Pompeia groaned.
Stop talking, you fool. ‘And even some mussel shells. It’s an utter scandal!’ Fool.
Secunda kicked a carrot almost right out of the ground.
‘What’d I miss?’
‘Forget it.’
‘Okaaay. So, what’s for dinner?’ Still a fool.
‘How do I know? What do you feel like?’ Secunda snapped.
‘Umm, no one’s ever asked me that before,’ I said. ‘Got a pig to roast?’
‘I’m not allowed to do anything fancy.’ Her voice didn’t crack that day, I noticed.
‘It was wondrous, though, Secunda. Perhaps on special occasions . . .’ Pompeia clambered.
Secunda slapped a parsnip top. ‘I can’t serve priestesses plain old vegetables! How am I supposed to –’ She bit her lip. Oh boy.
I sat in the dirt next to her. ‘I bring them plain old wood.’
Pompeia handed her a pear from the tree. ‘Aemilia didn’t know you were a cook when she took you in, remember. That’s not why you’re here.’
I decided not to ask why Secunda really was here.
‘You’re not cooking for your life here, Secunda. You’re safe,’ I said.
She flicked at the dirt with a stick.
‘My family are slaves too, don’t forget.’
‘I’m not a slave.’ She was sharper than she meant to be. I didn’t mind.
I shot a pleading look at Pompeia but she was no help. ‘No one sees me either, even when I’m out,’ I persisted. ‘Even when I’m mooching about them listening to their talk in the basilica and at the Curia doors. They pay no heed to a slave boy who would surely not understand. They don’t even see me when I’m right beside them.’
‘Carry something shiny,’ Secunda said sarcastically.
‘And what do you expect will happen then? You think they will suddenly see me and a beautiful white light will rise, the cherubim will sing, they will fall to their knees and exclaim, “Oh great Tristan, how blind we have been! Come sit in our senate and speak to us!”’ Secunda wouldn’t look at me. I had her. ‘Well, I suppose it may happen that way for some of us who are touched by Vesta.’
‘But don’t you wanna just grab their dumb-arse faces and . . .’ Secunda squeezed an imaginary face in her hands and dug her nails in, making me laugh.
‘My invisibility is my power!’ I leapt theatrically behind her and whispered in her ear. ‘The Great Invisible Man!’
‘If it makes you feel better.’ She bit on her cheek to suppress her smirk.
‘I don’t need to feel better. I’d rather like to be paid for my skills, I admit. Espionage must pay well.’
Pompeia got antsy at that. I forgot sometimes not to talk a certain way around the priestesses. ‘You know,’ she said, changing the subject, ‘Tristan and Cor do bring us simple old wood – it’s just carefully selected wood. It’s still sacred. In fact, it’s pure.’
Oh thank the gods, finally some help.
That was it! We’d get Secunda to forage, just like me with wood and mushrooms, for wild food for the priestesses. Food for a goddess in an ancient forest with nothing but a campfire. Foraging for wild things was a very Secunda thing to do. And we could do it together.
‘Well, if there’s a thing to be found round the forum of Rome, I know it!’ I danced around her. ‘And I have friends in low places – and high,’ I nodded to Pompeia. ‘There are raspberries in the brambles behind the Comitia. And there’s mint in the damp behind the Regia.’
‘And rosemary beside Basilica Aemilia,’ Pompeia joined in.
‘Aemilia and the girls are there now, meeting Licinia’s brother.’ I cocked a knowing eyebrow, sure this would hook her.
Secunda looked to Pompeia for permission.
‘Go. Go! I’ll come to the basilica to meet the others, and you can go off from there – as long as you are back to serve supper.’
Of course she would be. She wouldn’t miss that for the world.
WATER
Pompeia
October 114 BC
Licinius had Aemilia’s hand in his as I approached. As close as the cheeky fellow was allowed to get, anyway, pretending to touch her while Aemilia hung her hand above his like a precious display he was forbidden to sully.
