Roma Eterna Read Free Page B

sanctuary, the priestess wears them and anyone she touches with the stone becomes an absolute seething mass of procreative energy. Heraclius’s princess will conceive an heir for him the first time he gets inside her. It’s virtually guaranteed. The dynasty continues. My little favor for my chilly and sexless brother. I’ll explain it all to his beloved, and she’ll know what to do. Eh? Eh?” Maximilianus amiably patted Faustus’s belly. “What are you feeling down there, old man?”
    Faustus handed the pendant back. “What I feel is that you may have gone a little too far, this time. Who did you get these things from? Danielus bar-Heap?”
    â€œBar-Heap, yes, of course. Who else?”
    â€œAnd where did he get them? Stole them from the Temple of the Great Mother, did he? Strolled through the grotto one dark night and slipped into the sanctuary when the priestesses weren’t looking?” Faustus closed his eyes, put his hand across them, blew his breath outward through closed lips in a noisy, rumbling burst of astonishment and disapproval. He was even shocked, a little. That was something of an unusual emotion for him. Maximilianus was the only man in the realm capable of making him feel stodgy and priggish. “In the name of Jove Almighty, Maximilianus, tell me how you think you can give stolen goods as a wedding gift! For a royal wedding, no less. Don’t you think there’ll be an outcry raised from here to India and back when the high priestess finds out that this stuff is missing?”
    Maximilianus, offering Faustus his sly, inward sort of smile, gathered the jewelry back into the pouch. “Yougrow silly in your dotage, old man. Is it your idea that these jewels were stolen from the sanctuary yesterday? As a matter of fact, it happened during the reign of Marcus Anastasius, which was—what? Two hundred fifty years ago?—and the sanctuary they were stolen from wasn’t here at all, it was somewhere in Phrygia, wherever that may be, and they’ve had at least five legitimate owners since then, which is certainly enough to disqualify them as stolen goods by this time. It happens also that I paid good hard cash for them. I told the Hebrew that I needed a fancy wedding present for the elder Caesar’s bride, and he said that this little collection was on the market, and I said, fine, get them for me, and I gave him enough gold pieces to outweigh two fat Faustuses, and he went down into the Jewelers’ Grotto this very night past and closed the deal, and here they are. I want to see the look on my dear brother’s face when I present these treasures to his lovely bride Sabbatia, gifts truly worthy of a queen. And then when I tell him about the special powers they’re supposed to have. ‘Beloved brother,’” Maximilianus said, in a high, piping tone of savage derision, “‘I thought you might need some aid in consummating your marriage, and therefore I advise you to have your bride wear this ring on the wedding night, and to put this bracelet upon her wrist, and also to invite your lady to drape this pendant between her breasts—’”
    Faustus felt the beginnings of a headache. There were times when the Caesar’s madcap exuberance was too much even for him. In silence he helped himself to more wine, and drank it down in deep, slow, deliberate drafts. Then he walked toward the window and stood with his back toward the prince.
    Could he trust what Maximilianus was telling him about the provenance of these jewels? Had they in fact been taken from the sanctuary in antiquity, or had some thief snatched them just the other day? That would be all we need, he thought. Right in the middle of the negotiations for a desperately needed military alliance that were scheduled to follow the marriage of the Western prince and the Eastern princess, the pious and exceedingly virtuous Justinianus discovers that his new