charlatan into her home! But the wives gathered around him, all talking at once in happy wonderment. He ignored them all but, striding across the room to Calpurnia’s couch, he stood before her and inclined his head. She had had barely a glimpse of him that day when he entered the temple to the wild cheers of his devotees. She only remembered the snake with its glittering scales that enveloped his shoulders like some obscene garment.
Now, at close range—and without the snake, the gods be thanked!—she saw him entire, and felt the force of the man. He was tall and dressed in a long-sleeved, unbelted tunic of some delicate white stuff that hung straight from his shoulder to his ankle. His black hair spilled in ringlets down his back, he had a hooked nose that curved toward his chin, his matted beard was streaked with gray. His complexion was swarthy like one of the southern barbarians (he accomplished this by staining himself with the juice of almonds) and, like them, his feet were bare. His bright, black eyes, sunk in sockets like twin caves, moved constantly as though seeing things hidden from others. He fixed them on her. “Lady, I will speak to you alone.” It was a voice that presumed, that commanded.
Calpurnia’s mind raced. Should she order the servants to throw him out? But plainly this man was not just some street corner diviner; he had an enormous following in the town. What might they do if she treated their oracle with disrespect? Then, too, Atilia, insufferable as she was, must not be slighted. Her husband was a pillar of the expatriate business community, a group they needed to conciliate. What would Pliny do? No matter, she was in charge, she must decide. He looked at her unblinking, waiting for her answer. And, in spite of herself, she was curious. Even if he was a howling madman, she thought, an interview with him was preferable to prolonging this gruesome lunch.
“Come this way,” she said, standing up. Seven pairs of envious eyes followed them out of the room.
She led him to her studio, which was just down the hall; a room fragrant with wax and oil, cluttered with jars of pigments, braziers, easels, a table littered with brushes and spatulas, a pair of stools. They stood and faced each other. His dark eyes searched her face. “You don’t like them, do you, those women? You shouldn’t. You are more intelligent than they are, you have a purer spirit. I feel it.”
Calpurnia laughed nervously. “Is this your stock in trade, flattery? I imagine no one quarrels with you if you tell them only pleasant things. You know nothing about me, sir.”
Pancrates ignored this. He let his eyes wander around the little room, examining the pictures, in various states of completion, that sat on easels and hung from the walls. “Why do you paint? A painting is nothing but the shadow of a shadow.”
She said nothing. She wasn’t going to argue with this man about her art.
“And why do you paint only children? As I was coming in, I met a little boy racing down the corridor on his hobbyhorse. You’ve painted his face here, and here on these Cupids. Now that I look, I see him everywhere. But he isn’t you son, is he?”
How could he know this? “Who are you?” she demanded. “Where do you come from?”
“I see I’ve angered you. Forgive me, lady.” For the first time he smiled, showing a wide space between his front teeth. “Where I come from is no matter, but where I have been. I have travelled in India. I have seen the martichora with its human head and its long tail that shoots arrows. And I have seen the pygmies and the men who stand on their heads and shade themselves with their feet. I have lived with the Brahmans on top of their sacred hill and watched them rise into the air when they pray to the Sun. And I have seen the giant bearded serpents that live in that land and I have brought one home with me. With the aid of its spirit, I have advised kings and princes in every region of the world.”
His long, brown fingers wove patterns in the air as he spoke; she could hardly tear her eyes from them. His voice was deep, thrilling. If Calpurnia’s Greek had been better she would have caught a whiff of the wharf, the alley in his accent.