Palatine by L. J. Trafford

Author:L. J. Trafford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AEON Books

TWENTY-NINE

Calvia Crispinilla had been lucky. When the soldiers burst into her palace rooms set on arresting her, she was waking up alongside a handsome, young charioteer somewhere on the Caelian Hill. She was gloriously stretched across his taut chest, allowing him to nibble at her ear, when a messenger arrived with the news.

Calvia was up and dressed in seconds. “Sabinus you say?” she enquired of the messenger.

“Nymphidius Sabinus has gained control of the city, madam,” he confirmed.

Calvia gave a tight smile. “Well, I guess I had better get out of the city then. After breakfast, naturally,” she concluded, sizing up the charioteer once more.

Over on the Viminal Hill another breakfast was taking place. Teretia was recounting in great depth and detail everything she had witnessed the previous evening to her enthralled parents. Literally everything. From the litter ride over to the Palatine, to the guards on the gates who had let them in, “Without even asking who we were because Philo is so well known at the palace,” she said proudly.

The object of her adoring affection missed the devoted look that was thrown his way, being more concerned with his porridge and certain other matters that were weighing on his mind.

Pompeia and Teretius listened with awe to Teretia's expansive commentary, though the issue of the tiara had been much discussed. Pompeia worried that her daughter had not obtained it in proper fashion, Teretia hotly stating that she had. They managed to gain Philo's attention long enough to conclude that Sporus owned a great many tiaras and was free to give one away if he liked, even if it were a piece of jewellery that was worth the equivalent of a near decade of Teretius’ wages. Teretia happily placed the tiara back on her head and tucked into her own bowl of porridge.

Breakfast over, Philo trudged down the Vicus Longus, past the side of the slum Subura region, fretting over the Mina situation. He'd endured a restless night, waking with a cold blast of horror in the sudden realisation that the conversation he'd passed with the kitchen girls the previous week regarding the wilting properties of celery, had not been about salads at all!

He shrank with embarrassment, recalling how he had attributed their giggly state to an unusually high level of job satisfaction. So it was with a far from glad heart that he trudged his way towards the Forum of Augustus.

Aside from the mortification, which was Philo's default mood, he was feeling distinctly peevish towards Mina. It was most unfair of her to launch herself at him in such a manner. He hadn't been prepared at all. No man faced with such an assault on his most intimate area could respond in a ripe celery way.

She should have offered him a warning of her intentions before enacting them so violently, thought Philo, utterly ignorant of the three-month campaign of heavy flirtation that Mina had directed at him with all the drive of a Delphic chariot champion (one wearing a low-cut dress with bosoms heaved upwards).

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