replied. “I have not seen Aspar socially for months now. I see him only when we have mutual court business to attend to, which is infrequently. Why would you care where Aspar lives, Verina? Although he is responsible for Leo’s ascent, you have never cared particularly for him. I know for a fact that his presence irritates you for it only serves to remind you that he is responsible for your good fortune.”
“It is said there is a woman living with him, Basilicus,” the empress said, ignoring her brother’s astute observation. “You know that Aspar’s wife, Flacilla, is my friend. I would be very distressed to have Flacilla embarrassed by her husband’s peccadillos.”
“Nonsense, sister, you are simply consumed by curiosity,” Basilicus replied. “If indeed Aspar is living with some mistress, nothing, I suspect, would please you more than to drop a hint in Flacilla’s shell-like ear, thereby enraging her. You know that Aspar agreed to marry her only if she would remain discreet in her little adventures and not embarrass her family again. Aspar is not a man to install a mistress in his house, but if indeed he has, then by living in the country he is making an attempt to be circumspect in his affair. Besides, there is nothing wrong with a man taking a mistress, Verina. It is my opinion that our good general deserves a modicum of pleasure in his life. He will never obtain it from your dear friend Flacilla, who takes lovers like some women gather flowers in a field, and with less discretion, I might add.”
“Flacilla is young yet. She is many years her husband’s junior,” the empress said. “Aspar could not keep up with her, I assure you.”
“She could not keep up with him,” Basilicus said with a laugh. “Aspar is known to be a prodigious lover, my dear sister. An eighteen-year-old could not keep up with him, I am told by most reliable sources. Besides, Flacilla has two grown daughters. She is hardly in the first bloom of youth herself.”
“She had her children when she was fifteen and sixteen,” Verina said in defense of the lady. “They were fifteen and sixteen when she married them off last year. That only makes her thirty-two. Aspar is at least twenty years her senior. If he has taken a mistress, it will make my poor Flacilla the laughingstock of all of Constantinople. You must find out!”
“Me?” Basilicus looked horrified. “How could I find out?”
“You must go to visit Aspar in the country, Basilicus. Perhaps these rumors are nothing more than that, rumors, but if they are true, then I must inform Flacilla before she is shamed before the court.”
“Go to the country? Verina, I detest the country! I haven’t left the city in several years. There is nothing to do in the country. Besides, Flacilla should be delighted if Aspar has taken a mistress. It will keep him occupied, amused, and uninterested in her affairs. She almost caused a dreadful scandal again last week when the young gladiator she had been amusing herself with decided he was in love with her after she attempted to discard him.”
“I didn’t hear that,” the empress said, annoyed and curious as to why her network of spies had not reported this rather interesting tidbit to her. “What happened, Basilicus? I can see you know every delicious detail. Tell me at once, or I shall have you blinded!”
He chuckled and, pouring himself another goblet of wine, began, “Well, my dear sister, your friend Flacilla had taken a young gladiator to her bed whom she had first seen at the spring games. A Thracian named Nichophorus; rather beefy I thought, but those muscular thighs of his were irresistible, I suspect. As is usual with Flacilla after a few months’ time, familiarity began to breed contempt. She grew tired of her muscular Adonis and, besides, her eye had lit upon Michael Valens, the young actor. Our Flacilla was struck anew by Cupid’s dart.”
“What happened to the gladiator?” Verina demanded.
“He caught them at the very same trysting place Flacilla had once shared with him,” Basilicus replied. “She is not a woman of great imagination, is she, sister? You would have thought she would have chosen another site to carry on her little passion, but no, ‘twas the very same spot. Nichophorus, informed by some mischief maker, found them there. He howled and raged, beating upon the door of the chamber in which your friend and her lover were cowering. Finally he broke