Coalescent

by Stephen Baxter

  He hung his head. "Whether or not you have brought this cow-eyed niece of yours between us deliberately, I ask you to give him back to me. There — I submit myself to you. You have beaten me, Regina. Are you happy?"

  She made no reply.

  When he had gone, she summoned Amator's boy, Sulla, to her office.

  Regina told him carefully that Amator was jealous and angry. That after tomorrow's feast Sulla would not be allowed near Venus again. That Amator had been lying about his intentions regarding his legacy. That he saw the boy as useful for one thing only, his supple body, and that in future he planned not just to use Sulla himself but also to hire him out to some of his friends, for the sport of it. That Sulla would not be released from this servitude until he was too old to be attractive, or his body too damaged to be useful.

  She told Sulla all this briskly, and turned away to her work, as if uncaring of his reaction.

  • • •

  Regina had quickly become central to the working of the Order. The skills she had acquired as an administrator for Artorius for all those years were essential here.

  After she had met her mother at the Flavian Amphitheater, she and Brica had moved without regret out of their cramped apartment over the restaurant and into this grand house. Situated in an outer suburb beyond the ancient Aurelian Wall, it was a large complex of buildings in the traditional style, centered on an atrium and peristylium.

  But it was obvious that the estate had seen better days. It had once been the home of a senatorial family that, having backed the wrong candidate in one of Rome's many fratricidal contests over the imperial purple, had fallen on hard times and had been forced to sell up. The water supply from the aqueduct system had failed and the bathhouse had been closed down. With many roofs leaking, and the paving in the atrium and peristylium cracked and weed-ridden, some of the other buildings had been abandoned, too.

  The Order itself hadn't been much healthier than the estate. The numbers in the little community had been dwindling for some time, and when Regina arrived they were down to twenty-five. Those who remained were crammed into the surviving buildings, where they slept on bunks, stacked up like amphorae on shelves.

  Still, Regina and Brica had made themselves at home here. Regina had introduced her three sullen little goddesses into the estate's small temple: once the lararium of a senator, and now the shrine of a new and more complex family. But she was careful not to provoke Christian wrath. It had long been a tradition for Romans to identify their own deities with those of the barbarian folk they encountered in the provinces. So the matres, she said, were manifestations of the virgin mother of Christ, their three faces representing the three Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love.

  Regina had not been shy in forcing her opinions and suggestions on Julia and Helena, even from her first days.

  Money was the basic problem, as always. The Order was still essentially funded by savings from the last days of the Vestal Virgins, but that was a finite resource that was quickly running down. And as much of it was held in the form of gold coins and jewelry in underground caches, it was, Regina realized quickly, uncomfortably vulnerable to robbery. The only income came from the sporadic earnings of the Order's younger members, in such jobs as Brica's in Amator's bakery. But that was too little and too uneven: few women had ever earned high wages in Rome. And the group was top-heavy with older members like Julia and Helena who had no earnings at all.

  Regina had immediately set about establishing a new stream of income.

  She decided that the Order should build on its core strengths. It was, after all, a community run by women, and now firmly founded on respectable Christian principles. And yet it was an open secret, which she saw no harm in leaking, that they could trace their heritage back to the Vestal Virgins, and to the pagan goddess who had kept Rome inviolate for eight hundred years. There were plenty of traditionalists, even among practicing Christians, who were attracted to such a combination. To reinforce the image she requested that all the members of the Order wear a simple costume she designed, a long and modest white stola marked with a stripe of purple — she had observed how the simple addition of the color purple to a garment reassured these Romans.

  It didn't trouble Regina at all that such a sales pitch, based on Christian morality and pagan purity, required the holding of two contradictory beliefs at once.

  As to what they could sell to their traditionalist market, Regina, after some thought, settled on schooling. The education of the Empire's young had always been a somewhat haphazard process. Only the sons of the rich could expect to enjoy a full education at all three of the traditional levels, primary, grammar, and rhetoric. Girls and lower-class boys often received only the most basic primary education, at which they were taught reading and arithmetic. But in difficult times parents wanted their daughters to be as well equipped as possible to cope with an uncertain future — and that meant giving them an education as good as any boy's.

  And that was what Regina determined the Order would provide. Teachers of rhetoric and grammar would be hired, and an education for female students up to a level equivalent to a boy's would be provided. During their teaching the students would be housed on the estate, and raised in a properly moral atmosphere. A fee would be charged, of course, but because teachers were shared among many pupils it would be at a much lower cost than if private tutors had to be hired by a single family.

  Regina managed to set all this up within three months. After six the first classes were being held. Among the anxious Roman population it had been a great success. By now, the numbers of girls and young women resident here had risen to a hundred, with many more on waiting lists. This had led to a frantic growth in the estate, with buildings being renovated and hastily extended to cope with the new arrivals. And the money was rolling in. She had even begun a scheme whereby through legacies to the Order a family could ensure the education and upbringing not just of daughters but even of granddaughters, in the next generation.

