Her uneasiness began to creep back when she realized she had traveled so far into the labyrinth of rooms that she no longer knew the way out. A warrior’s wariness was roused. She would be trapped. Her steps slowed.
The more contemptuous of the two maidservants sighed, grasped Auriane’s wrist and jerked her forward as if her arm were a horse’s lead.
“Take your hand from me,” Auriane responded with quick indignation, pulling herself free. “How dare you.” Auriane’s look was full of questioning as well as hurt. The maidservant withdrew in mock terror, then smiled wickedly at her guest’s rudely accented Latin.
Why did they treat her so? Auriane knew a thing then that made her heart feel weighted with stones: The look Diocles gave her in the vestibule was familiar—it was the same look Erato had given her when she asked to be taken here, and it meant: No, this is not a woman.
Had he, too, decided, this is not a woman? Was that the true reason he was not here?
That is nonsense, and I am more than half mad. This house, this city, has cast a despairing spell on me.
As they moved deeper into the great-house, she became sharply aware of what was not present here. No brightly colored warrior’s shields were hung on the walls, nor were there spears neatly laid on their racks, nor did loyal retainers lie asleep in arms atop bear pelts and the hides of aurochs that they had hunted and killed themselves; strangely there was no sign whatever that this was the dwelling of a powerful man of a people who were masters of the art of war. This was a temple of leisure and grace, unscarred by the marks of siege and necessity. And so it must be, she imagined, in all the great-houses of this city—none were warrior’s halls, yet their great men commanded numbers of warriors without precedent, scattered out all over the world. This was a sort of power to which she was not accustomed, the more unsettling because of its invisibility.
She told herself grimly—no one here listens to wolves at night or sleeps with a collection of stones close at hand, fearing a raid at dawn. No one here struggles to pull food from the ground, their hands reddened with the blood of constant sacrifices to the goddesses of earth, beseeching them to give enough to eat this year. Nor have they felt rain leaking through thatch and worried that the roof would not hold for the night, or had to decide before winter which animals to kill and which to let live because they cannot feed them all. Here they sacrifice doves to Venus and their dwellings are storehouses of abundant food. The lowest servant in this place lives in greater luxury than the wealthiest warriors of my tribe. Where food and a roof are never in doubt, the spirit is free to ascend and reflect on the gods; I am an animal with a bestial soul because I have lived as an animal. All I’ve learned of surviving is absurdly useless here.
The maidservants halted in an open-air room strewn with roses and wildflowers where a wine service and honey-cakes had been set out; it opened onto a torchlit garden whose dimensions were vast and unknown. Adjacent to this room were the hot and cold chambers of a bath. The more amiable of the two showed her the dressing room, where drying cloths and a fine white linen tunica had been laid out on a black marble bench. Indicating Auriane’s hairy calfskin cloak and rough tunica, she said sharply, “You must get rid of those,” and Auriane heard—They should probably be burned.
Then both maidservants retired, though she knew they were within calling distance, leaving her alone with her accumulating anguish. Neither informed her how long she would have to wait for Marcus Julianus’ return, and pride made her determined not to ask. It seemed too close to begging.
Long moments passed and she walked the garden alone, her feet making soft, crunching sounds on the gravel walkways as she moved between close-trimmed box hedges, laurel trees, pomegranates and old pines. Time moved sluggishly as snakes in winter.
I have been abandoned. And did not the man called Diocles say he was called away by the Empress? No, you are mad to think that way. You poison your own mind.
To distract herself from her swift-growing humiliation, she busied her mind with determining how this house could best be defended from attack. Along that wall overlooking that valley, I would place archers, and behind them, the warriors best fit to lead the charge….
When a summer hour had passed, time became a taunting enemy. She passed an unearthly Diana rising among rose bushes, so magically modeled she wanted to touch that stone flesh to see if it was warm. The body of an empress must look like that, she thought—luminous, harmonious, unblemished as new-laid snow, with breasts small and firm as ripened plums. In her is, doubtless, the combined beauty of all women. The Empress Domitia Longina. Who every kitchen slave in this city knows loves him. Auriane drew her cloak more tightly about her as though the house had eyes. Savagely she forced back tears.
The garden’s walks were laid out like the spokes of a wheel. At their center she came upon an eight-sided belvedere, nacreous in the chill moonlight, a house so delicately made it might have been a temple to a god of flowers. It seemed a sentient thing, lying in wait, glowing with mystic life. Spirit-terror gripped her heart.
This was the “house” she had seen in her fever dream, rising before the celebrants of the Sacred Marriage. What was it doing in this place? And above it was that stern new moon, poised just as in the dream. She stared numbly for a moment, while clutching the aurr. Then, feeling she fled a haunted bog, she bolted over the gravel walk, returning to the better-lit portico, which at least seemed of the realm of flesh and blood creatures.
She settled on the cushions where the silver wine service was laid out, meaning to calm herself with a draught. She felt the maidservants’ prickly presence behind layers of diaphanous curtains and occasionally heard their evil-spirit sounds—rustling, whispering. In spite of it, she felt her first small surge of confidence.
