And finally, two very old-looking ladies sat in wheelchairs. They were swathed in silvery high-tech heat- retaining blankets that looked very modern and out of place here. They were matres, mamme-nonne — perhaps even older than Maria Ludovica. Their eyes were like bits of granite, sparkling in the lamplight as they stared at Lucia.
Rosa walked toward her, smiling. She was holding three little statues; they were the tiny, crudely carved figures from the alcove. “Lucia, welcome to your new life.”
She turned away and began to talk softly in an unfamiliar language — it was Latin, Lucia realized after a time. Occasionally the mamme-nonne mumbled responses. Their voices were as dry as dead leaves.
Rosa beckoned Pina forward. Pina produced a small, folded white towel. She unfolded this, to reveal a scrap of linen, stained brown.
Lucia recoiled.
Rosa said, “A little of your first bleeding. You tried to destroy it all, didn’t you? It took poor Pina a long time to find it. Well, now we can finish the job …”
Rosetta carried over a lamp. It was just a wick floating in a pot of oil, small enough to hold in cupped hands. Rosa fed the bit of cloth to the lamp’s flame. It scorched, curled up, and vanished.
All through this the matres were chanting bits of Latin — the same phrases, it seemed, over and over.
Lucia whispered to Pina, “I don’t understand what they are saying.”
“That your blood is precious,” Pina whispered back. “And they are saying, Sisters matter more than daughters. Sisters matter more than daughters … ”
“It’s just like kindergarten,” Lucia whispered, trying to make her voice light.
Pina forced a smile. But her eyes were wide, scared.
“Now,” Rosa said, “it’s time.” She looked past Lucia’s shoulder.
Giuliano stood on the stage, beside the couch. He was wearing a shift like Lucia’s, and he was barefoot. He was looking at her with an intensity that burned through his smile. And an erection pushed out the front of his smock.
Rosa and Pina took her hands and led her toward the couch on the stage. The others were watching, wide-eyed Rosetta, the matres with their eyes like hawks. They chanted Latin, and Pina softly translated: “Your blood is the blood of the Order itself. It must not be mixed with water. I think that means, diluted by the blood of an outsider, a contadino. Your blood is precious …”
It was like a dream — the rhythmic chanting, the uncertain light, the ancient, rounded walls of the theater — everything was unreal save the prickle of cold on her arms. Yet she submitted, as she had at each step.
On the stage, Rosa bade her lift her arms. With a swift motion Pina and Rosa peeled her shift up and over her body. She was left truly naked now, and the little warmth that the cloth had given her was gone.
When she met Giuliano’s eyes, she thought she saw uncertainty. She wondered what he was thinking, how he was truly feeling. But then his gaze strayed to her neck, her breasts, and she was alone again.
Submitting to Rosa’s gentle prompting, she lay down on the couch. It was covered by a thin mattress and a rich crimson cloth, but the couch felt hard under her back, and the cloth prickled her skin.
“Lift up your arms,” Rosa whispered. “Welcome him.”
Lucia did as she was told.
She was looking up at the ceiling, grimed by centuries of smoke, through the frame of her white arms, her limp fingers. In this frame appeared Giuliano. She felt his hands on her thighs. She opened her legs. He lifted up his shift, and placed his arms to either side of her body, to support his weight. His face descended toward hers like a falling moon. She folded her arms over his back; she felt a mat of thick hair there.
Unbidden, a memory of Daniel’s face floated into her mind.
“This is the end of my life,” she whispered to Giuliano.
He frowned. “We mustn’t talk.”
“The end of all choices—”
“I will be gentle.” He leaned down and kissed her on the lips. She smelled garlic and fish on his hot breath.
She still had Daniel’s business card, hidden in a corner of her bag.
When Giuliano entered her it hurt, terribly.
* * *
Once the ceremony was over, Rosa told Lucia that she would never see Giuliano Andreoli again. Love, it seemed, was over for her.
And it was only a few days after the ceremony that she found out she was pregnant.
Chapter 30
In the morning of every seventh day, the Order’s governing Council would meet in the Crypt’s peristylium. Such meetings dated back to the difficult times after the Vandal incursion, already fifteen years ago, when the seniors, Julia, Helena, and Regina, had gathered with selected others to thrash out the priorities for the week.
Regina, now sixty-five years old and, since her mother’s death, the most senior survivor of the Order’s founding days, had deliberately developed a habit of being late for these meetings. This morning, instead of making for the peristylium, she began her day with a walk to the Crypt’s farthest reaches, where the tunnels were steadily being extended into the soft tufa rock.
These days the Order employed experienced miners for this work. They used socketed picks and axes, and carried out rubble in framed leather sacks. To crack harder rock faces they would set fires; water would be thrown on the heated rock, and the sudden cooling would shatter the face. All this used a lot of wood, and more wood was required for lumber to prop up the shafts they dug; there were generally more lumbermen at work, in fact, than miners.
The miners were working under much the same conditions as in mines of coal and metal ore across Europe. Their working lives in these dark, sulfurous, smoke-choked conditions were short — not that that mattered, as most were slaves. But here, of course, their legacy would not be what they extracted from the ground but the holes they left behind.
