I nodded.
"For a time, they were invincible," Lucius said softly. "I could have lived then. I could have been born in Terre d'Ange, where men still believe such things and write poems about them. They do, don't they?" There was a catch in his voice, vulnerable and hopeful.
"Yes," I said. "They do."
"Do you?" he asked.
His gaze was direct, and I returned it honestly. "No," I said. "I can understand it. Truth be told, there is no one outside Montrève that I have ever loved better than Eamonn mac Grainne. He is like a brother to me, and I would gladly spend my life to defend his honor. But…" I hesitated, then forged ahead. "Some bad things happened to me, Lucius, when I was a child, before I was adopted. Betimes I find it hard enough to be with women, although that has changed. Still, I find myself shying from the thought of being with a man. Mayhap that will change, too. But for now… no."
"I didn't think so." Lucius tilted his head and regarded the ceiling.
"Lucius." I laid one hand over his laced fingers. "I'm sorry."
"Not your fault." He bowed his head, contemplating our hands. "Though surely this must be the first conversation betwixt Caerdicci and D'Angeline that fell out thusly." His lips quirked and his fingers stirred, catching mine in a hard grip. "You named me friend when we first met, Imriel nó Montrève. Are you willing to stand by it?"
I returned his grip, hard. "I am."
"Good," Lucius said briefly. "I have need of friends."
After the second jug, we left the wineshop. Lucius bade us farewell, and I accompanied Eamonn as he escorted Brigitta to the insula where she lodged. There was a landlady who rented her entire complex to female scholars only, and allowed no men past the gate. I loitered while they exchanged good-byes, trying not to eavesdrop.
We went to the Great Forum and bought skewers of grilled chicken from a vendor, sitting on the low steps that bordered the Forum to eat them. It was nearing dusk, and the street performers were getting in their last fleeting hour of work. We watched a fire-eater spew gouts of flame from his mouth, lurid against the gloaming sky, then lower the torch, extinguishing its flame with his mouth.
"I'd like to learn to do that," Eamonn said. "Do you think he'd teach me?"
"I have no idea," I said. My weariness was returning with a vengeance and my head ached with a dull, steady throb. The thought of lying on my pallet and letting myself slip into unconsciousness seemed like bliss.
Eamonn studied the fire-eater. "He must hold a sponge in his mouth, don't you think?" he mused. "But no, there has to be oil, too. I think he sips it from that flask and spits it into the flames." When I shrugged in mute reply, he turned his study on me. "What are you up to, Imri?"
"Me?" With an effort, I laughed. "What of you? Brigitta… you like her, don't you?"
"Yes," he said. "I do. And you are changing the subject, as you have been doing all day. I understand why you do it with Lucius, and I'm willing to help. He doesn't notice, because he's absorbed in his own concerns. But I know you. Why are you doing it to me?"
I gazed across the Forum. Beyond the fire-eater, I could make out a familiar figure, bare-legged, clad in a filthy tunic. He was talking to a group of students, gesturing animatedly with one hand, holding a wooden bowl out in the other. "Is that Canis?"
"Canis?" Eamonn frowned.
"My philosopher-beggar, the one in the barrel." I nodded. "Him."
"Yes, it looks like him," Eamonn said. "And you're doing it again."
"Sorry." I rubbed my eyes, trying to scour away the exhaustion. "I don't mean to. It's just all a bit odd, don't you think?"
"Well, he does live in a barrel," Eamonn observed. "Imri, we always swore we could tell one another anything, didn't we?"
Is that a warning? Yes.
"I know." I rocked on the step, rubbing my palms over my knees. With a second corpse in close proximity to me, I was inclined to take the warning more seriously. "Eamonn, just… please. Don't ask, not now. I'll tell you when I can, I swear." I searched his face. "You do trust me, don't you?"
"With my life," he said simply. He sat for a moment longer, then sighed and rose. "Come on, let's get you back to the insula. You look half-dead." He eyed me. "Whoever she was, she rode you hard."
"You might say that," I murmured.
