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‘How perfectly morbid! And how old are you now?’
Atia raised a brow.
Lydia laughed. ‘Come now, Atia. You do not really believe it, do you?’
Atia shook her head dismissively. She did not need to tell her friend that not only did Atia believe it, she had been looking forward to the date.
‘If the reading took place in the Subura, she was likely a charlatan,’ Lydia added. ‘Besides, old women will say anything to amuse themselves.’
‘We most certainly will,’ said Atia, sending Lydia a playful grin. A pair of centurions’ wives had taken up residence on the couch near them and a pair of young lovers were seating themselves upon the third of their trio of couches. Even in the furthest reaches of the Empire, it seemed, Atia could not escape the risk of gossip. ‘My real worry is the heat,’ said Atia, turning the conversation to a safe subject. ‘I fear it has begun to vex my nerves.’
‘It is a brutal time of year,’ replied Lydia. ‘Though not without its charms.’
‘Charms?’
‘I am speaking of the nights.’
‘Ah, the nights,’ said Atia, as if that explained everything. She shot Lydia a confounded look.
‘The nights being the only respite from the heat, of course,’ Lydia said with a wink.
‘Of course,’ said Atia. Her friend might have been speaking Latin, but she sensed another language at play.
‘To enjoy the nights more, I have begun to sleep on the roof of our villa.’
‘Have you indeed?’ said Atia. Her head swirled. She was beginning to feel the effects of the poppy.
‘I sleep on the roof of our villa because there is a wonderful view of the night sky.’ Lydia continued. Atia frowned. Why was Lydia repeating herself?
‘You sing of the night sky like a Grecian choir boy,’ Atia teased.
Lydia rolled her eyes and leaned forward, and the two women met in the middle of the couch. ‘I have taken a lover,’ Lydia whispered. ‘Is it not obvious?’
Atia sat back, mildly stunned. No, it wasn’t obvious, though now that she considered it, she did notice something of a lightness to her friend’s mood. She raised her glass in honour of Lydia. ‘Have you found it as satisfying as you had hoped?’ Atia asked in her public voice. ‘Viewing the night sky, I mean.’
‘It is utterly spectacular, my dear,’ said Lydia. She shot a glance at her husband, who had now begun to caress the Greek woman’s arm. ‘I highly recommend viewing it yourself.’
Atia tossed her friend a scolding grin. ‘You know my father would never allow me to...ah...sleep on the roof.’
‘But you are a grown woman, are you not?’
‘A Governor’s daughter does not sleep on the roof at all,’ Atia said. ‘And I fear she has never even seen the night sky.’
It was the unfortunate truth. Atia had never learned to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh, despite having been married two more times. Atia’s second marriage had been worse than the first. After the old Senator had died, her father had married her to an ill-humoured tax collector as payment for a debt.
The man had been spiteful and rough with Atia, and had often criticised her looks, calling her less than what he deserved. On the rare occasions that he had visited her bed, he had been intent on harming her. And though the poppy tears had helped her endure the pain, they had not been able to shield her from his anger, or the bruises that had always decorated her skin after those terrible nights. Thank the gods her father had chosen to end the marriage and make Atia available for a better alliance.
Though that better alliance had proven to be folly. A prominent Senator, her third husband had claimed to be her father’s ally and had eagerly sought Atia’s hand. But on their marriage night, he had explained to Atia that he preferred not to see her face during the coupling act. The very next day he had introduced Atia to his mistress.
As it turned out, the Senator had been a spy. He had married Atia to learn more about her father’s efforts to secure Hadrian’s rule. When her father had learned of the Senator’s treachery, he had slain him at the baths and taken his finger as a prize.
Atia took another sip of wine. Now Lydia was motioning Atia towards her once again. Atia leaned forward and her friend whispered in her ear. ‘Love will always be elusive to women like us. But why not seize a little bit of life before it passes us by? A bit of pleasure? We are not getting any younger.’
Atia lay back on the couch and nodded her assent. Indeed they were not. Lydia was already a grandmother and Atia would have been if... She paused. If she had appealed to her husbands enough to get with child. She smiled and took another drink. The tears of poppy were simply a wonder. They made even the most difficult thoughts somehow easier to think.
‘I have been sleeping on the roof for many months now, in truth,’ said Lydia, tracing the rim of her glass. ‘I enjoy the night sky every night.’
Atia peered at Lydia. Was it the effect of the tears or did her friend seem to glow? ‘How would one go about such an endeavour?’ she asked casually, then filled her mouth with a wedge of melon.
Lydia grinned. ‘One must simply select the rooftop mattress one desires and then pay for it.’
