“Love is not forbidden to a Vestal,” said Pomponia. “Coupling is.”
Valeria pushed her messy hair off her face. “He never loved me,” she said matter-of-factly. “Do you think he loves his daughters?”
“There is no doubt of it.”
“How are they?” asked Valeria. “How are my girls?”
“They grow like roses in May,” said Pomponia. “They are happy and cared for.”
Valeria stretched her back and winced at the pain that shot down her spine. “I wasted too many years trying to make him love me,” she said. “What a fool I was.” She laughed. A bitter laugh. “I sound like an actor in a Greek tragedy. Self-awareness only comes at the end.”
“It need not be the end, Valeria. I can pardon you, but you cannot stay in Rome. Your vices are well known, and you have become the subject of ridicule. I cannot allow your reputation to taint Quintina’s service. Exile is the only option.” Pomponia glanced around the small stone cell. “That has its benefits. You can have a new life, a fresh start. You will live comfortably, and I will permit letters between you and Quintina. Who knows what the Fates will spin for you? Perhaps one day you can be part of your daughters’ lives again.”
“Why would you do this for me?”
“Quintina is the brightest young priestess our order has seen in many years,” said Pomponia. “I have gone through the archives and there hasn’t been a girl with her capacity for ritual and understanding in generations. Perhaps it is in her blood from the great Vestal Tacita. Regardless, Mother Vesta chose you to bring her to us. You must hold yourself to a higher standard. You have your own duty to the goddess.”
“Yes.”
The Vestal stood. “I will make the arrangements. You will be released shortly. Go home and await news of your departure. You need to leave Rome soon, before Caesar hears of this and overrules my pardon.”
Without another word, the Vestal walked out of the prison cell and disappeared down the dark corridor. A guard slammed the steel-barred prison door closed behind her.
“You have some fancy friends, lady,” he said to his prisoner.
Valeria leaned back against the cold stone wall of the cell and closed her eyes. The next thing she knew, the steel-barred door was once again open, and the guard was shouting at her.
“Come on already,” he said. “Wake up. It’s time to be on your way now, fancy-ass.”
And then the blue sky was overhead again. It was almost as though the last few hours—the most terrifying, emotional, and surreal hours of her life—had never happened. She descended the staircase from the prison, stepping between the dead bodies of two executed criminals—they would be left there for the rest of the day as a warning to others—and then, as she so often did, she found herself walking along the cobblestone streets of the Roman Forum.
She wanted to go home. She wanted to wrap herself in her bedsheets like a caterpillar in a cocoon and wait until the knock at the door came and a ship sailed her off to a new life in a new land. If she ever hoped to see her children again and regain their love, she had to get out of Rome.
But first, there was something she had to do.
The sounds and sights of the Lupercalia swirled around her as she made her way to the Temple of Vesta. Garlands of fresh greenery and flowers wound around its columns, base to capital, as they did every festival. Smoke from Vesta’s eternal fire billowed out of the bronze roof, drifting up to the goddess. The flames that burned in the bronze firebowls outside the temple crackled and snapped.
Valeria walked past the temple and its guards—she was lucky they didn’t stop her because of her bedraggled appearance—and continued along the exterior of the House of the Vestals until she reached the grove of trees at the rear of the Vestals’ expansive house.
She approached one of the trees in the quiet orchard and bent down until she spotted what she was looking for in the grass at its base—a wide, flat piece of paving stone that was left over from previous work in the grove.
Kneeling, she picked at the stone until it came loose to reveal the black soil underneath. She dug deep into the soil with her fingers, finally reaching the tightly curled curse tablet she had placed there years earlier.
“What do you have there?”
Valeria jumped to her feet. It was the same soldier who had arrested her during the Lupercalia ritual. His streak of zealousness had extended to following her on foot, just to make sure she went straight home as the high priestess had instructed.
“It’s nothing,” Valeria stammered. “None of your concern.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” He yanked the tablet from her hands, pried the nail out with the blade of his dagger, and uncurled the lead sheet.
