The majordomo blanched and fell to his knees. "Help us, Lady Dagian! We can return the wine you bought, but not now!"
"You deserve to be flayed alive, but the queen must not be embarrassed." She rose and, smiling at Zenobia, murmured, "I shall send one of my slaves over with some good vintage for Aurelian, and I will see you tomorrow if it pleases you."
"Yes," Zenobia said, "it will please me if you come-and thank you." She, too, rose, and escorted her new friend to the garden gate that separated their villas.
"Good-bye, Lady Dagian," little Mavia piped up.
Dagian turned and, bending, kissed the child on the top of her head. "Good-bye, little Princess," she said before hurrying through the gate into her own garden.
When she turned back, Zenobia and Mavia were already hurrying hand in hand across the garden toward the villa. Dagian paused beneath a tall shade tree and breathed deeply. She had not dreamed that she should see her granddaughter so soon. She remembered Marcus! That was good. Perhaps the child would be the bridge that joined her two proud and stubborn parents.
How beautiful Palmyra's queen was, Dagian thought. She was quite different from both Roman and British women, yet the golden skin, the blue-black hair, and the storm-gray eyes combined with her marvelously aristocratic features to make her fairer than any female Dagian could ever remember seeing. She was intelligent, Dagian realized, and that would have attracted Marcus as well.
Zenobia, before re-entering her own villa, had looked back across the gardens. Dagian seemed a pleasant woman, the queen mused, but was she someone whom she might trust? I need a friend, Zenobia said to herself. She was so alone here.
"Hail, Caesar!" Mavia lisped, and Zenobia turned to see Aure-lian standing within the entry of the house.
"Go to Charmian, child," Zenobia ordered.
"Yes, Mama," was the obedient reply, and Mavia was gone.
"You never give me a chance to really know her, goddess. Are you afraid I will corrupt her?"
"I never know what you will do, Roman," Zenobia said coldly.
"You are angry about the triumph," he said.
"I was paraded the length of Rome, naked for all to see!"
"Yet I have not humbled you, have I, proud bitch?" He reached out for her, but Zenobia skillfully evaded him and, brushing past him, gained the inner garden.
"Do not touch me, Roman! Not now! Not ever!" Jupiter, she wanted to get away from him, but she didn't know where to go! It was an infuriating situation.
"Oh, goddess, are we to fight again? I thought we had done with fighting." His voice was very patient.
"Hear me, Roman! I will be your whore because there is no other choice for me; but I will never forget your actions toward me today."
"So you will be my whore," he said softly, but his narrowed glittering eyes belied the gentleness of his voice. "You will be my whore because you have no other choice? If it is choice you desire, my beautiful goddess, let me assure you that every patrician with a pair of balls between his legs would like me to pass you on to him when I am tired of you. I am not tired of you, but if it would please you, I can do as the Emperor Caligula once did, and indeed make a whore of you. How would you like to spend your nights servicing every rich and randy cock in Rome?"
She looked into his eyes, and was suddenly afraid because she saw in them a terrible determination. He would make her whore with every man in Rome if in the end she returned to him pliant and obedient; his woman, and his woman alone. "No," she said low. "No, I should not like it, Roman." Oh, how she hated him for making her feel so helpless; she who had ruled an empire. He delighted in it, the bastard!
"Where is your room?" he demanded.
Zenobia looked at him, and then began to laugh. "I do not know," she said, the tears rolling down her cheeks at the absurdity of the situation. He was ready to assert his rights, in reality to rape her, and she had absolutely no idea of where her bed was.
"Haven't you inspected the house yet?" He was looking outraged.
"There was no time," she said. "I arrived, and there was difficulty with the slaves. I want to replace them tomorrow, Roman. Then I went to see the gardens, and the woman in the next villa, a friend of the empress's, came from next door." Zenobia shrugged helplessly. "I have not seen the house at all. I did not realize that you would arrive so quickly."
"I left the games shortly after you did, goddess. Without you they were boring. I had to see the empress safely to the Palatine palace."
"You should have stayed with her, Roman. She is ill. Even I can see she does not have a great deal of time left to live; and she loves you. How can you leave her?"
"Ulpia is a soldier's wife. She is used to being without me."
"Because she is a soldier's wife makes it no easier to be without the man she loves. She has accepted her lot, but how it must hurt her, Roman. How cruel you are!"
He moved close to her, and his hands gripped her upper arms. "I would not be cruel to you, goddess. All I want to do is love you. Why will you not love me, beloved?"
Beloved! She turned her head to hide the quick tears that damped her eyes. "I have told you before, Roman, that I shall never put myself into the keeping of any man again. Be satisfied that you have my body. It is all I can ever give you."
"But you never give, Zenobia," Aurelian said. "I must always take. Even now you steel yourself for the assault you assume is about to come." He pulled her chin about so that she was forced to look at him. "Just once, goddess, I would like your kiss to be a willing one, not sparked by lust, but rather, caring."
"Never." It was said quietly.
"Then I must take what I can get from you, goddess," he said, and his mouth covered hers in a fierce, possessive kiss.
She shuddered wildly, and then, to the amazement of them both, Zenobia began to cry great wracking sobs of pure anguish. Every agony of the last months shook her slender frame. The terrible destruction of Palmyra, her separation from Vaba and Flavia, Longinus's death, the loss of Demetrius; all of it welled up within her and poured forth, and she was unable to stop it. She was tired of fighting, tired of responsibility, plain bone tired. For the first time in Zenobia's life she wanted to be free of it all; she wanted to be taken care of.
He saw it in her face, in her eyes, and knew that now if he were clever he might have her as he had always wanted her. She was more vulnerable than he had ever seen her, than she had ever been in her entire life, he suspected. Aurelian held her gently, and stroked her shining, dark hair. "There, beloved," he soothed her, "there, my beautiful goddess. Do not weep, my love; do not weep." He caught her face between his hands and, bending, kissed her mouth again, but with tenderness this time. He kissed her shut eyelids, her cheeks, her nose, and her chin, before returning to her mouth once more; but this time his lips were more demanding, and, to his pleasure, she returned his kiss not from lust, but from need.
He gathered her up into his arms, and she nestled against his shoulder, still sobbing. With firm steps he walked through the interior garden and into the atrium of the house. Seeing them, Bab threw up her hands in distress, but the emperor's stern look warned her to be silent as he made his way up the stairs to the second floor and into her bedroom at the end of the hall.
Gently he laid her upon the bed, then sat down next to her. "I cannot bear to see you weep," he said low. "Tell me what you want of me, Zenobia. I will do anything to make you happy." But she only wept on, softer now, yet still she wept. Reaching out, he ran his hand down her trembling body, and she murmured with an almost shy pleasure that intrigued him. He carefully removed her jeweled collar, the snake bracelets, and her earrings. Next he slowly undid and drew off her sandals, massaging her feet until she almost purred. With a smooth, almost lingering movement he pushed the white silk kalasiris upward, revealing long golden legs, smooth thighs, sweetly rounded belly, tempting breasts. The kalasiris slipped easily over Zenobia's head and arms, and the emperor then dropped it carelessly by the bedside.