Fire and Sacrifice

by Victoria Collins

  ‘Run.’

  ***

  Aemilia: ‘Please. Let him at least bring the sculpture, he has worked so hard!’

  But Terentia stood as straight and dark as a fire poker. ‘If he is seen here it will give credence to every accusation. I don’t want the whole city aware there’s been a man about all these weeks, for any reason! And if Elian is suspected? They will beat him to death.’

  Aemilia suppressed a dry sob, too horrified for tears.

  Terentia watched her a few moments, then said, ‘I have already sent him, my dear. He is safe.’

  ‘What? He wouldn’t!’ (A delicious hint of fire.)

  ‘It is only to protect you.’

  ‘Where? What’s been said of him?’

  ‘I don’t know. And nothing. Yet.’

  Aemilia looked up at her, blank, white. I could see the story unfold in Aemilia’s mind. I watched her sag with it: he will have gone back to Petra, far away from danger. He’ll be engulfed by all its riches and wonder and endless sun and his own people and there will be little to recommend this place ever again. He was gone. She slumped onto the temple step, allowing herself to sink into the fearful thoughts I know she could not truly believe, but that she knew it was best to embrace.

  Terentia lifted Aemilia to her feet. ‘My dear Aemilia, do not do us all the injustice of forgetting how powerful you are.’

  AIR

  Tristan

  November 114 BC

  ‘What does he want?’ Ember scowled under her breath, glaring a hole in the back of Scaurus’s head. Marcus Aemilius Scaurus was here again, bent in low conversation with Dalmaticus and Terentia. ‘What’s his story?’

  ‘Hard to say, but don’t be too quick to judge,’ I whispered, spinning her around so she was facing the well and stopped staring. ‘Scaurus is a protégé of the Metelli. Whatever shady figures he climbed over on his way up, Dalmaticus’s tribe saw fit to support him.’

  ‘He must have something to do with it.’

  ‘I don’t know. I think he’s here to help. Scaurus has the highest position in the senate, you know.’

  ‘Fat lot of help he’s being so far. Elian is still gone.’

  ‘He and Dalmaticus will be working on it, for sure. They’re both self-made men those two, none of daddy’s money there. Workers. Men of integrity. Well, I mean Dalmaticus’s family have a name, but they’re not the Families.’

  ‘So the Families will hate them too.’

  ‘Some maybe.’

  ‘So he could be making it worse.’

  ‘Scaurus is a loner. It’s a roundabout way to get to him through the priestesses – nah, it’s too far-fetched.’ But not such a stretch to get to Dalmaticus that way.

  ‘So we can’t actually tell if he’s helping or making it worse? Wow, some great ally. And that’s the best the senate has?’ She turned round to glare right at him. ‘Why doesn’t he just bugger off, then?’ She said it too loud, of all times for her voice to hold. Scaurus spun around. Ox balls.

  Dalmaticus turned too, then Terentia looking like she’d eat Ember alive and turn on me for dessert. I felt my face go raspberry. Discreet, Tristan, yep, nothing going on here.

  Partly to keep my own skin I scolded her, quietly, but in view of the three. ‘Secunda! Your temper will get you killed one day. Again!’

  ‘Ember. And Aemilia is innocent!’ she hissed. ‘Someone ought to be helping her!’

  ‘Her innocence doesn’t matter, Ember! Did yours?’ I regretted the words immediately but it was truth.

  WATER

  Pompeia

  November 114 BC

  There was a spider in a piece of wood that we’d put on the sacred fire. We didn’t see it until it ran along the log, its legs bent high and awful, on tiptoe from the heat. Normally we coax the spiders onto a stick and lift them free to scuttle out under the temple door. That day Aemilia just watched. Watched it race faster and faster round the log until it gave up and curled into a black ball in the hollow, awaiting its fate. She almost willed it dead. As did I. Fast. But something in her eyes stopped me saving it, Vesta help me. Somehow Aemilia needed it. She wanted to be it.

  EARTH

  Fragments

  Jaq D. Hawkins, Spirits of the Fire, Capall Bann, Somerset, 2000.