The Basilica Aemilia was the people’s basilica in those days, a sunny open space behind a busy row of bankers and shops. The basilica itself was lined with pink marble columns holding up a protective pointed roof, little gardens along one edge and in winter a line of braziers spaced along its middle where bankers and traders and would-bes and wanderers could stop for a chat and some warmth.
Licinius paused over Aemilia’s hand, knowing full well he had half the eyes in the basilica on him.
‘You are dazzling, all in white in the sunshine,’ Licinius cooed. I had to bite on my giggle. Licinia groaned and rolled her eyes at her brother, who ignored her.
‘I am a Vestal, sir – you would not seek to corrupt me?’ Aemilia purred.
‘Not a Vestal forever, I hope.’
I spun to check Secunda was mercifully out of earshot.
‘But Rome and her hearth are forever, and it is they I serve,’ she said coolly.
Marcia indicated to the watchers with a subtle angle of her neck, to anyone else a simple, bewitching movement but to us a warning: ‘You’ve got too much attention.’
Without another word to Licinius, Aemilia pulled away and we followed.
‘She’s too old for you,’ Licinia teased her brother, behind us.
‘To your delight,’ he whispered back, grinning. ‘Farewell, Your Ugliness.’
‘Farewell, Slow Boy.’
***
‘Stop it, you know very well they only want us for trophies.’ I walked in on Aemilia flopped on the lounge talking with Licinia, and Flavia busy at sweeping. ‘The power of taking the most powerful women in Rome . . . Touching the untouchables.’ She wiggled her hands in Licinia’s face, threatening to tickle.
‘Well I quite like the sound of that,’ Licinia giggled. ‘Though it’s a wonder then that my dear brother reaches for you, whose family is all but hopeless.’
Flavia stopped sweeping and shot an alarmed look at me, not breathing.
‘Thank you,’ Aemilia said sarcastically.
‘Licinia,’ I scolded. It was only months since Pet’s father had passed away, poor old soul.
‘I’m being realistic. Aemilia herself made the true point of it.’
‘She’s right. Though the last of the Aemilii is a certain trophy in itself,’ Aemilia sighed. ‘No, I shall have to look for a non-Roman, and not even a Roman ally or enemy – both could make use of me.’
Licinia crawled over the lounge to her, delighted and excited. ‘You’re saying you would, if you found one, though?’
‘Are they my only choices, to be a Vestal or a wife then? At what point might I get to be just me?’
The room chilled, as though all souls fled before the shame of disappointing a woman such as this.
‘Which Roman woman ever does?’ Licinia said frankly.
Aemilia looked at the empty door. ‘Secunda.’
***
Urgulania sensed the unease of the people to such a degree that in her world, already populated with spirits and sprites and talking mists, it took on a physical form for her and she chatted with it daily. She called it the Dis-ease. It seemed that the rest of the natural world also sensed the growing unrest, for Urgulania began to notice in greater detail than usual the visits of messenger creatures.
‘Yes, pretty lady’, she would say to the spider in the web in the corner. ‘The Dis-ease waits to feed.’
Helvi and Flavia took to collecting creatures and feathers and wings, and placing them in Urgulania’s path. A dead moth would send her off on a daydream of some long ago event, talking to people who existed then and were now invisible. A lizard deposited on the rim of a mug engaged her in a long conversation on the undervalued pastime of daydreaming to see one’s f
uture, the assistance that the hallucinogenic properties of oleander could lend in said pastime, and unnamed opportunities presented by the arrival of Secunda who, incidentally, really ought to be cooking vegetable meals for a while. Meat is death, and the Dis-ease is looking to feed.
Despite her apparent detachment from the physical, Urgulania remained completely aware of the entertainment she provided Helvi and Flavia. ‘Why do you think Lizard allowed himself to be caught and brought to me?’
And so it was that poor Flavia, already uncommonly aware that our priestesses’ lives were at the mercy of powers beyond our control, found herself even more spooked. The greying of the late autumn skies and the winds of winter didn’t help.
