“That is not my responsibility,” Vivaro said, with a curved hand to his chest. “I am to see to the fanfare, you are to see to the rest. Is that not what we agreed?”
Lord Barbato faced him, looking down on him. “We agreed that the fifteen lords mentioned, along with their wives, would be here, waiting, when we arrived.”
Vivaro giggled at him. “One does not keep such a room full of power waiting for hours. Even you know such things, Lord Barbato.” His smile faded. “These are my allies, my comrades. I will not trifle with their time.”
Barbato lifted his chin, studying his host for a long moment. “Very well,” he said.
“Very well!” cried our host with glee. “Very well!” he repeated almost to himself, and giggled.
Nutcase, I decided. Not all there.
We reached the top of the stairs and entered under a portico, thirty feet tall, with columns that had surely been salvaged from the Forum herself. “She’s magnificent, is she not?” asked Vivaro, seeing me admiring them. “It’s taken me over ten years, but I think you’ll appreciate my building efforts.” He snapped his fingers, and five women, dressed in Roman togas, came my way.
Playing the role, I remembered Rodolfo saying. I had a sinking feeling the whole night was going to be like some freakish costume party. “When in Rome,” I muttered, stepping forward as the servants gestured for me to follow them.
I had three hours. The sooner I could be away from the men, the more opportunities I might find to escape. If I could escape right away, could I gain a three-hour lead? And if Lord Barbato was correct, if the Sienese had figured out we’d moved south rather than north, then could I meet them somewhere along the road?
For the first time in the last three days, I felt a twinge of hope.
I turned and glanced over my shoulder at Rodolfo, and he gave me a small smile, studying me with those big model-worthy eyes as if he already knew what I planned. Following my gaze, the servant girls giggled. “He is quite handsome, m’lady,” said one.
“Yes,” I returned, remembering the maids in Rodolfo’s palace, the first time I put on a wedding gown in his presence. I fought to pay attention to the way we were going, mapping out the palazzo in my head, knowing I’d need to remember if I was to escape, but my mind kept going back to that afternoon, when he’d been in the massive, ornately decorated room with me. When he’d circled me, admiring me from all sides. Then, how he confessed on the way here that he’d tried to forget me, but failed. That there was something more…
I shook my head. Concentrate, Gabi. Let it go. You have to stop this silly little sidetrack. Marcello holds your heart. Marcello. Rodolfo knows it.
I looked back over my shoulder, trying to remember what I’d just seen—or rather what I’d just not seen—so I’d recognize the hall, and I spotted him. A massive, black-skinned guard with a turban, bare chest, and white balloon pants, as well as a massive, curving sword at his side. Yet another character in Vivaro’s play, I thought. A slave—a eunuch?—out of Arabia. But the dude was all business, glaring back at me with black eyes as if I were a bug he’d like to flick off his sleeve.
So. I’d have to ditch the girls. And the dude. I could do it. I think. I had three hours. Probably two hours, forty-five minutes, now.
We were finally there. With a shy grin, the head girl reached for the door handle and pushed it, holding it open for me.
I couldn’t hide my awe. Before me was a sprawling room, a throwback to ancient Roman times. Fountains trickled. Palms waved in massive pots. Piles of fruit sat on massive platters. Twenty more women, all in togas and barefooted, sat about on pillows and elegant lounges, eating, laughing. And it was warm, the first room that felt warm, wall to wall, since I’d left my own time. We’d seen a pretty big plume of wood smoke emerging from the palace when we arrived; but here, in this room, not one fire was lit.
The girls caught sight of me and began to rise and move toward me, smiling in greeting. They were all lovely, some of the prettiest girls I’d seen in one place. It was like landing in an NFL cheerleader camp. Or rather, the Roman Centurion Cheerleader Camp. In the center of each of the other three walls of the room, three more black guards were stationed, dressed as the one behind me had been. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Numero Uno had been joined by a second. I sighed.
I hadn’t found an escape route.
I’d entered a circus-like, posh prison.
A Roman version of a harem. Something for Vivaro to showcase.
