said,” I have told you something about myself. Now I will tell you about yourself. I sense sorrow in you—sorrow connected with a physical ailment.” He touched his hands to his forehead. “Here? No.” Keeping his eyes on her face, he lowered his hands to his chest. “Here?” The hands slid down his chest. “The stomach? No.” They slid lower, level with his hips. Suddenly she could not breathe.
“Ah! I thought so. You lost your baby and now you are barren.”
Stunned, she started to turn away but he held her chin and made her look at him. She felt herself trembling.
“Tell me.” His voice like the voice of a god.
“I was fourteen…just a girl.” Her breath came in sobs. “I didn’t know what was the matter. And then the pain, the blood…I nearly died. And since then…we’ve tried everything. Doctors, spells, potions, I’ve slept in temples for healing dreams, sacrificed to Juno and Diana, Isis. And all the time, my husband, so kind, so patient. He has never reproached me, but I know, I know what he feels. We don’t talk about it.” Her shoulders worked with grief.
While she spoke he kept his eyes on her, his head tilted slightly to the left. They had begun by standing an arm’s length apart. She realized now that they were sitting, facing each other, almost knee to knee. She didn’t remember how that happened. And she was speaking in her own language now—Greek abandoned—but he understood her. Finally, she swallowed hard and wiped her face with the fold of her palla. She felt naked in front of him. What sorcery had he used to make her tell him what she had never told any stranger?
“There are cures for your condition that the Brahmans know.”
“No! Stop it! There is no cure. I’m not a child anymore to believe such things.”
He smiled and shrugged. “We’ll speak of it another time. I will leave you with a happy thought. Someone new will soon come into your life.”
She laughed harshly—angry at herself and him. “Is that all your wisdom? We’ve only been here a week, someone new comes into my life every day.”
He stood up abruptly. “Thank you, lady. I’ll see myself out. If you wish to see me again, I am at your service.”
“Wait—”
But he was gone.
She sat a long time with her head in her hands, feeling—what? Shaken, violated, hopeful? Had she just met someone extraordinary or only a clever fraud? She could not face going back to the dining room, to those hens who would peck at her, who would quiz her. As if in answer to her unspoken command, Ione appeared in the doorway. “Tell them I’m not feeling well. They may leave whenever they wish. Then come back to me.” The freedwoman nodded and went out.
As Pancrates left the palace there was a smile on his lips. No knowledge is ever wasted.
***
The big covered wagon swayed and jolted, axles screeching, harness creaking as the mule team hauled it to the top of the long ridge that lay across the road from Prusa to Nicaea. Pliny tapped the driver’s shoulder. “Hold up. Let the animals rest. Let us all rest a bit. Help me down.” Even on a good Roman road like this, travel was exhausting. The driver jumped down from his seat, propped the stepladder against the front wheel and reached out to take the governor’s hand. Behind them a train of a dozen wagons—an entire household on wheels—and a flanking squadron of cavalry sent up a cloud of dust into the brilliant blue sky.
Pliny stretched, flexed his shoulders, stamped his feet to get the blood flowing. They had been on the road since dawn and the sun was now high in the sky. “You know, this country reminds me of home,” he said to Zosimus, who had climbed down beside him. “Mountains, gorges, pine forests, the bracing air,” he inhaled deeply through his nostrils, “just like Comum. How I wish I were there! It’s been too long.”
Nymphidius trotted up on his horse. “We’ll be lucky to reach the city by nightfall, sir. Up one blasted hill and down the next.” The scenery had no charms for him.
“Nevertheless, call a half hour halt. And Zosimus, fetch me down my folder and a camp stool.”
He spread his papers out on his knees, meticulous notes that described the unfolding disaster of the province’s economy: everywhere new theaters, public baths, colonnades, aqueducts, all badly planned, unfinished, and left in ruins, leaving nothing behind but