Such airs! Fannia smiled to her couch-mate, Cassia, behind her hand. Conversation subsided while plates were passed and the women settled down to eat. Calpurnia and Pliny had brought their own chef with them from Rome but he had fallen ill en route and they had been forced to leave him behind in Athens. She had had to find a local replacement when they arrived. The man came with good references, probably forged. The roast hares were underdone, the grilled smelts were burnt black. Everyone tried not to notice.
Fabia, Balbus’ wife, belched and spoke around a mouthful of food: “Poor you, Calpurnia, living in this shambles. Can’t the governor requisition better quarters?” She gestured with a thick arm at the peeling fresco on the wall. It was unkind, and meant to be. Malice glittered in her eyes.
Calpurnia would not allow this woman to make her angry. She forced a smile. “Soon to be repaired. I’ve made my own sketches for a mythical landscape, children riding on the backs of centaurs, a temple in the distance. I’ll paint some of it myself, workmen will do the rest.”
Silence. The women were dumbfounded. Cassia, an engineer’s wife, wrinkled her small nose and giggled. “The smell of that hot wax, the mess, really!” Embarrassed laughter around the table. An arch, knowing look from Fabia that said What do you expect?
The luncheon was on the verge of being a disaster. How Calpurnia loathed these gatherings, and yet she felt compelled to go through with them. She had endured many such occasions in Rome too, but there she was one senator’s wife among many, not required to play a role that felt too big for her. This was different. She felt their resentment, their envy. And she was all alone, without her husband’s boundless good humor and sociability to give her cover.
“We’ve heard that you and your husband are on intimate terms with our emperor and his wife,” said Cassia brightly. What’s she like?”
“Yes, tell us about Plotina,” the others chorused.
“She’s very nice,” said Calpurnia.
“And…?”
“A very kind and sensible woman.”
The wives couldn’t conceal their disappointment.
“Well, what about him, Trajan?” Cassia pressed on. “People say he drinks too much and is too fond of little boys.”
“People say a great many things they know nothing about,” Calpurnia replied. She knew she was handling this wrong, could see the resentment in their faces. Give them what they want, she told herself, be one of them, unbend. But she could not.
Then Fannia, the wife of Caelianus, Pliny’s chief clerk, gave a little cough. “And how is your husband, dear? Have you heard anything from him?” Fannia was the closest Calpurnia had to an ally among this nest of bewigged and bejeweled vipers. Unfortunately, her husband’s status was lower than the other husbands represented here, and status, among them, was everything.
“I’ve had one letter from him, a short one. He’s terribly busy.” Gods, how she missed him! She had written him four letters in the past week.
“Enjoy it while you can,” said Faustilla, sucking her fingers. “Nymphidius hasn’t written me a single word. See if I care. He can stay away as long as he likes.” Her husband was traveling with Pliny.
“You mean to say you don’t miss him at night?” This was Memmia, who had managed in the meantime to spill another glass of wine on herself. Her tongue darted out over her lips wickedly.
“Why, the old man hasn’t had it up in years. And I’ve got my ‘pacifier’, if you know what I mean.”
“Hush, Faustilla, you’re awful!”
Faustilla was not to be deterred. Her old, pouched eyes twinkled. “Had it made for me years ago by a shoemaker. This long, thick as your wrist, stuffed with wool, leather as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Borrow it any time you like.”
“Calpurnia, dear, excuse us, some of us aren’t fit company,” Atilia interrupted hastily. “And now, my dear, I’m going to presume on our short acquaintance.” She gestured for silence, turned to the others, and explained, “Calpurnia and I met quite by chance in front of the temple of Asclepius the day Pancrates returned and then again a few nights ago at Fabia’s. Well, ladies, I have a surprise for all of you-remember, Calpurnia dear, I told you I could arrange it. I daresay you didn’t believe me. I’ve asked Pancrates to join us here today. Oh, my husband and I know him well. He’s truly a marvel. And he’s so anxious to meet you, Calpurnia. He’s in the foyer now.”