That was what he was. The ringmaster in a new kind of circus.
And I was his prize tiger.
She-Wolf, I corrected myself. And somehow I still had to sniff out a way to escape.
CHAPTER 12
The girls surrounded me, shielding me from view of the guards—who, from what I glimpsed, gazed at us in boredom—and assisted me with undressing, as quickly and methodically as a mother with a toddler. In seconds they were down to my underclothes. I held my breath, freaked that they’d find my dagger. But thankfully they allowed me to keep my remaining clothing for a bit, ushering me forward while still retaining my human shield. It was then that I realized why the room was so warm with no fires blazing, how they all were surviving without shoes on their feet. Beneath the floor was radiant heat, warm to my toes.
Radiant heat. Tubes of hot water coursing underneath the tiles so the heat would filter upward. My rich friends in Boulder with the big houses and wide-planked floors had it too. And if I remembered right, such luxury in this time period demanded that somewhere in the belly of this palace there had to be a sweltering furnace room, with servants sweating like pigs, feeding massive flames to heat the water that was coming through here.
The hostess opened another set of doors, and I left the giggling mass behind me. Only Main Girl and a second, as well as the original guard, came with me. I gasped again. Before me was an enclosed pool, intricately tiled, with a wide fall of steaming water pouring in one end and exiting through a doorway on the other end. On all sides were more elegant columns holding up the ceiling. Candles along either wall gave the massive room a spa-like feel and filled the air with the scent of beeswax.
“It is quite beautiful, no?” asked Main Girl.
Uh, yeah. “Quite,” I mused.
“Please,” she said, gesturing toward the pool. “Take your ease.”
I hesitated. How was I to take a swim and hold on to my knife? They clearly assumed I’d finish my undressing and enter naked. After all, this was a Roman bath. Once, when I was traveling in Turkey with the fam, Lia, Mom, and I had ventured into a bathhouse—and then rushed out when we discovered that women were hanging out in the nude. My eyes traveled to the end of the pool, where I saw piles of cloth—towels?—a table, and jars filled with salts and oils. A massage-type of arrangement, probably my next stop.
“May I…may I have a moment?”
Main Girl’s pretty eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “You wish for us to go?”
“Please. There is much on my mind.” I smiled at her like I would to Lia, when I wanted her to understand something, wordlessly. “In hours I shall become a married woman. Might I have a few minutes alone?”
“Of course,” she said with a knowing smile. She made a chit-chit sound, and the others immediately followed her out. The guard closed the two, tall doors, both at once, giving me a look that said, Don’t try anything—I’m right outside.
I was alone in the bathhouse. I turned and rushed along one edge, noting that, as suspected, there were no windows. But there was another set of doors on the far end. I ran across the tiled floor, warm in here, too, past the massage table, and grabbed hold of the handle. Cautiously I turned it and peeked out.
Another guard stood in front of it, burly arms crossed. Two others stood behind him. The guy in front frowned at me and shook his head back and forth in warnin
g, then he lifted his chin as if to say, Get on back in there where you belong.
Dang it, I thought, pulling the door shut in frustration. Those guys are everywhere. Now I knew why Main Girl wasn’t concerned in giving me a little Alone Time. She was confident I couldn’t escape. I blew the air out of my cheeks, racking my brain, trying to think of a way I could hold on to the dagger. Without it…I shuddered. My eyes went back to the first set of doors. When Main Girl and Guard Number One came through, they needed to see me in the pool, not standing there looking guilty.
Quickly I ditched the rest of my underclothes and unstrapped the dagger. I wrapped it in the center of my lace-trimmed pantaloon thingies, leaving the valuable trim in view. I’d plead for them to allow me to keep them, a gift. It was really my only option. Because from what I remembered of Roman bathhouses, I was likely to be buck-naked for a little while.
I sighed and slipped into the warm water, frustrated that precious minutes were slipping by. At this rate my three hours would evaporate like the steam all around me. I dived under and swam the length of the blue-and-green-tiled pool in a fanciful mosaic of dolphins and whales and fish. I let the hot waterfall at one end pour over my shoulders and hair, praying that God would show me some way out of this place. And fast.
