Nero crooked his finger. “Come closer.” She took a step toward him. “Open your mouth.”
“Why?”
“Because I tell you to.”
She clamped her lips shut.
“You’re a she-wolf like my mother. Like her, you bear the double fangs—the mark of Fortuna.”
“You flatter me.”
She-wolf was another name for whore. Elissa ran her tongue over her gums and felt the deformity, the sharp point of a second incisor above her right canine. The tooth was an embarrassment. More so, the comparison to Agrippina. In order to gain power, Nero’s mother had bedded scores of men including her brother, Caligula. Many of the men she coupled with died suspiciously. Her second husband lived only long enough to change his will in Agrippina’s favor; the third—her doddering uncle, Claudius—died swiftly after naming Nero heir to the empire.
“Women should be savored like fine wine,” Nero said. “I prefer full-bodied red to insipid white. My mother was dark and spicy, begging to be drunk. Like you.”
He grabbed Elissa’s wrist.
“Remove your hand,” she said.
“Forbidden fruit is so enticing.”
“Remove it.”
“Rules are made for commoners. That’s what Uncle Gaius always said.”
Before wise men murdered him. If Nero considered Gaius Caligula a fine example of a princeps, Rome was headed for disaster.
Nero tightened his grip and Elissa flinched. He drew her down onto the couch, so close to him that she could taste the mint leaves on his breath.
“What is the life of Marcus worth?” he said.
“Let me go or I’ll report you to—”
“Is that a threat?”
“No man may touch a vestal.”
“No mortal man.” Nero snapped his fingers at the whore. “Tell Tigellinus to call off the lions. Tell him I will spare Marcus Rubrius from fighting, in honor of his sister. Go now, all of you.”
The whore and the slaves backed out of the room.
“Thank you, Caesar,” Elissa said. Worry lifted from her heart. She wanted to dance, to shout.
Nero pulled her back onto the cushions. “Not you, Elissa.”
“My brother—”
“Is tiresome. But everyone has their price.” Nero plucked a fig from a bowl of fruit, shoved it in his mouth.
Elissa thought of a stuffed pig, imagined Nero, plump and pink, roasting on a spit. She said, “Your clemency is legend, Caesar.”
“You put me in a quandary Elissa. Lately, I’ve been puzzling, what does it mean for a vestal virgin to be sacrosanct? I concede vestals must remain pure in order to uphold the purity of the sacred fire for the good of the empire. They must be held in reverence, untouched by any man, but surely not untouched by gods.”
He selected a plum. His fingers—elegantly manicured, more like a woman’s than a man’s—pressed the fruit between her lips.
She spat it on the floor.
“Don’t care for plums?” Nero sighed. “I find it close in here, don’t you? Allow me to remove this rag.” He pushed aside her palla, exposing her hair. “Your best feature. Blacker than obsidian.”
Gooseflesh rose along Elissa’s arms as he drew the palla from her shoulders, allowing the shawl to slip onto the floor. Within the bodice of her stola, she felt the page of the letter, felt the heat of her words. It gave her strength to know she’d written the truth—words only a friend would understand.
Nero loosened the fillet of white ribbons that held her curls in place.
“You no longer wear the shorn locks of a novice.”
“I’m fully consecrated.”
He lifted her chin.
She gazed into his face—eyes cold as the winter sea, lips well-formed yet cruel. If not for his petulant expression, he might be handsome.
“I take after my father,” he said. “Bronze curls, gray eyes, a classic nose.”
“I notice the resemblance.” Elissa couldn’t help but smile.
Dometius had been a swindler and a cheat. Once, when driving his coach through a sleepy village, he’d whipped up his horses and trampled a small boy for sport. Upon seeing his newborn son, Dometius had stated that, like him, Nero was destined to be loathsome.
“You find me amusing?” Nero asked.
“Not in the least.”
“You lack humility.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Did the Vestal Maxima grant you permission to visit me alone?”
