Fire and Sacrifice

by Victoria Collins

  EARTH

  Fragments

  Robin Lorsch Wildfang. Rome’s Vestal Virgins, p. 64.

  The Vestals had an usual legal status at Rome, one that was shared by no other Roman, male or female, religious official or otherwise. Their financial position was also in many respects anomalous, especially when compared to that of other Roman women.

  . . . According to Gaius’ Institutes, a girl who entered the Vestal order automatically and immediately became free of tutela (that is to say tutelage of male guardianship). This meant in effect that she was able to make her own financial decisions, buying and selling property, freeing slaves or accepting an inheritance without having to consult or secure consent of a male guardian. She also gained the right to write her own will and to leave her property to whomever she herself wished.

  FIRE

  Secunda

  October 114 BC

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Aemilia looked at Elian incredulously.

  ‘The front of your –’ He gestured clumsily at her robes. ‘I need you to please fix it.’

  She was completely affronted by the suggestion that she was not perfect.

  He didn’t bother hiding his laugh at her. ‘It is just for balance, sweet lady, you are beautiful. Perfect. It is just the way of the sculpture.’

  He hid for a while in the intensity of his work, avoiding her eyes. Elian is different when he works with his hands. In his element he was totally absorbed, like those hands have been waiting to be unleashed. His eyes jumping from feature to feature, to Aemilia and back to the clay, and I could see her following them in the hope of making purchase. Always with him you found yourself wanting to do more, be better, louder, prettier, to get his attention for just a moment.

  That day I took a bowl of olives to pit, and another of almonds to shell lest I ran out of olives. I fed every other olive to Aemilia. It was a neat distraction from him and put something in her mouth to limit the conversation.

  She asked him questions.

  We discovered that before Terentia hired a place for the work, he slept rough like I did before I came to the temple. She loved that. I loved it too, the idea of freedom of choosing to do things different, but I came back, I came back to the temple and safety and her, and he will stay rough and she will go to him, follow him, and leave me behind.

  Aemilia: ‘You slept on the streets? In the gutter?’

  Elian: ‘Of course not, what do you think of me? I have a small roll I can make into a tent. I sleep in the trees, a cave, by the river . . . Wherever I can see the stars.’

  Aemilia: ‘There are some would prefer to see you safe’.

  ‘Thank you, sweet lady, but it is not the problem you Romans think.’

  I considered throwing a nut at his head.

  Him: ‘I will not pay another man for such a thing as a place to sleep; I do not like to be indebted.’

  ‘You are not indebted to Terentia?’

  ‘For this, I get returns of my own,’ he twinkled at her.

  I shoved an olive in my mouth just to have something to bite on.

  She ignored his bait.

  Him: ‘For generations Nabataeans are nomads, no houses no farms, because with these you have things that another man can use to enslave you to his bidding if he does not buy your goods, or you do not pay him rent . . . Romans think they are safe from change if they build mighty houses to protect them. It is illusion. In truth it means only that the change hits them harder. The nomad, he marries change – he goes along with the seasons, the water, the flowerings and fruiting – all the things no man can pretend to control. This is why I cannot stay in Rome.’

  Aemilia: ‘You will leave?’

  He shrugged. ‘Perhaps not straight away – we know I do not need your Mother’s rented rooms – only for my work,’ he smiled wryly, then sobered. ‘I am not of Rome, my priestess. I am not for houses and temples and all the earth paved. I am for the wilds and the colours of the earth.’

  We were silent while he packed his things.

  Barely looking up at her, he muttered, ‘It does not mean I wish to be alone.’

  WATER

  Pompeia

  October 114 BC

  Aemilia, scooting from the common room to mine: ‘Where is the almond oil? My hair’s all coming loose. Secunda, come, he’ll be waiting for us!’

  FIRE

  Secunda

  October 114 BC

  Aemilia watched as Elian traced in the clay the gentle slope of her neck, pushed a clump aside to reveal a naked shoulder, round and along the bones across the front and into the dip at the base of her neck. She watched every move. So did I, watching Aemilia emerge, loving her all the way.

