and Rome, the road between the town and the small harbor led right past the house. but these strangers were heading to the house itself. The short man was obviously out of breath as if unused to such strenuous activity. Antonia stopped at the edge of the colonnade to see what they’d do. Surely this was a gift! Visitors from Rome would bring news and gossip, contact that she was starved for.

  “You!” the man said when he became aware of her. “Announce my arrival!”

  At first, she thought he must’ve aimed his command at the slave following him. But no, he was looking at her – glaring at her – as if she must be too stupid to understand.

  “I don’t know who you are.”

  “I am Septimus Severus.” the short man said. “Your master will be expecting me.”

  She shook her head. Since her illness, she hadn’t been quick with her thoughts, but this made no sense. “I don’t think we –”

  “A letter of introduction preceded me,” he said grandly.

  She glanced from the short man to the gloomy-faced slave behind him. The slave shook his head. “I don’t think there was a letter ...” she began. Surely if Tiberius was expecting guests from Rome he’d have made arrangements?

  “No letter?” Severus said. “Then it was lost at sea! Well, no matter. I’m here. Girl – go summon your master.”

  She felt as if he’d hit her. He took her for a slave! And what else should he think as she stood there, a skinny wretch with tangled hair in a barbarian cloak?

  She caught the eyes of the younger man standing behind Septimus Severus. Was it her imagination, or had he actually winked at her? He smiled at her as if he had guessed the truth even though the older man hadn’t. Her first anger gave way to a pricking of mischief.

  “Please, sir,” she said humbly, hiding her own smile, “step into the audience chamber here behind me, and I’ll summon the house’s owner.”

  “I shall require food and drink.” He strode past her, scrolls rustling in his arms.

  The slave stood on the grass, lumpy baggage at his feet. He shrugged at her.

  “There’ll be food for you in the kitchen,” she said. “But tell me why you’ve come here? We weren’t expecting visitors.”

  “He’s the emperor’s architect,” the slave said, nodding in the direction of the now vanished Roman.

  “And I’m his assistant,” the younger man said. “Aron by name. Septimus Severus is here to build a villa.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The emperor sent him. To build a villa.”

  “A villa? But for whom?”

  “For whoever lives here right now, I suppose,” Aron replied.

  She must be dreaming. She couldn’t have heard that right. She’d written to Nero asking for a small sum of money to repair the failing hypocaust – and if they’d had a working one, she wouldn’t have been so ill last winter – but a whole house? This was beyond dreaming! She’d been right about the emperor. Elation swept over her. Wait till Tiberius heard this news!

  She remembered the pompous little man waiting in the audience chamber for “the owner of the house” and her desire to trick him returned. When Aron and Severus’s slave had trudged off with the bundles towards the outbuildings where the servants slept, she pulled her cloak around her shoulders and entered the audience chamber.

  “Good day to you, sir,” she said.

  He looked up from the bench he’d seated himself on and frowned. “I told you to fetch your master or mistress!”

  “I did. I am Antonia Plautina, wife of Claudius Tiberius Togidubnus, and mistress of this house.”

  His mouth gaped open, but he shut it in a hurry and scowled. “I am not accustomed to being the butt of jokes!”

  “And I am not accustomed to being treated as a slave. So we’re even. I bid you welcome. My husband and I will enjoy hearing your plans for this house. But for now, I’ll send someone to guide you to a chamber where you may stay.”

  It felt good to laugh after such a long time of being ill, but she stifled it until the door closed behind her.

  * * *

  “I doubt your husband will take this well,” Niko said when she told him.

  Septimus Severus had been settled in the small room Tiberius used as a study to work on the house’s accounts and records. One of the Regni servants was taking food to him as he wished to refresh himself in private. The Roman’s expression when he’d realized he was speaking to the house’s owner and not her servant caused her to double over with laughter, even now.

  “Tiberius will be happy with a larger room to work in when the villa’s built.”

  “I meant building a whole new villa. I didn’t know he’d even considered it.”

  “Of course he’ll like a larger villa! Why wouldn’t he? He hasn’t spoken much about it because he’s so busy building the temple in Noviomagus.”

  Niko shook his head.

  She lay back on her bed and allowed Delamira to arrange pillows for her head. Niko had insisted she needed to rest, even though she felt so full of energy right now. She’d never expected Nero’s response to a simple plea for a little money to result in the presence of an architect and plans for a new villa. And a most interesting assistant, a voice whispered in her mind. Tomorrow, after Severus had rested, he would show her the plans.

  Under Niko’s instruction, Delamira brought warm water and tended to the wound on her throat. It was healing, just a little soreness remained.

  “You have a healing touch, Delamira,” she said.