By this time, a small crowd had gathered. An elderly woman wrapped in a black palla pointed at the lead scroll in the soldier’s hands. “That’s a curse tablet!” she shouted. “Here in Vesta’s grove! She put a curse on the priestesses!”
“No,” exclaimed Valeria, “I was removing it! I was revoking it!”
“Read it out loud,” someone yelled to the soldier.
As he read the words pressed into the lead, the soldier’s face blanched and his hands began to tremble. “I call upon black and shaded Pluto. I call upon dark and hidden Proserpina. Plutoni hoc nomen offero: the Virgo Vestalis Pomponia, white-veiled harpy. I curse her food, her drink, her thoughts, her virginity. I curse her watch over the sacred fire and her service to the goddess. I divorce her as a bride of Rome and marry her to Pluto.”
When the soldier looked up from the tablet, the crowd had grown from a few to a few dozen.
The old woman in the black palla pointed a crooked finger at Valeria. “You cursed the Vestalis Maxima! You have made the goddess forsake us! Rome starves and stands on the brink of war, and it is all because of you!”
The crowd surrounded Valeria like a pack of hungry wolves circling a wounded animal. When the first stone struck her, she didn’t even feel the pain, such was the shock. But then more stones followed, as did the pain and panic. Bodies closed in on her from all sides. There was nowhere to run. Who knows what the Fates will spin for you? For the second time in one day, a ringing sounded in her ears and the world went silent and black.
The soldier drew his sword but didn’t know where—or who—to strike. Should he stab the old woman? The patrician man in his expensive toga? The bejeweled matron? The plebeian boy? The merchant? The bearded Jew? He had just decided on the bearded Jew, when someone shouted, “She’s dead!” and the crowd broke apart and scattered into the Forum.
As the soldier bent down to pick up the body of the woman—he couldn’t just leave it in Vesta’s grove, could he?—the old woman in the black palla knelt on the ground and began to scratch the words off the lead tablet with the sharp edge of a paving stone.
A younger woman who was similarly wrapped in a black palla knelt down beside her elder and poured a small vial of salt that hung from around her neck onto the lead tablet. Both women rubbed the salt into the lead with their hands while murmuring soft incantations to Proserpina, gently pleading with her to revoke the curse.
“Will that work?” the soldier asked them, the dead woman’s body slung over one shoulder.
“It will remove the curse,” said the younger woman, “but only the gods know when.”
* * *
The more Livia stared at the coarse black hair of her younger son Drusus, the more she suspected he was the product of that hairy pig Diodorus.
“How old are your sons now, Domina?” asked Medousa.
“Oh, I’m not exactly sure, Medousa. The blockheaded fat one is ten or eleven and the little hairy one is seven or eight.”
“How delightful, Domina.”
Livia thought about whipping the slave for a moment, but couldn’t be bothered. In the eight years she’d lived with Medousa, she had learned to let
a lot go. Had she not, Medousa would have been lashed to shreds years ago, and her own hands would be raw from holding the whip.
The blockheaded Tiberius and the hairy Drusus ran up to her with mischief in their eyes. Tiberius opened his hand, and in the center of his palm, the black body of a spider—only two of its eight legs still intact—flopped around. “Look what I did, Mother,” he said.
“What a prince you are,” said Livia.
It was that moment that Octavian’s daughter Julia wandered into the triclinium. She peered into Tiberius’s palm, scowled, and pushed his chest so hard that he fell onto his bottom. “You are a cruel and petty boy, Tiberius,” she said. “No wonder my father hates you so.”
Tiberius picked himself off the floor and glared at Julia, his temper threatening to boil over. He lifted a fist as if to strike the little girl, but she laughed in his face. “As if you had the nerve,” she said, smirking at him over her shoulder as she left the room to look for her cousin Marcellus.
Tiberius stood rigidly, his jaw tight with anger. Like his mother, he had despised his stepsister since the day he had first seen her pompous little face asleep in her cradle.