  Julia, Helena, and the other elders were more than happy to leave the running of it all to Regina, but it was trivial compared to the challenge of running Artorius's dunon and his haphazard kingdom. She introduced her own subtle innovations. She stuck to her Celtae calendar, for instance; though she had once protested at its barbarian obscurity, she had grown used to its way of thinking.

  And in her new work, she was happy her own objectives were being fulfilled. She had never found a situation over which she had had so much control — never such an opportunity to achieve safety and security for Brica and herself. Indeed, in a sense the Order, dominated by her own relatives, was itself like an extension of her family.

  She had little interest in Julia, though.

  After that first meeting with her mother, and after she and Brica had moved into the estate, it seemed that some tension within her had been relieved. This introverted old woman had little to do with Regina's own vibrant memories of childhood. Sometimes, though, she caught Julia watching her, as if her arrival had stirred up guilt or remorse that she had thought was long buried. If so, Regina would shed no tears.

  And anyhow, Julia was not the center of the family. She was — she and the matres, who were with her now as they had always been.

  • • •

  In the morning — the day of the ceremonies — the news was not good.

  The last barbarian assault on Rome had come a mere three years before, in the shape of the Huns under their squat and brutal leader Attila, "the Scourge of God." Pope Leo had met Attila in his headquarters, and had persuaded him to spare the city. But now even the pope, it seemed, could not find a way to persuade the Vandals to turn back.

  Despite the ominous news, Regina was determined that her day of celebration would go ahead.

  It had begun, in fact, the evening before, when Brica had come to Regina's room. It was a tradition for a bride to surrender the relics of her childhood, her toys and childish clothes, to the gods of the lararium. But nothing of Bri
ca's childhood had come with them to Rome. So they cut a lock of her hair, tied it up, and burned it before the matres. Mother and daughter spent the evening quietly, and retired early, with barely a word passing between them, as they had spent so many evenings before.

  In the morning Regina and her mother helped Brica prepare for the wedding ceremony. Brica's hair was dressed in an old Roman way, with six strands separated by a bent iron spear tip. She wore a simple tuniclike dress without a hem, tied around the waist by a woolen girdle. Over her dress she wore a cloak colored a gentle saffron, and on her head she donned an orange veil. Briefly she recaptured the brightness and beauty of the girl of the British forests, and Regina's tough old heart ached at what she had had to do to her daughter.

  The morning was still young when the groom and his family arrived.

  Castor had been born a slave, the son of slaves. It had only been recently that he himself had been freed, and with his earnings had been able to purchase the manumission of his mother and father. But both parents still wore around their necks the tags of beaten tin that had once marked out their servitude, evidently an act of perverse pride. They kept themselves to themselves, saying little to Regina, or the other elders of the community.

  The ceremony itself was conducted immediately. Helena, Regina's aunt, acted as the matron of honor. She took the couple's right hands in her own frail fingers. There was a sacrifice — the killing of a small piglet, carried out in the peristylium — and then came the signing and sealing of contracts, which cemented the transfer of the dowry. All this was witnessed by as many of the community's students as could cram into the atrium. Some as young as five, they were a giggling, breathless mass of curiosity and eagerness, and Regina thought they loaned the ceremony happiness and light, like bright flowers.

  Little Aemilia's birth ceremony was simple and traditional. It was the eighth day after her birth, so the baby was formally given her names: Aemilia as her family name, and the second taken from the name of her mother. The formal registration of the baby at the Temple of Saturn was to take place the next day.

  The father, a stolid man involved in money lending, held the little bundle in his arms and raised her in the air. It was a vital moment for the child, Regina had learned. In Rome, despite its centuries of prosperity, fathers retained the right to reject their children, and the exposure of babies, especially in times of turmoil like the present, was not uncommon.

  The coming-of-age ceremony for Venus was more complicated. There was no real Roman tradition to celebrate a girl's passage from childhood — unlike a boy, who, during the festival of Liber and Libera in March, would dedicate his childish clothes to the household gods, don his toga of manhood for the first time, and then march with his family to the Tabularium for registration. Regina had decided, however, that some such tradition should be instigated for the girls of the Order. So now Venus dressed in a simple stola to mark her adulthood, like that worn by the women who had taught her, though without the purple stripe of the seniors. She was asked to dedicate a scrap of cloth bearing a trace of her first bleeding, carefully wrapped up in white.

  Through all this Regina observed Sulla hovering in the background, his doleful eyes on the girl, and Amator lurked behind him, flushed and already drunk, a cup of wine in his hand.

  After the ceremonies, the festivities began. The atrium, peristylium, and big reception rooms had been set up for food, music, and dancing. When the party started Sulla made straight for Venus. He lavished on her food, wine, and attention, and danced with her as much as he could. Regina relished the deepening anguish on Amator's whitened face.

  As the day drew to a close, with the banqueting done and the youngest children already falling asleep, the wedding procession formed up. Tradition had it that the bride should be accompanied by three small boys, one to hold her left hand, one her right, and the third to carry a torch lit from the hearth of her mother's home. Regina had decided that this tradition should be modified a little, and she had three of her younger students take the place of the boys. The procession, of bride, groom, attendants, and wedding guests, would now walk through the streets to the groom's home. There Brica would throw away the torch, and whoever caught it would be assured a long life. She would smear the doorposts with oil and fat, and wreath them with wool. Then she would let her husband carry her across the threshold. Once inside she would touch fire and water symbolically, and then she would be led to the bedchamber...