“I came at your request.”
“You came because you wanted to.”
His stare unsettled her.
“You’re shivering.” He handed her the palla.
She wrapped the shawl around her shoulders, drew the wool over her head. “I must go.”
“Not yet.”
Nero poured wine into a chalice, added water and a pearl. He handed her the cup. “Seawater lends the tang of salt, the pearl a hint of mystery. Did you really believe I’d throw your brother to the beasts? My dearest friend.”
She sipped the blood-red liquid, imagining the lions, torn from their home in Africa, starving as they paced their cells. The wine tasted brackish.
“Does your brother plan to have me assassinated?”
Nearly choking on the wine, Elissa sputtered, “No.”
“Perhaps I have been misinformed.”
Nero headed for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To see your brother.” Nero’s mouth twisted in a smile. His eyes cut through her like a blade. “Please join me.”
Elissa peeked through curtains, into the arena. Nero stood beside her, observing the spectacle through the green twilight of his monocle.
The door opened behind them. Hoping to see Marcus, Elissa turned.
Tigellinus entered. A snarl tugged at his upper lip, distorting the scar.
“Is my brother coming?”
“Soon.”
Elissa gazed through the window. Slaves were dragging firewood across the sand. They lay down kindling, crisscrossing branches, stacking logs to build a pyre.
Mimes circled the arena, holding up placards:
THE DEATH OF HERCULES
“A play is to be performed?” Elissa glanced at Nero.
He nodded. “A reenactment. I’m sure it will prove amusing.”
“I adore theater.”
“Excellent. I offer this performance as a gift to you. It will be memorable, I promise.” Nero ran his fingers through his waves of hair. The signet ring that had once belonged to Julius Caesar glistened on his hand. “Tigellinus,” he said, “Is everything in order?”
The prefect gave a thumbs-up sign.
The clash of cymbals, followed by a drum-roll, announced the beginning of the theatrical. Elissa parted the curtains to gain a better view. Armed guards led an elephant across the sand, the largest animal she’d ever seen. When they reached the imperial box, they paused.
“The pachyderm represents Nessus the centaur,” Nero said. “I chose the beast myself. See how the tusks are serrated and filed to points? I think it will provide more drama than a common horse. Don’t you agree Elissa?”
“The poor beast seems docile.”
“Not for long.”
Elissa glanced at Nero then the elephant. With one thrust those tusks could gore a man, and the trunk might fling him to his death. The armored guards encircled the beast, goading it with javelins, scorching its hide with glowing irons. The elephant stamped its mammoth feet and kicked up dust. With a battle-cry, the men raised their javelins and let them sail.
The great beast reared and bellowed.
Elissa turned her face away and said, “This is horrible.”
“You’re missing the best part.” Nero grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at the arena. A man, wearing only a loincloth, was being rolled around the arena in a small two-wheeled cart, his back strapped to a plank, his arms and legs fettered with iron chains.
From the front row to t
he bleachers the mob stamped their feet and yelled, “Hercules! Hercules! Hercules!”
Aristocrats, seated closest to the action, leaned forward on their padded benches. A well known Equestrian stumbled toward the railing, teetered over, and splashed into the moat. Arms thrashing, he showered onlookers with muck. Others, equally as drunk, dove in after him.
The prisoner rolled toward the Imperial box and the cart stopped. A mask depicting Hercules hid his face, yet he seemed familiar. His build, the tilt of his head, the flaxen curls—the same color as Flavia’s.
“Bastard!” Elissa turned to Nero, raised her hand to slap his face.
He caught her wrist and wrenched her arm behind her back. She tried to scream, but he clamped his hand over her mouth. Tigellinus closed the curtain so there would be no witnesses.
“Your brother is a natural.” Nero pulled Elissa’s arm until she winced. “And I’ve saved a special role for you: Deianira—the wife of Hercules who kills her husband by mistake. I’m sure you’ll play her to perfection.”
