“They say you are the most powerful man in the empire, my lord. Even more powerful than the emperor himself,” she said.
“Never say that aloud to anyone else, Cailin,” he warned her. “The powerful are jealous of their power, and would not share it. My survival depends upon remaining a good servant of the empire. It is really the empire I honor. God, and the empire. No man. But that, my little love, must remain our secret, eh?” He smiled at her.
“You are like the Romans of old, I think, my lord. You honor the new Rome, Byzantium, as they once honored the old Rome,” Cailin said.
“And what do you know of Rome?” he asked her, amused.
“I sat with my brothers and their tutor for many years,” Cailin said. “I learned the history of Rome and of my native Britain.”
“Can you read and write?” he questioned her, fascinated.
“In Latin,” she responded. “The history of my mother’s people, the Dobunni Celts, is an oral history, but I know it, my lord.”
“Jovian told me little of your background, Cailin. Your Latin is that of a cultured woman, if a bit provincial. Who were your people?”
“I descend from a tribune of the Drusus family who came to Britain with the emperor Claudius,” Cailin said, and then, as they lay together, she told him her family’s history.
“And your husband? Who was he? Also of a Romano-Briton family?”
“My husband was a Saxon,” Cailin said. “I married him after my family was murdered at the instigation of my cousin Quintus, who wanted my father’s lands. My cousin was unaware I had escaped the slaughter until I came with my husband, Wulf Ironfist, to reclaim what was rightfully mine. Wulf killed Quintus when he attempted to attack me. It was his wife, Antonia, who betrayed me, but you already know that part of my story, my lord.”
“It is amazing that you have survived it all,” Aspar said thoughtfully.
“Now you know everything about me. Zeno has told me that your first wife was a good and an honorable woman. What he did not say about the wife you now have is more of interest,” Cailin said. “If you would tell me, my lord, I should like to know.”
“Flacilla is a member of the Strabo family,” Aspar began. “They are very powerful at court. Our marriage was one of convenience. She does not live with me, and frankly I do not even like her.”
“Then why did you marry her?” Cailin asked curiously. “You did not need to marry again at this time, my lord. You have one grown son, Zeno says, and a second son as well as a daughter.”
“Did Zeno mention my grandchildren?” Aspar demanded with a certain humor in his voice. “My daughter Sophia has three children, and my eldest son has four. Since Patricius, my youngest, shows no signs of wanting to be a monk, I can assume he, too, will give me more grandchildren one day when he is grown and wed.”
“You have grandchildren?” Cailin was astounded. He did not look that old, and his behavior was certainly not that of an old man. “How old are you, my lord Aspar? I was nineteen in the month of April.”
He groaned. “Dear God! I am certainly old enough to be your father, my little love. I am fifty-four this May past.”
“You are nothing like my father,” she murmured, and then she boldly pulled his head to her and kissed him softly, sweetly.
His head swam pleasantly with her daring. “No,” he said, his gray eyes smiling into her violet ones, “I am not your father, am I, my little love?” He kissed her back; a long, slow, deep kiss.
Cailin’s senses reeled. Finally, when she recovered herself, she said, “Tell me more about your wife, my lord Aspar.”
“I like the sound of my name upon your lips,” he said.
“The lady Flacilla Strabo, my lord Aspar,” she insisted.
“I married her for several reasons. The late emperor, Marcian, whom I placed upon the throne of Byzantium and married to the princess Pulcheria, was dying, and there were no heirs.
“Marcian came from my own household. He had served me loyally for twenty years. When I realized his end was near, I chose Leo, another of my household, to be the next emperor. I needed certain support from the court, however. The patriarch of Constantinople, the city’s religious leader, is a relation of the Strabo family, and family ties are strong here. Without him I could not have hoped to place Leo on the throne. To ensure his support, and that of the Strabo family, I married the widowed Flacilla. She was pregnant with a lover’s child at the time, and was causing her family untold embarrassment.”
“What happened to the child?” Cailin wondered aloud.
“She miscarried it in her fifth month,” he said, “but it was too late. She was my wife. In return for my aid, the patriarch and the Strabo family supported my choice of Leo. Of course, other patrician families followed suit. This allowed us a peaceful transition from one emperor to another. Civil war is unpleasant at the least, Cailin. And Flacilla is to all outward appearances a good wife. She has taken my little son, Patricius, in her charge, and is a very good mother to him. He is being raised in the Orthodox faith. I hope to match him with the princess Ariadne one day, and make him Leo’s heir, for the emperor has no sons.”
“What do you want of me, my lord, I mean other than the obvious?” Cailin asked him, and then she blushed at her own audacity. Still, her life since leaving Britain had been so unsettled. She needed to know if she was to have a permanent home.
He thought for several long minutes. “I loved my first wife,” he began. “When Anna died, I thought that I should never again care for a woman. I certainly do not like Flacilla, but I serve a purpose for her. Her social stature is practically as high as the empress Verina, for I am the General of the Eastern Armies, and the First Patrician of the Empire. Flacilla, in turn, mothers my orphaned son, but that is all she does for me.
“I am powerful, Cailin, but I am alone, and the honest truth is, I am a lonely man. When I saw you that night at Villa Maxima, you touched me as no woman has ever really touched me. I need your love, I need your gentleness, and I need your companionship in my life. Do you think that you can give it to me, my beauty?”
“My grandfather said I had a sharp tongue, and I do,” Cailin told him slowly. “I am practical to a fault. If there is any gentleness left in me, my lord Aspar, you are possibly the only one to see it. Now what I must say to you will sound hard, but I have learned in the last year to be hard in order to survive. You are not a young man, yet I am your slave. If you should die, what will happen to me? Do you think that your heirs will treat the slave mistress of their father with kindness? I think not.
“I believe that I shall be disposed of with all the other possessions that you own that will be considered unnecessary. Can I love you? Yes, I can. I believe you to be kind and good, but if you truly care for me, my lord, then make provisions to keep me safe when you are not here to do so yourself. Until that time I will serve you with all my heart and soul.”
He nodded quietly. She was right. He would have to make arrangements to protect her when he no longer could. “I will go to the city tomorrow and arrange for everything,” he promised her. “You will be free upon my death, and have an inheritance to keep you. If you bear my children, I will provide for them, and recognize them as well.”