Spirit Invictus Complete Series

by Mark Tiro

  “You think you’ve forgotten something?” I heard.

  “Yes,” I thought. “A boy. My love maybe?”

  But as soon as the thought occurred to me, I knew how ridiculous it was, and I laughed.

  I had projected ’love’ onto a boy, and I had actually believed that my love came from him. But that ‘love’ had been just a shadow, nothing more than a block to love. This shadow had been enough to keep me from experiencing the love that was plain as day now, all around.

  Silly. I felt like I was a grown up playing with children’s toys. As a little child, I used to play with toys. I believed they were real, that they could make me happy and sad. This thought made me smile, even now. But you grow up, and it becomes obvious the toys are not real.

  Then you put them away forever.

  The delusion fell away. I opened my eyes, quite sober now. I could see.

  Love doesn’t go anywhere, or come from anywhere.

  Love is, and once the shadows are gone, this becomes obvious. The love, it extends out.

  It fills the space.

  Love, loved. Nothing more.

  “Should I put the ticket in?”

  “If you want. Whenever you’re ready.”

  “I want to.” I could feel a pull now, to put my ticket in. To keep going. There was something pulling me, something I wanted to get to. Something wonderful.

  Here, I felt a calm peace. But damn if I wasn’t dying to find out what was on the other side of that ticket machine.

  “I want to go. But I don’t want to leave you. I am happy here too.”

  I heard laughter again. Big, boisterous, happy laughter.

  “That’s funny. There’s nowhere to go. And you could never leave anything that’s real.”

  “But I am leaving… you!”

  I felt myself become sad, and so he laughed again, softly this time. “Oh child. No one goes on from here alone. There is nothing to be sad about.” I could feel him smiling. “No thought of love is ever lost. You take it with you.”

  I smiled to myself, and breathed out.

  Then I took my ticket and inserted it into the machine.

  The light flashed green, the metal arm lifted up.

  I slipped through, and then, I was gone.

  IV

  DIANA — PORCIA

  1

  One

  “Arescusa? Where on earth are you girl?”

  “Here domina,” she said, rushing into the room.

  I had my back to her, and I waited just long enough that I thought she would be uncomfortable before I turned around. I narrowed my eyes and cleared my throat. And then I waited some more, until she got my point.

  “I am so sorry. Sacerdote.”

  “Yes. I appreciate your service to me. To me and to my family too. I know you were just a girl when you came here with me. I guess you can say Diana was like a mother to both of us.”

  “Yes domina—eh, sorry—Sacerdote. My priestess.”

  “It’s not for me that I’m asking Arescusa. But we must be proper here. Today is a big day. Marcius Turbo will be stopping for a visit today.”

  “I’m sorry domina. Sacerdote, I mean, I’ve never heard of Marcius—”

  “—Turbo. You may, however, have heard of the person he works for then?” I asked.

  She stood there without answering. I smiled to myself, but I was too tired to share the smile with my slave. “Well, you may have heard of Emperor Hadrian then?”

  She looked suitably aghast. Good.

  I was one of the few women who had the privilege of studying oratory and rhetoric. It was specific training for my appointment as a priestess. It was in little ways like these, in working on my timing and on the pauses between my words, and also practicing on Arescusa that I’d become very good at attracting women to Diana’s Temple. There were two—sometimes three—times as many women now who came here on a regular basis to make offerings as there had been before my appointment as high priestess.

  I turned back to Arescusa. I’d gotten the reaction I’d hoped for. Now I smiled. “Well it’s okay girl. I’d never heard of him either. But Hadrian has. Apparently Turbo was responsible for putting down the Dacian uprisings. As it turns out, he will be visiting not as a victorious general, but as the Emperor’s new Praetorian Prefect. With imperium.”

  She stood there, with her mouth gaping wide open.

  I glanced towards the ceremonial palla that I would need to wear to meet the Prefect, along with the special infula of Diana. It was shaped like a crescent moon, and I wore it on my head. But only on special occasions… and this was definitely a special occasion.

