Free Roman Dusk by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

care for her mother, who is ill. I may be gone until sunrise. If you will bring my leatherstrapped chest from my second room? The one that contains my medicaments and other medicinal supplies.”
    “Of course, Dominus,” said Tigilus, nodding as he turned away.
    “Do you have your biga with you, or should I order mine readied?” Sanct-Franciscus asked Ignatia.
    “My biga is outside, and Philius is walking the horses.” She stared at him. “You will not wait until morning, then?”
    “You say your mother is suffering now. What use is it to wait longer to alleviate her discomforts?” Sanct-Franciscus touched the silk of his Egyptian kalasiris. “I will fetch a pallium from my private room, for covering.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Vitellius, if you would—bring a cup of warm honied wine for my guest? She will benefit from it, even though the night is not very chilly.” He hoped it would calm her a bit, allaying her worst fears and making way for sleep to come, for clearly she needed sleep.
    Coming out of the shadows, Vitellius ducked his head to Sanct-Franciscus. “Yes, Dominus.”
    “I will return directly,” he assured Ignatia, and went to the vestibule to get his linen pallium, which he tugged over his head and let it fall over the silken kalasiris. He moved into the light from the cluster of lamps above the door.
    “Leaving? And from your house instead of mine?” asked a soft voice from the broad couch in the outer part of his private room. “You have no need to escape me; I must return to my own house in a short while. My night isn’t over yet.”
    Sanct-Franciscus paused and looked back with a rueful smile. “Ah, Melidulci,” he said softly, “if I thought you would linger, so would I.”
    From her place amid the wonderful confusion of sheets, Melidulci laughed, a rich laugh, warm as ripe fruit. Her pale hair—a gift of nature, not of the dyer’s skills—shone in the glow of the lamp-light, wheat on gold. “You have a way with words, Sanct-Franciscus, I give you that, and you don’t fall on me like a ravening wolf, as so many do.” She stretched out one arm to him. “It might be worth spending the night.”
    “You were the one who said you must be away at midnight, and I have arranged for a chair to return you to your own door,” he said, smoothing the front of his pallium, adding with a regretful smile as he reached out to touch her cheek; his fingers lingered, eloquent of his reluctance to leave. “Sadly, you and I both have demands upon us. We would have had to say good-night shortly in any case.”
    Melidulci shook her blonde curls. “If only all my Patroni were as thoughtful as you are, my life would be far more delightful. As it is—” She glanced at the aureus on his pillow, and without seeming to pay much attention to it, said, “Oh, you are most generous, Dominus.”
    “It is no more than you deserve,” said Sanct-Franciscus, returning to the bed and bending down to kiss her lovely, reddened mouth; it was an expert kiss, artful and subtle, full of promise and sensuality, awakening and tantalizing, but revealing little of either him or her.
    “You are a worthy man, Patronus, for all your oddities,” said Melidulci as he moved back from her.
    “I thank you for your high opinion, and your lack of questions, considering everything,” said Sanct-Franciscus as he once again made for the door. “And I thank you for coming to me, Melidulci. I appreciate your kindness.”
    “Kindness!” She laughed softly. “If you knew what I do about most men, you would do as I do every time I leave here, and thank Venus and the lares for giving me a lover who is more aware of my pleasure than his own, and who is not embarrassed to have me in his house,” she said with a tinge of world-weariness in her voice. “You have no concept of how rare a thing that is.”
    “As I have told you, your pleasure is my pleasure; I have no other,” he said, smiling at her. “What you achieve, I