CHAPTER 68

I went through more parchment in two days than I had when Seneca and I wrote the letter to Tiberius urging him to shut down the games. I tried humor. I tried heartfelt. Next, a combination, resorting to the old formula of making her laugh, then making her cry. But nothing seemed to adequately describe my feelings for Flavia.

I realized eventually that my feelings couldn’t be scripted. I would have to speak from the heart. Yet even for a trained orator like me, the prospect made me weak in the knees.

I decided not to bring a ring. It was traditional, once a man and woman were engaged for marriage, to have the woman wear a ring on her third finger. Yet there was nothing traditional about this. A Vestal Virgin couldn’t wear a ring until she had completed her service, could she? For Flavia, that would be six more years. If she said yes, we would have to keep our engagement a secret until just before Flavia finished her term. Her obligation right now was to be married to Rome.

When I arrived at the designated spot on the night of our meeting, Flavia was already there. I heard her voice as I was picking my way through the trees and underbrush on the banks of the Tiber.

“Theophilus, over here.”

I stepped into a small clearing where there were some logs with the sides flattened so they made nice seats. There was a fire pit filled with ashes, and someone had strung a canopy at the side of the clearing to provide shelter from the rain.

I gave Flavia a kiss on both cheeks. “Is this where you and Mansuetus spent time together?”

She nodded. “This place is filled with memories,” she said sadly. “I probably should have picked a different spot.”

We sat on one of the logs. There was a chill in the night air and we moved next to each other, sharing a blanket Flavia had brought.

“Do you want me to start a fire?” I asked.

“Better not. It might draw too much attention.”

The stars were out, and a full moon danced off the ripples of the Tiber. This night and this spot were nearly perfect except that the memories of Mansuetus hung in the air, as tangible and strong as the ancient trees surrounding the clearing. It would feel awkward and disloyal to ask her to marry me here. But I thought about my exchange with Seneca, and I knew that this might be my one and only chance.

We talked for a long time first. We were both cautiously optimistic that our role in the conspiracy against Caligula would never be discovered. She told me firsthand about the horror in the theater that day and the way Rubria and others had helped her protect the senators.

“If Chaerea hadn’t executed Caesonia and Drusilla the way he did, we might have pulled it off,” I said. “Sentiment was beginning to turn our way.”

“We unleashed a lot of anger that day,” Flavia said. Her voice was melancholy, and I wondered if she was having second thoughts.

“Would you do it again?”

She thought about it for a while. In her eyes I could see the memories darken her thoughts. “For the sake of Mansuetus, yes. But I wouldn’t enlist the others. I wouldn’t try to restore the Republic.”

A million thoughts danced across my mind as we talked. I thought about the first time I had laid eyes on her, my will melting as she discussed the games with Seneca and me. I thought about how my feelings for her would never go away. I remembered that night at the funeral of Mansuetus when our blood mingled and I saw a steely determination harden her face. Her eyes were sadder now, more resigned to the pain of life, but every bit as hauntingly beautiful.

I wanted to change the subject to something more uplifting. “What are you going to do when you finish your service as a Vestal?” I asked.

She had been playing with a twig, and she tossed it into the ashes. She reached over and took one of my hands, a natural and small gesture, but it made my heart race.

“I’m not sure yet. For the last year I’ve just been hoping to survive. I’d like to travel. The Parthenon in Greece. The pyramids in Egypt. The ruins of the hanging gardens in Babylon. I’d like to see the world. I’d like to taste the wines in the four corners of the empire.”

There was an awkward silence as I tried to figure out what to say next. Part of me wanted to tell her those were my dreams too, but the truth was that I had a strong and visceral love for the city of Rome. I had been to the provinces, and they didn’t live up to expectations. But I would follow Flavia to the ends of the earth if that’s what it took.

I expressed none of those thoughts. Instead, I asked a single question that mattered more to me than anything else. “Alone?”

“I guess. I don’t know.”

