Blood Games

THERE WERE NOW two slaves quartered in the room adjoining hers, so Olivia had fled to the garden at night, hoping that Saint-Germain would come. Each night for the last ten days she had kept her vigil under the fruit trees near the wall, sitting in the deepest shadows concealed by the drooping branches and the dark green palla she wore. Here she had the illusion that she had escaped her guards, and was free of them not just for the hours in the garden, but for her life. The flowers, which had been for so long neglected, now rioted in tangled confusion out of their beds, over the pathways and around the unused fountain. Olivia found the little wilderness a comfort, a way to bolster her self-deception. In this forgotten place, she could believe that she, too, had been forgotten: it was a great consolation.

Her desire for Saint-Germain intruded into this dream. She missed him as she missed sustenance. Each night she longed for him, and each night she returned to her bed alone. She had sensed in the last several days that there was something very wrong, that he had been badly hurt, that there was a distress in him she had never known before.

Finally he came to her. It was past the middle of the night and the moon was low. The scent of flowers still tinged the air, but elusively now. A slow wind strummed the fruit trees where Olivia waited, half-asleep, on a rough wooden bench.

A rustle that could easily have been caused by the wind, a soft click of heeled boots on the overgrown path, a figure tall, powerful, in black Persian trousers and a short, wide-sleeved dalmatica, the gleam of moonlight in dark, compelling eyes that touched her with ice, a beautiful voice that she knew well and had yearned to hear; Olivia warned herself that it could be a dream even as she sat up and opened her arms.

Instead of gathering her close to him, Saint-Germain dropped to his knees before her, his eyes meeting hers and then looking away. He did not touch her. "Olivia," he said.

"Saint-Germain." She knew it would be a mistake to reach for him, though it took the full strength of her will to hold her hands at her sides.

In the shadows of the empty stable, a figure moved, silently approaching the garden.

Olivia wanted to ask him what had happened, where he had been, why he was so strange now, but she knew that she must keep silent. She saw his head bent, hardly more than two handbreadths away, and she wished she could reach out to fondle the dark, neat hair that fell in short, loose curls. He was so different tonight. She held back.

He felt her nearness as if across a chasm. She was a beacon to him, a point of light, of warmth in his newly desolate world. "Tell me, Olivia," he said quietly as his eyes looked into a dreadful emptiness. "When your father and brothers died, how did you feel? Was it as if a limb had been torn off or the heart pulled out of you? Did you hate the sun for rising?"

"Part of the time," she answered, as if she spoke to a curious child. "Part of the time there was nothing left within me but my hatred of Justus. My life was mechanical. I breathed and walked, slept, bathed, ate, as if it were someone else's body that did these things, and I was trapped within it. I, myself, was chained in a dungeon far away, crying aloud at walls of wet stone. I..." she faltered as she put a hand to her eyes-"I wondered why I bothered. Each day was like the last, and I thought there was no use in it." She looked away across the garden, blue in the fading moonlight. The breeze felt chilly now, and she shivered as it raced through the apple trees.

"Why didn't you end it?" he asked. There were pebbles under his knees and he knew they should hurt, but all he was aware of was the awkwardness they gave his balance. He saw Olivia shiver and could not tell whether it was from cold or her memories.

"You," she said, making the word a caress. "And my anger. I refused to give Justus the satisfaction. In time the worst was over. Whole hours would pass in which I did not want to die." She attempted to laugh at her foolishness, and almost succeeded.

At that sound, Saint-Germain's arms went around her waist and he pressed his head into her lap. "Olivia, I killed a man, and felt nothing, no rage, no hate, no remorse, no satisfaction. I thought it was because of what I had just seen...their blood, their deaths..."

"Whose blood?" she interrupted him as she felt his arms become rigid.

"My slaves who were arrested. They were much more than slaves."

There was a cat in the garden, picking his way through the weeds with finicky determination. His eyes were spangle-bright as he looked toward Saint-Germain and Olivia, bent together under the trees. He hissed once, then went on toward the stable.

"They were like you?" she whispered, her cheek pressed against his head.

"One was," he told her, wishing the admission affected him in some way, any way. "There was so little time. One would have been...I thought it was settled, for crucifixion, not the beasts...The third..." He stopped, feeling himself endlessly falling from darkness to darkness, and he held her with new strength. "Olivia, make me feel again. If I have any right to ask it of you, please make me feel again."

She had sunk her hands in his hair to turn his face up to her when a sound at the end of the garden caught her attention and she looked up sharply. "Oh," she said shakily. "The cat." Night lay thickly here under the trees, and she had to lean quite close to Saint-Germain to see his pale face. She kissed his brow and eyes. His lips opened to her, and she was hideously reminded of a drowning man fighting for air. She took his face in her hands and drew him nearer.

