done since first coming to the room.
It was partly Claudia’s beauty that excited curiosity; the wife of the late Macedonicus was famous throughout Rome for her regal bearing and exquisite looks, but Valeria was also taken with her detachment, the way that she seemed to fit into this scene, yet not belong. The simplicity of her dress had some bearing on the impression, since Claudia eschewed excessive decoration. For all the trumpeted virtue of the ladies in this room, many had succumbed to the latest Greek fashions, adorning their hair and edging their dresses with patterned borders.
Not so, Claudia Cornelia; the black hair was dressed very simply, a mass of curls at the top contained by a simple braided cap, with the remainder cascading freely down the back of her elegant neck. Her garment was just as simple, a plain white dress, hanging loose beneath her bosom, making her look as if she came from another, more austere age. For all the fullness of her figure there was nothing soft about her. She exuded hauteur, without any trace of cruelty, great beauty which carried no hint of vanity and a poise that marked her aristocratic lineage.
Valeria admired Claudia enormously. The noisy children, playing around her in their usual abandoned way, seemed unable to penetrate her stillness and yet the opinion she had of their mothers showed clearly on her face. The girl was at a precocious age, with the first signs of female maturity already evident. To be extremely impressionable during puberty was not unusual, but Valeria Trebonia carried it to a greater degree than her contemporaries. With pliable parents and a household full of brothers she was allowed a degree of liberty in her education denied to most girls her age. Few families bothered to educate a girl, beyond the preparation necessary for marriage and child-rearing, but her father had engaged learned slaves for his younger male children, which allowed his daughter access to the knowledge they imparted. Not that these things had been given to her; in a house, let alone a society, so dominated by men, Valeria had had to fight for every privilege she had won.
She railed mightily against the advantages vouchsafed to her brother Gaius, studying under the Greek pedagogue Timeon in this very house, but her parents had baulked not just at the cost, but at the very idea of asking someone as stiff on tradition as Lucius to include a girl in his class. He might have paid a fortune for Timeon, but had shrewdly recouped that outlay by selling his services to the sons of his neighbours, this having the added advantage of giving Marcellus playmates of the right sort.
Necessity, as well as the desire to manipulate, had made Valeria cunning, so that she was experienced in the art of playing with adult emotions to gain her ends. That ability was extended to those her own age, particularly her brother’s friends, and recently she had discovered that there was more than one method of discomfiting these naive boys. As her figure blossomed she put aside the taunts of the child, in favour of the disdain of a woman.
The object of her admiration looked at her suddenly, aware that Valeria had been staring for some time. Claudia knew the girl; in such a cloistered society, where the rich and powerful continually gathered at the same events, she had come across her many times. The girl did not blush to be discovered or try to look away and Claudia, in registering this, also saw that Valeria had grown, had flowered, and looked quite fetching in her simple, youthful dress.
The stare, very close to a challenge, was typical; she had always thought the girl a trifle temperamental, given to emotional tantrums, which her parents not only allowed but succumbed to, helpless in the face of their daughter’s moods. Not, herself, a strict person, she nevertheless felt that a dose of good old-fashioned Roman discipline would do Valeria Trebonia the world of good. Yet the change made her curious; if the shrewish child had disappeared, to be replaced by a striking young woman, had the temperament gone with it? Claudia beckoned and Valeria stood up, her recently gained height, plus her carriage, reinforcing the impression of a burgeoning beauty.
‘Sit with me, child.’
Valeria frowned, which amused Claudia, who had used the appellation ‘child’ quite deliberately. But the face cleared quickly; this young lady was not going to allow herself to be discomfited.
‘Thank you, Lady Claudia,’ she replied, and sat down after a perfunctory curtsy.
There is a ritual in these encounters, which no amount of self-possession can avoid. Claudia had to ask after her parents, even if her mother was plainly visible on the other side of the room, struggling to control Valeria’s noisy young siblings. Equally they must identify the last time they had met and remark on the pleasant nature of that occasion. Mutual condolences had to be exchanged; Claudia had lost a husband, while Valeria’s grandfather had been cruelly hacked to death by the same Illyrian rebels. But Claudia was determined to avoid one convention, that of saying to the girl that she had grown, partly to avoid the need to flatter her, but more, because in dealing with this young woman, such an observation was superfluous.
‘At least you can comfort yourself that your grandfather died as a Roman should.’
Valeria looked a little excited as she replied. ‘I wish I’d been there to see it.’
‘What!’ Claudia exclaimed, her composure quite deserting her.
‘We found one of the soldiers who saw him die, a centurion called Didius Flaccus. My father brought him to the house, and paid him so that he could relate the story and swear, in the family chapel, that our name had been enhanced by grandfather’s deeds.’
Claudia was still shocked, seeing in Valeria’s flushed cheeks and in her eyes a gleam that was disconcerting. She knew that the Trebonii were lax in the way they raised their children, but she could not believe that they had allowed their daughter to attend on such an occasion.
‘And you were there?’
That brought some of the shrew back to Valeria’s face, and a level of bitterness to her voice. ‘No. But Gaius was permitted to attend. I had to eavesdrop to hear anything.’
It seemed pointless to observe that what she had done was both impious and wrong; besides, it was no part of her duty to rebuke someone else’s child. Not that she got the chance; the excitement had returned to Valeria’s face and her voice had a breathless quality, as she recounted what she had heard. ‘All the women were raped, of course, long before they hacked grandfather to death. They couldn’t find any trace of him, you know, so we had to make a death-mask from memory. Then the rebels piled the bodies up in a heap. Flaccus said that they had laid them together, men and women, as if they were…’
Valeria faltered there, not sure which word to use, but Claudia had the distinct impression that, in her excited state, she had been about to blaspheme, and only collected herself just in time.
‘I cannot imagine what makes you say you wish you’d been there!’
Valeria put a hand on Claudia’s arm, pressing down to make her point. ‘But don’t you see, it would bring the stories alive.’
‘What stories?’
‘Those written by Posidonius, about the tribesmen in the Alpine mountains. He’s a good historian and he tells you lots about the Celts and their customs, but he leaves out so much about what really takes place.’
‘Like mass rape and men hacked to pieces.’
If Claudia hoped for a reasoned response from the girl, she was disappointed; Valeria nodded emphatically. ‘Can you imagine what it must be like, to fight and spill blood, to kill a man standing before he kills you, to be wounded and bleed, or watch a man burn alive in a wicker cage?’
‘No, thank the Gods,’ replied Claudia, standing up, clearly upset. ‘And if I were you, young lady, I’d turn my mind to gentler visions.’
Valeria grinned at Claudia’s elegant back as she walked away. She still admired her and had not set out to upset the older woman, but it gave her a thrill of pleasure to have done so, even if it had been an unconscious act. The cries from outside, where the boys were playing, caught her ears. That broadened the grin as she went out to watch, promising, as it did, even more mischief.
The ball flew from one hand to another as the players skipped and leapt about. It never spent as much as a second in any palm, being caught and immediately thrown to someone else as the watching girls squealed with delight and called eagerly to their favourites. Marcellus caught the hard leather ball in his hand, spun on his heel and threw it underhand to Gaius Trebonius, wrong-footing him completely since he had moved to cover the obvious possibility of an overhead throw. He corkscrewed in mid-air as he sought to leap backwards, while still moving forwards, and his fingertips touched the ball, but he could not hold it and it flew past him to land in the dust. Gaius did likewise, landing heavily and painfully on his hip.
‘He got you that time, Gaius,’ shouted Publius Calvinus.
Marcellus had already moved to help him up, enquiring if he had hurt himself. The other boy’s face was
