To Love Again - Bertrice Small [75]
“Of course not,” Cailin replied indignantly. “I am a member of the Drusus family of Corinium. My father, Gaius Drusus Corinium, was a decurion of the town. I am a married woman of property and good reputation.”
“Who is now a slave in Constantinople,” Jovian answered dryly. “Tell me how you came to be here,” he said as they entered the dressing room.
Cailin told him what she could remember and what she had managed to piece together during her months of travel, while the bath attendants undressed them and brought them into the tepidarium, a warm anterroom where they would wait until they began to perspire. The fact that she was now naked, as was Jovian, did not trouble Cailin. She felt no danger from this man. Indeed, she felt he might become her friend. Seeing their perspiration begin, the bath attendants scraped away the dirt and sweat with silver strigils as they talked.
“You were obviously betrayed by this Antonia Porcius,” Jovian noted wisely. “A woman who believes herself wronged is a very dangerous enemy to have, my dear. Selling you into slavery was her revenge upon you, and upon your poor husband. No doubt she told him you were dead. If not, he would have forced her to reveal your whereabouts and come after you, I expect. The news of your death, however, would cause him the same deep pain that his execution of her husband caused her. She has been quite clever, this Antonia. It is a plot worthy of a Byzantine. You survive to suffer in slavery, not knowing what happened to your child, while your husband suffers anguish over your alleged death.”
Cailin was silent. How succinctly Jovian had put it, and he was probably correct. What was worse, there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. She was helpless, and so far from her beloved Britain that she would never be able to get back. Until this moment she had not even considered it, but now she had no choice but to face reality. She was alive, and obviously likely to remain so. She had her future to consider.
“Why did you purchase me?” she asked Jovian as they moved on into the caldarium to be bathed.
“I could see that beneath the dirt you were beautiful, and beautiful women are my business,” he told her, then turning, said to the bath attendants, “Wash her hair first, my dears. I want to see its true color. It is so mud-caked I cannot tell.”
“My hair is auburn,” Cailin told him. “I take my coloring from my mother, a Dobunni Celt.” Then she could say no more, as the two girls bathing her began to scrub her head and scalp with great vigor. “Ouch!” Cailin complained as their fingers forced themselves through the almost impossible tangles her hair had knotted itself into over the last months. Finally her hair was rinsed with warmed water that smelled of a pungent substance. “What is in the rinse water?”
“Lemon,” Jovian said. “The gods! Your hair is wonderful!”
“What is lemon?” Cailin demanded.
“I’ll show you later,” he said. “Come now, and let the girls bathe you, my beauty. No.” He motioned to the bath attendants. “I shall care for myself. Devote your time to Cailin.”
They washed her with a soft soap that seemed to melt the remaining dirt from her skin. Cailin could scarcely contain her delight at being clean again. They continued on into the frigidarium for a quick, cold plunge bath, and then into the unctorium, where they stretched out side by side on two benches to be massaged with sweet oils.
“How are beautiful women your business, sir?” Cailin asked.
The two bath attendants giggled.
“This is Villa Maxima, Cailin,” Jovian explained. “It is the most elegant brothel in all of Constantinople. We serve both ladies and gentlemen seeking entertainment of a more exotic, exciting kind.”
“What is a brothel?” she asked him, annoyed to hear the two girls’ renewed amusement. They sounded so smug.
Jovian raised his head up in surprise and looked at Cailin, who lay comfortably next to him, enjoying her massage. “You do not know what a brothel is?” he said, amazed.
“I should not have asked you if I knew, sir,” Cailin