‘It is not my doing,’ she said, though she had no idea why it seemed important to clarify. ‘My father wanted you to be presentable at the banquet. He has also asked me to learn your name.’
‘Ha!’ the man scoffed. ‘What else did he ask for? My domicile? My sandal size? The breed and lineage of my finest camel?’
The humour of the statement struck them both at once and they chuckled together.
What was this strange thing between them, this laughter? And when had his dark eyes acquired that glint of gold?
‘Rab,’ he said at length.
‘What?’
‘Your father wished for you to learn my name. It is Rab.’
‘As in Rabbel? The last Nabataean King?’
‘Half the men in Arabia are named Rabbel,’ he said absently.
‘Are they indeed?’ Atia said, though she was barely listening. She had become distracted by Sol, the Roman sun god. His long arms were stretching through the bathhouse doorway, staining Rab’s face with golden light.
‘Rabbel was a popular king,’ Rab added, ‘though not any more.’
‘And who is your father, Rab?’ she asked, for her own father had commanded her to find this out as well. ‘And what is your father’s profession?’
Say he is a farmer, or a herder. Let him be of no political interest. A nobody.
Rab paused and gazed at the ceiling. ‘My father was a man called Junon. Before his death he was...a pomegranate farmer.’
Atia exhaled. A nobody, then. A glorious, unassailable nobody. ‘Come then, Rab, son of Junon, farmer of pomegranates,’ she said. ‘We must prepare you for your performance.’
She glanced over his shoulder at the guards. ‘Please await us outside.’
The three men exchanged looks and Atia knew she had just made a grave error. The guards would certainly notify her father of the unusual command. Atia would have to devise some story to explain it. But not now. Now was about preparing Rab to preserve his own life. With Fortuna’s favour, he might even earn his freedom.
‘If my father senses insincerity in your apology tonight, he will punish you further,’ she said. ‘You must believe me in this, for I have seen it before. He demands a moving performance.’
‘He wants theatre?’
Atia sighed. ‘All banquets are political and all politics are theatrical,’ she said.
‘You speak in knots,’ he said.
‘Just give me your best apology and let us see if it will suffice.’
Rab cleared his throat. ‘Honourable Governor Magnus Atius Severus of Arabia Petraea, I, Rab, son of Junon, do beg your forgiveness for the harm done to your person by my camel and I pledge my loyalty to Rome. Good?’
‘Beyond terrible.’
Rab frowned.
‘Your words are too terse and your demeanour far too proud. Just look at how you hold yourself. In that toga, I might have mistaken you for Augustus himself.’
A sly smile spread across Rab’s face and he puffed out his chest comically.
‘It is not a compliment,’ Atia warned. ‘You must hunch your shoulders and hang your head low. Do not appear comfortable in that garment. Appear as if you feel unworthy of it.’
Rab gave a dismissive grunt.
‘I do not think you understand what is at stake,’ Atia said. ‘My father wishes to humiliate you and receive your submission. If he is not satisfied, he will pursue other means.’
‘What means?’
‘He will take a finger, Rab. Or a toe. He will have you disrobed, or thrust your arm into the snake charmer’s basket. I have seen all these things happen to slaves and prisoners who have come before my father at banquets. He likes to put on an entertaining show.’
The colour left his cheeks. He paced away from her, his silence betraying his fear. Good, Atia thought. He should be afraid. Only the gods knew what manner of humiliation her father planned for him.
‘And as for the nature of your apology,’ she continued, ‘you must make it as detailed and elaborate as possible. Sorry is not enough—you must fawn and you must beg.’
She watched him cringe. ‘You must bury your true feelings deep. Watch me now and listen closely.’
Atia dropped to her knees and assumed her most miserable expression. ‘Honourable Legatus Augusti Pro Praetore Magnus Atius Severus,’ she said. ‘I come to this banquet in the manner of a lowly dog. I am embarrassed, ashamed, contrite. I sit on your couches, I eat your oysters, I avail myself of your endless generosity, yet I deserve none of this.’ Atia sat back on her heels. ‘Do you see? Now continue where I left off.’
Rab gave his shoulders an exaggerated hunch. ‘Honourable Governor, I stand before you as a beggar, a sand-scratcher, a worm. A fly on the back of the world’s ugliest toad. The stinking excrement of the lowliest jackal in the foulest—’
‘Perhaps a bit less description,’ Atia interrupted, suppressing a grin.
Rab nodded gravely. ‘Only two days ago, my camel did the unthinkable. The mindless beast thrust out his wretched leg and crushed your own. It was a crime for which both beast and owner deserve the worst of punishments. And yet you, Honourable Governor, in your magnificent mercy, have allowed us to live.’
‘Better,’ said Atia. ‘Now drop to your knees.’
Rab dropped to his knees before her and she felt a wave of heat pulse through her body. Now they were kneeling before one another with half-an-arm’s length between them. The bubbling in her stomach returned with new force.
She gulped a breath and willed herself to focus. ‘You must speak your apology with great humility,’ she advised. ‘Ideally, you must begin to cry, but only if you can produce real tears.’
‘It will be difficult enough to hide my disgust.’
‘You must not simply hide your disgust, you must swallow it whole,’ said Atia, ‘and after your apology, you must declare your loyalty to Rome...with thunderous enthusiasm.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘You wish for me to raise a cheer, then? Summon the trumpets?’
She frowned. His arrogance was exasperating. He certainly did not comport himself like the son of a pomegranate farmer.
‘Senatus Populus Que Romanus,’ he was saying now. ‘I have come here to pronounce my loyalty to Rome. First I shall perform a Roman salute, followed by a prayer to Magna Mater. Then I shall recite a few lines from the Aeneid.’ He arched a brow and it was all she could do not to laugh.
‘You will say none of those things—lest my father throw you to the lions!’
‘Just the lions?’ He was making light of her advice, but his words had grown edges. Beneath all his bluster, she knew he was afraid.
‘After your apology, you should straighten your posture and lift your chin thusly.’ She tilted her head so that her face gazed up at his. ‘Then passionately declare your loyalty to Rome.’
‘I am beginning to understand the nature of this drama,’ he said.
‘And that is?’
‘A debased, uncivilised Nabataean man is transformed by his submission to Rome.’
She did not deny it.
‘And if I do not wish to be your father’s performer?’
‘You risk losing more than your dignity,’ she said.