Lindsey Davis - Graveyard of the Hesperides

No use. I spent many more moments listening to the hubbub from outside. Added to the unfettered hum of voices, the Romulus had live music; on hot August nights like this the castanets and tambourines were brought out into the street, where the clientele joined in with stamps and clapping. The Four Limpets competed with a solo lyre, well-played if you like loud, weeping string instruments in the hands of a mad dramatic singer. Meanwhile a persistent pest with panpipes traveled around all the bars, tootling at drinkers until they paid him to move on.

At least I was getting the measure of this district at night, the low-grade noisy hot spot where poor Rufia was said to have been murdered.

Eventually Tiberius sensed through his slumber that I was struggling to find rest. He roused himself enough to gather me closer with one arm, then dropped off again immediately. I lay with my head on his shoulder, thinking about this. He had passion, when not poleaxed by weariness. Even tonight, he wanted to grip me tightly, as if I might escape him while he was lost in dreams. So here we were, utterly at ease together. Together for life now, I knew it. I would not need the wedding augur to foretell this by peering at a dead sheep’s liver.

Not that it would hurt to have him prophesy happiness to our families. They didn’t believe us. Tiberius was right: maybe the relatives would have more faith if a stranger in a dirty head veil told them.

Smiling to myself at the incongruity of having a husband I agreed with, finally I fell asleep.

The Ten Traders street life gave me nightmares.

As a rule, I tried not to dwell on the unfairness of my childhood, an orphan of the Boudiccan Rebellion, living among unaffectionate people and then fending for myself as a scavenger. Sounds assailing me here threw me back to the cold unpaved streets of Londinium, where I once haunted dingy eating houses for any crust to stave off hunger, among the dross of degenerate tribes, transient merchants, unhappy soldiers and criminal incomers.

I started awake, with a dry mouth and fast heartbeats. If I tried sleeping again straightaway, the bad dream would return. Slipping from the bed, I went and stood by the balcony.

The streets below lay in darkness. The noise had dropped, the musicians were silent, yet a low burr of steady voices told me people were still here. No one even tried providing streetlights in such an area, and where there was an occasional oil lamp for bar customers, it gave only a tiny blur of light that barely covered the table or counter it was set on. As my eyes grew accustomed, I could see waiters still moving to and fro with trays on their shoulders. I thought I heard the sharp click-clack of gaming counters, with cries of reaction as dice were thrown. I scanned the darker shadows, imagining I glimpsed some waif cringing in an alley, as I had once done.

“What’s wrong?” Tiberius thought something outside had disturbed me.

“A bad dream.”

I heard the soft approach of bare feet, felt warm arms come around me from behind-comforting, not controlling. “Be easy,” he murmured. I leaned back against him, accepting his affection.

“What goes on down there on those streets was my world once.”

He said nothing. That was Tiberius Manlius. Perhaps he sighed a little.

“Did you know?” I persisted.

“Always been obvious.” He took one of my forefingers to a scar on his palm where once, before I knew him well, I had stabbed him with a fish skewer. “Nicely brought-up young ladies from regular homes do not do that.”

“So you want danger and thrills from me?”

“I just want you. I don’t think you are dangerous, not to people you love.” After a moment he added, “Your mother told me I ought to know you had a very bleak childhood.”

For a moment I was angry with Helena, before I saw that she was protecting me. She did not want Faustus to find out later about my experiences. No hope and no safety. The physical blows, emotional famine, rape by a brothel-keeper … All Tiberius knew from me was that afterward I had had a happy marriage, though tragically short.

“She gave no details,” he said. Nor did I now. I was not ready to risk it. Maybe I never would be. Even so, I muttered, “Helena Justina warned you for good reasons. What did you say to her?”

“I told her I grieve for your suffering, which I had always suspected, but I love you as the woman you are. You can tell me,” he offered in a low voice, still standing behind me. One of the soft things we had said when we first acknowledged our feelings was that we could tell one another anything. Mostly we did so, though people fool themselves. It’s always dangerous. Even the best of men might find my experiences impossible to live with.

“Not now.” Tiberius thought he could bear anything but I was loath to test his tolerance. “I try to forget.” Of course I never would entirely. You are made by your past.

Can you be remade by the present? I turned around to embrace him, enjoying the shape and feel of this body I was learning to know, moulding myself to his ribcage and stomach. We were both naked. Until recently I had slept in an old under-tunic; probably he had done the same. Now, except for a few days a month, that seemed unnecessary.

We kissed gently, then I went back to bed with him. My bad memories were hovering nearby, but the nightmare would not reimpose itself tonight.

Tiberius held me close. “While I live, Flavia Albia, you will be safe. If I have any influence, you will be happy.”

“I know.” I was always happy with him, and being happy makes you feel safe.

26 August

Seven days before the Kalends of September (a.d. VII Kal. Sept.)

Five days before the wedding of Tiberius Manlius Faustus and Flavia Albia

Breakfast was our special time. This had started when we would meet as if by chance and sit together in my aunt’s caupona. At the Stargazer, you had to converse to stop losing your grip on life. Talking together was easy, we had found, even though we were both by nature reticent. So, we became friends over the Stargazer’s granite bread and fatty meats. I would watch Faustus mentally assessing how the waiter, whoever it was that day, had given us the least possible number of olives he could serve without having the pottery saucer thrown at his head. Those bite bowls are small but carry weight, as any scavenger knows. I had had them flung at me, back in Londinium.

After a few Stargazer breakfasts, I noticed Faustus was not in fact auditing the nibbles but taking an interest in me.

Now we were living together, he would probably go back to real olive-counting. He was an aedile. Monitoring behavior was his favorite task. I let him get on with it. Supervising waiters was better than imagining he could supervise me.

In daylight today, we were able to spot remnants of the ancient market that must have originally given the Ten Traders its name. There were single-room shops, each with a vaulted roof and a room above, like the one where we were staying. Early in the morning the bars were closed-well, around here you could still get a drink, and I don’t mean water-while shops we had not seen yesterday afternoon now opened and revealed their presence. Dry goods and fresh greens mostly. One of the scroll-sellers for which the Argiletum was supposedly famous. A cutler, so people in the bars could buy bone-handled dinner knives to stick into other people they argued with.

A sign said an apothecary lived in one of the upstairs rooms, ready to run out with salves for any nonfatal knife wounds. He claimed he also sold love potions. He risked having an aedile raid him, to root out magic. Like plenty of others the seller clung on, purveying herbs that worked and incantations that didn’t, pills that put you on a bucket all night and powders that claimed to make you irresistible to others, but might kill you.