He nodded at Tigellinus and he retrieved a gilded box. The prefect lifted the lid.
A garment lay inside, a shirt of linen.
“Designed by Locusta,” Nero said.
Elissa felt sick.
Locusta was a sorceress, notorious for lethal recipes. Stews seasoned with Fool’s Parsley, rabbits that had feasted on Belladonna, sweet Physic nuts from Africa that left a deadly aftertaste.
Elissa shook her head, trying to free herself from Nero. She couldn’t talk, could barely breathe.
“As Deianira,” Nero said, “you will present this robe to your beloved Hercules.”
Elissa bit Nero’s palm until she tasted salt.
“Bitch! The she-wolf’s bitten me.”
Elissa ran for door. Before she reached it, Tigellinus had drawn his dagger.
“No need for violence,” Nero said, “just yet.” He sucked his wounded palm. “You will cooperate, Elissa Rubria Honoria, or I’ll eat your whole family for dinner starting with your little sister.”
“Flavia is just a child.”
“Your choice. Play the part or sacrifice your sister. Either way your brother dies.”
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Sarah Woodbury
Turning Medieval
Sometimes it’s easy to pinpoint those moments in your life where everything is suddenly changed. When you look across the room and say to yourself, I’m going to marry him. Or stare down at those two pink lines on the pregnancy test, when you’re only twenty-two and been married for a month and a half and are living on only $800 a month because you’re both still in school and my God how is this going to work?
And sometimes it’s a bit harder to remember.
Until I was eleven, my parents tell me they thought I was going to be a ‘hippy’. I wandered through the trees, swamp, and fields of our 2 ½ acre lot, making up poetry and songs and singing them to myself. I’m not sure what happened by the time I’d turned twelve, whether family pressures or the realities of school changed me, but it was like I put all that creativity and whimsicalness into a box on a high shelf in my mind. By the time I was in my late-teens, I routinely told people: ‘I haven’t a creative bone in my body.’ It makes me sad to think of all those years where I thought the creative side of me didn’t exist.
When I was in my twenties and a full-time mother of two, my husband and I took our family to a picnic with his graduate school department. I was pleased at how friendly and accepting everyone seemed.
And then one of the other graduate students turned to me out of the blue and said, ‘do you really think you can jump back into a job after staying home with your kids for five or ten years?’
I remember staring at him, not knowing what to say. It wasn’t that I hadn’t thought about it, but that it didn’t matter—it couldn’t matter—because I had this job to do and the consequences of staying home with my kids were something I’d just have to face when the time came.
Fast forward ten years and it was clear that this friend had been right in his incredulity. I was earning $15/hr. as a contract anthropologist, trying to supplement our income while at the same time holding down the fort at home. I remember the day it became clear that this wasn’t working. I was simultaneously folding laundry, cooking dinner, and slogging through a report I didn’t want to write, trying to get it all in before the baby (number four, by now) woke up. I put my head down, right there on the dryer, and cried.
It was time to seek another path. Time to follow my heart and do what I’d wanted to do for a long time, but hadn’t had the courage, or the belief in myself to make it happen.
At the age of thirty-seven, I started my first novel, just to see if I could. I wrote it in six weeks and it was bad in a way that all first books are bad. It was about elves and magic stones and will never see the light of day. But it taught me, I can do this!
My husband told me, ‘give it five years,’ and in the five years that followed, I experienced rejection along my newfound path. A lot of it. Over seventy agents, and then dozens and dozens of editors (once I found an agent), read my books and passed them over. Again and again.
Meanwhile, I just wrote. A whole series. Then more books, for a total of eight, seven of which I published in 2011.
And I’m happy to report that, even though I still think of myself as staid, my extended family apparently has already decided that those years where I showed little creativity were just a phase. The other day, my husband told me of several conversations he had, either with them or overheard, in which it became clear they thought I was so alternative and creative—so far off the map—that I didn’t even remember there was a map.