I was so nervous, I shivered in the cold. I was a twelve-year-old schoolboy again, raising my hand for the first time to answer a question posed by Seneca. An uncertain young advocate with buckling knees arguing his first maiestas trial. A lowly equestrian meeting a beautiful Vestal.

“We could travel together,” I managed. Since the earth didn’t swallow me and Flavia didn’t bolt away, I decided to continue. “I’m not sure how to say this, and I’ve actually tried to write it down a hundred ways, so I guess I’ll just blurt it out.”

I looked at Flavia and she turned to me. I couldn’t read her expression and decided to speak before I lost my courage.

“I want to marry you, Flavia. So I’m asking you to be my wife once your time as a Vestal is over.”

And there it was. The world’s most inelegant proposal. A man who had studied advocacy his entire life, and the one little speech that mattered more to him than any other could have been scripted by a seven-year-old.

“Marry you?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“I’ve loved you since the first time we met,” I admitted. “I never said anything because I knew you were in love with Mansuetus. And maybe I should hold my tongue now. But, Flavia, I would never be able to forgive myself if I didn’t at least try. And when Seneca told me a few days ago that you had asked about my intentions —”

“Seneca? What does Seneca have to do with this?”

It took my nervous mind a split second to process what she had just said. She had no idea what I was talking about —she hadn’t said anything to Seneca! This was truly catching her off guard. I wanted to strangle my mentor, but that thought could wait.

“Nothing,” I said. “Except that sometimes Seneca has this knack for saying profound things. Like marriage should be a matter of the heart and not a contract for social status.”

“Seneca said that?”

“Well . . . not really. But he should have.”

She smiled, and the look relaxed me.

“I think Seneca is right, or at least he could have been right if he had said that,” she said, looking down at the ground in front of her. “But I’ll be thirty-nine when my time as a Vestal is over. I knew as a young girl that my life would be spent in service to Rome. That being a Vestal meant I would likely never be a matron of my own family. Childbirth at thirty-nine is no small thing.”

“But not impossible,” I said quickly. “And what does it matter? There are plenty of young women with whom I could start a family. But I don’t love them, Flavia. I love you. Even if it were just the two of us, I want to grow old with you.”

“A lot could happen in six years.”

“I’ve waited eleven. I can wait six more.”

She looked at me with those dark-brown eyes, and I wanted to believe she was softening. I gently placed my hand under her chin and leaned in so our lips were just a few inches apart.

“Forget about children and our age and how many years it will be until we are joined as husband and wife, and just answer one question,” I said. “Do you love me? Maybe not the same way you loved Mansuetus. But do you love me?”

In response, she leaned in and gave me a kiss. She placed her hand on the back of my head, gently holding me until I relaxed and enjoyed the greatest moment of my life.

When we pulled back, she shivered a little as if overcome with emotion. She wrapped her arms around herself and leaned against my side, and I held her there. In the silence I could tell she was thinking, and my own mind raced with visions of what those thoughts might be.

When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. “I remember the last night I was with him,” she said. “Right here. Just the two of us. He said he’d quit fighting as soon as he earned his freedom. We made plans together. On these same logs. We promised each other I would walk out of the House of Vestal on my last day and follow him to his own home, where we would consummate our marriage. All of Rome would talk of nothing else. A Vestal and Rome’s most popular gladiator. And now he’s gone.”

Her voice broke, and I knew that she was crying. I reached over and wiped away a tear.

“You’re a good man, Theophilus,” she said. “But this is all happening so fast. I need time. Even our kiss felt like some kind of betrayal.”

The words tore at my heart. Not because she still loved Mansuetus but because I had been so blinded by my own desires that I hadn’t understood that. Maybe she would never love me. How could I compete with a ghost?

“I’ll never be able to take his place,” I said softly.

“I know,” she said. “I’m not asking you to.”

I probably should have left it there. But I had already risked everything, and my heart was speaking now. “We could have something different. Special in our own way. Surely Mansuetus would want you happy.”

She brushed her tears away and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I just need time,” she said. “Thank you for understanding.”