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“A rising tide of new ideas, you might even say.”
He laughed softly. “You drown me with your wit, tira.” His blue eye twinkled, and for a moment he looked younger and less careworn.
“Oh, that one was inexcusable.” I ran a finger along the smooth black wood of the spiral. “And you worship this Sea God also?”
“I haven’t found a god yet that satisfies me. But I keep up appearances.”
“I think I prefer the Goddess. She has a face.”
“I suppose I do too.” He laughed again and then looked thoughtful. “‘You understand a people when you understand the gods they worship.’ Straba said that.”
“Do you understand the people of Corlivo, then? Because you know our Goddess?”
“You tell me.” His keen eye met mine.
I tried to ignore the strange feeling of vulnerability that came over me. “Speaking of worship, did Cassius tell you? We learned something very interesting about the origins of Corlivo from Straba’s book.”
“He did. A strange and wonderful history. Come with me. I’ll show you the rest of the house.”
I followed him across the atrium and out through the courtyard. It was filled with evening light and the rich fragrance of flowering plants. He paused before a doorway. “It’s a pleasure to see you here at the end of a difficult day. It’s as though I’ve brought some of the charm of Corlivo back with me, like a little bird has flown in to brighten my garden.”
Before I could reply, he pulled open the door. “I think you’ll like this. It’s a thermae.”
The bathing suite took up an entire end of the building. It contained not only a vast sunken tub, which, he explained, was for bathing in hot water, but also a second, smaller basin, which could be filled with cold. There was also a fragrant cedar closet with a bench where scalding stones could be placed to produce a dry heat.
“It’s custom in this city to take the waters daily, but I don’t care for the public baths. Use this room anytime.”
“Thank you.”
He stepped out and held the door for me. “One more thing to show you.”
We went back across the courtyard. He led me into a room lit by the golden rays of the early-evening sun.
“This is my study,” he said. “I have many books that might be of interest to you.”
To my amazement, shelves lined the walls, filled with bound volumes and rolls of parchment. A large window looked out onto the fruit trees in front of the villa.
I gazed around the room. “I have never seen so many manuscripts in one place before. This makes our little library at Casa Caligine look like something for a child. How have you collected so many books?”
“I inherited the collection from my father, and he from his. I’ve added a considerable number to it, though.”
“It’s remarkable. This is my favorite room already.”
He pulled off his cloak and tossed it onto a chair. “I thought it might be.”
A table in the center held several stacks of parchment and a dirt-stained, hand-drawn map. I picked it up. “What is this map? Did you draw it?”
“I drew it. It’s Vendel.” He took it from me and pointed at a scrawled notation with a callused finger. “Here’s the area we explored. And here’s where Fabius claims to have found the lost cave city.” He tossed the chart aside with a grunt of disgust.
“Cassius said that studying old ideas, like the orrery, does not fit with your uncle’s new religion. Why would the Imperator push these things aside?”
He shrugged. “A desire for progress, for strength. He’s levying new taxes, writing a new codex of laws. He’d say that we need to forget the past and look to the future.”
I picked up the map again and looked over his scribbled notes and lines. “But you don’t think that. Someone who has spent years searching for a lost cave city doesn’t believe we should forget the past.”
“We shouldn’t forget it. But we can’t get lost in it either.”
His sketch of the northwest corner of the Empire ended in a margin of blank parchment: an empty nothing beyond the shoreline.
