seen for yourself. You know the location of the shrine."
"You don't even know the measure of your crime," Mael answered. "To keep such a secret. How could you dare!"
"Silence, please," said Avicus.
"No, I won't keep silent," said Mael. "You, Marius, you steal the Queen of Heaven and you keep her as if she were your own? You lock her up in a painted chapel as if she were a Roman goddess made of wood? How dare you do such a thing?"
"Fool," I said, "what would you have me do with her! You spit lies at me. What you wanted is what they all want. You wanted her blood. And what would you do now that you know where she is? Do you mean to set her free and for whom and how and when?"
"Quiet, please," said Avicus again. "Mael, I beg you, let us leave Marius."
"And the snake worshipers who have heard whispers of me and my secret, what would they do?" I demanded, now quite lost in my fury. "What if they were to gain possession of her and take the blood from her, and make themselves an army stronger than us? How then would the human race rise up against our kind with laws and hunts to abolish us? Oh, you cannot begin to conceive of all the ills that would be loosed upon this world were she known to all our kind, you foolish, mad, self-important dreamer!"
Avicus stood before me, imploring me with his upraised hands, his face so sad.
I wouldn't be stopped. I stepped aside and faced the furious Mael.
"Imagine the one who would put them both in the sun again," I declared, "bringing fire on us like the fire which Avicus suffered before! Would you end your life's journey in such agony and by another's hands?"
"Please, Marius," said Avicus. "Let me take him away with me. We will go now. I promise you, no more trouble from us."
I turned my back on them. I could hear Mael leaving, but Avicus lingered. And suddenly I felt his arm enclose me and his lips on my cheek.
"Go," I said softly, "before your impetuous friend tries to stab me in base jealousy."
The garden, and so the house seemed mad with all its lamps and the master filling walls with his illusions, and the guests laughing at him and raising their cups to him, and the music strumming on unto the dawn.
At first I thought it would be a distraction to have Avicus spying upon me, but I grew used to hearing him slip over the wall and come into the garden. I grew used to the nearness of someone who shared these moments as only he could.
I continued to paint my goddesses¡ªVenus, Ariadne, Hera¡ªand gradually I grew resigned that the figment of Pandora would dominate everything I did in that particular, but I worked on the gods as well. Apollo, above all, fascinated me. But then I had time to paint other figures of myth, such as Theseus, Aeneas, and Hercules, and sometimes I turned to reading Ovid or Homer or Lucretius directly for inspiration. Other times, I made up my own themes.
But always the painted gardens were my comfort for I felt I was living in them in my heart.
Over and over again I covered all the rooms of my house, and as it was built as a villa, not an enclosed house with an atrium, Avicus could wander the garden all around it, seeing all that I did, and I couldn't help but wonder if my work was changed by what he saw.
What moved me more than anything perhaps was that he lingered so faithfully. And that he was silent with so much respect. Seldom did a week pass that he did not come and stay almost the entire night. Often he was there for four or five nights in a row. And sometimes even longer than that.
Of course we never spoke to each other. There was an elegance in our silence. And though my slaves once took notice of him and annoyed me with their alarm, I soon put a stop to that.
On the nights when I went out to Those Who Must Be Kept Avicus didn't follow me. And I must confess that I did feel a sort of freedom when I painted alone in the shrine. But melancholy was also coming down upon me, harder than ever in the past.
Finding a spot behind the dais and the Precious Pair, I often sat dejected