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Updated: June 7, 2025
Blanca kept it swept and free from dust, and Licinia tidied it only when she was so allowed. Dea Flavia went across the studio and pushed open the door. It was masked by a curtain, and this too she pulled aside, slowly and nervously like some small animal that is timid and yet venturesome.
"The physician hath given the praefect a drug to make him sleep, for it seems that fever was upon him with the pain of his wounds and he talked incoherently like one bereft of reason." "Hush!..." interrupted Dea Flavia hurriedly, "not before Licinia." Even as she spoke the old woman returned, carrying a robe of dove grey cloth, the darkest one that she could find.
"He looked wrathful as a tiger in the arena when the guards come and snatch his prey from him. There was a frown on his face darker than that which usually sits on Taurus Antinor's brow." "He was angered?" "Aye! at the praefect," rejoined Licinia.
She was staring straight up at the ceiling, her blue eyes wide open, and a puzzled frown across her brow. "My precious one," murmured Licinia. But Dea Flavia apparently did not hear. It seemed as if she were grappling in her mind with some worrying puzzle, the solution of which lay hidden up there behind that brilliant bit of blue sky which glimmered through the square opening in the roof.
"And didst see it all, Licinia?" asked Dea Flavia, as with a lazy stretch of her graceful arms she suddenly swung herself round on to her back and looked straight up at the wrinkled old face bending tenderly over her. "Aye, my precious," replied Licinia eagerly, "everything did I see; for thou didst draw the curtains of thy litter together so quickly, I had no time to take my place by thy side.
Then as Licinia muttering various dark threats drove the frightened girl before her, Dea Flavia breathed a sigh of relief. Her hands were covered with clay, so she stood quite still waiting for the reappearance of Licinia with the water; and all the while the frown on her face grew darker and the look of trouble in her eyes more pronounced.
He had not paid her this matutinal visit for the sole purpose of passing the time of day; and she did not like this strange mood of his nor his reference to a topic over which he had not worried her hitherto. In truth the thought of marriage had never entered her head, even though Licinia with constant garrulousness had oft made covert allusions to that coming time.
"Only death?" insisted Dea, whilst the puzzled look in her eyes became more marked, and the frown between her brows more deep. "I do not understand thee, my precious one," said Licinia whose turn it was now to be deeply puzzled; "what greater punishment could there be for a traitor than that of death?" "They torture slaves for lesser offences than that."
She called to Blanca, who together with the Augusta's tire-women had her quarters close at hand, and the young girl hastened to her mistress's room whilst Licinia went in search of a dark-coloured robe. "The praefect?" whispered Dea Flavia quickly, as soon as she felt assured that she was quite alone with her slave. "Hast seen Dion or Nolus?"
Methinks that he came from Galilee. They did crucify him because of sedition, and because he set himself to be above Cæsar." "And above the House of Cæsar?" "Aye! above the House of Cæsar too." "And they crucified him?" "Aye! like a common thief. 'Twas right and just since he rebelled against Cæsar." "And yet, Licinia, there are those in Rome who do him service even now."
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