The high priest of Jupiter killed the horse with one great slice across its powerful neck. The great beast barely protested. I watched the priest prepare, taking his god into himself, becoming Jupiter, that he could talk the horse into acceptance and grant it his honour before the deed.
This year the sacrifice of the October Horse was more for the soldiers than ever. A willing death, that the gods might have their fill and spare the next battalions on the fronts. We were all so very careful that day to invoke our powers the best we could. We threw ourselves into the ritual with the fervour of those pleading for their lives. Indeed, if this didn’t work we of the priestly class would be the next subject of questioning.
The priest came to us with excitement in his eyes, his short skirt barely hiding his arousal at his own power and the power of the ritual.
He turned to Marcia to pour the water into his basin to wash his hands and his altar. He is not permitted to touch our water urn with the blood dripping from him. It has to stay pure.
We’d struggled, passing the urn between us all morning. It was heavy, full of water and dug into your hip until you longed to put it down, but it was the ritual one with the pointy bottom so you can’t sit it down and allow the water to stagnate. Marcia shifted it to her other hip. I tipped the bottom for her as she washed him and I caught how he looked at her.
The great temple howled with the early winter wind and cold and the smell of him came to me, full of sweat and man and horse blood.
He shouldn’t have been so near her lest he get blood on a Vestal.
He was not a very big man, not a soldier, not even very manly. He had a weak chin but he had a perfect triangle shape from shoulders through to waist and a flat stomach, glistening with sweat, and he walked like a king.
He stared at Marcia while she cleansed him, watching my every little move until his wife, the priestess of Jupiter, came with a towel for him. But even then, for a moment . . .
I let Marcia have the full weight of the urn, to bring her back to place, secretly happy to see her wince with the effort of it.
There was a hideous amount of blood. Bloodied water splashed on my whites. The high priest of Jupiter did the deed but we were to carry away the entrails and the tail and burn them in our temple for purification, and an urn of blood that we would dry over our fire for later rituals. I don’t mind it when it’s dry but the idea of collecting the slimy stuff makes me heave. I made Flavia and Marcia carry the bits.
In the kill is our power, for some priests: the feeling of standing on the very edge of the mortal world, the fervour that has to build before we murder, with our toes on the step into the realm of gods. See, Jupiter and Mars, we would kill for you. This is how much we will do to earn your love.
That moment on the edge stays with us after a killing. It changes things.
***
We caught them at it, the high priest and his little wife with the great legs . . . well, sweet figlets and cheese, how else to say it? We caught them at making love right there on the altar!
Much as I wanted to flee that place, I took us back in to make a private offering of our own – a little plea for our Aemilia in her time of choice, and an extra little reminder of the souls of the soldiers our sacrifice ought to protect – and there was the tangle of legs and flesh as the priest of Jupiter took his priestess in the fervour saved otherwise for rape by gods, Zeus taking Artemis. He took her laid over the altar, and we heard her little strangled noises of want, saw his thighs flexed with effort and desire under the short skirt that is his uniform. It was quite a thing, surrounded by all those might, hard columns of stone, like the phallus of Jupiter himself . . . We could barely look away.
I don’t wonder about it, usually. Not the act. My only interest is the babies it might have brought me. Nor do I wonder about love and leaving. They go together, always. For me there is nothing left outside the temple if I am already robbed of the children I’d have adored, my little lambs whose spirits walk with me condemned forever to stay as spirit or be born to some other woman I’ll never know. Where is the statue of Pompeia and her children, now with grey hairs in her nethers and hips large enough to carry ten babies?
The wife turned and saw us, her husband still inside her, and didn’t care a hoot that we’d seen.
FIRE
Secunda
October 114 BC
Aemilia came with me to gather pears, while the others were at the sacrifice and Terentia in the temple. Facing each other with our basket between us, we gathered in silence except for the lovely thud of pears, mine then hers, which rolled into each other in the corner.
