by David Drake
“Why, yes,” Saxa said gratefully. “I appreciate your understanding.”
Priscus jumped as though he’d been cut with an overseer’s whip … which, if the stories about him in his younger days were true, had indeed happened on occasion.
My dear sweet husband doesn’t have a clue! thought Hedia with a mixture of affection, exasperation, and fear. There was definitely reason for fear if this weren’t handled properly—and at once.
“We would be delighted to have you join us for dinner, Lord Tardus!” Hedia said brightly. Smiling as though she had just received the gift of eternal youth, she went on to the majordomo, “Agrippinus, have three more places set; Lady Alphena and I will sit upright in place of the third couch.”
Lowering her voice, she continued, “And Agrippinus? Ask Lady Alphena to prepare for dinner. I’ll be up in a moment to discuss jewelry with her. Please press upon her the urgency of the situation.”
The majordomo strode from the entrance hall, calling sharply to underlings. Hedia hoped Agrippinus intended to speak to Alphena himself rather than leaving the unpleasant task to a junior who might not understand its importance.
The men were all looking at her. Well, that wasn’t the sort of thing that made her nervous. Saxa and Varus were puzzled, but Priscus was obviously relieved.
Hedia expected Tardus to smirk at his successful throw of the dice, but instead he seemed numbly accepting. The trio of foreign servants were sharply interested in everything around them but particularly, it seemed to Hedia, in Varus and herself. She couldn’t tell how old they were. In their fifties, she had guessed from a distance; but close up, what she saw in their eyes suggested they were older than that, and perhaps impossibly old.
“Dear, is that correct?” Saxa said, completely at sea now. “I’d understood that you wouldn’t be joining us. And Alphena, well, Alphena never dines with the family.”
“Indeed, it’s time that our daughter becomes more comfortable in polite society,” Hedia said. “And what better place than a meal with erudite friends, discussing fine points of literature?”
She continued to smile. On the walls of the hall were death masks of ancestors going back almost two hundred years, and by Venus!, some of those wax masks would be less obtuse than her husband was showing himself at the moment.
“Well, just as you say, dear,” Saxa said. “Ah—”
“Take your guests to the dining room, my lord and husband,” Hedia said gently. She wondered if her smile looked as brittle as it felt. “Lady Alphena and I will join you very shortly.”
Leaving Manetho to take charge of chivvying the men to the outside dining area, Hedia herself strode briskly to the back stairs. These were intended for the servants, but Hedia needed to get to her daughter as quickly as possible. It wouldn’t have done to rush up the main stairs ahead of three senators, and she certainly wasn’t going to wait until they had shuffled in chatty, leisurely fashion to the couches set on the roof above the black-and-gold hall, with a good view of the central courtyard.
A quick-witted footman saw Hedia coming and sprinted ahead of her, bellowing up the back staircase in a Thracian accent, “Hop to, you wankers! Her ladyship’s on her way!”
Hedia grinned wryly. She’d been announced in more gracious and mellifluous terms, but this had the merits of being short and extremely clear. When she got a moment to catch her breath, she would learn who the footman was and tell Agrippinus to promote him for initiative.
The stairs weren’t clear when Hedia reached them, but servants who had been lounging there only moments before were scattering like a covey of quail. She lifted the skirts of her long tunic in both hands and trotted up.
Part of her was appalled to think of how embarrassing it would be if she tripped on her hem and broke her neck. Another part—the part that made her giggle as her slippers pattered on the plain brick steps—realized smugly that if she did break her neck, her own problems were over.
Alphena was leaning over the mezzanine railing, watching Tardus’ entourage being escorted toward the kitchen. Hedia approached her from behind, swallowing her initial flash of irritation. Florina and a bevy of other maids fluttered around the girl, afraid to warn her that Hedia had arrived but obviously afraid of what would happen if they didn’t say something. Agrippinus stood by the public stairs, bowing as Saxa and his guests passed in their stately fashion.
