Curses and Smoke

by Vicky Alvear Shecter

  He took her elbow, and Lucia felt a deepening sense of dread. Something was going on. She couldn’t remember when, if ever, her father had made a special sacrifice to Venus Pompeiana. And why were they doing it now instead of planning their trip to Rome? Had he begun to worry about the signs from the earth too? Yet he hadn’t seemed concerned — he’d been relaxed and smiling on the walk over.

  Lucia and Quintus threaded their way around the side of the courtyard toward the goddess’s garden. Sacred myrtle bushes abounded. Tag had told her that crushed myrtle berries were excellent for use as a wash for wounds. She swallowed a sigh. Everything made her think of Tag. She was so frustrated about not being able to see him that she’d left a secret message on his shrine to Asclepius, telling him they needed to meet that very night to make their final plans.

  Lucia noticed that only a handful of other worshippers shared the garden with them, giving them plenty of privacy. Her heart beat faster as she realized the implications.

  “Let us sit under this arbor,” Quintus said, leading her to a small alcove. He sat. She remained standing. So he took her hand and pulled her toward him on the bench.

  “No,” she murmured. “I cannot.”

  “You will have to get over this adorable shyness of yours when we are married,” he said.

  She froze. “Wha — what?”

  He grinned up at her. “Yes, that’s what your father and I have been discussing all morning. I went to Herculaneum to convince my father to allow it. He has agreed, and that is why we are here to sacrifice to the goddess of love and fertility.”

  The shock of his words was so great, she almost grew dizzy. “I … I don’t understand.”

  “I have convinced your father to break your arrangement with Vitulus and betroth you to me instead.”

  “But the wedding is only days away. How did you manage —”

  He pulled her down next to him and shifted to face her. He was beaming. “Convincing my father was hardest of all, but he has agreed, mainly because he’d like to see me marry and feared I never would. Your father has sent a messenger to Vitulus this very morning to cancel the betrothal. Aren’t you happy?”

  “But … I am the daughter of a lanista,” she said, dumbfounded. “Won’t there be a scandal?” After the disaster with Antyllus, she understood more keenly how nobles viewed her father’s livelihood.

  “Yes, well, apparently, your status is less horrifying to my father than my drinking, gambling, and refusal to marry. Besides, I think he recognizes the business potential as Vespasian’s great amphitheater nears completion. And as long as he is not personally associated with the school, he does not care if I invest in it.” He searched her face. “Also, I plan on spending most of the year in Herculaneum, to be sure that you can stay close to your friend, Cornelia.”

  Lucia stared at him, wide-eyed.

  “Are you not pleased?”

  She swallowed and nodded. It didn’t matter what Quintus and her father planned, she reminded herself. She and Tag were running away. In the meantime, she must play the part of the rescued bride and act happy.

  The smile she put on seemed so genuine, only Tag and Cornelia could have seen through it.

  He clapped, delighted. “See, this will work out perfectly. Your father has agreed to all my demands.”

  “Demands?”

  “You do not need to worry about those. All you need to know is that everyone is pleased, especially your father, who will get the new infusion of coin for which he has been so desperate.”

  Lucia continued smiling, repeating to herself, It doesn’t matter. None of his plans matter — Tag and I are running away.

  “Your feelings for me are a great balm to my heart,” he continued. “I have no doubt that I will come to love you, especially when you bear me sons —”

  She blinked several times. He didn’t love her? Then why was he pushing for the marriage?

  He took one of her hands in both of his. “You must agree that this is a much more suitable arrangement than any one your father planned for you or my father planned for me.”

  Of course, he was right. Not that it mattered anymore. But she smiled up at him as if it did.

  Quintus chuckled and embraced her. “You are a sweet one,” he murmured.

  The umbraculum-carrying slave interrupted them. “Many pardons,” he said. “But the master’s turn for the sacrifice is near.”

  As they passed out of the maze of gardens, Lucia touched the foot of the small statue of Eros marking the exit, asking the son of Venus to protect her and Tag when they ran.

