I need your companionship in my life. Do you think that you can give it to me, my beauty?”
“My grandfather said I had a sharp tongue, and I do,” Cailin told him slowly. “I am practical to a fault. If there is any gentleness left in me, my lord Aspar, you are possibly the only one to see it. Now what I must say to you will sound hard, but I have learned in the last year to be hard in order to survive. You are not a young man, yet I am your slave. If you should die, what will happen to me? Do you think that your heirs will treat the slave mistress of their father with kindness? I think not.
“I believe that I shall be disposed of with all the other possessions that you own that will be considered unnecessary. Can I love you? Yes, I can. I believe you to be kind and good, but if you truly care for me, my lord, then make provisions to keep me safe when you are not here to do so yourself. Until that time I will serve you with all my heart and soul.”
He nodded quietly. She was right. He would have to make arrangements to protect her when he no longer could. “I will go to the city tomorrow and arrange for everything,” he promised her. “You will be free upon my death, and have an inheritance to keep you. If you bear my children, I will provide for them, and recognize them as well.”
“It is more than fair,” Cailin said, relief sweeping over her.
When she awoke in the morning, Aspar was gone from their bed.
“He has gone to the city,” Zeno said, smiling. “He says to tell you that he will return in several days’ time, my lady. He has also told me that you are to be considered mistress here, and we will obey you.”
“My lord Aspar is a generous man,” Cailin said quietly. “I must rely upon you, Zeno, to help me do what is proper and correct.”
“My lady’s wisdom is only excelled by her great beauty,” the elderly majordomo replied, pleased by her tactful response and the certainty that everything would remain the same.
Aspar returned a few days later from Constantinople. Within a short time it was obvious to his servants that he intended to make Villa Mare his primary residence. He left only to attend to court business and oversee his duties as general of the Eastern Armies. He was rarely away overnight. He and Cailin had settled down to a very quiet domestic existence.
Cailin was surprised to learn that Aspar owned all the farmland about the villa for several miles. There were vineyards, olive groves, and wheat fields, all contributing to the general’s wealth. He thought nothing of helping out in the fields, or working to harvest the grapes. She rather suspected he enjoyed it.
• • •
In the city, Aspar’s absence from his elegant palace was not noticed at first, but the empress Verina, a clever woman, kept her ear to the ground in all quarters. She and her husband had not the advantage of inheritance to keep their thrones safe. Aspar was important to them. Although an excellent public servant, Leo was not a master of intrigue at this early point in his reign; but his wife, raised in Byzantium, knew that the more one knew, the safer one was. A servant’s idle gossip caught her ear at first, and then she heard it again, this time from a minor official. The empress invited her brother Basilicus to come and visit her.
They sat on a terrace overlooking the Propontis, called by some the Marmara, one afternoon in late autumn, sipping the first of the new wine. Verina was a beautiful woman with ivory skin and long, black hair which she wore in an elaborate coiffure of braids that were fastened with jeweled pins. Her red and gold stola was of rich materials, and the low neckline showed her fine bosom to its best advantage. Her slippers were bejeweled, and she wore several ropes of pearls so translucent they seemed to shimmer against her skin and gown. She smiled at her brother.
“What is this I hear about Aspar?” she purred.
“What is it you have heard about Aspar, my pet?” he countered.
“It is said that he has closed up his palace and now lives in the countryside outside the city,” the empress said. “Is it true?”