Fire and Sacrifice

by Victoria Collins

  I got such a shock to be asked that I sucked in air and rye dust and made myself cough messily. Fool. What could I say that would please her? ‘Red,’ I said, which was the only colour that could possibly be her, anyway. ‘Ruby red would be radiant against her dark eyes and hair.’

  She smiled sweetly at me but it wasn’t the glorious beam I hoped for. ‘What would Secunda wear?’ she asked, leading him in circles and away from her while he chased.

  ‘Pumpkin orange.’

  She looked impressed.

  ‘Why do you wear black?’ she asked Shadow Man.

  ‘Because I am an Arab from Nabataea. This I cannot choose. And when you are not a priestess of Vesta? What colour for Aemilia?’

  A shadow fell over her. A little mystery thing that somehow made her all the more exquisite, a pinch of salt in the caramel.

  ‘How did you learn Latin so well?’ she asked.

  More smile. ‘Okay. We can do it this way for you. Your questions can tell me.’

  Aemilia looked at the wall and tucked an invisible stray hair behind her ear.

  Shadow Man saw the fire in my eyes and wiped away his grin.

  ‘A friend shows me the language. A man from the caravans, who camps a season to tend a wound.’

  The mention of caravans got her attention and he grabbed it.

  ‘You have heard of the Incense Road? Travellers – Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, others who do not know the desert – they come in great caravans of camels and horses. You can smell them coming!’ Aemilia screwed up her nose like a little girl. ‘No, not the camels, the perfume! Great sacks of yellow and red spice dust, peppers, paprika, nutmeg, cloves from Africa, rolls of cinnamon, frankincense and myrrh. Jewels, even silks from Asia!

  ‘We meet them on the road from where they cannot see Petra. By the time they come to us they are thirsty, their animals are crusty, dry, soft with tiredness. They knew they have become stalked by hyena and lion. We trade fresh animals, water, directions. They have in their minds that the desert is barren but they do not know how to see. It is alive! Underground rivers, secret islands of green, dates and nuts and olives, beans and pomegranate, persimmon, and birds and lizards. We surprise and delight them with the treasures of the desert until they look upon us as kings and saviours. When they are bright and strong again, we send them on their way to spread the word!’

  He was gesturing wildly with his hands by now and we were there with him in the desert. My mill snagged on a lump and jolted me back. They jumped at the sound but I pretended at nothing. I was so angry that I’d been sucked in too!

  She had forgotten me. I plonked my bowl on top of the stone as noisily as I could without cracking it, getting ready to sieve even though I hadn’t milled all the first round. Enough! Stop it!

  Dalmaticus shuffled loudly somewhere in his rooms.

  Elian went back to his drawing.

  ‘That is how I learned Latin. One of these men was ill, a wound, umm, it rots. I take him in until he healed. In return he teaches me Latin. I am good with language because I see things in touch – no, how do I say? Shape, the way it is built. Latin has patterns. It makes it easy.’

  ‘This is why you are good at sculpture.’

  ‘You think I am good? I am flattered.’

  ‘I think Terentia hires carefully.’

  ‘It is about seeing the beauty in the shape. There is an Arabic story of a man who fell in love with a young woman, after seeing only her ankle in the field.’

  I made a little snorting noise. It was ugly but I couldn’t help myself. ‘What happened when he saw the rest of her?’ I croaked.

  ‘He does not need to. And he never did.’

  ‘Then he could not have known the real girl, he fell in love with his own fantasy,’ said Aemilia.

  ‘Perhaps. Perhaps not,’ he shrugged, enjoying this way too much. ‘Perhaps what he saw was the most pure of her. The both of you, for example.’ He put his charcoal down and came toward us, his hands making tracks through the air. We both tensed but I hate to admit even I was enthralled. What did he see that was the same in me as in Aemilia? ‘You both hold yourselves so elegant, chin high, long neck, for the people who watch you. It is beautiful, yes, but it is – what is the word? It is show. It is a story.’

  Aemilia clenched her teeth just a little, insulted but curious.