When the miners had roughly shaped out the new chambers and corridors, engineers followed to line and reinforce the walls with concrete, which they would later face with brick. The concrete was made from an aggregate of stone and tile set in mortar made with water, lime, and a particular volcanic sand called pozzolana. Making concrete like this took a toll on the slave labor used to ram it in place. But the use of that labor made it immensely durable.
The work was going ahead satisfactorily. After a curt talk with the foremen, Regina made her way back to the core of the Crypt, and, reluctantly, the Council meeting.
* * *
When she arrived, the meeting was well in progress — as it ought to have been, for Regina would fly into a fury if the sessions were held up for her absence.
Leda, Regina’s half sister, was in the chair. Leda at sixty was a thickset, competent-looking woman. Brica was here, heavily pregnant once again, with her first daughter Agrippina at her side. Brica looked tired, her face drawn, and Agrippina held her hand in silent support.
The business in progress was a matter of reallocation. Leda said, “Three days ago the air in domain seven was notably foul, but when we moved cohort thirteen up from the second level, we discovered that the cold there became uncomfortable. I suggest we restore thirteen to the second and reallocate fifteen to the first …”
It was complicated but routine business, and Regina was happy to sit back and allow the discussion to continue. She noted approvingly that Aemilia, daughter of Leda and now fifteen years old, was painstakingly recording the meeting’s deliberations on a series of wax tablets. Regina had always insisted on good record keeping. Records were the Order’s memory, she said, and she who forgets her past is doomed to a short future.
And on the specific issue of quarters allocation — or “huddling,” as some of the younger members called it — analysis of several years’ allocation records, and the movement of the air through the corridors in response to the shifting of warm human bodies, had yielded some valuable lessons in the endless quest to keep the Crypt’s air fresh.
Of course this place was not really a p
eristylium, for it was buried deep underground. But in a moment of fancy on Regina’s part the plastered walls had been painted with vines and flowers, and the little chamber had been equipped with marble paving stones, trellises, and stone benches and low tables, just like a real garden. There was even a flower bed here, of sorts, in a stone tray; but all that grew were mushrooms, prettily arranged, buttons and folds and parasols of gray, brown, and black. Regina was fond of the place. Something about it reminded her of the ruined bathhouse in Julia’s villa, where she had once discovered a secret garden of wildflowers. There was even a small, somewhat amateurish mosaic pavement, inset with the symbol some of the younger members of the Order had taken to favoring: two fish, like the old Christian symbol, but face to face, mouth to mouth, like sisters sharing a secret.
As the Council members talked on, two young girls were washing down the walls, a regular chore necessary throughout the Crypt to keep the walls and ceilings from blackening with soot and lichen.
All the women at the meeting wore simple tunics and dresses with a woven-in purple stripe: all the same design. There were no uniforms here, no status; this was not the army, or the Senate, and Regina had always been determined to keep it that way. She had even resisted attempts to formalize the religious aspects of the Order’s life. There would be no hierarchy of clergy here, no pontifices, for that was just another way for power to accumulate in the hands of the few. The Order itself was more significant than any individual.
Even, as she reminded herself every day, Regina.
She returned her attention to the meeting, which had moved on.
Agrippina read from a tablet in her clear voice. “… This correspondent is called Ambrosius Aurelianus,”
she said. “He claims to be a general on the staff of Artorius, the riothamus of Britain.” She looked expectantly at Regina.
Regina said, “I remember him.” Ambrosius the bright boy, fierce and strong and handsome, willing to give his life for the dreams of the riothamus — a man in his forties now, she supposed, and yet still, it seemed, willing to follow the old dream. She was a little surprised to hear that Artorius was still alive, still battling on foreign fields.
The Council had fallen silent. They were looking at her.
“What? What did you say?”
“This Aurelianus is coming to Rome,” Agrippina repeated patiently. “He wants to meet you, Grandmother. He has sent this note—”
“No doubt after money to waste on soldiering,” Regina growled.
“It would do no harm for you to meet him,” Leda suggested. “As you always tell us, you never know what might come of it.”
“Yes, yes. Don’t nag me, Leda. All right, I’ll meet him. Next?”
Next, Messalina got carefully to her feet. Daughter of the long-dead Helena, she was about the same age as Regina, but time had not been kind; she was plagued with arthritis. She said, “I have decided I should stand down from the Council.” She spent some time apologizing for this, blaming her health, and emphasizing what an honor it was to have served. “I suggest that Livia take my place.” It had become the custom for outgoing Council members to nominate their successors. Livia was her sister, another cousin of Regina’s. “Livia is five years younger than I am, and her health has remained strong, and—”
“No,” said Regina flatly.
The others looked around at her, shocked. Messalina stood at a slight lean, her fingertips resting on the marble tabletop, watching her warily.
Regina said, “I’m sorry, Messalina. Livia is a fine woman. But I think she would be a poor choice.” Regina pointed boldly at Venus — daughter of Messalina, here to assist her mother, and, save for Aemilia and Agrippina, at thirty the youngest person present. “Venus has contributed many times to the business of this group. She will fill her mother’s place well.”
