Curses and Smoke

by Vicky Alvear Shecter

  He shifted positions, still keeping his head down as if working on her foot. “Lucia, why was Cornelia trying to arrange something between you and Quintus?”

  She sighed irritably. “She thinks if I get Quintus interested in me, Father would break the betrothal to Vitulus and switch it to him.”

  “He has … Has he tried to kiss you?”

  “Tag.” She put a hand over his on her ankle, leaning forward as if inspecting the joint. “I have no inclination toward him at all,” she whispered. “I only want you.”

  He released a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. It was bad enough to know he would lose her to Rome, but to lose her to Quintus was unthinkable.

  “I also wanted to thank you for last night,” she added shyly.

  He didn’t know what she was thanking him for — for comforting her after the disaster at Cornelia’s house, or for making sure they didn’t do anything she would later regret? Probably both.

  He wanted to tell her he was sorry that Cornelia’s husband was such a fool and that she had to learn from him what really happened to her mother and her baby sisters. That if he could, he would take her away from this cursed home and protect her. That he would never expose a child she wanted to keep. But it all got clogged in his throat, because he could make none of that ever happen.

  So instead, he caressed her injured foot and quietly answered, “You’re welcome.”

  Daughter? May I come in?”

  She looked up from her bed in surprise. Her father was here? To see her? “Yes, of course.”

  “What are you doing?” Lucius Titurius asked as he entered her small cubiculum.

  She held up a needle and thread and the hem of one of her tunicas. “Just some mending.” He did not need to know that she was fixing a tunica she’d torn in one of her many jaunts to the woods.

  He nodded. “Good, good. But wouldn’t you be more comfortable in the atrium?”

  She pointed with her chin at her foot, which was propped up on several pillows on her sleeping couch. “Remember, I’m supposed to keep my ankle elevated.”

  He looked around her tiny room and cleared his throat several times. She tried to remember the last time he had come to visit her like this. She couldn’t.

  “I have been in communication with your betrothed,” he began.

  She groaned inwardly.

  “He is aware you are frightened and uncertain, and he has given me his word that he will be kind and patient with you. He recommends that you begin sorting through your girlish things to select which toys you will sacrifice to Diana on the day of your wedding. We leave for Rome soon, as you know.”

  Lucia nodded. With a pang, she realized that the toy sacrifice was something that girls always did with their mothers.

  He cleared his throat again and shifted his weight from foot to foot. “You know, your mother was terrified of marrying me too, when our union was arranged.”

  “She was?”

  “I too was quite a bit older than she was —”

  “Not forty-something years,” she mumbled, but he went on as if he hadn’t heard her.

  “But we grew to love each other very much. Or, at least, I grew to love her greatly, and I think she returned the feeling.”

  How could he think that after taking her babies?

  “I know it seems as if I am being cruel, but you must understand that I am trying to give you a safe and secure future, Lucia. I would not want any harm to come to you.”

  She kept her eyes on her fingers in her lap, thinking all the while that if she’d been born after her brother had died, he probably would have thrown her on the rubbish heap too.

  “May I sit?” he asked after a long silence.

  She nodded.

  He sat at the edge of the bed and patted her injured foot. “Do you remember how we used to play Hercules and the kerkopes?” he asked, smiling. “You would come upon me when I napped and try to steal something.”

  Despite herself, she smiled. “Try? I always succeeded.”

  “Once you set off with your prize, I would wake up and roar like Hercules, and stomp through the house in search of you.”

  “I liked to hide under Mater’s blankets in her room,” she added, recalling the sensation of being wrapped in her mother’s fringed coverlets scented with rose oil.

  “Yes, I always knew that’s where you went, but I made a big show of upending furniture and being unable to find you. Finally, I’d jump on the bed to make you squeal, carrying you by the ankles just like Hercules carried the kerkopes.”

  They were both silent for a time.

  “What happened to those days?” he asked quietly.