  Her father grinned at them when they joined him. “Well? My besotted daughter, are you happy?” he asked.

  “I am speechless,” she replied, continuing to smile in what felt to her a grotesque mask of exaggeration.

  “She was quite overcome when I announced the arrangement,” Quintus said.

  “Well, I do believe the curse is finally lifted,” her father said, beaming.

  Curse? What curse?

  “The gods are at last smiling down upon us,” he continued. “Now everyone has reason to celebrate. You, my daughter, will be with the man you love, and we will finally have the means to build up the school and earn the respect we deserve.”

  Lucia stared at her father. He assumed she “loved” Quintus? Because Quintus told him that was the case? Why had it not occurred to her father to ask her how she felt?

  She already knew the answer — because anything the rich patrician said was more valuable to him than anything she might say, think, or feel. Sighing, she reminded herself to play along.

  Father’s attendants held both a lamb and a rooster. “The lamb is my sacrifice,” Quintus whisper-bragged into her ear. Of course it was. It was more expensive.

  The priest, head covered by his toga, said the prayers while slaves deftly handled the lamb on the altar. Within moments, the beast was limp and bled out, the first blood’s catch held aloft in a gleaming bronze bowl. The air was thick with the smell of blood, wool, and the animal’s emptied bowels.

  A priest quickly cleaned the altar in preparation for the rooster. A young slave took the bird and laid it on the altar. A second slave stretched its neck over a special board with a curved bronze hand to hold its head in place. The priest’s sacred ax came down on the bird’s neck with a thwack —

  At that very moment, the earth rumbled and rolled beneath them.

  People screamed. The earth stopped vibrating almost immediately, leaving the young priest holding the sacrificed bird by the feet as blood trickled on his tunic. The small chicken head lay on the altar.

  But the bird’s wings continued flapping fiercely and angrily, long after it should have stopped moving. The startled young priest let go of the rooster, which flew up into the air, then landed with a thud near the altar bearing its own mangled half head. It began running straight toward the steps of the goddess’s temple. Everyone gasped.

  “It was not a killing blow,” one priest hissed to the other. “The goddess has not accepted the sacrifice.”

  Murmurs and cries of fear roiled throughout the courtyard. The goddess is angry…. She will hurl her temple upon us…. What do we do? Some people began to run; others called out for family members. Throughout it all, Lucius Titurius stood frozen.

  Lucia looked at her father. His face was ashen and his eyes wide. “Father?” she asked, touching his shoulder.

  “The curse … Her shade has convinced the goddess to reject my sacrifice,” he mumbled. “She has made the gods truly turn against me.”

  What curse is he talking about? And whose shade? “No, no, Father, it is fine. The priest will make it all right.”

  The bird’s flapping caught her attention. It still lived! How was that possible? The strangeness of it chilled her to the bone. Quintus made the sign against evil, and most of the others watching the drama followed suit.

  “Father?”

  She followed his gaze. Two priests and an elderly priestess talked and gestic
ulated in a panic while watching the bird flap against the stairs of the temple. Finally, the young priest picked up the bird and handed it to the priestess. She bustled away with the still-struggling body under her arm.

  The elder priest called those who remained in the courtyard to him, his arms stretched out wide. The crowd quieted.

  “He who provided the sacrifice that has angered the goddess must step forward.”

  Her father advanced on the priest. Quintus moved to stand beside Lucia. For a wild moment, she imagined that it was Tag coming to comfort her, and she fought the impulse to curl into him.

  “The goddess has spoken!” the priest announced in a deep, sonorous tone. “She has rejected the last sacrifice. Lucius Titurius must spend the night at the temple fasting and purifying himself in appeasement. Before dawn, he will offer another sacrifice to see if the goddess accepts his penance.”

  He lowered his arms. The crowd began to disperse, murmuring and whispering to one another about portents, staring at Lucius Titurius with scowls of fear. Despite Lucia’s own alarm and confusion, she wanted to run to her father and protect him from their judgment. He stood, head bowed, listening as the priest lectured him. He looked so small and, suddenly, so old.

