‘Good, now get lost and don’t start playing around with the girls there. The Empress has a strict ‘no touching’ rule with her female slaves.’ he sneered. ‘And her male slaves too, in case that’s your preference!’
The other servant in the room laughed, though Phaestor’s piercing gaze had not yet moved. Turning, grateful to be leaving the room, Rufinus strode out toward the octagonal room, where he met Tad returning with a bucket of cold water. Carefully sidestepping the giant, he strode on and rushed to the hot room, where his clothes lay strewn on the floor.
Nudging the tunic with a toe, he sighed. The clothes had hardly had time to do more than lose their excess water. They were still clammy and unpleasant, though warmer.
Grimacing, he slid into the tepid, clinging garments, and walked back out into the changing room, where he retrieved his sword belt and boots and threw his cloak over his shoulders. A moment later, he was dashing from the doorway of the baths and off to the slave quarters, each occupying one of the hundred or more rooms formed by the substructures supporting the villa’s gardens and palaces.
As he walked, he flicked open the wooden container to examine the notes on the wax surfaces within. Clearly there would be nothing desperately secret, else Vettius wouldn’t have entrusted it to one of the new men. Still…
SHEETS
TOWELS
WATER BOWLS
SPARE GOWNS
EAST PALACE GUEST ROOMS XII . XIV . XX . XXIII . XXXIV
SERVANT ACCOM – V GROUPS, V-X IN SIZE
STABLING UP TO LX HORSES + CARRIAGES
Rufinus frowned. A number of visitors then. Eminent guests, too, given the size of their retinues. Rufinus smiled to himself as he pondered how to be in a position where he could observe the visitors and possibly even overhear?
Snapping the tablet shut, he strode on down the passage, repeating under his breath ‘Twelve… Fourteen… Twenty… Twenty three… Thirty four,’ memorising the rooms. The corridor angled up as it marched toward the light and, at the end, gave out to a wooden staircase with concrete supports that rose the four storeys, providing access by timber walkways to each chamber in the facade.
Breathing deeply, he stepped out onto the stairs and began to climb, the rain once more battering his face and running in rivulets down his neck into his tunic. The walkways were apparently considerably sturdier than they looked from the ground and, despite occasional creaks and groans, nothing cracked or shifted as he climbed to the top level, though the timber was slippery in places.
The view was spectacular, or would have been, were it not for the sheets of rain and roiling grey clouds that obscured anything more than a handful of miles distant. The vaulted chambers opened onto the walkway across the width of the structure, each aperture separated from the walkway by a railing, behind which the slaves lived, each in a single chamber. The nearest room, close to the corner, would be the very one he sought, home to the lady Lucilla’s laundry maid.
Stepping in through the small gap in the railing that was the only method of access, he stood in the relative shelter of the arched space, dripping and freezing as the rain slanted down in sheets a couple of feet away.
The chamber’s slave occupant had, like the others, hung an old blanket from hooks in the ceiling, forming a fabric wall and leaving a five-foot ‘balcony’ between it and the railing. Rufinus approached the hanging, his mind furnishing him with memories of the many times he had stood at tent flaps in legionary camps across the northern empire, often in similar weather, knocking on the wooden frame for permission to enter.
Here there was no wooden frame. After all, in a villa of high nobility, who bothered to knock in the substructures? Who cared about the privacy of a slave?
In all fairness, not Rufinus. He’d never spared much thought for the slaves at the family villa back in Hispania and could hardly name any of them with any surety. Slaves were the invisible workings of the world. But here and now, every person he could befriend, be they noble, guard, servant or slave, could be of use. Clearing his throat, he called out through the blanket.
‘Miss?’
There was shuffling in the chamber beyond the blanket which stopped suddenly at the voice, then began again, increasing in volume until the curtain was pulled aside by a woman in her early thirties, Rufinus would guess. She was of some sort of Celtic extraction, flaxen-haired with braids and pale skin, its pallid tone heightened by the dark grey woollen stola she wore.
‘Yah?’ she said, her expression a mix of fear and confusion.
‘I’ve brought a message from Vettius.’
Holding his breath against the smell of damp, clammy mould that issued from the chamber, he held out the wax tablet Frowning, she took it and snapped it open, examining the list within, nodding with a sigh.
‘Thank’ she said, simply, reaching up to pull the blanket back across when a voice from behind called out.
‘Alia?’
Rufinus stepped aside, turning to the speaker, and his heart lurched and threatened to burst from his chest. The breath-taking form of the woman who had haunted his dreams ever since Vindobona stood a few feet away, her hair glistening with raindrops.
Rufinus stared, fascinated, as he watched a single drop of crystal-clear rain slither from her brow, down the curve of her curiously and charmingly upturned nose, where it sat, glittering. His eyes slipped from the drop to the peach-coloured bow of her lips below.
He began to sweat despite the chill and was aware once again of stirrings that he really didn’t have the time and leisure to deal with. He smiled weakly.
‘You?’ she said sharply, her eyes locked on him.
Panic flooded Rufinus and he fought the urge to run. Damn it. He’d been here such a short time and already two of the villa’s occupants had identified him! He tried not to feel just a little bit smug that, despite her busy world and the thousands of important men she must see on a regular basis, she had recognised him after almost eight months and half a thousand miles.
The laundry maid blinked in surprise and, before Rufinus could think through the problem, he had grasped the newly-arrived slave girl by the elbow and turned her, all-but dragging her out into the rain.
‘What are you doing?’
Rufinus panicked. Was there a way he could take control of the situation, or had things just suddenly become entirely untenable? The rain battered down on the pair as Rufinus hauled the slave girl out onto the wooden walkway, the structure empty of people due to the inclemency of the weather. His feet skittering a little on the slippery wood, he looked around desperately before stepping across to the next chamber and dipping inside out of the rain again.
His heart pounding a trireme-rowing beat in his throat, he pulled the girl in through the gap in the railing and quickly hauled aside the blanket that provided meagre privacy and warmth to the room. To his relief the chamber was empty.
Trying not to hurt the slave girl, he pulled her inside and let the blanket drop back into place. The chamber’s interior was dim with only the pale grey light around the edge of the ill-fitting blanket wall pushing back the darkness. Much like Alia’s next door, the room was furnished with a single basic wooden cot, topped with a thin pallet and blanket, a chair and a wash bowl. The occupant, whoever she was, had tried to liven the room up a little by hanging blankets and old threadbare carpets on the walls. It entirely failed to turn the room into anything but a dismal cell.
Rufinus, still panicking about what to do, let go of the girl’s arm and pointed to the bed. Her eyes widened and Rufinus shook his head in irritation. ‘Sit down. We need to talk.’
As the slave girl perched nervously on the edge of the cot, her eyes tracking every movement of her abductor, Rufinus grabbed the rickety wooden chair and dragged it over to face her, plonking himself down on it with a squelch.