Thomas Harlan - The shadow of Ararat

For a moment, the servants and slaves left her sitting alone on a bench set into a casement window. Velvet pillows edged with seed pearls surrounded her, but the stones were still cold under her hands. Below her, the steep side of the house looked down on rooftops below and a scattering of firelights in the gathering evening gloom. The sky was still flushed with sunset.

So much like Thira at dusk, she thought, thinking of the school she had labored in for four years. She felt very sad and empty for a moment, missing the clear blue waters of the sea around the island and the simple, almost pure life within its marble walls. Her fingers tested the weave of the gown, feeling the lushness of the fabric. Fingertips brushed against the necklace of gold and the jewels that were buried in it.

This dress is the price of Pater's whole farmstead, she thought, and the bleak memory that rose in her mind's eye brought tears to her eyes. The bracelets and rings would buy and sell her brothers and sisters ten times over. Why did I escape! She wailed silently to herself.

The moment was broken by a light touch on her shoulder and she looked up into Krista's brown eyes. "Don't cry, mistress," the girl whispered, concern in her voice, "you'll ruin the makeup." Thyatis nodded and stood up. The slave checked her hairpins, the drape of the gown, and anointed her with one last dust of facial powder. "Please follow me, the Duchess is waiting."

– |Thyatis eased back fractionally from the low table that still held a variety of dishes. Porcelain Chin plates and bowls gleamed under the shuttered lanterns, blue and gold etched designs crawling out from under the remains of roasted grouse, walnut-stuffed dormice, three kinds of grilled fish, two kinds of salad, and the shattered remains of an army of sliced fruits dusted with honey-sugar. For a moment she closed her eyes and savored the subtle taste of the spices in the cream custard she had just finished.

Across the table, Anastasia delicately peeled a plum and sliced it into thin strips with the edge of a fingernail. The Duchess smiled fondly down at Krista, who knelt at her side. Her languid gaze on Thyatis, she idly fed the slices to the girl one by one. Thyatis shuddered as the violet eyes assessed her. She felt alone and close to some unknown danger. Yawning, she stretched and shifted amid the pillows, her right leg sliding out and flexing. Her right hand dropped down to rest on her thigh, only inches from the knife she had managed to keep with her through three changes of clothing and a bath.

Anastasia finished with the plum and waited a moment while the slave washed and dried her hands with a soft towel. This done, the girl gathered up the plates and removed them in almost complete silence. When the last tinkle and clatter had died away, the Duchess stood up and moved to the low wall that separated the dining platform from the edge of the tower wall. Thyatis took the moment to shift again, bringing her feet under her. For a long time the older woman stood at the railing, staring out over the roofs of her own townhouse, its garden, the stables behind it.

Her house stood on the edge of the Quirinal hill, raised up both by nature and man. Below her the city spread away in darkness toward the Tiber. The blaze of lights of the Forum stood to her left beyond the bulk of the mausoleums and temples. The other hills of the city were a sprinkling of lantern lights, bonfires, and torchlight. At last she drew the drapes, closing in the little dining deck that rode atop the highest building in her town estate-no more than seven paces across, a rich wood-lined summer room with a tiled roof and sconces of black iron to hold the torches and lanterns. Despite the season, a cool breeze ruffled the cotton drapes. Anastasia knelt again at the table and poured new wine from the amphora into her cup, and then Thyatis'.

"The city seems so empty now," she said, her voice even and unconcerned. "The plague took so many." She paused. "Of course, the poor suffered the most, and it was before you came to the city."

The Duchess sipped her wine.

"I was newly married then, to the Duke, and he brought me to the city from his estates in the north. He wanted to see the theater and speak with his friends and patrons at the Offices." She drank again.

"He died, of course, when the coughing sickness came. No, that was later. It must have been the bad one that killed him, the one that made you drink and drink yet hold nothing. Yes, he was the one who died in the night, not the day." Thyatis sat very still, her eyes watching her hostess like a hunting bird. The Duchess was speaking dreamily, almost as if the words were spilling from her lips unbidden.

"No matter, as I said, it was before your time in the city. Come, drink with me."

Thyatis raised the cup to her lips, but only wetted them with the dusky red Falernian.

"I remember the first day that you came to the city," Anastasia said, smiling quietly.

Thyatis struggled to keep surprise from her face. She barely remembered that first day-only a confused memory of blinding sun, the crack of a whip, hoarse shouts, horrible fear, and the taste of blood in her mouth.

"You were in a coffle with twenty or thirty others brought in from the provinces, hands bound behind your back, only a slip of a girl in rags. Just one of dozens of children sold to the market to pay the debts of a poor family. You had pretty hair, though of course it was matted and rough. Your legs were strong and you had not surrendered yourself yet. That struck me the most, I think, that you were so new to the chain that you had neither received a brand nor had the life beaten out of your eyes."

Thyatis blinked, coming back from a distant grim memory. In the moment of inattention, Anastasia had moved around the table and now knelt at her side, long fingers running through the younger woman's hair. Thyatis struggled to keep from flinching away.

"Your hair is much nicer now," she said, brushing it back from Thyatis' high cheekbone and neck. "You are better kept." Anastasia rose and returned to the other side of the table. Now she sat, wide awake, no longer dreaming of ancient days. "There is work for you."

The older woman paused, thinking, then continued: "The state has come to a critical period. The Emperor sits easily upon his throne here in Rome, all of his enemies in the West humbled. The people have recovered some of their spirit that was lost in the plagues and the civil war. The fisc, of a wonder, maintains a surplus of coin, and the provinces are beginning to be profitable once again. Despite the unmitigated disasters of the last three hundred years, the Empire has survived and, even now, prospers. It is a dangerous time for the Senate and people of Rome."

Thyatis raised an eyebrow at this last statement. Anastasia nodded, her lips quirking in a quick smile. "No greater trouble has ever come to Rome than under the reign of an Emperor without pressing concerns. It is in such times, when the future seems unlimited and rosy, that grand plans and visions intrude into the business of maintaining a vast state, stretching thousands of miles from the dark forests of Britain to the sands of Africa. Experience shows, again and again, that the hubris of the Emperor-the quest for some unguessable destiny-is a sure road to disaster. We are now at such a point again as faced the Divine Caesar or the great Emperor Trajan or the first Aurelian. It seems like the tide, repeated over and over again."

Anastasia paused, pulling her hair back and binding it in a loose fillet of dark blue silk. In the dim light of the lanterns, and now the moon peeking through the gauze drapes, she seemed burdened by a great weight. Her hair tied, she lay back among the cushions.

"If this is the will of the gods, there is nothing that a mortal can do. But if this is the doing of men, of their ego, of their vanity, then there is much that a mortal woman can do. There is much that I can do. There are things that you can do." Anastasia's voice was a low burr, echoing from the peaked roof of the little room.