Diana could not quash her anger as they made their way back to the apartment that evening, as dusk gradually fell over the somnolent face of Rome. Aside from feeling tired enough to fall asleep on her feet, the spectacle they had witnessed earlier that evening hadn't just filled her with a mother's concern for Julia's moral welfare, should they continue to live in this section of the city. It had also inspired in her a strange foreboding about the future.
She did not believe in premonitions.
Her father, immovably practical, had made certain to stamp out early all
superstitions from his children's minds. Her fairly slow-witted mother had
simply been made uncomfortable by such talk. Diana's vivid girlhood dreams, and
terrifying nightmares, had always been brushed aside. Such training had been
entirely beneficial when she had been a servant – young girls were expected to
be silly and small-minded when displaying themselves before Imperial royalty.
Now that she had these
responsibilities, however, it seemed to limit her effectiveness as a parent,
because Julia was clearly no ordinary little girl.
Walking behind Diana as she opened
their apartment door, she carried a basket full of vegetables almost the same
size as she was with apparent ease. Her surprising strength was plainly not
limited to her developing mind.
"Is that not too heavy for you,
darling?" Diana enquired, tilting her head quizzically at the small girl.
Julia shook her head, lifting the
basket up to her shoulders as if mocking its attempt to slow her down. "I'm
alright. Did you see that man looking at us in the market?"
Diana carried her own burden
cumbersomely inside the door, where she dropped it, and beckoned for Julia to
follow her. Across the room beside their twin beds, she lit an oil lamp. "I did
not. A lot of people stare at us in the street, baby. As long as they don't try
to harm us, there's nothing wrong with it."
"I know that, but it is terribly
nosy of them."
Diana smiled, stroking the clever
girl's shining fair hair, even more beautiful than Lucilla's had been. Her
loveliness always left a lump in her throat.
"Why do they stare, Mama?"
Quickly going over her carefully
prepared story, Diana bit her lip, preparing to lie. "Because we live here on
our own, precious. Not many ladies live on their own with their children, you
know."
"Is it because I don't have a
father?" Julia said, without sounding the least bit upset. "The other children
all have fathers."
"You have a father as well," Diana
said quickly. "But he died, before you were born. I'll tell you more about him
when you're a little older. I'm sorry I haven't told you anything about that
before."
"It's alright." Julia put down her
basket and began putting some of the vegetables down ready to be cut. "I know
people are bad to ask too many questions. Antoninus isn't bad, though. He talks
to me sometimes when we're at market."
Diana, absently, was caught off
guard by the strange name. Antoninus – grand, important. It reminded her,
distantly, of something she had heard before. It was definitely entirely out of
place in these parts of the city.
It took several seconds for her to realise the true
implications of what Julia was saying.
"Strangers talk to you at market, do they?"
Julia nodded, holding a fresh apple to her button
nose to smell it. Her cheeks were rosy with contentment – or excitement. "Yes.
Only I don't think he counts as a stranger, Mama, because we know him. He sells
pottery and baskets, lots of them."
"Well…have I spoken to him?"
"Yes! He's the nice man with the beard who always
tries to talk to you. When you ignore him he just asks me about you."
Diana felt her cheeks burn and her heart sink. No
wonder they were gossiped about so much; she had made them unpopular by being
so very impolite.
"Oh, how terrible of me," she lamented out loud. She
sat down on her bed, her head feeling light with fatigue and mortification. "I
will try harder, Julia. We will have friends."
"That's good, Mama." Julia smiled and sat beside
her, leaning her head on Diana's shoulder. "I think Antoninus will forgive you,
though. He likes you very much."
Long
after Julia snored sweetly beneath her blankets, Diana stayed awake, feeling as
though she had forgotten something. She suddenly felt very strange, though not
in an altogether unpleasant way. The invisible ball and chain around her ankle
was becoming lighter with each passing second. She no longer wished to sleep
constantly. Deep in her being, she felt more alive than she ever had. More
vivacious, more loved, even than when she had been the treasure of her family.
Rolling over on her bed, which
almost felt softer, she looked closely at Julia's lovely face, and felt so full
of love for her, the sensation was almost frightening. She looked around their
little home, and saw everything they had: comfort, safety, all the necessities
and luxuries they needed. Finally, Diana admitted to herself that she had never
known such contentment.
She was finally forgetting her
disgrace – that time in her life she had never spoken of to another human being
and never would. It was in the past. The bad chapter of her life was closing;
truly it had been ever since she had become Lucilla's unwilling foundling at
the age of fourteen, when the wounds of her dishonour were still open and
painful, feeling as though they would never heal.
Sitting up, she reached over to the
chest across the room, containing the few items she had brought back with her
from Greece. It was only the second time she had uncovered them in almost five
years, such a bittersweet relic had they been. A few gold coins, unspent, lucky
charms from the good Princess, destined to stay there forever. A torn shawl and
worn linen dress. A baby blanket of Julia's.
Then, Diana's throat caught
painfully at the sight of a splendid golden jewellery box with an illustrious
and poignant history. A gift to Lucilla from her husband on their wedding day.
Still containing all her jewels, taken off, in spite of her ladies' pleas, when
they were banished to the island and she no longer considered herself a
princess.
Tentatively, Diana opened the box,
hearing its old hinges creak. Lifting a heavy jewelled collar from within,
instinctively she held onto it very tightly. Its coldness sent an unwelcome
chill through her, yet she barely noticed. Every piece of shining metal, every
precious stone, was marked with Lucilla. She was not lost. Diana smiled,
feeling some resolution, at last, in her aimless life. For a long time she had
tried to hold on to every tiny memory she had, as if she were losing the lady
all over again. Now she realised that that, as long as she had these things,
there was no need.