She ran across the square one day, around the side to where Urgulania and I worked in the garden. ‘Laynie! Laynie, the ravens are all flying south – I’ve seen a dozen today at the least! It’s awful! Whatever can it mean?’
Urgulania shared a secret grin with me. ‘Rain,’ she said, dry as anything.
And so came the chance for us all to meet Elian.
EARTH
Fragments
Russell T. Scott (ed.), Excavations in the Area Sacra of Vesta (1987–1996) pp. 154–156.
On the northeast side of our area ran the torrent that began near the future site of the Arch of Titus and that passed between the Sepulcretum (the early burial ground) and the future site of the Regia before it emptied into the forum basin. On the far side of the torrent rose the hill commonly know as the Velia. The drainage channel associated with the torrent, the fossato in Italian, was quite wide at its eastern end but narrowed as it approached the forum basin because of the thick gravel beds (more resistant to erosion) in the subsurface . . . They are, by the way, responsible for the well-known natural spring, the Lacus Iuturnae, located just to the west of our area. In the case of the torrent, there would have been active runoff after rainstorms in the wetter months of the year . . .
WATER
Pompeia
October 114 BC
We got our sacred water that morning from the torrent rather than the spring. It’s only a short walk up the hill, on the other side of the Regia, and the water is a few fingers deep, running across the top of the grass and gravel, where it brought together live water from the heavens with fragments of earth and essence of the grasses. Perfect. We always take advantage, and we all go together – except the one who must stay with the fire. It takes three to hold the amphorae low enough and sideways over the water to get the water in the spout.
It’s my favourite thing about winter, when it rains in the night and we wake to find a new little river down the hill into the forum – our ancient dry creek all fresh and lively after waiting so long to be called to life again, and we priestesses of Vesta so dry and shrivelled from so long by the fire. I scoop the water into my palm and rub it all up my arms.
We cannot help but step in the water to gather. It’s a fabulous excuse to soak in it and get all wet and muddy. It never fails to tickle us. I splashed Flavia.
‘Elian!’ Aemilia yelled out, suddenly all ease and excitement. Licinia cocked an eyebrow to Flavia.
‘Aemilia,’ Marcia reprimanded her under her breath. ‘Don’t be so common.’
The dark man stood from digging at the edge of the water on the other side of the torrent and waved cheerily, not noticing that he sent a spatter of clay through the air. So this was him: wet to his knees, muddy clay up to his elbows, and hair still pressed by sleep and teased by wind. He beamed at us and his dark features squidged into soft dark-fur crescents that I wanted to pet, and his cheekbones stretched to shiny toffee.
He came closer. Big gentle cow eyes tapered in perfect symmetry into a dark line at the corner, where lush eyelashes matted together. He had white, even teeth, and I couldn’t but notice the bulges at his biceps and forearms, like thick globs of honey stretched from jar to spoon on a cold morning.
He was a big man, taking easy command of the space. There was no hiding that we all stared at him. We were a scandalous party: wet Vestals, Secunda among us and now Elian, at whom everyone round us stared, right along with us.
Aemilia laughed with delight. ‘What are you doing?’
‘It is clay soil here on the slope.’ He gestured up rise behind him. ‘A good time to collect after rain – for to practice your sculpture, Priestess Aemilia! And now I see it could not be more perfect: it is clay soaked in water that is sacred to the priestesses!’
He threw his arms wide in triumph. We all of us giggled.
Vesta help me, I liked him immensely.
FIRE
Secunda
October 114 BC
After we turned the beds that morning and washed the linen, Urgulania and Helvi and me, I put a sprig of lavender on each Vestal’s pillow, and on each dresser a little glass bottle of the olive oil I’ve been infusing with bergamot and rosehip, to moisturise their skin. It gets dry, what with them tending the sacred fire every day.
Aemilia rubbed some on her hands straight away. ‘It smells glorious,’ she said, with that smile of hers.
But she’d forgotten now, with him in front of her, back in the Regia and the sun. I hated myself for being useless.
