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"Get out of my house," I said finally. "And if you want to end your life, then break the peace of the Mother and the Father. For ancient as they are and silent as they are, they will crush you as you have seen for yourself. You know the location of the shrine. "
"You don't even know the measure of your crime," Mael answered. "To keep such a secret. How could you dare!"
"Silence, please," said Avicus.
"No, I won't keep silent," said Mael. "You, Marius, you steal the Queen of Heaven and you keep her as if she were your own? You lock her up in a painted chapel as if she were a Roman goddess made of wood? How dare you do such a thing?"
"Fool," I said, "what would you have me do with her! You spit lies at me. What you wanted is what they all want. You wanted her blood. And what would you do now that you know where she is? Do you mean to set her free and for whom and how and when?"
"Quiet, please," said Avicus again. "Mael, I beg you, let us leave Marius. "
"And the snake worshipers who have heard whispers of me and my secret, what would they do?" I demanded, now quite lost in my fury. "What if they were to gain possession of her and take the blood from her, and make themselves an army stronger than us? How then would the human race rise up against our kind with laws and hunts to abolish us? Oh, you cannot begin to conceive of all the ills that would be loosed upon this world were she known to all our kind, you foolish, mad, self-important dreamer!"
Avicus stood before me, imploring me with his upraised hands, his face so sad.
I wouldn't be stopped. I stepped aside and faced the furious Mael.
"Imagine the one who would put them both in the sun again," I declared, "bringing fire on us like the fire which Avicus suffered before! Would you end your life's journey in such agony and by another's hands?"
"Please, Marius," said Avicus. "Let me take him away with me. We will go now. I promise you, no more trouble from us. "
I turned my back on them. I could hear Mael leaving, but Avicus lingered. And suddenly I felt his arm enclose me and his lips on my cheek.
"Go," I said softly, "before your impetuous friend tries to stab me in base jealousy. "
The garden, and so the house seemed mad with all its lamps and the master filling walls with his illusions, and the guests laughing at him and raising their cups to him, and the music strumming on unto the dawn.
At first I thought it would be a distraction to have Avicus spying upon me, but I grew used to hearing him slip over the wall and come into the garden. I grew used to the nearness of someone who shared these moments as only he could.
I continued to paint my goddesses¡ªVenus, Ariadne, Hera¡ªand gradually I grew resigned that the figment of Pandora would dominate everything I did in that particular, but I worked on the gods as well. Apollo, above all, fascinated me. But then I had time to paint other figures of myth, such as Theseus, Aeneas, and Hercules, and sometimes I turned to reading Ovid or Homer or Lucretius directly for inspiration. Other times, I made up my own themes.
But always the painted gardens were my comfort for I felt I was living in them in my heart.
Over and over again I covered all the rooms of my house, and as it was built as a villa, not an enclosed house with an atrium, A
vicus could wander the garden all around it, seeing all that I did, and I couldn't help but wonder if my work was changed by what he saw.
What moved me more than anything perhaps was that he lingered so faithfully. And that he was silent with so much respect. Seldom did a week pass that he did not come and stay almost the entire night. Often he was there for four or five nights in a row. And sometimes even longer than that.
Of course we never spoke to each other. There was an elegance in our silence. And though my slaves once took notice of him and annoyed me with their alarm, I soon put a stop to that.
On the nights when I went out to Those Who Must Be Kept Avicus didn't follow me. And I must confess that I did feel a sort of freedom when I painted alone in the shrine. But melancholy was also coming down upon me, harder than ever in the past.
Finding a spot behind the dais and the Precious Pair, I often sat dejected in the corner, and then slept the day and even the next night without going out. My mind was empty. Consolation was unimaginable. Thoughts of the Empire and what might happen to it were unspeakable.
And then, I would remember Avicus, and I would rise, shaking off my languor and go back into the city and begin painting the walls of my rooms again.
How many years passed in this way, I can't calculate.
It is far more important to note that a band of Satanic blood drinkers again took up their abode in an abandoned catacomb and began to feast upon the innocent which was their custom, being desperately careless so as to scare humans and to cause tales of terror to spread.
I had hoped that Mael and Avicus would destroy this band, as they were all very weak, and blundering, and it wouldn't have been hard at all.
But Avicus came to me with the truth of the matter which I should have seen long before.
"Always these Satan worshipers are young," he said to me, "and never is there one who is more than thirty or forty years from his mortal life. Always from the East they come, speaking of how the Devil is their Ruler and how through serving him, they serve Christ. "
"I know the old story," I said. I was going about my painting, as if Avicus was not standing there, not out of rudeness, but out of weariness with the Satan worshipers, who had cost me Pandora so long ago.
