“Really?” said Livia, who had recently started acting a little like her own mother: suddenly on her dignity, cold. “What secrets do you think your mistress has, and why would it concern you?”
“Did I say secrets, miss?” she replied.
I gave Livia a little push, uncomfortable at the direction in which she was steering things.
At the time, though, I did think that Nurse meant secrets. I knew that my parents had secrets from me already. I had seen the messengers from Rome come and go in the night, and spotted the pigeons that my father sent flying across the sea. Girls aren’t supposed to ask questions about such things, but you can’t have a father who believes in philosophy and education for girls and not end up with a curious mind. Sometimes I thought, guiltily, that my father had probably only meant me to learn how I should behave as a good Roman woman: brave, chaste, choosing death before dishonour. I was sure he wouldn’t want me wondering about his private business. The trouble was, all those stories of good Roman women seemed a little distant. I didn’t need to choose death before dishonour and there were no wars for me to be brave in; even the Garamantes were peaceful these days. . . What really worried me then was that Livia would choose to make a big scandal out of Nurse’s words, and my mother would have to say she would have Nurse whipped, so as not to lose face in front of Livia’s mother. Of course, we would never whip an old slave, but I cringed at the thought of having to pretend we had.
Then the kitten fell into the impluvium, and the panic over getting it out before it drowned made us all forget what we were talking about. I remember noticing that the voices from the surgery demonstration had stopped. Now there was silence when before there had been constant, reassuring noise. It was as if someone had taken the sea away.
“Poor little thing,” we crooned over the kitten. We dried it carefully – it had only been in the water a few seconds – and took it back to its mother for something to drink in the sun. But when we came back, the atmosphere had changed. Nurse was gone, my father was there, and from one look at him I could see that he was near bursting with news. His eyes were shining like marble in the sun. I was amazed. I had never seen him look so excited and happy.
“Father?” I said.
“Camilla!” He took my shoulder and smiled – no, grinned – into my face. “Come on, I have news.”
I followed him, full of excitement, into his office. We did not have the wealthiest house in the city, but it was homely, and my mother had made sure we had the most up-to-date painters to decorate the dining room with scenes of the labours of Hercules and Dionysus riding on a panther. The office was a room I rarely went into. My father’s wooden desk was there, with a stack of letters and writing tablets and, in the corner, his seal and wax. There was also a screen carved out of scented cedar wood, and a mural of Mercury, messenger of the gods, who was a good choice for business. A bust of the Emperor in pink marble was in a niche on the wall, and there were some elegant folding chairs for guests. My mother was already in the room, looking worried as usual.
My father shut the doors, closing us in the cool shade, and turned to us.
“It has happened. Finally!” he burst out.
I stared at him, confused, but my mother’s face fell.
“You mean—” she began.
“Yes! The Emperor has summoned me to Rome! We are going home!”
4.
Going Home
“We’re leaving Leptis Magna?” my mother said.
I was confused. Home was here – this villa, this courtyard, those kittens, the comfortable feel of the mosaic floor beneath my feet.
My father grasped my hands and spoke directly to me. “You know I lived in Rome as a young man. Well, the Emperor has finally remembered his childhood friend! He has called for me personally. We are going back to Rome – to the centre of the world, Camilla! The only place that matters!”
“Rome!” I was thrilled. I squeezed my father’s hands. I had never been to Rome; I’d only heard people talk of it. If they had been there they sounded lordly and superior, and if they had not they spoke of it with longing and jealousy. Rome – the centre of the world! The home of the Emperor himself! The heart of the Empire!
My mother had found a smile by now. Her next words took mine away.
“At last, we can conclude things with Publius,” she said to my father. “It will be a joy to me to see my daughter honourably and safely settled.”
I dropped my father’s hands.
“You mean marry? Me, marry?” I said.
My mother smiled at me.
“You will finally be a grown woman,” she said softly. “We are so proud.”
I nodded uncertainly. I knew, of course, that I was engaged to be married. So was Livia, and so were most of my friends. I had a ring that my mother kept in a box in her room, which I had been given as a betrothal token. But the boy – Publius Maecenas – was in Rome, so far away, or so it had seemed until now. I had assumed that the engagement had been forgotten, that when I married it would be someone from Leptis Magna. We had met just once, when his family had visited Leptis Magna for the betrothal ceremony when I was only six. But now I was fourteen. I didn’t remember him at all. I searched my memory and came up with a vague idea of soft brown eyes, freckles and knobbly elbows.
“Fourteen is young,” said my father, as
