being silly. What had she done, after all? Nothing compared to what some of the other wives got up to, she was sure of that. She let him hold her hand, kiss her cheek, and he hadn’t demanded more. And soon Pliny would be home and she wouldn’t be bored and lonely anymore and it would be all over—no more than a pleasant memory. Where was the harm, really? And so she had sent Ione to him with a message.
“I have a present for you,” she said. She liked giving him presents. She unwrapped a little silver statuette of Artemis, no bigger than her hand. “My husband and I broke our journey at Ephesus and visited her temple. They sell them there.”
“Thank you. I will pray to her every day.”
“Who else do you pray to?”
“Tyche, Fortuna you call her. She rules our lives. She brought us together.”
“No, Fate brought us together. You were foretold to me.”
“Was I really?” He wanted to know how. She lied and said it was a dream. Not for his ears her meeting with Pancrates.
The sun went behind a cloud and suddenly it was chilly. She shivered.
“You’re cold. Shall we go inside?”
“No, I love it here, the view of the bay from up here.” The house was built on a hill, overlooking the sea. “And all this is yours?”
“The family owns it but my parents and brothers seldom come into town. My father’s devoted to farming. I’m not. I’m a great disappointment to him. The estate’s dull and so I live here unless I’m commanded home, which isn’t often.”
“And you aren’t lonely.”
He smiled, showing the crooked tooth that made his too perfect features just human after all. “I’m never lonely. Here—” He took a coverlet from the bench and wrapped it around her shoulders, folding his arms around her, lightly touching her breasts. Suddenly, he buried his face in the angle of her neck and kissed her. She lifted her face and he kissed her eyes, her lips. And she knew she should stop him but she couldn’t. Pale fire ran beneath her skin—some poet had said that, and it was true. And she wanted him, this laughing Greek boy, as she had never wanted any man before. Finally, she broke away. They looked at each other, lips parted, breathing hard. Not knowing what to say.
***
The following morning Suetonius came to see her while she was painting Rufus, who sat on Ione’s lap. His expression was grim. She shot Ione a terrified look. Oh gods! Does he know, does he suspect something?
“I say, sorry to bother you.”
“Yes?” She fought to keep her voice steady.
“Has Fabia said anything to you recently? Balbus’ wife?”
“What?—No.”
“It seems the fiscal procurator has gone missing. No one’s seen him in the past three days. We’ve searched the city for him, questioned his staff. Nobody knows where he is. Either he’s had an accident or something worse. I just thought his wife might have said something to you.”
“No, we haven’t spoken.”
“That does it, then. We need Pliny here to deal with this. I’m going to send a courier after him and ask him to return at once. According to his itinerary he should be near Nicaea. He can be here in a matter of days.”
She felt as though the ground had been suddenly cut from under her feet.
Chapter Eight
Seven days later
The 14th day before the Kalends of November
The second hour of the day
Pliny had not visited Balbus’ villa since the night of that disagreeable dinner party and the thought of returning there gave him no joy, but interviewing Fabia seemed the logical place to begin.
Though it was early morning, the coast road that skirted the wooded hills outside the city was already crowded with coaches, farm wagons, donkeys with panniers full of produce headed for market, and Pliny’s light two-wheeled carriage was slowed to a walking pace. He had decided to travel with only his senior lictor, Galeo, and a shorthand writer. The immense retinue that typically followed a governor wherever he went would only encumber him today and he wanted to approach Fabia as a concerned friend, not an investigating magistrate.
He had left Zosimus at home for a well-deserved rest. Mehercule, he needed a rest himself, he was bone tired. He had returned from Nicaea at speed—a three-day journey accomplished in two—and, arriving before dawn, had taken time only for a hurried bath, a bite to eat, and a quick conversation with Suetonius, roused from his bed. The fiscal procurator was still