  Arescusa was still standing there, and her mouth was still hanging open. I rapped on her arm.

  “We must get prepared. This is one of—no, this is the biggest, most important day since my parents brought me here, to the Temple, to assume my place just after my fifteenth year. A representative… no—the representative—of the Emperor will be here today. This is how I’ve given hope to the women who come here, to the Temple, to sacrifice and to worship. ‘Listen and sacrifice exactly as prescribed. Follow the rites as Diana and the gods have given them. Live the virtuous life of a Roman lady, and you will be rewarded.’ Diana has protected and rewarded them. And now, Turbo’s visit stands as proof that the Emperor supports us, our work. Sending his representative to us—sending Turbo—is a public recognition of all the private sacrifices we have been making to the gods in our Temple here for so long now.”

  I tried to speak sternly, so Arescusa would understand just how important a visit from the Emperor’s Praetorian Prefect was. He was the most important person between Parthia and Rome, after all. And this was the most important visit to Diana’s Temple. To my Temple.

  Of course, one could only hold out so much hope that a mere slave girl could understand any of this. At the least, I was hoping simply to rouse Arescusa from her dithering reverie so she would focus a little more on her work.

  “I have decided,” I told her, pointing to the traditional bow and quiver of Diana that hung in the corner of the room, “in deference to the Prefect’s imperium, I’ll leave that off tonight. Could you please help me begin to get dressed now?” I asked, impatient.

  “Sorry, domina.”

  “Arescusa?”

  “Yes?”

  “Where is Antonia? She was supposed to come see me today.”

  “I don’t know domina. No one has heard from her.”

  “I hope Antonia will turn up. Please send out one of the girls to her villa to make sure she’s received my invitation to dine with the Prefect and me this evening.”

  “Of course.”

  “I know I was somewhat reticent when she first joined the Temple. The Empire, and the Republic before it, can count not just one but three—three!—of my ancestors as consuls. And Antonia? Do you know how many of her ancestors have ever risen even to a quaestorship? And that’s just the very first rung on the cursus honorum!”

  “No, domina. I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

  “Why, none of course!” I roared. “For all I know, she wasn’t even a Roman citizen until her brother started fucking Hadrian on his grand tour of Bithynia! Everyone’s a queen in Bithynia! Or a princess—it’s a wonder those people can even manage to procreate from one generation to the next. So, of course my girl, you understand how I didn’t exactly welcome Antonia here with open arms when the Emperor appointed her priestess with a rank second only to mine.”

  Arescusa stood silent, organizing my garments on a table set aside just for that purpose.

  “Still, Antonia has turned out to be nothing but a blessing to this this Temple. And to me as well. You know, the Temple of Diana has been known as a sanctuary for women to come to pray, to sacrifice for childbirth, and for protection… for when someone’s sick and about to die and for when their husband or brother goes off to serve in the legions. How many women who came here to us, in utter despair, unable to bear children, unable to even find a husband
to bear children with—how many of them have come here and have been rewarded for their faith with a miracle straight from the goddess herself?”

  “Uh, I don’t know Sacerdote.”

  “The saying goes, there is no finer soldier in all of the legions than one whose mother prayed to Diana here for a child, and was rewarded for those prayers. So of course, you can understand how at first I was so unsure about Antonia, when she first came and began suggesting that we become stricter in our rites. ‘The most well-intentioned prayer of the heart is more harmful than a poisoned arrow if it does not conform to the strict form and ritual prescribed by our tradition,’ she would say. I was nervous at first. ‘Weak’ Antonia would call me. But you know what Arescusa? You know what? She was right. I was nervous. I mean, I didn’t want to alienate these women. I mean, they come here to our Temple, searching desperately for some comfort for their pain, looking for some little spark of hope.”

  “Is something wrong with that, domina?”

