Mistress of Rome

by Kate Quinn

  He’d never dreamed of having a son. Never thought he’d live long enough.

  Now he saw what the drover had seen. Vix’s russet hair, his light eyes, his strong left hand. The reflexes, the strength, the vicious skill.

  Even my own weaknesses. Why didn’t I see it?

  And Thea had named him Vercingetorix.

  The world tilted. The woman he loved was alive, hope existed, and he had a son.

  Vix took a step forward. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Come here,” Arius said thickly. “Come here.”

  He gripped Vix’s shoulders between his hands, and began to talk.

  Twenty-six

  LEPIDA

  TWENTY-EIGHT. Twenty-eight. Gods, what an age. Almost old. Almost thirty!

  I threw a scent bottle at my maid, ripped my rose-silk veil in half because it had a grease spot, and threw myself down in front of the polished steel mirror. At least I didn’t look twenty-eight. My hair gleamed like ebony, my skin was white velvet, and I could show as much bosom as I liked without a qualm. Lady Lepida Pollia, although twenty-eight, had nothing to fear from the younger beauties of Rome’s court. She still reigned supreme over all.

  I scowled, dabbling among my rouge pots. The trouble was, I was bored with reigning supreme over all. I’d reigned supreme over all for years. I had only to walk into a room to have the men slavering and the women slit-eyed. I had only to give my slow smile to a man to have him at my feet. When I wore blue, everyone wore blue. When I laughed at a joke, everyone found it funny. I stood at the pinnacle of patrician society.

  So what was the point of it all? If I couldn’t go higher, then what was the point? And I could go higher, if it weren’t for . . .

  Unfair. Unfair! She always ruined everything, and now she was turning the Emperor into a recluse. He’d never shunned society before. He may have been a dour guest, but at least he’d been a guest. For this whole summer, though, he’d hardly gone anywhere except to the villa where his pet Jewess waited. He took other women to his bed, yes, but none lasted as she did.

  “Surely she’s put a spell on the Emperor,” I wheedled Paulinus. “Jew magic—you could have her executed!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Paulinus said stiffly, and wouldn’t be moved. He was taking her side now? Could he and she be . . . Paulinus and Thea . . . of course they’d been lovers before, back when she’d been just a common singer . . . I could tell Domitian that little piece of news! But no—it might rid me of Thea, but it might also rid me of Paulinus, and to have my stepson as the Emperor’s best friend was very much to my taste. Anyway, I doubted there was anything between Thea and Paulinus. Even Paulinus wasn’t so stupid as that.

  There was something wrong with him though, even if it wasn’t Thea. Oh, he still came despairingly to my bed whenever I called him, but . . . little things. Last time I’d twined my arms around his neck in the garden of some senator’s dinner party, he’d tried to push me away for a moment before succumbing with a groan. His gaze held a sort of straight dislike that unsettled me. Of course he hated me. Naturally. But hatred had always been the other side of the coin that was desire. This look of flat distaste was something new. Something very like Marcus.

  If it wasn’t Thea, did he have another? Surely not the bovine Calpurnia: for all they’d been betrothed forever, no date was set and he’d hardly met with her all year. Well, no use worrying too much about Paulinus. No matter what kind of look I’d been seeing in his eyes lately, I’d always be able to bring him to heel. Thea—she was my little problem.

  I gazed into the mirror a little longer, and then beckoned my cowed maid. “You must have friends among the Imperial slaves,” I said, nailing her with a glance. “If you don’t, make some. For any information they bring me about Lady Athena, there’ll be a rich reward. For you, too. Now get out.”

  Let’s see what comes of that.

  PAULINUS.” Flavia’s voice was curt. “Don’t you have anything better to do than spy on Thea?”

  “I’m not spying.” Paulinus felt mulish.

  “You’ve been staring out that window at her for the past hour!”

  “It is my duty as Prefect to extend my eye to all suspicious activity.”

  “ ‘Suspicious activity?’ She’s just talking to her son’s father! And it’s the first time they’ve met at all since they found each other. Three weeks she waited to come back here—”

  “I shouldn’t allow it.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Have they touched once in all the time you’ve watched?”