Main Girl appeared in my line of vision again, to one side, and she gestured for me to swim to the far end. Two more servants appeared, standing on either side of the table. They picked up a lush cloth, holding it from each side, waiting for me.
I did as she bid and swam to the other end, hoping the guards had the decency to look away, eunuchs or not. But the servants stepped down into the pool, ignoring the water seeping up their skirts, and shielded me as I rose, quickly wrapping the rough towel around me while I was still in the water. I was led to a submerged chair to one side.
One girl set to work on my hair, rubbing it with lavender-scented soap, allowing me to rinse and then carefully, elaborately working orange-scented oil into the ends. The other took her turn, scrubbing my shoulders and arms with coarse sea salt, washing them off, and then rubbing more of the orange oil into my skin. Hair Girl had me rinse, worked in a milder orange soap, and had me rinse again.
They left to retrieve two new towels, and after a brief turn on the massage table—appropriately private from any male eyes—I was wrapped and led into the next room.
I almost forgot. How could you forget, Gabi? Man, talk about your epic failures…
I turned and glanced to where I’d left my dagger and underclothes. But they were gone. I froze, my eyes shifting to Main Girl. Did she wonder why I was looking for the disgustingly dirty, road-worn items? They’d definitely seen better days. Had they been set aside? Or had my sad plan merely failed, the dagger discovered and disposed of?
I turned away, hoping she wouldn’t see any of those questions in my eyes.
The three guards separated, one entering the massive bathhouse room, the other two going through the next set of doors. This was a much smaller room, with water that was just barely warm. I stepped down into the small pool—about the size of a deep Jacuzzi—and, after rinsing the salts and soaps and oils, out the other side.
The next set of doors opened, and I gasped at the dancing tendrils of steam and water dripping down the solid marble walls. My hostess hurriedly closed the doors behind me, and I moved to a marble perch. The atmosphere was horrible in the room, like a tomb lit only by red-hot stones. Main Girl took a ladle and dipped it in an urn, then spread the water across a line of lava stones, which immediately sizzled, releasing more steam into the air. We were in there for about ten minutes, choking on the hot, thick air before she looked at me. “Exit once the steam ceases.” She nodded once and disappeared through the next set of doors, leaving me behind.
It took about three minutes for the steam to almost clear. But that was close enough for me. I had to get out of there before I collapsed. Suddenly I was feeling the distance between me and my lunch. How many hours ago had that been?
The next room was a frigidarium, exactly as I had feared. Just get it over with, Gabi, I told myself, eyeing Main Girl, with my prize again tucked beneath her arm. How does she not feel the dagger? I’d done my best to hide it, but the fabric was thin, and the dagger was no dainty little thing.
I plunged into the cold, deep pool, which was deeper than I was tall, and hurried to the other side, just three feet away, and up the steps, shivering. Main Girl wrapped me in yet another rough towel, and I was led into the last room, a larger pool room that was about the same temperature as the original bath house. I dipped into the shallow pool, letting my chattering teeth come to a rest as I swam to the end, about ten feet away.
“It is done?” I asked her as the servant girls wrapped me in still more towels and led me into a small dressing room with a fire at one corner and a window at the other. I could see that the sun was getting low in the sky. I licked my lips and eyed my precious bundle under her arm. No guards were present in the room. Would I have to make my escape in nothing but a towel? That wouldn’t work out so hot.
“Your baths are done,” she said, following my gaze to the pantaloons under her arm.
But then more troops arrived, and my hair was combed out, woven, and wrapped around my head, creating a sort of twisty, Roman-inspired updo, somehow miraculously secured with pins. Good luck with that, I mused, knowing how difficult my hair could be and how likely it was that it’d start sprouting, busting loose as soon as it could. Apparently Roman brides didn’t wear their hair down, like the Tuscans. But when the girls were done and a delicate gold band was set across my forehead like a crown, it seemed reasonably secure.