  Fire spirits are living spirits. Just as Earth spirits live within plants, Fire spirits live within the potential for flame . . .

  Creation and destruction live within the same potential, within the erratic mood shifts which characterize the spirits of Fire . . .

  It cleanses by consuming relentlessly until there is nothing left to consume.

  FIRE

  Ember

  November 114 BC

  Dalmaticus trudged into the sacred square, looking so green-faced and saggy that all of us who saw him coming ran to him, knowing there was news.

  A moment behind Dalmaticus, Tristan came sprinting in the square, saw that Dalmaticus had beaten him to us, stopped on his toes and shot me a despairing look. He hovered behind the head priest, listening and waiting.

  Terentia headed off Dalmaticus and ushered him toward the east corner of the square, where you can’t be seen from the street. Next to the kitchen.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘There’s been a name given,’ Dalmaticus said.

  ‘What name?’

  ‘Barrus.’

  ‘I don’t know it.’ (Terentia.)

  ‘A knight.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ she snapped, throwing up her hands. ‘The airhead augurs call for a knight and the factions deliver! Who gives the name?’

  ‘His slave, Manius.’

  ‘Beaten or paid?’

  ‘He says he bears witness to Aemilia seducing Barrus –’

  ‘That lying –’

  ‘– and his friends. And encouraging Marcia and Licinia into the act. They say Aemilia is the instigator of it all.’

  ‘Get out.’ I have never heard such venom in Terentia’s voice.

  She slammed the gate behind Dalmaticus. The public gate that is never shut. She turned to Tristan, giving him the first sign she noticed his presence.

  EARTH

  Fragments

  Cassius Dio Coceianus, Roman History, with a translation by Herbert Baldwin Foster (in Fragments of Book 26), William Heinemann, London, 1906, p. 437.

  Three altogether had had intercourse with men; and of them Marcia had acted individually, granting her favors to one single knight and would never have been discovered, had not the investigation into the cases of the others spread and overtaken her besides. Aemilia and Licinia had a multitude of lovers and carried on their wanton behavior with each other’s help. At first they surrendered themselves to some few privately and secretly, telling each man that he was the only one admitted. Later they themselves bound every one who could suspect and inform against them to certain silence in advance by the price of intercourse with them, and those who had previously enjoyed their conversation, though they saw this, yet endured it in order not to be detected by a show of vexation. So after holding commerce with many, now singly, now in groups, now privately, now publicly, Licinia enjoyed the society of the brother of Aemilia, and Aemilia that of Licinia’s brother. These doings were hidden for a great period of time, and though many men and many women, both free and slaves, were in the secret, it was hidden for a very long period, until one Manius, who seems to have been the first to assist and cooperate in the whole evil, gave information of the matter because he had not obtained freedom nor any of the other objects of his hope. He was, indeed, very skillful not only at leading women into prostitution, but also in slandering and ruining some of them.

  Thomas Cato Worsfold, The History of the Vestal Virgins in Rome, Rider & Company, London, 1932, p. 136.

  Some years ago in clearing out the fountain in the atrium a small triangular marble pedestal for a lamp was discovered. There is a sculptured relief on each side. On one side is a tree and under it an altar on which a fire is burning; perhaps the altar
of Vesta. On the other side a nude female figure standing with her back to the spectator – her arms are stretched upwards and outwards whilst she holds some oval object in her hands, towards which she is looking. Her mantle has fallen off her.

  WATER

  Pompeia

  November 114 BC

  Aemilia strode through the sacred square, eyes honed on the temple, priestessy and angry as hell. ‘We gonna get spooky?’ I asked, excited.

  ‘Uh huh!’

  She had the glow of warm white light around her that told me she was ready to invoke the goddess, or rather already had. It sent a shudder through me.

  Licinia pounced on it next, and one by one we followed Aemilia into the temple. She strode right in and blew on the fire so it flared in her face and she threw her arms wide and breathed in the heat and the smoke. I closed the doors behind us.

