Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [103]
The praetorian guards returned to the Vinicius villa with expectation. Many of them knew Antonia from the time that she was married to the praefectus.
A few of them knew her wel .
Antonia Vinicius’s reputation in this corner of the empire was second to none. A remarkable woman of great beauty and cunning. Her insatiable appetite for men was equally celebrated and discussed in the taverns and trattorias of Byzantium and beyond.
The nervous among the guards crept along at the back of the column, hoping that Antonia would not notice, or remember them and what they’d got up to in her bedchamber. Those to whom Antonia was merely a legend in her own lifetime, a notorious trollop whom they would brag to their grandchildren of having arrested and forced treasonous confessions from, strode on ahead.
They were met on the steps of the villa by the senator’s head of household, Redecius.
‘Stand aside, freedman,’ ordered the praetorian captain, Cicero.
‘Tread softly, citizen, as you enter the hall of my lady.’
‘You know why we are here?’ asked the captain.
‘I do,’ replied Redecius, ‘and my lady stands ready for her fate. Follow me.’
He led a small delegation of guards into the outer bath chamber. A few of the guards exchanged knowing glances as Redecius threw open the double doors to the pool room and knelt beside the door in silent prayer as the captain took a couple of paces into the steamy, humid atmosphere.
Antonia floated, naked and on her back, in the crimson waters, her wrists slit by the knife that lay at the bottom of the gently lapping pool. The blood had seeped into the very fabric of the bath tiles, staining the entire surrounding area, Antonia, the captain noticed, had a smile of satisfaction on her silent, dead face.
‘This thing is done,’ he told the still-kneeling Redecius.
‘Inform thy master that his wife has taken her own life before the praetorian guard could do it for her.’
Redecius reacted angrily. ‘Speak not ill of the dead, disrespectful, vulgar and ignorant man,’ he said in a paroxysm of rage. ‘My lady does not deserve that, or this.’ He pointed into the room.
There was a scornful edge to the captain’s voice as he replied while turning and walking away from Redecius. ‘Think yourself, and your master, lucky that we had not arrived sooner. It is only through the praefectus’s grace and favour that thy profligate mistress’s head is not adorning the spikes on the golden gates.’
‘Is there anything wrong with him?’ James asked, with genuine concern.
In the mouth of the Christian cave, the Doctor was continuing to dance a merry little jig, and mutter happily to himself.
‘He has received news of great significance,’ Papavasilliou noted. ‘I am greatly pleased that it should have been I who imparted this news to him.’
‘This concerns his lost family, perhaps?’ asked Daniel.
‘It would seem so.’
The Doctor saw the three men and headed towards them with a jubilant smile, as though all of the troubles of the previous weeks had been lifted from his shoulders. ‘My friend,’ he said, shaking Papavasilliou warmly by the hand. ‘It is so good to see you again after the glad tidings of great joy that you brought to me yesterday.’
The old Greek’s smile dropped a fraction and, sensing something was wrong, the Doctor’s face followed suit.
‘Further to that,’ James began, somewhat embarrassed.
For a moment none of the men seemed able to speak, then Papavasilliou blurted out an almost incoherent babble of words. ‘I’m sorry,’ the Doctor interrupted, ‘could you slow down, my hearing’s not what it was, do you see?’
The shepherd’s eyes betrayed everything that he was about to tell the Doctor. ‘When I returned to the Greek quarter yesterday evening,’ he began in a more measured tone, ‘I was given the dreadful news that Roman soldiers have taken Vicki from the family who were trying to protect her from just such a dreadful occurrence.’
There was more, of course. A couple had been murdered in their beds, seemingly, but the Doctor had lost interest in what the old man was saying. The horror