Before she could be stopped, Atilia was up and out the door. She returned a moment later with her prize. Calpurnia half rose from her couch in anger. How dare the stupid woman bring this charlatan into her home! But the wives gathered around him, all talking at once in happy wonderment. He ignored them all but, striding across the room to Calpurnia’s couch, he stood before her and inclined his head. She had had barely a glimpse of him that day when he entered the temple to the wild cheers of his devotees. She only remembered the snake with its glittering scales that enveloped his shoulders like some obscene garment.
Now, at close range-and without the snake, the gods be thanked! — she saw him entire, and felt the force of the man. He was tall and dressed in a long-sleeved, unbelted tunic of some delicate white stuff that hung straight from his shoulder to his ankle. His black hair spilled in ringlets down his back, he had a hooked nose that curved toward his chin, his matted beard was streaked with gray. His complexion was swarthy like one of the southern barbarians (he accomplished this by staining himself with the juice of almonds) and, like them, his feet were bare. His bright, black eyes, sunk in sockets like twin caves, moved constantly as though seeing things hidden from others. He fixed them on her. “Lady, I will speak to you alone.” It was a voice that presumed, that commanded.
Calpurnia’s mind raced. Should she order the servants to throw him out? But plainly this man was not just some street corner diviner; he had an enormous following in the town. What might they do if she treated their oracle with disrespect? Then, too, Atilia, insufferable as she was, must not be slighted. Her husband was a pillar of the expatriate business community, a group they needed to conciliate. What would Pliny do? No matter, she was in charge, she must decide. He looked at her unblinking, waiting for her answer. And, in spite of herself, she was curious. Even if he was a howling madman, she thought, an interview with him was preferable to prolonging this gruesome lunch.
“Come this way,” she said, standing up. Seven pairs of envious eyes followed them out of the room.
She led him to her studio, which was just down the hall; a room fragrant with wax and oil, cluttered with jars of pigments, braziers, easels, a table littered with brushes and spatulas, a pair of stools. They stood and faced each other. His dark eyes searched her face. “You don’t like them, do you, those women? You shouldn’t. You are more intelligent than they are, you have a purer spirit. I feel it.”
Calpurnia laughed nervously. “Is this your stock in trade, flattery? I imagine no one quarrels with you if you tell them only pleasant things. You know nothing about me, sir.”
Pancrates ignored this. He let his eyes wander around the little room, examining the pictures, in various states of completion, that sat on easels and hung from the walls. “Why do you paint? A painting is nothing but the shadow of a shadow.”
She said nothing. She wasn’t going to argue with this man about her art.
“And why do you paint only children? As I was coming in, I met a little boy racing down the corridor on his hobbyhorse. You’ve painted his face here, and here on these Cupids. Now that I look, I see him everywhere. But he isn’t you son, is he?”
How could he know this? “Who are you?” she demanded. “Where do you come from?”
“I see I’ve angered you. Forgive me, lady.” For the first time he smiled, showing a wide space between his front teeth. “Where I come from is no matter, but where I have been. I have travelled in India. I have seen the martichora with its human head and its long tail that shoots arrows. And I have seen the pygmies and the men who stand on their heads and shade themselves with the
ir feet. I have lived with the Brahmans on top of their sacred hill and watched them rise into the air when they pray to the Sun. And I have seen the giant bearded serpents that live in that land and I have brought one home with me. With the aid of its spirit, I have advised kings and princes in every region of the world.”
His long, brown fingers wove patterns in the air as he spoke; she could hardly tear her eyes from them. His voice was deep, thrilling. If Calpurnia’s Greek had been better she would have caught a whiff of the wharf, the alley in his accent.
“So,” he said,” I have told you something about myself. Now I will tell you about yourself. I sense sorrow in you-sorrow connected with a physical ailment.” He touched his hands to his forehead. “Here? No.” Keeping his eyes on her face, he lowered his hands to his chest. “Here?” The hands slid down his chest. “The stomach? No.” They slid lower, level with his hips. Suddenly she could not breathe.
