“I do not,” Cailin said. “I dare not. I have grown to love Aspar, but still something deep within me warns of danger. Sometimes I can ignore that voice within, but at other times it nags, and frightens me so that I cannot sleep. Aspar does not know this. I would not distress him in any way. He loves me, Casia, and is so good to me.”
“You are just fearful because the last time you allowed yourself to love a man with all your heart, you were cruelly separated from him, Cailin. It will not happen again.” She accepted a goblet of wine offered her by the attending Zeno, and sipped it. “Ahh, Cyprian! Delicious!”
An imperial guardsman entered the box. “My lord general,” he said politely. “The emperor requests that you join him at table.”
“Thank the emperor,” Aspar said, annoyed. Leo knew that he had guests of his own. “Tell him it would be impolite of me to leave my own invited guests, but that if he needs me, I will attend him afterward.”
The guardsman bowed and had turned to go when Cailin said, “Wait!” She took Aspar’s hands in her own and looked up at him. “Go, my lord, please go, if only for my sake. No matter how gently you couch your refusal, you will insult the emperor. I will entertain our guests until your return.” She leaned over and gave him a gentle kiss upon the cheek. “Now go, and you will be pleasant and polite, not irritated.”
Aspar arose reluctantly. “For your sake, my love, but only for your sake. You would not have me offend Leo, yet his invitation offends me because it ignores you, and the others with us.”
“I do not exist for the emperor, nor does Casia. As for the others, they are artisans and actors. Sometimes invited, sometimes not,” Cailin said wisely with a small smile. She was quickly learning the ways of Byzantium’s society. “Go, that your return be all the sooner!”
“You have more breeding than most of the court,” Arcadius said to her, arching a dark eyebrow. “You are not what you seem, I think.”
Cailin smiled serenely. “I am what I am,” she answered.
Arcadius chuckled, and seeing he would get no more from her today, turned his attention to the rather excellent ham upon his silver plate. He would learn what he wanted to know this summer when she posed for him.
Shortly after Aspar had departed the box, another imperial guardsman entered it, and bowing to Cailin, said. “Lady, you are to come with me, if you please.”
“What is it you want?” she asked him. “And who has sent you?”
The guardsman was young, and he blushed at her frank scrutiny. “Lady,” he agonized, “I cannot say. This is a private matter.”
Before Cailin might speak again Casia leaned forward, allowing the young man a very good view of her full bosom. “Do you know who I am, young sir?” she purred at him. “My, my, you are such a handsome fellow!”
Arcadius snickered. Casia would have the information she wanted within a very short time by the look on the guardsman’s face.
“Nay, lady, I do not know you,” the young man replied nervously, unable to tear his eyes from her snowy white breasts. “Should I?”
“I am Prince Basilicus’s special friend, young sir, and if you do not tell the lady Cailin who sent you, I shall tell my prince of your rudeness, and of how you violated me with your wicked brown eyes. Now, speak!”
The young guardsman guiltily raised his eyes. He reddened, and then he murmured low, “The empress, lady.” Then looking anxiously at Cailin, he said, “She means you no harm, lady. She is a fine woman.”
Both Casia and Arcadius laughed, causing the other guests in the box to look up from their food with curiosity.
Cailin arose. “Since you all know with whom I shall be, there is little to fear. I will go with you, young sir.” Smoothing the wrinkles from her stola, she followed him from the box and down the staircase.
At the foot of the stairs was a small door in the entry wall, so cleverly hidden that Cailin had not noticed it before. The guardsman pressed the wall in a certain spot, and the door opened to reveal a second flight of steps. She hurried down them, following the young soldier. They entered what Cailin realized was the main corridor to the imperial box. The tunnel was well-lit with torches, and several feet down from where they had entered the guardsman stopped, and pressing upon the wall, revealed another door which sprang open at his touch. Before them was a room, and within it a woman who turned at the sound of the door opening.
“Come in,” she said in a low, well-modulated voice. “Wait for us outside, John,” she ordered the guardsman. “You have done well.”
The door shut behind Cailin, who bowed politely to Verina.
“You do not look like a whore,” the empress said frankly.
“I am not one,” Cailin replied quietly.
“Yet you lived at Villa Maxima for several months, and took part in what I am told was one of the most notorious entertainments ever seen in this or any other city,” Verina said. “If you are not a whore, then what exactly are you?”
“My name is Cailin Drusus, and I am a Briton. My family descends from the great Roman family. My ancestor, Flavius Drusus, was a tribune in the Fourteenth Gemina Legion, and came to Britain with the emperor Claudius. My father was Gaius Drusus Corinium. Almost two years ago I was kidnapped and sold into slavery. I was a wife and a mother when this happened. I was brought in a consignment of slaves to this city. Jovian Maxima bought me in the common market for four folles, lady. What he did with me you are obviously aware. My lord Aspar rescued me from that shameful captivity, and freed me,” Cailin finished proudly.
Verina was fascinated. “You have the look of a patrician, and you speak well,” she said. “You live as Aspar’s mistress, don’t you, Cailin Drusus? They say he loves you not just with his body, but with his heart as well. I did not think him capable of such a weakness.”
“Is love then a weakness, majesty?” Cailin said softly.
“For those in power it is,” the empress replied honestly. “Those in power must never have any weakness that can be exploited against them. Yes, love of a woman, of children, of any kind, is a weakness.”
“Yet your priests teach that love conquers all,” Cailin said.
“You are not a Christian, then?” Verina asked.
“Father Michael, who was sent to me by the patriarch, says that I am not yet ready to be baptized a Christian. He says I ask too many questions, and have not the proper humility for a woman. The apostle Paul, I have been told, said that women should humble themselves before men. I am afraid I am not humble enough,” Cailin replied.
Verina laughed. “If most of us were not baptized as infants, we should never be, for we lack humility as well, Cailin Drusus, but you must be baptized if you are to become Aspar’s wife. The general of the Eastern Armies cannot have a pagan for a wife. It will not be tolerated. Surely you can deceive this Father Michael into believing you have learned humility.”
Aspar’s wife? She could not have heard the empress correctly.
Verina saw the startled look on Cailin’s beautiful face, and divined immediately what had caused it. “Yes,” she told the surprised girl. “You heard me correctly. I said, Aspar’s wife,’ Cailin Drusus.”