  She tilted her head as he traced her clay neck, as though responding to his touch.

  Down over the edge to make the arms next.

  He dipped his hands in the bowl of water I was asked to fetch for him, making the clay slick under his touch. Using both hands he massaged the clay into the shape of her skin, long rolling shiny strokes like the slave boys do for their masters in the public baths. He went all the way down then pulled gently out to the fingertips, gently pressing the shape of her hand and tracing each slender finger right to its end.

  I checked Aemilia and saw her real hand quiver, though she pretended it didn’t.

  At her breast he threw unceremonious clumps at the torso shape, so they stuck hard. She looked away while he kneaded them into shape. His hands came back to the top of the breast to make their way down and we both sucked in and bit our tongues. She flashed a look at me and squirmed but, ever so gently, attending to every detail, he dressed her. First a clay tie at her shoulder for the clasp of her stola, then soft strokes as folds of fabric rose between his fingers, falling, guided, loose, over her form.

  WATER

  Pompeia

  October 114 BC

  We were to be out of bed just before first light, ready to take our turn inside the temple as Licinia and Marcia finished the night roster, but Aemilia was up extra early. I could hear her soft rustling in her bedroom beside mine. It was a cool morning with winter on its heels, and the grey stone walls in the silvery light gave me little to focus on but the sounds.

  I listened to Helvi’s soft breaths from under the covers beside me, stroking the little blond mop that was all I could see of her outside the blanket. I was loath to leave her warmth but something was off about the sounds coming from Aemilia’s room. It was the familiar shuffling about but there was something disorganised about her today, something too busy for so early.

  I eased myself out of the bed without waking Helvi, wrapped myself in a blanket, pulled on boots and followed Aemilia as she padded across to the kitchen where Urgulania and Secunda were already at work on the day’s bread and breakfast. She glanced at me in mild surprise but took my hand in the silent camaraderie of the sisters we’d become.

  I loved the forum at that time of morning, just before the shop owners and the market gardeners and the noise arrived. We and Lucius were the only ones who actually lived in the forum day and night and it was entirely ours at this hour. It was a true home, then. We were free to enjoy without an audience the simple pleasures like licking butter off our wrists as it ran off hot bread, fresh from the oven.

  I will forever hold in mind the glorious memory of the first rays of sun leaping from the Temple of Jupiter down to the towering facade of the Temple of Castor and Pollux next door, and through our column of smoke.

  ‘Well, good morning.’ Urgulania had a questioning look.

  As she always did on our early mornings, Aemilia nudged herself against Secunda’s side with an easy smile, nuzzled her shoulder briefly and whispered a private good morning.

  That morning, though, seriousness quickly replaced her smile and she stood staring into flames while Secunda worked around her.

  Secunda shuffled about us, checking on bread that didn’t need checking, arranging pots and wiping things that didn’t need wiping. She brought Aemilia a stool
and she sat without shifting her eyes from the fire.

  I ran a lump of hot bread under the honey tap for Aemilia but the honey was agonisingly slow in the cold.

  Urgulania watched her, concerned. She pulled a stool beside Aemilia’s and indicated to the fire with a nod. ‘Are you sure you want to ask for help from there?’

  ‘Why is this so hard?’ Aemilia asked.

  All three of us paused, aware we were witnessing a rare exposure of Aemilia’s thoughts.

  ‘Because you are a priestess of fire. And fire knows how to create change only through destruction.’

  Aemilia pulled her wrap closer round herself.

  I glared at Urgulania. ‘That doesn’t help!’

  Urgulania shrugged. ‘It’s Truth. She knows it already.’

  ‘Maybe she’s right.’ Aemilia kept her eyes on the fire.

  ‘She’s not right.’ I turned to Urgulania. ‘Can we go gently please?’