Halfway across the Forum, jostled by the milling crowds, I felt a hand catch my elbow from behind. I wrenched free, taking a step back and spinning, my sword hissing from its sheath. A half-step behind me, Eamonn followed suit.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" A small man in coarse homespun put up his hands, backing away. His voice squeaked with fear. "Sorry, young sir! It's only that my mistress would like you to call upon her, begging your interest. She may have work for you."
"Your mistress," I echoed. I stared at him, trying to determine if I recognized him from Claudia's domus. I didn't. "Who is she? What are you?" My voice hardened. "A procurer?"
Eamonn sniggered.
The small man drew himself up with dignity. "I'm an artist's apprentice, sir."
I blinked at him like an idiot. "Your mistress is an artist?"
"Erytheia of Thrasos?" he asked in a condescending tone. When I continued to blink, he sighed. "You're new to Tiberium, aren't you, young sir?"
"Rather," I said.
"I've heard of her." Eamonn sheathed his blade. "She's a painter, yes?"
"A painter." Her apprentice repeated the words with disdain. "Yes, young sirs, my mistress is & painter. A very famous painter." He measured me with his gaze. "She would like you to sit for her for a particular subject. The pay is good."
I shook my head, putting up my own blade. "Not interested."
He pattered after us when we turned our backs on him. "Wait!" He thrust a scrap of parchment into my hand. "Her patron was very specific," he said. "Think on it."
With his message delivered, he melted into the crowds, swift and darting. I gave a half a thought to pursuing him, then abandoned it. I was too damnably tired to give chase. Instead, I opened the note and read it.
Tomorrow afternoon. Erytheia's atelier.
There was no seal and no signature this time; not even a set of initials. It didn't matter. I recognized Claudia Fulvia's hand. She wrote with the same bold assurance with which she made love, stark lines of ink etched on the blank parchment, staking claim to it. The mere sight of it roused memories that made me shudder.
I sighed and tucked the note into my purse.
"May I ask?" Eamonn inquired."No," I said. "Better you don't."
Chapter Thirty-Nine
When I returned to the insula that evening, I told Gilot about the slain man. He listened without comment and gave me a long, sober look when I had finished. For the first time since we'd left Terre d'Ange, I felt the difference in our ages.
"Wandering the streets alone, at night," he said quietly. "I don't have to tell you how foolish that was, do I?"
I was abashed. "No. No, you don't. Gilot… do you suppose it's a coincidence?"
"Two dead men in a handful of days?" He frowned. "In a city the size of Tiberium, it may well be. Still, I don't like it. I'll see if I can have a word with the captain of the city cohort when you're otherwise occupied."
"My thanks," I said. "As it happens, I have an engagement on the morrow."
"And what might that be?" Gilot inquired.
I told him, and he laughed.
In the late afternoon of the following day, I presented myself at the atelier of Erytheia of Thrasos. It was easy to obtain directions; it seemed she was indeed well-known in the city of Tiberium. Since the note had not specified, out of some perverse impulse, I had chosen the worst time of day, when the heat was at its most stifling and most shops closed their doors. Only the baths were open at this hour. I knocked on the closed door of the atelier, then stood on the stoop, sweat trickling from my hairline.
"This is madness," Gilot muttered behind me.
"Like as not," I agreed.
Eventually, the door opened. The artist's apprentice regarded me with round-eyed surprise. "You came!"
"I came," I said. "Am I welcome?"
"Oh, yes." The voice came from within the atelier, rich and resonant, speaking Caerdicci with the trace of a Hellene accent. Its owner came into view. A woman of late middle years, with strong features and streaks of grey in her black hair. "Iacchos!" she breathed, lifting paint-stained fingers to touch my face. "You are welcome." I flinched, and she took a step backward, gesturing. "Come," she said. "Enter."
"I'll wait," Gilot muttered.
"There is no need," the woman said. "I will send Silvio to accompany him."
Gilot cocked a brow at me.
"Go," I said softly. "You can take care of the matter we discussed."