  “Thank you, Lady. I know a little. But not as much as Nikolaos.”

  She lay still, thinking things over. Of course she still wanted to return to Rome some day – it was her true home – but a grand new villa would make it easier to bide her time. Surely that proved the emperor held her and her child in favor? Once that news got out, the haughty Roman matrons of Noviomagus – all except Gracila, of course, it wasn’t her fault – who’d snubbed her at the Yule celebration would be forced to show respect. This was a far grander outcome than she could have ever wished. The villa of her dreams, big enough and fabulous enough to entertain even the haughtiest visitors.

  “There will be consequences,” Niko said.

  Delamira finished dressing the wound and fussed with the pillows; she turned to the window to close the shutters against the night. She waved the slave away.

  “I think you’re wrong, Niko. The emperor means us no harm. He may even come to visit us.”

  “Zeus forbid!” Niko said.

 
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  He heard Gallus booming commands to the builders before he saw the old legionary. Dismounting, Togidubnus handed Stormfellow’s reins over to a small Regni boy who was lurking at the edge of the site, hoping to earn a few coins. He’d been away for more than a week this time and was anxious to get back to the house and bathe, stroll in the garden, admire the new crop swelling on his apple trees. In his imagination, he smelled the blossom and heard the murmuring of the bees. It would be good to be home again. But there was time for a brief detour to Noviomagus to see how his temple was advancing.

  The squabbles he’d encountered and settled on his journey – Somebody stole eggs from somebody else’s chickens, somebody’s son killed somebody else’s goat, trivial matters blown up to proportions he wouldn’t have thought possible before. He was disturbed. The undercurrent of discontent among the country people, and the ominous rumblings of discontent along his borders with the Belgae, concerned him. Something was stirring, and he didn’t like the feel of it.

  Boudicca’s shadow still lay across the land and would have to be dealt with at some point. It was bitter irony that the warrior queen, so beloved of the Celts as a symbol of their freedom from the bonds of Roman occupation, had brought the full crushing fury of the legions down on them because of her hot-headedness. He knew they would never see it that way.

  A lot would depend on how the Romans handled the routine problems of keeping the peace. Tact was called for in situations like this. Not a quality the Romans valued! Though he was reluctant to speak to the man, he should find the time to have a word with Marcus Favonius.But this afternoon, with the unusually warm spring sun sparking the nearby sea and larks singing on the Downs, he could take time to think about the day when this tribute to Breca would be dedicated.

  The site for his temple was a very fine one, close to the center of Noviomagus. He could never have afforded to purchase it; how fortunate that Pudens Pudentinus had chosen to donate it. He picked his way carefully over piled stones and stacked wood, nodding at the master builder and his son, avoiding pits dug to hold the heavy upright beams that would in turn hold up the temple’s roof. Workers brushed past him carrying loads of brick slung from yokes over their shoulders. He could see from the foundation lines and the beginning of walls how it was going to be when it was finished, and it pleased him. Grand enough to impress his enemies! The site rang with the roar of the blacksmiths’s furnace and the sound of hammers pounding stone. Rock dust rising on the air made him sneeze.

  Gallus stopped shouting and turned to talk to one of the tribe’s Elders who had his back to Togidubnus. Coming closer, he saw the traditional braids and recognized Pudens.

  “Well, what do you think?” Gallus said, noticing his approach. The Roman raised his voice to project over the noise. There was a bruise on the legionary’s cheek, and his crooked nose was thicker than Togidubnus remembered. Fighting, he remembered now, was the old man’s favorite pastime, second only to drinking beer and gambling.

  Pudens turned also and lifted a hand in greeting. His white toga was covered in dust.

  “It seems to be progressing well. Have you had any problems?”

  “Only with lazy workers who stand around muttering among themselves, or think they should go home as soon as their wives summon them,” Gallus said.

  “It looks as if one of them took a fist to your face.”

  The old man put a hand up to touch his cheek carefully. “His face looks worse.”

  “One of these days, Legionary, you will pick a fight you can’t win.”

  “If I could just have a few of the Fourteenth Gemina –”

  “But you can’t.”

  “Pity. We laid roads so fast the legion was traveling them before the mortar had set!”

  “Now we know the secret to Rome’s conquests,” Pudens said with a smile. “They have the fastest builders in the world.”

  “Right enough!” Gallus wiped sweat from his brow. “Want to look around?”

  They picked their way carefully around the carpenters and stone masons, the workers stacking bricks or carrying buckets of iron nails. A grey donkey trudged in a circle, turning the paddles that stirred the lime mortar. Somehow, it had managed to tangle one hoof in a trailing rope. Gallus drew his short dagger – old, and judging by its nicked blade, much used – and cut it free. He indicated where sections of the temple were beginning to be recognizable, the courtyard, the inner sanctuary.

