Brinnaria pulled a wry face, as in her mutinous girlhood. She felt entirely at ease with Aurelius.
“I perceive that I must endure him,” she said, “but if you cannot banish Calvaster, perhaps you’ll oblige me by banishing Almo.”
“Almo!” the Emperor exclaimed, “what can you have against that gallant lad? Have you turned against him? I thought you were unshakably resolved to marry him, thought you loved him unalterably!”
“I shall marry him, if we both live,” Brinnaria replied, “and most unalterably love him. But I love life and daylight and fresh air and my full meals even more. I have a splendid appetite, I loath stuffy places, I hate the dark. The idea of being shut in an underground cell to suffocate slowly or starve to death even more slowly goes against my gorge. I see myself in my mind’s eye climbing down that ladder, like poor Cornelia, I see myself stretched out on my cot, watching the ladder being pulled up by the executioner, watching the workmen fitting in the last stone of the vault. I imagine myself staring at the wick of the lamp and wondering how long the oil will last and debating whether it would be better to blow out the light and save the oil to drink and so live longer in the dark, or to let the lamp burn out and have the discomfort of the light a little longer. I fancy myself conning over the trifle of bread, milk, fruit and wine left on the stone slab, and speculating as to how long they’ll keep me alive.
“Bah!
“No burial alive for me.
“Acquittal on a trial is a poor way for a Vestal to escape the worst possible fate, a last resort, at best, and an unchancy reliance, even as a last resort. A far better way is never to be tried, and the best way never to be tried is never to be accused. You’ve been good enough to tell me that if I were accused you’d be predisposed to favor me in all possible ways and that you’ll give instructions as to your opinion of me. Any directions of yours would be respected by any heir of yours. But you yourself have just remarked how slender is an Emperor’s hold on life or on power. I may survive both yourself and your son. I might be tried before men we should never think of now. I must arrange so that I shall never be tried at all, I must live so that I shall never be accused.
“Now I am unlikely ever to be accused in relation to any man except Almo. Everybody knows I mean to marry Almo when my service is at an end, everybody knows he means to marry me, everybody knows we are in love with each other. That puts me in the most delicate position any Vestal ever was placed in. I have been extremely careful. I have never spoken to Almo since I was taken for a Vestal, have never met him except by accident, have never set eyes on him except against my will; have never even written a letter to him or received one from him. I have been, I think, wise, judicious and controlled. But Almo has not behaved well towards me.”
“Indeed!” Aurelius interjected. “You surprise me! What has he done?”
Brinnaria flushed.