"Fear not, loyal manservant." The Hellene woman—Erytheia of Thrasos, I presumed—smiled. "I have no desire to have the D'Angeline ambassador on my doorstep, asking questions. Your young lord will be restored to you in short order. I only ask leave to make use of his face in the pursuit of art."
Gilot rolled his eyes. I was not sure which he liked least; leaving me, or being called my loyal manservant. He went, though.
Erytheia's fingers lighted on my arm. "Come," she said. "And see."
I must own, I was startled by her work. There were three paintings in the atelier in varying stages of doneness, and all of them were good. Very good.
She watched my reaction with a wry eye. "You are surprised."
"Impressed, my lady." I stood before the largest, which depicted the abduction of Europa. The bull looked so lifelike, I imagined I could feel the heat of his snorting breath. The churning waves were almost translucent, capped with frothing foam. The expression on Europa's face was fixed between ecstasy and terror.
"I studied in many places when I was young," Erytheia said. "Including Terre d'Ange, where I learned much about fixing pigments and the interplay of color." She lifted her hand to the panel, almost touching the bull's flank. It was coal-black, and yet it gleamed. "But," she said, "D'Angelines proved reluctant to commission a Hellene artist."
"We can be that way," I said, although I was growing weary of the accusation of D'Angeline snobbery. "Not all of us."
"So you are willing to model for me?" Erytheia asked.
"For this particular patron, yes." I paused. "Is she here?"
"No," she said shortly. "Take off your clothes."
Suddenly, sending Gilot away seemed like a bad idea. I doubted that one of the most famous artists in Tiberium intended me harm, but then again, I hadn't expected to find a knife at my throat the last time a woman said those words to me.
"Are you afraid?" Erytheia asked in amusement. She spread her paint-stained hands. "There is only Silvio and me here. You are quite safe."
Over at a long table, the apprentice Silvio was grinding pigment in a marble bowl, his head bowed in concentration. I thought about the cudgel in the dead man's fist. The marble pestle in Silvio's hand could easily deal a crushing blow. The apprentice was a small man, but doubtless his labors lent considerable strength to his arms and hands.
"I would prefer to wait for the patron," I said.
"Oh, she is coming," Erytheia said. "Later." Her eyes held a worldly gleam. "It was my understanding that she wished to consult with you in private about this commission. She will be disappointed if there is no preliminary rendering to discuss."
So, I thought, I had the choice between disarming and stripping naked for strangers, or earning Claudia's ire. I wondered if it were a test. If it was, I resolved to play the game.
"Your man said you paid well," I said.
"Half a denarius for every hour you sit for me," Erytheia said promptly. "And a bonus at the end if the patron is pleased."
"All right," I said. "What do you want me to do?"
Once I had stripped, she had me stand in a shaft of sunlight and walked all around me, studying me, for all the world like Claudia in her bedroom. Except it wasn't. I could feel the difference in her gaze; an artist's gaze, absorbed and dispassionate. I might have been a marble statue as far as Erytheia of Thrasos was concerned.
At length, she handed me a swathe of deep purple cloth bordered with gold and bade me sit in ornate, upholstered chair. There she took her time arranging me to her liking until I was slouched in a pose of pure indolence, one leg slung over the arm of the chair, the purple cloth draped artfully over my groin.
"Hold this." Erytheia plucked a bunch of grapes from a nearby bowl and handed them to me. "No, as though you were about to eat them." She studied me and frowned. "Too coy. Hold them lower. Let your hand go slack, as though you're about to drop them."
The grapes brushed against my bare chest, cool and silken. "Let me guess," I said. "Bacchus?"
"Hush." She placed a wreath of dried vine tendrils on my head. "That will do for now. We'll get fresh later."
With that, Erytheia began to work, sketching on a whitewashed panel with a piece of charcoal. She worked in silence and utter concentration, her gaze flickering between me and the panel. There was no sound in the atelier save the steady grinding of Silvio's pestle and the soft scratch of charcoal.