By Jove (11 page)

He glowered at her, but held his tongue.

“More wine!” Marlowe roared. Theo jumped; he had come to stand right behind her. “Ho, Theo. Don’t you know it’s bad manners to take mincing little sips of wine at a department symposium? Here, I’ll drink to you, and you must drink to me. You too, Grant. You should know better.” He refilled their cups from the bottle he carried, then held his cup up to hers for an instant before emptying it in one swallow.

She laughed. “I have to match that, huh?”

“As well as you can, anyway. I understand that you might not have my expertise.”

“Or your hollow leg.” She raised her cup to him and took a long drink. “Julian’s wine,” she said with relish as a heady shiver rippled through her.

“Of course,” Marlowe confirmed. “C’mon, Grant. Your turn.”

His jaw tightened, but then he relaxed and nodded. However, Theo saw that he took the barest of sips. What was wrong with him tonight? This was fun—the elegant classical costumes, the candlelight, Julian’s wine, Paul’s music. No wonder it was considered an honor to be invited.

“Don’t you like it?” she asked, watching him set his cup down on a table after Marlowe had wandered off.

“No, I don’t,” he said shortly, glancing at his cup with a frown.

“Because you don’t like the wine, or because you don’t like Julian?” she persisted.

“Stop being so perceptive, please.”

“Just behave yourself. We’re guests, remember? Now come on, admit that the wine is good and relax and let me admire you in your finery. Marlowe!” She gestured at him, and he hurried over with a fresh bottle and grinned his approval as she took another deep drink. The golden syrupy tingle seemed to spread clear down to her toes.

“Careful, Theo,” Grant said. “I might have to carry you home to bed if you keep that up.”

She laughed and looked at him sideways. “Would that be such a bad thing?”

He frowned. “When I carry you home to bed some night, I don’t want you drunk on Julian’s wine.”

Theo’s insides quivered at the intensity in his voice. Grant’s scholarship of humanities had improved somewhat of late. He was learning the joys of physical closeness: of holding hands under the table in the university coffee shop, of neck massages during late-night study sessions in the Great Room, of kissing with slow heat or swift ardor. That was as far as she’d taken it so far, until he seemed ready for more intimate contact. Not that she hadn’t thought about more. Had thought about it frequently, in fact. But she was waiting for a cue from him. Was this one?

But no. He was still frowning at his cup. She sighed to herself and rubbed her toes on the floor. The tiny
tessellae
that made up the mosaic’s surface were of different materials—stone, glass, ceramic—and all differed subtly in texture under her bare feet. She had expected that the floor would be cold, but instead found that it was oddly warm—yet another delight to the senses tonight. She thought about pointing it out to Grant but his expression was still too forbidding.

So she wandered from his side, enjoying the feeling of the floor under her feet as she walked, and joined the small throng that had gathered around one of the couches. As she peered past Di Hunter’s shoulder, she could see that Drs. Herman and Forge-Smythe were the focus of attention. They were playing some kind of game involving dice. As she watched, Dr. Herman threw the dice and groaned; then, while everyone laughed and cheered, he held out his hand for the large beaker of wine Marlowe brought him. Evidently he had lost his toss and had to pay a penalty. While everyone else clapped rhythmically, he drained the cup in one long draft. Cheers erupted as he flourished the empty cup and bowed.

“Again?” Dr. Forge-Smythe challenged, a mischievous gleam in his eyes.

“Not I. Not for a few minutes, anyway. I don’t think I could manage to lose again just yet.” Dr. Herman stumbled back to the side of the green-eyed girl and slid a casual arm over her shoulder. She looked both delighted and nervous at the contact.

“I’ll have a go, sir,” Andrew Barnes said in his sloppily draped toga, and took Dr. Herman’s place. The audience cheered him in turn and Ms. Cadwallader came to stand behind him, keeping a stern eye fixed on Dr. Forge-Smythe.

“He’d better watch it. Henry rarely loses,” Grant said in her ear. Theo looked up at him and he offered her a contrite smile. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to behave myself.” To her surprise he held his wine cup up to her in salute, then drained it.

A server approached the edge of the crowd with a large tray of hors d’oeuvres. Grant chose a tiny stuffed fig and held it to Theo’s lips. “Will you forgive me if I feed you?”

She accepted the fig, stuffed with sweet cheese and chopped dates, and looked up into his face, glowing in the candlelight. Then, before he could move his hand away, she delicately nibbled the end of his finger and drew it into her mouth for a delicious, lascivious second. Though the people around them were laughing and cheering again he didn’t seem to hear them, but closed his eyes as she released him.

