Hanno’s eyes lit with remembrance. “You are, master you are! Better be careful not to catch what you throw!” He thought that was very funny. He thought that was very funny for a very long time. I wondered where Livia had left the poppy juice. At last I discovered that Hanno had rummaged around in the waste bin and found the incomplete draft of my forgery from the previous night. I convinced him to exchange it for a fresh piece of crumpled parchment. I would have burned the evidence then and there but for Hanno’s skittishness around open flames. Chanina would be along any moment; I’d ask her to burn it outside.
What I did not know was that while my back was turned, lost in the concentration of my work, Hanno, having decided the unsullied sphere was not formed into a shape to his liking, had abandoned it and retrieved his original plaything. It was not long afterwards that I heard a faint, familiar and vaguely disquieting sound, like the popping of small insects underfoot. And immediately following that came the sound of parchment dropping to the floor.
“What’s the matter, Hanno, bored already?” I asked. “What are you doing?” He had crawled under my table. “Come out from there. You know I cannot concentrate with you fidgeting at my feet.”
I heard that snapping sound again and turned to see Lucius Curio standing there, a dusty brown traveling cloak on his shoulders, a dusty, evil smile on his face. He was contentedly and meticulously cracking every last one of the slightly knotted knuckles on his long, delicate fingers.
“Charming room,” he said. “Splendid view.”
“Curio?”
“For pity’s sake, do not ask me why I am here.”
“What?”
“You know very well why, so off you go, I’m certain my lady will be most anxious to have words with you.” Curio tried bending a forefinger, but it was already spent. Disappointment pinched his face, then he brightened. “I believe dominus and domina said they were going to spend some private time together-you can understand his surprise at seeing her. And then dominus said something about wanting to show lady Tertulla the strange trees in, I believe it’s called the gallery?”
The letter box. “Hanno, come out from there right this instant,” I said, reaching out for him with a trembling hand. “We have to go.” It was either the urgency or the terror in my voice that convinced him to obey.
“I think I shall enjoy this very much,” Curio was saying as we lurched past him. He walked slowly down the entrance steps and around the painted columns. His voice followed me down the open doorway. “Yes, this will do nicely.”
We careened into the gallery and barely kept our footing. Hanno’s silence as we righted ourselves was more frightening than any protest. He clung to me, and I to him, but even from the far end of the long room I could tell it was empty. Completely empty. The box was gone.
When he and I limped back to our unoccupied quarters, Chanina was just coming into the room to clean. She greeted me pleasantly, but all I could do was nod. The waste bin was empty, and one other item on the floor caught my attention, caught it by my throat and pressed till my breath wheezed, a tiny bellows in the back of my throat.
“Master, what’s wrong?” Hanno asked, finally voicing his fear. He squeezed my hand with his glove mechanism. “Master!”
“Hanno, can you find Arba in the stables and spend some time helping him?”
“Yes I can but I don’t want to leave you.”
For the boy’s sake, I summoned the remembrance of that man who used to be Alexandros, made him turn to Hanno and speak in soothing tones. “Thank you for worrying about me, but I am going to be fine, have no fear. Look, the sun is shining! Go have adventures today, don’t stay here, stuck in this dreary old palace with piles of boring old documents.” Hanno started to protest, but I raised a finger. “Ah, you haven’t said good morning to Bustan, have you? I know he would be delighted to feel your brush on his mane.” Hanno hesitated; he was not the fool I thought him to be when first we met. He understood I needed to be alone. But there was a price to pay. As compensation, he insisted on an extra-long, extra-hard hug. I didn’t mind it at all. No, not at all.
After he had limped away, I turned back into the room. Leaning against a column for support, for some moments I stared at the solitary piece of crumpled parchment that had never felt the kiss of ink or the light scratch of a pen, and wondered how this day would end.
•••
Dominus was in the Great Hall receiving the Aramean princes when lady Tertulla summoned me. I was led to a curving balcony on the western side of the Regia that looked out across a sloping patchwork valley of farms. In the distance, the forests of the Amanos Mountains were dressing in their fall colors. On the other side of the long arm of those peaks stretched the great Middle Sea, and home.
Tertulla was alone, occupying one of two couches. She motioned for me to sit. I did and studied her. My lady wore her favorite pale blue peplos, draped by a sea green stola. Her hair was as I remembered it: short and curled in ringlets. She had not succumbed to the growing fashion of wearing outlandish dyes or wigs. One could not improve upon that starless black, now streaked here and there with comets of silver. She saw me looking at the tiny lines that had grown about her eyes.
“You may lay claim to at least a few of those,” she said.
“I meant no harm, my lady.” My voice was dry and cracked, but there was no refreshment on the small table between us. “But I must tell you-”
“You have done no harm, Alexander. Whatever happens, know that I shall always be indebted to you. Your letters to me were not acts of betrayal. We know you love us, as we love you. But dominus and I made our choice long ago; did you think your writing alone could cause a reversal of heart? I could not dissuade him in Rome; as his wife, the only path left open to me was to encourage him. I knew we were wrong then. I know we are wrong now. And when it is over, I will live the rest of my days knowing the terrible mistake we made.” Domina reached across to take my hand, then released it. “Sweet Alexander, I did not come to Antioch to change my husband’s mind.”
“My lady?”
“Dominus is as you described him. Even the mighty Crassus cannot conduct three wars at once: against the Parthians, his age and his memories. My poor love is tired. Why should his wife not be near? There is nothing on the Palatine for me now; the Regia is as good a home and better. If I must wait for Marcus, I would be in a place where he can find me if he needs me. You know me, Alexander: I am a stubborn woman. I would travel twice as far to steal even a few more days with my husband.”
“I thought I could convince you to write him to bring him home. I had no thought that you yourself would make the journey. I have ruined everything.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. I will keep your secret.”
I woke up, suddenly realizing that time had collapsed into something squat and hard and finite. There was little of it left to say what I must. “Listen to me, domina. They will come for me soon. I forged a letter in your hand.”
“What?!”
“Please! I assumed you would remain in Rome. I thought to convince dominus in your voice that he should call off this war and return to the city and the family that needed him more than the deserts of the East.”
Tertulla considered. “The letter sounds innocent enough, though I would have had a lesser man flogged.”
I shook my head. “Domina, I will not be flogged. You must not protect me. You must deny any knowledge of-”
“Why should I not help you? Were you not trying to save my husband?”
“Domina, I tell you, you must not defend me.”
“I will not betray you. I will claim the letter as my own.”