"What a glorious creature!" Basilicus said. "Who is she, and where, you fortunate man, did you find her?"
"Why are you here?" his companion demanded bluntly. "You detest the country, Basilicus. There is another reason, I know."
"Verina sent me," Basilicus admitted. Honesty always worked with Aspar, the prince knew. Besides, Aspar was not a man to trifle with, particularly when he was in a difficult mood such as now.
"Good lord! What does your sister want of me that she would send you to the country after me, Basilicus? Tell me! We will not return to the house until you do." Then Aspar chuckled, obviously finding humor in the situation. "Your poor body will soon go into shock, my friend. I do not believe it has been in the warmth of the sun in years."
"Verina heard that you had closed up your house in the city and moved out to your villa. She has also heard that you have taken a mistress. You know her curiosity is greater than most women's," Basilicus said to Aspar. "And, of course, she is Flacilla's friend."
"And she hopes to get me in her debt," Aspar observed wisely.
"How well you seem to know my sister," Basilicus said mockingly.
"I also know of the recent scandal involving my wife that the patriarch hushed up," Aspar replied. "I may be living in the country, Basilicus, but my channels of information have simply stretched a bit farther. There is little happening in the city that I do not know about. Because I am happy, and because my wife's relations have quieted the gossip surrounding her and her recent lovers, I am content to let the matter rest, lest my own arrangement be brought to light. You know as well as I do, Basilicus, that Flacilla is perfectly capable of creating a scandal around this villa and its inhabitants simply to deflect attention from her own outrageous behavior. Because she is not a happy woman, the idea that I should be happy would be galling to her. That is why I live here now rather than in the city. My conduct is subject to less scrutiny at Villa Mare, or so I believed until today."
"You do not seem to be living a very profligate life, Aspar," Basilicus observed as they now walked from the beach up the garden path to the villa. "Indeed, if I had not known you, I would have assumed you were simply a well-to-do gentleman and his wife. Now tell me, before I die of curiosity, who the girl is and where you found her."
"You do not recognize her, Basilicus?"
The prince shook his dark head. "No, I do not."
"Think back, my friend, to a night several months ago when you and I together visited the Villa Maxima to take in a notorious and particularly salacious entertainment that had the city agog," Aspar said.
Basilicus thought a moment, and then his dark eyes grew wide. "No!" he said. "It cannot be! Is it? You bought that girl? I do not believe it! That exquisite creature with you on the beach is patrician-born without a doubt. She cannot be the same girl!"
"She is," Aspar said, and then offered his friend a brief history of Cailin and how she had come to Villa Maxima.
"So you rescued her from a life of shame," Basilicus noted. "What a soft heart you have, Aspar. It would be better that others, including my sister and your wife, not know it, I suspect."
"I am only softhearted where Cailin is concerned," the general told his friend. "She makes me happy, and is more a wife to me than Flacilla has ever been. Anna would have liked her, too."
"You are in love," Basilicus accused, almost enviously.
Aspar said nothing, but neither did he deny the charge.
"What will you do, my old friend?" Basilicus asked. "You will not be content to live in the shadows with your Cailin for very long, I know."
"Perhaps I will seek a divorce from Flacilla," Aspar said. "The patriarch cannot deny me, particularly given this recent scandal she has caused. It is past time she was shut up in a convent. She is a constant embarrassment to her family. Eventually she will do something so mad that they will not be able to cover up her behavior."
They walked across the portico facing the sea, and into the interior garden of the villa, where chilled wine and honey cakes awaited them. Cailin was nowhere to be seen, and they were served by a silent slave who, at a sign from his master, withdrew to allow them privacy.
"Even if you were allowed to divorce Flacilla Strabo," Basilicus observed, "you would never be allowed to marry a woman who had begun her life in Constantinople as performer in the city's most notorious brothel. Surely you realize that, Aspar. You must realize it!"
