Claudia sat up in bed, instantly and fully awake. She knew that she had been dreaming, a confused, wandering, disconnected, senseless sort of dream, though now with her awakening it had vanished completely, dissolved into nothing. But the gentle tapping that had been mixed with the dreaming, had not been a part of it; the tapping at the door to the terrace was real and repeated and insistent.

She kicked her feet free of the sheet and swung them to the floor. From the waist down, as she arose, she stood in the narrow band of silver-cold moonlight spearing through the tall window behind her to cut diagonally across the foot of the bed; quickly she stepped into the less revealing shadows at the doorway.

“Longinus?” she whispered, her face close to the panel.

“Yes.”

“One minute until I can draw the bolt.”

When he was inside and she was closing and bolting the door, he slipped his toga off and, stepping past the shaft of moonlight, dropped it on a chair against the wall near the head of the bed. As he turned around, she came toward him, her arms outstretched; crossing the bright beam, her white body stood plainly revealed through the sheerness of the black gown.

“Oh, Longinus”—she flung herself into his arms—“I thought you really had decided to stay with Cornelius.”

He lifted her to her toes and held her, almost crushingly, against him, and then he caught her chin and raising her face so that he could look into her eyes, bent down and kissed her red and warmly eager lips.

“Didn’t you know,” he asked when he released her after a long while, “that those words were for Antipas and not you? Didn’t you know that nothing could possibly keep me from you tonight?”

Gently, almost carrying her, he led her the two or three steps to the bed. They sat down beside each other, and he bent forward to unbuckle his sandals. When he sat up again, she twisted her feet around and lifted them to the bed, doubled up her knees, and lay with her head and right shoulder pressed hard against his side. “Are you tired from the journey and anxious to get to sleep?” she asked, turning her head to look into his face.

“Tired maybe, and warm from walking from the Antonia”—he pulled his tunic open at the throat and to his waist—“but sleepy, no.” He laughed, but not loudly, for the palace was as quiet as a sepulcher. “Do you think any man in my present situation could be sleepy?”

“Yes, by all the gods, I know one.” She sat up and swung her feet to the floor. “Pontius Pilate.”

“No, Claudia, he couldn’t be that cold-blooded.” He pulled her to him, and drew her warm body into the closing circle of his arms. She lifted her feet again to the bed and slid down into the brightness of the moonlight.

“But, I tell you he is, Longinus. All the man ever thinks of is guarding and extending the powers and authority of the Procuratorship and piling up Jewish shekels. To him my only attraction is being the Emperor’s stepdaughter.”

“Then he’s an even bigger fool than I thought.” Gently he pushed her chin down to pull her lips slightly apart and, bending over her, crushed his mouth upon them.

“Oh, Longinus,” she cried out, when finally, breathing heavily, he raised his head, “do take me away from him! Do, Longinus, oh, do, do! I cannot endure him! By all the gods, I simply cannot!”

“But where would we go?” He looked deeply into her troubled eyes, luminous even in the shadows. “How could we escape the Emperor and the Prefect, my dear girl? How could we?”

“We couldn’t, of course. If we attempted it, they would soon find us, and Tiberius would do to you what my grandfather did to my poor father. I know that, Longinus. But it’s so long from one time with you to another, from one night so quickly passed to the gods only know when again.” She slipped her hand beneath his tunic and caressingly ran her fingers across the damp, warm expanse of his chest. “It’s so hard waiting for these few stolen hours,” she murmured. “Must we be forever waiting, Longinus?”

“No, Claudia, no. Pluto burn him! One of these days he’ll go too far with the Emperor and Sejanus. But we’ve got to give him time to be caught in his own trap. Then when he’s ruined himself, the Emperor will permit you to divorce him. But in the meantime, we must steal all the hours we can”—his words were blurred as he buried his face in her lustrous, fragrant hair—“and not be too concerned with Pilate or our future.” They remained silent side by side for a while, then Longinus raised his head. Claudia lay stretched out full length upon the bed, and from the waist down now her scarcely concealed body came within the rapidly widening band of moonlight. “We mustn’t try to anticipate things,” he said quietly. “We must seize the opportunities as they come. Carpe diem, that’s all.” He bent lower to look into her eyes. “More to the point, let’s enjoy the night while we have it.”

He stood up quickly and in the shadows hastily stripped off his clothes.