‘Pay for it?’
‘Of course. Or offer some kind of gift in exchange. I recommend the Nabataean-made mattresses. They are especially comfortable.’
Atia could not conceal her wonder. Her closest friend was having an affair with a Nabataean man, whom she compensated with coin and gifts.
It was all very commercial, though she supposed that, in a sense, every union was so. Marriages were always negotiated and every woman was for sale. Or perhaps rent was a better term. Atia herself had been rented three separate times, in three separate marriages. She had never had any aspirations of love or pleasure. She was simply an object of trade in the economy of her father’s shifting alliances. If she survived beyond her prophesied death, she did not doubt that she would become such an object again.
Atia gazed at her friend in admiration. Why should she not strike her own bargain for a change? There was something liberating about the idea and it occurred to her that one would not have to be beautiful or desirable in such an arrangement. One would only need to be rich. And rich Atia was.
A vision of Rab’s dazzling grin filled her mind. Go away, she told it. He was her father’s prisoner, after all—the worst possible candidate for a lover. Besides, he had exploited her good will and sought to flatter her towards his own ends. It terrified her—how close she had come to believing his deception. She was certain that, had she allowed their encounter to go on for even a few more seconds, he would have tried to kiss her.
And she would have kissed him back. That was what scared her the most. It was as if his body had been beckoning hers, pulling her towards him by some invisible force.
Thank the gods she had not fallen into his trap. She was not a desirable woman: her father and all three of her husbands had made that abundantly clear. And for the first time in her life that knowledge had served her well.
The tears were hitting her now—a great rush of them. They cooled her limbs and flooded her mind with bliss. She began to laugh. How little any of it mattered, she thought. In forty days she would likely be dead.
Her laughter bubbled over the couch and flowed out into the dining room, mixing with the chords of a lute and catching the attention of her father, whose raised couch gave him full view of the room. His arm was a blur of movement. It was almost as if he was motioning to Atia.
Atia’s heart took a plunge. He was motioning to her. She ceased her laughter. Her head swirled. She could hardly stand upright in such a state, let alone face her father. Yet she knew she did not have a choice. She stood and steadied herself, then smoothed her stola and crossed the room.
‘Good evening, Father,’ she said, squatting at the side of his couch. She struggled to gather her wits.
‘May I ask what is so funny?’
‘I was just speaking with Lydia,’ Atia said. ‘About sleeping on the roof!’ Her father gripped her wrist and pulled her close.
‘You are cold.’ He searched her eyes. ‘You have indulged in tears of the poppy.’
‘Just a few drops. To relieve my headache.’
His grip on her wrist grew tighter. ‘They cloud your judgement. They make you even weaker.’
‘Yes, Father.’
He released her wrist. ‘The guards tell me that you asked for time alone with the camel man this afternoon. Why?’
Here it was—the moment she had been dreading. ‘To gain his confidence,’ Atia stated. ‘For further interrogation.’
‘And what did you discover in your time alone with him?’
Atia paused. She felt as if she were balancing on some invisible rope. ‘He claims his father was a pomegranate farmer.’
‘That is all?’
‘He was very tight-lipped.’
Her father scowled. ‘Did you at least discover his name?’
‘Rabbel. He goes by Rab.’
‘Rab, son of...?’
‘Junon.’
‘Junon? What kind of a name is that?’ Her father paused. ‘Ah, it is as I suspected, then.’
As he suspected? What exactly did he suspect? Atia could not think. A panic was rising inside her. It was mixing with the softness of the drug, making her dizzy and confused. Her mind seized on a vision of Rab cowering in his cell, his bright new toga stained with his own blood. ‘What will you do with him?’ she asked.
Her father only shook his head. ‘You have grown too attached to the tears, Atia. But that will soon be remedied.’
‘Father?’
But he motioned her away and Atia could do nothing but plaster a smile on her face and make her way back through the dining room to Lydia, her heart filling with dread.
Remedied? Did he plan to take away her poppy tears? Gods, no, not that.
‘Make way for the prisoner,’ announced a herald.
The crowd parted and there was Rab’s hunched figure standing at the entrance to the dining room. Behind him stood a host of guards.
Atia’s father made a show of hoisting his injured leg on to a footrest. ‘You may approach, prisoner,’ he said.
Rab reached the base of the dais in a few long strides. He bowed his head.
‘Tell me, prisoner, what category of audacity compels you to present yourself at this elite gathering?’ asked her father.
Rab shook his head and studied the floor. ‘Forgive me, Honourable Governor. I am as a dog who prowls at a lion’s banquet. I embarrass myself.’