  ‘But! This little patch here’ – he came towards me and I flinched and pulled back, so he went to her; I hated myself for that – ‘and here.’ He went to Aemilia and outlined without touching the little triangle of softness between the base of her neck and her shoulder, behind the clavicle bone. She held her breath, us both watching his every move. ‘Here, like the ankle, you cannot hold, you cannot command this part like you can do with your eyes, your mouth, your shoulders. It is soft like velum always. It is purity. There is a whole sculpture just in that little shape, but there is no story. It is what it is. It is enough.’ He stepped back, finally. ‘This is how a man falls in love with the ankle.’

  Dalmaticus coughed a warning of his coming and wandered out. He nodded to me, past Shadow Man. Snapped from Shadow Man’s spell, Aemilia stood instinctively. ‘Well. Perhaps this is where we finish today.’ Aemilia made a little bow to Shadow Man and smiled small but sunny. ‘Thank you for your patience, Elian. And your stories.’

  He twirled his charcoal nervously round his knuckles. ‘Terentia has arranged that we will meet again in three days. I finish my sketches then.’

  Dalmaticus crossed his arms and oversaw our leaving. Shadow Man first.

  Aemilia helped me with my mill in silence. We were both of us far away in the coloured liquid rock of Petra.

  ***

  In the late afternoon grey, a gentle channel of smoke rose from the temple chimney, rolled across the roof and disappeared.

  A wisp of her, reaching for the sky then gone.

  ***

  I decided I would make the Vestals’ house beautiful. Aemilia, Licinia and Marcia were gone to an afternoon banquet at Licinia’s father’s house. They were marrying her sister off and wanted a show of the Families. ‘Daddy said I must,’ Licinia said. ‘He needs us there.’ I would not get to cook for her again tonight. I had to do something.

  I hoped desperately that Aemilia would stay and I could cook for her, just her and me while the others went out.

  ‘You don’t have to come,’ Terentia had said to her. ‘I need to be there, and Marcia and Pompeia want to come, but you can stay if you prefer.’

  ‘But I was going to come,’ Aemilia said.

  ‘I’m just saying you don’t have to. You can come if you want.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know now.’ Aemilia’s brows knitted in that pretty way.

  ‘Then come.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t care . . .’

  ‘It’s up to you.’

  ‘But I was going to come because I thought you wanted me to!’

  She looked searchingly at Pompeia. ‘I can’t decide!’ she said, almost angry at herself.

  ‘Well, my sisters would kill to be allowed to go to an event like this. It’s worth going just to be able to tease them with the details!’ said Marcia.

  ‘You’re right, I should go.’

  I decided my new portico garden was to be my surprise for Aemilia when she returned.

  Terentia’s attempts at neatness and stiff modesty left the portico cold and empty. There was barely a single thing in the courtyard for fear of something being left out of place.

  The only reprieve was little Helvi, dropping flowers that she’d picked along the road and lost interest in, singing her nonsense songs, leaving berry finger stains where she clung to the skirts of Pompeia’s robes.

  I waited desperately for the priestesses to leave so I could make my move.

  There was the usual load of tattle from Licinia and Marcia.

  ‘Her husband died only two months ago!’

  ‘She’s better off. What kind of drunkard fool messes about with your sister-in-law inste
ad of a slave?’

  ‘Oh yes, the scrawny little one with the bad shoes.’

  ‘No breeding.’

  ‘Will the Claudii be there at least?’

  ‘Of course! They’re grooming her sister for my brother.’

  ‘The second one? With the frizzy hair?’

  ‘They all have frizzy hair.’

  ‘The unfortunate-looking one, who used to leave the curls out at the back.’

  ‘That’s her. The eldest went to the Paulii in Tivoli.’

  And on it went, about the precious Families and who lived on the hills, and who was of better stock and who was worthy of their brothers and to share in the Family clientele.

  I wished them gone. I had a villa of my own to get to that day.

  It was pruning time and I went for some cuttings of a red rose from a slave at a villa I knew. My own sister, truth be told. Number One Son’s bastard cousin asked to buy her two years ago and gave her a rose and that was the end of her. She raved about those roses. Hundreds, planted in rings around rings, she said. Bastard Cousin was her great love tragedy: she, the slave he could not marry, despite his love for her. It gave her a story.

