To Love Again

'Now you know everything about me. Zeno has told me that your first wife was a good and an honorable woman. What he did not say about the wife you now have is more of interest,' Cailin said. 'If you would tell me, my lord, I should like to know.'

'Flacilla is a member of the Strabo family,' Aspar began. 'They are very powerful at court. Our marriage was one of convenience. She does not live with me, and frankly I do not even like her.'

'Then why did you marry her?' Cailin asked curiously. 'You did not need to marry again at this time, my lord. You have one grown son, Zeno says, and a second son as well as a daughter.'

'Did Zeno mention my grandchildren?' Aspar demanded with a certain humor in his voice. 'My daughter Sophia has three children, and my eldest son has four. Since Patricius, my youngest, shows no signs of wanting to be a monk, I can assume he, too, will give me more grandchildren one day when he is grown and wed.'

'You have grandchildren?' Cailin was astounded. He did not look that old, and his behavior was certainly not that of an old man. 'How old are you, my lord Aspar? I was nineteen in the month of April.'

He groaned. 'Dear God! I am certainly old enough to be your father, my little love. I am fifty-four this May past.'

'You are nothing like my father,' she murmured, and then she boldly pulled his head to her and kissed him softly, sweetly.

His head swam pleasantly with her daring. 'No,' he said, his gray eyes smiling into her violet ones, 'I am not your father, am I, my little love?' He kissed her back; a long, slow, deep kiss.

Cailin's senses reeled. Finally, when she recovered herself, she said, 'Tell me more about your wife, my lord Aspar.'

'I like the sound of my name upon your lips,' he said.

'The lady Flacilla Strabo, my lord Aspar,' she insisted.

'I married her for several reasons. The late emperor, Marcian, whom I placed upon the throne of Byzantium and married to the princess Pulcheria, was dying, and there were no heirs.

'Marcian came from my own household. He had served me loyally for twenty years. When I realized his end was near, I chose Leo, another of my household, to be the next emperor. I needed certain support from the court, however. The patriarch of Constantinople, the city's religious leader, is a relation of the Strabo family, and family ties are strong here. Without him I could not have hoped to place Leo on the throne. To ensure his support, and that of the Strabo family, I married the widowed Flacilla. She was pregnant with a lover's child at the time, and was causing her family untold embarrassment.'

'What happened to the child?' Cailin wondered aloud.

'She miscarried it in her fifth month,' he said, 'but it was too late. She was my wife. In return for my aid, the patriarch and the Strabo family supported my choice of Leo. Of course, other patrician families followed suit. This allowed us a peaceful transition from one emperor to another. Civil war is unpleasant at the least, Cailin. And Flacilla is to all outward appearances a good wife. She has taken my little son, Patricius, in her charge, and is a very good mother to him. He is being raised in the Orthodox faith. I hope to match him with the princess Ariadne one day, and make him Leo's heir, for the emperor has no sons.'

'What do you want of me, my lord, I mean other than the obvious?' Cailin asked him, and then she blushed at her own audacity. Still, her life since leaving Britain had been so unsettled. She needed to know if she was to have a permanent home.

He thought for several long minutes. 'I loved my first wife,' he began. 'When Anna died, I thought that I should never again care for a woman. I certainly do not like Flacilla, but I serve a purpose for her. Her social stature is practically as high as the empress Verina, for I am the General of the Eastern Armies, and the First Patrician of the Empire. Flacilla, in turn, mothers my orphaned son, but that is all she does for me.

'I am powerful, Cailin, but I am alone, and the honest truth is, I am a lonely man. When I saw you that night at Villa Maxima, you touched me as no woman has ever really touched me. I need your love, I need your gentleness, and I need your companionship in my life. Do you think that you can give it to me, my beauty?'

'My grandfather said I had a sharp tongue, and I do,' Cailin told him slowly. 'I am practical to a fault. If there is any gentleness left in me, my lord Aspar, you are possibly the only one to see it. Now what I must say to you will sound hard, but I have learned in the last year to be hard in order to survive. You are not a young man, yet I am your slave. If you should die, what will happen to me? Do you think that your heirs will treat the slave mistress of their father with kindness? I think not.

'I believe that I shall be disposed of with all the other possessions that you own that will be considered unnecessary. Can I love you? Yes, I can. I believe you to be kind and good, but if you truly care for me, my lord, then make provisions to keep me safe when you are not here to do so yourself… Until that time I will serve you with all my heart and soul.'

He nodded quietly. She was right. He would have to make arrangements to protect her when he no longer could. 'I will go to the city tomorrow and arrange for everything,' he promised her. 'You will be free upon my death, and have an inheritance to keep you. If you bear my children, I will provide for them, and recognize them as well.'

'It is more than fair,' Cailin said, relief sweeping over her.

When she awoke in the morning, Aspar was gone from their bed.

'He has gone to the city,' Zeno said, smiling. 'He says to tell you that he will return in several days' time, my lady. He has also told me that you are to be considered mistress here, and we will obey you.'

'My lord Aspar is a generous man,' Cailin said quietly. 'I must rely upon you, Zeno, to help me do what is proper and correct.'

'My lady's wisdom is only excelled by her great beauty,' the elderly majordomo replied, pleased by her tactful response and the certainty that everything would remain the same.

Aspar returned a few days later from Constantinople. Within a short time it was obvious to his servants that he intended to make Villa Mare his primary residence. He left only to attend to court business and oversee his duties as general of the Eastern Armies. He was rarely away overnight. He and Cailin had settled down to a very quiet domestic existence.

Cailin was surprised to learn that Aspar owned all the farmland about the villa for several miles. There were vineyards, olive groves, and wheat fields, all contributing to the general's wealth. He thought nothing of helping out in the fields, or working to harvest the grapes. She rather suspected he enjoyed it.

***

In the city, Aspar's absence from his elegant palace was not noticed at first, but the empress Verina, a clever woman, kept her ear to the ground in all quarters. She and her husband had not the advantage of inheritance to keep their thrones safe. Aspar was important to them. Although an excellent public servant, Leo was not a master of intrigue at this early point in his reign; but his wife, raised in Byzantium, knew that the more one knew, the safer one was. A servant's idle gossip caught her ear at first, and then she heard it again, this time from a minor official. The empress invited her brother Basilicus to come and visit her.

They sat on a terrace overlooking the Propontis, called by some the Marmara, one afternoon in late autumn, sipping the first of the new wine. Verina was a beautiful woman with ivory skin and long, black hair which she wore in an elaborate coiffure of braids that were fastened with jeweled pins. Her red and gold stola was of rich materials, and the low neckline showed her fine bosom to its best advantage. Her slippers were bejeweled, and she wore several ropes of pearls so translucent they seemed to shimmer against her skin and gown. She smiled at her brother.

'What is this 1 hear about Aspar?' she purred.

'What is it you have heard about Aspar, my pet?' he countered.

'It is said that he has closed up his palace and now lives in the countryside outside the city,' the empress said. 'Is it true?'

'I would not know, sister dear,' Basilicus replied. 'I have not seen Aspar socially for months now. I see him