Shaking his head at the fates and their tendency to ruin even the most basic relaxation, he had put his back against the tree and drawn up his leg, knee bent, to replace his shoe when he paused, still as a rock, breath held.
The unearthly, pale figure of Lucilla had emerged from the cavorting mass and slipped quietly around the side of the portico, like one of the spirits of the departed, flitting through the night, almost appearing to drift in her gauzy silver and white garment. As he watched in astonishment, she picked up the silver-stitched hem of her stola and hurried back along the outer side of the Canopus, her sandals crunching on the parched earth.
Rufinus remained still and watched as the mistress of the villa followed the outer edge of the Canopus and then disappeared up the slope to the west, climbing steadily along the line of the retaining wall and heading towards…
Rufinus had blinked as he watched two tiny lights dancing around the base of the decorative and delicate academy tower. Why would anyone go there? It had been one of Rufinus’ favourite haunts when hiding from the torrential rain last year, but had been abandoned and let fall to rack and ruin since the days of Hadrianus. Certainly not a place where party guests would go, even for a little privacy.
Would Phaestor have set men to watch the place? He would have men on duty in that area of the estate, but the tower was not on a patrol route. Decades of disuse had made every floor above the ground one unstable and dangerous and the wooden staircase had long since vanished. The guards on duty would be further north, near the temple of Antinoos, or south, near the academy buildings. In any case, wherever they were, the estate guards would not be carrying lit lamps. Such a thing made it practically impossible to catch interlopers and shattered a man’s night-vision.
What was going on? Clearly it was something that required secrecy and distance from the guests, and it involved Lucilla. Therefore, it needed to involve him!
His eyes flicked around the landscape as he contemplated his next move. He could follow her, but the white wall of the Canopus portico would show him up clearly, and the run up the hillside would also be out in the open. Whoever was waiting up there for Lucilla would almost certainly see him.
With leaden inevitability, his gaze fell on the service track.
In the days when that section of the villa had been in regular use, servants had been required to move from the main central region to the tower for cleaning, supplying and bringing food and drink to those in occupation. Since no nobleman liked to survey his fine estate and have his eyes light upon dirty, ragged slaves, the villa had been supplied with networks of subterranean access tunnels and, where these were impossible, such as between his current position and the tower, narrow paved tracks lined with tall poplars that obscured those using the route.
The hidden path began only four or five paces from the tree against which he leaned and ended directly below the tower, a ramp rising over hollow vaults along the edge of the tower’s square foundations. It was perfect in almost every way, barring his knowledge that the ramp was unstable. The only time he had set foot upon its gravelled surface, stones had fallen from the ceiling of the arched vault below and he had felt the floor shift beneath his feet before hurriedly descending once more. Pompeianus had told him that a gentle shaking of the earth some ten years ago had made the vaults dangerous and they had never been restored. Even the goats that occasionally wandered the grounds that side of the estate eschewed the ramp.
Taking a deep breath and hoping no one would be paying attention to the scattered trees near the Canopus’ end, Rufinus scuttled across to the poplars that hid the service track and made his way swiftly along it, aware of the loud slap of his hob-nailed boots on the slabs. Irritably, he paused and quickly removed the boots, dropping them to the ground and racing barefoot along the tree-lined avenue toward the grey bulk of the tower, lit by the silvery moonlight.
A few moments later he passed the last poplars and ducked between two supply sheds, unused for so many years that the vines and ivy trained up their walls to disguise their presence had completely taken over the structures and begun to crack apart the walls and shatter the tiled roofs.
Grimacing at the dusty gravel and gnarled roots that made his feet hurt, Rufinus took a deep breath and hurried across the twenty feet of open space to the base of the ramp, aware that the speed of his hidden run must have brought him more or less level with Lucilla, who had taken the stable yet much longer garden slope.
Hissing quietly as a nettle stung his foot, he wondered whether he could have continued to wear his boots and moved slower with more stealth. But it would only have taken one of the lamp-bearing folk on the tower with good hearing to pay attention to the sound of running footsteps and his secret approach would have been for naught. The imagined consequences of such an event made him acutely aware of the belt around his middle that bore no sword, given that he had been a guest at a noble party. The blade’s absence felt like a missing limb at times like this.
Gingerly, he moved to the inner side of the ramp, his arm brushing the tufa of the retaining wall that formed the platform of the gardens above. His very first gentle footfall saw the surface beneath him give slightly and his heart lurched as he looked up the seventy feet or so of steep slope that would bring him up to the tower’s foundations.
Another step and the floor felt solid. Gripping the stonework to his left, he continued to climb, each footstep tentative and fear-laden, almost half-seeing some level of sag in the ground beneath him. Around halfway up the ramp, he felt enough gravel shifting beneath him that he could see a fragment of light as a tiny hole opened up through to the vault below. A small piece of tufa stone fell silently through the air and clicked off its companions in the small pile below. Rufinus held his breath for a moment, though the sound seemed to have gone unnoticed by the figures above.
Another quick glance and he noted there were four figures gathered around the two lamps, muttering quietly. As he watched, he saw one of them beckoning to someone out in the gardens. Lucilla had arrived.
Clenching his teeth and worrying at the volume of his heartbeat, Rufinus climbed the last steps of the ramp, ignoring the unsteadiness of the shifting dirt beneath his feet, finally arriving at a point where his head was a mere foot below the parapet. A slight movement to the left gave him an adequate view of the gathering through the delicate latticework of the parapet.
Lucilla arrived, out of breath and livid. Fury lent a colour to her face that was visible even through the plastered white lead that coated her skin. She gestured angrily at the figures of Annianus, Stina, Plautia, and Annia, their serious faces dancing orange in the glow of the lamps.
‘What in the name of divine Pluto are you doing?’ she demanded in a hushed snarl.
‘We have concerns’ the quiet voice of Annia said placatingly.
Lucilla rounded on her, cold fire in her eyes. ‘Then you wait for the appropriate place and time to voice them. Have you any idea how dangerous this is?’
Annianus, his sad grey eyes heavy with some unspoken burden, held out his hands.
‘When we meet in your rooms, we are all present. We felt it time to hold a discussion between us alone, while we had the opportunity.’
Lucilla turned her furious gaze on the older man. ‘You know what is at stake. We cannot do this now. If you wish to discuss matters without Quintianus, you should speak to me at a more appropriate time and I will arrange a meeting at which he is not present.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Concerns?’
‘We don’t believe the boy is up to the task.’
Lucilla shook her head. ‘I will not have this conversation in open ground. You are foolhardy idiots.’ She turned to Annia. ‘I would have expected more of you, sister.’