"Nothing, " I answered. "The bird's song reminded me of some trouble I had on the road, that's all. It's nothing for you to be concerned about. "
"It is if it concerns you. " Her voice was low and serious, and I turned to be able to see the expression on her face. And seeing it I decided, on an impulse, to confide in her.
"Well, " I admitted, "I will confess to a slight concern. It has to do with my reason for coming here. "
She frowned. "That sounds ominous. Tell me truly — what was your reason for coming? You have not mentioned one. Not that it would make any difference, " she hurried on. "I am only glad you came, but I sense a trouble in you now that has not been there since we met. " I thought for a few seconds, then I asked her, "Do you know a man called Quinctilius Nesca?"
She glanced towards me, taking her eyes from the road ahead of her. When she answered me her tone was quiet and non-committal.
"Yes, but not well. I have met him once or twice. Why do you ask?"
"What kind of a man is he?"
She threw back her head, hard enough to toss her long, dark hair, and this time her tone was definitive. "He is completely odious. Fat and repulsive and disgusting. A banker. A money-lender. But that's not what you mean, is it?" She pursed her lips delicately, and we walked on in silence for a few paces before she said, "Quinctilius Nesca is not a man whose company Caius would tolerate for long, nor would he ever seek him out. Where do you know him from?"
"I don't. " I took a deep breath, wondering as I did so that I should be so open with this woman who, twenty-four hours ago, had been an unmet stranger. Then I began at the beginning and told her the whole story of Caesarius Claudius Seneca and our confrontation, together with its aftermath on the road from Colchester. She listened without interruption, and by the time I had finished we were back at the main entrance to the family quarters. She led me directly in to her cubiculum and nodded me to a seat, where I waited while she poured us both a cup of wine. I drank in silence while she mulled over what I had told her. Finally she spoke.
"All of this has happened since Caius left the country?"
"Yes. All within the past few months. "
"And you only ever saw this Seneca that one time?"
"That particular specimen of Seneca, yes. Once was enough. "
"Yes. I agree. But he shares his peculiar gifts for winning popularity with all his breed. " A pause. "How long ago, exactly?"
"Two months ago... three at the most. "
"And they are still looking for you?" She shook her head. "A pity about your limp. "
"Aye. And my grey hair. "
Another short pause, then, "You are still angry at Seneca, aren't you?" I took a sip of my wine. "Yes, I am. "
"Why?"
"Why not?"
"I can answer that, " she said. I was amazed at how she reminded me of her brother. He would have said exactly the same things to me, in the same tone of voice. "You won the fight. He was the loser. You did not suffer at his hands. Only at his tongue, and that you should have forgotten by this time. At least, you should have put it out of the forefront of your mind. "
"Luceiia, " I said, knowing she was correct, "you may be right. " I scratched at a sudden itch under my arm. "I probably should have. I just don't seem to be capable of forgiving or forgetting either the man or the occasion. "
Her voice was insistent. "I ask you again. Why?"
"I don't know why, Luceiia!" I heard a note of irritation coming into my own voice. "Pardon me, but that is the way he affects me. I have been asking questions about him. The man is notorious — infamous. And it seems the more I hear about him, the more I detest him. He offends everything I hold in esteem. I sometimes think... "
"Go on. Finish it. " Again her brother's tones. "You sometimes think what?"
I shook my head. "I don't know, it suddenly sounded foolish even to me. I was going to say that I sometimes think he's the personification of everything that is rotten in the Empire, but that would be giving him too much importance. He's simply an evil little man with too much power and too much money. "
Luceiia got up and crossed to the side table on which the wines rested. She picked up the jug again and replenished my cup.
"The Seneca family is immensely wealthy, Publius, and wealth is power. We Britannici have learned that about the Senecas to our cost over several generations. But an evil little man? You told me he was a great, hulking brute of a fellow!"
"He is. He's big and strong, well muscled and in good shape. That's not what I meant by 'little. ' I meant it more in the sense of mean and petty. " She sat down again. "Never make that mistake, Publius. This man is not petty. No Seneca is petty. Mean, malicious, malevolent and cruel, yes, but not petty. And your thought was far from foolish. He and his whole clan are the personification of all that is sick in Rome. It has been bred into him. Unfortunately, as a family, they are far from unique. I have heard Caius say many times it is those very attributes you describe that have brought down our country and the Empire. All the corruption, all the vices, all the faults and all the weaknesses of Rome are centred in its so-called nobility, and the Seneca family is typical of its worst excesses. You have made a bad enemy there, I am afraid. You say he returned to Constantinople?" I nodded. "Good, " she said, emphatically. "Let us all hope he stays well away from Britain in the future. In any event, you are not likely to come face to face with Quinctilius Nesca around here. " As she finished speaking, the major-domo came into the room and announced that we had only half an hour to be prepared to welcome our guests. Luceiia excused herself and left immediately, leaving me to make my way back to my quarters.
I walked slowly, thinking about the amazing depths I had discovered in this remarkable woman in so short a space of time, and as I walked I caught sight of my own reflection in the marble walls of the room I was passing through. I stopped and looked at myself, trying to raise my right eyebrow the way she and her brother raised theirs.
"That, my friend. " I said to my reflection, "is the woman you are going to have to learn to live without for the rest of your life. Forever. Unless you can find some miraculous way to win her. " But guilt squirmed in my belly with my lust and in my heart with my swelling love, and I refused to allow myself to contemplate what Caius's reaction would be if he were ever to discover my presumptuousness in daring to dream about his baby sister. Dinner that night was both a delight and a trial. I was "on parade" —
under inspection as surely and as thoroughly as I had ever been under Caius's command in the army. I fought my natural aversion to meeting strangers and tried with all my heart to be friendly and affable. To my surprise, I seemed to be successful, and I found myself enjoying the attention being lavished on me and responding to it in a way that I had never been capable of before.
Of course, it goes without saying that I had Luceiia to thank for my new-found ease. She glowed that night with enthusiasm for everything I had ever done, it seemed. She led the dinner conversation with an infallible knack for making me and my opinions the centre of the evening and the standard against which all other opinions and experiences must be judged. And all through the long, formal meal I was aware of her presence, her shimmering beauty there at the opposite end of the table. There were sixteen people seated there, and I have long since forgotten who they were, although I came to know all of them well in the years that followed. Only three people stand out in my memory, because they all stayed at the villa that night: Meric the Druid, who was far less outlandish and barbaric than I would have guessed; Domitius Titens, a local landowner and former tribune with whom I later became fast friends, and Cylla, his beautiful and waspish wife, who sought then and forever after until her death to take me to her bed.