  But none of this came to pass.

  • • •

  They had not yet left the compound when the first cries came up from the city. "The Vandals! The Vandals are here!"

  Regina heard the first screams, saw the first glimmering redness of fires.

  Brica clutched her groom's arm. The wedding procession broke up and the guests milled, carrying their torches, confused. Some of them were too drunk to be truly frightened, and some too drunk to care either way.

  Julia came to Regina, wringing her hands. "The Vandals attack by night. Everybody knows that. They blacken their faces and their shields, and—"

  Regina took her hands and pressed them between her own. Julia's fingers were thin, the bones as fragile as a baby bird's. "Mother," she said. "Don't be afraid. I have prepared. Follow my lead. If you support me, nobody need be harmed. Do you understand?"

  Through her obvious fear Julia forced a small grin. "You always were the strong one, Regina."

  "I'll show you the way. There won't be room for everybody. Family first, of course. Hurry, Mother!"

  As Julia bustled away through the confused crowd in search of Helena and the other elders, Regina pulled Brica away from her groom and her attendants. Castor drifted after them, uncertain. They ran first to the small shrine, where Regina swept up the three matres, and then to the peristylium.

  Regina had had a small trapdoor installed here. She peeled back a flap of turf and took a key she wore beneath her dress. The complicated lock was stiff, perhaps rusted, but by using two hands she managed to work its heavy mechanism. Then, with Brica's help, she lifted the trap to expose a blacked-out shaft, with iron rungs set into the wall.

  Brica peered down uncertainly. "What is it?"

  "A place of safety." Castor had a torch, she saw; she grabbed this from his hands. "Castor. Stay here. Guard this place. Don't let anybody down here. Not yet."

  "But—"

  "Your wife will be safe here. Will you do as I say?"

  "Yes, mistress."

  "Brica, follow me."

  With the torch held high, Regina made her way down the iron rungs. It was a difficult journey to make with one free hand, and she felt stiff, heavy, clumsy; she was getting too old for such adventures. But Brica was following.

  At the bottom of the shaft Regina found herself standing in an arched tunnel, lined with concrete and brick. The walls were pocked with chambers, shelves, and alcoves, as if she had entered a vast cupboard. The roof was only a little higher than her own head, and if she had reached out she could have touched both walls. This tunnel was only part of a great warren of passageways and chambers that had been dug into this soft rock. Everything was blackened by the smoke of torches and candles, and there was a smell of damp and rot.

  Brica was fingering her dress, which was streaked with black mud. "I am filthy," she murmured.

  Regina could hear a hint of humor in her daughter's voice. She hugged her briefly. "I doubt if your wedding procession is likely to take place today. Not unless you want a few black-painted barbarians to join it..."

  Brica walked slowly down the narrow passageway. The walls were painted with symbols, lamb, fish, shepherd, Christian symbols, and the alcoves contained objects like lamps and glass vessels — and many, many wrapped-up shrouds. These were bodies, some already centuries old, wrapped in lime-coated cloth. "What is this place?"

  "A Catacomb. A Christian cemetery, from the days of persecution. They dug out such cellars to bury their dead without interference. The owner of the estate in those days must hav
e been sympathetic. There are many such holes in the ground, here along the Appian Way."

  "And here you think we will be safe."

  "The barbarians are not Romans," Regina said dryly. "They will not even know such places exist. And if they did they would ignore them for the easier pickings of the mansions and churches above the ground. As soon as I learned this place was here I realized its usefulness, and had passageways sunk to it from the house. I used workmen from outside the city — I doubt we will be betrayed."

  "You always did think ahead, Mother," Brica said dryly. "We must fetch the others."

  "I'll do that," Regina said sharply. "You stay here. When they come they will be confused, frightened. Drunk! Organize them. Reassure them. I am counting on you, Brica. Look — there is food here, a little water to be had from this spigot, torches to be lit here."

  Brica nodded. "I understand."

  "Good." Regina hurried up to the surface.

  Julia and the elders had already organized a queue, reasonably orderly, before the gaping hole in the ground, where Castor still stood patiently.

  Regina clambered up on a low wall and clapped her hands for attention. "We can take only the children, and some women. Julia, you go first, and help Brica. Then the children, the smallest first. If we can take mothers, we will do so. Husbands, fathers, please go to your homes. I know you will all understand your duty."

  She was greeted by somber, blanched faces. There were grave nods of acquiescence.

  The children started to file nervously into the shaft, many of them weeping to be separated from their mothers. Regina saw Venus pass into the ground, and the baby Aemilia in the arms of her mother, Regina's half sister Leda.

  Sulla came to her. His broad, slightly bloated face was streaked with tears. But Amator was just behind him. Sulla said, "Regina, let me come. The Vandals — someone like me — " There had been rumors of how the Vandals treated those they saw as decadent, of pretty boys being murdered by impalement.