Reluctantly putting the necklace
away, she closed the box and put it safely away again.
The bundle of stiff papers inside it, wrapped in
cloth and buried deep beneath the numerous other treasures, had gone unnoticed,
not to be discovered for many years to come.
* * *
Quintus was considering abandoning his carefully laid plans for a second time. His years of absence from the workings of the Roman political system and blunted his recollection of what a cynical system it could be. He and Crispinus, the jaded and self-important son of a rising patrician, had spoken many, many times of how they may exploit the fragile make-up of the rule of the Empire, and had grown to despise each other more and more through the flimsy veneer of their 'friendship'.
The bottle of wine on the table between them steadily disappearing, Crispinus's anecdotes became gradually more outrageous and hyperbolic. Quintus, on the other hand, measured his disclosures carefully, choosing the exact moment when he wished to tell his rival, whose powerful relatives might just come to be useful, what he planned soon to do.
"And then I suppose my father will be executed," Crispinus slurred, ending his latest prediction for his father's flourishing career. "Sometimes, he is so close to committing high treason that I fear terribly for our ruin."
He was almost twenty-one, but his overbearing enthusiasm at being the master of all that was his father's in the man's absence gave him the air of an extremely spoiled child. He was not handsome, yet he collected loose women by the houseful. Everything about him was too loud – his clothes, his voice, his presence. Watching him with increasing distaste, Quintus fleetingly saw something of his late brother, and cringed.
"But not your father's life?" Quintus said, smiling wryly, his stomach turning again at his companion's brashness, which did not end when he became sober.
Crispinus sneered. "It is a woman's station to grieve for such trifling commodities as a life. You must know by now, Quintus, that a man should fear for nothing but much greater things. Such as property. Status. Pride."
Quintus nodded slowly. "I heartily agree. The terrible transience of such things makes them of the uppermost importance."
"Transience?"
"Once I was second in command to the greatest Roman general who ever lived," Quintus explained, his voice quietened partly by anger, partly by intense bitterness. "Now what am I?"
"A man who will no doubt regain his affluence with time," Crispinus replied charitably, though at the same time avoiding the other man's cold gaze.
Quintus rose and turned towards the row of statues and busts gracing the wall behind him. Faces of an unmistakeable, however tainted, lineage, stared back at him grandly. Repressing a surge of jealousy, he turned back to Crispinus.
"I see why you worry so that your father will be ruined. It would be a terrible shame to see so much fine marble go to waste."
This slight on his family's property made Crispinus flinch. He quickly took a gulp of wine, regaining his composure. "And if you were ruined, Quintus – for there is no other family to do it for you – naught would be wasted, would it?"
Quintus seated himself once more, in no mood for battle. Or to lose Crispinus's comradeship. "True, my friend." He took up his own drink, but took only a small sip; not enough to rob him of his senses. "But let us not argue. I came here to tell you something in particular; something I trust you'll be interested to hear."
Crispinus swore he could feel his ears pricking up. Quintus's revelations bored him at the best of times, not least the ones he felt to be so important as to require his unwelcome presence at this fine villa. Any news, however, was good news in these tedious times, almost completely bereft of intrigue.
"Very well, Quintus," he said flatly. "Excite me."
"My man Didius has a lover, a girl from the royal household of the late Lady Lucilla. A charming creature, much too intelligent for her own good."
Crispinus sniffed.
"When the princess died, this girl brought back with her from exile in Greece some very interesting information, which I hope to be able to implement. It concerned not only the lady, but something very valuable she supposedly left behind."
Quintus stopped abruptly, watching Crispinus's expression closely. Before the other man's face could change, however, he blurted out, "You trust that gossip relayed by a handmaiden to a manservant she sleeps with to be the truth? Why, man, you will get yourself ostracised completely with such talk!"
His companion shook his head sedately, as if he had fully expected just such a response. "I assure you, this tale is much too elaborate to have been imagined by a woman. My servant is no fool, despite the impression he may give sometimes. He has been unfailingly loyal to me these ten years."
Crispinus started to laugh quietly, flecks of wine shooting out of his mouth. "Quintus, this is too ridiculous. I was as much in love with the Princess as every man was, but I cannot believe that any commodity linked to her can be of any value now! What was it, anyway?" He fixed an incredulous look on the other man.
"A child. Her child."
Crispinus swallowed, his laughter stopping immediately. "A son?"
"A daughter. An invaluable tool; do you not see? If this girl is claimed by the right person, raised as royal property and married at a suitable age, her lucky husband will have a claim to the throne, and the line will be continued!"
Crispinus began to splutter, blinking manically as he mentally reviewed all the facts. "But the lady was not married. This…girl…is a bastard. Her father, for all we know, is a commoner!" He caught himself suddenly. "We do not even know whether she exists, Quintus!"
Settling back, Quintus revelled in the security of his own knowledge. He took a real mouthful of the fine wine afforded by his lavish connections, savouring the flavour. "I do know. You see, I have found her."
"You have found the child?"
"Well, Didius has found her for me. His sweetheart's tongue becomes quite loose when he handles her properly." He smiled lasciviously.
Crispinus's eyes had grown so wide that they covered almost half of his face. "Well? Who is raising the spawn of that splendid creature?"
"Oh, just another of the lady's maids. An awfully meek, nervous thing named…Diana. Didius tells me they live in some squalid place outside the city, but that they are shockingly self-sufficient. Hardly a suitable home for the future Empress, don't you agree?"
Intense cynicism had clouded the other man's eyes once again. "I will not believe this until I see it, man. Nay, I will not believe it at all!" His face reddened with shock and buried envy of his lowly companion's coup. "You are stupid to even consider this. A bastard being raised as a pauper is worth nothing!"
"Perhaps. But how much is the daughter of the General Maximus worth?"