“I’m sorry, was that too much?” she murmured to him around the sweetness of the fig. It nearly had been, for her.

“You are not sorry. You enjoyed every second of that,” he accused, eyes still closed.

“Yes, I did. Didn’t you?”

“The least you could’ve done is warn me.”

“What would the point be if I warned you? Consider that your punishment for being a spoilsport earlier.”

He opened his eyes. “Punishment? Are you trying to encourage misbehavior?”

“Some kinds of it, anyway.”

“’Scuse me,” mumbled a voice. Andrew pushed past them, looking both green and red at the same time, still clutching the cup he had evidently just been forced to drink. Before the crowd flowed back, Theo saw Ms. Cadwallader seat herself on the couch and pick up the dice, fixing Dr. Forge-Smythe with her gimlet eyes.

“Dear me, we need to teach that lad a few things,” said Marlowe, who had materialized next to Grant. He refilled Theo’s cup, squinted at the bottle, then upended it over his mouth. “He’ll never graduate if he doesn’t learn to hold his wine,” he added, wiping his mouth after he finished. A loop of golden ribbon suddenly descended around his shoulders and jerked him backwards. “Whoops! Hey cowgirl, you could have spilled something!” he cried, and turned in pursuit of a giggling, fleeing girl.

The group around the dice game cheered once more, and Renee Frothington-Forge-Smythe pushed her way through it, violet crown askew, and came to stand protectively by her husband.

“No! You know too much wine upsets his stomach!” she scolded June Cadwallader, who was holding a cup out to him with a grim smile.

“Now, now!” Julian swept through the crowd and held up one hand. “Time to find our dinner partners.” He nodded to Renee, who took the cup of wine and drained it herself, then handed it back to June with a disdainful sniff. Someone whistled in admiration as she moved to another couch and patted it in invitation to her husband, who smiled sheepishly and pulled himself alongside her. Dr. Herman murmured to the green-eyed girl and led her to one of the dining couches.

Grant’s hands circled Theo’s waist, and his breath tickled her ear as he opened his mouth to speak. At that moment, Julian appeared next to her.

“My dear Theodora! You must dine with me and tell me how you are liking your first symposium.” He held his hand out to her with an inviting smile.

But Grant’s firm grip on her waist held her back. “Sorry, Julian. I’ve claimed Theo for the evening,” he declared cheerfully. The pressure of his hands belied his light tone.

Julian regarded him, head to one side, then smiled. “I see. But there will be other symposia. Surely you don’t wish to deny me the pleasure of honoring my friend at her first one?”

Grant shrugged and maintained his grip. “As you say, there will be others.”

The two men stared at each other, unblinking gray eyes meeting turquoise. Theo shivered as the temperature seemed to drop and the room to shift around her. But then Julian laughed.

“You do not yield? Well then—a contest! You and I—and the winner may claim Theodora as his dinner partner.”

This was too much. All of Theo’s latent feminist instincts came to indignant life. “Excuse me, but do I get any say in—” she began, wriggling under Grant’s implacable hands.

“Very well,” Grant said. He released her and stepped toward Julian. “What do you propose?”

Julian examined him, brow creased in a frown. Around them the faculty and students fell silent. Dr. Forge-Smythe on his couch shook his head and buried his nose in a wine-cup, but Renee sat up, her eyes darting avidly from Julian to Grant and back again. Marlowe stood watching, the little braids someone had plaited into his beard bristling comically in stark contrast to his sober expression. Dr. Waterman stepped forward, frowning, but halted at a glance from Julian. The implacable turquoise gaze fell on the dice abandoned by Dr. Forge-Smythe. “
Tessellae
,” he replied.

Theo looked wildly down at her feet. What were they going to do to the floor? Then she realized that she’d misheard him. Not
tessellae,
but
tesserae
—dice. They were going to play a game of dice for the privilege of sitting with her at dinner. This was utterly crazy. She wanted to laugh, to tell them just how ridiculous they were being, to call back the cheerful silliness that dressing up in costumes and drinking excellent wine had engendered.

But another look at their faces quelled that impulse. Julian’s eyes were more steel than turquoise as he seated himself in Dr. Forge-Smythe’s place, and Grant looked more than ever like a figure from an El Greco painting, his face somber and unreadable.

