I ask your forgiveness. I was so young when we fell in love-barely seventeen, and then came the awful business with my mother. I despised and blamed you when dominus sent her to the mines for killing poor Tessa. I hated you for proving her guilt. But here is the truth I have never spoken till now: Sabina was a murderer. Not you. You did what you always do: you chose the right over the good. She did an awful thing, a crime to be punished and reviled. But I could not bring myself to lay those loathsome feelings upon my own mother. So I draped them over you, and poisoned everything that was ever good between us.
I must speak to you of Lykos. Sabina was gone, I had turned my heart against you, and I had no one. I was miserable, and Lykos was kind. It is unbearably sad that he came to such a terrible end, but the truth is, I hated myself for never being able to fully return the feelings he had for me. I could love no one in those days. It is a terrible thing to say, but when he died, part of me was relieved. And something else. It was my time with Lykos that showed me that my love for you was real. And that I care for you still.
I need to get away from here, from this house, from the memories and the pain. Bless domina and dominus for allowing me to make this choice. I need to find myself again. Sitting by you while you slept reminded me of the first time I saw you-shot by one of Sulla’s archers all those years ago. If you would only learn to keep your mouth shut your health would drastically improve! See-I am learning to smile again. When I return, I hope to be a new person, with new purpose and new hope.
It is almost dawn, and I have yet to pack. Wish me well. Write. I promise to reply with speed. Livia
I read the letter over and over again, sitting on the edge of my lectus. When I finally dropped the scroll to the floor, I had practically committed it to memory. I thought about the years she would be away. Then, for the longest while, I sat very still, my head in my hands, and tried with a shaking will to think of absolutely nothing at all.
That was six years ago. And now the carriages which carried her and the others were pulling up to the gates. Domina had allowed a small crowd to assemble in welcome. I stood on the curb, but as the familia pressed forward around me, suddenly I turned and pushed my way through the throng, walking briskly back into the house. In my tablinum, I could hear the sounds of welcome and celebration coming from the atrium. I stayed where I was.
An hour later she found me, announcing her arrival with the cheerful, maddening whistle that had been her habit ever since she was a child. The tune has always been unrecognizable, but hearing it once again for the first time in such a long time made my back ache and my stomach tighten. The song stopped as she entered my office. She pulled a chair up to the opposite side of my table and lowered herself into it without every taking her eyes off mine. She was dressed as I remembered her, except the belt cinching her plain linen tunic was made of a double strand of green malachite beads. Her dark red hair was cut in the Egyptian style-draped in front down either side of her neck to cover her breasts, short bangs hiding half her forehead.
“You look well,” I said. “What’s that on your eyes?” Livia’s eyelids were brushed with a powder the same color as her belt.
“You never wrote.”
“No. You never gave me the chance to talk you out of going. The only thing I could think to write was, ‘come home.’”
“That would have been something.”
I stared at her, sure that my heart was beating hard enough to make my tunic visibly pulse with its rhythm. “So, you’re a doctor now?” She nodded. “Most physicians I know don’t smell as…fresh.”
“It’s a perfume made from cardamom and myrrh. Good for keeping the flies away. Is that grey in your hair?”
“A little. Still mostly blond, but Crassus manages to whiten a strand or two each week. Doesn’t matter-I’ll be bald in a year or two. I understand Baltus did not return.”
She shook her head. “Went for a swim in the Nile and never came back.”
“You don’t look as if his passing was mourned.” Livia shook her head while pursing her lips, a mischievous expression. “I never knew him well, but thought him competent. Well, that’s a shame, then.”
“Pity.”
We looked at each other. “He did love a good soaking, though,” I tried.
“Scrubbed himself pink, he would.”
“Not his color now, I should think.”
“Greenish brown, I’d guess. A better match for his eyes, if he kept them.”
“I’d rather not imagine.”
“Bloated before he went in,” she persisted. “More so now.”
“Come now. A learned man. He’ll be missed, surely.”
“Not by me,” she said. I cocked an eyebrow. “Nothing was worth studying unless he discovered it first.”
“Trying his hand at ichthyology now, is he?”
“He guessed I was about to develop an interest.”
“And took the plunge to beat you to it.”
“Now the fish are trying his … hand.”
“You are delightful, aren’t you.”
Livia stretched, long and luxuriously. “It feels good to be back in the familia.”
“You’ve been away too long. The fault is mine and I feel awful.”
“No you don’t.”
“No, I don’t.” Bless you, Baltus. May the gods forgive us. Thank you for putting us at our ease. Tonight I’ll make an offering in your honor. “Wine?” I said, reaching for the amphora.
“Can’t. Dominus told me to get you an inventory of what I’d need for the clinic by supper.”
“Did he now? Who appointed you the new medicus? You didn’t even know you wanted to apprentice the day before you left.”
“Dominus promised it to me. Besides, I’m smarter than any of the rest.”
“I see. Well, I suppose then, you’d better pick your staff and let me know who needs to be reassigned.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Don’t start that again.”
She laid a list on the table between us. I smirked. “Confident as ever, I see. Just like your mother.” Curse me for a fool. Oh, to have a brain that operates faster than my mouth.
“As ever,” Livia said, her lively tone gone serious. “How goes it here? Everyone seemed a little, I don’t know, tense.”
“It’s not good,” I said, lowering my voice, even though I knew Crassus was not in his tablinum, adjacent to mine. “I’ll tell you later. You must be tired.”
“Don’t tell me what I must be,” she said with a curl of her lip.
“Gods, it’s good to have you home,” I said before I could stop myself.
Livia stood, and I rose with her, deciding not to upend the table between us so I could crush her in my arms. I probably couldn’t have lifted it anyway, at least not without her help.
Chapter II
56 BCE Fall, Rome
Year of the consulship of Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus and L. Marcius Philippus
Our home was not the same after Luca. Rumors of what had happened there spread like weeds. It was my task to uproot and dispose of them wherever I found them, but for every one culled, three more would sprout. How could it be otherwise, for it is one of the rare joys peculiar to those who serve to conjure outlandish stories regarding their masters. If our lives are destined to be plain, at least we may pilfer a little color, however impermanent, by rubbing up against our betters.