Though Castor was Egyptian by appearance and a freedman from his name, he seemed cultured and obviously had a very sharp mind. He had understood that this was to be a decorous party and that he was being invited because he was a safe guest even as the evening and the flow of wine proceeded. The fact amused rather than offending him.
“And Master Melino,” Bersinus said, indicating the final guest. “He’s a clever young Briton whose acquaintance I’ve made recently. I thought he would be an interesting companion.”
Melino had been staring at Hedia—scarcely a surprise there, Alphena thought bitterly—but he immediately turned his attention to her and smiled engagingly. “I’m very glad to meet you both,” he said in perfect Latin, bowing. “And yes, I’m British by birth, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen my soggy birthplace. At present I’ve rented a house in Puteoli to continue my researches.”
Melino wore a white tunic under a blue dinner wrap. The garments weren’t flashy, but Alphena could see that they were of the highest quality. He wasn’t Castor’s companion as she had first assumed; it was merely coincidence that they were two unattached men who were standing together.
What Melino
was
remained a question. Alphena felt a
prickling
in his presence. That wasn’t a warning, precisely, but based on her recent experience it implied magic was at work or had been at work not long before.
Melino returned his attention to Hedia, or—
Yes, he’s looking at Mother’s diadem. The diadem I gave her.
“Nine, like the Muses,” Lantinus said. He half-closed his eyelids, but Alphena could see that he was checking to be sure that everyone was watching him. “I’m something of a poet myself you know, though I fear that my work is too rarified for the common crowd.”
“I’m so in awe of you poets, Lord Lantinus,” Hedia said, sounding both soulful and sincere.
If I didn’t know Mother any better than Lantinus does, I’d believe she was both those things.
“Poetry goes right over my head. Would you believe, it puts me to sleep? My poor dim mind is
such
an embarrassment in learned company.”
Because Alphena
did
know her mother, she knew that what Hedia was saying was neither soulful nor sincere. But Alphena also knew that now they wouldn’t be bored at dinner by the volume of verse that the young aesthete happened to have along with him.
“I believe we’re ready to go in now,” Bersinus said. “On such a lovely night, I’ve instructed my steward to serve us in the outdoor dining nook.”
He turned to Hedia and placed his hands on his hips as he looked her up and down. She was certainly worth the stares that everyone, including the envious Olivia, directed at her.
Hedia had asked Alphena to join her as she chose the outfit to go with the scintillant diadem. “So that you’ll have an idea about how I go about it, dear,” Hedia had said. She didn’t add, “Since at present you have no more fashion sense than a blind mole does,” but she didn’t have to. Alphena could supply those words herself.
What Hedia settled on was three layers of silk, each of which was almost transparently white, worn with a white shoulder cape that was marginally thicker, and a white sash. The only color in the ensemble was that provided by the irregular stone in the diadem flickering through numberless blue-tinged hues.
Hedia had decided to go without underwear tonight. Alphena blushed to remember that.
“My dear,” Bersinus said, “you’re a vision of virginal loveliness.”
Olivius Macer guffawed. “Well…,” he said, looking at Bersinus but speaking loudly enough for the whole gathering to hear him clearly. “Maybe her left ear’s still virginal, eh, what?”
There was a moment of stillness, freezing all the guests where they stood. Hedia alone moved, turning her pleasant smile toward their host. “Bersinus,” she said, “I’m afraid that Macer has already had too much to drink. You’ll have to limit him to water for the remainder of the evening, I expect.”
Bersinus hadn’t moved till Hedia spoke, but his face was already deep red with fury. “I’m very sorry, gentlefolk,” he said in a wheezingly controlled voice. “My brother-in-law has decided not to join us after all, so we’ll be eight for dinner.”
“Say, wait a minute!” Macer said, coloring also. “All right, I was a little out of—”
“Macer, you idiot!” Bersinus shouted. “Get out of here or I’ll have my footmen beat you out!
And
you’ll find that every one of your mortgages has been called.
Do
you understand me?”
