Blood Games by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

slave to take it away. While he rubbed the gray down, he sent another slave into the house with orders to prepare his bath. He worked on the horse with familiar economy, so that it was only a little later that he crossed the courtyard toward the rear entrance to his villa.
    Aumtehoutep met him at the door. “The bath is ready, my master,” he said in his native tongue.
    Saint-Germain answered him in the same language. “Excellent. I need it tonight, old friend.” He had already begun to undress, pulling the Dacian tunic over his head and handing it to the lean Egyptian at his side.
    "Two more crates arrived from Ostia today,” Aumtehoutep said as he gathered up his master's clothes.
    "Stones?” Saint-Germain reached for the robe Aumtehoutep held out to him. As always when naked, he stood with his back to the Egyptian, and did not turn until the robe was tied around him.
    "That, and more earth from Dacia.” Aumtehoutep's voice was light and curiously neutral, as if nothing could touch him or move him on this earth.
    "From Sennistis?” It had been almost a year since he had heard from the high priest of Imhotep.
    "Yes.” He gave Saint-Germain a steady look. “He is not well, my master. He thinks he is near death."
    Saint-Germain put a hand to his eyes. Poor, faithful Sennistis, who had been so loyal and devoted, he thought. “I feared that."
    "And I.” Aumtehoutep betrayed little of his feelings with his face, but he had been with Saint- Germain for centuries and his master could read the finest nuance of his expression.
    "Do you want to go to him?” He stood in the doorway between his bedchamber and the bath now, his dark eyes full on his slave. “You have only to ask. I would not deny you. If it is your will, you may return to Egypt a free man, with one of my old estates to keep you."
    Aumtehoutep looked away. “What good would it do? If he is minded to die, there is nothing more to say. Egypt is foreign to me now, more foreign, perhaps, than Rome."
    There was no answer to that. Saint-Germain knew that sense of foreignness in every fiber of his being. He closed his eyes a moment in private acknowledgment of that loneliness.
    "Will you want anything else, my master?” Aumtehoutep said in his usual polite manner.
    Saint-Germain was always grateful for the Egyptian's tact. “I doubt...No, wait. When Tishtry comes, send her in to me here.” He indicated the quiet room where scented steam rose from the waiting water.
    "As you wish.” With the slightest of bows Aumtehoutep slipped from the room.
    Left to himself, Saint-Germain strolled into the bath, his Scythian boots clicking against the mosaic of semiprecious stones. Lamps burning perfumed oils hung around the shallow pool, lighting it with a ruddy glow. Saint-Germain pinched out all but two of the lamps, so that the room was sunk in its own twilight.
    Near the tall, narrow windows there was an elaborately carved wooden bench, and here he sat to draw off his boots. The sun was down and night was taking hold of the world. Saint-Germain flexed his toes, feeling stiff from the long ride of the afternoon. He rose, slipping out of his robe. Warm water rose above his waist as he entered the bath, and he sighed with pleasure. There had been a time, long ago, when he would have faced even so little water as this with dread, but he had learned to build his baths with linings of his native earth, and to fill the soles of his shoes with it, so that water lost its threat to him.
    He leaned back, half-floating, his eyes almost closed. The tension eased out of his body, leaving him drifting, languid, subtly aroused.
    Behind him a door opened and uncertain steps entered the tiled bath.
    Saint-Germain set his feet on the floor of the pool. “Tishtry?” he said quietly.
    "My master?” came the answer from the scented gloom.
    He smiled. “Come. Bathe with me.” He raised one arm in invitation and the water ran and splashed around him.
    She stepped out of the shadows. On the