  “How long do you think this is going to take?”

  “As long as the gods send good weather, the main part could be done by the end of the year.”

  “That’s fast.”

  “The centurion paid for extra workers to speed things up,” Pudens said. “In addition to what the Guild of Smiths contributed. That way, Rome shares in the glory of the new temple.”

  “I don’t like that thought.”

  “Consider it this way, my friend,” Pudens said. “They rob you every time you take a breath – they take land that used to be yours, you pay them taxes, your very freedom is not yours any more.”

  “Dangerous talk,” Gallus observed.

  Pudens spread his hands. “Allow them to pay a little back.”

  He didn’t like the idea of the centurion having anything to do with his temple, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Contributing to the building was a play for power. “You are a cynical man, Pudens.”

  Pudens smiled. “I pick my battles. When it comes to Rome, I believe some of the coins should trickle into my hands.”

  When he’d seen enough to satisfy him that this was going to be a worthy tribute to Neptune and Minerva, he stopped and accepted a cup of water that a thin young lad scooped out of a bucket. He too was now covered in dust like everyone else at the site. He looked forward to a visit to the caldarium at home, small but serviceable, the servant scrubbing off this rock dust with oil.

  “You’ll be wanting to get home to your other building project,” Pudens said.

  He frowned. “What’s that?”

  “I suspect you’re not going to like it, Little Fox,” Gallus said.. “I didn’t want to be the first to say it. The emperor sent an architect to build you a new villa.”

  * * *

  Antonia was in the garden talking to a short, stocky stranger when he rode up; her daughter played nearby with his son’s dog. Evening shadows were dappling the grass under his apple trees where they were examining an unrolled scroll. The last rays of the sun bathed the walls of his house with a warm, creamy light, the color of daffodils in spring, and in one of the windows a servant had lit a lamp welcoming him home.

  He stopped short. The courtyard was a dismaying jumble of planks and bricks, the new temple site in miniature. Worse – now he saw that one end of his house was gone. Workers, stripped to the waist, scurried about carrying buckets and pushing carts loaded with stones or mortar. Some of them were Regni– he knew them by sight – but the others he didn’t recognize.

  “Who gave permission for this destruction of my house?”

  Antonia looked up at him. “The emperor is giving us a magnificent gift, Tiberius – a wonderful new villa!”

  “Based on the beautiful building I designed for him in Rome,” the stranger said.

  “And who are you?

  “Caesar’s architect,” the man said proudly. “Septimus Severus.”

  “Think of it, Tiberius, a copy of Nero’s palace here! Look at the plans.”

  “Nero’s palace?”

  “The Golden House,” the architect said, drawing himself up proudly. “My design!”

  Images of gargantuan statues crowded his memory – mind-numbing colors – artificial lakes – gigantic halls with enormous glass ceilings –

  “Why should the emperor suppose I would need such – such a vast – enormous –” Words failed him. He wanted to call the palace he’d seen in Rome for what it was: decadent, wasteful, monstrous – but prudence suggested his words might be carried back to Rome when this
boastful little man returned.

  “Why indeed!” the architect scoffed. “I suppose a barbarian would be content in a pigsty. But my emperor has decreed otherwise.”

  “My husband is Roman!” Antonia said.

  The architect sniffed. To the Romans, Togidubnus knew, he would always be a barbarian first.

  He turned to Antonia. “Why would the emperor even think we need a new house?”

  “Why? Perhaps he wants this child – this Roman child – not to grow up like a barbarian!”

  There was no way he could afford so grand a villa. “Did you ask the emperor to do this?”

  “How can you think that?” Her tone was angry, but he saw the small spot of color start in her cheeks. “We can certainly use an improvement to the hypocaust – that’s all I asked – no matter who’s paying.”

  “Bah!” the architect said. “Not worth my time to come so far to repair a hypocaust!”

  He would never believe that Nero had a kind thought in his mind, let alone the urge to build a palace for his unfortunate child. There was another purpose here, and he was afraid to think too deeply what it might be.

  He shouldn’t try to deal with this now, tired as he was by his long journey around his kingdom. It took a lot of energy to argue with a Roman – two of them at once here – but he couldn’t let it go. “I did not give permission for this. I don’t want to live in a copy of the Golden House. It will stop immediately.”

  “But the work has already begun, as you can see,” she said.

  “It won’t be as big,” the architect put in. “Obviously, that’s not possible!”

  “I can see that you’ve allowed the building where my bath house was to be destroyed.”

  “I suppose I could put together a temporary hypocaust,” Severus said, his tone indicating how far beneath his dignity that would be.