Carta glared at her. But she said, “Oh, come here and be still. We aren’t done yet.” She bade her lean down and carefully painted the charcoal around her eyes. “There,” she said at last. She held up a hand mirror.
Even Regina herself was startled by the effect. The darkness of the charcoal paste made her eyes shine, while the pink of her light woolen tunic was perfect for bringing out their smoky gray. As she slipped on her new bronze rings Regina’s mood of anticipation deepened. Briefly she thought of Aetius, and the responsibility he had tried to instill in her. You are the family now, Regina … But she was seventeen, and her blood was wine-rich; surrounded by her jewelry and clothes and cosmetics she felt light, airy, floating like a leaf on a breeze, far above the earthy stonelike concerns embodied by the matres.
She said, “Carta, I hear what you say.” She took more steps around the room. “But I’m only dancing.”
Carta forced a smile. “And maybe I don’t dance enough. Dance, then. Dance for all you’re worth! But—”
“Oh, Carta, always a but !”
“Be careful who you dance with.”
“You mean Amator?” Her translucent mood turned to irritation. “You never did approve of him, did you?”
“He was too old, you too young, to be flirting the way you used to.”
“But that’s years ago. He’s different, Carta.” And so am I, she thought, in a dark warm secret core of herself, which contemplated possibilities she didn’t dare broach even in her own mind. “Carta, Amator is your cousin. You should trust him.”
“I know I should.” Carta eyed her. “Just be careful, Regina.”
“Carta—”
“Promise me.”
“Yes. All right, I promise …”
Carta surprised Regina by hugging her, briefly. They stepped apart, both a little embarrassed.
“What was that for?”
“I’m sorry, child. It’s just, made up like that, you look so beautiful. That fire in your eyes when you argue with me — you have spirit, and I can’t blame you for that. And — well, sometimes you look so like your mother.”
She couldn’t have said anything that would have moved Regina more. Regina touched her cheek. “Dear Carta. You mustn’t worry so. Now help me fix my hair; this bone pin just won’t stay in place …”
But Carta’s face, already lined though she was only in her midtwenties herself, remained creased with concern.
Amator and Athaulf met her at the old bathhouse, not long after sunset. Amator was carrying a great flagon of wine.
The bathhouse, like the Basilica, had long lost its roof. Domes, broken open like eggshells, gaped in the dark. Somebody had dug down through the fine mosaic floor of the main chamber, smashing the design and scattering the tesserae: perhaps it had been a Christian fanatic who had objected to some pagan image. Nobody knew; nobody cared.
With Amator and Athaulf was a girl called Curatia. Regina didn’t know her, but she knew about her. About Regina’s age, Curatia routinely went about dripping with as fine a collection of hairpins, jewelry, and cosmetics as you could find in Verulamium. But, so went the gossip, she lived alone, and had no obvious means to pay for such things — none save her popularity with a variety of men, some old enough to be her father … Regina felt faintly disturbed to find such a girl here; immediately the evening seemed soiled.
But Curatia had brought a lyre. When she played, with her black hair cascading over the strings, Regina had to admit her music was quite beautiful. And once she had begun to sip Amator’s wine, Regina began to feel much more relaxed about the girl’s presence. It was a balmy autumn evening, the fragments of mosaic and the wall paintings that had survived the weather were poignant and beautiful, and even the weeds and saplings that grew waist-high looked fresh and pretty. And when Amator and Athaulf had set out the candles they had brought, on the floor, on the walls and in the gaping windows, the shadows became deep, flickering, and complex.
Amator and Regina sat together on a stretch of broken wall. Amator sifted rubble with his hand and dug out a collection of oyster shells. “Once people ate well here,” he said. He shrugged and let the shells drop.
“I’ve never eaten oysters,” Regina said wistfully.
“Oh, I have.”
Athaulf crawled around the half-ruined building, poking into crevices and cracks and feeling under the floor. “Did they really light fires under the floor? …”
“It’s called a hypocaust, you pig chaser!” Amator shouted out in Latin, waving his wine. He said to Regina, “You must forgive Athaulf. He’s still a ragged-arse barbarian at heart.”
Regina leaned against Amator’s legs. “I never heard a name like that. Athaulf. ”
“Well, he’s a Visigoth. And like all his kind his name sounds like you’re hawking to bring up phlegm …”
Visigoth he might be, but Athaulf’s family wielded power in Gaul. After the disastrous night on which the frozen Rhine had been crossed by the barbarians from Germany, Roman military commanders had managed to stabilize the province by giving the barbarians land inside the old border. Thus a Visigoth federation had been established in southwestern France, centered on Burdigala. Athaulf was a rich man, and a solid business partner for Amator.
Amator drank deeply of his wine. “Thus the Visigoths, who are barbarians, are employed on the Emperor’s payroll to keep down the troublesome bacaudae, many of whom are Roman citizens. Makes you think.”
“But I don’t want to think,” she said, and held up her cup for more wine.
“Quite right, too.”
Athaulf stood up in the rubble of the hypocaust. “Look! I found an iron hook!”
“It’s a strigil, you savage. It’s supposed to keep your skin clean. Oh, throw it away. Cura! Enough of that funeral music. We want to dance!”
With a whoop, Curatia abandoned her gentle dirge and launched into a lively rhythmic tune, an ancient British piece.
Amator yelled, dragged Regina to her feet, and took her in his arms. They started with formal steps, but soon, as Athaulf joined in, they clambered in and out of the old hypocaust and ran laughingly along the sections of broken walls.
As she danced in the ruins, and the cool autumn air mixed with the heady wine and the scent of the candles — and as Amator’s legs brushed hers, and his arm circled her waist — Regina could feel her intoxication growing, as if her blood were burning. This multileveled place, full of complicated light and Curatia’s shimmering, oddly wistful music, came to seem as unreal and enchanted as if they had been transported to a cloud.
Later, she found herself lying on a thick woolen blanket, cast over the stones of the broken wall. She was panting hard, the blood in her head singing from the whirling dance. Amator was lying beside her, propped up on his elbow, looking down at her. She could sense his old intensity in the way he looked at her. But that frisson of fear she had once felt had gone now, leaving only warmth.
“I wish this night would last forever,” she said, flushed and breathless. “This moment.”
“Yes,” he murmured. “So do I.” He lay beside her, his arm over her stomach, and she felt his tongue flicker at her ear.