dropped to his knees before her and she felt a wave of heat pulse through her body. Now they were kneeling before one another with half-an-arm’s length between them. The bubbling in her stomach returned with new force.
She gulped a breath and willed herself to focus. ‘You must speak your apology with great humility,’ she advised. ‘Ideally, you must begin to cry, but only if you can produce real tears.’
‘It will be difficult enough to hide my disgust.’
‘You must not simply hide your disgust, you must swallow it whole,’ said Atia, ‘and after your apology, you must declare your loyalty to Rome...with thunderous enthusiasm.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘You wish for me to raise a cheer, then? Summon the trumpets?’
She frowned. His arrogance was exasperating. He certainly did not comport himself like the son of a pomegranate farmer.
‘Senatus Populus Que Romanus,’ he was saying now. ‘I have come here to pronounce my loyalty to Rome. First I shall perform a Roman salute, followed by a prayer to Magna Mater. Then I shall recite a few lines from the Aeneid.’ He arched a brow and it was all she could do not to laugh.
‘You will say none of those things—lest my father throw you to the lions!’
‘Just the lions?’ He was making light of her advice, but his words had grown edges. Beneath all his bluster, she knew he was afraid.
‘After your apology, you should straighten your posture and lift your chin thusly.’ She tilted her head so that her face gazed up at his. ‘Then passionately declare your loyalty to Rome.’
‘I am beginning to understand the nature of this drama,’ he said.
‘And that is?’
‘A debased, uncivilised Nabataean man is transformed by his submission to Rome.’
She did not deny it.
‘And if I do not wish to be your father’s performer?’
‘You risk losing more than your dignity,’ she said.
Rab exhaled mightily, then rose to his feet. ‘I declare my complete and undying loyalty to Rome,’ he said, his rich, gravely voice resounding against the marble. ‘For Rome’s greatest Governor has lifted me from squalor and shown me mercy.’
‘Bravo,’ she said, feeling unreasonably happy. ‘You have learned the dance.’
He flashed a begrudging grin and extended his hand down to her and when she rose to her feet it was as if they were really dancing.
‘If Fortuna wills it, you will walk free tomorrow,’ she said. If Fortuna willed it, this would be the last time they would ever speak again.
‘You do me a kindness,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘I find it...tedious to watch other people suffer.’
‘I am grateful to you,’ he said. She noticed that he had not released her hand. She glanced at the floor, unsure of how to respond. ‘Truly,’ he said, willing her to look at him again. ‘I owe you a debt.’
Atia blinked. Obviously he was trying to win her favour again. What prisoner ever expressed gratitude to his captor?
‘Yes, that is it,’ she said. ‘That is the tone of sincerity you must strive to convey.’
He lowered his voice. ‘It is not a tone. I am sincere.’
What a strange thing for him to say. But of course you are not sincere, she wished to tell him. You are a prisoner. You will say anything to engineer your escape.
‘When you stand before my father tonight you must work hard to veil your thoughts,’ she said. Meanwhile, her own thoughts had begun to run riot.
‘You appear to know quite a lot about the veiling of thoughts,’ he observed. He squeezed her hand. There was very little distance between them now. She could smell his clean olive scent.
‘Yes, I believe I am something of an expert in that particular skill,’ she admitted.
She had been veiling her thoughts all her life, in truth—from a father who used her, from husbands who despised her, even from her own awareness. Thoughts were dangerous, because they always led to pain. ‘If my thoughts are concealed, they cannot be used against me,’ she said.
‘And yet perhaps you are not so very adept at concealment as you think,’ he whispered. She glanced at his lips, the bottom lip so much larger than the top, like a pillow upon which she might lay her secrets.
‘I am extremely adept,’ she countered. She had meant the statement as a kind of jest, but the words came out thick and heavy.
‘Can you guess my thoughts in this moment?’ he asked.
‘No, I am afraid I cannot.’
His lips were so close. It was as if he wished to kiss her. ‘I am thinking that you are very beautiful.’
His breath washed over her, bathing her skin with sensation. It flooded down her limbs, making her feel relaxed and alert all at once. What had he said? That she was beautiful?
Beautiful?
She froze. She was many things, but beautiful she was not. Something was amiss.
She stepped backwards. He was watching her closely, his eyes smouldering with...with that look. That very well-crafted, remarkably believable approximation of desire. Something was very, very amiss.
He tilted his head back to take in the length of her body and his eyes fixed on the belt of her tunic—the place where she had stored the key to his cell.
And there it was—a glimpse of the truth. His mind was not on her—of course it was not. Had she forgotten how her terrible hooked nose made her completely undesirable? Nay, he was thinking of the key. He did not desire her. He desired escape.
She took another step backwards. And to think that she had tried to tutor him in the art of performance! What a fool she had been. She had almost been taken in by him, had waited for his kiss, had longed for it, even. How could she have forgotten herself in such a way?
‘Do you think me that naive?’ she asked.
‘Apologies, I do not underst—’
‘Guards!’ she called.
Atia tipped the vial into her goblet and watched two cloudy drops mix with her wine.
‘How many for you, Lydia?’ she asked her friend.
‘Only one, dear,’ said Lydia, glancing at the door. ‘And be quick.’
Just beyond