“Come, daughter,” Hedia said in calm, cultured tones. “Let’s get you ready for dinner so that their lordships don’t feel that you’re insulting them. Syra—”
She turned her head slightly. Her maid, as expected, stood at her elbow; she panted, probably more from nervousness than the exertion.
“—go to my suite and fetch my jewelry box. I’ll pick out pieces for Lady Alphena while she’s getting into her synthesis.”
“I’ve set out the violet one, your ladyship,” Florina said. “It would be ever so nice with a set of amethyst ear drops.”
Hedia looked at the maid. She whined like a stray cat, but that was a good suggestion.
“Yes,” she said. “I believe I have a pair that will work.” Then, to Alphena, “Come dear. This is really quite important.”
Alphena allowed herself to be guided back into her room by a gentle touch, though she looked back over her shoulder once. Hedia wasn’t approaching the limits of her patience because she couldn’t allow herself to lash out in these circumstances, but she was certainly finding the business trying.
The girl doesn’t understand. I must remember that the girl doesn’t understand.
“Mother, did you notice the servants with the senator who just came?” Alphena said.
Hedia had untied the simple sash as they entered the suite. Now she lifted the tunic over Alphena’s head, ignoring the girl’s squeak.
“Yes, dear,” Hedia said. “Now, be quiet for a moment while I explain why the family needs you at dinner as soon as possible.”
“I don’t see why—” Alphena said, her voice muffled until Hedia flung the tunic toward a corner of the room.
“Be quiet!” Hedia repeated. “The senator who arrived uninvited is Marcus Tardus. He is not your father’s friend. He—”
“But—”
“Be quiet!”
Florina and five other maids—unexpectedly junior to Florina, whom Alphena had suddenly chosen to make her permanent attendant—were holding the violet dinner dress and a variety of possible undergarments. They had no idea of how Lady Hedia would choose to display her daughter, and they were rightly worried at what would happen to them if they guessed wrong.
Alphena had flashed angry, but she had quickly controlled that. Now she radiated a mixture of concern and defiance.
She’s learned to trust me, Hedia thought. Thank Venus for that mercy.
“Tardus announced that he would leave because he saw that your father and his senatorial friend wanted to have a private meeting,” Hedia said. “Do you understand what that means?”
Alphena’s mouth dropped open. “But that’s crazy!” she said, showing—rather to her mother’s surprise—that she did understand the threat. “Saxa wouldn’t plot against the emperor. He’d never do that!”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Hedia agreed grimly, “but it’s very hard to prove that you haven’t done something. I prefer not to take that chance, so I invited Tardus to join us.”
The notion of wealthy senators plotting to overthrow the emperor might not seem crazy to someone who didn’t know Saxa personally; and the emperor most certainly was crazy on the subject of possible threats to his life and government. A whisper in the wrong ear—which could be any ear in Carce nowadays—could mean a visit from the German Bodyguard and a quick execution in the basement of their barracks.
“But me?” Alphena said. She wasn’t protesting now, and her curiosity was reasonable.
“One moment,” Hedia said. To the maid holding the black bandeau and briefs she said, “Do you have gray?”
The maid—all the maids—look
ed stricken.
“Never mind,” Hedia snapped. “Syra, bring a set of mine, they’ll do in a pinch. And bring Lucilla too. There isn’t time to do the hair properly, but Lucilla can manage something.”
“Your ladyship, they’re here,” Syra said. “The clothes too.”
Hedia looked around in surprise. At least a dozen of her personal servants—the line extended out onto the walkway—waited with undergarments ranging from pale gray-blue to dark gray, plus two caskets of jewelry and apparently—this was beyond the doorway—wraps and stoles.
She chirped a laugh despite the tension. Her staff had instantly realized what Hedia had forgotten: Alphena’s wardrobe contained nothing suitable for formal occasions except the silk dinner tunics that Abinnaeus had delivered the day before. Why, up until a moment ago the girl had been wearing a single knee-length tunic as though she were a field hand!
“Yes,” Hedia said aloud. She pointed to the palest gray combination and said, “Those.”
