Curses and Smoke

by Vicky Alvear Shecter

  “Bah, what would I do with freedom?” Metrodona huffed. “I am too old to start taking care of myself. Besides, who will watch your babies except for me — me, who wiped your bottom from the day you came into the world screaming?”

  “I’m not having babies any time soon,” Lucia snapped.

  Metrodona cackled. “You will be married shortly. If you are as fertile as your mama, you will be knee-deep in ’em before you know it.”

  Lucia didn’t want to be as fertile as her mother, not if it meant her babies died at birth or in her womb. She briefly took her nurse’s arm to help her navigate the large stones that got them across the street without having to step into the excess water from overflowing fountains. When Lucia realized she’d gotten too far ahead of Metrodona, she slowed again and began idly reading the graffiti scratched onto insulae walls. “Secundus defecated here,” she read, wrinkling her nose and checking the bottom of her shoes. Gods. Most were just as crude, but one stopped her cold: “Learn this: While I am alive, you, hateful death, are coming.”

  She shook off a shiver. Why would someone scratch such a morose thought on a street wall? Scanning for something more uplifting, she lighted on “Figulus loves Idaia.” Much better.

  The market announced itself with a cacophony of noises — coppersmiths hammering on gleaming pots, leather workers punching holes into harnesses with iron mallets, wine sellers hawking their latest vintage, butchers extolling the sweetness of their ewe meat. They walked past a poultry farmer hawking the newest craze — parrots strung up by their strange little feet, looking like bunches of feathered fruit. “Only for the best banquets in Pompeii!” he called out. Behind the man with the parrots, a boy yelped as his teaching master caned him in front of the other students attending the open-air school.

  They found Metrodona’s Egyptian sitting on a low wooden stool in the shade of the colonnade near the flower stalls. Lucia leaned against a dusty red column as she examined the old man, who had leathery skin scored by the sun into deep ravines around his mouth and forehead, under a turbaned head. The man held out a dirty palm and Metrodona slipped some coins into it. In a blink, the coins were gone and the man turned to stare at Lucia. Metrodona waved her closer.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Lucia asked through the side of her mouth, afraid to look away from the old man’s strangely piercing stare.

  “Nothing,” Metrodona said. “He is reading you.”

  The man signaled, and Metrodona grabbed Lucia’s right hand and held the palm out for him to inspect. His brow furrowed and Lucia fought the impulse to snatch her hand away. But then he grinned, showing three brown teeth hanging from inflamed gums like tiny figs about to drop from their branch. He began chattering with Metrodona in heavily accented Latin. Lucia caught the words love and a great passion and decided she’d heard enough. The very idea of “passion” with her doddering betrothed made her shiver.

  “I’m going to go look at the incense,” she said, bending toward Metrodona’s ear. Her nurse nodded and waved her away as she continued her lively conversation with the old Egyptian.

  Dozens of terra-cotta bowls filled with tiny hills of brightly colored powders — yellow, red, blue, brown, purple — crowded the incense seller’s cart. Garlands of myrtle and rosemary hung from wooden beams, mixing with the sweet and tangy smells of the riot of offerings.

  “Ah, I have something special for a pretty young girl like you,” said a fat old woman with wiry gray hair. She drew out a small leather pouch and opened it, stroking the worn brown leather as if it were a lover’s face. “Venus the goddess of love favors my special mix of rose and narcissus,” she said in a low tone, as if sharing a secret. “It will draw the true love of the one you seek.”

  “I need … do you have something for … making sure a marriage doesn’t happen?” Lucia asked.

  “Hmmmmm. Sometimes the goddess of love is insulted by unions that should not be so. To attract her attention to it, use powder of lilies in her sacred fire.” The woman quickly drew out another pouch. “These have been dried under moonlight. The goddess will notice this special blend and grant you your wish. I am certain of it.”

  “How much?” Lucia asked, and the haggling began. When they finally settled, the woman handed Lucia her portion wrapped in a carefully folded piece of old papyrus.

  “Purchasing something special?” a familiar voice asked from behind her. She turned, her heart skipping a beat.

