style. It involved a central parting with three deep formal waves descending to each ear. For denting in the waves, Lucilla used a hot metal rod, which she was holding in her right hand. So, it was her left hand she clapped over her mouth to stop herself shrieking. Gaius immediately noticed her wedding ring.
‘Flavia Lucilla.’
He simply spoke her name, in that low, strong voice she had thought she would never forget. The way he said it made Lucilla feel that someone in the world believed her truly excellent.
Her eyes. Gaius could not believe those great brown, wide-set, exotic eastern eyes that she had inherited from her mother had somehow managed to elude his memory despite all the times had had thought about her. She had beautiful, beautiful eyes.
Lucilla was unable to speak. She was agonised with panic, shock, horror at the changes in him. His stick-thin arms, grey flecks in his hair, intangible hints of suffering. He even smelled different.
I thought you were dead.
No.
I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead.
Well, I’m bloody well not, darling.
‘Maybe,’ suggested Vinius, very polite, ‘once you have finished with your customer we could have a word?’ Appalling the slaveboy with his familiarity, he walked uninvited down the hall to the room with the couch — my room, my couch; get used to it, sonny — indicating he would wait there.
As he passed Lucilla, unable to prevent himself, he gestured with one forefinger, a vigiles signal: pointing at her gold ring.
‘I married.’
‘Of course you did.’
Ironically, Vinius had warned the other prisoners, when they were still his men: ‘ Be prepared. All the luscious girlies who swore they were yours forever will be fat mothers of three and married to tipsy mule-drivers who beat them if their dinner’s late. The oldest child may well be your own, but you won’t get the bint to admit it, so don’t even bother trying… ’
How stupid to be caught out himself. How lucky he had realised his error in time. And of course she had never sworn anything; in fact, she ran away from him.
‘Yes, I have been married for over a year now. To a teacher of philosophy and literature.’ Even Lucilla could hear her voice was flat.
Vinius, still the investigator, hissed: ‘So where is he?’
Lucilla faltered. ‘In Rome we live with his parents, in the Third Region.’
‘With his parents? Trust me, that’s a mistake!’
As Vinius went into their sitting room his voice and expression did hold a trace of his old good humour with her. After all, what was the point of blaming anyone? She had never been his, so he had never lost her.
He was trying not to let her see how overwhelmed he was by how far the world had moved on in his absence. He really felt like his own ghost. A dead man.
He waited quietly. Half lying on his couch, the one he once constructed from the bag of parts. Gazing into space. Revelling in the luxury of being in his own place, at leisure. Interrupted only by Flavia Lucilla’s boy who kept bringing him nick-nack bowls of olives and nuts. His mistress came eventually, carrying two dainty cups.
‘I make refreshments for my customers. I’ve brewed fresh for you.’
‘Appreciated.’ He gulped. A mulled honeyed wine mixture that must hold a hint of naughtiness for a bunch of women gossiping. ‘Bacchus! Your matrons like their tipple strong.’
Lucilla took a throne-shaped chair opposite Vinius with a low table between them, the kind used for serving food at dinner parties: ivory legs, citronwood top, very far from cheap though it must have been her purchase. She stared, finally taking him in properly. Vinius was wearing a tunic Fortunatus had lent him; Fortunatus was a big man and the vast green garment hung in empty swathes on his brother.
She was wearing blue, with deep panels of embroidery at hem and neck. Hair in clouds of curls around her head and down her back. Jewellery; presents from the husband? She had not gained much weight but her body had rearranged itself subtly. Vinius wondered if she had had children; he would never dare to ask whether he himself had left her pregnant.
She was smart, fashionable, fairly composed in the circumstances. He tried to pretend to himself that the way she looked was none of his business, yet he drank her in.
Lucilla felt him assessing her. She knew she must have altered in the past five years, gained aspects of maturity, lost heart in some ways. Her hand shook as she sipped her drink.
‘So! — Nice war?’ she asked, keeping it wry for safety.
‘Every amenity.’
‘And what…’ she finally ventured ‘… happened?’
‘Came home by the long scenic route…’ Vinius was staring down at the table edge. He sighed, then spoke bitterly. ‘No. As you see: a brief idyll in Moesia, then I had four years of ruination — a captive in Dacia.’
‘Nobody knew.’ Lucilla’s voice was low.
‘We guessed not. That was the worst dimension.’
‘Can you talk about it?’
‘No.’ He looked up, however. ‘Not yet.’
He saw that her gaze was kindly; his in reply held gratitude.
Lucilla burst out suddenly, ‘I don’t know what to say. It is just so good to see you.’ Then, urgently, she had to put things right. Words tumbled out: ‘Everything of yours is here. I can give you back your door key. Everything is in your room, except I used the money for the rent-’
‘Settle down.’
‘No — Your will was read. I was deeply touched. I have to say — I just felt, I was acting as your custodian. I paid for the apartment — ’
‘So I did the right thing,’ interrupted Gaius lightly.
‘I kept everything of yours — ’
He was startled. ‘What — for me?’
Lucilla paused. ‘No, I won’t say, “I knew you would return one day”. I never thought that, and I don’t hold with mystic nonsense. We believed you were gone.’
‘So what would have happened here,’ asked Gaius, waving a hand to indicate his side of the apartment, ‘if I really had never come back?’
At that, Lucilla dropped her face into her hands, though she soon looked up again, simply at a loss. ‘I don’t know.’
After a moment, Gaius murmured, ‘My turn to feel touched.’
Lucilla was fumbling with her earlobes, tugging off her earrings. ‘I must give you these back. Understand, I have been wearing them for you — ’
She reached over and placed them on the table beside his empty cup. They were small gold bars, from each of which hung three pendants ending in small pearls. Gaius stared uncomprehendingly.
‘I was told they had been your mother’s.’
‘I can’t remember her…’ He was distressed. ‘Please try to calm down. None of this is important. I am finding it — ’ He faltered. ‘Hard. Hard to cope. When people are excited.’
Lucilla fell silent immediately.
Gaius picked up a snack-bowl, the one with enormous green queen olives. He ate one olive, slowly, then worked his way through the entire bowl. He looked as if he might tear the arm off anyone who tried to remove the food from him. He chewed each olive stone completely clean before replacing it in the ceramic bowl. Once he had devoured every olive, he placed the bowl back on the table, with a small knock that sounded much too loud in the completely still apartment.
Lucilla was grave. ‘Shall I fetch you more?’
‘No. No, thanks. Back in civilisation now. I must stop gobbling like a prisoner.’ He stretched, arms right above his head, gazing at her. ‘So. You married. Tell me about the new husband. What’s he like, this paragon?’
Lucilla was aware that she flushed slightly. ‘As I mentioned, he is a teacher. He taught me to read.’
‘You didn’t need a teacher!’ Gaius felt oddly annoyed. ‘You signed your lease. You and your sister were
