Empire - Saylor Steven (читать полные книги онлайн бесплатно TXT) 📗

“I’ll miss you. I’ll miss this.” He pulled her close. “But even more, I’ll miss this – the thing we do after making love. The banter. The teasing. The serious talk. Will you take another lover, while you’re in Alba?”

“No.” She answered without hesitation.

“Then neither will I,” he said.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re a man.”

“And you are a woman – the only one I want. To whom else might I turn? The bored wife of some acquaintance looking for an hour’s distraction? A slave, counting the cracks in the ceiling until I’m finished? A whore, with one eye on the coins in my purse? Or perhaps I should look for some doe-eyed young girl fresh on the marriage market whose father is willing to settle for a suitor with a worn-out patrician name, a reputation for keeping company with exiled philosophers, and a family fortune only a little tainted by association with Nero. Not one of those women would be able to discuss philosophy and religion with me afterwards.”

“You might be surprised.”

“I suppose I’ll do what Martial does when one of his boys fails to show up – learn to love my left hand. Or I suppose I could turn to another of the Vestals-”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Varronilla isn’t bad-looking, and she’s even younger than you; maybe too young for my taste. What about the Oculata sisters? I once enjoyed the attentions of a pair of sisters, years ago – and how many men have had sisters who were also Vestals? The sheer novelty of it-”

“Don’t even think about it!” Cornelia gave him a pinch, playful but painful enough to make him yelp. “You and I take precautions, Lucius. We’re discreet. When our paths cross in public – at the Flavian Amphitheatre, in the Forum – we greet each other briefly, as is perfectly natural and acceptable, then we move on. We give no one cause for suspicion. But if you gain a reputation for deliberately seeking the company of Vestals, if you seem to be too familiar with our comings and goings-”

“Cornelia, I was only joking. I was teasing you – the way a man teases the woman he loves when she’s just told him that for months and months he won’t be able to talk to her, or touch her, or do this to her…”

His passion reignited hers. Their lovemaking was fiercer than ever, fired by the knowledge of their coming separation.

AD 85

“And you’ve been faithful to her the entire time, Lucius? Even though you haven’t been alone with her for over a year?” said Martial. They were in the garden of Epaphroditus, along with their host and Epictetus.

“Just as I vowed to her,” said Lucius.

“Let me make sure I understand. This woman went away for several months, then finally returned, and now she refuses to meet with you again, except in public and in passing. Yet still you remain chaste, having no intercourse with either women or boys?”

“That is correct.”

“But, Lucius, this is madness! If the woman’s lost carnal interest in you, you must move on. Oh, I understand the heartache, the longing, the period of grief when a love affair ends. But while you’re waiting for that to pass, you still must attend to your physical needs. If you don’t feel ready yet to take pleasure with another woman, then take a boy, since you have no real interest in boys. That way you can experience all the physical pleasure with none of the regret you might feel for betraying this woman – though how you can betray a woman when it was she who abandoned you is beyond me.”

“Martial, you simply don’t understand. She hasn’t betrayed me. She’s as chaste as I am.”

“Oh, really? How can you believe that? Of course, you won’t even tell us if this woman is married, or a widow, or some other man’s slave, or a common whore in the Subura.”

She is none of those things, thought Lucius, but he could think of no way to explain that fact without giving away Cornelia’s identity.

“Personally,” said Epictetus, “I think there’s nothing perverse or unnatural or even unusual about remaining chaste, if the body and mind are in harmony with such a choice. This mad rage to deflower virgins and sample every available prostitute and carry on illicit affairs with other men’s wives, and meanwhile to give equal attention to fawning boys and compliant eunuchs – the sort of topic so fashionable nowadays in poetry – seems only to make a man constantly agitated and dissatisfied. Such a surrender to lust yields very little contentment in the long run.”

“Ah, but it yields so much pleasure in the short run,” said Martial. “Though it can be quite exhausting, I’ll grant you. Our emperor used to be quite the sexual athlete, you know. In his younger days, before his father became emperor, they say the young Domitian was on a first-name basis with every prostitute in Roma; he’d go swimming naked in the Tiber by moonlight with a whole group of lovelies. And he was quite the seducer of respectable matrons as well. He called his activities ‘bed-wrestling.’ I like that, don’t you? It shows that our emperor in his younger days didn’t take lovemaking too seriously. It’s was just another way of keeping fit and working up a good sweat, like horseback riding or a bit of exercise at the gymnasium. Of course, once our emperor married – a true love match – there was never a more devoted husband and father. Ah, the death of that precious little boy! What a blow that was. And his wife’s subsequent affair with that actor, Paris – the irrational act of a grieving mother, surely – was yet another disappointment. Our emperor did what any self-respecting Roman would do – divorced his wife – and Paris just happened to be murdered in the street one night. But so devoted was our emperor to his chosen spouse that he forgave and took back the empress, and their marital bliss continues. My fondest wish is that they will soon produce another heir. Indeed, I have a poem already prepared for that occasion: ‘Be born, great child, to whom your father may entrust the everlasting reins of empire-’”

“And yet, does Domitian look happy?” said Epictetus. “Was he ever happy, even in his younger days, when he was so proficient at this so-called ‘bed-wrestling’? No. Always, he displays that same dour, constipated look that one saw on his father’s face. Yet behold our friend Lucius here. Have you ever seen a man who appeared more contented? Yet Lucius has but one lover, and that lover makes no demands on him at all. He remembers the pleasures he once experienced with her, which are perfect and inviolable in retrospect, and contemplates her from afar, with some suffering but also with the bittersweet satisfaction that she longs for him as well. Clearly there is some danger or impropriety attached to their relationship, either for her or for him, or else I think he would tell us her name; but that element of risk must only add spice to his longing. He loves this woman as certain men are said to have loved a goddess – from afar, with utmost devotion, and at their peril. See how satisfied he appears – his eyes gleam, his movements are sure and graceful, his whole bearing is that of a man at peace with the world and with himself. I think our friend Lucius has discovered a secret happiness that the rest of us can only guess at.”

“We’re certainly left guessing at the name of his lover,” said Martial.

Lucius smiled. “It’s strange, but somehow this relationship – irregular as it may be – has filled a need in my life. As grateful as I am for the gift of friendship from each of you, there was a vacant place inside me, an emptiness that remained unamused by your wit, Martial, unsatisfied by your philosophy, Epictetus, insecure despite all your fatherly concern for me, Epaphroditus. She fills that emptiness.”

“So poetry, philosophy, and friendship cannot compete with unrequited love?” said Martial.

“Not unrequited love, only unfulfilled – for the time being, anyway.”

Epictetus nodded. “If you’ve found contentment in a chaste love affair, you should strive to maintain the relationship just as it is. The happiness that comes from physical consummation is fleeting.”