“Tiberius, go outside!” snapped Livia. “And take Drusus with you.” Grumbling, he grabbed his brother’s arm and ran off, no doubt in search of more spiders to take out his frustrations on.
Livia cursed her ex-husband Tiberius for bringing the boys here, to Caesar’s house. Normally, she visited them at their father’s house. On those occasions Tiberius wanted the boys gone, Livia would arrange for them to be sent to her sister Claudia’s house so that she could visit them there.
Not that she was particularly interested in visiting them at all. When it came to her sons, she was caught between Scylla and Charybdis. If she didn’t see them, she came across to Caesar as a cold and uncaring mother. Yet if she did see them, Caesar was reminded of the fact that she had produced two sons for her former husband but none for him.
She reclined on a couch in the triclinium as Medousa brought a bowl of grapes, and a guest, into the richly frescoed room. “Domina, your sister, Lady Claudia, is here.”
Claudia turned up her nose at the mud on the floor as she entered the triclinium, dressed as always in one of her trademark purple dresses. “I assume the darling demons are visiting?” she asked drily, resting on the couch beside her younger sister.
“That wretch Tiberius,” fumed Livia. “He knows I hate it when he drops them off unannounced. He does it just to goad me, you know. It’s his pathetic way of waving his cock before Caesar.”
“It’s still early,” Claudia replied. “Perhaps he’ll send a litter to retrieve them before Caesar returns.”
“I doubt it. There is no Senate business today, so I expect Caesar home earlier than usual.”
“Has he warmed up to the boys at all?” asked Claudia.
“He tolerates Drusus, but he despises Tiberius.”
“Do you think he suspects?” Claudia lowered her voice. “That they may have different fathers, that is?”
“I think he does his best not to think about it at all,” Livia replied, “and so do I. You’ve heard how he drones on and on about the virtues of the Roman matron and the importance of pure sexual morals. Never mind how many of his friends’ wives he’s screwed in the pantry during his dinner parties or how many virgin slave girls he’s pierced, the man would choke on his moral standards if he knew how hard Diodorus used to drill it into me.”
“Sexual hypocrisy is the luxury of manhood, dear sister.”
Livia exhaled heavily and rolled onto her back, suddenly pensive. “Still . . . the boys are so different from each other, Claudia, it’s hard not to wonder. They’re both beasts, to be sure, but Drusus at least has some ambition. Unless Tiberius turns him into a drunk or a catamite, he might actually make something of himself.”
“Hmm. Let’s hope.” Claudia placed a bunch of grapes in her palm, plucked a plump one, and popped it into her mouth. She spoke as she chewed. “I heard that the grain rations were increased for the Lupercalia.”
“The Senate ordered the increase. Caesar didn’t oppose it, but he wasn’t happy about it. He said that a full stomach for one day means an empty stomach for two days.”
“And he still refuses to take Antony’s will from the Temple of Vesta?”
“As far as my husband is concerned, the sun shines out the asses of the Vestals.”
Claudia chewed another grape. “And the virgins you bring him? Does he tire of that yet?”
“Does a fox tire of the hen house?”
“Hmm.” Claudia spat a grape seed onto the floor. Truly, her sister would try the patience of Clementia. Here she was, the wife of Caesar, and already out of his bed. She couldn’t let the situation deteriorate any more. After all, her own fortunes were tied to Livia’s, and she quite enjoyed the adulation of being known as Caesar’s sister-in-law. She rolled a grape between her fingers. “Seems to me, sister, that it’s time your husband lost his idolatry of the Vestals.”
“Nice thought, but I doubt that will happen. I thought he would be angry with the high priestess when she refused to give him Antony’s will, but instead, his admiration for her only deepened. I couldn’t believe it!”
“He admires their virtue,” said Claudia. “The more virtuous the behavior, the more he reveres them. His reaction therefore wasn’t surprising.”
“Whatever you say.”
