I was too eager to see Herakles to question his generosity. “Good of you.”
“Not at all. You did me a good turn, and I told you I was happy to repay you.”
Livius jerked his chin at his guards, who turned without expression. Two preceded him through the gate, and the third waited for him to walk ahead of him.
I entered with Livius—not much else I could do.
The gate led to a long walkway lined with marble columns interspersed with carefully trained and pruned trees. Shrubs separated the path from beds on either side of it, where rich earth had been turned, waiting for the nights to grow warmer before planting began.
We tramped along, our way paved with mosaics depicting garden scenes and an inevitable one of Bacchus on a chariot with his cornucopia of abundance, amphorae of flowing wine, and scantily clad women dancing around him.
The villa, encircled by the garden, which itself was enclosed by walls except on the river side, rose before us. Two great doors, painted red and gilded, stood open to the atrium.
The doorman was more watchful than many, and he came to attention as Livius and I strode to him.
“Sir.” The door slave bowed low then squared his shoulders under a very white linen tunic.
“Tell your mistress I wish to ask her about one final thing.” Livius spoke easily, without haste. A coin appeared in his hand, though I had not seen him reach into a pouch for it.
The doorman accepted the coin with a humble bow of his head. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I will inquire, sir.”
Livius took no notice of his obsequiousness. He strolled into the atrium as the doorman dashed off, a room three times the size of the entire apartment Cassia and I lived in.
In the middle of this atrium was the impluvium, the square basin that caught rainwater. This one had been fitted with a burbling fountain in the form of a maiden pouring water from a jar, her long hair spilling over one bared breast.
The house rose two stories above me, a balcony encircling the atrium, its balustrade made of elegantly carved wood.
The walls on the ground floor held vividly colored murals of gardens with elegant people wandering through them, or hunting scenes with lifelike deer running from men with bows. Another depicted a man and woman gazing longingly at each other through a hole in a garden wall.
“Pyramus and Thisbe,” Livius said at my elbow. “They fell in love speaking to each other through a crack in the wall. Publius Ovidius Naso told the tale, which I read as an incorrigible youth. The two die tragically, of course, as in any good love story.”
I turned to him quizzically, ready to ask him why tragic death made any story good, when the doorman returned and signaled us to follow.
He led us through a pedimented doorway into a long corridor. To our left was an enclosed peristyle garden with another fountain, this one oblong, with Neptune in his chariot racing through it.
To the right was a stairway leading to the next floor, cool darkness above. Under the stairs was a narrow passage that probably led to the servants’ area and the kitchens. I thought I saw a slim figure in a long tunic in the shadows, but I could not be certain.
The doorman escorted us through an open doorway at the end of this hall to the main gardens. The first terrace, balustraded, held a large mosaic floor and a swath of trees and greenery at either end. The next terrace, down a shallow flight of stairs, sported fountains amidst blocks of hedges. To the right of the terraces was a vineyard, the bare vines waiting for spring.
Before us, the sparkling river wound lazily around the hills of Rome. From here I could see the stables and practice area for the chariot teams on the other side of the Tiber with the round swell of the Theatre of Pompey in the distance.
On the second terrace, a woman reclined in an alcove set into the wall that formed the upper terrace. Red and gold hangings lined the niche, ready to be pulled closed against wind or chill.
The alcove held three couches, the middle one occupied by the woman. Herakles lounged on the couch to her right, his torso positioned elegantly, one knee drawn up, on which he rested a negligent arm. He reminded me of a resting leopard, a beautiful animal that could in a moment change into a wild and unpredictable predator.
On the couch on the lady’s left was Nonus Marcianus. He held a gold cup between his slim hands and wore his usual jovial expression.
“I have indeed patched him up several times,” Marcianus was saying with a nod at Herakles. “That scar across his forearm—I had to cut into it to set the bone and align the ligaments, and then sew it back up again.”
Herakles obligingly turned his arm over to show a sharp white line across his inner arm.
“Did he scream?” the lady, who must be Domitiana Sabinus, asked in curiosity. No eagerness, just interest.
“Not so much screamed as cursed and shouted at me, threatening to kill me and all my progeny.” Marcianus chuckled. “Of course, most of what he said was in whatever tongue they speak in Pannonia, so I have no idea what plagues he willed to rain down upon me.”
“That’s my brave boy,” Domitiana said, drawing a languid hand across Herakles’s thigh.
She was middle-aged, perhaps in her forties, but she’d kept herself youthfully slim, her face unlined, unless the lines were hidden by clever cosmetics. She wore a wig of blond curls carefully styled, done artfully enough that it looked natural.
