“Not really,” Casia replied. “You would get used to it. Good gladiators are magnificent to watch, but they are a rare breed now. The church does not approve of them, but I will bet the patriarch and his minions will all be there in their box howling with the same blood lust as the rest of us.” She laughed. “They are such hypocrites! I am sorry you are not going. I shall have to sit in the stands, then, but I would not miss these matches for the world.
“The Saxon is fighting. He has never, they say, lost a match. He seems to have no fear of death, and his other appetites are equally insatiable, I am told.”
Casia stayed at Villa Mare for three days. The day before she left, Arcadius arrived with a wagon in which sat the pedestal for the young Venus and several beefy helpers who were to move the statue from the studio to its place in the garden. The two young women watched, fascinated, as the work was carried out, hard pressed not to laugh at the sculptor who fussed and fumed at the workmen as they went about their task. Finally the young Venus was settled upon her pink and white marble base, angled so that she was facing the sea. Arcadius heaved a great sigh of relief. “Well?” he demanded. “What think you?”
Casia was visibly impressed, and said so. Cailin simply kissed the sculptor on the cheek, causing him to flush with pleasure.
“It is marvelous,” he agreed with them.
“Stay with us tonight,” Cailin said.
“Yes,” Casia echoed. “You can return to the city in the morning in my litter with me, Arcadius. ‘Twill be a far nicer trip than if you ride back in the wagon with your workmen, who smell of onions and sweat.”
Arcadius shuddered at her rather graphic but accurate description. “I will remain,” he said, and instructed his foreman to take the men and return to Constantinople. Then turning to the women, he told them, “The gladiators arrived yesterday. They paraded through the city in full regalia, as if that were necessary to stimulate interest in the games. The populace is in a frenzy already. I cannot tell you how many women fainted at the sight of the champion. He is frankly the most magnificent piece of male flesh I have ever seen. It would be a pity if he were killed, but then, he has prevailed so far.”
Casia and Arcadius, city people to the bone, chattered on throughout the evening, filling Cailin’s ears with all manner of gossip. Though it was amusing, she was frankly relieved to be able to seek her quiet bed that night and to bid her guests farewell in the morning. She wondered if she would indeed have to involve herself in the affairs of the court once she and Aspar were married. Perhaps Arcadius was wrong.
In the afternoon, Cailin swam in the still warm sea, and lay naked on the beach, drying in the autumn sun. The peace was wonderful, and she reveled in it. She fell asleep, and when she awoke, she was filled with new energy and was suddenly eager to have Aspar home.
Chapter 13
Aspar returned to Villa Mare late the next evening and immediately took Cailin to bed. In the early morning, when they had sated themselves of their desire for each other, they lay talking.
“I arrived in Constantinople yesterday afternoon,” he told her, “and reported immediately to Leo. The difficulties in Adrianople have been overcome. There is peace in that city once more, although for how long, I cannot say. I have little patience with those who argue over creed and clan. What fools they are!”
“They are most of the world,” Cailin said, “but I agree with you, my love. Most people like to think life a deep and difficult puzzle, but it is not, I believe. We are bound by one thread—our humanity. If we would but put our differences aside, and weave the cloth of our fate with that one thread, there would be no more differences between us.”
“You are too young to be so wise,” he teased her, kissing her lightly, and then he said, “Would you like to know my reward for this recent service to Byzantium?” He smiled into her face, his brown eyes twinkling mischievously at her.
Cailin’s heart began to race. She didn’t even dare to voice the question. She simply nodded.
“You are to be baptized on November first by the patriarch himself in the private chapel of the imperial palace,” Aspar told her. “Then the patriarch will marry us. Leo and Verina will stand as our formal witnesses. You will have to choose a Byzantine name, of course.”
She gasped. It was true, then. “Anna-Marie,” she managed to say. “Anna for your good wife who was the mother of your children, and Marie for the mother of Jesus.”
“You have chosen well,” he said. “No one can help but approve, but I will never call you anything but Cailin, my love. To the world you will be Anna-Marie, the wife of Flavius Aspar, but it is Cailin with whom I fell in love, and will continue to love for all time.”
“I cannot believe that the emperor and the patriarch have at last given their consent,” Cailin told him, her eyes wet with tears.
“Neither of them are fools, my love,” Aspar told her. “Your introduction into Byzantine society could hardly be called a conventional one,” he said with a small smile, “yet both Leo and the church know your behavior since I bought and freed you has been far more circumspect than most of the women at court, especially in light of the current scandal surrounding Basilicus’s wife, Eudoxia. As for me, I have given my life for Byzantium, and if in my later years I cannot have what I so deeply desire, what further use will I be to the empire?”
“Did you tell them that?” Cailin asked, surprised that he would have lowered his guard so greatly before the emperor and the patriarch.
“Aye, I did,” Aspar admitted, and then chuckled. “The threat was merely implied, my love. I hold a great advantage over the emperor in that there is no other soldier of my standing who can lead the armies of the empire. If I were to retire from public life.…” He smiled at her again. “I left it to their imaginations. It did not take long for Leo to decide, and he argued the patriarch into acquiescence most convincingly. The emperor has recently learned the value of a loyal and virtuous wife.
“Then having gained my heart’s desire, I was forced to sit through a banquet, which is why I was so late in arriving last night. Did you miss me greatly, my love?”
“I missed you terribly,” she flattered him, “but I was not too lonely. Arcadius finished the statue. It now stands in the garden, my wedding gift to you, Aspar. He has also counseled me most wisely on the court. I shall remain a party to no faction, I promise you.”
“Do you want to go to court?” he asked, surprised.
“Not really,” Cailin told him. “Arcadius says it is my duty once I am the wife of the First Patrician of the empire, but I would far prefer to remain here in the country.”
“Then you shall,” he told her. “Arcadius is just an old gossip. You will, of course, be expected to appear at state functions where I am required to be but, otherwise, if you choose to live a quiet life, you most certainly may. I shall give you children to raise, and my care will naturally be foremost in your duties. Your days will be most full,” he teased her gently, running his hand across her shoulder.
“I want to raise chariot horses,” she told him. “We have spoken of it before.”
“I offer you children to raise, and you ask for horses!” He pretended to be offended, but Cailin knew better.