She was standing very still. Outside, the wind was battering fretfully at the house. The loose shutter or whatever it was banged again. Julia looked sharply at her husband. 'Your friend Aurelian… he drinks too much, he has a savage temper… mark my words, he will not come to a good end.' Ballista said nothing. Somewhere in the far reaches of the house the wind tugged at the unfastened shutter: rap-rap-rap.
Julia laughed. 'You realize this is why I had to come out east. It was not that I was worried the Persians would kill you in Arete but that you would have no idea what was happening in the consilium when you got back to Antioch.'
She undid the sash and let her robe fall. 'And now all that is said' – as she raised her hands to untie her hair, her breasts lifted. Ballista gazed hungrily at her large, dark nipples, flat stomach, flared hips, her shaven delta – 'I think it is time that you took care of your wife's needs.' She stepped down into the water, waded over to him and straddled his lap. Rap-rap-rap went the shutter. 'I do not think you appreciate the risks that I run for you. Over a year without a man inside me – there is not a doctor in the imperium who would not agree that such abstinence is very bad for a woman's health.' She tipped her head back and laughed. 'Although I am sure that many a doctor would be prepared to help a girl in such a predicament.' She leant forward and kissed him, her tongue sliding into his mouth, her breasts flattening against his chest. Rap-rap-rap.
'Wait a moment. I cannot concentrate with that row going on.' Ballista slid out from under her, running his hand across her slick, wet breasts, the nipples hard against his palm.
'Do not be too long.' She smiled.
He draped a towel round himself and picked up a small lamp. He left wet footprints on the marble floor.
Outside the bath rooms, the house was in darkness. Ballista stood in the main living room listening. There was the sound – rap-rap-rap – it was coming from somewhere in the slave quarters. This was a part of the house that he did not know at all well. He had only set foot in it once, when he had first been given a tour of the whole property. It was a rabbit warren of short, windowless corridors and tiny cells. Once, as the sound receded, he had had to retrace his steps. Eventually, he found the open window, at the end of a corridor up under the eaves.
The rain stung his face when he stretched far out to grab the wildly swinging shutter. Far below, the road ran like a river. The fitful wind blew great gusts of rain one after another down the road.
When he fastened the window, for a moment everything seemed unnaturally quiet. Then other sounds emerged: small creaks and scratching sounds. Suddenly, he thought he heard a footstep. He smiled. It was just an old house cooling as the warmth of the day died out of it, moving gently in the face of the wind. In his small circle of lamplight, he started to head back.
Before he reached the tepidarium, he nipped out the lamp. Quietly, he looked round the door. Julia was lying back, her shoulders and arms supporting her floating body. Her breasts broke the surface of the water. She looked superb. He watched for some time before he walked in, dropped his towel and stepped down into the bath.
V
Leaving Julia asleep, warm in their bed, Ballista dressed and walked to the stables. He saddled Pale Horse and led him out into the night. He rode alone through the empty streets. It was dark, at least three hours before dawn. The rain had eased off but the wind still ripped through the alleys of the potters' quarter.
Once, the northerner thought he heard something. A clink of steel on stone? He reined in, pushed back his hood and sat motionless, listening, hand on hilt, looking all around. Nothing. He could hear nothing but the wind itself buffeting his ears. He could see nothing except the empty, windswept alley. Ballista smiled to himself. Any more of this and he would become as nervous as Demetrius. Of course it was eerie to ride through deserted streets that usually teemed with men and animals. And he was tired. His smile broadened. Julia had seen to that. Allfather but she had tired him out. He could have chosen worse for a wife.
A gentle pressure from his thighs set his mount in motion again. He left his hood down. Jumpy or not, it was worth cold ears to be able to hear properly.
Always blessed with a good sense of direction, Ballista pulled up in a narrow alley. The walls here looked uncared for, damp, the plaster peeling. He got down from his mount and hammered on an inconspicuous door. The lantern hanging over it squealed as it swung in the wind, its light glinting off puddles and the rivulet that ran down the middle of the alley.
The door opened, throwing a yellow rectangle of light. The head of Gillo, Aurelian's manservant, peered out, squinting into the darkness.
'Ave, Dominus. Ave, Marcus Clodius Ballista.' He smiled, snapped over his shoulder for a boy to take the dominus' horse, and gestured for the northerner to step inside.
Ballista handed his cloak to Gillo, who hung it on a peg in the shabby corridor. From peasant stock, the young general Aurelian had never tried to conceal his lack of money. Those who liked him said his continuing impecunious state pointed to his financial probity – no soldier ever became rich honestly on what the Res Publica paid him. For those who did not care for him, it was an ostentatious sham – for sure, no peasant could keep his nose out of the trough. There were dark stories of millions hidden away.
A wave of warmth and noise washed over Ballista as the door to the main room was opened.
'Ah-ha, here he is. Better late than never.' The strong Danubian accent of Aurelian rang out. 'Come in, come in. You know everyone? The esteemed ex-consul Tacitus? My young friends Mucapor and Sandario?' The face visible between the close-cropped hair and beard was flushed. There was a dark-red spot on each of Aurelian's prominent cheekbones. It was hot in the room, and everyone was dressed for hunting, but Ballista noticed the wine cup in his friend's hand.
'Indeed I do, and I am not late.' Ballista stepped forward with his hand out. 'Marcus Claudius Tacitus, it is good to see you again.' The older man turned his heavily lined face to the newcomer, shook his hand, then embraced him. Close up, Tacitus looked all and more of his fifty-five years. The dour, big-nosed face itself was cleanshaven but luxuriant whiskers ran together into a beard underneath the chin.
'It is good to see you, Ballista.' The Danubian accent was less pronounced than Aurelian's. The older man's family had been landowners there, time out of mind. The two men in their twenties, both again from the lands around the Danube, greeted Ballista with wide smiles. Sandario's made him look even more dashing. Unfortunately, Mucapor's did not have the same effect; it made him look even more of a simpleton.
'Drink!' Aurelian bellowed. 'Eros! Where in Hades has that little Greek bugger got to? Eros, bring drinks for our guests.' Aurelian's slave secretary kept his eyes down as he gave Ballista a cup of wine and topped up all the others, except Tacitus, who quietly put his hand over his cup.
'Food!' Aurelian was in tearing form. 'Ballista, I know how you northern barbarians eat. I told Gillo to buy more food than one could imagine. Help yourself.' The young general gestured with his cup to a table at the back of the room, which did indeed appear to be laden with food. Aurelian grinned at Ballista. Everyone in the room got the irony that, for most of the inhabitants of the imperium, the men from the Danube were almost as much barbarians as the Angle from the far north beyond the frontiers.
'My dear Tacitus,' Aurelian said in a slightly more respectful voice, 'you are eating nothing. And I specifically told Gillo to buy all the lettuce he could get his hands on, knowing it was your favourite vegetable.'