Fortune's Favorites Read Online Free PDF Page B

vast house was murmuring beyond the open door, and the steward was calling her.
    “Domina! Domina!”
    Even in confusion modest–servants did not make a habit of invading Pompey's bedchamber–Antistia made sure she was decently covered before she sat up.
    “What is it? What's the matter?”
    “An urgent message for the master. Wake him and tell him to come to the atrium,” barked the steward rudely. The lamp flames dipped and smoked as he swung on his heel and left; the door closed, plunging her into darkness.
    Oh, that vile man! He had done it deliberately! But she knew where her shift lay across the foot of the bed, drew it on, and shouted for a light.
    Nothing woke Pompey. Provided with a lamp and a warm wrap, Antistia finally turned back to the bed to discover him slumbering still. Nor did he seem to feel the cold, lying on his back uncovered to the waist.
    She had tried on other occasions-and for other reasons-to kiss him awake, but never could. Shakes and pummels it would have to be.
    “What?” he asked, sitting up and running his hands through his thick yellow thatch; the quiff above his peaked hairline stood up alertly. So too were the blue eyes surveying her alert. That was Pompey: apparently dead one moment, wide awake the next. Both soldiers' habits. “What?” he asked again.
    “There's an urgent message for you in the atrium.”
    But she hadn't managed to finish the sentence before he was on his feet and his feet were shoved into backless slippers and a tunic was falling carelessly off one freckled shoulder. Then he was gone, the door gaping behind him.
    For a moment Antistia stood where she was, undecided. Her husband hadn't taken the lamp-he could see in the dark as well as any cat-so there was nothing to stop her following save her own knowledge that probably he wouldn't like it. Well, bother that! Wives were surely entitled to share news important enough to invade the master's sleep! So off she went with her little lamp barely showing her the way down that huge corridor flagged and walled with bare stone blocks. A turn here-a flight of steps there-and suddenly she was out of the forbidding Gallic fortress and into the civilized Roman villa, all pretty paint and plaster.
    Lights blazed everywhere; the servants had busied themselves to some effect. And there was Pompey clad in no more than a tunic yet looking like the personification of Mars-oh, he was wonderful!
    He might even have confided in her, for his eyes did take her presence in. But at the same moment Varro arrived in startled haste, and Antistia's chance to share personally in whatever was causing the excitement vanished.
    “Varro, Varro!” Pompey shouted. Then he whooped, a shrill and eldritch sound with nothing Roman in it; just so had long-dead Gauls whooped as they spilled over the Alps and took whole chunks of Italy for their own, including Pompey's Picenum.
    Antistia jumped, shivered. So, she noticed, did Varro.
    “What is it?”
    “Sulla has landed in Brundisium!”
    “Brundisium! How do you know?”
    “What does that matter?” demanded Pompey, crossing the mosaic floor to seize little Varro by both shoulders and shake him. “It's here, Varro! The adventure has begun!”
    “Adventure?” Varro gaped. “Oh, Magnus, grow up! It's not an adventure, it's a civil war-and on Italian soil yet again!”
    “I don't care!” cried Pompey. “To me, it's an adventure. If you only knew how much I've longed for this news, Varro! Since Sulla left, Italy has been as tame as a Vestal Virgin's lapdog!”
    “What about the Siege of Rome?” asked Varro through a yawn.
    The happy excitement fled from Pompey's face, his hands fell; he stepped back and looked at Varro darkly. “I would prefer to forget the Siege of Rome!” he snapped. “They dragged my father's naked body tied to an ass through their wretched streets!”
    Poor Varro flushed so deeply the color flooded into his balding pate. “Oh, Magnus, I do beg your pardon! I did not-I