Although the noble mother was making it seem to those who might be watching her that she wasn't talking to this soiled, unpleasant man, to Apicata, who could only listen, it was obvious what Aemilia was doing. The noble woman sought answers about the future — answers about her children, about her house. The words the soothsayer was saying meant nothing to Apicata, but it hardly mattered. In daring to ask at all, Aemilia had placed the point of Apicata's sword neatly at her own ribs. Apicata would bide her time before letting the woman know of it.
The Praetorian Prefect's blind wife believed no one else witnessed this scene, but she was wrong. I, Iphicles, the lowly slave, saw it too, from where I was shepherding my young dominus, Little Boots, towards the banquet. The soothsayer spoke as if from a thousand miles away: ' The third is hooked by a harpy's look; the rarest of all birds …'
His words meant nothing to me either, but I took note of them all the same.
The doors to the banquet hall opened and the dining slaves announced the commencement of the wedding feast. Apicata arose and waited for someone to guide her in. As she stood there, smiling pleasantly, she wished she could reassure the girl Lepida that whatever she might fear, her mother would not be exposed as a traitor. It would be a needless waste. Apicata had already gathered several intriguing truths about the noble Aemilia, just as she had about so many highborn women in Rome. This new transgression now made the matron among the most useful people there were.
Apicata had no use for Aemilia just yet, but would in time. Her only disappointment was that she would never see the look on the patrician woman's face when the nature of this use was revealed to her.
When the moment came, Apicata would have to imagine it. Blindness had taught her that imagined moments were far often more delightful than reality anyway.
Nilla and Burrus froze with the rabbit bones still in their mouths. In the glare of the dawn they saw that the man's teeth were white — he was smiling at them. He tucked his sword inside his belt and raised his hand in a wave. Only then did the children remember their nakedness, but they had nothing to cover themselves with. The man came nearer, as huge as a mountain, with shoulders as wide as a giant's. His hair was gold, just like Nilla's, and his brown, freckled skin was laced with dozens of scars. He squatted on the sand beside them.
'Are you a gladiator?' Burrus asked him.
The man laughed. 'How did you guess that, boy?'
Burrus pointed at the scars.
'My fighting days are behind me now,' he sighed. 'I've got too old.'
'How old are you?' Nilla asked.
'Thirty years. I'm the oldest gladiator there is, I think.'
'You must have won many fights,' Burrus marvelled.
'I did.' He held out his hand. 'My name is Flamma.'
Burrus accepted the handshake as a newly made freedman, not a slave. 'I am Burrus. And this is the Lady — '
But Nilla stopped him from telling the gladiator her full patrician name. 'I'm just Nilla,' she said. 'We're looking for water.'
'Ah,' said Flamma. 'I can show you where to find some then. There's a stream mouth just beyond the point.'
Burrus grinned at Nilla. 'See? We were right to head east.'
She agreed. 'Would you like some rabbit?' she asked Flamma.
The gladiator's eyes were at the horizon.
'Would you?'
He flicked his eyes to her. 'You're very kind.' Nilla handed him one of the charred rabbit kittens and he stuffed it in his mouth. 'Let's eat on the way to the stream,' he suggested, chewing.
Burrus and Nilla looked surreptitiously at one another. 'Are you our friend, Flamma?' Nilla asked.
Something caught in his throat, but he swallowed it along with the rabbit. 'I'd be honoured to be your friend,' he said. He stood, towering above them. 'Come on. I'll show you where there's good water to drink.'
The children rose, and when Flamma held out his huge hands to them it seemed only natural and right, as his new friends, to fall in on either side of him and place their own hands in his.
'Do you get lonely out here?' Flamma asked them.
They'd never even thought of it. 'We have each other,' said Nilla. Then, giggling, she added, 'We're in love.'
Burrus reddened and complained. 'That's our business, Nilla — a great gladiator doesn't want to know about that.'
Nilla just laughed. But when she looked to see what Flamma thought, his eyes were trained on the horizon again, squinting into the sun. 'Walk faster,' he said. But he had sandals on his feet and the children did not.
Nilla stepped on a grass thorn. 'Ow!' She tried to pull it out with her free hand. 'It's stuck in my toe.' She waited for Flamma to release her other hand so that she could sit down and pull the thorn out, but he held it tightly. 'The thorn,' Nilla said.
Burrus suddenly saw why Flamma stared at the horizon. 'Run!'
But Flamma held their hands in his fists, even when they kicked him and pulled at him and sank their teeth into his flesh. They were less than blowflies to him, less than gnats, but he felt ashamed. He hated himself for so easily betraying children.
Flamma only let them go when the men with the nets had arrived.
The nuptials were performed as a confarreatio — the patrician wedding rite — which caused quiet affront to some because the bride was not, in fact, patrician. But this was not to be acknowledged out loud, and a sacred tradition as old as Rome itself was crushed underfoot. But at the wedding banquet, once the rites were done, one guest gave expression to the city's feelings, and in doing so brought the union undone.
It started with a few sprinkles of water. In honour of Mercury, wedding guests reached from their couches to dip their fingers into their water bowls and then let the contents dribble onto their foreheads. It was a joke — Mercury was only acknowledged by merchants on this, the Ides of May, not by patricians. But the barb behind the jest was not apparent to those who picked up on the idea, mimicking the guest who had started it.
Nero and Drusus, the teenage grandsons of the Emperor, were the first to follow the lead, sprinkling themselves liberally with water. Then their sisters Drusilla and tiny Julilla did so, seated in chairs at the base of the boys' dining couch. Their cousin Tiberia took it up next, plunging her whole hand into a water bowl and letting it dribble on her face as she laughed. Her mother, Livilla, tried to stop her, but Tiberia was enjoying herself too much to listen. The bride and her patrician groom were next, Aelia and Hector, still babies too, despite the wedding that had been thrust upon them. Other guests around the Imperial children followed, and soon water was sprinkling everywhere, making the marble floors slippery.
Alone among the children, my dominus, Little Boots, remained stony-faced, his hands in his food, his face creasing with the concentration of stripping flesh from a bone. He looked up at me where I stood by his side in faithful attendance, and I nodded at the wisdom of his foresight in not participating with his brothers and sisters and cousins. Little Boots cast a glance at Tiberius. The Emperor sat in a throne with the wedding guests arranged around him. His mind was elsewhere. He could hear the laughter, but he wasn't taking it in. His eyes were on the open windows and the clear spring sky. Little Boots looked back at me again with a smirk and I gave him a shrug, before our gaze went to the Praetorian Prefect, Sejanus, who sat frozen with his blind wife, Apicata, at the parents' couches.