AIR
Tristan
October 114 BC
‘What’s the whisper?’ Flavia asked, with Pompeia in tow.
I put on my best low, conspiratorial voice, pretending to read a scroll: ‘The Vestal Aemilia was notably absent from her usual place at the head of processions through the forum, for the sacrifice to Jupiter today. The unexplained absence leads sources to speculate whether the priestess could already be having second thoughts about her future in the temple.’
Flavia gasped. ‘Do not repeat that to Terentia!’
Agreed.
WATER
Pompeia
October 114 BC
The girls were full of the priest of Jupiter and his wife that night. Terentia was ropable: at the girls, and at the gods because Urgulania hadn’t been able to divine from the October Horse. Terentia was nervous about Aemilia after the scene at the river with the widow. We weren’t letting anything on about Elian but Terentia knew Aemilia well enough to intuit the tiniest change.
We brought the liver to her, after the official augurs were done with it. But the priest had nicked the liver and black blood covered the whole thing.
The nick was on the Sun side of the liver, Laynie said, totally covering it with thick blood. Clearly these days were not of Sun. But the Moon side was smeared also.
‘The inexperienced or ill trained think that the Sun and Moon sides for augury are about day and night. It’s more.’ Laynie was giving Flavia one of her lessons but we all listened in. ‘It’s light and dark, clarity and mystery. Sun time is a time for seeing, Moon a time of secret things, tidal undercurrents and illusion. Things look different under the veil of night. It’s not all bad; these things are part of life, and sometimes Moon is a time for intuitive seeing, for shadow things stepping into awareness – Moon is the light of the night, after all.’
Sometimes.
Right then, we had nothing but darkness and disorientation.
‘The gods do not want us to see.’
Terentia sat tight-lipped, pulling a clump of yarn for spinning though more effectively ripping it apart.
‘I bet they’re doing it up there all the time,’ Licinia said, sucking on dates in the lounge.
Terentia huffed and glared at Licinia, lost for words.
‘She is beautiful,’ Licinia pressed.
Marcia shrugged agreement, barely looking up from her tapestry, a map from Damascus to Thebes spread across most of the floor leaving the rest of us crowded on the lounges to avoid stepping on it, which she barely noticed. Each time she got near an edge she sewed a new section so the thing kept growing. For Marcia, virginity and solitude had become self-perpetuating powers that rendered her higher and more pure than all but us, thus increasingly unreachable, until people stopped trying and simply stared at her smoky beauty. Her map seemed at once to provide a nurturing space for her solitude and distraction from it. Every new road or citadel was a faraway place to take her heart and mind. With every pierce of the needle she pierced her wall of solitude and entered the world, and with every stitch she closed it up again.
‘He’s too skinny.’ I tried to dampen Licinia’s enthusiasm. He wasn’t my Lucius. But immediately felt ashamed and grabbed a date for something to stuff in my mouth.
‘I wonder what it would be like to serve together like that.’ Licinia was unusually wistful. ‘It must
be lovely. I think I am a tiny bit jealous.’
‘That’s an ugly thing for any woman to say and you are a priestess,’ snapped Terentia.
‘But have you never thought of anyone, Terentia?’ Licinia pushed. Aemilia and I stayed quiet. I was grateful Flavia was in the temple and not hearing this.
Terentia ruffled up like a pigeon fleeing being trod.
‘No.’
‘What about Gaius? You and he virtually ruled the religion of Rome for sixteen years before we got Dalmaticus.’ As always, Licinia insisted on poking the fires.
‘Gaius Publius was dear. That’s all,’ Terentia said shortly.
Poor Terentia mourned her friend so privately Licinia didn’t even see it, not that Licinia would. The high priest is one of the few we get close to. The life of a Vestal was a solitary one. You don’t get close to people outside the temple. A father has little reason for you once you are given to the temple and there is no marriage or money to oversee. Your siblings marry and have children and suddenly there is nothing left in common. They presume you are not interested in the children, or don’t want to hear about the thing you can never have, and so you are not included. They feel guilty, and inadequate now you are famous and sacred. It becomes a hopeless mess easier left alone.
