A Flame in Byzantium

"No," he admitted grudgingly.



"And with a little good fortune, it will not be the last." She continued to stare into the pallid afternoon. The light, softened by a faint haze rising from the Tibros, was kind to her face, making her appear younger than her years. Her soft, fawn-brown hair was braided and wrapped in the current fashion for widows, and she wore a paenula of wool embroidered with silk and gold thread that showed her wealth more than her manner.



"You have a strange way of thinking, my mistress," Niklos said, beginning to smile in spite of his own foreboding.



"It comes with the years, my friend," she said, and shook off her slight melancholy. "I want you to make sure that copies of these writs are in the hands of the monks by morning. That way, no matter what happens here, the slaves will be free and they can make lives for themselves. You'd better take the grants with you to the monks as well."



Niklos laughed cynically. "You're not seriously asking me to put money in the hands of a servant of God and expect it to go anywhere but into Church coffers, are you?"



"You may be right in that, Niklos," she sighed. "All right; I'll find a way to make sure each gets the money they've been promised, and the copies of the writs will be safe. Take one or two of the gold cups with you to make sure the good monks continue to care for the records we entrust to them. I'm not quite as trusting as you often fear I am."



"And what else?" Niklos ventured. "You have most of your belongings crated and packed and ready to be moved. Does that trouble you?"



"Of course it troubles me. Roma is my home. I drew my first breath here, within sight of the Tibros. It is part of me and I am part of it." Her expression was slightly distant as she delved her memory for the events of her long life.



"We can still arrange for you to stay in Italy," suggested Niklos. "You don't have to go as far away as Constantinople."



"Almost all those who can afford to leave have done so already and if I remain much longer, I will be exposed to more risks than the mere clash of Byzantines and Ostrogoths. So long as I must live with lions, I might as well find myself a good place in their dens." She laughed suddenly. "How unendurable! I sound worse than one of those Epicureans who ape the manner of their teacher without the least understanding of what he said."



"You don't want to go, do you?" Niklos persisted.



"No, if it were possible to remain in safety. But since it is not, then I'm… resigned. I will go to Constantinople, to the house that Belisarius has arranged for me, and when the army is at home, I will entertain this Drosos and do my best to be as inconspicuous as possible." She held out the parchment sheets to Niklos once again. "Please, Niklos, take these to the monks and bring me the sigil of the abbot, or whatever superior they have now, so that I can give proof of the transaction. We can squabble later, when we're safe."



"As you wish, my mistress," Niklos said, making a reverence to her that just missed being insulting. He took the parchments and strode to the door. "I'll send Kosmos to guard you while I'm gone. I don't trust those soldiers to be respectful."



Olivia chuckled. "No more do I, but they're likely to look for female slaves rather than the owner of the villa who is also known to be the hostess of their General."



"You put more store in that than I do," Niklos warned as he started across the smaller of the two atria of the villa.



It was not long before Kosmos appeared in the door, his manner as humble as his body was formidable. He lowered his head and kept his eyes averted. "Niklos sent me, great lady," he said softly.



"He said he would," Olivia agreed.



"And the General Belisarius has returned. His horse has just been taken to the stables." For Kosmos this was a long speech, and as he concluded it, he appeared to be slightly out of breath.



Olivia gave Kosmos her full attention at this. "General Belisarius. Only he?"



"There are officers with him," said Kosmos.



"I will see them shortly, in the main reception chamber. Have flowers brought there, and send Hogni and… oh, I guess it had better be Hogni and Beltzin, to wait on them. They will want to have wine and meat as well as washing basins." To Olivia, this seemed woefully inadequate, for when she was young, nothing less than a full bath—calidarium, tepidarium, frigidarium—and a massage with costly oils followed by a nine-course banquet would be considered a proper welcome for so august a man as Belisarius.



"Very good, great lady. But you will be left alone, and that is what Niklos required I not allow to happen." Again he was sounding breathless.



"I give you my word that I will manage, and that I will be able to fend for myself. Besides, I must do something about my clothes or I will be more improper than they are." She went briskly toward the side door. "I am going now to my private quarters, and if you will see that Fisera joins me there, that will ensure I am not alone and you will be able to complete the commission I have given you." As she watched him go, she wondered if she had made a mistake in freeing him. Kosmos was not used to living on his own, and in these troubled times, she feared he would become prey to the first scoundrel who came across him.



She stopped these ponderings as she reached the door of her private suite of rooms. Always when she stepped through the door, she felt herself on the brink of the past. It pleased her to indulge in a sense of nostalgia; this afternoon she had to admit that there was a pang of something more. She stared at the frescoes on the wall, at the furniture and the ornaments she had gathered together here, and knew that as many of them as she took with her to Constantinople, it would not be the same, and that she would not find them as appropriate, as comforting as they were here, where they belonged. They were Roman; so was she. Here she was on her native earth and there she would be a stranger. Nothing would alter that, and she knew she would have to reconcile herself to it.



There was a gentle rap on the door on the far side of the room and this brought Olivia out of her reverie. "Yes?"



"It is Fisera, mistress," said the slave.



"Enter, Fisera," she said, speaking more briskly and moving with renewed vitality. This was not the time to be distracted, she reminded herself as she admitted the slave. There was too much to do.



Fisera had brought two long pallia with her, one of a rich deep-rose color embroidered all over with golden medallions, the other a strange shade that was almost not any color—a shadow tone between gray and tan and green—ornamented with dark brown silken embroidery and with accents picked out in seed pearls. She stopped, staring at Olivia. "Oh, mistress," she said in a faltering way.



"Tomorrow I am no longer your mistress, Fisera, and you do not need to call me your mistress any longer." She gave her a heartening smile. "Come, Fisera, don't be troubled. There is no reason for me to doubt your devotion, whether you wear a collar or not."



"You have been most kind to me, mistress," said Fisera with genuine feeling.



An expression that was not quite a frown passed fleetingly over Olivia's face. "Have I? I hope so. It was my intention, but that often counts for little."



Alarmed by this sudden change in Olivia's manner, Fisera reached out and touched her arm. "Have I offended you, mistress?"



"No," said Olivia, her demeanor changing again. "No, of course not. I was remembering the past. I've been doing a lot of that recently. I must be… getting old."



"You are young forever, mistress," Fisera said, more in wariness than flattery.



"I have that sort of face," said Olivia.



"Perhaps more than that," murmured the slave-woman. "I have been in your household for more than eight years and I have not noticed a change in you. There are those, not close to you, who have hinted that you must practice the magical arts of the old days, when sorcery was used by the witch Messalina." She said this last with her eyes averted.



"Messalina was hardly a witch: she had the misfortune to be married to that pervert Claudius, and that—" She heard the sound of her voice and broke off. "I cannot believe that Messalina used any arts but her own womanliness to lure her husband."



"They say that her husband wasn't all she lured," the slave said, her face more animated. "She was an infamous adulteress."



"And whose idea was that, do you think?" Olivia asked, and then, before Fisera could answer, she went on. "Well, that was hundreds of years ago, wasn't it? And I have guests who require entertainment this evening. You brought me the pallia, I see. Perhaps I ought to choose one so you may pack the other."



"It depends on what paenula you have selected." Fisera held up the rose-and-gold pallium. "This brings out color."



"So it does," agreed Olivia. "And still, do I want color? Do I want to shout or whisper?" She fingered the two pallia. "Which is best?"



"You have the gold pectoral, and you can wear it with this. It would make a very impressive—"