"Cailin is a patrician, born into one of Rome's oldest and most distinguished families," Aspar argued. "Her tenure at Villa Maxima was not of her own making. She was not used as a common whore, and she only performed in that obscene playlet less than a dozen times. My God, Basilicus, there were women in the audience the night I first saw her who were coupling with slave boys, and all were of good family."
The prince sighed. "I cannot argue with your logic, but neither can you argue with the plain facts. Yes, there were women of distinguished families seeking illicit entertainment, but they were not performing for the delectation of several hundred people twice weekly. Even my sister could be moved by Cailin's story, but she would still not approve a marriage between you. Besides, the girl is a pagan."
"She could be baptized, Basilicus, by the patriarch himself, ensuring that I would have an Orthodox wife, and children," Aspar said.
"You are living in a fool's paradise, my old friend," the prince told him. "You are too important to Byzantium to be allowed this romantic folly, and you will not be, I assure you. Keep the girl as your mistress, and continue to be discreet. It is all you will be allowed, but at least you will be together, Aspar. I will not tell my sister of your other desires. They would frighten her, for they are so unlike you."
"I am the most powerful man in Byzantium, the king-maker, they say, and yet I cannot have my own happiness," Aspar said bitterly. He swallowed several gulps of wine. "I must remain married to a highborn bitch who whores among the lower classes, but I must not marry my highborn mistress because for a short time she was forced into carnal slavery."
"Have you freed her?" Basilicus asked.
"Of course," Aspar answered. "I told Cailin she would be freed legally upon my death, but actually she is free now. I feared she might leave me if she knew the truth, although she is really quite helpless. She wants to return to her native Britain to avenge herself upon the woman who sent her into slavery, but how could she do it without help? And who would help her? Only those seeking to take advantage of her."
"And besides," Basilicus said gently, "you love her. Do not regret what you cannot have, Aspar. Take what you can have. You have Cailin, and she is yours for as long as you desire her. No one will deny you your mistress, even if Flacilla protests to the heavens over it. The court knows your wife for what she really is, and no one would seek to see you unhappy. Do you understand what I am saying to you, Aspar?"
The general nodded bleakly. "I understand. What will you tell your sister, Basilicus? It must be enough to keep her content."
He laughed. "Yes, Verina is more curious than a cat. Well, I shall tell her that you have taken a charming, beautiful mistress to yout bed, and are living quite contentedly with her at Villa Mare in order to avoid any scandal, or public argument with Flacilla. She will think you justified despite her friendship with your wife, and that will be the end of it, I suspect. Verina thinks I do not lie to her, although I find I must sometimes in order to protect her, or to protect myself." The prince chuckled. "Besides, I shall not be lying. I shall simply not be telling her the entire truth. But then she really does not need to know the whole story, does she?" He grinned at Aspar.
"I do not know why Leo does not use you in the diplomatic service," Aspar said, his gray eyes twinkling.
"My brother-in-law does not trust me," Basilicus replied. "He also does not like me, I fear. His high office has turned him from a dull little man into a dull little man who grows more righteous and more pious as each day passes. The priests adore him, Aspar. You had best watch that quarter lest they convince Leo
of his own infallibility, and that generals are unnecessary to God's grand design for Byzantium."
"You may not like Leo, or he you," Aspar said, "but he is the perfect man to be emperor, and he possesses more common sense than you would suspect. For now he lacks ego, although eventually, as with all men in power, the ego will rear its ugly head to cause him difficulties. He loves Byzantium, Basilicus, and is a good administrator. I chose the right man, and the priests know I did. Although they forced me into that little bargain to gain their most vocal support, they are content with Leo, and so are the people. Marcian gave us prosperity, and more peace than we had had in many years. Leo is his most worthy heir."
"I would think you would not care much for peace," the prince said.
Aspar laughed. "Twenty, thirty years ago I could not get enough of war, but now I have had my fill. I am in the twilight of my life. I wish nothing more than to live in peace here with Cailin."
"May God grant you that wish, Aspar, my friend. It seems a very little wish to me," Basilicus told the general. "Now, am I to be introduced to that exquisite girl, or must I return to my sister's with the news I neither saw nor spoke with this divine creature who has made you depart your palace in Constantinople?"