  Quintus pulled her away. “He is with the priests now,” he said. “They will purify him and appease the goddess. There is nothing more we can do.”

  “But — I’m frightened —”

  “There is no reason to fear,” Quintus interrupted. “The omen affects your father, not us. The lamb was accepted. Our marriage will still go on.”

  Lucia groaned silently. Gods, how has it come to this? But maybe it was a sign. Maybe the gods were removing her father from the house for the night so that they could escape once and for all.

  After lancing a boil and sewing up a fighter’s collarbone gash, Tag cleaned his instruments, put them neatly away in his surgical case, and slammed it shut. The sound made Castor jump. The little boy had been squatting on the stone floor of the medical room, practicing writing small words in Greek.

  “Maybe you should fight again today,” the little boy said.

  “I wish I could,” Tag murmured. He could have used the release, but he had to cover for his father instead. Damocles had had a very bad day, jabbering anxiously about when Tag’s mother might return from the market. Tag finally made him take poppy wine so he would sleep.

  Rumors had roiled throughout the compound all day — that Lucius Titurius had angered the gods and was not returning to the house lest they smite it. That the priests were keeping him in the temple against his will. That Lucia and Quintus had just barely gotten away before the priests grabbed them too. It was mostly nonsense, Tag knew, but he wanted to hear about it from Lucia herself.

  More important, he needed to talk to her about the bind he was in — how the very idea of running away and abandoning his father to the master made him feel like a murderer.

  Quintus Rutilius entered the medical room. Tag heaved a silent groan. “Are you injured?” he forced himself to ask. “Or fallen ill?”

  The patrician grinned at Tag. “No. I am, in fact, in the best of health and in the best of moods.”

  “Ah. Good. Well, if you would excuse —”

  “Don’t you want to know why?”

  “Yes! Tell us why,” Castor said, jumping up, face alight.

  Quintus blinked at him, then turned to Tag. “Why does this little rag boy think he can speak to me without being spoken to?”

  Tag opened his mouth to explain, but Castor jumped in. “I am Castor, and I will grow up to be both a medicus and a gladiator!”

  Quintus raised his eyebrows at Tag. “He is always with you. Is this your son?”

  “No,” Tag said. “But he is a bright boy, so I am teaching him to be my assistant.”

  Castor beamed.

  “Interesting. Tell him to go, please. I do not like his filthy presence here.”

  The little boy’s face crumpled. Tag gritted his teeth and contemplated telling him to stay, but he didn’t want the boy punished for his own obstinacy. So he cupped Castor’s shoulder and whispered, “Go check on Xrixus’s boil. Take some bandages with you in case he needs them.”

  “By myself?”

  “Yes. Don’t remove his bandage without me, but he may need some more strips to put over it. Then check on my fathe —” He caught himself. “Then go into the pantry and count out twenty-five mustard seeds and bring them back. But you must count them three times and get the same number every time. Understand?”

  Castor nodded, grabbed a handful of linen strips, and left the room with his head down. Out of the corner of his eye, Tag saw Quintus sniffing small containers of honey-based salves and holding up the little blue glass containers of tinctures. Gods, he wanted to pummel the man for his patrician arrogance. When Quintus reached for a bag of herbs, Tag said quickly, “I wouldn’t if I were you.”

  Quintus stopped and looked at him. “Why?”

  “One touch and your bowels will turn to liquid for a week.”

  Quintus backed away, alarmed. Tag swallowed a smile at how easily the patrician bought his lie. When he made no further move, Tag prompted him, “I am busy, so unless you need something …”

  Quintus reached for small amphorae covered in wax. “What’s in here?”

  “Leave it,” Tag said. “It’s a mix of crocodile and lion fat. We need it for some of our salves. It’s very expensive.”

  Quintus wrinkled his nose. Watching him touch his things as if he owned them — as if he owned him — made all of Tag’s muscles clench. He forced himself to uncurl his fingers from fists.

