Читать книгу Red Queen, White Queen - Henry Treece - Страница 13
ОглавлениеLavinia
Gemellus turned to his half-brother, wondering. The Celt bowed to him sardonically and whispered, ‘I should go, if I were you, Lord Gemellus—for certainly if you play your cards correctly, you may come to be that—a Tribune at the least. When you have finished what you may have to do there, I shall be waiting for you in the third cubicle of barrack room seven. Since we are on a mission together, it will be appropriate that we spend some time together, making arrangements for the morrow.’
He paused for a second, and then he added the word, ‘Brother.’
Gemellus looked up at him, not knowing whether the Celt was speaking seriously or in jest. But the young Captain of Horse merely saluted, half-mockingly, turned on his heel, and strode down the narrow passageway.
The negro girl waited until Gemellus had watched the Celt out of sight, then she touched his sleeve gently.
‘Follow me, sir,’ she said. ‘The Lady Lavinia is waiting to talk to you. She does not like to be kept waiting too long.’
At the far end of a long corridor there was a narrow door, painted in white and gold. The negro girl knocked quietly and then opened the door, standing aside to let the Roman soldier enter. When he had done so, she closed the door softly behind him. He heard the shuffling of her feet along the corridor.
The room was spacious and square, its stone walls covered by hanging fabrics, woven in the gay colours and designs of the Eastern Empire. A gold-meshed cage of pretty birds stood at the far end of the room. The tiny creatures fluttered about in it, cheeping prettily and almost unceasingly. An incense-stand, carved from black marble, stood on the golden feet of a lion before a small alabaster altar dedicated to Mithras.
In the exact centre of the room was a long couch, in the shape of a dragon, its head forming the head-rest, its tail coiled round to support the feet of its owner.
Its owner half-lay, half-sat on the couch, engaged in studying a roll of papyrus. As Gemellus stood before her, she looked up slowly, her dark eyes narrowed, her black hair falling from its braid and covering her forehead.
She put the papyrus behind the couch and held out her hand towards the soldier. He saw that it was a very narrow, fragile hand, tapered and olive-skinned. He bowed above the hand, in the customary manner, and then, standing stiffly to attention, waited for what the Lady Lavinia would say.
She was a long while before she spoke. Gemellus felt almost as though he was standing on the parade ground, so searching were her eyes, along every inch of his body.
And when she had looked him up and down, she rose from the silken couch and walked behind him, as silently as a cat. Though he could not see her, he sensed her every movement, for the perfume which she wore spoke as clearly as words to his heightened senses.
And at last, when she had sat down again, she said softly, ‘The Decurion, Gemellus Ennius, late of Germany, late of the Imperial Guard, son of the Centurion Gemellus Ennius, half-brother to Duatha Ennius, the Celt, who sometimes calls himself Ambrosius!’
Then she gazed up at him with narrowed eyes, smiling wickedly, so that he saw the tips of her white teeth between her slightly parted lips.
Gemellus nodded, feeling very foolish, and said ‘Yes,’ in a voice which he did not recognise just then.
The woman waited for a while, then she said, ‘You are a brave man to fight Duatha on your first day here, or on any day here. Duatha, your brother, has killed four men of Glevum, all of them Romans, since he took service with the Second. Did you know that?’
Gemellus said, ‘I did not know, and I do not care, Lady. I would fight with a stallion if he offended me.’
The Lady Lavinia smiled and clapped her hands together lightly. ‘But you are so quaint, soldier!’ she said. ‘It is a pleasure to have a quaint Imperial Guardsman here, after all these years of stolid peasants from Tuscany, out to earn a sweaty living, or those nancy-boy Tribunes, who only got their crowns because their fat old fathers knew my thin old father!’
Gemellus looked at her in mild shock. He had never heard a lady of the ruling-classes speak so before. But she did not seem to notice his surprise, and went on talking in her low, almost hoarse voice, using the most correct Roman pronunciation, and not the camp Latin that all the men spoke.
