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 Brica’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 have 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.
Amator pulled at his arm. “No, Come away, my love, come away with me. I will make you safe — you don’t need this witch and her hole in the ground—”
Regina felt a cold satisfaction. She had not planned the arrival of the barbarians that day, but by keeping Sulla and Amator close to her, she had set up this opportunity. And now it was unfolding perfectly.
She stepped close to Sulla and whispered, “You can join us.” You and Amator’s legacy, she thought. “But first you must free yourself.” Sulla looked confused. She let a knife fall from her sleeve — a knife she always carried in these difficult times — and slipped it into his hand. “Free yourself.”
His eyes widened. He nodded and pulled away.
Castor approached Regina. “Is Brica—”
“She is safe.”
He nodded. “Soon I will be with her.”
“No. I have an assignment for you. When the last of us has descended, close the hatch and cover it over with turf. Move the furniture — a table, a couch — conceal the entrance. Do you understand? I know it means you will be kept apart from Brica. But it is the only way she can be safe. She is counting on you, Castor.”
His eyes narrowed, and she wondered briefly if he read her calculation: that despite the marriage only that morning, already she was separating him from Brica, drawing her back into the family. But he nodded, and he hurried to help the elders usher the children to the shaft.
Regina stayed by the trapdoor, helping the students descend into the dark, until she saw Sulla embrace Amator — and Amator fell to the ground, unnoticed in the chaotic confusion in the garden — and then, as the smoke of the fires grew thick in the air, she clambered down into the ground herself.
* * *
The Vandals remained in the city for two weeks. They invaded the homes of the rich, broke into the Christian churches, stripped the gilded tiles from the ancient Temple of Capitoline Jupiter. And they murdered, maimed, and raped Romans both high and low.
Regina had prepared for a siege. She had installed a lead-pipe feed from the main water supply, and there were caches of food — dried fruit, meat, nuts. Even if the trapdoor entrance in the peristylium was discovered and broken open, the Catacombs were a warren that extended far underground, and there were many places where the tunnels could be blocked off and defended. There was even another tunnel that led out of here altogether to one of the main city sewers, out of which they could find a way to the daylight. It wouldn’t be a pleasant journey, but it would lead them to safety.
Stuck in these soot-stained tunnels, it wasn’t a happy time for anybody. But despite their protests at deprivation, fear for their families, and plain discomfort in this place of corpses, Regina knew that her charges accepted that she had delivered them to safety, out of sight of the black-painted monsters rampaging above.
Brica pined for Castor, but Regina was unconcerned. In the final crisis Brica had shown her true loyalties — to the family buried in the ground, not to the boy on the surface — and she sensed that their marriage, even children, would not change that. Brica, after all, carried Regina’s own blood, and the blood of Julia, and it was no surprise that her instincts had in the end proven similar.
At last the Vandals marched back to their camps, with thousands of captives and wagons piled high with plunder. Regina kept her charges safe until she was certain the last of them had gone.
Chapter 29
It was only two days after her meeting with Giuliano that Rosa came for Lucia. Maria Ludovica had, peacefully, died. And Lucia must be prepared.
It took a month. Then the day of her final induction arrived.
* * *
In a small chamber, deep on the third level, Lucia was asked to strip. She was examined quickly by a female doctor. In the last few days she had already endured a whole battery of medical tests.
Then she was dressed in a simple smocklike dress called a stola. It was white, but with a little purple fabric sewn in. The cloth was very soft, and she wondered how old it was. Her watch and bits of jewelry were taken from her. She wasn’t allowed any underwear; she would be naked, save for the stola. But she was given leather sandals to protect her feet from the cold rock. Murmuring wordlessly, Pina braided Lucia’s hair and tied it up into a bun.
Nothing had been explained to Lucia in advance. She did not know what to expect today. Since Pina had woken her that morning she had felt detached — as if she were a mere observer of what her body was going through, or as if she were fading back into the ghostlike, invisible, unreal figure she had become d
uring her ostracism. She only wanted to be part of the Order, a sister again. She didn’t want her head cluttered up with more questions. She simply accepted each event as it happened, trying not to think any further.
But she was glad Pina was here. Lucia had asked for her. At this strange time it would be comforting to have somebody who knew her so deeply close by.
Pina led her from the brightly lit changing room, out into the dark.
They followed a narrow, dank passage. Arches supported the roof — small red bricks embedded in thick mortar, just as you would see in Rome’s imperial ruins. This was a very old place, she thought, very old indeed.
They came to a small, poky chamber. It was a kind of theater, Lucia realized. It had a raised stage, rooms for actors and scenery, and curved rows of seats, all carved from the tufa. It was very primitive, more or less cut out of the raw rock, and could hold no more than fifty people or so, but an elaborate chrome kissing-fish logo adorned one wall. There was a couch on the stage, which was otherwise bare.
The lighting was dim and smoky, coming from lamps in alcoves carved into the walls: Lucia could smell burning oil. And it was cold. She felt goose bumps on her arms, and her nipples hardened with the cold and pushed against the fine cloth of her shift. She longed to cover herself with her hands, but she knew she must not.
Rosa was here, waiting for her, and Rosetta, one of Lucia’s sisters from her age group, and a couple of older women she didn’t recognize. All of them were dressed in simple garments, like her own stola. Rosetta’s shift had no purple inlay, though, and the round-eyed girl was wearing training shoes and socks.
The older women — older meaning perhaps Rosa’s age — looked at her intently. She sensed hostility in their steady glare, as if they didn’t really want her to be here, as if they would have preferred it to be somebody else. Rosa by comparison seemed triumphant, glowing. Lucia remembered how Rosa had said she had had to fight to ensure Lucia’s acceptance as a new mamma. Perhaps these two women had fought for other candidates. Lucia knew nothing of these battles. But she was still fragile from her ostracism, and she quailed from their glares; she didn’t want anybody to dislike her.
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