Chapter 10
“Is she beautiful?" the empress demanded of her brother. "Outrageously so," Basilicus replied, smiling. He had left Villa Mare in early afternoon of the same day he had arrived, hurrying back to the city to report to his eagerly waiting sister.
"Fair of skin?" Verina asked.
"Her skin is as white and as smooth as a marble statue, my dear."
"What color are her eyes?"
"It depends upon the light," Basilicus told his sister. "Sometimes they are like twin amethysts, and at other times they appear like early spring violets," he reported poetically.
"And her hair?" Verina was growing more intrigued as her brother spoke. Basilicus was not a man to lavish praise easily.
"Her hair is auburn, a mass of little ringlets that fall to just below her hips. She wears it loose, and it is most charming."
"Do not tell me," the empress said. "Her curls are natural, I am certain. How fortunate she is, but who is she, Basilicus?"
"A young patrician widow of Roman ancestry from Britain," he answered serenely. "She is most charming, Verina, and she loves Aspar. If you saw them together, you would assume them to be a happily married couple."
"How did this woman arrive in Byzantium, my brother? A widow, you say? Was her husband a Byzantine? Does she have children? Come now, Basilicus, you are not telling me everything you know." The empress looked sharply at her brother.
"Her husband was a Saxon, I am told. Their child was lost to them. I have absolutely no idea how she came to Byzantium. Really, Verina, it was embarrassing enough cross-examining Aspar for you simply to satisfy your childish curiosity. I have done my best and will do no more!" he huffed.
"How old is Aspar's little mistress, and what is her name?" the empress pressed him. "Certainly you know that much."
"The girl is nineteen, and her name is Cailin," Basilicus answered.
"Nineteen?" Verina winced. "Poor Flacilla!"
"Flacilla deserves whatever she gets," snapped Basilicus, eager to escape his sister's questioning before he told her something he should not tell her. For some reason, Verina was making him very anxious. She knew something, but he did not know what she knew. He shifted nervously.
Verina saw her brother's discomfort. "I had a visitor this morning, brother dear," she said sweetly. Too sweetly. "I probably should not confide this to you. Men are so foolish about these things, but since you are obviously holding something back from me, I must tell you so that you will speak freely to me. You know that Leo rarely visits my bed any longer. He listens to his clerics who declare women unclean, a necessary evil for reproduction who should otherwise be avoided. I do not know how he thinks we will get a son unless we couple. It is all very well for the priests to tell him to pray for an heir, but there is more to getting a child than just prayer!" The empress flushed irritably, but then she continued smoothly.
"I dare not take a lover yet to satisfy my own needs. The church considers a woman's natural urges evil. I have no real privacy, and I am constantly watched, as you know. I have thought about it for some time, and it finally came to me! If I am to entice my husband back to my bed, I must take drastic action! I realize I am not supposed to know of things like this, but we have, I am told, several very fine brothels in Constantinople. I decided to engage a courtesan to teach me the erotic arts so that I might lure Leo into doing his duty by us both."
"You did what?" Basilicus gasped, totally stunned by his sister's revelation. A good Byzantine wife was not supposed to be aware of such things. He did not know whether to be shocked or amused by what she had done.
"I hired a courtesan to help me become more sensual," Verina repeated. "Flacilla helped me. She sometimes visits a place called Villa Maxima. It has wonderful entertainments, and marvelous young men for hire as lovers, she tells me. Do you know it, Basilicus?" And while he gaped at her in wonder, she answered her own question, "Of course you know Villa Maxima, brother dear. You are one of its distinguished patrons on occasion.
"One of those occasions was several months ago when you visited the place in the company of our good general. There was a particularly notorious and most lewd entertainment being performed twice weekly that had the entire city talking of its perversity. Flacilla says it was wonderful! I wish that I had been able to see it, but how could I go to such a place, even in disguise? Someone would be certain to recognize me."