  “Tag! What are you doing here?”

  He held up several small cloth bags pungent with the smells of earth and dried bitter herbs. “Pontius made me come today to pick up some things for him,” he said. “And I needed to refill some of our herb stores.”

  “Metrodona insisted I come today too. Funny, isn’t it?”

  He nodded, his eyes crinkling.

  “Healer! Healer!” came a high little voice. Castor ran up to Tag and pulled on his tunic. “Can we go see the monkey now, pleeeeease?”

  “You’re here too?” Lucia asked the boy, laughing.

  “I go where the healer goes, because I am going to be a healer when I grow up,” he said.

  “Wait,” Tag said, pretending confusion. “I thought you said you were going to be a gladiator.”

  The boy scowled up at him. “I am going to be both!” He turned to Lucia. “I am the healer’s appistant.”

  “A-what?”

  “Assistant. I am helping with everything.”

  “Helping create a mess, more like it,” Tag said. Something about the way he ruffled the slave boy’s hair made her heart contract.

  “The monkey! Please, can we see the monkey now?” Castor begged.

  “I want to see it too,” Lucia said, following as the boy pulled Tag to the small gray-and-black monkey leashed to the fruit and nut seller’s stall. Castor dropped to his haunches before the creature, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Little monkey, meet little monkey,” Tag said, looking down at the boy. “You know, Castor, the resemblance between you two is downright troubling.”

  But the boy didn’t hear the teasing, so entranced was he by the small creature that looked into his eyes with a defeated, soulful gaze.

  “I let you feed the monkey if you buy from me,” the seller said.

  Castor shot up and bounced on his bare toes. “Oh, please please please please buy something! I want to feed him!”

  “Let us see,” Tag said, then turned to the grocer. “Show me your best Persian walnuts.”

  After Tag purchased a wrapped bundle of nuts and Castor had excitedly handed the monkey his treat — a piece of cucumber, which the creature took with tiny, delicate hands — they walked slowly away. Lucia asked, “Walnuts? Doesn’t the cook buy those?”

  “Yes. But these are not to eat — they are medicinal.”

  She looked up questioningly at him.

  “They are for my father,” he explained. “I have read that ground walnut powder mixed with bone ash may help with his mental confusion. That and the occasional bleeding should help, I hope.” He paused. “Which reminds me, my supply of leeches is getting low.”

  “Ugh. I’d rather be cut and bled than have leeches used on me.”

  “I will remember that.”

  They promenaded around the market, occasionally stealing glances at each other as they chatted about the household. Sometimes they bumped shoulders or brushed arms. Lucia felt as if all her awareness and sensation were gravitating toward Tag like iron to a magnet rock. She wondered how the weight of it didn’t make her tip over into him. Why was she reacting this way? This was Tag.

  “Well, do you?”

  His question startled her. She blinked. “Do I what?”

  “Want some bread? I’m hungry.”

  “Oh, sure.” She hadn’t even noticed that they’d stopped in front of a baker’s cart. They exchanged a few coins with the baker and ripped into the crusty, scored round loaf with relish. Castor stuffed so much into his mouth at once it looked like he’d shoved a small trigo
n ball in his cheek.

  After finishing his bread, Castor ran toward a clutch of dirty, ragged chickens pecking at seeds near the vegetable carts. A great squawking of outrage ensued, and not just from the chickens. The sellers cursed at the boy to go away.

  “Gods, he never slows down,” muttered Tag.

  “It is very sweet that you have taken him under your wing,” Lucia said.

  “He is a smart boy,” he said. “What a waste it would be if no one ever bothered to train his mind.”

  His eyes were the color of dark, rich honey. She looked away quickly, her cheeks warming. “Yes, of course.”

  “In fact,” he continued, “he seems to pick up Greek naturally. Much faster than you ever did.”

  She stopped in her tracks. “That is not true! I learned it so fast, Father didn’t even know I was joining you in your lessons.”

  “I am teasing, Lucia,” he said, smiling down at her.