‘I have lived here, in this midden, for eight years, soldier. Think of that, eight years! And all because my mother died and my father could not bear the thought of me living with an Aunt in Lugdunum. He said that plague was prevalent there and that I should come and be with him here, in Britain, where the climate was bracing and the natives friendly. Yet all I have seen since I have been in Glevum are native women, big with the bastards of Roman Legionaries, old men and women with eye-diseases, and young officers out for promotion, however they could get it.’
She paused for a moment, looking wickedly into Gemellus’ eyes, and then repeated, ‘Yes, however they could get it!’
Gemellus felt a little faint. This woman was so tiring, so intense after all the events of the day. He passed his hand over his eyes and said, ‘May I stand at ease, Lady?’
Suddenly the face assumed the mask of gravitas which he had seen before, behind the stables when he was fighting Duatha. Her voice had that ivory masklike timbre too, when she spoke.
‘No, I think not, soldier. I find it nicer to talk to you while you are standing still, like a dead statue. If you moved, I should not want to talk to you freely. I should not even like you. As you are, you remind me a little of a Greek statue my Aunt had in her garden. Though, alas, it had lost its major attraction, for the village boys would throw stones at it, for its indecency, they said! We Romans are more broadminded, are we not? Not like these silly, mutton-headed Celts, eh?’
Gemellus looked down at his feet. ‘I do not know, lady,’ he said, swallowing.
The room was silent then, except for the cheeping of the pretty birds in their golden cage.
Then the Lady Lavinia said, ‘You do not like being teased, do you, Decurion?’
Gemellus said, ‘It is not that, lady; I am tired, that is all. I have travelled far in the last days, and today, I have had almost as much as I can manage.’
The Prefect’s daughter laughed, lightly and without effort.
‘But, you silly fellow,’ she said, ‘why then did you agree to go out and kill Boudicca? A tired man should not do a thing like that—it needs a whole man to deal with Boudicca! Haven’t you heard of her? She is big, like this, with breasts like pillows, and she has three men before breaking her fast on any morning....’
Gemellus suddenly let his shoulders sag, let his feet plant themselves wide apart, let his face assume the annoyance which he felt.
‘Lady,’ he said, ‘I would wish to respect the daughter of my Prefect. Be generous enough to dismiss me now, please.’
The Lady Lavinia looked away from him and reached for the papyrus that lay behind her couch. When she had it in her narrow hand again, he saw that her face was pale and set.
In a voice as cold as the wind that blew across the Sabrina from the Western hills she said, ‘Very well, Decurion, what will be, will be. If you are too much the milksop to tolerate my pleasantries, what can I do? I am, after all, only a woman, and you are a big strong soldier—with a Celtic bastard for a brother!’
Gemellus said softly, ‘May I have leave to go now, Lady?’
Then, for a long moment, the Lady Lavinia surveyed the soldier, her eyes both narrow and cruel now.
At last she said, ‘Yes, I suppose you must. I cannot imagine that your continued presence here would relieve my boredom. Though I might tell you that your brother, the Celt, is made of different stuff! He does not ask to be dismissed on the occasions when I have sent for him. On the contrary, it is I who make the plea, much as it goes against my natural grain to do so!’
Gemellus turned from her, sickened. But before he had reached the door the Lady Lavinia said gently, ‘When you have killed the woman with the big breasts, come back here for your reward, Decurion. They tell me that you are to be a Centurion. Well, if you would like it very much, you may be the husband of Lavinia, daughter of the Prefect of the Second. You might even become a Tribune, who knows!’
The soldier turned in amazement at these words.
‘Lady,’ he said, ‘you do not know what you are saying.’
The Lady Lavinia replied evenly, ‘I know very well what I am saying, soldier. I am saying that I have never before met a simple Guardsman I could not seduce. To be married to one would set me a challenge, dear friend. I would enjoy breaking you in, as the men break in their stallions on the parade ground. Think of it, Gemellus, on your way back from the Icenian Queen.’
And when he had gone to the barrack room, she rang the silver bell by her couch, and sent the little negro girl to fetch the Tribune, Gaius Flavius Cottus, to her, urgently.