Elian had brought the clay that day and began work on her ‘practice’ sculpture, no longer a drawing but a fully rounded form. He started with the face. First just a head-shaped lump. A little extra clay pressed across the brow and the nose, the bridge pinched in. He was good. She gave no expression while he roughed in the veil and hair and the general likeness. She knows how to do this, how to put on a priestess’s face for the people. It’s a Head Vestal’s face through and through.
‘How did you come to Rome?’ she asked him.
‘I follow the camel trains on the Incense Route, from my city through to Aqaba. There I buy my place on a ship to Rome.’
She smiled, deep in thought. Happy to listen. ‘Tell me about the Incense Route. These camel trains come to the secret city? How then do you claim it to be secret?’ she asked.
‘‘No! No, no! We meet them on the roads. We watch.’ He was full of his story. All shiny eyes and happy honey cheekbones, working as he talked. ‘By the time the camel train is in Nabataea the men are very thirsty. Hungry and tired – and many times lost. He would never admit but you can see on a man’s face when the desert holds him ransom. There is panic in his eyes. His sweat is . . . stinking. They pay handsome sums for us to water and feed them, and lead their way.’
‘Ransom,’ she corrected. That’s my girl.
‘We simply share only what we wish. Surely this idea is not so foreign to you, my priestess?’ He pulled her into his grin. Bastard. ‘We sell knowledge. And safety.’ He smiled that easy smile that says he understands so much.
‘Did you come alone?’
‘I have a wife,’ he said sadly.
Our air disappeared. We neither of us moved. Why did I care?
‘She dies many years ago, very young. In childbirth. She and our child, together.’
Aemilia exhaled gently. ‘I’m sorry. You have been alone a long time?’
He came suddenly forward then and she pulled back. He walked around her, looking at this side then that, peering, deciding, measuring her features with his thumb in the air, closer to her than anyone else would get. Closer than I liked.
‘As have you,’ he said.
They locked eyes, an understanding between them that I was not a part of but a pain I knew very well.
No no no no no! She’s not alone! And don’t you think it.
And for you now is thirty years and you can choose.
After the solstice.
She looked away, blushing. He went back to work, starting into detail on her face. It was no more about making a shape; he spent an age on tiny adjustments I could barely see – a quick tiny press here with a little tool, a gentle smudge with his finger next, smoothing over there – all the little things that no one else really saw but that made Aemilia who she is.
&
nbsp; I saw her shoulders relax. She got preoccupied watching him, forgot herself, forgot me. Eventually he was running the edge of his thumb from her brow down over her eyelids, in and over the cheekbone, in again and round the jaw, the ball of his hand on her lips then his thumb across the jaw and over the peaks and across the lip . . .
When he finally stopped, her hands went straight to her own real face, trying to feel what he was seeing.
‘May I see it?’
‘Not until it is done.’
‘How long?’
‘Not long.’ His dark eyes turned sad and he shrugged. ‘Your matron has ordered that I am finished by two weeks – faster if I can.’
‘She came to you? When?’ Aemilia flared with sudden rage at the violation. I did too.
‘After I saw you at the water. There are pressures, yes?’
‘But how? Well, you cannot cheat on the sculpture. Terentia said herself it takes time for it to be worthy.’
‘That is true. But your Mother Priestess also pays my rent.’
WATER
Pompeia
15 October 114 BC
The horse knew it was about to die. Sacrifices always know. I see it in the whites of their eyes as they watch the priest circle round to their throat.
The sweet flute music that fluffs our procession to the temple never does much to help the beast. I suspect it only heightens the sense of pretence.
Sacrifices know, long before.
The Temple of Jupiter was not of human scale. It was by far the most massive, and closest to the sky as befits the patriarch of the gods. Up there you stood at the entrance to the gods’ realm, and it beckoned you rise.
Between the rows of columns were vast expanses of floor space and sunlight, the occasional furnishings were lavishly painted with every colour, plus gold. Anything less would fade into insignificance in the place. That was a structure designed to obliterate any hint of the mundane, shocking us into our highest minds, and our simplest core.
Fire and Sacrifice Page 9
