Barbatio, standing behind the Emperor, stared coldly over his patron's shoulder at the younger man, his face betraying the hatred he felt for this latest young cousin of Constantius to have been vested with the purple, for no reason other than a tenuous blood relationship. Julian avoided his glare, focusing instead on the Emperor, amazed at his words.
'You mean to say I have no duties?' he inquired, astonished.
The Emperor chuckled. 'Only one. Since you so rudely insist upon being forewarned about plans that affect your little life, I will do so now. You have met my sister Helena, your cousin? No, of course not. You will soon enough. In two days' time you will be marrying her.' And nodding to his courtiers he strode away from the astonished Julian, resuming his earlier conversation with Barbatio as if all the events of that morning had been of no more consequence than a review of his troops.
VI
The next day, upon entering the gynaeceum escorted by me, the trusted family physician, harmless as an elderly eunuch and familiar as a lapdog, Julian marched directly to the couch on which the veiled empress was casually reclining, talking quietly with several of her ladies nearby, and knelt down on one knee. She glanced at him quickly, nodded to me politely where I knelt next to him, and then returned to finish the quiet conversation she was having. During this interval I took the opportunity to peer discreetly from beneath my brows in frank appraisal of the Empress. Though I am a professional, I am still a man, and though a Christian, I have not forsaken the appreciation of beauty.
She was a woman of exquisite taste, and with all the wealth of Rome and the goods of the world at her disposal, she had not stinted on her appearance. Indeed, I often marveled at the fact that rather than the fine linens and wools worn by most ladies of the court during the cool fall season, she still preferred the soft, clinging cotton shipped from India, and the lovely antique silks that had been carried painstakingly by caravan from China a century before, when the Parthian peace had still held. In these two materials she had draped herself voluminously yet delicately for this meeting, in the fashion of the day. The long, blindingly white cotton upper tunic fitted her body closely. A gauzy, almost transparent silken veil was thrown casually over her head and face, streaming over her shoulders and reaching down to her feet. The fabric hid and yet revealed in its folds the contours of her face, the whiteness of her teeth and eyes, and the long, olive smoothness of her slender upper arms. Around the hem of her tunic a purple braid embroidered in gold had been painstakingly stitched, a sign of her exalted status. This was matched by a similar braid fastened tightly around her slender waist, setting off the rounded fullness of her breasts and hips. Her jewelry was simple yet costly: a golden diadem in her hair, set with a single pearl; matching pearls in tiny rings on her ears; and a simple pendant on her breast. I was always pleasantly surprised to see that she had not succumbed to the current fashion of multiple bracelets, rings, and ankle circlets, for like the Greek sculptors, I detest such trappings as interruptions in the otherwise smooth, harmonious flow of the female form — from rounded shoulder to gently curved fingertip, from soft, white thigh to arched toe, an unbroken, gently undulating line that achieves perfection in its continuity and for which even the most intricately wrought Spanish silver clasp is an unendurable violation of purity.
I glanced sidelong at Julian and saw that he, too, was surreptitiously peering up at the Empress under raised brows. I returned my glance forward, and as my eyes traveled stealthily up her body to her face, I was surprised to find that even as she was talking with her maidservant, she was looking at Julian, appraising him quite as frankly as he was her; indeed, I noticed with some amusement, she was actually watching him watch her, and moreover seemed quite unabashed, even fascinated at what she saw. I raised my head as her conversation came to a close, and noted with disappointment her silent gesture with one finger of her right hand, indicating to her companions, and to me, to leave her alone with Julian.
The door clicked softly shut behind me, but Julian afterwards recounted the extraordinary conversation he had had with the Empress.
'I have long wished to meet you, my lady,' he began, 'and express to you my gratitude for the books and kind words you delivered to me during my wait.'
There was tinkling laughter behind the veil, which he found oddly familiar.
'I'm so glad you were able to enjoy them,' she said in her warm and unprepossessing voice. 'Was Plotinus properly filed, then?'
Julian looked up, startled.
'You… you're the cleaning girl that replaced Lucilla… I mean… begging your pardon, Your Highness, but…'
Eusebia looked down at him in amusement and carefully drew back the veil, folding it across the top of her head. 'You didn't know it was me, then? Oh, I am indeed delighted!'
He was stunned. 'But, Your Highness, why? After all my pleading for an audience, why did you not reveal yourself to me?'
'What, you are asking me now why I did not visit you alone in your rooms, without the Emperor's consent?' She laughed teasingly. 'My poor bewildered cousin-in-law. I am as fond of my head's position on my own two shoulders as I'm sure you are of yours.'
She continued to laugh, then sat up on the couch.
'Though you didn't think I would propose you for the rank of Caesar without first obtaining a proper glimpse of you myself?' she asked slyly. 'A woman may marry her husband sight unseen, as I did, but she does not make such a blind choice twice in her life. After all, when you arrived at Milan, your career, indeed your life, Julian, could have taken either of two different paths. To the extent that I could have an impact on the Emperor by… assisting him in his decision, I wished to have every possible fact at my disposal.'
At this he remained silent, at a loss for words. He was overwhelmed by her beauty, as he had not been by that of any woman before, for never in his short, sheltered life had he been in the presence of a female quite so lovely, and so powerful. The combination was intoxicating, suffocating, even, and he felt the room become suddenly very hot, the air stifling. He kept his eyes fixed upon the ground for a long moment, while she looked on in bemused detachment. Finally standing up, she walked slowly toward him, and placing her hand lightly under his chin lifted his face to meet her eyes, and with a smile gestured to him to rise.
He was surprised, when he did so, at her stature, for though he was only of medium height for a man, she was of extraordinary height for a woman, standing fully as tall as him, while wearing only her thin palace slippers. She seemed to have no compunction about compressing the aloof distance she usually maintained with her staff, and stood facing him barely a foot away, her shoulders back and spine straight, almost in a military stance, but with the laughing gleam in her eye and the smooth lines of her cheek effacing any thoughts of the harshness of command. Most disconcerting of all to Julian, as he recounted it to me afterwards, was the soft contours of her breasts, mere inches from his chest, their swelling outline visible beneath the quilted silken robe draped over her body. Unlike a physician, Julian had had little contact or experience with the female form, and her extraordinary beauty was something to which I was so accustomed that I had not even bothered to describe it to Julian beforehand. As she stood facing him, he forced himself with a supreme effort not to step back or look down, either of which might have been interpreted by the Empress as an insult or an indication of fear on his part. Rather, he stood straight and immobile, facing her, his eyes focused on a point beyond the top of her head. A trickle of sweat ran down his side under his left arm, soaking into the belt of his tunic, making him long to scratch his ribs.