  ‘You crazy bitch, you’ll get me killed!’ She slammed the gate on my foot, which I planted to jar it open.

  ‘Yes, I survived, thanks for asking.’

  ‘We all know the story.’

  ‘I just want a cutting of the rose. Anyway, I thought Marcus loved you.’

  ‘Marcus won’t punish me – his wife will! She barely needs a reason to be rid of me once and for all.’

  ‘And he’ll let her? Wow. What a man.’

  ‘Oh what do you know?’

  ‘The rose. It’s for the Vestals. Helping the goddesses will save you from punishment, surely.’

  ‘Priestesses. And ones who’ve annoyed the family. They’ll know it’s you who’s been here!’

  She got me the cuttings.

  ‘Now get away from us.’

  Urgulania approved purchase of three big terracotta pots. Flavia jumped in to help without me even asking, and we put a pot against the base of each column in the little portico, outside the bedrooms. Urgulania said it was waning moon and not a good time to plant anything but dormant roses. We had to wait to plant herbs and my rose was just a stick, but it was the loveliest day. We tried transplanting some rosemary that was already grown too. Tristan brought barrows of soil from the kitchen garden; Helvi skipped round us singing little songs that she made up as she went; Flavia and me sifted the cool light dirt through our fingers, crushing clumps and patting it into place.

  ‘Where can we put another? We need another one,’ Flavia said, quite intent on dirtying her nails and scraping her skin.

  I took my chance and planted a cutting of the lemon for Aemilia. I suggested the pot go in the far corner (where she could see it from her room, and the common room).

  Come spring I would have the most beautiful of fragrant red rose petals for the priestesses’ bathing water, and to put in the honey, and in Aemilia’s pillow with the sprigs of dried lavender I found in the larder from last season. I would use the herbs to make a whole shelf of vinegars and oils infused with all kinds of flavours, plus soothing oils for their skin, and their bedroom doors will be framed with roses; and they would see.

  See what?

  See me.

  ‘All this is hardly necessary.’ Terentia hovered. Helvi threw herself around Pompeia in a hug of joy. I don’t think she’d seen so much activity in the temple. Terentia pulled her off Pompeia for the thousandth time.

  ‘It’s not a good look, Pompeia.’

  Pompeia huffed. ‘It’s not as if anyone thinks she’s mine. I enjoy her because I don’t have any of my own!’

  ‘It looks like you wish you did.’

  ‘The flowers and herbs will be useful,’ said Urgulania.

  ‘Can we not make such a show of it then?’

  ‘We’re behind the house wall. Let it be, woman.’ (Urgulania.) ‘Is your goddess not of the earth and its abundance?’

  ‘My goddess is the core of earth itself.’ Then with one look and a wry grin, Terentia and Urgulania recited together, making me shiver: ‘Born of the elements and the perpetual hearths of the sun and the core, manifest in the hearth fire that guides us home.’

  Terentia sucked in a smile and bent to shift a pot a little more into the sun, positioned to her liking.

  I kept my head down.

  When Aemilia and Pompeia came home they oohed and aahed over my pots just right. They bent over the little sticks in the dirt and caressed them with their fingertips. ‘Come shine, little ones,’ they said and blew gently on the stalks. Helvi leaned in and blew too.

  ‘Well done, darlin’,’ Urgulania said in my ear. ‘You just brought the goddess back where the Head Vestal had not.’

  ‘I just wanted some things to work with,’ I said.

  She looked me up and down, unapologetically obvious, and gave a ‘harrumph’ that sounded to me very much like a judgement.

  AIR

  Tristan

  October 114 BC

  ‘What’s the whisper?’ Secunda never missed an update but today she was surrounded by Licinia, Marcia and Flavia. They knew what it would be about.

  I did a lame impression of an aristocratic housewife: ‘The priestesses Aemilia, Pompeia, Licinia and Terentia were seen arriving at the party at Licinia’s father’s house last afternoon at the same moment as the incoming consul, Gaius Caecillius Metellus, sparring fresh speculation that the consul-in-waiting already enjoys a closeness with the powerful priestesses and indeed if they travelled together from the house of his uncle, the Pontifex Maximus.’