Gaius was a companion to Terentia in ways Dalmaticus is not, and she feels the loss heavily.
She looked to Urgulania with fear in her eyes. Our old friend nodded encouragement: Talk to them, Terentia. Vesta knew the girls were near on fire with thoughts of Aemilia’s future, marriage and love on their minds – and Vesta had given us a way to speak of it.
Terentia sighed heavily. ‘Of course we have attractions, there is no getting around that, but as is the way with men, they only want that which is unattainable. That’s us. It is the chase they desire, not the prize. We serve ourselves best – and our men – as the endless chase. Now: Licinia, it is past time you joined Flavia at the fire. I don’t like her left on her own so much.’
She took a knot of wool thread and began to bundle it, running circles over her hand, trying to share in Marcia’s distance. ‘It’s not just our own lives and all we protect that we jeopardise: the life of any man even suspected of wrongdoing is at risk from the barest whisper. If you truly care for a friend you would not do that to him.’
Aemilia curled her legs to her chest.
‘Well I don’t intend to take any man. Ever,’ said Marcia, hands never straying from their work.
‘Mine would need to be a priest or something higher,’ Licinia said definitively. ‘An ordinary husband would be an utter bore.’
That threw the girls into a heavy silence, stealing looks at Aemilia.
Only Secunda seemed triumphant as she whisked our scraps off to the kitchen.
AIR
Tristan
October 114 BC
Secunda and Pompeia played their usual game, handing me the last sweetbread I’d been eying, and asking innocently, ‘So what’s the whisper?’
Tristan said Licinia had been spotted leaving the basilica in conversation with Lucius Licinius Crassus and his friend Marcus Antonius.
‘The handsome one.’
I nodded. ‘She was a vision in white,’ I mimicked a lady gossiping but Pompeia looked nervous. ‘Reports are that the three looked particularly familiar.’
Chapter 5
WATER
Pompeia
October 114 BC
I was flopped onto the lounge. Gods I was fat that night. I felt disgusting. ‘Look at me, I’m all fluid,’ I said to the girls. Helvi curled up at my feet, giggling at me. ‘Something’s going on.’ I was carrying a whole load of . . . worry, I guess, and I didn’t even know whose it was.
‘I feel like there’s so much to do!’
‘Like what?’ asked Flavia.
‘Well, we’ll have to think about a ceremony for the new sculpture, there’ll be ceremonies for the new consuls, surely, and Saturnalia first, and there are vegetables to harvest.’ I took a sticky date from the plate on the side table to soothe myself. ‘And preparation for the soil for winter, and cover the wood from the coming damp . . .’
‘But we do those things every year,’ Flavia frowned.
‘Secunda still doesn’t have a proper room.’ I couldn’t stop myself. ‘What will she do when the winter nights are too cold?’
‘Oh alright, I’ll say it,’ Licinia said heavily and sighed that way she does so you know something tiresome is coming. Always the droplet of water in the hot oil was Licinia, making things spatter and hiss when they’re not supposed to. ‘What you’re really thinking is that you ought to plan for the new apprentice we’ll need when Aemilia leaves. We’ve still not organised how the rooms will be come spring. The new child can sleep in Pompeia’s room, I suppose, while she adjusts, but that will only last so long and then what? Her transition ought to be as smooth as possible, the poor frightened little thing. We should get started on robes – Marcia, you are our finest sewer, we must get you some fabric. We could use Helvi as a model but you’d have to bear in mind taking an inch or two off everything . . .’
Helvi jumped at the suggestion. ‘Will the new girl be smaller than me?’
Aemilia shot Licinia a sardonic look.
‘Stop,’ I sat up, feeling tears well, stroking Helvi so my poor little one knew she wasn’t the source of my upset.
‘Don’t tease her,’ said Aemilia from the corner. ‘It’s a new moon, you know how she gets.’
