‘A hobby for you?’ I suggested.
‘Tullius saw it as that.’
‘Stretching yourself?’ I asked carefully. ‘An addition to the family business?’
‘Funnily enough, I seem to have the property deeds in my own name.’ Tiberius kept his eyes on the road ahead. ‘A little project to keep me out of trouble … Well, that is what my uncle thinks,’ he murmured.
44
The long delay at the Anio bridge had upset our plans. As we approached the small town of Fidenae, we discussed what to do. If we continued to the Vibius estate, we would arrive so late we would have to ask to stay the night. Given that we might not receive a warm welcome from Julia Optata, we decided it was best-mannered to send our driver to warn her we were coming; we would stop at an inn and travel to the house first thing the next morning.
‘Then she has time to think about it.’
‘She has time to bunk off!’ I warned.
Faustus risked sending Sextus’s letter to Julia right away. Nervous of the effect it would have, I asked if he had seen it.
‘Yes, he showed me. It’s very bland. Not what I would write to you!’
‘You did write to me.’ We had exchanged brief notes a couple of times while I was at the coast.
‘What did you think?’ He was like a lad, flirting.
‘I thought you composed your words too carefully – as if you feared my entire family would read it.’
‘Did they? Sneak into your bedroom and look under your pillow?’
I answered him snootily: ‘I have trained my sisters to be too scared of me; my brother would not be interested. My father leaves that sort of thing to my mother. My mother is beyond reproach, a condition not to be trusted, so I keep my letters in a locked box.’
He grinned. ‘Ah, you kept them, then!’
By that time I was too tired from travelling to contrive a good riposte.
We had to stay at a Travellers’ Rest, one that ever since has been known to us as the Cow with No Tail. That is the polite version. It had a real, more mundane name, the Mansio at Fidenae or similar. It was an ordinary mansio, indeed, a no-star mansio of such miserable ordinariness that it had no baths, no real kitchen, one dormitory, with six hard beds where we and several snoring travellers off the Via Salaria had to sleep in our clothes on top of rough covers with no pillows, trying to ignore each other. That was made easier by only having one very small window so it was quite dark, though very hot. Faustus put me in a corner, with himself on the outside in case any of the lumps in the other beds attempted molestation. After an evening at that mansio, they were too gloomy to try.
We had foolishly eaten there. A cauldron of vegetable water had had a lamb knuckle waved over it, with results that caused my still-weak insides to protest. Faustus said even he had indigestion. Once he realised I was feeling ill, which had made me anxious, he pushed his bed up against mine. I was curled up. Despite the suffocating heat, I was shivering. He wrapped himself round me, holding me still, sharing his warmth. ‘Don’t start anything!’
Only he could have said that. Only I could have found myself the last chaste man in Rome. Why, then, did I think he was close to giggling?
After a time, I demanded quietly, ‘Why not?’ Silence. ‘Why don’t you want me?’
On the back of my neck I felt hot breath as Tiberius muttered his reply. Somewhat intense, it seemed to be, ‘I don’t want a precious memory to be tied for ever to a sordid inn in a tiresome town that I meant never to come back to on, an errand that makes me uneasy, with three hairy nail-sellers from Noricum listening in.’
They were certainly nail-sellers: they had spent the whole evening discussing among themselves the best way to sell Norican nails. My companion had politely gone over for a few words, in the course of which he somehow obtained a bag clinking with samples. I queried this. He seemed very pleased with his free gift and said good nails always come in. I mused to myself on how, unknown to me before, the aedile Faustus was a typical man.
Now, despite the Norican presence, Tiberius whispered, ‘Never, ever believe I do not want you, Albia.’
Accepting the situation, I relaxed in his grip. With nothing else worth doing, we both fell fast asleep.
The Norican nailers must have left and hit the road again before dawn. I think of them quite kindly now.
When a trickle of light finally forced its way through the tiny window, we awoke. During the night we must have adjusted position, maybe more than once. Faustus was now lying on his back, with me against his side. He still had an arm round me. It felt natural and familiar, as if we had been sleeping together in one bed for years.
‘Stop thinking.’
‘What?’
‘Every time a busy little thought wafts through your brain, your eyes move about and your lashes tickle.’
Everything seemed to tickle him. He was as ticklish as a baby. Hair, eyelashes … His responses to me seemed ridiculously acute.
The room was quiet. We were the only people left. I fidgeted, scratching a forearm. Creatures who lived in mattress straw had emerged during the darkness and eaten me. Tiberius stilled my wild scraping with a light hand on my wrist, stopping me drawing blood. He spat on a finger and applied it to my weals, so the drying spittle cooled the irritation.
I needed to stretch and must have edged closer against his hip. More of a squeeze than a movement. I never started anything. It was him, all his fault, all his choice.
He turned. Now he was lying over me, extremely close. In the dim light, his familiar face seemed soft and boyish after sleep. I had seen him absorbed yesterday, but nowhere near as single-minded as he was now. He sighed, but if it was resignation, he had given in and welcomed his decision.
‘Tiberius-’
‘Don’t talk.’
I know people who would think this demanded half a scroll of comic dialogue as in a Greek drama. I, however, did not talk.
Tiberius dropped his head and began kissing me. We had kissed once before, pretending it was for disguise, once when on surveillance. The taste of him was just the same, but this was deliberate, him choosing me, me openly showing my response to him.
Whatever he had intended, or had not intended, neither of us could help ourselves any longer. We hardly changed position. We never undressed. The Cow with No Tail was not a place for nakedness. We made necessary adjustments, then held our breath for what would happen very fast and with profound intensity.
My waiting was over. Tiberius Manlius Faustus was making his move.
45
Our driver had chosen to remain at the Vibius estate last night. He had viewed the mansio stabling and guessed the rest. The stalls were not good enough for the wonderful mules of Tullius; the facilities for humans, where they existed, would disgust him. He came back for us early enough. If he thought us strangely silent, he made no comment.
He had delivered her husband’s letter for Julia Optata last night, though had not personally seen her. That remained for us. She was a contained, dark-haired woman, still youthful, although she must be closer in age to Sextus than wives tended to be. She was the oldest of Julia Verecunda’s children, the first daughter to have been subjected to the mother’s hateful régime. She was plainly dressed, perhaps because she was in the country, though since we were coming she had put on earrings and a single-strand silver necklace.
People had called her quiet, and also sweet. I saw nothing of that. I found her guarded, and generally a blank.