As he prepared for his eventual flight to the north, sending valued possessions and volumes of his library to the villa and philosophical school he was establishing in the remote province, thoughts of Auriane would come at odd times to rupture his peace. He would see sunlight suffusing a garden pool and remember with striking clarity those eyes, soft and bold as a deer’s, clear as a seeress’s. Or he would hear, quite suddenly, her voice: the faint roughness of its northern accent, her overprecise way of sounding words. The bed, empty of her, looked tragic. The garden was alive with her; she rippled through it like some teasing wraith, obscure in the foliage, leaves rattling in her wake, always moving away from him while watching him still. He realized then the seeming contradiction in her: She sought an elusive comfort, a dock to put into, so restless curiosities could flower in peace, but at the same time she needed freedom as a condition of life, as rampantly growing things need it. He longed to give her both.
Soon after their night together an itinerant ivory dealer in his pay came to him with startling news—after a year of searching, he had discovered a woman who might well be Auriane’s mother. But he needed great sums of money if he were to bring the woman back.
“The woman you seek is employed as a weaver on an estate outside of Corinth,” he explained. “She is called Iona. But her last master called her Athelinda, and he got her from a dealer who buys from the legions. The name is not common, and she was certainly a captive of the Chattian war. She looks to be the woman in every other respect. But her present mistress, a woman called Fortunata, refuses to give her up, in spite of the fact that this Iona—or Athelinda—is old and useless; she’s become a companion to the lady in her dotage. But if you were to give me two hundred thousand, I might—”
“Bribe the woman to put aside her affectionate feelings? Stop, you’re running ahead of me,” he interrupted briskly, his smile amused, reserved. He was not certain how far he trusted the ivory dealer. “First you will return with Thersites,” he continued, naming an agent he trusted better and who was also this man’s enemy. The ivory dealer would not be likely to go in league with him to steal the money. “And if he agrees that this is the woman I seek, well then, you shall have whatever is needed to have her brought to Rome.”
Seven days before the commencement of the Augustan Games, Erato summoned Auriane to his chambers. He had not had private words with her since her return from Julianus’ house.
The various complaints brought against her by trainers and Palace officials had multiplied so that he could not decide which to hurl at her first. When she was brought in, face flushed from practice, gray eyes fixed on him expectantly, he looked, then looked again. Some bare but significant change had come over her, one he did not have the words to name. He was forced to settle for the effect she produced on him—before, she made him faintly restless; now her presence was like some mildly calming tonic.
“Tell me, Auriane,” he began with no word of greeting, eyes bright with irritation, “has that man gotten all he wants of you? That night of love cost me thousands, when you figure in the bribes, the guards’ extra pay, the this, the that, the other. Do you think that the next time you get an itch you could lower yourself a little and couple with someone around here? Your opponents will straddle anything with two legs, male or female. Aristos is less trouble than you. You’ll not go there again. And you’ll not speak of it again. Is that understood?”
She watched him, feeling for the source of his anger, knowing that worry over money had little to do with it. She recognized it as his own peculiar sort of jealousy. At first she supposed Julianus’ devotion annoyed Erato because he could not comprehend it. She realized now that Erato understood it well enough, and that was the trouble. He did not want to lie with her, and he did not care if she bedded a kitchen slave. But still, she was his—he had found her, he had bought her skill to perfection—and Marcus Julianus was a man over whom he had no control, who might possibly snatch her away.
Erato gave her no time to frame a reply. His second attack was a verbal kick to the shins. “You haven’t killed in your last three bouts. Now what in the name of Nemesis is the matter with you?”
“But—the crowd does not want it.”
“That’s because you’ve got them trained. Do you think I’m deaf, dumb, and blind? It’s starting to not look right. I’m getting complaints—threats is closer to the truth—from Palace officials. Every beggar in the street knows how expensive it is to train one man. Don’t you see, it’s starting to look like we’re trying to save money. Sooner or later the crowd will decide that’s what your true purpose is. So stop it. Next time, kill, I order you.”
