Cledonius was still talking. 'Up there, you can see…'
And Julia… What would she look like? Ballista pictured the black – very black – eyes, the olive skin, the black hair tumbling to her shoulders. Julia – the daughter of a long line of Roman senators, married to a barbarian diplomatic hostage become Roman officer – how would she welcome him? He thought of her tall but rounded body, the firm breasts, the swell of her hips. Over a year without a woman; Allfather, he wanted her.
'… the Iron Gate, a complicated system of sluices.' Sensing Ballista's distraction, Cledonius sounded slightly put out. 'I thought that, as a military engineer, you might be interested.'
'No, I'm sorry, it's very interesting.' I can add it to the water clock at the palace as another piece of hydraulic engineering to study while the emperor decides my fate, Ballista thought sourly.
They turned their horses past the temple of Zeus, out of the omphalos, the 'navel' of the city, and into the main street. The great colonnaded street of Tiberius and Herod ran for about two miles right across the city. Unsurprisingly in a city of a quarter of a million people, it was crowded. Numberless kiosks were jammed between the columns on either side. They sheltered a bewildering range of merchants: greengrocers, goldsmiths, stonemasons, barbers, weavers, perfumers, sellers of cheese, vinegar, figs and wood. Ballista studied the cabins with their brushwood roofs. He could detect no order in their arrangement. More respectable trades, silversmiths and bakers, were jammed up against cobblers and tavern keepers.
Cledonius turned. His long, lop-sided face was smiling. 'They say that each clings to his pitch as Odysseus clung to the wild fig tree above the cave of the monster Charybdis.'
Ballista thought about this. The poetry of Homer was common currency among the elites of the imperium, its use an empire-wide badge of status. 'Does it mean that the sites are too lucrative to lose, or that if they lose them they will fall into an abyss of abject poverty?'
Cledonius' face did not change; it continued to smile an open, guileless smile, but he looked sharply at Ballista. It was easy to underestimate this barbarian. Never easier than now, when, muddied and bloody, he looked like everyone's idea of a big, witless northerner. It was all too easy to forget that he had been brought into the empire as a teenager and educated at the imperial court. Cledonius thought that only a fool would gratuitously make an enemy of this man.
'Off to our left is the main theatre. It contains a wonderful statue of the muse Calliope as the Tyche, the Fortune, of Antioch.' The ab Admissionibus resumed his soothing chatter. 'Some of the more ignorant locals think…'
After a time they turned left into a side street heading up towards the foothills of Mount Silpius. Soon they were deep in the residential district of Epiphania: on either side, well-built houses of limestone and basalt. The horses stretched out their necks and trod carefully as the street steepened. Over everything loomed the switchback wall of the mountain.
They passed the Temple of Dionysus, and Cledonius pulled up in front of a large townhouse. The long blank wall of the residence was broken by a gate flanked by two columns of imported marble. A porter appeared.
'Tell the Domina Julia that her husband has returned,' Cledonius said.
For a moment the porter seemed confused, looking at the small cavalcade. With a miniscule gesture Cledonius indicated Ballista. Smartly the porter stepped over and held the bridle of Ballista's horse as the northerner dismounted.
'Welcome home, Dominus.' The porter bowed. Presumably he was either a hired local or a recent purchase. As Ballista thanked and said goodbye to Cledonius the porter ordered a boy to run and inform the domina of the happy event.
'Please follow me, Dominus.'
Ballista watched Cledonius and his servants ride on, then turned and followed the porter.
As they entered the house they walked over a mosaic of a naked hunchback sporting an improbably large erection. Obviously the owner of the rented house was a man of some superstition, who feared the envy of his fellow townsmen. Ballista smiled. There were many worse grotesques that could deflect the evil eye from one's front door, and this one to some extent mirrored what was on Ballista's mind.
At the end of a long dark corridor was an open courtyard. Ballista stopped when he emerged into the sunshine. There was a pool in the middle, reflecting dappled light up on to the surrounding columns. He looked into it. At the bottom was another mosaic. This one was an innocent scene of marine life: fishes, a dolphin and an octopus.
Ballista hesitated. He leant on one of the columns and closed his eyes. The reflected sunlight played on his closed eyelids. He felt strangely nervous and unsure. How would Julia receive him? It had been a long time. Would she still want him? With a sick feeling, he faced up to a fear he seldom let himself consider. Had she taken a lover? The morality of the metropolis, let alone that of the imperial court, was not that of his northern upbringing. There was no point hanging around here. Do not think, just act. Somehow the mantra that he had used to force himself through so many things seemed singularly inappropriate here.
Ballista opened his eyes and nodded to the porter, who led him across the courtyard and deeper into the house.
They crossed a dining room, more mosaics on the floor and paintings on the wall passing unnoticed. The porter stopped and opened a double door to the private apartments.
'Domina, your husband, Marcus Clodius Ballista.' The porter stepped back and Ballista walked into the room. The door closed behind him.
Julia stood very still on the far side of the room. She was flanked by two maids, each a step behind her. Decorously, she stepped forward.
'Dominus.' Her voice betrayed no emotion. Modestly, she kept her eyes down. She was every inch the Roman matron of the past receiving her husband back from the wars.
'Domina.' Ballista leant down. Julia brought her head up. Their eyes met. Hers gave nothing away. He kissed her gently on the lips. She looked down again.
'Will you sit?' She indicated a couch. Ballista sat.
'Would you care for a drink?'
Ballista nodded. She told one of her maids to bring wine and water, the other to bring a bowl of warm water and towels.
The maids left and the silence stretched. Julia kept her eyes down. Ballista sat very still. He stifled a yawn.
The maids returned. Julia told them that she would see to the comfort of the dominus herself. They should go and make sure that the bath was hot. The maids left once more.
She mixed a glass of wine and water and handed it to Ballista. She moved the bowl of water close to him and sank to her knees. He took a drink. With firm hands she pulled off his boots. Taking first one then the other of his feet, she began to wash them. The water splashed up on to his trousers.
'They are getting wet. You should take them off,' she said. Was there a hint of a smile before she looked down and her long black hair hid her face?
Ballista stood and pushed down his undergarments with his trousers and stepped out of them. He sat. She began washing his feet again. The tension was getting to him. His chest felt tight, his palms slick with sweat.
Julia looked up, into his face. She smiled.
With one movement, Ballista got to his feet. Putting his hands under her arms, he pulled her up with him. He kissed her. Her tongue darted into his mouth.
After a few moments she pulled a little away from him. 'My family warned me of this when they married me off to a barbarian – that I would be a slave to his dreadful lusts.'
Ballista grinned. 'Paulla' – he called her by the name her family used, 'Little One', then by his own affectionate diminutive, 'Paullula.' She stepped back and unfastened her tunic, letting it drop to the floor. She was wearing nothing underneath. Her body looked breathtakingly good. He bent and kissed her breasts, licking them, the nipples stiffening under his tongue.
He straightened up and looked in her eyes. 'It has been a very long time.' She did not reply, but taking his hand, turned and led him to a couch.
'Yes, it has been a long time,' she said. Her hands pushed his tunic up out of the way. There were some other travellers on the road up to Daphne, but even after just three days it was a relief to be free of the crowds of Antioch.
