into another life. Face-to-face with what was expected from my old self, I felt awkward. I had loyalties nowadays; I had new standards. As Petronius Longus had said to Maia earlier, once you make huge decisions you cannot go back. The shock is the way other people fail to see how much you have altered. After the shock comes the danger. When those people think they know you inside out, you start to doubt yourself.
She must have been impatient. I had barely eaten my solitary victuals when a couple of women came for me.
'Ah, Heraclea, he's looking worried again.'
'Yes, I'm scared!' I grinned good-humoredly as if I thought I was being roped in for a themed orgy. Heraclea and her companion exchanged glances, no doubt aware that Chloris had plans. I could not tell how they felt about it, but I knew they would not intervene.
'You're in real trouble,' they promised me. Even at that point apprehension of the deepest kind was called for.
When they brought me back to the enclosed garden area, Chloris was waiting for me. She met me with a beaming smile. She wound herself around me, as she drew me into the garden, promising, 'Have I got a wonderful surprise for you, darling!'
It seemed best to accept the promise with a tolerant smile. That was before she led me around a statue to the center of the group and I saw just how treacherous a promise it was.
The women were all here. They had fallen silent as Chloris brought me into view, waiting to see what would happen. At the last minute, but too late to alter anything, I had heard another very familiar female voice. I had Chloris hanging off my arm and nibbling on my ear, while I wore an expression that can only have looked like pure guilt. Helena was here.
Albia, who was standing behind her, must somehow have found her and said I was a prisoner. Helena would have fearlessly broached a house full of women. She must have rushed here in a hurry, for she had even brought the children. She had come to try to rescue me-but her eyes told me if she had known in advance about Chloris I would have been left to my fate.
'Well here he is!' exclaimed Helena Justina, companion of my bed and heart. She used the singsong voice that is supposed to reassure small children who are anxious in strange surroundings and who fear a parent has gotten lost. She was a good mother. Neither Julia, who was sitting on the grass, nor the baby in her arms would sense whatever emotions Helena herself felt. I was really lost now and I knew it.
She did look impressive. A tall, dark-haired woman, making conversation with these professional fighters as if she moved among females who were outside society all the time. Like Albia at her side, she wore blue, but in several well-dyed shades, the material draped around her body with unconscious elegance. Lapis and pearl earrings said she had money; the lack of other jewelry added that she need not crudely flaunt her wealth. She seemed confident and forthright.
'Helena, my soul!'
Her dark eyes fixed me. Her voice was carefully tuned. 'Your children were missing you, Marcus! And here you are like Hercules diverting himself among Queen Omphale's women. Do be careful. Hercules was suspected ever afterwards of too much liking for women's dress.'
'I am wearing my own clothes,' I murmured.
Her glance flicked over me. 'So you are,' she commented insultingly.
Arms wide and screaming with glee, Julia Junilla hurtled up to see me. When I picked up my little thunderbolt she devised a boisterous game of climbing headfirst down inside my tunic. It was already a gaping neck-hole where the threads had run in mighty ladders and the braid had torn. This was the final indignity. I just stood and let myself become gymnastic equipment for my two-year-old.
'So!' Helena then exclaimed, her gaze resolutely finding Chloris. 'Have you finished with him? Can I take him home?'
'You've married your mother!' Chloris accused me, not bothering to lower her voice.
'I don't think so,' I said. 'I can handle my mother.'
Tired of being choked, I wrestled Julia back upright. For once, she subsided and lay looking out at the women with her curly head on my shoulder in a way that made her pretty cute. Hands reached to pet and tickle her, amid oohs and aahs.
The situation changed. Chloris was bright enough to see that her companions had been swayed by the sight of us as a family group; breaking us up would do her more harm than good. 'It's been lovely having you, but you had best run along home now, Marcus.'
Chloris walked us to the door. She did her best to sour the situation further. 'Well, he makes good babies, I can see.' It implied that Helena was just my breeding mare. Neither of us took the bait. 'I hope I haven't caused you too much trouble, Marcus darling,' she said sweetly.
'You were always trouble.'
'And you were…'
'What?'
'Oh-I'll tell you next time we're alone.' Helena was seething, as she was meant to. 'Now off you go, darling…' mouthed Chloris maliciously. 'Don't be too hard on him, Helena my dear. Men have to follow their willies, you know.'
Helena Justina then pulled off her best effort. Standing in the street, she said, 'Of course they do.' She smiled. It was polite. It showed the power of her upbringing. 'That was what brought him to me.'
Albia had bent to unfasten Nux, who had been let outside tied to a wooden post. She threw me a scared look, then let the dog drag her along well ahead of us.
'Thanks for the rescue.'
'I heard you were kidnapped!' Helena retorted. 'If it had been mentioned that you had become a willing sex toy, I would not have interfered.'
'Settle down.'
'Who exactly was that, Marcus darling?'
'A crowd-pulling gladiatrix called Amazonia.' I came clean. 'In a previous career she was a circus ropedancer.'
'Oh, her!'
'I always had good taste,' I growled. 'That's why I went for you.'
Helena Justina, with the full power of her breeding, let it be known that she was unimpressed.
I felt like a man who had just made a choice. This is always depressing, for some reason.
No wonder I was feeling low. I was now carrying two tired children through darkened streets whose ambience I did not trust, alongside an extremely silent wife.
XXVI
I took the children to the nursery and put them into their cribs myself. This looked like a ploy. I couldn't help that. Their mother rather pointedly opted out.
I found Helena afterward, just as I expected, on her own. She was seated in a wraparound chair pretending not to care. That was an act. She was waiting for me to come and find her. I had made hasty preparations. I even bathed rapidly; never have an argument with a woman when you know she is scented sweetly with cinnamon but you really stink. Lest my cleanup look too calculated, I then rushed off barefoot to find her, and I forgot to comb my hair. The eager lover, with the endearing tousled look: tonight I had to throw in every lousy gambit.
I lowered myself onto a couch, staying upright with an elbow propped on the end arm. 'Want to hear about my day?'
I kept it brief. I kept it factual. Near the beginning, when I described taking out Albia, Helena interrupted, 'You did not consult me.'
'I did wrong there.'
'You are the man of the household,' she commented sarcastically.
I plodded on with the story. She listened, but never looked at me. '…At that point the gladiator girls took me