There was a smattering of laughter and her father nodded gamely. ‘You are worse than a dog, Camel Man. By allowing your camel to injure me you have placed the well-being of this province at risk. You are a menace.’ He stomped his good leg on the floor and Rab wisely jumped.
‘That is why I have come to apologise,’ Rab continued, ‘for guilt consumes me and I fear the judgement of the gods. But mostly I fear your judgement, Good Governor, for despite the atrocity of my actions you have granted me mercy.’
Her father was pressing his fingers together—a good sign. ‘Go on.’
‘I am but a witless, humble cameleer and I curse the day that, in my ignorance, I ordered my camel to deliver the kick that resulted in your injury. Had I known that I was in the presence of the Governor of this great Roman province, I would have rolled beneath the offending hoof myself.’
He was doing well. He had heeded Atia’s advice. The audience was looking on with sympathetic interest and her father was nodding gravely. It seemed quite possible that Rab would emerge with his freedom.
‘And that is why I beg your forgiveness,’ Rab was concluding. He fell to his knees. ‘I do not deserve it, just as I do not deserve this fine toga, which in your generosity you have seen fit to provide. Please, Honourable Governor, forgive me, if only so that I may spend the rest of my days singing your praises.’
Atia’s father paused dramatically. ‘You fail to mention my greatest mercy, Camel Man.’
Atia saw Rab’s eyes search the floor. She held her breath. ‘My nephew,’ said Rab at last. ‘In your mercy you released my young nephew. And for that I thank you, Honourable Governor.’
‘It was a pleasure to release the youth,’ said Atia’s father. ‘My guards followed him all the way to your home east of Bostra, just to ensure his safety. It is a fine home for one such as yourself. Two floors, a big garden. Beautiful acacia trees.’
Rab’s eyes flew open.
‘Oh, I know much about you, Rabbel, son of Junon,’ continued her father. ‘What I do not know is where your loyalties lie.’
Rab swayed on his knees, as if he had just received a blow. ‘Ah, with you, Honourable Governor,’ he said, recovering himself. ‘With you and with Rome.’
Atia’s stomach twisted into a knot. She had not prepared Rab for threats to his family. ‘Then you would not deny your Governor a request?’
‘I—’ Rab glanced at Atia. ‘I would do anything in my power to fulfil it.’
‘Tell me, have you heard of the Nabataean tax thieves?’
‘I have not.’
Atia’s father gave a theatrical harrumph and his guests tittered. ‘I find that hard to believe, Camel Man,’ he continued, ‘but since you claim ignorance, I will enlighten you. Every month for the past year, the caravan that conveys the Roman tax payment from Rekem to Bostra has been robbed along New Trajan’s Way. We believe the thieves are using the riches to fund the Nabataean rebels.’
‘Fools!’ cried someone from the audience.
‘Fools indeed, but as a result the rebel army has grown bolder,’ said Atia’s father. ‘Two Roman tax collectors were killed just last week. And we all know about the attack on the Rekem contubernium.’
There was a collective sigh. Just two months before, a squad of ten Roman soldiers had been killed on their way from Rekem to Bostra. ‘New Trajan’s Way is no longer secure,’ continued Atia’s father. ‘I assume you know the alternative routes, Camel Man? The locations of the water holes and such?’
‘I do,’ Rab said carefully.
‘Good. As a demonstration of your goodwill, I would like you to guide my daughter and a host of guards to Rekem. Departing tomorrow.’
Atia caught her breath. A journey to Rekem? In the middle of August?
‘I wish for you to convey a precious package to Legate Julianus, the commander of the legion stationed there,’ her father continued. ‘In addition, my daughter has some business with him.’
Atia felt every eye in the room settle on her. There was only one kind of business that could take place between the commander of a Roman legion and the daughter of a Roman governor: marriage.
There was a spate of hushed talk and Atia felt as if she were sinking into the floor. He had done it, then. Her father had selected her fourth husband and was sending her to him along with her precious dowry.
It would be a sine manu marriage—as they all had been—with her father retaining control over Atia and her dowry. Whoever her new husband was, Atia would be expected to submit to his every wish—at least until such time as her father determined the alliance of no further use.
Atia laboured to keep the emotion from her expression. She could tell her father was relishing this moment. He had given the bored patricians exactly what they craved. She could hear the gossip starting already—whispers about the meaning of the match, along with a smattering of comments on Atia’s advanced age, unfortunate nose and general plainness. She had never been more grateful for the effects of the tears.
Her father returned his attention to Rab. ‘You will guide my daughter and her armed escort and help ensure their safety from rebel attack. It is a dangerous mission, but it is how you may prove your loyalty to Rome.’