  “So you have heard that the lovely Lucia and I are betrothed, have you not?”

  There was a moment when the words that came out of Quintus’s mouth made absolutely no sense. They sounded so foreign, so strange, Tag simply could not understand them. But when they coalesced into meaning, the room tipped slightly and a buzzing filled his head.

  “Wh — what?”

  Quintus, as always, was watching him very carefully. “Lucia and I are officially betrothed. That’s why we went to the Temple of Venus. We will be married soon. Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”

  Tag’s stomach roiled. He was joking. He had to be. “But she is betrothed to —”

  “It turns out my future father-in-law was beginning to question the wisdom of tying his little girl to that bitter old man. And we’ve worked out a very advantageous deal. So he is breaking the betrothal to Vitulus and handing her to me.”

  “And Domina?” He was surprised to hear his voice sounded so normal.

  “Oh, she is thrilled, of course. Overcome. Do you know that sweet, shy girl has fallen desperately in love with me? It’s quite charming. Her sweet kisses have totally seduced me.”

  There was a thick paste clogging his throat. He forced himself to swallow and to breathe. Every action seemed to require conscious thought.

  Quintus crossed his arms and smiled at him. “I know your secret, boy — I know you fancy yourself in love with her. I have seen your face change when you watch her.”

  Gods. He knows? “No, I am not … She is Domina —”

  “Oh, it is all right. I understand. Probably most of the brutes here think that they are in love with her too. It is quite common for slaves to moon over their masters. In fact, I’m gambling on that.”

  Tag put a hand down on his wooden worktable so that he wouldn’t sway. So Quintus didn’t actually know, but had just guessed at how he felt about Lucia. He needed to think. To be alone. To talk to her. To make some sense of all this.

  “Ah, your little shrine to Asclepius,” Quintus said, drifting over to it. “I can see you honor him regularly.” He picked up the head votive. “A whole head? Who got their face clobbered recently?”

  Tag breathed shallowly. “Put that down, please.”

  Quintus rolled the head from hand to hand. Tag wanted to lift him by his finely woven green tunic and throw him out of the room. T
he patrician raised his eyebrows, smiling. Everything was a game to him.

  “You do not want to anger the god of healing,” Tag finally managed. “To … to have him turn his back on you calls the Fates to send you suffering of the highest order.”

  Quintus gingerly put the votive piece down. “What is this?” he asked, pointing to a strangely shaped piece of clay. “It looks like a wing. What, are you working on chickens now?” He laughed. “If so, your master could’ve used your help today.”

  Tag swallowed again. The wing hadn’t been there that morning when he performed the rites. “Mocking gifts to the god is also an offense,” he said. “I must ask you to leave so that I can purify the shrine from your dishonor.”

  “You are much too serious, Tag. Has anyone ever told you that?”

  He did not answer, but only stared coldly at the patrician. Quintus stepped away from the shrine, throwing his arms up in mock supplication. “Fine. Well, since I have some extra time now, I believe I will go to the baths. Would you like to join me?”

  Tag looked at him with irritated disbelief.

  “Ah, well,” he said. “There will be plenty of time for that later.”

  When he was sure the patrician was gone, Tag rushed to the shrine, looking for the oddly shaped votive Quintus had laughed at. His heart raced when he spied it. It did look like a wing. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. Small, carved Greek letters caught his eye. His heart leapt to his throat when he decoded the tiny message.

  Need to see you. After prima vigilia noctis. L.

  He closed his fingers around the wing, surprised Lucia wanted to meet so late in the night. Quickly, he calculated how long until then. Seven hours. He had to wait seven hours to see her again. The noise in his head turned into a buzzing in his whole body. Pontius had canceled training because of Titurius’s absence, yet Tag needed to do something physical or he would explode.

  He decided to run in the woods, so he changed into the extra-thick sandals he’d scrounged up and stripped to his loincloth. He was almost out of the gate when he heard someone drawl, “Where are you headed without your tunic, young Apollo? Have you decided to join me in the baths after all?”