“Julius, you’re talking to my brother!” Olivia said sharply. “And he didn’t say anything that we both haven’t heard—”
Bersinus turned on her in a white rage. “Listen, you dozy cow!” he said, leaning forward to shout in his wife’s face. “Since you’re clearly ignorant of proper dining etiquette, perhaps you’d better eat in your room. Or with the slaves in the kitchen! Is that what you want?
Is it?
”
Castor and three sturdy-looking servants—they were apparently his own attendants—were easing Macer, who wore a stunned expression, toward his sedan chair a distance down the street. The Egyptian was whispering urgently into Macer’s ear. Alphena heard the word, “Saxa,” and realized he was warning his former fellow guest of the consequences of making an enemy of the richest man in the Senate.
Alphena nodded with approval. The good opinion she had already formed of Castor was being reinforced.
Olivia, suddenly aware of what
she
had done, retreated from her husband openmouthed. To Alphena’s amazement, Hedia stepped between Bersinus and his wife and took Olivia’s hands in her own.
“I’m so sorry, dear,” Hedia said in a clear, cool voice. “This is really all my fault, and I know how embarrassing it must be to you. Will you accept my apologies?”
Olivia nodded, gulped, and began bawling. She threw herself into Hedia’s arms; Hedia began patting her gently on the back.
Bersinus cleared his throat. “Ah…,” he said. “As I was saying, I think we can start dinner now. Ah, Lady Hedia and my wife will join us shortly, I’m sure.”
He started up the path to the house. Castor bowed and gestured Alphena to follow their host; she obeyed.
Kurnos had the expression of a spectator watching the slave dressed as Charon finish off mortally wounded gladiators in the arena, but his master gaped at the women.
I wonder if you’ll write an epic about this?
Alphena thought. It was probably too real for Lantinus, though.
Melino was staring at Hedia again. Alphena couldn’t begin to read the emotion below the surface of the youth’s face, but
something
was there.
* * *
H
EDIA TOOK ANOTHER SIP
of wine as servants carried away the remains of the platter of lampreys. The fish had been filleted before each strip was rolled around a caper and fricasseed.
“Our host told me that jellied eels are a British dish, as a special treat for me,” murmured Melino from the bottom of the cross couch, kitty-corner to Hedia at the top of the right-hand couch. “Personally, I remember mostly boiled pork, but that was a long time ago. How did it strike you?”
It hadn’t been a wholly successful experiment, in Hedia’s opinion. She would try anything once; but in addition to her being careful of her figure, there was nothing in the texture or in the sauce of sage and parsley to urge her to have another medallion.
“I’ll want to think about it for some time before I make a decision,” Hedia said. She made a point of never insulting another household’s cooking; not that it seemed likely that Bersinus, on the other side of the table from her and enmeshed by Lantinus in a literary lecture, would hear or care if he did. “You say ‘a long time ago,’ my dear, but surely not
that
long, given your youth?”
“Well, it certainly seems long ago,” said Melino. He laughed, but there was a note of more than light humor to the sound, an unintended undertone, Hedia thought. “Sometimes it seems more than a hundred years since I left my home to study with masters in the greater world. And here—”
He chuckled again, this time without additional significance.
“—I have met the most charming woman in the world. Clearly I made the correct decision, and every man at this table would agree with me.”
It was Hedia’s turn to smile. Her lips gave a cynical twist to the expression, but she wasn’t really displeased. She never minded flattery, and being flattered by a very handsome, cultured young man was piquant in itself.
“I’m afraid that the fog and drizzles you were born in have rusted your critical faculties, young man,” she said, but the way she looked at him as she spoke deliberately undercut the words.
Sometimes Hedia thought she saw flames leaping in Melino’s eyes. She was probably seeing the reflection of the lamps on stands around the alcove … but he was certainly interesting.
Melino had given Hedia all his attention during the meal, which was common enough when she was in mixed company. Under normal circumstances it would have been impolitic for a junior guest who had the host’s wife on his other side (though it might well have happened), but tonight it didn’t matter.
Olivia could have been replaced by a wooden statue without making a difference in the meal. She said little and ate less, though she drained two cups of wine for every one that her husband drank.