Her next bout, if all went as planned, would be with Aristos. She drew forward a plait of hair. “I swear that in my next bout I will kill, or die in the effort. Does that satisfy you?”
“Oh, don’t overdo it, Auriane. I don’t want you killed, just him, so do an old man a favor and run the bastard through when you’re done, all right? Now what do you know about why the Chattian prisoners are refusing to let anyone cut their hair?”
“Nothing,” she asserted with a combative ring in her voice, eyes brilliant with the warning look that meant she would challenge a maddened elephant, if necessary, to protect her own.
“I asked that only to test your skill in lying. I know you’re after Aristos still—and if I see you come within twenty feet of him, that’s how many lashes you’ll get.”
“You would not dare do that to me.”
“Don’t test it, Auriane. Listen to me. He is a human monster. One day he will get tired of you padding about behind him, and he’ll turn round and cut you up for shark bait. I know you study him at practice. I know you spar with partners who challenge you with Aristos’ favorite attacks. This will stop at once.” Before Auriane could begin an objection, he launched a fresh assault.
“Now to the next matter—Acco says you have some malady you refuse to let the physicians treat. What of this, Auriane? And do not lie, because I already don’t believe you.”
Now she felt cold, empty panic within. She knew that if she did not concoct a plausible explanation at once, the truth would soon occur to him. She felt she fought for the life of her child as surely as if she drove a wolf away from it while it slept.
Tell him something he will believe! she commanded her numbed mind.
“It was no true sickness, and it has passed,” she began, hoping her alarm would be read as fear of his wrath. “It was but the ill effects of a potion given me as part of the rite of initiation into a…a mystery cult which I am bound by oath not to name. The draught produces visions as well. That is all.” That was not even clever, she thought miserably, as she braced for an outbreak of derisive laughter.
Marcus will be slaughtered by Domitian, and our child will be forced from my body. I am accursed.
But Erato’s response was far stranger than anything she could have guessed. As she watched, astonished, he edged his way toward her while the dazed expression in his face rigidified into one of horror. “Auriane, how could you do this to me?” More to himself he muttered, “Nemesis, they’re spreading like a plague of vermin ever since the Emperor’s stupid cousin was caught at it.”
Then he shouted into her face while the muscles of his neck strained like tautened ropes: “You simpleton. They drink children’s blood. They are arsonists. They have revolting cannibalistic orgies underground that go on for days. Have you lost your wits?”
She took a nimble step back, twisting her shoulder from his grip, and managed a proud glare, though had he looked carefully he could have seen her fear. “I’ve no notion of what you’re bellowing about,” she said softly. “If I have misplaced my wits, my guess is we’ll find yours in the same place.”
“You’ve joined the Christiani. By the girdle of Medusa, how did they get to you in this place? Don’t do anything around here without asking my leave first. There are two kinds of religions in this city—regular ones that it’s all right to collect as ma
ny as you want of, and foreign superstitions, which I won’t have here, and which will turn you into panther meat. This explains your refusal to kill. They’ve no shyness about sacrificing infants but two men in a good clean fight to the death, that turns their stomachs.”
“Erato, it’s not—”
“Hold your tongue.” He took down the bust of Domitian from its high shelf; the Emperor’s expression suggested he had sat on a raw egg and strove to appear as though he hadn’t. Erato noisily blew off the dust and slammed it down on his table so forcefully he upset a canister of styluses. Auriane looked on, mystified.
“Swear by the divinity of the Emperor that you are not a member of the Christiani.” Erato had heard it somewhere that no true member of this wretched sect would agree to do this.
She shook her head, alarmed. “There is less divinity in that man than in the dogs that pick at kitchen garbage. I am a daughter of Fria and I swear only on a plait of hair.”
“Clever little whelp. It’s not a religion, it’s a pestilence, and you’ll be quarantined until I’m satisfied you’re clean of it. From this hour, you’re not to speak in your own tongue—I want my guards to know every word that passes from your lips. You’ll sleep with guards over you and eat with guards. If this spreads, it will ruin me. We should call you Pandora, not Aurinia, for the multitude of ills you unleash. Now I’ve a fine, pounding headache, for which I’ve you to thank. Leave me!”
