Ludovicus leapt from his mount and raced to meet his lover and also mine, throwing his arm around the healer and smiling broadly at her daughter. Livia would have run to me, but her mother’s grip was firm. It would be up to me, then, to go to them.
“Salve Sabina, Salve Livia.”
“I have been waiting for you…” Sabina said coolly.
“As have I,” Livia said, her voice one part anticipation, two parts defiance. Ah, the politics of love: when affection is wielded like a club to gain independence from a disapproving family.
“…for almost three months,” Sabina finished.
Ludovicus, never one to fret over subtext, barreled along excitedly. “You should have seen our lad here!” he said, clapping me on the back. “He was Mercury himself. Sped into that flaming apartment house as if it was two-for-one day at the brothel. Your pardon, of course. I didn’t mean…”
“Thank you, Ludovicus. You neglect to mention that I was following dominus.”
“Well, yes of course, a stunning bit of work by the master as well. You’ll both owe Vulcan a couple of goats for letting you out of that one!”
“Why didn’t anyone else try to help?” Livia asked hotly.
“Orders, miss, orders.”
Livia turned to me. “You disobeyed a direct order from dominus?” she asked as if running into a burning building held the lesser risk.
“Not so much disobeyed as ducked under.”
“You might have been killed. He might kill you yet!”
“Save me the trouble,” Sabina said, not quite under her breath.
“Mother!”
“Did you hear they pulled an old man from the insula?” Ludovicus asked. “By Vesta’s flaming toenails, he’d’ve burned to a cinder for sure, if not for those two.”
“Sweetheart,” Sabina said gently. “You’re not helping. Why not see to the horses and I’ll find you later?”
Before he could either answer or leave, Tessa ran up to us. “I just heard,” she said breathlessly. “Gratitude to you both for rescuing dominus!” First, she threw her arms about me, then Ludovicus. Jealousy can be measured in fractions smaller than a thousandth of an hour, and Tessa’s hug of the battalion commander lasted just one of those slivers too long. It went unnoticed by everyone, except Sabina.
Ludovicus replied, “’Fraid you’ve got it turned around, Tess. I didn’t save anyone.”
“Don’t you need to freshen your daisies, Tess?” Sabina asked. Ludovicus colored, looking like a man with something to hide trying to look like a man with nothing to hide. “We’re trying to have a conversation here.”
“Well. No need to get snippy, I’m sure. I’ll be off then. The flower beds need watering anyway, don’t they?”
As soon as Tessa was out of earshot, Sabina said, “Look, daughter, let’s just have out with it, right now. Are you still a virgin?”
“Of course I am!” Livia exclaimed.
“I think I’m done standing up for awhile,” I said, suddenly gone all atotter. Ludovicus thrust an arm out to steady me.
“Fine. Livia, attend to your chores. We’ll speak more on this later.” The moment she was released, Livia ran to me and kissed my cheek. “Don’t worry. You will always be my foolish, brave centurion,” she whispered in my ear, then ran off before her mother could fling any more verbal darts at her. Sabina called for a litter and very soon I was being carried off to her office.
“These should heal fairly quickly,” Sabina said tonelessly, spreading boar grease over both my feet, including the sandals. Then she went to her collection of knives and began sharpening one that looked to me to be already honed to deadly perfection. An image of how she had dealt with Pio flashed before me. I lay on her examination table, feeling not a little vulnerable.
“You should have come to me,” she said flatly, cutting the laces that ran up the top of each sandal.
“I did not know how to express my feelings to you.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
“And I was afraid.”
“Of course you were.” She began pulling the leather tongues away from my feet, applying a colloidal solution of honey, crushed lavender and silver as she went. I winced as she passed over one of the worst burns on the outside of my left heal. She did not apologize.
“I’ll tell you why you were afraid. You knew if you came to me that no matter how much I cared for you, no matter how grateful I am to you, I would never condone such a match. You would never receive my blessing.”
“Why not, Sabina? I would never harm her. I would care and provide for her, I would…”
At that moment, little Marcus and Publius came stumbling in, tripping over each other in their haste. Nine year-old Marcus said, “We’ve come to thank Alexander…”
“For saving Father,” his six-year old brother blurted.
“I was telling it!” Marcus said, infuriated.
“Ooh, that’s discussing,” Publius said, wrinkling his eyes and nose at the sight of my feet.
“Disgusting, you dolt,” Marcus said. “But he’s right, you know. Will you have to cut off his feet?”
“Boys, go ask cook for some honey cakes and leave me to my work. Or I might slip and accidentally cut a toe or two right off, right before your eyes. Can you imagine the blood?” Two little jaws dropped in unison. They moved in, hoping for a display of carnage.
“Sorry, boys, no fountains of gore here today,” I said, trying to sound confident. Go, my little warriors. Let the healer concentrate.” Pleading, followed by reluctance and resignation.
“Mother said she hopes you know what you’re about,” Publius declared as Marcus led him out by the hand.
“You’ve got a mouth as big as Polyphemus,” Marcus said.
“Oh yeah? Well, you’ve got a pimple as big as his horn! Ow! Well, you do. Right there! Ow! Can I pop it? Hit me again and Father shall hear of the missing lora. So can I pop it? Please?”
When the sounds of their discourse finally faded, Sabina said, “It’s obvious how you feel about each other. And it grieves me to deny you, but I must.”
“I could go to dominus. Crassus could give his blessing to a contubernium between us.”
“But you would never do that.”
“No, I suppose I wouldn’t.” Wouldn’t I? “I’ll just have to find another way for you to find favor in the match.”
“I won’t. By Vesta’s eternal flame, Alexander, if things were different, no one would be happier than I to tie the knot of Hercules about her waist on the day of your joining. But even if dominus gave his blessing, it cannot and must not be. Soon I will have enough to buy my freedom. I have already negotiated a price with the master. He will allow me to continue to work on the estate, free of rent. Then, in two years, maybe three, I will have earned enough to release Livia.”
“And Ludovicus has already bought his freedom. Do you love him?”
Sabina hesitated. “I am doing the best I can.”
“You will leave us?” I could barely get the words out.
Sabina had been wrapping my feet in washed linen. She stopped to look at me. “That has not yet been decided.”
How could this be happening? This woman, my oldest friend in this place, was building a wall between my love and me, a wall neither logic nor force could breach. “I have a ring,” I blurted. “And a fibula. They are very valuable.”
“Oh, Alexander, you are wise in so many ways, but in this you are a babe on the altar. Don’t you see, Crassus will never let you go; you are too valuable to him. My daughter must marry soon. By the time I have bought her freedom, she will already be past the prime age for union. She and I may never be anything more than freedwomen, but her children will be born free, citizens of Rome. You want that for her, don’t you?”
I exhaled the long breath that heralds tears. “Of course I do. I just…” Sorrow choked off words and dammed my eyes, raising pools that blurred my vision. How could I argue with a plan for freedom? Especially for Livia. She would leave, and marry, and bear free children. And I would be left behind. The tears crested and rolled down across both temples as I lay on the gurney, thin wet tracks. I could not wipe them away, for Sabina held my hands to tend to them.