He nodded. "It would be unwise, indeed, Verina," he told her.
She smiled at him, and then took up the thread of her story. "The courtesan sent to me is a lovely creature named Casia. It is she who told me that Aspar had purchased from the owners of the brothel the female member of that depraved entertainment. A young patrician widow of Roman ancestry from Britain? Really, Basilicus!"
"She is precisely as I have described her to you, Verina. I did not think it necessary to reveal her unhappy months in slavery, a condition that came about through nothing of her making. Aspar freed her immediately after he purchased her. He recognized her patrician blood and felt sorry for her. Now he is in love with Cailin!"
"I cannot believe that you would lie to me, brother," the empress pouted.
"I did not lie to you, Verina," the prince said irritably.
"You did not tell me all that you had learned. I cannot forgive you for it."
"I did not tell you because I did not want to embarrass Cailin, Verina. Aspar would not have told me but that I recognized her. It is an episode that both of them would like to put behind them," Basilicus said. "All they desire is to live quietly together at Villa Mare." Then he grew serious. "Leo will never be so safe that you do not need Aspar, sister mine. Offend Aspar, and God knows what might happen to you, and your family. The empire is relatively stable right now, but one never knows when something may set the masses to rebellion and discontent.
"I will tell Aspar that you know his secret, and how you learned it. You will keep that secret, and by doing so our general will be deeply in your debt, Verina. That is far more valuable to you than any momentary satisfaction you might gain by revealing all this to Flacilla Strabo."
The empress considered her brother's words, and then she nodded. "Yes, you are correct, Basilicus. Aspar's goodwill is far more important to us than that of his whorish wife. She has a new lover now, you know, and this time she has chosen a man from among our own class."
"Did she tell you that?" Basilicus asked. "Who is it, Verina?"
"Justin Gabras! Scion of the great patrician family in Trebizond," the empress responded. "He is twenty-five, and said to be very handsome."
"What is he doing in Constantinople, and how has Flacilla intrigued him into a carnal liaison?" Basiclius wondered aloud, but seeing the sparkle in his sister's eye, he knew she would tell him everything.
"It is whispered," Verina began, "that Justin Gabras has a very quick temper. He has killed several people whom he believed offended him. His last victim, however, was a cousin of the bishop of Trebizond. It was necessary, I am told, to remove the murderer as quickly as possible from the scene. They say that the Gabras family was forced to pay the bishop's family a huge bounty for their relative's life. Justin Gabras was expelled from Trebizond for a period of five years.
"Already his reputation in Constantinople grows for its wickedness. He has bought an enormous mansion overlooking the Golden Horn, and an estate in the country. They say his parties and his entertainments rival those at the city's best brothels, Basilicus. Are you surprised that Flacilla should find him?"
"I am surprised that the church does not interfere," the prince said.
"His generosity to the patriarch's favorite causes has earned him a blind eye in that quarter," the empress told her brother knowledgeably.
"If this Justin Gabras is all you say he is, I think perhaps Flacilla has gotten in over her head this time," Basilicus noted.
"If she has, it might solve many problems," the empress observed wisely. "The Strabo family would no longer have to worry about Flacilla's behavior, nor would Aspar have to be burdened with her."
"And then he could marry his beloved Cailin," Basilicus said casually, looking to see what his sister would say.
"Marry the girl he found in a brothel? No, brother dear, it simply could not be allowed. He need not marry again at all, but it would never do for the First Patrician of the empire, Byzantium's greatest general, to marry a girl who worked in a brothel, no matter how blue her blood is. The empire would be a laughing stock, and we cannot have that," Verina said.
Of course, Basilicus thought sadly, they would never allow Aspar to marry Cailin. Had he not told his friend so? Still, when he had heard of Flacilla's latest lover, and his rather unsavory reputation, he had thought that just perhaps the empire would reward its favorite son with permission to marry the woman he loved, who would tend him with devotion and love in his old age. Basilicus thought of himself as a sophisticate, but sometimes even he longed for a simpler life.
To Love Again Page 23