At noon the next day, as Sunia walked the garden stalls that choked the narrow street leading into the Cattle Market, bargaining for produce among a battalion of kitchen slaves, she found the herb Auriane sought: clove root. There it was, innocently obvious in its wicker basket, as if it had not been purposefully eluding her for a month. She slowed her steps, allowing the other kitchen maids to move ahead to the leek-and-onion stall; they paid her no mind, chattering happily as robins as they carried double baskets slung over their shoulders heavily laden with cabbages, wild asparagus, lentils, eel, and pike. Sunia winced, dropped her basket, and bent to grasp her leg, so that if the others turned to look, they would suppose she fell behind because her injured ankle gave her pain.
The herb stall was hung with bulls’ hides to give shade from the morning sun; smells of anise, fennel, and mint rose from the leathery cavern. As she reached eagerly for the tied bundle, a rasping voice within demanded, “And, pray, what do you want with that, lambkin?”
Sunia stood still as a deer stalker. Suddenly the crowded street seemed empty; there were only the flies, the sun, the sound of her own breathing.
“Seasoning for pigs’ feet,” she said too shrilly, cursing herself for sounding intimidated.
An unpleasant-looking crone shuffled out. Her sharply downturned mouth was thin as a razor cut; her contemptuous, faintly protruding eyes seemed capable of catching the smallest movement at her back. Her skin was like glossy leather, worn smooth from use. Sunia’s fear seemed to excite the woman’s natural meanness. “Ignorant trull. For pigs’ feet, you need this.” She thrust a bundle of thyme into Sunia’s face.
“But my master specifically ordered this….” Sunia felt panic surge through her. Anxiously she looked round once. There, across the narrow street—between the wineshop, with its four pillars wound round with chains from which flagons were strung, and the mirror shop with its hundreds of bronze mirrors hanging like pendants from a courtesan’s ear—was a boy of Libyan countenance with rags tied about his legs. Ice touched her heart. He watched her with insolent curiosity.
Auriane guessed rightly—Erato is having me spied on as well. “Then your master’s a benighted fool, and no cook. Tell him Phoebe at the herb market says this is what he needs.”
“Please, I must have this—” Sunia began. The woman’s scrawny paw snapped round Sunia’s wrist and held to it with disturbing strength. Was this an ogre in human guise? Sunia felt she had snagged her foot on a root in a treacherous river—she would be pulled under; she would drown. The crone leaned close. “Come. You don’t belong to anyone fine enough to be eating pigs’ feet. You need seasoning for eels caught between the Tiber bridges.”
Sunia knew the boy was crossing swiftly over the cobbles. Somehow she wrenched her hand free. Then, guessing at the cost, she threw down five copper asses and snatched a bundle of clove root. Rapidly she limped off.
The Libyan boy approached the old woman. He picked up a bundle of the herb Sunia purchased and wagged it in her face. “What’s this stuff used for, venerable hag?”
“Imagine, putting that on pigs’ feet. Disgusting. That girl’s master must be addled. It’s for the sickness brought by childbearing.”
The boy grinned. He did not know why he had been set to following a kitchen slave, but he guessed his own master, the first physician of the Ludus Magnus, would be able to make good use of this discovery.
On the final day before the start of the fourteen days of games, the Ludus Magnus was thronged with people massed about the practice arena, for word had gone out at dawn that Aristos would be practicing in public. By the time Aristos finally appeared, reeking of cloying brothel scents and beautifully robed, with his dark blond hair neatly combed back, many faithful followers had waited all day for a glimpse of him. Auriane, with Sunia beside her, was being returned to her cell after a day’s practice; her escort of six guards butted their way angrily through the crowd. She was disguised under a hooded cloak to spare her guards the inconvenience that might result were she recognized.
