And yet. I recalled the boy I’d found not long ago and taken to stay with Xerxes’ widow. I’d grown fond of him in the brief time I’d known him and had wanted to protect him. Marcella had children of her own, mites who were so like Xerxes, smiling and laughing as they tumbled about the place.
I told myself it was futile to contemplate having a boy or girl of my own when I was obligated to a benefactor I didn’t even know. What would this man or woman do if I suddenly decided to walk away and start a family?
Still, the phantom boy and girl I’d never have rose before me. The boy looked like I had as a youth, and the girl resembled Cassia …
Abruptly I tore myself from the crowd on the Palatine and went back down the hill, my thoughts tangled.
* * *
Once darkness had fallenthat evening, I pulled on a clean tunic and trudged from our home to the Caelian Hill. Cassia made note of the time I left—the second hour of night—but she said nothing at all to me as I went, her lips tight.
I did not like Cassia angry at me, but I did not want to argue about this mission again. We needed to learn anything about Severina we could, and Severina had handed me a perfect opportunity.
I crossed the Forum Romanum and headed along the Sacra Via, past the Palatine on my right, and a marshy valley on my left. On the other side of the Palatine, I followed Severina’s bodyguard’s instructions and found the Clivus Scauri winding upward toward the small shrine of Minerva near the top of the Caelian.
The domii grew more opulent as I snaked up the hill, the homes wider and taller. Finally, they became true villas, surrounded by walls to keep out intruders.
I hesitated before the gate that led to Severina’s domus. Would she want her neighbors to see a gladiator knocking at the front door? I saw no other entrance, however, so I bashed at the gate with my fist.
The door quickly opened, Severina’s large guard with the shaved head peering out at me. He silently beckoned me inside, then marched me at a quick pace past the atrium and along a wide hall that ran the length of the right side of the house.
This was only one wing of the villa, I realized. The place was large enough to have several of those on both floors, probably divided into public and private quarters. As only Severina and her husband lived here, that meant plenty of unused rooms, rooms in which a gladiator could be secretly killed before being hauled off to the warehouse for butchering.
The bodyguard took me to a triclinium that was several times the size of the one at Domitiana’s. Low tables, empty now, stood before three dining couches, which were strewn with cushions and silk throws.
I was the only person in the empty room, no sign of Severina. The bodyguard indicated I should take a place on the middle couch, where the most honored guests were seated.
He walked away before I settled myself to wait, his sandals making almost no noise on the polished mosaic floor.
I lounged on my side, my feet sticking out over the end of the sofa, my legs too long for it. I hoped Severina and any other guests would arrive soon because the comfortable couch made my tired eyes droop. My body seized upon any excuse to sleep.
Servants pattered quietly in, setting dishes of food and cups of wine on the tables. I didn’t touch them, remembering my promise to Cassia.
Severina kept me waiting for a long time. Oil lamps burned in holders shaped like flowers or fruit—one was a naked nymph who held the flame between her breasts. Another, I observed idly, was in the shape of a phallus, the flame coming out the business end.
I eyed the food—plain apricots, fried dough cases with unknown content, a salad with torn bread soaked in vinegar among cheese, nuts, and cooked eggs, all drizzled with honey.
My stomach rumbled with hunger, but I smelled garum in the salad, which kept my appetite at bay. I was an unusual Roman who didn’t like garum, the salty fish paste the highborn and lowborn alike smeared on everything.
Just as I contemplated taking an apricot away with me to test for poison, Severina glided into the room.
I had expected her to dress provocatively for this tryst, but she wore a modest stola belted under the breasts and at the waist, clasped at her shoulders with silver fibulae. The fabric was silk, full enough to drape over her in many folds. I imagined her maid had spent much time setting every pleat exactly. The tunic beneath bunched over the top of the stola, hiding her breasts.
A wig of tall dark curls arched up from Severina’s forehead, her own hair pulled sleekly back behind it, a few curls of it drooping to her neck. No different from what any Roman matron would wear to a formal dinner.
Severina waved away the two maids who’d followed her and faced me alone.
“You,” she said archly. Either she’d forgotten my name or did not think I deserved to be addressed by it. “Why have you eaten nothing? Do you believe my food tainted?”
I could not tell what was in her eyes. Did she taunt me? Or was she wary?
I rose from the couch and made a low bow to her. “I thought it rude to eat before you did, lady.”
“Oh.” She sounded pleased. “Sit. Do. You’re too tall for me to look up at. And eat.” Once I had reclined once more on the couch, she took up an apricot and held it to my lips.
There wasn’t much I could do but open my mouth. I saw the gleam of a lamp on the shaved head of her bodyguard and wondered if she’d have him beat me if I refused. I had confidence I could fight him, but then I’d be thrown out of the house and learn nothing.
I parted my lips. Severina slid the apricot into my mouth, brushing my tongue with her finger. She withdrew, and I chewed and swallowed.