“You’re not listening to me, Livia.” She leaned forward. “That means the opposite is also true. The less virtuous the behavior, the less he will revere them. Your husband must see that the Vestals are not the chaste guardians of the sacred flame that he thinks they are.”
Livia sat up and faced her sister squarely. “I’m listening now, Claudia.”
* * *
My beloved Pomponia,
Today I have seen three sights that I could never have imagined. The first concerns Marc Antony. This morning one of the greatest generals that Rome has ever known emerged from his dressing chamber wearing the cosmetics of a woman.
It is customary for men in Alexandria to wear black makeup around their eyes to protect them from the tyrannical Egyptian sun, and Antony has taken up the practice whenever he is to go outdoors. He wears kohl that covers his eyelids and makes his eyes look like those of a cat. I hope I do not sound womanish describing this to you. I am uncomfortable discussing it, but I wanted to tell you. He has also taken to drinking beer over wine, as the Egyptians do. I have tried the stuff but cannot stomach it.
The second thing concerns Caesarion, son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. You may still think of him as a young child of two or three years, the age he was when Cleopatra was in Rome, but time flies and he is now sixteen years old.
Although I have been in Alexandria for two years, today was the first time I saw Caesarion on Egyptian soil as Cleopatra only lets Romans who have sworn an oath to her and Antony be near him. The encounter was by accident. I was to travel in a litter with one of Antony’s men, but there was some confusion and I stepped into a lectica within which sat the queen and Caesarion.
I must tell you, Pomponia, looking at the boy was no different than looking at Caesar. Although Caesar never acknowledged him and there has always been speculation the child was not his, I am convinced there can be no doubt of his parentage.
Antony’s men tell me that Caesarion has the makings of a capable leader. He has his mother’s undeniable intelligence and his father’s even temperament. But alas, if Octavian Caesar ever comes to Egypt with sword in hand, the young Caesarion will not be long for this world. I cannot imagine the adopted son of the divine Julius would let the true blood son live.
The third thing I saw this day was the making of a mummy. One of the queen’s favorite astrologers died, and Marius—one of Antony’s soldiers I have become friends with—petitioned the priests to let us watch the proc
ess. Marius has become quite friendly with the locals and has adopted many Egyptian customs (other than wearing makeup, for which I am very grateful).
Now Pomponia, you may think that you have seen some disturbing things in your life, but nothing compares to mummification. While we Romans are reasonable in our knowledge that only the spirit travels to Elysium, the Egyptians believe that their physical bodies go to the afterlife. They therefore need to preserve the body to house the spirit.
I urge you to sit down while you read this process lest the description weaken your womanly constitution. After the priests have made their incantations to the gods, the embalmers remove the brain from the body, bit by bit, by means of a sharp hook inserted through the nose. If the brain is stubborn, an embalmer strikes the body on top of the skull to dislodge it. Once the brain is out, the embalmers pour liquid resin into the nose to fill the space where the brain was.
The body is then cut in a ritualistic fashion, and the stomach and other organs are removed and set in an urn. Only the heart is left in the body. The Egyptians believe that their spirit and all that they are resides in the heart. The embalmers then wrap the body in white gauze, using strange smelling unguents to hold the fabric in place, while the priests chant and place amulets along the body to ward off evil spirits.
The body is then put in a sarcophagus and buried deep in the earth with items it will need in the afterlife, such as food and couches. This confused me above all for I had to wonder how the Egyptian afterlife could be so poorly stocked that the dead must bring their own sustenance and furniture. More strangely, no one left a coin with the body to pay the ferryman. The priests said they did not believe in such things, but Marius and I suspect they simply did not want to part with any money. I left a coin by the sarcophagus when no one was looking.
The Lupercalia will be over by the time this letter reaches you, but I trust it will arrive before the kalends of March and the renewal of Vesta’s eternal flame in the temple. My greatest wish is to once again watch you perform a sacred ritual with my own eyes. For now, I shall light a candle on the kalends and make an offering to the goddess. I will tell her of my love for you, and surely she will light my path home very soon.
Brides of Rome Page 21