  “They disappeared when Bassus died,” she said flatly. And when you started exposing my baby sisters. And when Mother killed herself to keep you from doing it again. And when you couldn’t bear to look at me anymore because I was the one that survived and not your firstborn son.

  “I pray that you never have to experience the death of a beloved child,” he murmured.

  The outrageousness of him making such a comment after having her baby sisters exposed closed her throat, trapping her next breath. She flew into a paroxysm of coughing.

  He waited until she caught her breath and stood. “I boxed up many of your mother’s things and kept them for you. I’ll have them brought here. I thought you might enjoy going through them and deciding which of her things you would like to take with you to your new home.”

  She realized he was waiting for a response, so she said, “Thank you, Father.”

  He sighed, kissed the top of her head, and left without saying anything else.

  After staring stupidly at the wall for a time, Lucia put down her mending. Hearing her father out in the training yard, she decided to go to his empty tablinum to find something to read.

  When she finally limped into the small room, she blew her cheeks out with disappointment. There was always a part of her that hoped a handful of new scrolls would magically be waiting on her father’s desk every time she came in — even though her father had never been an avid reader. Her mother had, though. She’d especially loved Pliny, a love she had passed on to Lucia. Unfortunately, after she died, Lucia had been unable to convince her father to purchase any more of Pliny’s books.

  The thought of her mother and what really happened to her was like a punch to the chest. Yet, at the same time, her mother’s weakness enraged her. Why hadn’t she made her father see the error of his ways? If it had been her baby, she would have fought back. She would have marched out the city gates and taken her baby back from the rubbish heap, if that was what it required! Why had her mother given up?

  The idea of facing such a bleak future made her want to scream. When she’d told Tag she wanted to run away with him, she hadn’t meant it, really. What did she know about living on her own?

  But standing in her father’s cold study, she realized that not running away meant she’d turn into her mother, powerless and defeated. And that must never happen.

  “Well, well,” a voice said behind her, and she jumped. Quintus was leaning languidly against the dark blue door frame. “Once again, it seems that you are avoiding me. And yet your friend Cornelia claims you might have feelings for me. Which one is it, lovely Lucia?”

  Gods. “I have not been avoiding you,” she said, pointing to her wrapped ankle. “I injured it the other night and haven’t been on it much.”

  He looked at her foot. “Yes, I’ve heard slaves whispering that you were cursed in your sleep.”

  An awkward silence descended, and Lucia pretended to scan the tags on her father’s small collection of scrolls — as if she didn’t have all the titles memorized.

  “So, is it true?” Quintus asked.

  Lucia looked at him. “Is what true?”

  “What Cornelia said — about your feelings for me.”

  She quickly looked away. How was she supposed to answer that? “I … I …” She stared at the floor, trying to think.
As if invisibly pushed by Cornelia, she sensed the only answer she could give needed to be a lie. “She was being truthful,” she said in a trembling voice, not meeting his eyes.

  “I am very glad to hear this,” Quintus said.

  Lucia cut a look at him and saw that he was grinning with a faraway look in his eyes.

  “This might work after all,” he muttered.

  She blinked. “What might?”

  He brought his attention back to her and pushed away from the door. “When I’ve figured out the details, I will let you know,” he said. Then with a slight bow, he turned and left, leaving Lucia staring at his retreating back.

  * * *

  “Come, let us go into the garden,” Metrodona said a few days later, leading her out of her room. “You are always happier outside.”

  Her ankle injury, to her frustration, had kept her housebound, which meant she couldn’t sneak away to see Tag. He and Castor would check on her injury, giving them a few moments of contact — of shared smiles, surreptitious hand squeezes, and whispered words — but it wasn’t the same. Fortunately, Tag’s treatments had indeed reduced the swelling, and her ankle was healing nicely. But still, Metrodona insisted on treating her almost as an invalid. And when she complained, her nurse just shook her head and said, “We must be extra careful as your marriage date approaches! We cannot let any angry daemons curse your good fortune.”