I’m almost more pleased about that than anything else. Almost. Through writing, I’ve found a community of other writers, support and friendship from people I hadn’t known existed a few years ago, and best of all, thousands of readers have found my books in the last year. Here’s to thousands more in the years to come…
About the Chick
With two historian parents, Sarah couldn’t help but develop an interest in the past. She went on to get more than enough education herself (in anthropology) and began writing fiction when the stories in her head overflowed and demanded she let them out. Her interest in Wales stems from her own ancestry and the year she lived in England when she fell in love with the country, language, and people. She even convinced her husband to give all four of their children Welsh names. She makes her home in Oregon.
Find Sarah Online!
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The Good Knight
Sarah Woodbury
A Medieval Mystery
An Excerpt
Chapter One
August, 1143 AD
Gwynedd (North Wales)
“Look at you, girl.”
Gwen’s father, Meilyr, tsked under his breath and brought his borrowed horse closer to her side of the path. He’d been out of sorts since early morning when he’d found his horse lame and King Anarawd and his company of soldiers had left the castle without them, refusing to wait for Meilyr to find a replacement mount. Anarawd’s men-at-arms would have provided Meilyr with the fine escort he coveted.
“You’ll have no cause for complaint once we reach Owain Gwynedd’s court.” A breeze wafted over Gwen’s face and she closed her eyes, letting her pony find his own way for a moment. “I won’t embarrass you at the wedding.”
“If you cared more for your appearance, you would have been married yourself years ago and given me grandchildren long since.”
Gwen opened her eyes, her forehead wrinkling in annoyance. “And whose fault is it that I’m unmarried?” Her fingers flexed about the reins but she forced herself to relax. Her present appearance was her own doing, even if her father found it intolera
ble. In her bag, she had fine clothes and ribbons to weave through her hair, but saw no point in sullying any of them on the long journey to Aber Castle.
King Owain Gwynedd’s daughter was due to marry King Anarawd in three days’ time. Owain Gwynedd had invited Gwen, her father, and her twelve-year old brother, Gwalchmai, to furnish the entertainment for the event, provided King Owain and her father could bridge the six years of animosity and silence that separated them. Meilyr had sung for King Owain’s father, Gruffydd; he’d practically raised King Owain’s son, Hywel. But six years was six years. No wonder her father’s temper was short.
Even so, she couldn’t let her father’s comments go. Responsibility for the fact that she had no husband rested firmly on his shoulders. “Who refused the contract?”
“Rhys was a rapscallion and a laze-about,” Meilyr said.
And you weren’t about to give up your housekeeper, maidservant, cook, and child-minder to just anyone, were you?
But instead of speaking, Gwen bit her tongue and kept her thoughts to herself. She’d said it once and received a slap to her face. Many nights she’d lain quiet beside her younger brother, regretting that she hadn’t defied her father and stayed with Rhys. They could have eloped; in seven years, their marriage would have been as legal as any other. But her father was right and Gwen wasn’t too proud to admit it: Rhys had been a laze-about. She wouldn’t have been happy with him. Rhys’ father had almost cried when Meilyr had refused Rhys’ offer. It wasn’t only daughters who were sometimes hard to sell.
“Father!” Gwalchmai brought their cart to a halt. “Come look at this!”
“What now?” Meilyr said. “We’ll have to spend the night at Caerhun at present rate. You know how important it is not to keep King Owain waiting.”
“But Father!” Gwalchmai leapt from the cart and ran forward.
“He’s serious.” Gwen urged her pony after him, passing the cart, and then abruptly reined in beside her brother. “Mary, Mother of God…”
A slight rise and sudden dip in the path ahead had hidden the carnage until they were upon it. Twenty men and an equal number of horses lay dead in the road, their bodies contorted and their blood soaking the brown earth. Gwalchmai bent forward and retched into the grass beside the road. Gwen’s stomach threatened to undo her too, but she fought the bile down and dismounted to wrap her arms around her brother.
Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories Page 34