  “They don’t have to touch,” Paulinus muttered. Athena and her gardener, sitting a decorous twelve inches apart on a marble atrium bench, generated enough heat between them to burn bread. But Flavia’s face hardened.

  “You sound like a jealous lover, Paulinus. I do hope you’re not falling in love with Thea yourself. That would put a nice wrench in your loyalties, wouldn’t it?”

  He reddened. “I am not—”

  “Then let her alone. She’s given you her word that she won’t betray the Emperor. Or is her word not worth anything because she’s a Jew and a slave?”

  “I’m sure she has every intention of keeping her word.” Stiffly. “But my duty lies with the Emperor, and the Emperor would want to know about this.”

  “Tell my uncle, and you sign her death warrant.”

  “. . . No . . .”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “He’s a man of honor—”

  “No, he’s not!” she said witheringly.

  “Lady Flavia, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “I know exactly what I’m saying!” Her voice rose. “Do you think you know him better than me?”

  “I’ve served him for six years. In the thick of battle—”

  “Battle!” Flavia spat. “Who cares about battle? I’m his niece! Do you know what I’ve seen? I’ve seen him stab flies out of the air on a pen and watch them writhe until they die. I’ve seen him shoot arrows at slaves until they look like sea urchins. I’ve seen him condemn men without trial for the pleasure of watching them beg. He’s a hard man, my uncle; he’s hard and he’s cruel, and he’s cruelest of all to his women.”

  Paulinus opened his mouth, but Flavia rushed on, her face flushed.

  “Did you know the Empress used to smile once? Even laugh? Then Domitian got hold of her and she turned into a marble statue covered in emeralds. You played with Julia when you were children, but you just dismissed her as mad when the rumors started to fly. You didn’t get letters from her, letters getting thinner and thinner and more hopeless until when she finally died all you could do was be happy. And Thea—my God, you’re not the only one who’s served the Emperor for years! She’s served him, too, filled his bed and made his music and paid for it. She hides her son and she hides her scars, but when she’s alone she drains her blood into bowls and thinks about dying. Did you know that, Prefect? No, of course not. But I do, and not because she tells me. I know what to look for, because I’ve known Domitian all my life and I know what he thinks when he looks at people—and because now he’s looking at my sons!”

  She burst into tears. Paulinus stood blank and open-mouthed.

  “So as far as I’m concerned, if Thea wants a lover then she’s welcome to him!” Kohl ran down Flavia’s cheeks, and she angrily smeared it away. “If all she wants is to sit in a garden and talk to a man who loves her—a man who’s normal—then I’ll cover for her. I couldn’t do it for Julia, but I’ll do it for Thea. She’s earned it. And if you don’t see that, Paulinus Norbanus, then for God’s sake open your eyes!”

  She rushed away, doubled over with sobs. Paulinus stared after her.

  WHY didn’t you come back sooner? Three weeks -” “I’m watched, Arius. I didn’t dare make it sooner.”

  “For twelve years I thought you were dead. Used to see you everywhere, like a ghost.”

  “I did see you everywhere. In Vix.”

  “I should have known—”<
br />
  “I didn’t know myself until after I was sold.”

  “I should have taken you away when I had the chance. Hauled you off over one shoulder like a proper barbarian.”

  “You’re not a barbarian anymore.” Lightly. “You’re a gardener.”

  “Not a very good one. All the grapes have a blight since I started tending them. But I wasn’t a very good barbarian, either, when I had you.”

  “Don’t say things like that. You make it hard.”

  “You’re beautiful. Silk, soft hands, no more calluses—”

  “I’m not allowed to do anything anymore.”

  “Except wait on the Emperor?”

  “. . . Don’t.”

  “Why can’t I touch you?”

  “He’d smell you on me.”

  “He’s not a god.”

  “But I wear his eye . . . Arius, he’ll never release me. Once he puts his mark on something, it’s his forever.”

  Silence. He reached for her.