  “Oh. Yes.” His smile was devastating. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who found it so. Some of the other young women in the market were looking at Tag the same way she was — and some of the men too. Yet the moment someone attempted to talk to him — even if just to ask which baker had the best bread that day — his scowl returned. The expression was his shield, she realized, and it pained her to think how much he needed one.

  Castor bounced through the forum and toward the Temple of Venus. They slowly followed.

  “So, how fares Quintus?” he asked. “Or maybe I should ask, ‘How much sympathy has he been milking for his nose?’ ”

  She chuckled. “Half the time, I can’t tell whether it’s all an act or if he really is as insufferable as he comes across. Do you know how he introduced himself to me the first time I met him? He said, ‘My father owns the largest villa in Herculaneum.’ I wanted to say, ‘How nice for you — my father owns the smelliest gladiators in Pompeii.’ Really, it’s a wonder to me that no gladiator has pummeled him to death yet.”

  “Give it time,” he said.

  They walked in silence, dodging the people moving to and from Venus’s temple and altar. Wooden scaffolds climbed up the sides of the temple as builders scraped and pounded the walls, which always seemed under some sort of renovation. As they neared the outdoor altar, Lucia pulled out her powder of lilies. “Excuse me a moment,” she said to Tag without looking at him.

  She sprinkled the fragrant powder over the dancing orange flames. The powder made a crackling sound, releasing a burst of sweetness mixed with apple-wood smoke. Closing her eyes, she murmured her prayer to the goddess of love:

  Save me, O goddess, from a terrible union

  One that would be an insult to your ways of love

  and I shall sacrifice a white lamb for you every year

  and spread word of your kindness and magnificence to all in Pompeii.

  Tag leaned against a red-painted column in the colonnade, waiting for her. After she rejoined him, they trailed Castor to the edge of the complex, where the child began jumping from rock to rock.

  “Have you ever been to the secret temple?” Tag asked.

  “What secret temple?”

  Castor ran back, staring up at him with large, round eyes. “There is a secret temple? Where?” he squeaked.

  Tag pointed to a depression in the rocks. “Down there. To Mephistis,” he said. “The goddess of poisonous vapors.”

  The little boy looked at Lucia. “Can we go, please? Please?”

  Lucia shrugged. “Sure.”

  Tag led them to a section of scrubs and rocks at the edge of the old quarter, where they climbed down an embankment.

  “I’ve never heard of Mephistis,” Lucia said.

  “She is a Samnite goddess. The Romans built the temple to Venus over her ancient shrine when they conquered Pompeii,” Tag said, holding his hand out to help her down the moss-covered rocks. “A great many old-timers are convinced Mephistis will not take the insult lying down. They await her punishment.”

  He released her hand to lift Castor and “fly” him down, the boy whooping with glee. She curled her fingers around the lingering warmth of his touch.

  “They’ve been waiting a long time, then,” she said, forcing her attention back to his words. “Sulla took Pompeii many generations ago.”

  “The gods work in their own time,” he said. “Many believe she will exact her punishment on the Romans in her own way. My father told me about this shrine, and one day I’ll tell my son.”

  The rocks and brush around them buffered the sounds of the marketplace and temple complex, the calls and voices sounding more like the murmurs of waves sliding on sand. Tag pushed aside a large myrtle bush to reveal blackened, pitted stone steps leading down into a crevice. They took the steps in silence. Lucia sensed the sacredness of the space — the power of it. Castor must have too, because he stopped chattering.

  Deep within the rocks stood a small tholos, a circular columned shrine. In the middle stood a well-worn altar covered in flowers, palm leaves, and sprigs of rosemary.

  “People are still honoring your goddess,” she noted, looking around for other worshippers. The place was empty.

  “Mainly the old-guard families, like I said.” Tag drew a walnut and some herbs from his linen bags and placed them on the altar with a bowed head. Feeling like she needed to give something to the goddess too, Lucia added the remainder of her lily powder.

  “Why is her altar here?” asked Castor. “Among the rocks?”