Maids began to dress the girl. Her staff had taken over from Alphena’s. Florina seemed briefly to have considered arguing. That wouldn’t have been a good idea, because Hedia would have welcomed a way to reduce tension.
“As for why you and I will be present,” Hedia said, feeling herself relax as her staff transformed Alphena from hoyden to young lady, “well, perhaps we needn’t be, but this isn’t a situation that I want to be blasé about. Nobody has ever imagined that I give a hoot about any government official—”
She paused, considered, and went on with a wicked grin, “Except in some cases for what they have between their legs. And you, my dear, have the reputation of being even less political than I am.”
“Oh,” said Alphena as the synthesis drifted over her like a violet cloud. “I guess I see.”
Maids cinched the thin silk under her bosom. She looked at Hedia with a perfectly straight face and said, “I’ll be sure to talk to Tardus about the fine points of swordsmanship, then.”
Hedia’s expression froze. Then she realized the girl was joking and burst into laughter.
“Here,” she said, extending her arms to Alphena. “Hold me and raise your feet one at a time so that they can put your slippers on.”
The girl’s feet were too wide for Hedia’s shoes, but she had a pair of black cutwork sandals which would do. I really must get her properly outfitted, tomorrow if possible!
“Then as soon as Florina—”
The maid had done a creditable job in caring for her mistress, given her limited resources. Hedia was making a point of not denigrating her in front of the other servants.
“—puts in the amethyst ear drops, we’ll be ready to go.”
Though Hedia hadn’t expected to eat with her husband tonight, she had dressed to greet the guests. That was a blessing, though she had enough experience with throwing on—or throwing back on—formal clothing in a hurry that she could have managed.
Alphena raised her other foot. “But Mother?” she said. “Those men with Tardus? I’ve seen them before.”
“Yes,” Hedia said, frowning slightly at the return of a matter of no importance. “They were with him in the theater. I noticed them at the time.”
She stepped back and looked at her daughter, then beamed. “You look lovely, dear. Just lovely! Now, let’s join the men.”
Alphena followed without protest, but as they reached the main staircase she said, “Mother, I’ve seen them somewhere else than the theater. And I don’t think I like them.”
* * *
ALPHENA WAS EXCITED to be dressed up like this—like a fine lady. She wouldn’t have admitted that to a soul, certainly not to her stepmother and only in the very depths of her heart to herself, but she knew it was true.
“I don’t see why I have to wear such a long tunic, though,” she muttered to Hedia as they walked arm-in-arm down the mezzanine corridor toward the main stairs.
“Tush, dear,” Hedia said easily. “Be thankful that you’re not a man and having to wear a toga. And besides—”
She glanced to the side, assessing Alphena with the dispassionate precision of a trainer judging a coffle of gladiators.
“—you look quite nice in a long tunic. You move gracefully, and the sway of the fabric sets that off.”
Alphena glowed with pleasure, though that embarrassed her. “Ah…,” she said. “Ah, thank you, Mother.”
They reached the staircase. There was a flurry of motion within the cloud of servants surrounding them. Two maids snatched the front hem of Hedia’s synthesis—it was a white as pure as sunlight on marble—and lifted it slightly as they skipped up the steps ahead of her; two more raised the back.
Oh! thought Alphena. She hadn’t considered the difficulties of going up or down stairs in a garment that broke at her ankles. I could have tripped and fallen! Oh, gods, that would have been awful!
Then she wondered if Corylus would be dining with them. That thought made her so angry that she glared. She wasn’t really looking at anything, but one of the maids lifting the front of her skirt began to whimper. The girl didn’t stumble or let the fabric slip, but the sound brought Alphena back to an awareness of her surroundings.
Servants had set poles supporting vertical wicker lattices on the west side of the dining alcove. Lamps would be necessary before the meal was over, but for the moment the shades were keeping the sun out of the eyes of the diners on the central, west-facing couch. Priscus, the chief guest, reclined there, and a place for Tardus had been added below him.
Saxa was at the head of the left-hand couch, adjacent to Priscus. Below him were Varus and the teacher, Pandareus.