Saint-Germain's dark eyes searched hers. "Olivia," he said, as if recognizing her at last. He rose to his feet, pulling her with him, holding her with a fierceness that was new to both of them. His hands, his mouth roamed over her, demanding passion of her, calling forth the very limits of her ecstasy. "More, Olivia," he whispered, his voice hoarse with fervor. "More." His body was hard against hers, his desire intense, compounded of mourning and lust, of sorrow and ardor.

Monostades crouched in the shadow of the garden wall, his expression unreadable, as he watched his master's wife in Saint-Germain's embrace. He dared not move closer for fear he would be noticed. The distance was too great for him to hear what they said to each other, and in the shadowed night he saw only the largest movements, but, he told himself cynically, he did not need to see the small ones, not watching them together. In spite of the darkness he could observe how eagerly Saint-Germain lifted Olivia, catching her up in his arms, arching over her, his head bent to the lovely curve of her neck while she held him, abandoned to her pleasure. He watched while Saint-Germain lowered her to the bench under the fruit trees and then knelt beside it, leaning above her as she opened her garments to him. Monostades saw the lightness of her skin in the night, and in the next instant this was obscured by Saint-Germain as he moved over her. Deeply pleased with himself, Monostades made his way back to the stable, anticipating the reward that awaited him.

Saint-Germain's head rested against Olivia's breasts. There was a tearing pain within him, a hurt that burned and bit with the ferocity of acid; there was also overwhelming gratitude. He moved his hands over her gently, kindly, and felt her tremble. "I have no tears. We don't, when we change." Anguish stifled him, and it was some little time before he spoke again. "If you had refused me..."

"Shush," she murmured.

"When they died, each of them, it was like...being given to flames, which are as deadly to me as to you, my cherished one. I feel it now." He moved over her again. "I feel it." His lips touched hers.

His kiss sounded her to her depths, and when he drew back, she looked up through the gloom into his dark eyes. "Saint-Germain," she began a little breathlessly, "will you...I want..."

"What do you want, Olivia?" He faced her, his hands still as he listened to her.

"I want to be free of...myself. I want, just once, to break out of the tyranny of my mind, and my senses, so that my whole being is consumed with loving. Make me free of my flesh, Saint-Germain." Until she spoke, she had not known how deeply she longed for that freedom, for the rapture on the far side of gratification.

"Ah." His sad smile was compassionate. "Beyond your greatest fear is your greatest desire." He was barely touching her now; he had half-risen and only the feather touch of his fingers was on her. "Imagine," he said, his voice low and musical, "the petals of a flower opening in the heat of the sun, perfuming the air that passes, lingers and passes, like the figures of a dance." He paused, one hand on her shoulder, one at her waist. "Think of warmth, growing like a plant, like tendrils, rising around you, containing you though you are unfettered." He was closer to her. "Be like sunlight, that turns from white to gold to red, a fire, a torch, a blazing comet against the sky."

Olivia never knew how or when her miracle happened, but it was as she had wished, and for that one eternal moment, while her body was wrung with passion, she broke free of herself and knew only the immense force of her love.

There was dew in the garden when Saint-Germain rose from his place beside Olivia. Though the dawn chorus had not yet begun, a single bird was piping two high, perfect notes. Far to the east the night was rimmed with silver.

"I wish you could stay," Olivia murmured, her fingers laced through his.

Saint-Germain stood still. "If that's what you wish, I will." He had never consented before, and she had asked him but once.

"Truly?" She sat up on the bench then, reaching for her discarded palla. Now that Saint-Germain was not holding her, she felt cold.

"Yes." His dark eyes smoldered down at her.

"Justus..." She had no way to describe the things she feared her husband would do should he learn she had a lover, had had him for several years. She could recall the way he looked at her when the men he forced upon her did not treat her as violently as he required. His wrath then was nothing compared to what it would be if he learned of Saint-Germain. She shuddered. "No, Saint-Germain. Go. I want you here, but I don't want what would come of it. Justus would...he might do anything to me. Or to you." She did not want to think of her husband anymore, not with Saint-Germain holding her hand and watching her with an expression she could not describe.

"When shall I return?" he asked. "Tonight? Tomorrow? Tell me and I will be here." He let go her fingers, but only to tilt her face up toward him. "I have an obligation to those who are dead, but beyond that, no one can command me but you." He leaned down quickly and kissed her once. "Get me word and I will come to you, anywhere, at any time. You have only to send for me. I have been a secret part of your life, and you of mine. Time is too short for that, even when you have had as much of it as I have." He stood straight, listening as footsteps passed in the street. "If you want me gone before your household wakes, then I must go now. What do those slaves who guard your room think when you pass the night in the garden?"