Bersinus had originally placed Melino at the bottom of the left-hand couch. When Macer decided not to come to dinner after all—Hedia smiled—Melino had asked to take the empty place at the cross couch next to Hedia. Neither she nor Bersinus had seen any reason not to grant the request.
She sipped her wine. It would have meant nothing to say that
she
drank less at dinner than Olivia did. Hedia always kept a clear head during the early stages of a dinner party. After the lamps had been allowed to dim and the guests who remained were drinking unmixed wine, well, whim and circumstance would determine her actions.
Tonight, however, she was present as Alphena’s mother rather than as Lady Hedia. Alphena’s mother would remain sober and watchful, whereas Lady Hedia knew how to have a good time.
Servants were bringing in the dessert trays. The fruits were in fanciful shapes—a dog’s head carved from an apple with pomegranate eyes and a gullet lined with individual blackberry cells was particularly striking—and the nutshells would probably turn out to be sweet pastry or the like, but it was a relatively restrained offering. Hedia would content herself with a walnut or two.
“I’ve been noticing the stone in your tiara,” Melino said. “It’s quite unusual.”
His conversation during the evening had been false, but no more false than banter between two strangers at dinner always was, two interesting, interested strangers. His tone had changed now, however.
“Is it?” Hedia said idly.
I counterfeit disinterest much better than he does.
She took a pistachio from the pannier of a camel formed from date flour. “Yes, I suppose it is, now that you mention it.”
“I was wondering where you got the piece, if you don’t mind my asking?” Melino said. The strain in his voice was even more obvious to an ear as well attuned to such things as Hedia’s was.
She tinkled a laugh. What looked like a pistachio was actually made half from crushed hazelnuts and half from crushed walnuts, held together by a thin coating of crystallized honey.
“Really, dear boy,” Hedia said. “Does anyone remember those things? I suppose it was a gift from someone, but I wouldn’t choose to name names even if I could.”
She swallowed the nut, then cocked her head to meet Melino’s eyes. “Have you seen these stones before, then? Where do they come from?”
Melino tapped his tongue to his dry lips. The fingers of his right hand were twisting the striking ruby ring on his left.
“I haven’t exactly seen pieces of this sort, no,” he said carefully. “But I’ve heard of such stones. That’s why I was wondering where you got it?”
“Oh, don’t be boring,” Hedia said, taking another sip of wine. Melino probably thought she was looking into her cup, but she could still watch him from the corner of her eye.
Though the young Briton had a delightful little accent, her interest in him had gone far beyond personal.
He knows something, which means he may know something we need to learn.
There would usually be entertainment at this point in the evening. Hedia had heard of learned gatherings at which each guest would read a sample of his own verse … which was probably pretty deadly, since being learned and being a poet were very different things. Not that it mattered, since nobody was going to invite Hedia to such a party anyway.
At the other end of the spectrum of propriety were parties in which the guests provided their own entertainment in non-literary sorts of ways. Bersinus sometimes hosted that sort of party while his wife was at one of their country estates. Macer had been present at those; apparently he hadn’t believed that his brother-in-law really meant that decorum would reign this time.
“I wonder, Lady Hedia…,” Melino said, his voice dropping again. “Hedia. I wonder if you would visit me tomorrow? At my home. I have some important matters to discuss with you, and I think that it’s better that we keep them between ourselves.”
Hedia laughed again.
He sounds so
earnest. Aloud she said, “You’re a very cheeky boy, you know.”
Melino looked away with an agonized expression.
My goodness, I think he’s blushing!
The servants had cleared the dessert trays and were bringing finger bowls and napkins around. Hedia dabbled her fingertips and wiped them. She and Alphena would each have a cup of unmixed wine before they left if nothing formal was planned, but from their host’s air of anticipation …
“My honored guests!” Bersinus said. He had chosen his moment when Lantinus was taking a drink of wine. That seemed to be the only time the young man stopped talking.
“Time for me to pay for my dinner, it seems,” Melino murmured. He got up from his couch, still holding his wine cup.