“He shall surely be laid to rest before the calends of October, but three days’ hence!”
“Then you had best depart immediately. Lest he be set aflame before you arrive.”
“Lucretia, please!”
“He resides in Neapolis, Quintus! Or had you forgotten?”
“Since when do you not care for Neapolis? And the opportunity it allows to part with coin? To say nothing of the sea air,” he protested.
“It smells of rotten eggs.”
“The friendly local citizens?” Batiatus suggested.
“Quarreling Greek refugees and fishwives.”
Something flashed in the sky, like the glint of a sword in the sun. Batiatus paid it no heed, his eyes locked on his wife, entreating Lucretia to offer some iota of spousal support.
“The broad sweep of the bay. Those sparkling waters,” he pleaded.
“Muggy in summer. Choppy in winter.”
“And here we are, swiftly approaching harvest and equinox! An auspicious occasion to visit.”
Batiatus paused, a broad, winning smile on his face begging his wife to acknowledgment. As if to spite him, there was a distant rumble of thunder on the Capuan hills. A drip of errant drizzle dashed against his cheek, then another.
Lucretia held out her hand inquisitively, craning her head out into the open space of the atrium. She stared up at the low, gray clouds overhead.
“Is that rain?” she mused.
“Impossible,” Batiatus replied.
Behind him, the waters of the atrium pond showed dots of activity. Points of water flecked on the previously calm surface, the impact of unseen raindrops. Across the courtyard, Lucretia saw silent flecks of rain dashing against the upper walls, freckling the brown clay plaster into a deeper shade of red.
There was another flash of lightning, and a crackle of thunder almost immediately after it.
Batiatus glanced behind him in annoyance, in time to see the drizzle shift to a downpour, churning the waters of the atrium pond into a rough sea, spattering the green inner walls a murky dark gray. Batiatus shivered involuntarily, and realized that the lower hem of his toga was already drenched.
“Jupiter’s cock!” he shouted, snatching his robe from its puddle.
Lucretia turned from the rain’s chill, gliding back toward the antechambers of the house.
“Jupiter Pluvius, the divine bringer of rain, himself counsels a roof over your head, Quintus,” she called, not looking back at her husband.
“All summer I prayed only for rain,” admitted Batiatus. “Now I tire of it.”
“Then rest indoors and wait for such storms to pass.”
“This storm? It is but trifle,” Batiatus declared.
“As is all unwelcome change. Be it by men or gods.”
Their upraised voices echoed through the house, but did not travel to the outer gardens. The rain saw to that, pelting onto the Capuan clifftop with increasing volume, until it drowned out all other sounds in a relentless rattle. It pattered on the leaves of the formerly parched trees. It drummed on the cracked ground. It tapped an irritating, unceasing tempo on the waxed tarpaulin of the litter that approached the house of Batiatus.
The four bearers, one shouldering each end of the two carrying poles, struggled with each step to maintain their footing. Feet used to the reliable, measured flagstones of the Appian Way scraped and slipped on treacherous dips and uncleared tree-roots. Three of the slaves did not even look up, crouching their heads beneath their sodden hoods and concentrating merely on putting one foot in front of the other. Only the lead bearer, standing at front-right, exposed his head to the rain, squinting through the storm in case of oncoming traffic.
The litter and its bearers had no other company on the remote track. They plodded on through the rain, their pace picking up as the welcoming lights loomed nearer. The cargo was light, barely noticeable to accomplished porters, such that when the leader called halt, the litter was raised off their shoulders and lowered to the ground with ease.
Within the courtyard of the Batiatus villa, shadowy figures scurried to the portal. The occupant of the litter stirred, placing a foot gingerly on the damp ground. A figure substantially smaller than the vast man’s cloak that wrapped it scampered through the storm toward the entrance of the house itself, and the indistinct sound of a couple in the middle of an argument.
“It is inconvenient,” Lucretia said.
“Inconvenient!” Batiatus yelled in response.
He inhaled sharply through his teeth, raising his arms up in exasperation at the walls around him. He glared hotly at a wall of painted finches and songbirds, and thought meanly of roasting them on spits.
“It is inconvenient that my prize gladiator lays pierced with hole the size of Rome’s Cloaca Maxima, unable to enter the arena any time soon.”
“I realize that,” Lucretia said carefully. “It grieves me. It grieves me sorely that Crixus is-”
“It is inconvenient,” Batiatus interrupted, “that this ludus has but one opportunity to secure coin in coming month and it lays forty-five thousand paces from this place, in a miserable, stinking, boy-loving, infestation of Greeks!”
“I thought we liked Neapolis?” Lucretia said with the faintest of smiles.
“I despise Neapolis!” Batiatus spat. “A filthy backwater population brimming with smug merchants, pushy beggars, and unruly street urchins, built upon slope toward sea. Every journey a torment of travel uphill, through fucking stone stairways.”
“Surely you must travel downhill at least half the time, beloved?”
“And yet, all directions lead uphill.”
“Now who defies reason?”
“Pelorus was a dear friend,” Batiatus said.
“You loathed each other,” Lucretia responded.
“As siblings squabble over pets, we tussled over gladiators. Though given predilections of my Capuan colleagues, my occasional auction-block competition with Pelorus seems now the very pinnacle of amity.”
“Still, no reason for my involvement in your farewells.”
“All of Neapolis society will be there.”
“I care not.”
“Pelorus shall have in death what he never had in life. Accord as a man of wealth and virtue. Mourners from the patrician class. A funeral fit for a high-ranking Roman citizen.”
“I repeat. I care not.”
“Pelorus will not be regarded as mere lanista. Important people shall celebrate his life, Lucretia. Important people.”
“And you?”
“Shall be seen as dear friend to the departed, by his other friends. For which I shall require the presence of my wife.”
“You will find that Neapolis has plenty that can be hired for service.”
There was a shadow in the doorway. A slave had approached, swiftly and silently, as protocol demanded.
“What is it, Naevia?” Lucretia said.
“Apologies, domina, but there is a visitor,” the young girl replied, eyes lowered to the floor.
Naevia got no further before the subject of her message caught up with her. A figure appeared behind her, wrapped in a coarse cloak, dripping water on Lucretia’s clean flagstones. Underneath the cloak, there was the hint of green Syrian silks, and dainty, pedicured toes.
“Pardon this intrusion,” a female voice said, lifting her veil to reveal flaxen blonde tresses, coiled into sodden ropes by the rain. Cheeks usually concealed beneath Tyrian rouge were now flushed with their own glow, with specks of dislodged kohl like ashen tears above an exhilarated smile.
“Ilithyia!” Lucretia exclaimed with exaggerated, mannered delight. “I thought you to be in Rome.”
“Such was my hope,” Ilithyia said, pushing her wrap into the hands of Batiatus as if he were no more than a cubiculum slave.
“But muddy tracks and tired bearers conspired to find me here,” Ilithyia sighed deeply, as if it were the end of the world, “scant steps from your yard and your doors.”