"They think I am foolish. They can see the walls, and there are others to watch outside. They think I am alone, trying to escape them."

"Well, so you are," Saint-Germain smiled. Then he sobered. "Do I go?"

Reluctantly she nodded. "If there are people in the streets, it's probably best. My guards will be out of the house shortly, to be here when I wake at dawn." She finished securing her clothes. "I will send you word when it will be safe to come again. If you are here too often, someone might notice, and then..."

"Olivia." He held out his small, beautiful hands and lifted her to her feet. "Don't be troubled." He wrapped her in his arms and whispered against her hair, "Olivia, you have given me hope again." Then he stood back from her, turned sharply and went quickly along the garden path without looking back.

When he was gone, Olivia sank back down on the bench, assuring herself that she and Saint-Germain were safe.

By the time she dozed, Saint-Germain was at the Porta Viminalis, and Monostades was back at the house of Cornelius Justus Silius, waiting to tell him all that had occurred in the garden.

A PETITION FILED WITH THE PROCURATOR SENIOR OF THE SENATE.

Worthy Senators:

On behalf of the bondsman Rogerian of Gades, this petition for compensation and damages is being presented to you so that the bondsman Rogerian may claim his rights under the laws of Rome.

This man's bond was held by one Linus Aeneas Desider, who resides in Rome and Gades. Desider carried the usual contract with this man, and assigned him to overseeing the operation of his estate near Gades, which task the bondsman performed to the satisfaction of Desider and others in authority there.

On his last visit to Gades, Desider told the bondsman Rogerian that he was planning to take Rogerian with him to Rome upon his return there. Rogerian was not eager to make such a change, for though he is a good manager of estates, his experience does not include working in a Roman patrician household. He mentioned this to Desider, who told him it was unimportant.

When he arrived in Rome, the bondsman Rogerian states that he was badly housed and fed, and given nothing to do, either for his bond-holder or for his Roman household. He often asked to be given work, and was told that Desider forbade it. The houseman expressed concern on the bondsman Rogerian's behalf, in such a way that the said Rogerian was filled with doubts and apprehensions. These turned out to be well-founded, for Desider came home one evening, after having drunk a great deal of wine, and accused Rogerian of laziness and poor attention to duty. When Rogerian objected that he had often asked to be assigned work in the household, Desider accused him of impudence as well. Rogerian was then flogged, that day and each of nine succeeding days. Desider was present at each flogging and urged the overseer to be more free with his use of the flagellum.

One of the slaves who was given the task of keeping Rogerian alive told him, during those nine days, that this is a habit with Desider, who brings slaves and bondsmen from his country estates and keeps them for his amusement. He brings foreigners so that the Roman household will not revolt against this cruelty, and so that the victim will be without friends to protect him. Rogerian was thought of sympathetically by the household, but none of them were willing to make complaint, either to their master or to the officials of the city, for fear that their master would do the same thing to them that he had done to Rogerian. None of them told Rogerian that he was entitled to sue Desider for damages in such an instance.

Surely Roman justice means more than this. Surely a man who has been as ill-treated as Rogerian from Gades is entitled to a full remedy under law. He has discharged the conditions of his bond most honorably and has been rewarded with treatment that should have killed him.

I, Ragoczy Saint-Germain Franciscus, am filing this petition with you so that the great wrongs that have been done to this bondsman may be given the fair hearing to which the law entitles him. I state now that I found this Rogerian grievously wounded and abandoned by the beginning of the Flavian Circus. It was raining. The man had no protection, and was hardly conscious, so had no means to obtain protection. Many of those living in the arches were aware of his plight but disinclined to help him.

The deliberate abuse of slaves and of bondsmen, I remind you good Senators, is a flagrant contempt for Roman law, which specifically states that a slave may not be egregiously hurt by his master. Chastisement is to be conducted with rods for minor infractions and with the flagellum only when there has been a crime committed. There has been a crime committed here, truly, but it was against Rogerian.

I freely reveal that the man Rogerian is acting as houseman at my villa and will remain there. If there can be any question of the term of his bond, I will purchase the remaining years for whatever is reasonable. I have already secured Rogerian's bond to me in the form of one copper Brutus, that being the least-valued coin in my possession. He refused to take more.

Rogerian will be at your disposal, good Senators, and will appear when it is required of him. I am certain you will decide his case on its merits and award him the full measure of restitution that you are empowered to give.

This by my own hand, most respectfully, on the tenth day of June in the 824th Year of the City.

Ragoczy Saint-Germain Franciscus

at Villa Ragoczy