  Urgulania was amused by me. ‘Truth is Truth, and Aemilia is strong.’ She turned back to Aemilia, clapping a hand on her thigh to snap her to attention. ‘Fire spirit will cleanse of every last drop of ill or fakery or the dead or festering. You know this, it’s how you purify the sacrifice.’

  ‘What’s fake?’ I challenged. It was Urgulania’s turn to glare. We both knew Aemilia hid deep beneath her good-girl facade as Pet.

  ‘Vesta sears them away to air, but she does so by consuming the body until nothing is left but ash to fertilise a new soil. Invite her in and she will stay until you are rendered empty. The wise fire worker remembers this.’

  Aemilia squirmed under Urgulania’s words. She has always preferred fire. When we joined the temple we, like all others before us, were told to throw most of our toys and clothes in the river to mark a new life in the temple, keeping only a couple of utter favourites. Aemilia threw hers in the fire. All of them.

  I exchanged an uneasy look with Secunda. Neither of us wanted her to leave but we also couldn’t stand Urgulania’s doom.

  I stepped in. ‘But you also well know that the lifeblood of Fire Spirit runs in the space before ignition, in the quickening of the heat when everything is ready to ignite and join the dance. She is the end but she is also the potential. This is what you are feeling.’

  She liked that but it didn’t answer her questions. She turned to Urgulania. ‘What will become of me, haruspex?’

  Urgulania stood to return to her chores, giving Aemilia a pat on the shoulder. ‘I don’t know yet, my girl. But you will only have to do it once.’

  FIRE

  Secunda

  October 114 BC

  My lovely lady, let me take you back to the river where the running water may pull from you your tears. Let me see them so I might wipe them away.

  EARTH

  Fragments

  Livy quoted in Robin Lorsch Wildfang, Rome’s Vestal Virgins, pp. 80, 83.

  For terrified above all at so great a slaughter together with other prodigia, next because two Vestals in the same year, Opimia and Floronia, were convicted of incestum and the one was destroyed under the earth at the Colline Gate, as is the custom, while the other contrived her own death; L. Cantilius, one of the Pontificial scribes, whom they now call the lesser Pontifices, who had committed the crime with Floronia, was beaten by the Pontifex Maximus with withies in the comitium until he died under the blows. (Livy, 22.57.2–3)

  . . . the Vestal virgin Postumia, although innocent of the crime, was accused of inchastity, coming under suspicion because of her too elegant dress and a manner freer than was suitable for a virgin. After she had been remanded and then acquitted, the Pontifex Maximus, on behalf of the whole college, ordered her to abstain from joking and to practise holiness rather than elegance in her appearance. (Livy, 4.44.2)

  . . . the Vestal Minucia, suspected first because of her appearance, which was more worldly than appropriate, next accused to the Pontifices by the report of a slave, after she had been commanded by their decree to abstain from the sacred rites and not to sell her slaves, and after judgement had been passed, was buried alive under the earth at the Colline Gate, to the right of the via Strata in the Campus Sceleratus; I believe that the name of this place comes from the crime of incest. (Livy, 8.15.7–8)

  Robin Lorsch Wildfang, Rome’s Vestal Virgins, pp. 84–85.

  . . . Our sources record that in 472 BCE, the Vestal Orbinia was accused and convicted of incestum because of a plague to which women had been particularly vulnerable. . . In 274 or 273 BCE, the Vestal Sextilia was condemned for incestum and buried alive. . . Finally, in 266 BCE, the Vestal Caparronia was accused and convicted of incestum but escaped burial alive by hanging herself before her sentence could be carried out.

  Chapter 6

  AIR

  Tristan

  October 114 BC

  I avoided the priestesses that morning. The whisper should stay a whisper on the wind and blow away.

  The priestess Marcia had been seen at the Temple of Jupiter again. There seemed no apparent reason for her presence there and speculation now turned to a potential interest in the high priest over any simple competition with another priestess, his wife.

  The Vestal had seemed to want to stay close behind the columns. Watching.

