It was late the next morning. None of the family had come out yet; the house was oddly quiet. No one was wearing their pileus except Betto, the guard, but he was doing it as a joke. I had just finished translating cook’s instructions for the evening’s meal when Sabina came into the culina. She beckoned me to follow her outside into the garden. Cook flapped his permission with the cloth he used to battle the permanent film of perspiration on his forehead. Limping to my room as fast as I could, I grabbed my only cloak and met her outside. A bright sun was burning the dew away.
Swiping a hand across the marble bench where she stood waiting, I sent a small wave of condensation onto the dead grass. I laid the cloak across the veined stone and we sat watching the steam rise off the artificial pond. “I’m sorry,” Sabina said after a short while.
“This is a terrible place.” I kept still, letting her take her time.
She was not quite ready, but skirted close. “Livia is quite fond of you, you know. She told me she likes embarrassing you.”
“An unremarkable feat, easily accomplished. Only yesterday we were practicing the finer points of how to butcher a boar. Cook was demonstrating, I was translating. The staff laughed at every word I spoke; puzzling, since I could not imagine a subject less humorous. The more they laughed, the angrier I became. How dare they humiliate an invalid with a cane? I chastised them sternly, wagging a finger at their disrespect; the laughter became uproarious. A noise from behind caught my attention; I turned to discover your daughter standing there barefoot, wearing an old brown wig, holding two long sticks with stuffed, white gloves attached to each end. She had snuck up behind me to pantomime everything I did."
“I heard all about it."
"I glared at her, but my heart wasn't in it. She grinned sheepishly and waved at me with one of her 'hands.' It really was quite funny. Even cook laughed.”
"For one so young, you are very good with children. Marcus, too. I know you’ve been teaching Livia Latin.”
“She’s a fast learner. If only we had more time.”
Damn myself for a fool. I had inadvertently broken the spell. For a moment, we might have been mistaken for two companions enjoying the morning air. “I have not been honest with you,” she said.
“You owe me no explanations.”
“I feel that I do.” She bent to pick up a pebble, then tossed it underhand into the pond. “We seem to have become friends, haven’t we? Not an easy accomplishment.” She sighed. “I was ashamed, Alexandros. To confess to you that my station was no better than yours. I thought I would be free, and Livia with me; that I would be gone from this place. Such an insult to you!” She turned to face me. “Can you forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive. You have only shown me kindness. You and Livia have been the only brightness to shine upon me in years. The real tragedy is to learn that you and your daughter are not free.”
“They will be looking for us soon. I must tell you quickly.”
“You don’t have to say a thing. Come, let us go in.” I started to rise but she caught my arm.
“No. I must do this.” She steeled herself. “I was pregnant when we married. He was Roman, a soldier for Marius. It wasn’t a formal ceremony, we weren’t citizens, but we were free and it was legal??? he walked me to our apartment with a few of his legionary friends to bear witness. I wore the flame-colored veil and the amaracus wreath. I was such a romantic. My parents were dead, and he was estranged from his. A clue which I completely ignored.”
“What was his name?”
“I won’t speak it. Soon after we were married, it became clear his love for me paled beside his passion for gambling. He was obsessed by the chariot races; whenever the cheers from the Circus Maximus echoed through the city, he would disappear, probably with those same men who had followed us to our threshold. I didn’t notice the losses at first; he didn’t confide in me. And honestly, I was so wrapped up in my daughter, I wasn’t paying attention. I had never been so happy.” I nodded. “I suppose that’s why two years ago when I came back from the market and he gave me the news, I fainted. See this scar?” She leaned toward me; I saw a thin white ripple just below the hairline near her left temple. “I fell and cracked my head. When I got up a few moments later, blood was seeping between my fingers; he steadied me and put me in a chair. I brushed him away and made him speak again so I would know I had not misheard him. He spoke slowly, defeat and regret coating every word. To pay his debts, he said, he had been forced to sell our daughter. I looked around frantically, realizing we were alone. I screamed at him, ‘Where is she?!’ but she was already gone.”
“I cannot bear this,” I said.
“I would have killed him then, had I been able. His gladius was in the corner and I ran for it, but blood was getting in my eye and I tripped.”
“Please, Sabina, let’s go inside.”
“Some head wounds look far worse than they are,” she continued. Her eyes were focused on a sight I could not behold, on the memory being reborn as she spoke it. “If only I could have killed him,” she said wistfully, “none of this would have happened.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That man tried to bandage me, but I preferred to bleed rather than have him touch me. He boasted he had gone to the forum to find the most reputable of merchants. It was Boaz. By the darkest sorcery, Livia, my flesh and my heart, had been transformed into a lifeless pile of cold, worthless coins. He tried to explain how well off we were; showed me the money that would be left after he paid off his creditors. Even tried to put the coins in my hand — the equivalent of 4,000 sesterces in forty small gold aureii. 12,000 sesterces for my daughter to pay 8,000 in debts. He gambled away almost nine years’ wages. The sorry bastard I married had only served for ten.”
“How could he get so much money on a soldier’s wage?”
“Where do you think? Over half of it was mine; money I’d saved working as a healer. Foolishly I thought my girlish love would pave the road to infinite trust. I gave him the money to manage. The rest he must have borrowed. A clever snail, he was, I’ll give him that. He put a false bottom in the small money chest that held our savings. When he needed to take out more than the 925 sesterces he was putting in each month, he’d raise the floor to make the level of coins look unchanged. That’s how he stole from us.
“He actually thought he was being noble, giving me charge of all that gold. But he left me with but a third of what I would need to buy Livia back, and that was only if Boaz would make the exchange profitless. I took the coins, cupped them in my hands and spit on them. Then I flung them in his face as hard as I could. I cut him, and hit him in one eye, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing will ever be enough. Within the hour he had left to rejoin his legion. I never saw him again.
“That night I awoke with a start and lit a candle. I crawled on the floor till I had collected every aureus. I put them in our water bucket and the next day bought another one slightly smaller. I broke the staves and set them aside, muffled the coins with a rag, pressed them into the false bottom and calked it.”
“Your husband’s trick in reverse. Ingenious.”
“Then I put it under the basin stand and prayed to our house god to keep it safe. I kneeled by our hearthside lararium till the flames became embers. My prayers twisted into thoughts of how I might undo my husband’s betrayal and reclaim my daughter. I awoke on the floor, cold and alone.
“My biggest regret is that he had not died that day, for while he lived, my fate worsened. I was taking work anywhere I could find it: baking pies to sell to the troops, sewing, anything. I starved myself trying to save every as. But it was taking too long. It would take forever. Then Sulla marched on Rome. My husband was among those defending the gates.
“Four months ago, two men came to my door. They weren’t his friends, and they weren’t soldiers. They showed me the leather bag from his kit. It bore the mark he had carved on the flap. There was a large tear on the front that went through to the other side. There were dark stains on both sides.”