  “Antonia pushed me, Arescusa. She encouraged me to take a firmer position, to become more strict in the rituals and sacrifices. ‘Which prayers the gods answer has nothing to do with the sincerity of the supplicant,’ Antonia would say, over and over. ‘It’s the form in which the prayer is asked which the gods prize above all else.’ She would say this to me, again and again.”

  “I’m sorry, domina. I’ve attended her in all her official events, and I have never heard Antonia say anything like that.”

  “That is exactly why she has been such a good friend to me. She could have come in here, making all sorts of public pronouncements, undercutting me, stabbing me in the back—she could have tried to usurp my position here. But she never did Arescusa. She never did. And I appreciate that so much—all this, she told only me. Only in private. She has always supported me in public, more so than anyone. But little by little, I tried to implement the advice she was giving me privately. I tried to tighten up our cult here. Of course that turned a lot of women off at first. The ones we turned away because they couldn’t afford to pay the tribute to Diana. But it’s not like I came up with the idea that any person must pay the tribute before praying and sacrificing to the goddess. The goddess tribute is as old as this Temple itself. Older even, and if some people had to be turned away until they could raise the proper amount prescribed by our ancestors, then so be it.”

  Arescusa was ready to begin dressing me in my ritual garments. Just before I turned my back to her so she could begin the process, it occurred to me that the changes Antonia had suggested in private—the renewal of the old ways that I’d put in place publicly at the Temple—must have gotten back to the Emperor. Of course they have—he’s sent someone to commend me on them. He’s sent his Praetorian Prefect to commend me. He’s sent Turbo, his victorious general in the Dacian campaign.

  I turned around, and Arescusa began her work dressing me. As she did, one of the young priestesses from the Temple came to the door.

  “What is it? Have you news on Turbo’s arrival at the Temple?”

  “We do Sacerdote. The Prefect has sent riders ahead to inform us that he has been delayed, but he still expects to arrive here before nightfall.”

  “Did he mention anything about dining with us tonight?” I asked.

  The young girl—she couldn’t have been over twelve or thirteen years, tops—had been sent here just a few months earlier. It was quite an honor to have been chosen, as she was the first of her family to be accepted into the hierarchy of the Temple here. But the girl had been so quiet, and now she stood in my door looking down, as uncomfortable and nervous as she’d been on her first day here.

  “I do not know about that Sacerdote. The scouts he sent ahead did not mention anything about dining tonight.”

  “Well, it would help if they would have the consideration to give us a number, so we could make sure we have provisions for all his most important officers.” I felt angry, even as the words were tumbling out of my mouth. But I kept my thoughts bottled up, and turned back to the slave. “We certainly don’t want a cohort of them spilling out into the courtyard, roasting whatever bloody thing they’ve caught on their way in, over fires just outside our window.”

  She looked at me, but didn’t say anything.

  “Okay,” I told the girl, sending her away. “Thank you for the information.”

  Then I turned to Arescusa. “I suppose we won’t need to be getting ready quite as soon as we’d planned. This whole day has been quite exhausting for me actually, and I have done absolutely nothing so far.” I smiled to myself as I said it. “I think I’d like to take a nap before Praetorian Prefect Turbo arrives. Why don’t you leave me for now, take a break and come back in an hour?”

  “Of course, domina. Thank you.” She gathered up all the garments we would need for later, and I went over to my bed, pulled the curtains to black out the light, and closed my eyes to try to sleep.

  2

  Two

  “I’m scared mommy. Will I be able to come home?”

  “Even better. Daddy and I will come to visit you.”

  “On holidays? The Emperor has called for an entire month of games next week to celebrate his victories in the East. Will you be here then?”

  “Dear, this is what we’ve hoped and dreamed for you, your entire life. We will come, but not on holidays. On holidays, you will have work. On those days, the women of all of Rome will be your visitors.”

  “But there isn’t nearly enough room mom,” I said, looking around at the courtyard that swept out in front of the entrance to the Temple itself.”