My skin was rubbed with more oil, and dots of intense orange oil were dabbed at the base of my throat and my ears, on the insides of my elbows, and behind my knees, making me smell like I was in the middle of a flowering orange grove. My nails were buffed and oiled. My teeth brushed with a stick that tasted like coal and then another that tasted of mint. I rinsed and spit into a bowl and wondered where I could get more if I was to stay in this time. There was hardly a lineup of options at the local Walgreen’s, and my mouth hadn’t felt this good in a long time.…
When they wrapped me in a long toga, I almost laughed. This really was Lord Vivaro’s show in every measure, regardless of what Barbato might’ve thought. But the toga wasn’t of simple white cloth; it was of a soft, thick silk with a very fine weave. Bridal toga, I mused with a smile, fingering the material. Out of all the places I thought I might land in Italia and all the scenarios I might encounter, this nod to ancient Rome definitely had not been on the list.
A servant bent and slipped a ring on one toe, then sandals on my feet, wrapping the straps up and over my ankles. She tied them at my calf and then scurried away. The others melted away too, leaving only me, Main Girl, and the first guard.
Main Girl came behind me and secured behind my neck an elegant, ancient necklace with amber stones set in copper that had turned an oxidized green. She then handed me a set of matching amber earrings, with three orbs in progressively larger sizes.
She smiled as I paused to admire them. “They are a gift from Lord Greco,” she said. “Procured by Lord Vivaro, of course. They once belonged to a very fine Roman lady. And amber is good luck for a marriage. Often you can find the stones with a ladybug or beetle stuck inside, for all eternity.”
I glanced at her. Bug jewelry was not my idea of cool, but whatever…
“It symbolizes the eternal nature of love,” she explained with a small, quizzical nod. “When two lives are fused into one.”
I thought of Rodolfo, of exchanging such vows with him. And then I thought of Marcello. I shook my head. No, it was Marcello, definitely Marcello; he’d had my heart from the start. Any other thought of any other man just felt wrong, no matter how intriguing and handsome Rodolfo might be.
Marcello was my man. If I was to get hi
tched, the only one that felt right.
“You have an hour,” Main Girl said. “Please, eat. Rest. For tonight there shall be little of that.” She had a knowing look in her eye. She turned to go but paused at the table that held my bundle and looked back at me, as if she knew exactly what was inside. Maybe she’d even peeked. But then she turned and left the room, with Guard Boy following her.
I didn’t bother to look. I knew he was right outside.
Hurriedly I stuffed three black olives in my mouth and went to my bundle. As soon as I lifted it, I knew. She’d outsmarted me. Kept me calm by bringing it along. But the dagger was long gone.
Feeling kind of nauseated, I forced myself to gnaw on some hard cheese, thinking, thinking, thinking of how I might escape in the next hour.
My eyes moved to the window on the far side of the room. I hurried over to it and opened the shutters wider, shivering as the cold air moved into the warm room. I leaned out and saw that the covered portico was beneath me, facing the Forum, and judging by what I could see at the corner, I was three stories above the ground. But what interested me most was the six-inch ledge at the base of my window. I leaned farther out.
If I could get out there and scoot along to an empty room, could I get away?
I hurried over to the doors and casually opened one. “I will attempt to sleep for a time,” I said regally. “See that I am not disturbed.”
The big, black man blinked and then nodded once, as if I was by far the most aggravating chick he’d ever had to deal with. I closed the doors and leaned my forehead against them for a moment. Please, Lord. Please make a way for me.
I took a small cloth and wrapped a round of unleavened bread, cheese, and olives up in it and tied it to the belt of my toga. I glanced around, looking for anything more I might keep warm in, but there was nothing. Maybe I’ll find something in another room, I decided.
I had to hurry.
I went to the window again and looked out, deciding I’d head to the nearest corner to my right, with just three windows between me and my goal. I didn’t know what was around that corner, how exposed I might be, but if I could make it all the way around the face of that wall of the palazzo, it’d be good. The more distance I could put between me and this room before it was discovered I was gone, the better.
The River of Time Series Page 74
