Not that Athanasius would care. He was the kind who, once smitten, would love her forever.
And that was the problem.
Athanasius seemed to think they had all the time in the world. Money and power meant nothing to him. Life was all about his works and the world’s recognition of his merit as a playwright. The fortunes that came his way passed through his hands like water from the aqueducts passed through the bathhouses and homes of Rome into the central sewer to the Tiber. And yet he’d be happy scribbling away on his plays from a cave, eating wild mushrooms and smoking his leaves for inspiration.
She, however, would not.
Her beloved was a proud man who so desperately wanted to win the acceptance and respect of a Rome that spurned him. But he never would, even with his marriage to her. She knew that the only thing that made him acceptable to Rome was the popularity of his comedies — and the money they brought the state in ticket sales and merchandising. It was the same with her beauty. But Athanasius simply could not accept the reality that the mobs who flocked to the Games of the Flavian by day were the same who filled the seats of his Pompey at night.
“Ludlumus and I are not in the same business,” he had once declared to her. “I am playing a different game, and those who see my plays are the better for it.”
All of which led him to push the bounds of acceptability in his plays, to point out Rome’s tragic flaws and weaknesses in hopes of strengthening society. This, in turn, only raised the ire of the pontiffs, augurs and astrologers he mocked along with the gods. For all its violence and lust, Rome was actually a conservative and religious society. It could only wink at its wits like Athanasius for so long before it lost its patience. It was time for him to pick a different theme for his productions.
Having waited until the servants confirmed to her that Athanasius had left and her attendants were waiting in the bathhouse, she turned in the opposite direction and walked past the great marble image of herself as goddess and under the peristyle into the villa.
Helena entered the library, which intimidated her with all its shelves of books and scrolls. Athanasius had one of the largest personal collections in Rome. It was a secret part of him she could never get her arms around.
She found a silver tray with a cup and pipe on her beloved’s desk. She picked them up, one at a time, and lifted each to her nose with a frown. He had been drinking kykeon and smoking blue lotus leaves again, no doubt to lift his senses and enhance his creative spirits while he wrote.
“Oh, Athanasius.”
Those creative spirits were going to ruin them. It was a miracle that Opus Gloria had even passed the censors, let alone get this kind of launch tonight at the palace. That scene of Zeus taking the form of a swan to rape Leda, or rather the other way around in this new telling was… so disturbing, to say the least, and certainly sacrilegious, worse even than the ridicule and death the gods had endured in his previous works. Only the intervention of his lead actor, Latinus, who reminded his friend Domitian that Athanasius took care to mock only the Greek gods, not their Roman successors, and the magistrate Pliny the Younger, who promised that the women of Rome would buy the uniquely shaped figurines of Zeus-the-Swan in droves, saved the production.
Helena felt the old confusion rise up inside her. She adored Athanasius. He was talented, athletic and compassionate. He was also incredibly handsome and a god in bed. Yet the very qualities she loved — like his dangerous curiosity and insatiable quest for truth — were what she most feared. Even his beloved mentor Maximus had once confided to her: “You just have to control him. Sexually, psychologically, financially. For his own sake. And you’ll get by.”
She glanced at the titles of his stacks of books and scrolls. There was Aristotle’s Poetics, along with the complete works of Euripedes. There were also the classic Greek comedies of Hermippus and Eupolis, and Athanasius’s favorites from Aristophanes, The Clouds and Lysistrata. There were others too: books about the arts, history. One was about the ancient Israelite invasion of what was now Judea, and another about Rome’s campaign in Germania.
So many old books and crazy ideas that filled his head.
The pile of scrolls collapsed from her touch to reveal a scroll hidden behind them all. This one was in common Aramaic, which she understood enough to read the title: The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
She went cold. Officially banned by the empire, this was the book about the end of the world written by that crazy old “last apostle” John imprisoned on the island of Patmos. No wonder poor Athanasius had been having nightmares. What was he thinking? She knew that, to the love of her life, pure and undefiled religion was attending the Olympics in his native Greece and smoking psychedelics. All other religion he pilloried in his plays. To him this was a harmless curiosity, of course, a chance to “break the code” that rumors suggested was bound in the sinister symbolism of this evil tract. Wasn’t the antichrist supposed to be Domitian, after all?
Everybody knew that Athanasius was a closet atheist who did not believe in the gods. Not all atheists were Christians, and certainly not Athanasius. But all Christians were atheists by Rome’s standards, because they rejected religion altogether in favor of a superstition that required neither sacrifices nor idols of any kind. These were the very things that greased the wheels of commerce — and made life for her and Athanasius possible. Yet all a disgruntled servant or paid informant had to do was tip the Praetorians, and they were finished. At the very least, their new hillside villa, one of only 2,000 single residences in a city of squalid apartment blocks, would be confiscated.
“You live in a fantasy world, my love,” she murmured to herself.
She produced her divination dice, which she used for every decision of her life. Each side had a sign of the zodiac. She would throw them to decide what to do with the scroll. Burn it now? Or ignore it and confront Athanasius tomorrow? Whatever the outcome, she knew she would have to avoid any row with him before the party tonight.
She pushed up her python lucky charm bracelets on each arm — double the charm to keep evil away — and rolled the dice in her hands. She looked up to heaven to utter a silent prayer and then said, “Fortuna!” as she cast them onto the desk.
A six.
She smiled with relief. She would burn the scroll, place the ashes with his lotus leaves on the silver tray, and let the servants carry them out. Perhaps Athanasius would never even notice. Perhaps a new idea would grab his attention, and these visions of the end of the world would disappear from his memory along with his nightmares.
A young voice from behind said, “Mistress Helena, your dress for the evening has arrived, and the girls wish me to tell you that they are ready for you now.”
She stiffened. It was the servant boy Cornelius. He was a holdover from Athanasius’s previous household staff and always seemed to regard her as an interloper. The boy fancied himself a protector of the great playwright’s papers. How long had he been standing there?
“I am not ready for them,” she said imperiously. She then rolled up the Book of Revelation, laid it aside on the desk and slowly turned. “I’m just tidying up for Athanasius. You know how he hates it if I throw papers out. Please take his tray back. Tell the girls I’ll be with them in a moment.”