At least in the matter of wine mixing, I know the proper way. One ewer contains wine, the other water. They must be mixed, one to one. Only slave dealers, auctioneers and thieves who live under bridges drink unwatered wine.
She reached for the wine. Slowly, she cautioned herself, as a city-nurtured woman would. Serenity, grace. Hands like darting fish.
But the ewer crashed onto its side, seemingly an instant before she touched it. A wine lake filled the silver tray. Bloody drops speckled the marble floor. Her garments were soaked; to her dismay the wine was sweetened with honey and it plastered her tunica to her skin.
From behind the curtains came snuffling laughter from more than two maids—others must have gathered for the show. She flushed hotly, wishing she knew the trick of vanishing, imagining herself some unlovely hybrid of camel and ox. From her wound came soft hammer-blows of pain.
What vile people, what petty meanness! She suspected they knew that ewer was not well balanced and set it out for her on purpose. Why else would they all have collected to watch?
Then the kindlier of the two maidservants appeared and began silently, efficiently mopping up the mess with drying cloths; once she gave Auriane a quick, pitying look. Auriane watched her in dumb misery, almost apologizing even though she was near certain she was the victim of a cruel trick, just because she was grateful for this barest show of comradeship. As the concealed maidservants’ laughter died, one whisper was audible above the others: “She belongs in a stable, not a house.”
Auriane felt her heart smashed like glass.
I cannot live among these people. I am degrading myself and dishonoring my ancestors.
I am humiliating him. But then he, too, is humiliating me.
Slowly she rose to her feet, knowing with certainty what she began to suspect from the moment she entered this house—that no matter how the Roman mob might praise her and lavish her with letters of love, it mattered not at all here; in the halls of the nobility she would never be more than a vulgar curiosity. The Emperor, it was said, kept a simpleminded boy at his side and told him important secrets of state. To the people of this household, that is what I would be for Marcus.
“I must leave,” she said to the maidservant.<
br />
“But…you cannot!”
Auriane took a step closer, her voice still low. “I will leave. You will show me the way out.”
To the maidservant Auriane’s face was possessed of a savage calm, with unknown violence lurking beneath. She was uncomfortably aware that this woman, Aurinia, was an extraordinarily successful killer of men. She thought—I was not told to keep her a prisoner. I have not been told anything. My lord was supposed to be here.
And so the issue was resolved by Auriane’s determination. The maidservant relayed the message to Diocles, who agreed reluctantly. He sent a messenger to the Ludus Magnus, requesting that they take Auriane back. And this time the guards who were to escort her were not chosen with caution; six were called for quickly, without regard for their trustworthiness or their alliances.
Auriane meant to go at once to the vestibule, but she hesitated, irritated by the stickiness of her wine-soaked tunica. She knew that when they took her back in, they would not give her leave to wash herself. Then she remembered those luxuriant baths. Yes, she decided. Surely there was time enough.
The cold bath was to her taste—it was akin to the shocking cold of the streams in which she had bathed at home. Its glistening walls were of Pompeian red; its vaulted ceiling was painted with marine frescoes—leaping dolphins, octopuses, sea serpents—that seemed to float and billow in the unsteady light of the bronze chandelier suspended over the water. With several angry movements she tore off her clothes. Then she dove, feeling she broke glass, shattering the mosaic image of Neptune on the pool’s bottom.
She surfaced, her wet head sleek as an otter’s, and began to swim, attacking the water with powerful strokes, imagining her arms were blades, slicing the surface to ribbons. A part of her was relieved. Now she need never reveal to him her battered body. Her tears mingled with the water.
Yes, this is best. I would have brought shame to Avenahar, who would have grown up to hear men taunt— Her mother let a man of the enemy make a fool of her—and when he was finished with her, he discarded her like some thrall. Among my own people is the man I’ll oath to love.
She lost herself in swimming; the violent motion brought relief to her heart. Time coursed on swiftly without her knowing.
Then she heard an echo of a footstep on marble—a man’s heavier tread. She slowed to look and suppressed a gasp. Marcus Julianus came from the dark, walking swiftly toward her. She stopped swimming and became very still, her senses scattered in alarm. In his face she saw only impatience and anger. How visible his loathing was. She wondered that she had ever been foolish enough to believe this man harbored a tender passion for her.
She bolted for her clothes, swimming with frenzied strokes. But she stopped short at the bath’s edge. Her discarded garments were just out of reach. And nothing would induce her to lift herself out of the water and expose her marred body to him. She kept herself immersed to her chin, huddled close to the side, feeling miserable and trapped.
“Auriane? What is the meaning of this? They’ve summoned guards for you.” His voice reverberated through the vault, and its harshness was magnified.
“Get off from me. I want only to leave.” Her body felt hot, as if the whole of it flushed in shame; even the frigid water could not cool her. She edged away from the side, fearful he might try to pull her out. The space that separated her from that heap of clothes seemed vast as a continent.
“Do you understand what you have done?” he said, standing above her now. She hugged the side again, crab-walking away from him. “Any one of those guards could have been an agent of my enemies!”
“Let me leave!” Her voice quavered precariously; she felt close to breaking apart. She added weakly, “Please give me my clothes.” Now I am begging, she thought, feeling an upwelling of self-loathing.