  WATER

  Pompeia

  October 114 BC

  Urgulania came skipping into the square one day, flapping about a hideous, torn snakeskin the length of a bed.

  Helvi screamed and I had to hide her face in my skirts.

  ‘Good news!’ She stretched it out to its full stomach-turning width. ‘A shedding!’

  ‘Laynie!’ Terentia and I scolded her in unison. ‘You’re causing a scene.’

  ‘Oh, waffle. It’s beautiful, look at these colours!’ Her enthusiasm didn’t move us. She groaned theatrically. ‘There’s a new start!’ She shook the thing for effect, which only turned my stomach more. ‘Snakes don’t shed in winter. Either this one shed now for good reason, or this skin is being shown to us now. Either way, Snake is here to tell us there’s a new start in our midst. The Dis-ease has a challenger!’

  She pulled a deep blue stone from a pouch in her tunic and handed it to Secunda. ‘Put it in the pot with the lemon tree, outside Aemilia’s door.’ We all looked at her stupidly, again. She pushed at Secunda’s hand. ‘Go on! It’s lapis lazuli, good for strengthening love when love is in the air! There are good things unravelling, this will help them come, even as the Dis-ease grows. It’s all about balance!’

  Later, out of Terentia’s earshot, she educated Secunda and me a little more. ‘Lapis is good for releasing emotional bondage, speaking your truth. It will do Aemilia good. It’s the only way joy can come to this place. And you, Pompeia, ought to start thinking about your own service ending, and marrying that Cor and being a proper mum to Helvi!’

  I refused to think about the idea of Cor and Helvi; it would eat away at me when I had just managed to put Lucius’s looks in their place. But I think perhaps that day was a beginning for Secunda, an introduction to Urgulania’s world of many voices in which Secunda began to see the power of the goddess residing in places outside the temples Secunda could not enter. Our own goddess of fire was a goddess of the natural elements, and in Urgulania’s world Nature Spirit resided even in the filthy ugliness of a dead snakeskin.

  The two of them stretched the forsaken thing between two sticks and hung it over the kitchen hearth where the smoke dried it stiff, and darkened the patterns into a rustic mosaic.

  EARTH

  Fragments

  Robert Graves, Greek Myths. p. 7.

  The white image of the Great Goddess in use throughout the Mediterranean seems to have represented a heap of glowing charcoal kept alive by a covering of white ash, which was the most cosy and economical means of heating in ancient times; it gave out neither smoke nor flame and formed the natural centre of gatherings.

  At Delphi the charcoal heap was translated into limestone for outdoor use and became the ‘omphalos’ or navel
-oss, frequently shown in Greek vase paintings, which marked the supposed centre of the world. This holy object is inscribed with the name of Mother Earth . . .

  AIR

  Tristan

  October 114 BC

  The whisper on the street was ridiculous but I have to admit I couldn’t get it out of my head. It was a dangerous one, which men were indulging in, too. I would not talk that way of the Vestals, I would not, but I had to share it with Secunda or burst.

  She read me. ‘What’s the whisper?’ She asked, eyes wide.

  ‘Apparently even a priestess can enjoy earthly delights like the rest of us,’ I said. ‘The Vestal Marcia was a picture of contentment today, indulging rather salaciously in a piece of honeycomb near the sacred spring.’

  I winked and she handed me a hunk of fresh bread dipped in honey. She never knew how pretty she was when she did things like that.

  ‘Let’s hope Terentia doesn’t get wind of it.’ And I can get it out of my head.

  FIRE

  Secunda

  October 114 BC

  At the end of the month Aemilia brought me my first pay. I had all but forgotten about getting paid. I had to ask what it was.

  ‘You are a freedwoman now, you earn your way. I am sure Helvi and Flavia can give Urgulania the help she needs this afternoon. Why don’t you go and treat yourself, explore the market.’

  ‘Come with me!’

  ‘That would be fun.’ But she shook her head, so sweet even saying no that you have to just stand there while she breaks your heart. It is not done for a priestess to go to market with a servant. ‘This is your time.’