I could talk to him just because he was nobody, not one of you. And then the rest—I never meant for it to happen. I beg you to believe me. I’m so sorry.”
That woman doesn’t exist. He was stunned. She had come to him as a child of barely fourteen—fresh, innocent, unformed. And he, like a father as much as a husband, had molded her into the woman he wanted. Had she always secretly resented that? But she had grown more beautiful and accomplished than he could have hoped for—so much that sometimes it almost frightened him. He knew he didn’t cut a dashing figure, had never had great success with women, but he had trusted her, never been jealous of the admiring looks she got from other men.
He turned and walked away, came back. “You understand if this becomes public I will have to divorce you. How can I ever trust you again? How long will it be before you make a fool of me with some other man? How long?” He grabbed her by the arm, dragging her from the chair, his fingers sinking into her flesh all the way to the bone. He raised his hand to strike her.
“Yes, hit me, go ahead! Kill me if you like. When my heart was broken you sent Marinus to take my blood. Take it now, take all of it. I don’t want to live any longer. I’m no use to you. And him, I mean nothing to him. He treated me like one of his whores—you say she was watching us? I’m not surprised. And when we’re caught he runs away.”
Pliny flung her back. “If you hate him why won’t you tell me his name?”
“So you can banish him, kill him? No, despicable as he is he doesn’t deserve that. He didn’t do anything I didn’t let him do.”
Pliny felt suddenly empty, eviscerated, no more than a shell, without nerve, without strength. Calpurnia was wrong—he was not a killer, not even a wife beater. But someone must be punished. “You didn’t do this alone,” he said. “Ione helped you. She‘s been your go-between. By the gods, I’ll get the truth out of her.”
“Leave her alone, Gaius, please. She only—”
But he rushed out into the corridor, calling a slave and sending him to fetch her. A moment later Ione appeared, with Zosimus at her side. They had been next door in their room, waiting for the summons.
“I beg your pardon, Patrone.” He lowered his eyes. “What concerns my wife concerns me.” It was the first time Zosimus had ever opposed his master’s wish. It took all his courage.
Pliny turned on Ione. “Tell me the name of my wife’s lover, damn you.”
“Leave her alone, Gaius,” Calpurnia cried. “Don’t make her betray me.”
“Betray you? She has violated the fides she owes me, her master. I can have her flung out into the street for this.”
“Will you send Zosimus away too, then?” Calpurnia shot back. “Or will you deprive him of his wife and child?”
“Not Zosimus’ child.” Ione’s voice was shrill. She pointed a shaking finger at Pliny. “His child! Tell her, Patrone, tell her or I will.”
Calpurnia stared at her husband wide-eyed, and instantly knew it was true. How could she not have noticed before the growing resemblance between little Rufus and Pliny? How could she not have understood his love for the boy?
He couldn’t meet her eyes. A different man would not have cared if he got a slave girl pregnant, and would not have expected his wife to care. But their marriage hadn’t been like that. He had been attracted often enough by slave women who would have been happy to share his bed, but he had always exercised the self-control that a man of his education should. And then he had bought Ione from a friend to be his wife’s maid and companion. And she reminded him powerfully of that slave woman in his uncle’s house who had initiated him when he was thirteen. And Ione was no innocent victim. She soon guessed the effect she had on him and teased him with it. Finally, one day it happened. It was a steamy summer’s day at his villa in Laurentum, and he had retired to his bedroom for the midday siesta. He had undressed to let what little breeze there was play over his naked body. Ione came into the room without knocking, claiming she was looking for her mistress. Was