  “Arius—Arius, don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “What’s wrong? You’re shaking.”

  “No, I—I—just don’t try to kiss me. Please.”

  “I need to know you’re real. You look like a dream, and I’m old and ugly.”

  “Never that. Never that.”

  “Thea, we’ll run. Take Vix, get out of Rome—”

  “Arius, there’s nowhere I could run where he couldn’t find me.”

  Their hands touched diffidently on the bench between them. Tangled. Kneaded mutely.

  ROME

  I don’t know what to think.” Paulinus rested his elbows on his knees, interlocking his fingers. “But sometimes—sometimes I think she’s right.”

  “Lady Flavia?” Justina’s voice was a murmur around the marble walls.

  “Yes.” Over and over he kneaded his hands. “Because lots of things don’t add up. Not quite. Things about the Emperor. That banquet the night of my betrothal. The Empress. Julia’s death. The treason trials . . .”

  “Do you believe Lady Flavia?”

  “I don’t know!” Raking his hands through his hair. “He’s my friend! Gods, whatever Lady Flavia says about him, I can’t see it. I just see him, pouring me wine and asking me questions about the army and—and joking about lazy legionnaires and incompetent governors. But as soon as I make up my mind to forget it, I think about the way Thea weaves when she comes out of his rooms, like she’s drunk only she never drinks as much as that—and I start to wonder all over again.”

  “So what will you do?” The words were quiet drops of water into a pond, spreading ripples through the room.

  “I don’t know.” He let out a ragged sigh. “I can’t do nothing. Not now that Lady Flavia’s waved it in front of me. But what proof do I have? Whose word stands up against the Emperor’s? Thea’s a slave. Julia’s dead. Flavia’s hated him since her sister’s death; she already goes against him in her little child-rescuing business—”

  Justina looked inquiring.

  “Lady Flavia saves children from the Colosseum and the prisons,” Paulinus explained tiredly. “Jews, Christians, other heretics; she’s been doing it for years. She bribes the guards to let them out of the cells, brings them back to her villa as slaves, and finds them families among friends and tenants. The Emperor says let it be since it keeps her busy and who cares if a few children escape the lions?”

  “He’s the one who sentences them, isn’t he?” Gently.

  Silence.

  Justina tilted her face toward him. “So if you doubt Lady Flavia’s word, and if Julia isn’t here to speak for herself, then whose word will you trust? Who has the best judgment of anyone you know?”

  “My father.” No hesitation.

  “Why not ask him? This isn’t about your stepmother, after all. It’s about politics, and people. You can ask him what’s right.”

  “When I can’t even look him in the face?”

  “Well, who else could you ask?”

  “I could ask you.” His eyes came up, locking hungrily on hers. “Do you—do you believe in the rumors?”

  She folded her hands. “Yes.”

  He closed his eyes. “Then what should I do?”

  “Are you asking me to be your conscience?”

  “Yes, I—I am.”

  “I can’t do that for you, Paulinus. No one can.”

  “Advise me, then. Help me.”

  “Tell me this. Of all the wrongs you’ve heard attributed to Domitian, which would you right if you could? What would you undo?”

  “I’d have gone to Lady Julia and seen for myself if she was truly mad.” The words surprised him. “After a childhood of playing games in gardens, I owed her that.”

  “It’s too late to help her. But it’s not too late for Thea. Help her, in Julia’s name.”

  “. . . Don’t tell the Emperor about her old lover?”

  “It’s a start.”

  “I watched them,” Paulinus found himself saying. “All summer I watched them. Not that they met very often—two times, maybe three. They didn’t touch each other; she kept her word about that. But they were like—like a team of matched horses.”

  “That’s love for you.”

  “I’m not going to marry Calpurnia,” he said suddenly. “She and I, we don’t run in unison.”

  “Rather unfair to her, isn’t it? You’ve been betrothed a long time.”

  “She doesn’t want me. No more than I want her.” Paulinus shook his head. “No wedding. Not until I find the one who—who runs in unison with me.”

  “Such things are rare.”

