Roma
Sabra paced back and forth in her chamber, watching the line of light under her door for any sign of someone approaching. Surely the servant would come back eventually, especially if Hanno could communicate with her enough to send her in. Her stomach growled, resenting the loss of breakfast, but she refused to leave.
Soon.
When she was sure it had almost reached midday, the light under the door flickered out and a moment later there came a heavy knock on the door.
“Domina?” came a woman’s voice that Sabra recognized as the slave’s.
“Enter,” she called.
The woman slipped into the chamber, stopping in surprise when she saw Sabra sitting on the edge of her couch, hands folded in her lap, the ornate headdress pooled on the floor at her feet. She opened her mouth—Sabra thought she looked ready to rebuke her for still being in her chamber so late in the day—but at the last minute she snapped her jaw shut and bent wordlessly to pick up the headdress.
Sabra sat with her chin up and her gaze fixed on the wall across the room, and said, “I need your clothes.”
The slave lurched upright so fast Sabra was afraid she’d fall over. “Wha—” she started. “Domina! I don’t understand!”
Sabra stepped down off the bed and crossed demurely to the chest of belongings Hanno had brought from the ship. Inside she found a small bag of imperial coins that her father must have entrusted to Hanno, to pay for their journey.
“I will gladly pay you for them,” she said, dumping a few coins into her hand. “Yours, or any plain tunic and palla that might look like yours.”
The woman licked her lips, staring from Sabra’s face to the coins as if she weren’t sure if Sabra was lying or crazy. “I can get you a tunic, domina. For this much, I could get you a very fine tunic.”
“No no no,” Sabra said, pointing a finger at her. “You don’t understand. I don’t want a fine tunic. I want a tunic like yours.”
The woman’s eyes widened, horrified. “But why?”
Sabra grasped the woman’s arm, staring her very earnestly in the eye until the woman dropped her gaze. “I’m the princess of Libya,” she said, lowering her voice. “But right now, I’m in Rome. And I can’t see any of it because everywhere I go there are litters and slaves and people staring and crowds and all this heavy jewelry…have you felt how heavy that headdress is? I get a headache just thinking about it!” She squeezed the woman’s arm. “So, if you promise not to tell anyone, I’m desperate to slip out…just for a while…and see the sights without…being a sight to see myself. Do you know what I mean?”
The woman patted her hand, eyes twinkling as she caught on. “I see. A little disguise and you have your freedom. All right, domina. Let me see what I can do for you.” She crept toward the door, smiling conspiratorially over her shoulder at Sabra. “Don’t you move an inch. I’ll be back in no time.”
The woman was true to her word. Sabra had only just finished dividing out enough money to get her home to Cyrene—as near as she could guess, anyway—when she heard the familiar firm knock on the door. The slave bustled in a moment later, carrying a plain tunic and palla with a woven belt and sandals, the sort of fashion any slave or commoner might wear. Sabra’s face lit up and she gave the woman a huge smile.
As soon as she had exchanged the overly fine regalia she’d been wearing for the comfortable tunic, she gripped the woman’s hand and said, “Which way can I go to get out without being noticed?”
The woman directed her to the slave’s entrance at the back of the Domus, which led to a narrow street ordinarily only used by the slaves and merchants who did business at the palace complex.
“Thank you,” Sabra whispered. “That’s all. You can go now.”
“Good luck, domina,” the slave whispered back. “Enjoy the city!”
Sabra waited until the woman had ducked out of the chamber, then gently folded up all the pieces of her finery—her mother’s finery. She laid them in the chest and then, using a wax tablet and stylus she found at the bottom of the chest, she wrote a brief note to Hanno in Punic. She pressed out the letters five times before settling on something to say. Part of her wanted to go without a word, without a trace, but she couldn’t bear the thought of how upset, how betrayed, that would make him feel.
“I’m going home. Don’t try to stop me,” she said as she gouged the letters into the soft wax. “There. Short and simple.”
She laid the wax tablet on top of her clothes and closed the lid. Hopefully it would take him some time to find it, and by then…by then she should be on her way back to Cyrene.
She found her way back to the Tiber with little difficulty. Securing passage on one of the barges was more of a challenge—the first three barge pilots she hailed took one look at her simple tunic and the money in her hand and shoved away from the river bank without so much as an apology. Sabra gritted her teeth. If she’d dressed any nicer, she might have been taken seriously…but she knew she would have aroused more suspicion too, because well-bred ladies didn’t beg rides on river barges all on their own.
Finally she managed to come up with a convincing enough story to persuade a barge pilot to give her a ride. He chattered at her the whole way down the Tiber, gossiping about this senator and that patrician’s wife until Sabra’s head was spinning. They couldn’t get to Portus fast enough, but as soon as they arrived and the pilot helped her off the barge, her heart sank. She’d had problems getting a ride on a barge. Now…
Now she saw nothing but hundreds of merchant vessels bobbing on the water, and she hadn’t the faintest idea where any of them were going. It was useless. What had she been thinking? She’d be wandering the docks for hours trying to find someone to listen to her, and by then, Hanno would have figured out where she’d gone, and he’d come looking for her.
Not that he’d be likely to find her, though, she thought with some smug satisfaction. Portus was enormous, crowded with more people than she could possibly count. Almost everyone was dressed like her, in tunics dyed dark for work. With her palla draped over her head, he might walk past her a hundred times and never notice her.
She struck out for the docks with a determined stride. She was safe in Portus. Even if Hanno came, he’d never find her. Even if it took her weeks, she would find a ship. She would finally go home.