  Lucia insisted they bring Minos along with them to the garden. Metrodona despised the dog, but without their regular outings to the woods, poor Minos stayed chained to his post at all times. Lucia hated how miserable that made him.

  Metrodona settled herself into a cozy spot in the shade and promptly fell asleep. Lucia took the opportunity to hobble through the opening in the wall to the adjoining meadow. Minos ran around the area, nose to the ground, sniffing happily. After a time, Lucia moved to the shade of a plane tree. Minos flopped down beside her, panting.

  “How is it that it is still so hot?” she said to the dog. By that point in early October, the weather usually cooled down. But lately, even the earth itself seemed to radiate heat, so it felt like they were pressed in on both sides. Even in the shade, she felt heavy, slow, and listless.

  Minos dozed on his side, panting, tongue lolling on the dirt. Cicadas whirred and chirped in waves, like rounds in an endless lamentation. Her thoughts droned along with them as her eyes grew heavy: Could Tag and I really run away? Do I have the strength to do it? But if I don’t, I will turn into my mater, which mustn’t happen. But could we run away? Do we have the strength? If we don’t …

  Everything went silent and she was instantly alert. Bugs, she had noted, only stopped their infernal noise when they detected danger. Minos’s head popped up and he closed his mouth, as if he didn’t want the sounds of his own breathing to interfere with what he was trying to hear.

  She knew a tremor must be coming. But what manner of danger was a tremor to the insects? When the shaking started, she put her palms on the earth and closed her eyes to experience the vibrations more keenly. The movement of the earth pulsated through her palms and gently vibrated her bones.

  Slowly, the earth’s trembling faded away. A vision came to her then — of a cracked, stony, gruesome face deep within the earth, moving toward her and all those she loved, grinning with chipped black rock teeth, opening its mouth wide as if to swallow them whole.

  Mephistis.

  Lucia snapped her eyes open. Was the goddess of poison air warning her? Or cursing her?

  To Tag’s relief, Quintus had not shown up for morning training.

  “Where’s your patrician?” one of the fighters asked as they waited in the pit for instructions.

  “He’s not ‘mine,’ ” Tag grumbled, kicking at a depression in the sand. “And I have no idea.”

  “I heard he left for his villa in Herculaneum,” a gladiator named Nicodemus said. “But all his stuff is still here — along with one of the slaves he brought with him — so, sadly, he’s coming back.”

  “Nico always knows the gossip,” someone laughed.

  “The patrician princess probably went home to Mater to complain about us mean ol’ gladiators,” another man added in a pretend-whiny voice.

  Tag didn’t care what the reason was — he was glad to be free of Quintus, no matter for how long.

  The morning’s warm-up consisted of running an obstacle course with wooden shield and sword in hand. When it was Tag’s turn, he sprinted for the barrels — three of them — and leapt over them, landing on his feet in a crouch. Making sure his equipment never touched the ground, he weaved in and out of the low ropes tied between posts. Next, he dodged a line of sandbags sent swinging in different rhythms, and finally, still on the run, he struck a swinging straw man on its chest. A dishonorable hit to the back would have meant three sprinting laps around the courtyard.

  Tag bent over his knees, gasping for air, then got back in line for the next go-round. He looked up when he heard a strange popping sound. A heavily muscled man dropped to the ground behind the barrels, grabbing the back of his thigh, bellowing in pain.

  Tag winced. That popping sound meant only one thing — the man had torn a major muscle in two. He ran out to the fighter and could already see the bulge forming where the muscle separated. He cursed under his breath.

  The man’s red, sweating face was contorted in agony. “You two!” Tag pointed at two fighters staring at their downed friend. “Lift him and take him to the treatment room. Statim!”

  Tag jogged ahead of them. “Cool clay from near the cistern,” he called to a wide-eyed slave standing by. “Two buckets’ worth. Now.” The young man took off.