  “They won’t all be standing here. Not physically, at least. But the sacrifices you make here will light the fires in the hearth of the home of every noble and virtuous woman across the Empire. Learn, my baby, study.”

  “But… I mean, does… well—oh mommy, what about Gnaeus? Daddy told me I was to meet him this year. This year, or next. And to marry once I…”

  “We didn’t want to tell you until we could work something out.” She looked down, and I could tell something wasn’t right.

  “Mommy! What is it? What—”

  “Gnaeus was out with his father, with the legions in the East this past winter. There was a sickness that went around the camp. He got sick.”

  “Oh no!” I blurted.

  “He didn’t make it.”

  I stood there. I might have screamed. Everything was spinning, I didn’t say a word. I was numb.

  “I know you’re in shock dear. I am so sorry. But your father, I am convinced, is the most resourceful person in Rome.”

  “What do you mean mom?” I asked, finally recovering my voice.

  “Once your father learned the sad news of Gnaeus, he started again, doubling down his efforts to work out a suitable husband for you. But the danger was just too much. It looked like there was going to be another fight amongst the Praetorian guard themselves for power, and your dad loved you too much to risk engaging you to someone who could come out on the wrong side of that power struggle and end up dead in a few months or a year. But this—well, next to the High Vestal Virgin in the city, you will be the most powerful woman in Rome someday.” She thought a second. “Well, except for the Emperor’s mother and wife, of course. Whoever the Emperor may be…”

  “Of course. What do you mean mom?”

  “Today, you’re to be inducted into the highest order of the cult of Diana. Learn. Pay attention honey. Today is your beginning here, not the end. Your turn has already been sealed. When you reach twenty years of age, you will become the high priestess—the Sacerdote. Then, and then for the twenty years after that, all this will be under your control. The well-being of the women of the nation will depend on you—on the quality and piety of your sacrifices and entreaties. On how well you plead their case to the good goddess. It will be as if, instead of Gnaeus—or at least, it would have been Gnaeus, I’m sorry—but, it will be as if you are married to the goddess Diana herself!”

  I giggled, and then
my mom started giggling uncontrollably too. “Married to a woman! And to a goddess at that! That’s funny, mom.” I pictured myself, a matronly Roman wife, sitting at home with my attendants, when—in all her battle armor, with a still bloody gladius on her hip, and a quiver and bow on her back—in strides the goddess Diana. “Hi, honey. It’s your husband! I’m home!” I couldn’t stop laughing.

  But then I did. Just like that, my laughter turned into uncontrollable sobbing. I reached out for my mom, but she was crying now too.

  “I love you so much dear…” she said. I buried my head in her bosom as she wrapped her arms around me. “Soon enough, this will all be yours. Your dowry, has gone to the Temple, but you have nothing to worry about. When you are finished, you will receive a substantial pension, and be one of the most eligible brides in Rome. It’s good luck, after all, for any man to marry a woman who has been high priestess of the Temple.”

  Being fifteen years old, I realized this meant I wouldn’t marry now until I was forty, and I burst out crying all over again.

  “My father did quite well,” my mom said, “and my mother’s family had three ancestors who held the consulship. This is a very respectable position for a woman from our family to hold. You shouldn’t cry.”

  I kept right on crying. Everything had always been fine in my life. Everything. Well, maybe not my fiancé Gnaeus dying, of course. But I hadn’t known about that until just now. So it had never really occurred to me that my life would work out any other way than as a respectable Roman wife.

  “Oh. I almost forgot one thing,” my mom said. “You know the slave on our estate in Tusculum who bore the child a few years back? She’s not too many years younger than you, if I recall.”

  “Uh, I don’t…”

  “No matter. In any event, your father has decided as a gift that we will send you the slave child, to be your attendant here, just as soon as she is old enough. She’ll be your personal slave to attend to you as you please—not connected to the Temple in any way. That should make your life a little easier.”