  ‘We are priestesses of the fire! We have power,’ said Licinia, as though rallying a crowd of thousands. ‘Are we really going to lie here and take this? Let’s scorch their hairy man-butts!’

  ‘Eloquently said, Licinia,’ Aemilia smiled wryly. ‘But you are right. It’s time we honoured our goddess, and ourselves. I am not going to allow these unjust accusations go unanswered.’

  I told Aemilia that I didn’t want her to invoke the fire goddess while she was like this, it was far too dangerous. It will get away from us.

  She was all about her anger – in part a disguise, even to herself, I believed, for the struggle with her own belief.

  ‘I can handle it,’ she said. Flat yet hot, like a black pan on the fire.

  ‘Isn’t that the point?’ said Licinia. ‘Let’s unleash the bloody thing! Let fire be fire for once: use this mood, use this power! This is not right! What could be worse?’

  She had a point.

  One by one we roused and formed a circle around the fire. We linked our arms, hand to shoulder, and we began to sway with the flame under Licinia’s lead. Once in our trance, warm, we let our clothes fall from our shoulders and anointed ourselves with our oils and ash from the sacred bowls, first held up in offering to the moon, to gather the sacred light with which to anoint ourselves also. The scent of the oils focused our senses as we breathed deep of fire spirit and became one.

  From somewhere deep inside me came a growl I did not recognise as my own, and that was our cue to form a chant. I don’t even remember what we said, if they were proper words, but it became a roar and we swayed bigger and faster and longer and we threw back our heads and we called forth the goddess in her most terrible, primal form. We laid ourselves bare and the goddess of fire thrust herself into us. We were urgent and rough like lovers, ready to take her in immediately, suddenly and as fully as possible. We threw our arms wide for more, vaguely aware of the flames fattening before us. There was only heat and rumbling and our anger incarnate.

  We honoured our anger. We let it live, that it would also die.

  Before it did, we threw our fury out those doors and ripping through the forum over the speaking platform and the senate house, into the marsh and up again from the depths of the earth, through the ancient black altar and to the houses of our enemies, trailing with it all the threats and laws and blackness of Vesta’s fiery home deep in the centre of the earth.

  We slept that night where we dropped on the temple floor.

  ***

  ‘It’s been done before,’ I coaxed her.

  But Aemilia shrank and squeaked, ‘I can’t. And Licinia asked me not to. It will put too much pressure on she and Marcia to do the same.’

  ‘You are our most powerful priestess. You can do it for all of us.’

  ‘He hasn’t visited.’

  EARTH

  Fragments

  The Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, with an English translation by Earnest Cary on the basis of the version of Edward Spelman, pp. 68–69.

  However, it is also well worth relating in what manner the goddess has manifested herself in favour of those virgins who have been falsely accused. For these things, however incredible they may be, have been believed by the Romans and their historians have related much about them. To be sure, the professors of the atheistic philosophies, — if, indeed, their theories deserve the name of philosophy, — who ridicule all the manifestations of the gods which have taken place among either the Greeks or barbarians, will also laugh at these reports to scorn and attribute them to human imposture, on the ground that none of the gods concern themselves in anything relating to mankind. Those, however, who do not absolve the gods from the care of human affairs, but, after looking deeply into history, hold that they are favourable to the good and hostile to the wicked, will not regard even these manifestations as incredible. It is said, then, that once, when the fire had been extinguished through some negligence on the part of Aemilia*, who had the care of it at the time and had entrusted it to another virgin, one of those who had been newly chosen and were then learning their duties, the whole city was in great commotion and an inquiry was made by the pontiffs whether there might not have been some defilement of the priestess to account for the extinction of the fire. Thereupon, they say, Aemilia, who was innocent, but distracted at what had happened, stretched out her hands toward the altar and in the presence of the priests and the rest of the virgins cried: ‘O Vesta, guardian of the Romans’ city, if, during the space of nearly thirty years, I have performed the sacred offices to thee in a holy and proper manner, keeping a pure mind and a chaste body, do thou manifest thyself in my defence and assist me and do not suffer thy priestess to die the most miserable of all deaths; but if I have been guilty of any impious deed, let my punishment expiate the guilt of the city.’ Having said this, she tore off the band of the linen garment she had on and threw it upon the altar, they say, following her prayer; and from the ashes, which had been long cold and retained no spark, a great flame flared up through the linen, so that the city no longer required either expiations or a new fire.

