“Is it true that your husband couldn’t come here with you?” Prisca asked Arcadia in a voice that was husky, almost masculine in tone.
“Yes, my sweet,” Maximin interposed quickly, before Arcadia could answer. “Because of a ridiculous charge that Bishop Chrysologos brought against him. The subject is not dinner conversation.”
“No? Then I suppose we could talk about your infernal chickens,” Prisca retorted, “for we can certainly smell them. Have you shown the surgeon’s wife your ‘Rooster Coop’ yet?”
“Rooster coop?” Arcadia was confused. “The buildings I saw outside?”
“No, ‘Rooster coop’ is my wife’s nickname for my upstairs office,” Maximin explained. “It’s where I keep my collection of memorabilia. There’s also a wonderful water clock that Jason built.”
“Ah, Jason.” Prisca almost smiled. “Will the Greek Hephaestus be entertaining me tonight?”
Arcadia noticed Maximin flush at her tone of calculated sarcasm. In the Roman myth the crippled craftsman god Vulcan, named Hephaestus by the Greeks, was married to Venus and repeatedly cuckolded by Mars, the god of war.
“My sweet, he and Phoebe will perform a pantomime later on,” Maximin replied tersely.
Arcadia leaned aside while Andros used silver tongs to place three crayfish on her plate. When she tasted one, it was excellent, with the coriander seasoning about perfect.
Prisca nibbled at hers for a while, then discarded the shell and looked across at Arcadia. “I understand you study medicine with your husband?”
“She treated Agatha a few days ago,” Maximin said. “Very efficiently, too.”
“How clever of her.” Prisca wiped her fingers on a napkin without looking at him.
“Yes.” Maximin cleared his throat. “I was suggesting that you might want Arcadia as a physician.”
“How very thoughtful of you, Publius.”
Maximin chuckled nervously. “Well, Antioches is getting along in years.”
“And is not a pretty young woman.” Prisca gave Arcadia a wan smile. “Isn’t that so, my dear?”
“I….I’d be honored to…to help you,” Arcadia stammered. “With my husband’s consent, of course.” Your tone may be matter-of-fact, Prisca, but your disposition is as acid as the vinegar I use to treat Felicitas’ leg ulcers.
“Prisca, I told you the rumors,” Maximin continued. “Her husband Getorius will be appointed palace physician at the New Year.”
Arcadia was grateful that the tense exchange ended when Andros beckoned for a slave to bring in the second course. A silver serving dish shaped like a fluted scallop shell was presented, containing a stew of dried peas cooked with pieces of chicken, thin Lucanian sausages, onion, rissoles of minced pork, and chunks of pork shoulder. Seasoned with oregano, dill and coriander, it was a simple yet savory meal. She thought Maximin either served more exotic dishes only to his important guests, or perhaps actually practiced the republican austerity at which the Gothic Queen only pretended.
The three ate in silence. Arcadia was unable to think of a way to bring up the subject of the papyri, to see how Maximin might react, but she had more days in which to do so. She realized that she also had to convince the senator’s wife that his guest was no threat to her marriage bed.
Andros had just begun the sweet course, frying almond-stuffed dates in salted honey, when there was a stirring at the curtained backdrop of the low stage that was set up against the north wall. Jason stepped onto the platform, followed by a young woman holding a seven-stringed lyre. Both were dressed in short tunics of silver cloth and red sandals laced to the knee. Jason held a mask of Julius Caesar, whose gaunt features and thinning hair had been exaggerated into a frowning, tight-lipped caricature of the Roman dictator.
“Good lad,” Maximin applauded. “Andros, light those candles at the front of the stage. What episode from Caesar’s career have you chosen to pantomime, Jason?”
“Sir, his capture by Cilician pirates,” he replied with a slight bow.
“Good, good. Caesar was quite young then, but he still taught those brigands a lesson.” Maximin glanced at Arcadia. “Sorry, my dear. I don’t want to give the story away.”
Prisca forced a thin smile. “And Phoebe will accompany you on the lyre, Jason?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“How charming.”
The actor bowed again and arranged the mask over his face. After Andros had finished lighting the candles, Phoebe began a light plucking of the lyre’s strings. Jason swayed, picking up the rhythm, then began to recite the verses he had written:
“Let others praise proud Hercules,
and Bacchus of the frenzied maids,
Diana’s unerring bow, Neptune’s rage at sea,
or Jupiter, mightiest god of all.
Here, ’tis cunning I will praise.
Young Caesar’s mastery of its ways.”
Arcadia had not seen a pantomime before. Jason accompanied the music and the sense of the poem’s verses with graceful movements of his head and arms as he modulated his voice from frenzy, to rage, to awe.
“Caesar! Through the kings of Alba,
kin of Aeneas, and love-queen Venus.
Her son Iulus gave the family name.
But Caesar Julius won it fame.
On wild Pharmacusa, by wilder pirates still,
held for ransom. ‘Four thousand, eight hundred
pieces of gold?’ Our Caesar laughed!
Dolts. Twelve thousand will they pay,
But ’til then, in respect, I’ll stay.
Practice speeches. Recite my poems to you.
Curb carousing! My mind must concentrate.
But hear me. Ransomed, I’ll gain justice yet.”
Arcadia was impressed. The man and woman had only had a few hours to compose the piece. The meter was good, and two of the stanzas rhymed, but in different lines.
Jason continued:
“Return? Justice? My vulture captors laughed.
Gorged on others’ riches, they would threaten
Rome itself, despoil the city, as they had Italia.
Twelve thousand paid. Freed, Caesar gathered
ships. Miletan friends.
Victory gained! Captors, by Caesar’s mercy,
first hung, then crucified!
’Tis cunning here to you I praise.
Brave Caesar’s mastery of its ways.”
After Phoebe’s final strumming, which echoed the cadence of Jason’s closing verses, the actor pulled off the mask and bowed low. When he straightened again, he deftly caught the small purse that Prisca threw to him.
Maximin pretended to ignore the gesture and
