“Follow your heart, my friend,” the other had said. “Where would we be if Cupid were cowardly? Think, Anatolius. If you don’t comfort her now, how will you ever be able to approach her afterwards?”
Crinagoras had reached up and tapped the mosaic on the inn wall. “You must emulate these brave charioteers. The first to the turn wins. In romantic matters, propriety must sometimes be left behind in the dust.”
Anatolius’ feelings about another visit to Balbinus’ house were ambiguous, but the statement had persuaded him. Now, however, he had begun to have second thoughts.
Anatolius’ mouth tasted sour. Did he smell of wine? He hadn’t drunk much. Why then did he feel dizzy?
“Now, off you go.” Crinagoras had practically pushed him out of the tavern door. “Fair Lucretia has not forgotten you. Didn’t you tell me not long ago that when Senator Balbinus’ party passed by you in the Augustaion after they left the Great Church, Lucretia looked back over her shoulder at you? Didn’t your gaze nearly meet hers?”
Anatolius’ grip tightened on the small scroll he held. The parchment felt damp.
No, he decided, this visit really was not proper.
He turned to leave.
“Anatolius.”
Lucretia stepped into the atrium.
The sight of her stopped his breath.
Glossy ringlets, tamed by a mother of pearl comb, surrounded her pale, patrician face. She wore a simple robe of white linen, decorated around the collar with pale blue gemstones unwittingly echoing the purplish smudges under her tired eyes.
She must be exhausted from attending Balbinus night and day, Anatolius thought.
She invited him into a reception room he had never glimpsed. Dazzling bright, with walls of snowy marble, and white alabaster urns in its corners. A couch and two pine wood chairs were inlaid with cream-colored ivory. As he sat down opposite Lucretia he thought she might have been one of Peter’s angels, and this the antechamber to the old servant’s heaven.
“Why are you here again, Anatolius?” Her voice was low and breathy, as always.
“I wanted to offer any assistance I could render. Because…because…well, you remember…”
“My husband is dying. How exactly do you propose to assist me in the matter?”
Anatolius began to feel ill. “I’m sorry, Lucretia, I realize this visit may seem presumptuous.”
“It most certainly is presumptuous.”
“I will leave.” He stood.
“Wait, Anatolius. I know you have a kind heart and came to see me with the best of intentions. I appreciate your sympathy.”
“Everyone at the palace is saddened by his illness, Lucretia. I…I am saddened.”
A faint, ironic smile flickered on her lips. “If you have come to commiserate with me on my husband’s death, I fear you are somewhat premature.”
Anatolius reddened. “He’ll be well soon, Lucretia. It’s just, I mean, if the worst happens…if there should be any legal difficulties…the Lord Chamberlain has the emperor’s ear and as you know he is a good friend of mine. So I thought if I reassured you…well, you would have assistance if it was needed in that, um, remote possibility it would help ease the burden…” He floundered to a halt, having forgotten the carefully constructed speech he had rehearsed.
What a sorry excuse it sounded when spoken aloud.
How could he have taken that fool Crinagoras’ advice?
“I see you’ve thought very hard about how you might help me, Anatolius. Thank you.”
He glanced down at the sodden little scroll in his hand. How near she was. He could not recall when last she had been so close. How could he remind her of waking together in moonlight, of worshiping Venus in warm summer-leafed groves, of intimate hours lit by a flickering oil lamp?
He tried to recollect all he had intended to say. The words had fled in abject shame. He felt as if he was a soldier who had girded for battle, only to be struck down in the enemy’s first wave of arrows.
“I’ve been a fool, Lucretia.” He felt even more foolish for having said it.
“Who isn’t at some time or other?”
“Do you ever think of me?”
“Of course. However, I am Senator Balbinus’ wife and have been for some time.”
Anatolius set the scroll on the couch beside her. “Something I wrote for you, Lucretia, as I used to do in the old days.”
Lucretia looked down at the gift, her face inscrutable. She did not pick it up.
Neither did she push it away.
Anatolius found courage to speak. “Let me believe there is hope, Lucretia.”
She did not raise her head. “Believe it if it pleases you, Anatolius.”
“Lucretia, if you had not married Balbinus, you would have married me. We both know it.”
Lucretia finally looked up at him. “No, Anatolius. I would not have married you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The bellow of a bull greeted John as he turned down a familiar street leading off the Strategion. It was almost as if Nereus’ oracular bovine were foretelling his visit. Was it a good omen from Mithra?
Sylvanus stood outside his late master’s house securing a basket full of frantically clucking chickens to a donkey cart.
“You’ve arrived just in time, Lord Chamberlain. I’m about to embark on a new adventure, since I’m off to the master’s country estate with my charges. I was lucky enough to be able to purchase this cart this morning. Its owner demanded an exorbitant price, but I won’t stay here another night!”
A cloud of feathers wafted out of the basket as Sylvanus struggled to tie it to the side of the cart.
Recalling their previous conversation, John asked what would drive a confirmed city dweller into the countryside sooner than would be necessary.
A puzzled look crossed the rustic servant’s face. “You haven’t come to investigate the incident last night when someone broke into the house?”
The bull bellowed again. Sylvanus swiveled his head toward the open house door. “Apis!” he shouted. “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you!” Turning back to John, he invited him inside.
Nereus’ house was a shambles. Fragments of terracotta and marble, the remains of lamps and statuary, littered the atrium. John stepped over a pale arm. The marble lump in one shadowy corner might have been a head.
“It’s an outrage, sir!” Sylvanus fumed. “As if we hadn’t enough to weep over! Yet heaven heaps even more misery upon us.”
John glanced into Nereus’ office. Whoever had broken into the house had taken the trouble to damage its wall mosaic. Glass tesserae sparkled here and there among the ripped codexes and scrolls carpeting the tiled floor.
“Theft and breaking into houses are becoming the city’s main occupations,” lamented Sylvanus, “and fine pickings for the dishonest too, what with so many homes unoccupied. I can almost sympathize with those who break into a house they think empty, looking for something to steal and sell so they can feed their families, but wanton destruction…”
“What was taken, Sylvanus?”
“I can’t be sure, sir. You’d have to ask the house servants.”
The garden had also been vandalized and shrubs uprooted and tossed into the fish pool.
“They left the oracular chickens and fish,” Sylvanus pointed out. “I would have thought to a hungry thief both would have prophesied a very hearty dinner.”
“You were absent when these intruders broke in?”
“In a manner of speaking. I regret to say I over-imbibed last night and did not realize that strangers were in the house until I saw the destruction this morning.”
Bacchus, John thought, had become almost as popular these days as Fortuna.
“You heard nothing at all?”
Sylvanus, looking ashamed, shook his head and then, unexpectedly, beamed as he picked up a metal plate which had been half hidden under a low bush. “Here’s another of the master’s Dodona oracles. Bent, as you see, but I’m sure it can be put right. That makes three I’ve managed to find. I wonder where the other one is?” He looked around vaguely.