Julian held up one hand, and a student hurried forward to hand him a cup of wine. He drained it, handed it back, and nodded at Grant. “One throw? I imagine everyone is eager to start their meal. I know I am.” He glanced at Theo.

“One throw,” Grant agreed shortly. He took the three dice that Julian handed to him with exaggerated courtesy, and surveyed them for a moment.

Theo felt Dr. Waterman sidle over to her and was grateful for the silent comfort of his presence. “This is nuts—” she whispered to him, but he shook his head and held a finger to his lips.

Just then Grant’s hand flashed, and the cubes with their inked dots fell through the air and onto the couch. Theo had a moment to register the expression of concentration on his face before it relaxed into a satisfied smile.

“Seventeen,” he said, and heads craned to see the three dice, two sixes and a five, resting on the linen-covered cushion. Theo exhaled, and realized she had been holding her breath.

Julian did not smile back. He scooped the dice up and weighed them in one hand for a moment, as if lost in thought. The gold edging of his cloak caught the candlelight as he lifted the dice and breathed across them. Next to Theo Dr. Waterman stirred but remained silent.

Then Julian’s hand shot out, and the dice tumbled through the air. Theo saw them fall as if in slow motion. Two fell swiftly and landed, six dots up on both, but the third bounced and rolled, following a declivity in the cushion. As it lost momentum it seemed to hover on edge for a moment.

Julian smiled triumphantly. “Eighteen!” he proclaimed as the die started to settle back, six dots upmost. But then, as if nudged by an invisible finger, it toppled once more. Two dots, like tiny baleful eyes, stared up at them from the stilled cube.

The room was silent. Even the candles seemed to stop flickering for a moment. Then Julian looked up from the die and into Grant’s calm pale face. His eyes burned not turquoise or steel, but pure electric blue. “
Who are you?
” he snarled.

Grant smiled. “Don’t you know yet?” He stood up and shook out the folds of his toga in a theatrical gesture, then turned towards Theo.

“You were right, Julian,” Dr. Waterman declared in a loud voice. “We
are
starving. So I’m claiming my student here as my dinner partner.
Venite, mi amici. Cenemus!”

He took Theo’s arm and pulled her away from the couch. She was grateful for his hand on her arm, for her knees had turned to water.

The other professors and guests moved to the couches, conversing in hushed tones. In the corner one of Paul’s musician friends took up a kithara and started to play. The undergraduates sorted plates and serving utensils over by the covered dishes of food. A strained air of normality settled over the room.

“Here,” Dr. Waterman said firmly, choosing a couch across the circle. She climbed onto it, and he settled himself behind her. She saw Di already stretched next to Julian, and Grant nodding to June Cadwallader as he took the place next to her.

“Disgraceful display,” she heard Dr. Waterman muttering under his breath. “Absolutely outrageous.” He leaned forward and poured two cups of wine from the flagon on their table. “Here,” he said, handing her one. “You probably need that. I know I do.”

Theo drank gratefully then set down her cup. “What—” she started to say, but he shook his head.

“I think it best if we all just try to forget that little scene. Both of them should have known better. What was Grant thinking of? I will have to speak to him. And Julian! He of all people should be setting an example. Completely irresponsible.” He refilled her cup.

“Dr. Waterman,” she tried again, “I’m sorry about—”

“It’s not your fault at all. No, it’s not,” he insisted as she opened her mouth. “The two of them behaved like a pair of children. Now please, let’s just forget it. My digestion is already upset enough, and I was looking forward to this.”

He waved his cup toward the boy setting large silver plates at the tables, followed by a pair who carried a silver basin and ewer of warm water. She saw Grant hold his hands out to be rinsed under the scented water, and wished that they were back at their favorite Chinese restaurant and that she had never heard of the symposia.

“No you don’t. You’ll enjoy this. I promise,” Dr. Waterman said. Theo sighed. It was getting unnerving, the way everyone around here read her mind all the time.

Dinner arrived soon after, to her relief. Dr. Waterman was a courteous partner, filling her plate for her from the highly seasoned dishes proffered by the servers, explaining what each one was, gently quizzing her by asking the names of the ingredients in Latin. Theo was glad she had spent time reading that copy of Apicius. She knew exactly what he was trying to do: distract her, keep her from paying too much attention to the brooding looks both Julian and Grant constantly sent in her direction. His kindness touched her, so she did her best to play along with him. In the end it worked and she
was
distracted, so that when the dinner had reached the sweets-nibbling stage and Dr. Herman started asking Latin riddles, she was able to drink her wine and laugh and groan with the rest.