  The priestesses giggled.

  ‘Boring,’ Secunda huffed.

  I shrugged. ‘There was also talk of Licinia’s fine leather sandals, which every woman of means is sure now to want for the season.’

  FIRE

  Secunda

  October 114 BC

  ‘Blue,’ Aemilia said out of nowhere. The next time he came. Just that, as though the word was a special gift. And it was. A piece of her no one knew.

  She sat there letting him draw her again in Dalmaticus’s portico, huddled under the awning this time because it was raining, too close to him for my liking, and when Dalmaticus left she gave Shadow Man her gift, right there in front of me.

  He raised a brow and smiled.

  ‘Blue would be the colour I would wear,’ she said. ‘But it must be that glowy, deep blue. Like Egyptian glass.’

  ‘I know it. This is flame blue,’ he said. He had big soft cow eyes today. ‘The brightest one right in the heart of the flame. This is you.’ He beamed and turned back to his drawing before he saw the disappointment on her face.

  Ha! You ruined it for yourself, Shadow Man. She doesn’t want to be flame blue, only blue.

  She doesn’t want to be flame blue.

  WATER

  Pompeia

  October 114 BC

  Secunda served poached cardoon hearts stuffed with scrummy-licious garlic-roasted chestnuts for supper, plus a delightfully pretty salad with lettuce and dandelion leaves and rocket and nasturtium flowers, with crunchy chunks of bread crispy fried in a cracked pepper crust. Oh my!

  It looked and smelled utterly delicious but I couldn’t bear to touch it.

  Secunda didn’t notice us all fall silent.

  Licinia didn’t either, of course. She wouldn’t. Helvi gasped and plucked a nasturtium from the platter and some bread, which I had to scoop out of her mouth, giving her ‘shhhh!’ eyes. And Aemilia gallantly nibbled at the corners, savouring the peppery richness I longed to enjoy with ‘mmms’ and ‘ooohs’.

  Terentia went white. She put her fork down, slowly, silently, straightened it so it was perfectly parallel to her plate. Without moving, she checked each of our plates, carefully taking the measure of the source of pleasure.

  Marcia pretended not to be chewing.

  Secunda must have marinated those che
stnuts for hours. She would have crushed those pink-and-black peppercorns for ages in her mortar, rubbed them by hand with olive oil, adding a careful sprinkle of salt, coating the bread perfectly evenly . . .

  ‘Secunda, what is this crust on our bread?’ Terentia began the set-up.

  Marcia swallowed.

  I sent Helvi out with a little pat on the bottom to hurry her along.

  Flavia had her head down already, circling her thumbs nervously in her lap. Waiting for it. She strained to look up at Terentia from under her eyelids but would not dare lift her head, would not make the single movement that might tip Terentia.

  ‘Pepper. With rosemary and salt, and olive oil.’

  ‘It is . . .’ Terentia searched for a word, ‘delicious. How much does pepper cost, Secunda?’

  A horrible pause as Secunda grappled for something solid and trustworthy. I felt Aemilia’s heart reach for her.

  ‘I thought our budget was able –’

  ‘That is not the point.’ Terentia lengthened, pulling herself taller and straighter than the rest of us.

  Flavia stifled a whimper.

  ‘We live a modest life in the temple, girl. We are entrusted to do so. We are watched, to ensure we do.’ Her eyes flicked to the streets above us, beyond the walls of our room.

  ‘Mother,’ Aemilia ventured. ‘Her intentions were –’

  ‘Not enough,’ Terentia cut her off. ‘But they are noted, thank you, Secunda. You must understand that priestesses past have been condemned for indulgences and luxuries.’ They lead to other things.

  Terentia softened back into her chair, still addressing Secunda but not really looking at her. ‘There is some plain bread from this morning, and olives. You will bring us those please. And you will remove the pepper from the kitchen. Bury it. There can be no scent of it. Put out your fire for the night in case. You have shown us what you can do.’

  AIR

  Tristan

  October 114 BC

  ‘What’s the whisper?’

  ‘The priestesses have apparently purchased a rather extravagant amount of peppercorns at the markets yesterday.’ I said, thoroughly amused by the ridiculousness of it.