They were happy. They hunted for food for hours on end, and when they caught it they ate it. With bellies full, they sat in the shallows, talking, laughing and inventing tales of heroism in which they were the players. When night came, they slept near the fire. At first they kept a distance between themselves — they were mistress and slave, after all — but when the nights grew colder necessity forced Burrus to hug his Lady tightly to him to stop the chattering of her teeth. She complained at first but he insisted. He would not let her suffer. Soon hugging each other was an unconscious thing, as unplanned as thinking or breathing.
Nilla gave Burrus his freedom. She did so spontaneously; he hadn't hinted that it was his heart's greatest desire. She didn't know the manumission ceremony and nor did he, but they had heard that a statement needed to be repeated three times, so Nilla said, 'I set you free, I set you free, I set you free.'
They were equal now. Nilla shyly told him that she had fallen in love with him. It had happened, she said, on their arduous swim, but in her heart she knew it was before. They had been on board a ship that was taking them to her parents in Antioch. But when Burrus had been beaten by Nilla's two bullying brothers, he had thrown himself into the sea, and Nilla had followed him, without a thought of doing otherwise. To have done such a thing for one as lowly as a slave meant she must have loved him truly and not thought of him as lowly at all. Then Burrus had saved her. She had copied his swimming strokes and he had kept her from the waves. Now Nilla loved him as her mother loved her father, she told him.
But Burrus told Nilla she was only a girl — that she was too young for love. Nilla sulked at that, but later Burrus confessed to his Lady that of course he loved her too. He had loved her since she was born and he would love her until he died. They kissed. It was funny and not unpleasant, but they didn't kiss again. Each sensed that this was something for which they weren't quite ready.
'Will we ever be found?' Nilla wondered.
Burrus said yes, but his heart told him no. They had seen no ships, no men and no smoke, except for that from their fire. This shore was a lost place, forgotten or unknown.
'Are we still within the Empire?'
Burrus thought it likely that they weren't.
Days became weeks and then something more, something no longer measured with time. Their skin turned pink and then red and then brown. Nilla's long, fair hair went gold in the sun — a halo of fire in the breeze. Burrus's thick, dark locks went lighter too, growing in curls that fell across his eyes. Their bodies became hard; they were strong now, agile. The last of their softness was swept away.
Their only problem was water.
When it rained, they tried to drink as much as they could, running around with their mouths wide open, catching the raindrops in their cupped hands. Sometimes water gathered in puddles in the land behind the dunes, but it quickly drained away and days went by before it rained again. There were cacti in the dunes. Burrus was the first to try one and he badly pricked his tongue. But the taste was sweet and water dripped from the flesh. With care, this sustained them for a time, but Burrus knew it wasn't enough.
'We need to find the mouth of a stream,' he said, 'some place where water comes down from the hills.'
Nilla agreed, looking up and down the rocky beach. 'Which way should we go to find one?'
Burrus wanted her to think that he knew. 'East,' he said, confidently. 'Towards the morning sun.'
They took nothing with them. Their rags were long lost and when they were hungry they looked for cacti and crabs. The walk was hard, though the weather was consistent. The days were warm but the nights brought a chill. One night they lost control of the fire they'd started and a blaze swept through the scrub. Burrus and Nilla clapped and cheered at the thrill of destruction. When they awoke again in the dawn, they saw what the fire had left them. A litter of rabbit kittens, caught in the scrub blaze, was waiting as a cooked breakfast. Burrus made a prayer to Vulcan. As they gnawed upon the carcasses, they sensed movement in the bushes behind them.
It was a man holding a sword.
Although the sun was bright and warm upon her face, Apicata could see nothing of it. Her eyes were open and aimed at the smiling wedding guests, who nodded and bobbed to her in the gardens all around, but she could not see the expressions upon their faces. An unknown illness had claimed her vision, although her appearance betrayed little sign of it. To the world she still seemed sighted, at least until she was spoken to directly, when her unfocused gaze betrayed her. But the malady had not been wholly cruel. It had left a gift in place of what was stolen. Apicata's ears heard more than the keenest of the palace dogs.
' Veiovis…'
She knew there was a conversation taking place that was hushed and urgent, somewhere to her right.
' Veiovis…'
Apicata shifted on her stone bench while she waited for the doors to the banquet hall to open. She hoped the slaves were running late; she didn't want to go inside until she had determined who this woman was, who was so engaged in this halting, laboured discussion. It was a conversation that would see the woman thrown from the Tarpeian Rock if other people learned of it.
' So long asleep…'
Apicata sensed the presence of a child nearby and took her ears away from the conversation for a moment. 'Hello, little flower,' she said. 'We've met before but I'm very bad with names.'
The child was startled at being spoken to. 'I'm Lepida,' she whispered.
'Lepida, of course you are, and how pretty you look today.'
The child was pleased by the compliment and yet confused by it. This mysterious woman wasn't even looking at her.
Apicata beckoned Lepida to move closer. 'Do you remember who I am?'
Lepida knew she had never met this woman before, yet she had the presence of mind to offer an answer. 'You are the mother of the bride.'
'Yes, I am,' said Apicata. 'My daughter is marrying into the family of the Emperor. That is why we're all here.'
Lepida didn't need this to be explained to her. 'I love weddings. You must be very happy.'
Apicata nodded. 'I am also the wife of Praetorian Prefect Sejanus. My husband has a very special job. He exposes traitors for the Emperor.'
Without understanding why, the child felt fear.
'You mustn't tremble,' Apicata said. 'You are an innocent child. You know nothing of such things.'
Lepida was silent, staring into the eyes of this woman who seemed to see her and yet did not.
'Do you notice, over there,' Apicata whispered, 'just a little distance away in that quiet corner of the garden, there is a woman talking to a very strange man. Do you see them?'
Lepida saw.
'Who is the lady?'
Lepida bit her lip.
'Who is the lady?'
The child said nothing.
Apicata placed her fingers on Lepida's bare arm. Despite the warmth of the spring sun, her fingers were cold. 'Who is the lady, child? You know her, don't you?'
'She is Aemilia, my mother…' The girl pulled her arm away. 'She isn't a traitor. She has done nothing wrong.'
'Of course she hasn't,' said Apicata. 'I am merely asking, that's all. I recognised her but couldn't place her.'
'You want people to think you can see them, but you can't. You can't see anything.' Lepida ran away from Apicata's reach.
'It's true, child,' Apicata whispered after her, amused. 'But I can hear like the wolves themselves.'
She turned her head to the hushed conversation again, to the treasonous, reckless words between the child's noble mother, Aemilia of the Aemilii, and Thrasyllus, the last soothsayer in Rome. The old and broken man was barely lucid, slumped in the dirt while the embarrassed guests ignored him as they would an epileptic. Apicata couldn't imagine why the Emperor Tiberius had permitted his seer to attend the wedding — if he was even aware he had. Perhaps the old man had wandered in, having escaped from wherever it was that Tiberius kept him locked away? No one but Apicata knew who the soothsayer actually was, but clearly Aemilia had chanced an accurate guess.