Chapter 219 - Julia

Tragedy seemed to stalk Cornelius Varus. Wife dead. Two sons killed during an uprising in Judea. All he had left was his youngest child Julia. Despite himself, Apollonius couldn't help feeling some sympathy for the Roman. Even worse, he found himself warming to the man. He was, as the magician had said, a jovial and fair-minded fellow. Witty. Intelligent. Honest. Why he had decided upon a political career, and how he had managed to get himself elected to public office, Apollonius could not imagine.

But his daughter, Julia, was infinitely more appealing.

She was beautiful, smart, refined and opinionated. Unlike most patrician women, she did not seem pretentious or spoiled by her advantages. Perhaps she might have been if the circumstances of her life had been different, if bad luck did not shadow her family's every step. The deaths of her nearest and dearest, however, had given her an appreciation for what was truly important in life. "Which are, in my opinion, love, honor and justice," the young woman said, reclining on the couch beside her father. She smiled, not the least bit self-conscious, and popped a grape into her mouth.

She had, Apollonius thought, the most finely shaped lips he had ever seen.

She was short and voluptuous, with curly light brown hair that she had pinned up with jeweled hairclips for the dinner party. When she glanced toward Apollonius, her eyes—pale blue like her father's—twinkled as if some interior comment had secretly amused her. She wore a dress of the same pale blue color, the color of the sky in late October, cloudless and deep.

"It often seems that tragedy calls upon those least deserving of its visit," his master said, and Apollonius nodded grimly. He thought of his mother, dying upon Domitianus's cock. His mother, who was only ever kind to everyone around her.

"I sometimes think the gods are cruelly amused by our suffering," Apollonius said. "As if our lives are theater to them, our torments their entertainment."

"Like the games," Julia said. "If I believed the gods were real, I would say this world is their coliseum, and we are mere beasts to be slaughtered for their amusement."

"Julia!" her father cried. "You'll offend our hosts!"

"I apologize if I've offended either of you," she said, looking dutifully ashamed. "My father is overly indulgent of me. I'm afraid I've developed a tendency to speak my own mind."

"Don't apologize!" Apollonius said quickly, as the magician opened his mouth to speak. "I believe the same way!"

Encouraged by the lad, the senator's daughter said, "I find it strange that people will believe in beings they cannot see or touch or sense in any way. That they devote their entire lives to them. Make sacrifice to them while their own children go hungry. And yet, where are these gods when we pray to them? When we plead, tears coursing down our cheeks, for their assistance? When has Jupiter ever answered your prayers? I know he has never answered mine. Not when my mother was dying. And not when my brothers were sent away to Judea."

"Julia…" Cornelius warned, but he was gentle about it.

"Oh, now I know I've been ill-mannered. I'll give us all indigestion! Let us talk of lighter things. Will you be attending the Vulcanalia this year?"

Apollonius could not believe she had spoken so frankly, or so insightfully. It was as if she had given voice to his own thoughts. He did not know for certain whether he believed in the gods, but he found the evidence for their existence scant and not very convincing.

He was also terribly attracted to her. She was, he believed, the most beautiful young woman he had ever seen. She was not beautiful in the traditional sense of the word. She was a bit too plump, a bit too freckled for that, but he couldn't stop gawping at her throughout the entire meal. He liked the way she looked at things, her gaze sharp and measuring and always somewhat amused, as if she found everything just slightly preposterous.

I have already fallen a little bit in love with her, he thought, and he felt a jolt in his belly, as if a tiny thunderbolt had zigzagged through his innards.

"You should give your eyes a rest and eat, Paulo. You've barely touched your food all night," Julia said to him suddenly, interrupting the conversation of their elders. "It's no wonder you're as thin as a rail."

Her father looked from Julia to her admirer, and then roared laughter.

"Do you like heavy boys?" Apollonius asked, emboldened by her teasing. "If you do, I shall eat this entire course!"

Julia looked somewhat surprised, then blushed a little. "No. Actually, I like skinny boys."

Grinning at her, Apollonius took the morsel he'd been chewing from his mouth and placed it on the table.

"I spoke in jest when I suggested we play matchmaker," Cornelius said to the magician. "Now I think we needn't bother."

"Yes," the magician said amiably, but he glanced at the boy when he said it, and his eyes were not so agreeable. In fact, he looked quite disconcerted. What do you think you're doing? those glinting gold eyes demanded, and Apollonius, remembering what the magician had told him when he made him an immortal, had no answer for him.

Later, after Cornelius and his daughter had departed, thanking them for a wonderful evening, the magician gave voice to that unspoken question: "What do you think you're playing at, son?"

Apollonius didn't bother to prevaricate. "I don't know."

"I told you before I gave you the living blood what you would have to—what you must—give up for it!"

"I know."

"You are not a mortal man anymore."

"I know."

"You cannot give her children. You cannot lie with her without the risk of losing control and killing her, or turning her into a lamia."

"I know."

The magician stared at the boy for a moment, disarmed by his lack of hostility. Finally, he sighed. "We have both been overly friendly with them," the magician said. "I'm no less complicit. They're a terribly charming pair, but they're also very clever and observant. Already her father senses there is something strange about us. I noted tonight how closely he looks at me. I think he has noticed the unusual texture of my skin. He knows we are not albinos. He just doesn't know what we really are."

"Is there truly no way to undo this condition?" Apollonius asked.

Gon cocked his head to one side, sympathetic. "No. I'm sorry, Apollonius. I told you the truth before I gave you the blood. The curse cannot be undone. Cornelius and his daughter will age and they will pass away and they will turn to dust in their graves, and we will be exactly as we are now."

"I never thought of it as a curse before," Apollonius confessed. "You tried to warn me, but I didn't see it that way. I was so afraid of dying I never stopped to think what it would be to live forever." He looked into his maker's eyes. "I know now," he said, and then he trudged away.