“You mean: You thought I might be in danger of losing my temper before my guests.”
Sheepishly he raised his eyes—and found hers twinkling. “You’re taking this extraordinarily well.”
“You’re right; I ought to be scolding you. But as I was indeed needing a respite and losing my temper, I cannot conceive how.”
“You could scold me for tricking you,” he suggested.
“You really think I, of all people, have any right to take you to task on that score?”
He grinned. “Fair point.”
The matter settled, they strolled along companionably till Claire asked, “Where are we going?”
A moment’s reflection taught him where his feet were headed. “The Venus Room. Unless you’d rather rejoin the others?”
“Goodness, no.”
Her vehemence once again raised Jonathan’s curiosity. But he kept to himself as they ambled among what Mr. Lysons had called “the hovels”—thatched structures purpose-built to protect the site’s most significant archeological findings.
The hovel they ducked into had been built upon the Roman foundation walls of a large, airy room that jutted out from the rest of the complex. Lysons had concluded it was an audience chamber, where the villa’s owner would have conducted public business, received supplicants, and dispensed local justice.
“Ah, I remember this room,” Claire said, blinking round the dim interior. “Mr. Lysons said it was your favorite.”
Jonathan nodded. The chamber’s expansive floor was almost entirely filled by a masterpiece of ancient tilework much finer and more detailed than the Medusa. At its apex was the head of Venus, goddess of love and fertility, flanked by her customary peacocks and lotus flowers.
“These little cupids are darling.” Claire crouched to admire another segment of the mosaic. “What are they doing?”
Though he knew the cupids by heart, Jonathan moved to regard them over her shoulder. The winged figures occupied a strip of vignettes which, taken together, told a story.
“Those two are dressed as gladiators of differing classes,” he told her. “A secutor and a retiarius. Here, you see them in combat. Next, the secutor is kept from killing the retiarius. Then, before the fight resumes, the retiarius shows generosity by offering a fallen helmet to his opponent, who spurns it. Lastly, we see the secutor strike his death blow.”
“Hmph. Seems rather a cold-hearted allegory. What does it mean?”
“Who can say? Roman ethics bore little resemblance to our own.” He couldn’t resist adding (with feigned innocence): “Perhaps the retiarius is a traitor and his generosity a mere ploy. I’d argue such men deserve cold-heartedness.”
Her sharp look told him she’d caught his meaning—that he likened the retiarius to Milstead. “That is one possible interpretation,” she said guardedly, straightening up. “Shall I tell you another?”
“Please do.”
Clasping her hands behind her back, she began a ponderous stroll about the room. Jonathan suspected she was deciding how much to disclose.
At length she said: “Let us suppose the two gladiators are of disparate origins.”
“Quite plausible, since they were often drawn from the far reaches of the empire.”
“Indeed. And due to their mismatched views, though the reta—roti?—”
“Retiarius.”
“Yes, though the retiarius’s gesture is sincere, the secutor takes it amiss.”
“Ah, a clash of customs.”
Claire nodded. “You agree, then, that in such cases neither party can be blamed? Not the retiarius for offering the helmet, nor the secutor for spurning it?”
“Well now, let me see…” Jonathan was still working out the parallels between fiction and reality. If he inferred the secutor to be Claire… “By chance, after the secutor spurns the helmet, does the retiarius bestow it on another?”
She made a wry face. “Perhaps, in a moment of ill humor.”