  “Because she has the power to breathe her poison out through them,” Tag explained. “Some say she lives deep in the earth, and when she is angered, she rises up, brings her lips to the underside of the ground where we stand, and exhales her poison to consume her enemies. And so she must be appeased.”

  “I wonder why I never knew about this shrine,” Lucia said.

  Tag shrugged. “Because she is Samnite, perhaps. And because you are Roman.”

  “Gods, I hope she doesn’t hold that against me,” she said with a smile.

  After they climbed up from the secret rock grove, Castor begged, “Can we go to the wharf now? You said we would go to the wharf!”

  “Not yet,” Tag answered. Turning to Lucia, he asked, “Why don’t we take another turn around the market?”

  He doesn’t want to leave me either, she thought. A thrill of pleasure filled her chest. They circled the stalls again, commenting on which seller had the tastiest garum and which herbalists picked their plants according to the cycles of the moon. Castor followed a band of raggedy, barefoot boys giving chase to pigs snuffling in piles of rotting vegetables strewn around the carts.

  “What do you go to the wharf for?” Lucia asked Tag.

  “You do not want to know.”

  She grinned up at him. “Oh, now I have to know.”

  He sighed. “Cat dung. For treating ulcers of the skin, a paste of dung mixed with powdered mustard and oil has been shown to be quite effective.”

  She stopped and looked at him incredulously. “You are joking, aren’t you?”

  “No,” he laughed. “It’s a proven remedy.”

  “So then why the wharf?”

  “The cats who feed solely on fish scraps, I have learned from experience, provide the most effective … er, samples. So I go after the droppings of the cats who live on the wharf and around the boats.”

  She made a face.

  “It’s medicine,” he said, shrugging. Then, with a mischievous grin, he added, “But thankfully, Castor likes to collect the samples for me.”

  “How wonderful to have your own little slave to do the dirty work for you,” she teased.

  He stopped cold, his scowl returning. “I don’t own Castor,” he said, his mouth a thin line. “You do. And I would give whatever I had to keep that little boy from growing up a slave like me.”

  She felt her cheeks warm. “Oh, I am sorry, Tag. Of course I know that. Sometimes I forget that you are not …”

  “Like you. Free.”

  “I meant no
insult,” she said. “Truly.” As children, teasing him about being a slave was the only thing that seemed to break him — so she’d quit doing it. Along the way, she had stopped thinking of him as a slave altogether. And now she’d brought their lovely time together to a grinding halt with her big mouth.

  Tag resumed walking. “Castor, come on,” he called. “Time to go to the wharf.”

  The boy whooped with joy and ran, weaving in and out of the pockets of people toward the marina gate outside the temple complex. “Good-bye, Domina!” Castor shouted over his shoulder to Lucia as he scampered away.

  Without another word, Tag followed the boy.

  “Wait,” she said.

  He faced her, his expression blank. “Yes, Domina?”

  Gods, how she hated when he used that title with her. “I … I wanted to thank you for taking me to see the sanctuary of Mephistis.”

  “You are welcome,” he said, coldly formal.

  She opened her mouth to say something — anything — to regain the warmth they had enjoyed just moments before, but no words came. He looked behind her. “It appears your nurse is looking for you. May Mercury watch over you on your journey home,” he added. Then he turned and set off after Castor.

  Tag neared the wooded hideout and spied Minos. That meant Lucia was inside. Good. He picked up his pace.

  He’d felt bad about the way he’d reacted to her comment about Castor being “his” slave the day before. Sure, it had been a thoughtless remark, but maybe she really did forget about his status when they were together. He certainly forgot about hers. Also, she had apologized to him, an act of kindness from a slave owner that still had the power to stun him.

  “It’s me, Tag,” he called at the hideout’s opening as he scratched Minos, who grinned and panted up at him. “May I come in?”

  “Sure,” she replied. He noticed her putting a scroll into a cloth bag as he crawled inside.

  “What are you writing?” he asked.

  “Nothing. I’m rereading some of Pliny’s scrolls.” He settled himself across from her. When he looked up, she was staring at him with a worried expression. “Tag, I wanted to apologize for what I said —”