admirer, of course,” said Comito, with an air of nervous bravado. “And, Theodora, you’ll have to help me pack. Not that there’s much to take, but I’ll have better clothes soon.” She bit into a juicy apple.
“You’ve accepted a protector! You have, haven’t you?”
“I have an admirer,” said Comito, “who has made me more than one offer. I’ve refused him several times. But now, well … I’ve agreed.”
“Oh, Comito, you couldn’t!” said Theodora. She shuddered to imagine her sister in the damp and desperate clutches of an elderly lover, one of those with a hairy nose, bad breath and a belly that sagged over his belt.
“What are my options?” demanded Comito. “Even at the best of times, the stage pays rotten wages, and now it’s closed down. Now what? We’re close to starving. No decent man will marry me, you know that. Everybody thinks I’m a whore, so I might as well be one.”
“You needn’t be what people think,” said Theodora. “They can’t force you to be what you’re not.”
“But what else is there? I could sleep with a whole lot of men, none of them paying very much, or with one rich man. So. I’ve decided I might as well be rich, and have a nice house, and servants.” She folded her arms defiantly.
Theodora was silenced by this brutally honest statement of facts.
“Come on, Theodora, don’t look like that.”
“There should be something … something else. It’s not fair. You’re so beautiful. Much too good for some gross, rich old man.”
“Oh, he’s not gross,” said Comito. “Really, he isn’t.”
“Who is it?” asked Theodora.
“Marcus Anicius Longinus. He’s a patrician and a senator. Late forties or so. Has a sickly wife who never leaves their country estate.”
“So what does he offer?”
“He’ll install me in his apartment here in town and give me a good allowance. He needs a hostess. Apart from … well, you know.”
“You have no idea how to give grand dinner parties,” said Theodora.
“I’ll learn. He has a good secretary, he says, who’ll guide me.”
“Rather sleep with the secretary,” advised Theodora.
“He’s a eunuch. But even if he wasn’t, he’s not rich.”
And that was the hard truth of it.
An agreement was made, and Comito moved to the best part of town. Her mother and her sisters kept their distance. The Senator would certainly not welcome his mistress’s disreputable relatives to his home. But Theodora was curious, and when Comito invited her over on a day when her protector rode out to his estate, she went eagerly.
As she had expected, it was a spacious apartment filled with scarce and precious things, with the plush and sensuous textures, the sheen and gleam, the sparkle and glow that only a great deal of money and the hard work of many invisible hands could create. It turned a solid back on the rowdy street outside, and held off the rude winter’s wind with shutters and velvet drapes and braziers, redolent of privilege and roses.
Comito also looked burnished. “Darling Theodora! Come in! I’ll take your cloak. Look around, I just need to talk to the cook about lunch.”
Theodora discovered a library and stood completely entranced. A whole room given over to books! It was extraordinary. Rows and rows of shelves, with pigeonholes that held scrolls and boxes that contained codices! A large table, with two codices lying open, an inkstand, sheets of vellum and pots of ink! She closed her eyes and inhaled the wonderful, slightly musty smell emanating from lots and lots of books. How could anyone be so lucky, she thought, as to own so many books!
A dry cough made her open her eyes. There stood a small, spare man in a grey tunic with white hair combed neatly forward and sharp brown eyes. Ah, she thought. The secretary.
“Oh!” she said. “I’m sorry, I just walked in. I’m Comito’s sister. Theodora. She said … the Senator wouldn’t mind if I had a look around.”
“Nor would he,” said the man. “You’re fond of reading?”
“Oh, yes! Comito isn’t, though. It’s not fair. She won’t appreciate these books, and I would! Just for this … I’d even stand the attentions of a nasty fat old patrician myself!”
He smiled wryly. “You read Greek?”
“Of course. Latin as well. My mother taught us. She’s … an educated woman, even if …”
“Even if she’s fallen on hard times?”
“Quite,” said Theodora. “We come from a good family.” It seemed important to her that he should know this. “My father was a priest, but my parents fled from Syria and he had to take what job he could get.”
He put a small, neat hand on the nearest open codex. “What do you make of this?”
She leaned forward. “Ah. It’s … Latin. Let’s see … today I … um … crossed … the Rubicon … Oh, I know. These are the Commentarii de Bello Civili.”
“The writer?”
“Julius Caesar.”
Eyebrows raised in surprise, he nodded. “And what was the Rubicon?”
“A river, outside Rome. It meant that civil war against General Pompey was inevitable. When he had crossed it, Caesar said: ‘The die is cast.’”
“And the outcome?”
“Caesar triumphed. But in the end, he lost. He was murdered on the Senate steps. He bled,” said Theodora, “on a statue of Pompey.”
“Do I detect a lack of sympathy?”
“I think Caesar was foolish,” said Theodora. “Blinded by ambition. He should have seen it coming, and … well … taken measures.”
“Could he have?”
“If he’d kept an ear to the ground. Been more aware of people’s feelings.”
He gave a small smile. “You know your history.”
“Not as much as I’d like,” said Theodora.
“Why not? You’ve been well taught.”
“My mother knows history and philosophy,” said Theodora, “but she hasn’t much time to teach us. And we have no books of our own, only those we can borrow.” She looked around her with an expression like that of a hungry child in a pastry shop. As if she could eat the books, cram them into her undernourished soul. “Not a single one.”
“You should come here to read,” he offered. “I could teach you more.”
“Could