Without delay Aristos began sparring with Rodan, a hero from the first years of Domitian’s reign who had come from retirement to challenge Aristos’ supremacy; their bout tomorrow would open the Augustan Games. All at once a shout rose up from the part of the throng nearest the ring—“Murderer! Murderer of innocents!”
A hail of fruit pits rained on Aristos. In the next moment his retainers, led by the Eel and the Acrobat, surrounded the hecklers, knocked them to the floor and began kicking them. In an instant, violent eddies disrupted the sea of people, and soon school guards with drawn swords were rushing from every post to restore order.
Aristos heard the taunts but decided to make a show of ignoring them. The arrhythmic striking of wooden swords never slowed.
“It’s over the girl,” Auriane explained to Sunia. All knew the tale—Aristos had raped, then slain, an eight-year-old girl whom he snatched away from her aged slave-attendant during the course of one of his day-long debauches. Because she was humbly clad and accompanied by but one slave, he took her to be no one of consequence. He naturally expected he would never hear of it again. But to his dismay the girl proved to be a ward of Musonius Geta’s, and the Finance Minister promptly demanded Aristos be tried and given the most shameful punishment the law provides. Aristos then began steadfastly denying any part in the murder; he was troubled enough over the whole affair to go to the effort of having one of the witnesses poisoned and dropped into the Great Drain for safekeeping. Musonius Geta delayed for three days, waiting for Domitian to give him some sign of encouragement, for he dared not prosecute the Emperor’s favorite without permission. But when Domitian was silent, Geta knew he must abandon the idea of pressing for justice. It seemed Domitian was not ready to sacrifice Aristos, not even for the family honor of his powerful Minister of Finance. But Musonius Geta’s retainers and clients were outraged, and a group of them were present now, making their anger known.
“Toss him to the beasts,” they cried. “Crucify him.” Auriane’s guards were forced to desert her as they ran to the rescue of one of Geta’s cousins; the Acrobat was atop him, strenuously attempting to gouge out his eyes. But Auriane saw none of it; she stood rapt and still, aware only of Aristos, who was maddened as a bull stung by a bee—for he suspected that in secret even his own retainers dared believe him guilty.
“Look at him,” Auriane said to Sunia. “He no longer sees Rodan. He sees only that man who shouted ‘murderer.’” She was quiet for a time, then said with cautious excitement, “Sunia! Did you see that? There, he did it
again. Meton must not see it—if he did, he would call the halt.”
“No, Auriane, I don’t see it.”
“There! He stepped wide with his right foot, putting himself off balance. He does it all the time actually, but anger makes it more evident. Rodan could have struck him then with the advanced side-vertical attack, then killed him with a crosscut, had this been a real bout. This is well, Sunia. Rage distorts his sense of timing, but so slightly that Meton doesn’t even see it. He’s a cork tossed on the waves—he’s leaving openings—small ones, but they’re there. Meton sees that, at least. Look at Meton. He’s concerned now, he’s trying to wave Aristos out.”
“He looks as always to me, Auriane.”
“Then look more closely, Sunia…he’s like a pendulum, swinging off balance again and again. Praise to the Fates! This is what I waited so long to see.” She observed him in silence for a time, rehearsing how she would take advantage of the openings he left. “Rodan is a fool,” she muttered once. “He’s intimidated by that rage. He should fear him less now, not more.”
A drunken man reeking of tannery smells began pawing at Auriane’s cloak. “What’s this, my fine fellows? A leper?” Roughly he pulled back her hood.
“Blood of the Gorgons,” the man said as he laughed theatrically and held Auriane at arm’s length, examining her. “Look, friends, it’s our own bellissima Aurinia, walking amongst us unknown, trying to hide.”
“Release me,” she said in a low voice. When he did not, she kicked him in the ankle and wrenched herself free as he bent over in pain. Instantly a dozen more idlers swarmed round, rudely prodding her, pulling on her cloak. Those cursed guards, she thought. I drag them about everywhere and when I need them, they’re not here.
“Aurinia! Carissima!” came a delighted series of cries.
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