Venus, once the object of Sulla’s adolescent lust, had matured into a capable woman. She looked pleased, but a little frightened. But Messalina stayed on her feet some time, quietly arguing; she did not want to criticize her daughter before this group, but obviously thought her sister would be a better choice.
Leda pressed Regina to give a reason for her recommendation. Regina was not sure she could have articulated it. She had always made her decisions by instinct, and then had to rationalize them later. But it was best for the Order; she was sure of that.
A precedent had to be set. She knew in her heart that the Order could not be entrusted forever to its most senior members. She herself was in her sixties now, and while she had not slowed down as much as poor Messalina, she knew she would not last forever. She did not want the Order to be dependent on her. On the contrary, she wanted assurance that the Order would long survive her. She would like to arrange things so that anybody of healthy mind could serve on the Council and the business of the Order would still be done.
In fact, if she could have found a way, she would have abolished the Council altogether. The Order’s systems, operating independently, should sustain it — just as once the great systems of taxation and spending, of law and class, had sustained the Empire itself far beyond the life of any one person, even the greatest of emperors.
Even though no individual human was immortal, there was no reason why the Order should not live forever. But to do that it had to shake off its reliance on people.
Of course, as the talking ran down, Regina’s decision was upheld. Venus was welcomed to the select group of twelve Council members with a ripple of applause.
Messalina resumed her seat with ill grace. There was personal tension here, for Messalina had been a member of the Order long before her cousin Regina had arrived from Britain, with her rough accent and brisk ways: Regina was still a newcomer here, even after seventeen years. But Regina brushed that aside. Such things mattered nothing to her, as long as she achieved what she set out to achieve.
After a little more business the meeting wound up.
Brica approached her mother. Deep in her sixth pregnancy, she walked almost as cautiously as old Messalina, and she propped her hands on her back for support. Beside her, her eldest daughter Agrippina walked with eyes shyly downcast.
Regina smiled, and put her hand on Brica’s bulge. “I can feel her, or him,” Regina said. “Restless little soul.”
“She longs to be out in the world — as I long for her to be out, too.”
Brica truly did look exhausted. She was in her forties now, and this child, her third by her second husband, had proven especially trying. Besides, that new husband was not so supportive as dull but good- hearted Castor — who had eventually fallen in love with a woman from beyond the Order, and now lived in contentment with a young second family in a jostling suburb, safe from the subterranean strangeness of the Crypt. But still, Agrippina had proven a strong support as she had grown, as had Brica’s second daughter, eleven years old, named Julia for her long-dead great-grandmother.
It was Agrippina, as it happened, that Brica wanted to talk about.
“Her bleeding has begun,” Brica said softly, and Agrippina’s face purpled. “It is time for her celebration — the first of my children to become a woman.” Brica hugged her daughter. “Already the boys watch her — I’ve seen their eyes — and soon she will be having babies of her own.”
“Oh, Mother, ” muttered the wretched Agrippina.
“I’ll be a grandmother,” said Brica. “And you, Mother, a great -grandmother. With Agrippina fertile I won’t be having any more children of my own … I hope this will be the last before my change … As for the ceremony—”
“No,” said Regina sharply.
Agrippina looked at her in shock.
Brica said, “But every girl since Venus — on my own wedding day, as you remember well, Mother — has been celebrated.” Anger flared briefly. “What are you saying — that my daughter, your own blood, isn’t good enough for such an honor?”
“No, of course not.” Regina thought fast, but inconclusively. It had been another impulsive decision,
whose basis she didn’t yet understand herself. “I didn’t mean that. Of course you must plan the ceremony,” she said, seeking time to think.
But she and Brica were of course long-established combatants, and Brica had caught that note of sharpness. She glared at her mother, but her face was a hollow-eyed mask of fatigue, and she clearly did not want to argue.
Brica took her daughter’s arm. “Fine. Come, Agrippina.” And they left the peristylium without looking back.
* * *
Since that dreadful day when the Vandals had ravaged Rome, things had changed greatly for the Order.
As the Order’s wealth had increased, a great deal had been invested in the estate on the Appian Way, which today served primarily as a school. But even more money had been sunk underground.
The use of the Catacombs had proven so obviously valuable that nobody had objected when Regina had suggested extending and modifying them. The old cemetery directly beneath the house remained, almost unmodified; for a Christian order it would have been disrespectful to have disturbed such a shrine. But the tunnels had been greatly extended, and new rooms and passageways had been dug into the soft rock.
After fifteen years of steady burrowing the Order’s underground warren, buried deep in the Roman ground, had spread over two levels. It housed three hundred people, almost all of them women and children. It was comfortable, once you got used to the dim light and cramped corridors. Of course the Crypt would always be dependent on the surface world, for an inflow of food and water, an outflow of sewage, and for money and building materials and labor: the complex could never cut adrift of the world, like a ship sailing away into an underground sea. But the Council had done all they could to maintain a wide range of links and relationships with suppliers and customers and allies in the outside world, making their sources as diverse as possible, so they were dependent on no one group or person.
Coalescent dc-1 Page 36