  But what I am going to relate is still more wonderful and more like a myth. They say that somebody unjustly accused one of the holy virgins, whose name was Tuccia, and although he was unable to point to the extinction of the fire as evidence, he advanced false arguments based on plausible proofs and depositions; and that the virgin, being ordered to make her defence, said only this, that she would clear herself from the accusation by her deeds. Having said this and called upon the goddess to be her guide, she led the way to the Tiber, with the consent of the pontiffs and escorted by the whole population of the city; and when she came to the river, she was so hardy as to undertake the task which, according to the proverb, is among the most impossible of achievement: she drew up water from the river in a sieve, and carrying it as far as the forum, poured it out at the feet of the pontiffs. After which, they say, her accuser, though great search was made for him, could never be found either alive or dead.

  * This Aemilia is not the Aemilia of our story, but another Vestal by the same name who served generations earlier.

  WATER

  Pompeia

  November 114 BC

  It is dark moon. It is the time of our bleed and we all carry the dark moon inside us, swelling our abdomen like a babe. The constant ache is a reminder of the powerful secret sacred work being done, and the tender protest at each step a reminder to honour this time with gentleness and stillness.

  We were gathered in the lounge and darling Secunda – Ember – had brought us all our favourites, to comfort us. I could tell she wished she bled with us, wished to be close enough to share in our rhythm. She will one day, I’m sure.

  For me she brought honeycomb with soft cheese and bacon crumbs. For Marcia, plain honeycomb. Aemilia, olives with pepper oil; Licinia, raw oysters with black salt; Flavia, roasted chestnuts with cumquat pieces; and for Terentia, even though she was too old to bleed, her favourite fried bait fish with hot fish sauce. Ember must have worked all day!

  ‘Aargh! I hate this waiting!’ Flavia suddenly burst and stamped her foot.
‘I hate it!’

  ‘Waiting for what?’ Licinia snapped.

  ‘Which of us they will try first,’ Aemilia said dully.

  ‘Not if our invocation worked. I don’t know about you lot but I sent a fair fire up the augurs’ bums!’ Licinia said.

  Right then, at the perfect moment or the worst, I dropped a big crumb of honeycomb down my cleavage, plus an oily piece of bacon that made me do a little dance while I dug for it, chasing it inside my tunic. ‘Oh fiddlepoo!’ I said; I have no idea where the word came from but it sent Licinia and Flavia into a flop of giggles, until they were crying with it.

  ‘Fiddlepoo!’ they laughed.

  I dug out the honeycomb and ate it and they laughed even more.

  ‘What else have you got down there?’

  ‘You could snare a hare down that burrow!’

  That sent us all into helplessness; even Terentia gave that loud bark of hers and Urgulania let out her loud, gravelly chuckle.

  ‘I can’t help my curves!’ I said. ‘It’s my waters – I’m motherly.’

  ‘Yes, you are, my sweet,’ said Aemilia.

  ‘When Aemilia and Terentia are gone, there’s no doubt who will be our Mother!’ Licinia meant it kindly but the thought of it – and the awful moment when the girls all sucked in a breath – turned my laugh-tears into sad-tears and suddenly I was sobbing and crying, then laughing at myself for crying, then crying because I was such a mess.

  I looked around the room and we were all crying for no apparent reason – well, all but our old hens Laynie and Terentia, and Ember.

  Menstrual tears are crystal clear tears. They are cleansing tears that exist only for their own sake, just salts and water and residue of things long passed in nameless places deep down, like the Spring of Juturna. Marcia’s tears that night were different. Urgulania saw too. Marcia’s tears were thick with meaning and heat, tears that had waited for an opportunity to be shed in disguise.