My head is swimming.
“Anyway, Flavius is like a brother to me. You’ll see. We came down here and I stayed the night in the Villa Jovis. Saw all the naughty mosaics in Tiberius’s swimming pool, swam in it, even—there was a gigantic feast afterward, wild boar from the mountains here, mountains of strawberries and bananas, and you wouldn’t believe how much wine—oh, cheer up, Cymbelin, you didn’t think I was a virgin, did you?”
“That isn’t it. Not at all.”
“Then what is it?”
“The thought that you really know the royals. That you’re still so young and you’ve done so many astonishing things. And also that the man I was arguing with the other night was actually Cassius Lucius Frontinus the famous general, and that you’re the niece of Gaius Junius Scaevola the Consul, and that you’ve been the mistress of the Emperor’s brother, and—don’t you see, Lucilla, how hard all this is for me? How bewildering?”
“My poor confused barbarian!”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that. Even if it’s more or less true.”
“My gorgeous Celt, then. My beautiful blond-haired Briton. That much is all right to say, isn’t it?”
We hire one of the little one-horse carriages that are the only permissible vehicles on Capreae and ride down to the beach to spend the afternoon swimming naked in the warm sea and sunning ourselves on the rocky shore. Though it is late in the day and late also in the year, Lucilla’s flawless skin quickly turns rosy, and she’s hot and glowing when we return to our room.
Two days, two unforgettable nights, on Capreae. Then back to Surrentum, where our charioteer is dutifully waiting for us at the ferry landing, and up to Neapolis again, an all-day drive. I am reluctant to part from her at my hotel, urging her to spend the night with me there, too, but she insists that she must get back to the villa of Frontinus.
“And I?” I say. “What do I do? I have to dine alone, I have to go to bed alone?”
She brushes her lips lightly across mine and laughs. “Did I say that? Of course you’ll come with me to Frontinus’s place! Of course!”
“But he hasn’t invited me to return.”
“What a fool you can be sometimes, Cymbelin. I invite you. I’m Adriana’s guest. And you’re mine. Go upstairs, pack up the rest of your things, tell the hotel you’re checking out. Go on, now!”
And so it is. In Druso Tiberio’s absurdly splendid quadriga we ride back up the hill to the villa of Marcellus Domitianus Frontinus, where I am greeted with apparently unfeigned warmth and no trace of surprise by our jolly host and given a magnificent suite of rooms overlooking the bay. Uncle Cassio is gone, and so are the other house guests who were there on the night of the party, and I am more than welcome.
My rooms just happen to adjoin those of Lucilla. That night, after a feast of exhausting excess at which Druso Tiberio and his gladiator playmate Ezio behave in a truly disgusting way while the elder Frontinus studiedly turns his attention elsewhere, I hear a gentle tapping at my door as I am preparing for bed.
“Yes?”
“It’s me.”
Lucilla. “Gods be thanked! Come in!”
She wears a silken robe so sheer she might as well have been naked. In one hand she carries a little candelabrum, in the other a flask of what appears to be wine. She is still tipsy from dinner, I see. I take the candelabrum from her before she sets herself afire, and then the flask.
“We could invite Adriana in, too,” she says coyly.
“Are you crazy?”
“No. Are you?”
“The two of you—?”
“We’re best friends. We share everything.”
“No,” I say. “Not this.”
“You are provincial, Cymbelin.”
“Yes, I am. And one woman at a time is quite enough for me.”
She seems disappointed. I realize that she has promised to provide me to Adriana for tonight. Well, this is Imperial Italia, where the old traditions of unabashed debauchery evidently are very much alive. But though I speak of myself as Roman, I’m not as Roman as all that, I suppose. Adriana Frontina is extraordinarily beautiful, yes, but so is Lucilla, and Lucilla is all I want just now, and that is that. Simple provincial tastes. No doubt I’ll live to regret my decision; but this night I am unwavering in my mulish simplicity.
Lucilla, disappointed or not, proves passionate enough for two. The night passes in a sleepless haze. We go at each other wildly, feverishly. She teaches me another new trick or two, and claps her hands at her own erotic cleverness. There are no women like this in Britannia: none that are known to me, at any rate.
At dawn we stand together on the balcony of my bedroom, weary with the best of all possible wearinesses, relishing the sweet cool breeze that rises from the bay.
“When do you want to go north?” she asks.
“Whenever you do.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“Why not?”
“I warn you, you may be shocked by a few of the things you see going on in Urbs Roma.”
“Then I’ll be shocked, I suppose.”
“You’re very easily shocked, aren’t you, Cymbelin?”
“Not really. Some of this is new to me, that’s all.”
Lucilla chuckles. “I’ll educate you in our ways, never fear. It’ll all get less frightening as you get used to it. You poor darling barbarian.”
“You know I asked you not to—”
“You poor darling Celt, I mean,” Lucilla says. “Come with me to Roma, love. But remember: when in Roma, it’s best to do as the Romans do.”
“I’ll try,” I promise.
Yet another chariot is put at our disposal for the journey: this one Ezio’s, which he drove down in alone from Urbs Roma. He’s going back north next week with Druso Tiberio, and they’ll ride in one of his, but Ezio’s chariot has to be returned to the capital somehow, too. So we take it. It’s not nearly as grand as the one Lucilla and I had just been using, but it’s far more imposing than you would expect someone like Ezio to own. A gift from Druso Tiberio, no doubt.
The whole household turns out to see us off. Marcello Domiziano urges me to think of his villa as his home whenever I am in Neapolis. I invite him to be my family’s guest in Britannia. Adriana gives Lucilla a more than friendly hug—I begin to wonder about them—and kisses me lightly on the cheek. But as I turn away from her I see a smoldering look in her eyes that seems compounded out of fury and regret. I suspect I have made an enemy here. But perhaps the damage can be repaired at a later time: it would be pleasant enough work to attempt it.
Our route north is the Via Roma, and we must descend into town to reach it. Since we have no driver, I will be the charioteer, and Lucilla sits beside me on the box. Our horses, a pair of slender, fiery Arabians, are well matched and need little guidance from me. The day is mild, balmy, soft breezes: yet another bright, sunny, summer-like day here in the eighth month of the year. I think of my homeland, how dark and wet it must be by now.
“Does winter ever reach Italia?” I ask. “Or have the Emperors made special arrangements with the gods?”
“Oh, it gets quite cold, quite wet,” Lucilla assures me. “You’ll see. Not so much down here, but in Roma itself, yes, the winters can be extremely vile. You’ll still be here at the time of the Saturnalia, won’t you?”