“Auriane,” he said, dropping his voice, suddenly recognizing her disorientation. “You don’t know how delicately balanced are the forces about me. What has happened? What is wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said haughtily, with narrowed eyes.
“All right, nothing is wrong. But climb out of there before you get a chill. Here are your clothes.” He brought not her soiled tunica but the neatly folded white linen one, and the drying cloths. “Do not worry, I swear by all my ancestors back to Aeneas not to look at you.”
She hesitated, gathering her courage, then eased herself out, never taking her eyes off his back, not trusting him not to look. She dried herself faster than she ever had in her life, then began struggling with the tunica, skipping over some of its fastenings, pricking herself once with the pin of a fibula because she looked at him and not at her hands.
When she had dressed, some of her confidence returned. “Now take me to the entrance chamber. I am lost in here.”
“Auriane, you cannot mean this.” He turned around. She saw the weariness in his face then, and the long-stored sadness. In the perverse way of such things, because she did not want to see it now, he seemed fair as their images of Adonis, and never had he looked so dear. Soothingly he went on, “I had Diocles send those guards off. You must understand I cannot let you venture out there at night. If you weren’t attacked by cutthroats and thieves, you’d be struck dead by the garbage they hurl from the upper stories at night. You’ll have to stay here.” He hesitated, not knowing quite how to put it, then added, “There are…guest chambers.”
“Let me pass,” she said grimly. “You look upon me for the last time.” In her agitated state of mind his words “There are guest chambers” sounded like a rebuff. She took a step forward, toward the door; he moved sideways to intercept her.
“I want an explanation of all this,” he said gently.
“You’ll mock me no more. Stand away from me.”
Then with a speed for which he was unprepared she sprinted forward, darting around him on his other side; he reached for her but she was gone, streaking out into the darkened rooms. Cursing, he snatched a torch from a wall sconce—in the last hour the lamps had been extinguished—and took up the chase. Ahead of him she sped through the silent dark.
“Auriane! Stop this at once,” he cried out as he ran. “Have you gone mad? What possesses you?”
She fled blindly, hoping to find the vestibule, but she did not know the way and she was making bad guesses. For a moment he lost her; then he heard a heavy table crash to the floor, followed by a cascade of falling glass. He shifted course and sprinted forward once more.
“You’re headed for a fish pond! Halt at once.”
He heard a loud splash, a moment of silence, then fast footfalls as she regained solid ground and continued running.
Without realizing it Auriane was traveling in a great circle. Now there was gravel beneath her feet and she was enveloped in the humid perfume of earth and herbs.
A garden. But which one? Fria, let it be the one nearest the vestibule.
The garden’s lamps had been snuffed as well, and the fate-weaving moon cloaked itself behind clouds; that moon was a hunter, setting traps, laying a black web over the night. She could scarcely see. Pine branches lashed at her. From the sound of his footfalls she knew he was gaining on her. She ran erratically, and terror fed terror till it grew beyond reason. My fate is my people’s, and Baldemar’s. If he shames me more, I will poison the common blood. Then she slowed, some instinct warning her of a barrier ahead. An instant later she crashed against a wall of open latticework. The moon shrugged off its cloak. She was trapped inside that phantom belvedere, haunt of dreams. The thing had conspired against her, together with the moon.
A moment later the fast steps behind her stopped and Marcus Julianus stood in the only door, blocking her exit, his torch filling the small garden room with its unsteady light.
The moments were marked by her labored breaths, shuddering with suppressed sobs. She was flattened against the far wall of the octagonal room, eyes bright and wild as a cornered hare. She felt she clung instinctively to the last of her dignity, as if she gripped a high ledge and felt
herself slipping. But she managed to lift her head spiritedly and muster a warning look.
Julianus determined at once to come no closer. She looked as though her heart might collapse if he did. He waited until her breathing slowed, giving her time to trust he would not invade the territory that separated them, not, at least, without invitation.
“Auriane, you must listen.” His voice was a steadying hand. “I do not suppose you know what you did. I suppose you could not know—”
“There is no place for me here and you know it well.” Her wrath had a desperate quality now, like an animal thrashing in a trap. “I cannot blame you for wanting to rid yourself of a woman who is an animal. But I can hold you to account for making a laughingstock of me. You left me here since dusk. Now leave me forever. However you may try, you shall not thieve the strength and luck of my ancestors.”
“You have guessed at what has happened, and you guessed wrong. You learned today what my people’s love is worth, outside the school, and you wrongly assumed mine is worth the same. It is mystifying to me how you could think such things of me. Or how you could so easily forget that divine accord we knew before, which I’m certain was the gift of a benevolent Providence—”
“It was not done easily.” She was silent abruptly, as if an icicle had been forced into her throat.
“All right, not easily then. But it is there, and you have forgotten it. It is there right now in abundance, though you cannot feel it. Auriane—”
She stood very still, her muscles tensed, aware of him with all her senses, listening to him with her whole body. Carefully he took a step forward. She pressed closer to the wall as though to maintain the original distance between them, but in her eyes was a look of being lulled somewhat just by his voice, which worked upon her like a massage.
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