and found a different fragment by Sappho:
The sinking moon has left the sky,
The Pleiades have also gone.
Midnight comes—and goes, the hours fly
And solitary still, I lie.
“Have I not made my feelings clear,” Livia said, “or was my kiss that day not up to your standards.”
I shook my head and lowered my eyes to the table. “What standards? One needs to have a base of comparison…”
“Stand up.”
“Why? What are you going to do?” I rose, not as steadily as I had planned.
“Be impetuous.” She leaned further across the table. “Now put your mouth on mine.”
Her lips were glossy with the taste of honey and cassia. I disappeared into that kiss, and if thinking were a talent I still possessed, I would have wished that the soft mingling of breath and lips would never end. Breaking that embrace was a fall from timeless skies to a mundane present, and neither of us had a desire to remain earthbound.
“Where can we go?” she asked.
“Don’t move,” I said. I pushed the lamps and wax tablets aside and to the astonishment of us both climbed up and over the long worktable and into her arms. It was simply too far to go around. We held each other’s faces in our hands and for a moment let our eyes speak the language our mouths had just relearned.
“Take me to your room,” she said.
“We can’t. It’s just down the hall from dominus and domina. The clinic?”
“Too far. I will wait no longer. What about there?” She pointed behind me to the locked door of the pantry. I fumbled in my tunic to pull out the chain holding the key. A second necklace, entangled in the first, glinted dully.
“My scallop,” Livia said. “You’ve kept it all this time.” Her eyes had become brighter in the lamplight.
“If that bracelet of shells had not come undone that day under the statue of Apollo…”
“But it did, and we are here now. You were so clumsy trying to retie the string about my wrist you woke me from my nap. This is fine silverwork,” she said, untangling the two chains.
“Not my doing. Dominus insisted his atriensis wear a chain worthy of the station. He meant it as a gift, but I prefer the string.”
“Perhaps these links were made with metal mined from Laurion.” My smile crumpled. “How ironic if a gift from Crassus to you had something of my mother forged within it.”
“Livia.”
“Forgive me, that was a stupid thing to say. I cannot help but miss her, but you are not to blame. It is you that I want, Alexandros. Very much. It is my curse: my mouth will be speaking long before I even think to advise silence. You know,” she said, her eyes atwinkle, “perhaps I acquired this evil trait from you.”
I laughed, and surprised myself by saying, “I shouldn’t wonder. But you have taught me how two mouths may hold each other speechless.”
“Then let us be silent, but not still.” We walked to the pantry door holding the lamps and each other.
With the key in the door, I turned to Livia and said, “Are you certain?”
“My sweet man,” she said, caressing my cheek, “this is the time for you to be silent.”
Once inside, we kissed again. The press of our bodies soon made plain the state of my arousal. I pulled away. “Livia, I…”
“Shhh.” She put her fingers to my lips. “You are safe with me,” she said.
“I am unschooled,” I said, my face reddening.
“Then, for once, I shall be your teacher.”
Chapter XIV
56 - 55 BCE Winter, Rome
Year of the consulship of
Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus and L. Marcius Philippus
Now that the first of the year had passed, an interrex had been “found” friendly to my master’s cause; the names of Crassus and Pompeius had finally been put up for consul. In the morning, Betto and I met the line of shivering clients waiting to greet their patron in the daily salutatio. We told them dominus was sleeping late, took their lists of requests and promised to pass along their good wishes. Betto then gave each client a purse of 2,000 sesterces with instructions to spread the word among the people that stability and the end of violence could only come with the election of these two venerated conscript fathers, Crassus and Pompeius. They trudged back down the hill, blue-lipped but content. My own people would be following close behind with campaign encouragement in the guise of jingling leather purses.
That evening, the weather was cooperating only in that it was