orders for you,” Zeno replied.
“Is he expected soon?” Cailin asked. This was odd.
“He has not informed me so, lady,” Zeno told her. “Come in now and take some refreshment. The day is growing warm, and the sun is very hot for late June. The city, I can but imagine, was a tinderbox.”
Cailin followed after him. “I do not like the city,” she said. “The noise and the dirt are appalling.”
“Indeed,” he agreed. “I have served the general for many years, but when he offered to make me his majordomo at Villa Mare, I kissed his feet in gratitude. The older I get, the less tolerance I seem to have, lady. You are not a citizen of Byzantium?”
“I am a Briton,” Cailin told him, and accepted a goblet of chilled wine from a smiling servant.
“It is a very savage and barbaric land, I am told,” Zeno said with utmost seriousness. “It is said the people are blue in color, but you are not blue, lady. Am I mistaken, then?”
Cailin couldn’t refrain from one little giggle, but she quickly soothed the majordomo’s feelings by telling him, “In ancient times the warriors among my people painted themselves blue when they went into battle, Zeno, but we are not blue-skinned by nature.”
“I can see that, lady, but why did they paint themselves blue?”
“Our warriors believed that although the enemy might kill them and strip them of their possessions, as long as they were painted blue, their honor and their dignity could not be taken from them,” Cailin explained to him. “Britain is not a savage land. We have been part of the empire for over four hundred years, Zeno. My own family descended from a Roman tribune who came there with Emperor Claudius.”
“I can see I have a great deal to learn about the Britons, lady. I hope you will share your knowledge with me. I greatly value knowledge,” Zeno said.
During the next few days Cailin explored her new surroundings. Villa Mare was very much like her home in Britain had been, a simple but very comfortable country villa. The atrium had a dear little square fish pond, and she enjoyed sitting there in the heat of the day when the outdoors was not particularly comfortable. Her bedchamber was large and airy. There were no more than half a dozen servants, all older. It was obvious to Cailin that General Aspar sent those slaves he wished to semiretire to the Villa Mare, where they would have a simpler and easier time of it. It seemed a kind act, and she grew more curious about the man who had rescued her from Villa Maxima, but he was not, it seemed, expected by his household at any time soon. It was as if he were deliberately leaving her in peace to recover from the ordeal she had suffered these last months. If this was indeed fact, Cailin appreciated it.
Zeno was fascinated by her stories of Britain. He had never, it seemed, been anywhere in his entire life but Constantinople and the surrounding countryside. Cailin was surprised to find he was a very cultured man despite his status. He could both read and write Latin and Greek as well as keep accounts. He had, he explained, been raised with the son of a noble of the court of Theodosius II, and had come into General Aspar’s household when his master had died deeply in debt; then he, along with the other slaves of the household, were sold.
“You were not born a slave, my lady Cailin,” Zeno said.
“No,” she told him. “I was betrayed by a woman I believed a friend. A year ago at this time I was in Britain, a wife, an expectant mother. If I had been told that this would be my fate, I should have never believed it, Zeno.” She smiled softly, almost to herself. “I will go home one day, and I will revenge myself on that woman. I swear it!”
It was obvious to him that she was of the upper class, but because Zeno had been born a slave, the son and grandson of slaves, he did not inquire further. It would have been a presumption on his part, and he could not, despite his curiosity, change the habits of a lifetime. It did not matter that she was also a slave. She was a slave who had been born a patrician. She was his better, no matter her youth.
“Tell me of your master?” Cailin asked him.
“You do not know him?”