  He looked at Justina: the narrow three-cornered face between the white wings of veil, the deep grave gaze, the pale eyebrows hinting at pale hair he’d never seen.

  “I’ll wait.”

  THEA

  I heard the voices dimly, outside my door. “Gods, I don’t know what to do with her.” Nessus, agitated out of his usual ebullient cheer. “Hasn’t even come out of her room since she came back from Tivoli. Came to see how she was faring, and found her like this—I couldn’t even get the knife away from her!” Voice lowering. “Can you do something?”

  A soft sound.

  “Of course you can. No one’s better than you at the whole soothing bit.”

  I looked up through half-closed eyes to see Ganymede drop a kiss on his lover’s head just at the spot where the hair was prematurely thinning and pad into my bedchamber. Such a nice bedchamber: all gray and white with its lavish silver-veiled sleeping couch and the statues of Minerva. The statues writhed when my blood-dreams were on me.

  I fought him when he tried to take the knife, and the bowl upset. Blood everywhere, splashing the mosaics, from the bowl and from my arm, which I’d cut down to the blue gaping veins. But Ganymede paid no mind to the blood or my hazy cursing, just wrenched the billowing curtain off the sleeping couch and wadded the gauzy stuff around my wrist.

  “No—no, don’—”

  He picked me up easily, laying me on the couch. As soon as he pulled back I ripped the bandaging away from my wrist, clawing at the slit veins. He pinned my hand and wound my wrist in gauze again. The white was already checkered in scarlet.

  “No—” I battered at his hands, weeping. “Let it go—let it go this time—’s the only way they’ll leave; they’ll never get out if I’m alive, just pull it off—” I gave a tremendous tug, and Ganymede pinioned me against his chest with both arms, crooning wordlessly.

  “I can’t stand it anymore—four years, four years, Julia stood eight and I don’t know how—can’t take another year, not one—toys and games—no more games—he’ll see, Arius will see, he’s not stupid; he’ll see and that’ll be the end of him, don’t you see that? He’ll come after the Emperor and he’ll die, he’ll die again and I—can’t—take—it!”

  I don’t know if Ganymede could understand me through the sobs. He rocked me back and forth.

  “And
Vix, Vix will find out, too; it’s a miracle I’ve fooled him this long; he’ll find out and he’ll be ashamed of me—and he should be, I’m a coward—oh, God, Arius will hate me when he finds out—”

  The words went off into a howl, muffled against Ganymede’s chest. He smoothed my hair; checked my wrist. I could already feel the blood drying.

  “You know why he’ll hate me?” Gasping. “Not because Domitian made me a whore; because he made me weak. Just four years and he’s cut out my backbone. Four years of his toys and his games and his questions and his eye around my neck, and he’s ruined me. Can’t trust a man anymore, even Arius—when I would have put my life in his hands in a heartbeat once—can’t bear to touch him, when I used to throw myself on him like a dog on a bone. Domitian’s won, hasn’t he? He’s taken my lover away—didn’t even know he was doing it; just a little bonus for him! All I’m good for anymore is closing my eyes and telling him I’m not afraid, and even that’s a lie!”

  Ganymede cradled me in the curve of his arm, humming low in his throat.

  “Let me die. Oh God, let me die before Arius finds out what a worm I am. Let me die.”

  I shuddered in Ganymede’s arms, strangling a little guttural sound in my throat, and he pulled me down into the cushions, tucking the coverlets up around us both. He shooed away my curious slaves and folded himself around me, holding me softly, and I knew he would be there all night. Dimly I hoped that Nessus would understand—but of course he would. He loved Ganymede, and what’s more, he trusted him. I had no knowledge of love anymore, but I remembered something about trust.

  LEPIDA

  A man?” “Yes, Domina. That’s what she said.” My maid fixed her eyes nervously on the tiles.

  “So what is it this friend of yours saw, exactly? Tell me everything.”

  “My friend—she goes in at dawn to get the sheets off Lady Athena’s bed, when Lady Athena’s with the Emperor. But she’s not this morning, she’s sound asleep in her own bed and there’s a man with her.”