To Love Again - Bertrice Small [110]
“Let me think,” she said. “Ohh, I wish that girl that Jovian featured in the first of his playlets was still here. She was so beautiful, but she disappeared very quickly. You did not see the performance, of course, not having yet come to Constantinople, but the girl took all three of those Northmen into her body at one time! Jovian never allowed anyone else to have her, and then suddenly she was gone. He would never explain what had happened to her. I think she may have killed herself. She did not look like a whore.”
“Let us have all three of the Northmen, then, Flacilla. You shall play the girl’s part for me, and we shall have Casia as well,” he said, kissing her quickly. “It will be a celebration of our engagement.”
Flacilla sat up. “My family would never allow me to divorce Aspar and marry you,” she said. “They value Aspar’s influence too much. Though they forced him to wed me in order to gain their support for Leo, they have gotten much through his influence, Justin. They will not easily give all that up.”
“Do not ask your family, Flacilla. Ask your husband for a divorce. I suspect he wants to ask you for one, and removing his child from your care is his first step along the road to ridding himself of you. Once again Aspar will embarrass you and hold you up to ridicule. Strike first, my pet! I doubt he cares as long as he is rid of you.”
“What if he refuses me?” she said. “You never know with Aspar.”
“Then you can go to your family,” Justin replied. “Your husband is not a god, Flacilla. There must be some weakness of his you can play upon. Have you learned nothing in the time you were married to him?”
“Actually,” she admitted, “I know little of him. We have never lived together, nor slept together. He is an enigma to me.”
“Then you must spy upon him to learn what we need to know, my pet, for I will have you, or no one will!” He kissed her hard.
After a night of particularly wild debauchery, Flacilla awoke clear-headed and determined. “Send a messenger to my husband’s palace,” she told her majordomo, “and say that I wish to visit him this morning. I shall arrive before the noon hour.”
“The general is not at his palace, my lady,” the majordomo said. “He closed his palace up some months ago, and lives at Villa Mare now. Shall I send a messenger to the country to inform him you are coming, my lady? The villa is just five miles beyond the gates.”
“No,” Flacilla said. “Do not bother. I will simply go. By the time a messenger went and returned, I could be there myself. Have my litter made ready.” She dismissed the majordomo and called her maids.
Wanting to make a good impression, Flacilla chose her garments carefully. Her stola was blue-green in color, and matched her eyes. It was shot through with gold threads, and the fabric was very rich. The sleeves were long and tight, and the garment was belted at the waist with a wide gold belt that was most flattering. Her gold slippers were beautifully bejeweled, and her hair was a mass of golden braids, fastened high and decorated with jewels. A matching cloak lined in fur completed her outfit. Flacilla stared hard at herself in the polished silver mirror. Then she smiled, well-pleased. Aspar would be impressed.
Her bearers hurried along the Mese and through the Golden Gate. The day was pleasant, and she could see through the bit of drapery she left open the cattle grazing in the fallow fields. Here and there peasants were pruning trees in the orchards that occasionally lined the road. It was a soothing and most pastoral scene, Flacilla thought, if not just perhaps a bit boring. Why was Aspar living in the country? The litter turned into the gates of the Villa Mare, and entering the courtyard, came to a stop. The vehicle was set down and the curtains drawn back. A hand was extended to help her out.
“Who are you?” Flacilla demanded of the elderly servant.
“I am Zeno, General Aspar’s majordomo,” was the polite reply.
“I am the lady Flacilla, the general’s wife. Please tell him that I have arrived,” she said