Corylus wasn’t present. There was no reason he should have been. It was just a possibility, an obvious thing to wonder about, that was all.
There was no bench on the right end. Instead, two chairs had been placed there with little side tables to hold the dishes or cup that the diner wasn’t using at the moment.
Alphena looked at the arrangement. Because I’m a girl!
“I prefer to recline at dinner,” she said to the dining room steward. She didn’t know his name; he was plump and had a touch of red in his thinning hair. “Set me a place on the couch beside Lord Tardus.”
“My dear?” said her father, looking up with a startled-rabbit expression. “I think you’d, that is—”
“Nonsense, dear heart,” Hedia said cheerfully to her husband. “There’s nothing improper about a lady reclining at dinner. I just prefer to sit upright.”
Turning to the steward she said, “Borysthenes, remove one of the chairs and set a place for my daughter on the couch.”
Servants were already bustling; when Lady Hedia gave directions, you obeyed or you wished you had. To the table generally she said, “I’m sure their lordships will be pleased to be joined by youth and beauty.”
Priscus, twisting his body to better look toward the two women, chuckled. “If I were a great deal younger, your ladyship,” he said, “I’d be tempted to show you just how much I would appreciate that opportunity. Younger or drunker.”
Hedia laughed like a string of little silver chimes. “Perhaps a trifle younger, Marcus dear,” she said.
Alphena settled onto the end of the couch, what would have been the middle couch if there had been the normal three. She took most of her meals in her suite, sitting upright. She’d only complained because her father had directed her to sit instead of reclining, and now she realized—as an instant’s thought should have told her—that it was her stepmother, not Saxa, who had decided that.
She’d seen an insult where there hadn’t been one. She had to stop doing that and not pick unnecessary fights.
Alphena grinned. She wasn’t sure what the vision in the theater meant, but it seemed likely that it involved enough fighting for even the most pugnacious of young ladies.
The servants had finished washing the guests’ feet, and the first round of wine was being served from the mixing table. “We’re having it three to one, Hedia,” said
Priscus with heavy gallantry. “I fear that if it were stronger, I’d find myself too ensorcelled by your beauty to remember the proprieties.”
Hedia and—a moment later—Saxa laughed. Tardus sipped his wine and said, “You mention sorcery, Marcus Priscus. Were you in the Pompeian Theater for our host’s gift, The Conquest of Lusitania by Hercules? For it certainly seemed to me that the impresario was a magician to have achieved those effects. Quite marvelous, didn’t you all think?”
Priscus turned to look at his neighbor on the couch. “I wasn’t present, no,” he said, “but I’ve certainly heard enthusiastic descriptions. I suppose—”
He gestured toward the teacher with a broad grin.
“—that the impresario was one of you clever Greeks, eh Pandareus, my friend?”
“So I’ve been told,” Pandareus said blandly.
“He was indeed, Lord Priscus,” Varus said, sounding calmly interested. “Sometimes I wish I were more of an engineer so that I could understand such wonders, but my talents seem to be limited to literature. And even in literature I’m only a spectator, I have learned.”
He smiled, but Alphena saw momentary wistfulness in her brother’s expression.
Alphena didn’t know anything about rhetoric, but she understood dueling better than anyone else present. As servants placed a tray with deviled eggs and olives on the little table in the U of the diners, she said, “I noticed the attendants with you during the performance, Lord Tardus. If I noticed correctly, they’re with you tonight as well. I wonder where you found them?”
Tardus turned his head in surprise. “How interesting that you should ask, Lady Alphena,” he said. He coughed onto the back of his hand, gathering time to respond.
Alphena didn’t smile, but she felt fiercely triumphant. I pinked you that time, didn’t I, you old weasel!
Tardus had been pushing her father to talk about something that he didn’t want to. Indeed, Alphena wasn’t sure that Saxa had any more knowledge of what had happened in the theater than Agrippinus, who’d been here in the house at the time. Perhaps Tardus was reacting to the embarrassing visit her father and brother had made to him the day before, but perhaps there was more to his curiosity.
