cheek. 'How does that feel?'
'It's pleasant.' So it was. The cream was smooth, and cold at first, but soon warmed on his skin, and as she rubbed it in further he felt a powdery, gritty texture. 'What's it made of?'
She shrugged. 'Animal fat, I think. Starch. And some complicated compound of tin.'
'Tin? I thought Roman ladies used lead on their faces.'
'Oh, that's very old-fashioned. Lead's poisonous-didn't you know?'
She continued to rub cream into his cheek, and he relished the warmth of her touch, the close sweetness of her breath on his face. But he pulled back. 'Perhaps that's enough.'
'Oh, but this is just the start. This is a foundation cream which will make my skin glow like a marble statue. Then I'll apply rouge and mascara-this is burned rose petals, see?-to highlight my cheeks and eyes. I will whiten my teeth with powdered pumice, and sprinkle my neck with perfume-this one is my favourite, myrrh mixed with spices.'
He took her hand in his, silencing her. The bones of her fingers felt fragile, like a baby bird's, and her skin was pale against his. Compared to his earthy darkness she was like a ghost, he thought.
She leaned a little closer to him; her face, a perfect oval, filled his vision, and her lips brushed his. 'I bet you don't even shave your chest, do you, Brigantius-Brigonius?'
He hesitated for one heartbeat. If she was toying with him, tormenting a clumsy barbarian, he was about to be humiliated. But it was worth the risk. He slid his hand around her waist. 'Why don't you find out?'
She came at him like a wave breaking, and their mouths locked.
VIII
The formal meal was to be held in the afternoon, from the ninth hour onwards, in Verecundus's largest reception room. This was a very grand, sprawling room that occupied almost the full length of one side of the atrium-'a veritable basilica', Karus said. Brigonius got there late, but not as late as the Emperor himself, who was out hunting boar.
Brigonius found the room crowded. People lay on couches or strolled with a certain false casualness. The men were as carefully groomed as the women, their faces shaved and their eyebrows plucked. The women wore clothes in an explosion of rich colours, and the men's togas were crisp and shone white. Music played, slaves circulated with trays of food and drink, musicians played lutes and Catuvellaunian pipes, and the conversation bubbled prettily. Oddly, much of the talk seemed to be in Greek. But there was tension under the politeness, and people watched each other with sharp eyes. They were like a flock of hungry birds, Brigonius thought.
And one or two guests were already the worse for wear. One fat, sweating man was rather obviously sliding his hand up the thigh of any slave who passed him, male or female. Brigonius wondered if the Emperor's lateness was a deliberate ploy, so that drink or gluttony could weed out the less worthy of his petitioners.
When Brigonius joined the party Severa's companions were already all here, Severa herself and her daughter, lawyer Karus and the architect Xander, with his model set out on a low table and covered with a sheet. Lepidina seemed cool, composed.
Brigonius sat down, trying to avoid everybody's eyes. He had washed and changed since his tryst with Lepidina, but he was sure the smell of their love must still linger on him.
Sure enough, Karus leaned over. 'Congratulations,' he whispered, slightly drunk.
Brigonius cursed. 'Is it that obvious?'
'Your sheer animal joy is, yes. I congratulate you; she is truly lovely. But have no fear, I won't take her from you, though of course I could. I told you, I only have eyes for the mother…'
Severa's gaze glittered, and she seemed secretly amused. Severa knew, of course; if Karus had detected it she would have. And Lepidina knew that she knew.
As for Brigonius, all he knew was that he was far out of his depth with these complicated women and their games. But Lepidina was worth it.
And beneath all this there was something oceanic in his mood. What he felt for Lepidina was not mere lust, had not been since the moment he met her. There was tenderness too. And now, after their hour together in the morning, was that tenderness becoming love? How vulnerable would he become then to Severa's machinations?
The service began, to Brigonius's relief, and they all had something else to occupy their attention. There was a starter of salad, eggs and oysters from the coast-and snails, big salty beasts brought in from Gaul. Karus, Xander and Severa tucked in. Lepidina ate more sparingly but with every expression of relish.
Brigonius did his best. By the time the first plates were cleared he already felt full, but more plates, more food, quickly followed. There were to be several main courses, he learned, including boar, venison, pork, hare and dormouse; chicken, geese, thrushes and peacocks; more fish and seafood-and finally, in the far future, a dessert of fruit and cakes laden with honey. Even the vegetables were unfamiliar. Lepidina, gently mocking, named such Roman imports as cabbage, broad beans, parsnips, peas and celery. All this was served on fine plates of pottery or silver, and though you ate with your fingers there was a bewildering variety of cutlery: special little forks for pulling oysters out of their shells, knives for scraping meat from bone. Brigonius was continually bewildered at what a wide variety of things were available to a well-off Roman.
He kept trying. He sampled what he recognised, but was constantly put off by the peculiar flavours of the sauces. Everything seemed to taste both sour and sweet at the same time, and the Romans doused the lot with a disgusting fish sauce.
Severa glared at him. 'Leave it if you want, but don't pick. You eat like a child.'
'But it's all so appetising,' Brigonius said dryly. He lifted up a dormouse by its tail, poached whole and stuffed with nuts and herbs.
That made Lepidina laugh, but Severa turned away contemptuously.
'And anyhow,' Karus said around a mouthful of minced pork, 'the food isn't the point.' He sighed. 'Though it should be. Food should always be the point. While the Emperor is still away we should review our strategy.'
'Quite right,' Severa said. 'Xander! Come here. Let's go over it one more time…'
Xander, reluctant to interrupt the meal himself, joined Severa, and they began to discuss empires, borders and walls.
Hadrian had to consider fixing his borders because his empire had reached its natural limits of expansion. In Britain, from Claudius's first foothold at Rutupiae in the far south-east of the island, a wave of military advance had washed over the countryside, leaving behind a network of forts, roads and signalling towers. Brigantia had been the most northern political unit the Romans had been able to deal with diplomatically. But under the Emperor Domitian governor Agricola had gone further, mounting a strong assault on the furthest north, and his ships had sailed all the way around the northern coast. But in a land of mountains, mist and bogs, inhabited by an elusive, fleeting people who never seemed to understand when they were defeated, it had not been a comfortable campaign for the Romans, and Agricola's forces, scattered in garrison forts, were overstretched. When troops were withdrawn from Britain to deal with problems on the Danube the Romans had been forced to fall back to Brigantia.
Elsewhere in the empire similar limits were reached. Domitian's successor Trajan was another expansion- minded soldier-emperor, and he had won swathes of territories in the east of the empire. But towards the end of his life his energies had been consumed by troubles along the empire's long, vulnerable borders, in Mesopotamia, Africa, even in northern Britain once more. And in the east, while he was distracted, the Jews had risen in a savage revolt, that had been put down equally savagely.
This was the complex, unstable situation bequeathed to Hadrian, Trajan's successor in turn, who had served with his mentor in the field.
'You must understand the way these Romans think,' said architect Xander. 'Once the Romans saw no limit to their conquest. Why should they? Especially once their generals started getting rich from it. Expansion pays for more expansion, and on it goes. Why shouldn't it proceed to the ends of the world? But the truth is the Romans can venture no further than the plough…'
As the Romans had expanded out of their Mediterranean heartland, north and south, east and west, they had taken lands that were already farmed, and which could provide the wealth to make their city rich, and to fuel their