  When Tag applied the cool clay to the man’s back thigh, some of the fighter’s curses eased. He reached for a poppy tincture to relax the man, mostly because he wanted him to be still. The worst thing the fighter could do now was to continue moving that muscle, and getting a gladiator to stop moving — no matter the pain — was no easy task.

  When the man’s breathing eased, Tag headed to the herbal room for additional supplies, Castor trailing on his heels. Inside, he took a deep breath and thought about his next steps. He would reapply the cooling clay, maybe adding crushed mint to the mix. Then he’d wrap the leg tight, holding the muscle together so that it could reattach and heal. Perhaps calendula paste applied before bandaging would —

  “Lady Lucia,” Castor cried, running over to her as she stood in the doorway.

  Tag’s heart jumped. Lucia never came into the medical rooms because it meant walking among the gladiators, which her father strictly forbade. “Are you ill or hurt?” he asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “Look, Domina,” Castor said before she could say anything else. He pointed at a row of terra-cotta containers. “I marked the medicine jars.”

  She touched the top of one wax-sealed jar. “How do you know which one contains what medicine?”

  Castor traced a grimy finger over the Greek letters scratched onto the surface of each jar. “I can read letters now! If this letter is the first one,” he said, indicating the alpha, “then it means A, for apple tree bark. And if that letter is tau, it means T for toadflax.”

  “That is impressive, Castor!” she said, looking up at Tag through her lashes. Her gaze lingered for a moment before she smiled down on the boy, and Tag felt the weight of it like a physical caress.

  He cleared his throat. “Castor, I need you to go and check on the injured gladiator. I want you to make sure he hasn’t moved.”

  Castor stuck his lower lip out and crossed his arms. “I don’t want to go. I want to show Domina all that I’ve been learning.”

  Tag raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to misbehave in front of Domina?” he asked in an overly surprised voice. He knew that was a low blow — Castor adored Lucia.

  The boy’s face grew blotchy.

  “Go,” Lucia said gently to the boy. “After you have finished your healing work, bring a wax tablet to the atrium and show me
then.”

  Castor nodded, gave her a shy grin, and raced out of the room.

  Then Lucia’s eyes met Tag’s, and they stared at each other in silence. It was all he could do not to rush over and press her against him.

  One of the gladiators walked by the door, and she quickly spoke. “My nurse has been feeling poorly, and I wondered if you could recommend a tonic.”

  Tag struggled to remember the proper response. “Uh … Tell me her symptoms.”

  “Metrodona is fine,” she said in a low voice, coming closer when the gladiator had passed. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

  Gods, how he loved her warm, clean scent — like blooming citron trees drenched in sunshine. He would not look at her mouth. Or the silk of her neck. He needed to keep his head. “What did you want to talk about?”

  She twisted her fingers together. “I miss you. I wanted to see you.”

  “Your ankle is well enough to go out into the woods?”

  She nodded. “But you are usually training in the afternoons.”

  As the sound of footsteps approached in the hall, he said loudly, “Perhaps this salve for tight muscles may ease your nurse’s backache.”

  “Thank you, healer,” she responded in the same overly loud tone as the footsteps disappeared.

  She walked over to the shrine of Asclepius and he moved beside her. Standing close with their heads bowed in front of the shrine was the only way such proximity would be allowed. Tag let his arm brush hers, and even at that innocent touch, his heart raced.

  “I can come this afternoon,” he whispered, glad that Quintus’s sudden absence gave him the freedom to sneak away.

  She smiled. “Good.”

  “In the future, I’ll send Castor with a message when I think I can get away.”

  “You can’t — then he will know.”

  “It will be in code.”

  She released a breath. “What will the code be?”

  “How about, ‘The medicus is out on an errand,’ ” he said.

  She looked at him disbelievingly. “That’s a terrible code. It’s too obvious.”

  He grinned, embarrassed. “All right. You come up with one.”