The Course of Honour by Lindsey Davis

trust. To him she could speak. ‘I was a child when he last lived here, but those years were very dark. His household existed in dread. He was most intrigued by persuading the aristocracy to commit obscenities, but no slave carried him a cup of wine or was sent to fasten his shoe without the risk of being stripped and subjected to indecency—either by him or the men and women who surrounded him. No one could save you if you attracted attention. Childhood was no protection. Ordinary rape was a kindness compared with the alternatives.’
    In the schoolroom she herself had been relatively safe. Even so, as a teenager she had always carried her stylus knife so if she ever met trouble she could stab herself and perhaps take one of the Emperor’s catamites with her. One of her friends had died of suffocation and shock during an ugly ordeal in the Emperor’s underground entertainment room. Caenis would not repeat the details.
    Vespasian walked slowly back to where she sat. Leering curiosity had given way to middle-class distaste. His face remained neutral though Caenis sensed the concealed throb of anger. ‘Not you, I hope?’
    â€˜No,’ she reassured him sombrely, with all the colour bleached from her own voice. Simply talking to him had healed her bad memories. ‘Not me.’
    She noticed a small nerve jerk in his cheek.
    He sat down again. They changed the subject.
    They spoke of Crete. They discussed the problems of running a province that was divided between a Mediterranean island and a tract of North Africa; the main advantage for the quaestor was that he could always send his governor to bumble round the other half of the territory while he enjoyed himself.
    They spoke of Vespasian’s mother. ‘Is she fabulously pleased with you now?’
    â€˜Afraid so!’
    They had become confederates. They were talking like two outsiders from society. They talked for the months they had already missed and the period of Vespasian’s coming tour; openly and easily, sharing rudeness and laughter, discovery and surprise; until lunchtime, through lunchtime, and into the afternoon. They talked until they were tired.
    Then they sat, two friendly companions just leaning their chins on their hands.
    There were no sounds of habitation. It was so quiet they could hear the creak of walls contracting in the winter chill and birdsong—a thrush perhaps—from a far-off deserted park.
    â€˜Oh gods, Caenis; this is no good—’ He flung out his arm across her table, stretching his hand towards her. ‘
Come here!
’
    â€˜
No!
’ Caenis exclaimed. She shrank back from him instinctively.
    Their eyes locked. His hand dropped. He sighed; so did she.
    â€˜All right. I’m sorry.’
    â€˜You’re going away!’ she cried.
    They sat in silence again, but their encounter had brought them so close Caenis suddenly confessed with desperate clarity, ‘I am afraid of what I feel.’
    She should never have done it. She saw his face set. Men hated any admission of emotion. Men were terrified of the truth.
    Not this one.
    â€˜So am I,’ he acknowledged. ‘But there seems nothing to gain by ignoring it.’ Fiddling with her sticks of sealing wax, his tone was deliberately level. ‘Are you still asking me to leave you alone?’
    â€˜I should,’ Caenis returned carefully as she too found herself staring at the edge of the table. ‘You know I am not.’
    Though he wanted to disguise it, his gratitude was unmistakable. They both looked up again. Nothing had happened, yet everything had changed. They both smiled a little at their shared sense of helplessness.
    Flavius Vespasianus was not a man anyone would expect to hold this kind of conversation. To Caenis he seemed too mature, too good-humoured, too cynical to be touched by internal conflict or uncertainty. Yet he was stubbornly himself.
    â€˜Hmm! I’m going away,’ he agreed