“Ah! I thought so. You lost your baby and now you are barren.”
Stunned, she started to turn away but he held her chin and made her look at him. She felt herself trembling.
“Tell me.” His voice like the voice of a god.
“I was fourteen…just a girl.” Her breath came in sobs. “I didn’t know what was the matter. And then the pain, the blood…I nearly died. And since then…we’ve tried everything. Doctors, spells, potions, I’ve slept in temples for healing dreams, sacrificed to Juno and Diana, Isis. And all the time, my husband, so kind, so patient. He has never reproached me, but I know, I know what he feels. We don’t talk about it.” Her shoulders worked with grief.
While she spoke he kept his eyes on her, his head tilted slightly to the left. They had begun by standing an arm’s length apart. She realized now that they were sitting, facing each other, almost knee to knee. She didn’t remember how that happened. And she was speaking in her own language now-Greek abandoned-but he understood her. Finally, she swallowed hard and wiped her face with the fold of her palla. She felt naked in front of him. What sorcery had he used to make her tell him what she had never told any stranger?
“There are cures for your condition that the Brahmans know.”
“No! Stop it! There is no cure. I’m not a child anymore to believe such things.”
He smiled and shrugged. “We’ll speak of it another time. I will leave you with a happy thought. Someone new will soon come into your life.”
She laughed harshly-angry at herself and him. “Is that all your wisdom? We’ve only been here a week, someone new comes into my life every day.”
He stood up abruptly. “Thank you, lady. I’ll see myself out. If you wish to see me again, I am at your service.”
“Wait-”
But he was gone.
She sat a long time with her head in her hands, feeling-what? Shaken, violated, hopeful? Had she just met someone extraordinary or only a clever fraud? She could not face going back to the dining room, to those hens who would peck at her, who would quiz her. As if in answer to her unspoken command, Ione appeared in the doorway. “Tell them I’m not feeling well. They may leave whenever they wish. Then come back to me.” The freedwoman nodded and went out.
As Pancrates left the palace there was a smile on his lips. No knowledge is ever wasted.
***
The big covered wagon swayed and jolted, axles screeching, harness creaking as the mule team hauled it to the top of the long ridge that lay across the road from Prusa to Nicaea. Pliny tapped the driver’s shoulder. “Hold up. Let the animals rest. Let us all rest a bit. Help me down.” Even on a good Roman road like this, travel was exhausting. The driver jumped down from his seat, propped the stepladder against the front wheel and reached out to take the governor’s hand. Behind them a train of a dozen wagons-an entire household on wheels-and a flanking squadron of cavalry sent up a cloud of dust into the brilliant blue sky.
Pliny stretched, flexed his shoulders, stamped his feet to get the blood flowing. They had been on the road since dawn and the sun was now high in the sky. “You know, this country reminds me of home,” he said to Zosimus, who had climbed down beside him. “Mountains, gorges, pine forests, the bracing air,” he inhaled deeply through his nostrils, “just like Comum. How I wish I were there! It’s been too long.”
Nymphidius trotted up on his horse. “We’ll be lucky to reach the city by nightfall, sir. Up one blasted hill and down the next.” The scenery had no charms for him.
“Nevertheless, call a half hour halt. And Zosimus, fetch me down my folder and a camp stool.”
He spread his papers out on his knees, meticulous notes that described the unfolding disaster of the province’s economy: everywhere new theaters, public baths, colonnades, aqueducts, all badly planned, unfinished, and left in ruins, leaving nothing behind but a welter of accusations and indictments for corruption which he, sitting on his tribunal hour after weary hour had to adjudicate. He was already sick to death of it, and he had only just started. After a few moments, he pushed it all away in disgust. “No. Zosimus, get me my writing kit and ask a messenger to come here. I owe Calpurnia a letter.”
And Pliny drifted into pleasant contemplation of his happy and capable partner, safe at home.