‘I’m just being realistic.’ (Licinia again)
Aemilia swept out the door and Licinia turned on me. ‘See? Aemilia will make her decision and we will need a replacement.’
‘I think you really upset her,’ I said.
‘Pet doesn’t get upset.’
‘Stop. Just stop.’
‘Stop what?’
‘Enjoying this. Making theatre of it for your own entertainment.’
‘I’m not enjoying it.’
‘Yes, you are. You are enjoying having a little sport! At whose expense, Licinia?’
‘Oh gods, you’re melodramatic. It will happen or it won’t – she will stay or she will go. There, I said that too. Aemilia will be fine. Okay, so maybe I do enjoy it just a little. It’s the only thing that stays interesting around here!’
‘It is not that easy and you know it. And Aemilia is not fine.’ No one said a word. ‘Have you nothing else to interest you?’ I said.
‘Well yes, as a matter of fact.’ Licinia rose and made for the door. ‘I’ve been seeing Cousin again and his friend Antonio, the lawyer.’
‘For what?’
‘To buy a coast house!’ She swept theatrically to the door but paused for effect.
‘Did she tell you she was buying a coast house?’ I turned on Marcia.
‘She didn’t tell me.’
‘Did you know?’ I spun on Flavia.
‘She never tells me anything.’
From the door, Licinia noisily suppressed a giggle.
‘Now is hardly the time!’ I almost stamped. ‘You’ve been seen with him, you know. Oh gods.’
Licinia rolled her eyes and huffed. ‘It’s not even the juiciest story. But it is new moon, a time for things to remain in the dark . . .’
I sat up, hand on Helvi, anticipating. ‘What?’
‘Aemilia has just put Cato’s wife up in her own coast house, for respite from the hoards.’
Secunda fumbled a plate noisily.
‘Oh really?’ I said sarcastically, but we all knew Licinia’s tone of truth. ‘And does Terentia know?’
‘This is Aemilia. No one knows.’
‘But if we look guilty, if we’re helping the disgraced . . . we’ll look guilty.’ (Flavia.)
‘No. One. Knows.’
‘She wouldn’t get so close to politics.’
‘The families have ties.’
So, our Pet is touching the fire! Well, who knew she had it in her?
We all knew Aemilia had a coast house – ex
cept Secunda, whose shock was written all over her face – though I’d all but forgotten it existed. She never used it of course, we were bound to the city.
Aemilia’s coast house is a little way south where there’s a long, narrow beach with a lake. A stepped villa built into a crag, abandoned by a wealthy businessman who decided he was too young to recluse himself from the city for so long each year.
She will not use it. It serves its purpose just by providing a thing to wonder about. And some income. A secret is so much more exquisite when others know it exists and still cannot know the details.
For Aemilia, her coast house is a thing seen only in single moments in her mind’s eye. Frescos in a row.
She, on the ledge of a sun-blazoned fountain, with tinkling water and the gold flash of a fish. A wine goblet in hand . . .
She, at the edge of a vast stone terrace, a twisty little path down the cliff through wildflowers. Before her, the sapphire Mediterranean where a muted, pastel island whispers of some place further. . .
She, mid step on sandy lake shore, where the tide seeps through samphire and a looped flamingo hangs a toe in the ripples.
In a fresco, the story is the moment. There is no ‘what next?’: if she does not go to the house, if she does not make the frescos move, then she does not have to ask this question. She hates the question because she still can’t answer it, because the house in her mind’s eye does not have the things she can less imagine having for herself. As she walks through the walled garden to the atrium, there are no children running at her with berry-stained fingers spread wide. Under the arbour there is no giggling circle of sisters. The rest we won’t dwell on.
But the coast house – putting Cato’s wife in the coast house without a word – meant something new, that day. Something I also saw dawning on Secunda, sucking her to a husk like last night’s white ash that would crumble with one more touch: Aemilia didn’t need us.
Fire and Sacrifice Page 10