Chapter Seven
The 4th day before the Kalends of October
The sixth hour of the night
That night she could not sleep. Finally, she gave up and went to wake Ione who slept in the bedroom next to hers.
“What should I think? Am I being a fool? Everything he claimed to sense about me he could have guessed or heard somewhere. Atilia and the others gossip about everyone, surely about me too. But if you’d seen his eyes…”
“And he said he could cure you, ’Purnia?”
She nodded, looked away.
Whenever they were alone together Ione called her by her pet name; only in the presence of others did she call her matrona, lady. Although most Roman matrons did not consider themselves properly cared for with any fewer than a dozen maid servants, Calpurnia was content to have Ione alone. They had become almost like sisters, especially now in this strange place where she had no one else to turn to. She had had a younger sister once, a lovely girl who had died of a long wasting illness when Calpurnia was ten. Her death had left a hole in her life. Ione was about the age her sister would have been and somehow this ex-slave-pretty, saucy, barely literate, with no family, no past-was able to fill it in spite of the barrier of rank that divided them.
“Then you must believe him. Who can doubt an oracle?” As simple as that. “Will you see him again?”
“I don’t know. My husband won’t allow him under our roof, I know that.”
Ione winked. “Things can always be arranged.”
As they talked, the sun came up. Rufus woke up and while they fed him breakfast and played with him Calpurnia’s mood improved. Around the third hour of the morning the idea suddenly took her to visit the art gallery in the temple of Zeus. Diocles had recently made a gift to his fellow citizens of sculptures and paintings, some of them priceless originals. It was the talk of the town. She and Ione would go together and she would bring her easel, too, and sketch.
The gallery, which occupied a portico in the temple precinct, was crowded when they got there. The exhibition was everything she expected and more. Among the statues of bronze and painted marble she thought she recognized Praxiteles’ Artemis and a Heracles by Lysippus-copies, of course, though good ones. But it was the paintings that took her breath away- portraits, landscapes, mythological scenes by the great names-Apelles, Zeuxis, Polygnotos. After surveying them all, she ordered her slave to set up her easel in front of a large Niobe Mourning Her Dead Children by Parrhasios; and what instinct drew her to that she would not acknowledge even to herself. She tacked a parchment to the easel, seated herself on her stool, and began to sketch in charcoal.
As she worked, onlookers came and went but she became gradually aware of a young man who stood beside her, resting his weight on one muscular leg, his hip thrust out, hi
s arms folded, his eyes moving up and down from the original to her copy.
He saw that she had noticed him. “The eyes,” he said. “Niobe’s eyes. The despair in them. The film of tears. How do you think he did that? Thin washes of wax layered on ever so carefully, don’t you think? Armenium, malachite for his pigments, but just a hint. Too much would spoil it. That’s how I’d do it, anyway. But, of course, I’d make a hash of it.” He smiled, showing a crooked front tooth.
She didn’t quite catch all of this, he spoke so rapidly. But it sounded impressive. Politeness required her to say something. “Are you a painter by profession, then?”
He made a wry face. “Me? I have no profession. My family owns land, quite a lot of it.”
She looked at him more closely now. How stupid to think he was a common artisan. His purple-bordered cloak and his rings were expensive. He was young, twenty perhaps, if that; clean shaven; oiled hair, black as ink and smelling of crocus, curling over his ears; nose and chin so finely sculpted that he might have modeled for Praxiteles himself; dark eyes under heavy black brows-they watched her with amusement.
He made her a small bow. “I’m Agathon, son of Protarchus, grandson of Neocles, great grandson of-I could go on but I won’t. You’ve probably heard of us.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Well,” he laughed, “that’s to my advantage.” There was a pause. “And what shall I call you?”
“She glanced up at the painting. “Call me Niobe.”
“An ill-omened name for such a pretty woman.”
“You’re very bold.”
“It saves time.” His smile, mischievous, slightly mocking.
What presumption! It was time to put an end to this. “I expect your mother will be looking for you.”
“You see!” He snapped his fingers. “We’ve only just met and we’re already fighting like old friends.”
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