Fire and Sacrifice

by Victoria Collins

  FIRE

  Ember

  November 114 BC

  ‘Tell Dalmaticus it is time for the inspections.’

  I didn’t know what for but the tone in Terentia’s voice stopped me from asking.

  The rest of the morning unfolded without words. I came to know this was a thing the priestesses had to do and had always done. The outrage had been buried centuries ago, and it was the best I could do that day to keep my own from my face.

  They dutifully bundled up their cloths at first rising into a lidded earthen pot and Terentia took first inspection in the privacy of each priestess’s room. From then, each day of their bleed the priestesses take their own cloths in the pots to burn them in the sacred fire, their testament to the goddess that they remain pure and barren for her. Then they take the pots to rinse in the sacred spring.

  But on the first day each had to be inspected by the high priest.

  Five pots for five priestesses forever in danger, forever watched. All except Terentia, who was too old and had gone through the change.

  ‘But how do we know when?’ I asked, stalling, barely able to understand I was so outraged.

  ‘Remember last night?’

  I still didn’t understand.

  ‘The girls all bleed at the same time,’ Urgulania explained. ‘It happens when women are very close for a long time. This lot all start in the same hour, every month.’

  I didn’t remember my mother and my sister doing that.

  She barked a laugh. ‘Poor Dalmaticus, he didn’t know either. That was fun. Men have no idea. I think he panicked that every woman in Rome bled at the same time! The terror on his face!’ She laughed at the fond memory. ‘It’s powerful women who bleed at Dark Moon. Women so connected to goddess wisdom that their very bodies know that Dark Moon is a time for going inward, of deep-running sacred power the depths of which can only be fully felt by the feminine. Unknowable, unseen things happen at Dark Moon.’

  I wanted with all my soul to be part of the bleed with my priestesses. Urgulania saw it on my face.

  ‘I’d say one day you will join them in the bleed, after you’re here a while,’ she said.

  I don’t bleed.

  Mother said it was probably the burns. I’ve heard some say it’s the worry, among slave girls; fighting for life every day takes a toll. My sister bleeds. She doesn’t have the worry. She’s pretty. The brother and cousin want her and they like to keep her for themselves. She thinks she’s protected. Chosen. She used to pretend to not care or notice when the masters offered other slaves to guests in her place, sometimes even Mother. I noticed. It’s why she hated me, among a list of things.

  Urgulania just shrugged. ‘Let’s see.’ She always had a different smile for when she was sure of a divination and when she mostly just hoped. She thought they looked the same, but I could tell.

  Dalmaticus insisted the pots be brought across to the Regia each month. His ground.

  ‘The pots, girls’, Terentia whispered as breakfast finished.

  There was fervour around the morning’s preparations. This month was the most important that had ever been. They were already accused. This was at least some proof they could be innocent.

  The priestesses knew exactly what to do and were mostly ready. The three younger priestesses were already coming out of the house with their pots towards Terentia at the temple steps. They would congregate there so one eye could be kept on the fire while the inspections were completed.

  Terentia readied for an announcement to the streets above and around that she knew would stop to watch, but harried voices in the house stopped her.

  Pompeia and Aemilia were rushing around in there.

  Anger and alarm flashed back and forth across Terentia’s face. A moment more and a look from Urgulania made her decision. She turned to the younger three. ‘Girls, into the temple a moment,’ she said, as blandly as she could muster.

  I took the chance of following Terentia and Urgulania into the house, sure they were too distracted to notice my presence.

  ‘What?’ Terentia hissed at the priestesses as they stood to attention at their bedroom doors.

  But Aemilia’s shaking hands threw her. Something was very wrong.

  Aemilia started to say, ‘It’s nothing, Mother, I’m sorry. We’ve fixed –’ But the look on Terentia’s face liquified the thin lie and it fell, unfinished, down Aemilia’s cheek and onto the lid of the pot. You will break my heart if you lie to my face right now, please don’t break my heart.

  Aemilia let out a ragged breath.

  Another unspoken conversation flashed through the circle of women and Terentia and Urgulania ushered us all into Aemilia’s room.

  ‘I haven’t bled.’ Aemilia sat on the bed, bewildered, her eyes dark water. ‘I swear to Vesta I have not . . . never, I would not. I would not betray you, Mother, gods, please know it. Please!’

  ‘She can’t possibly have, I have been with her. She wouldn’t!’ I blurted, more to the point.

  Terentia nodded to me over her shoulder as though she’d known all along I was there. She looked long and hard at Aemilia, then at Urgulania for corroboration. With a sad smile from Urgulania, Terentia took Aemilia’s hand.

  ‘We believe you, sweet girl. Take a breath.’ Terentia tidied a stray hair above Aemilia’s ear. ‘Of course you haven’t, Pet.’

  ‘Worry can make a woman’s body close up,’ Urgulania reassured, to nods all round. Pompeia sniffed noisily.

  Of course she hasn’t broken her vow. Secretly, I’ll admit I was a little bit pleased to know that Aemilia’s cycle suddenly matched mine, after all.

  ‘They’ve named men already!’

  ‘Shhhh! Lower your voice. No one believes those ridiculous rumours.’

  Aemilia didn’t believe her.

  ‘None of us. If I were to postpone the inspection a day or two? Do you feel anything coming?’

  Aemilia shook her head.

  ‘And I’ve already told Dalmaticus,’ Terentia sighed. ‘What’s in the pot?’

  ‘Pompeia’s.’

  ‘Alright. Good. Well, you can’t go before Dalmaticus with that look on your face. Pull yourself together. Pinch your cheeks.’ With a pat of Aemilia’s knee we were dismissed and left to watch Terentia’s straight back as she swept back out to the temple square and summon the others from the temple, ready to go.

  ‘Priestesses of Vesta, your high priest awaits,’ Terentia called for all the streets to hear.

  The girls had formed a single-file line, heads down, holding their pots.

  ‘Aemilia?’ Terentia queried.

  ‘We are pure and ready for judgement, Sacred Mother,’ Aemilia gave the ritual response.

  Terentia led the priestesses across the Sacred Way between the temple and the Regia, each holding their own pot of bloodied cloths for inspection.

  At least six other priests had been summoned to the Regia and sat on the two benches in the sun to the side of Dalmaticus’s small courtyard to watch the procession. They studied each priestess’s face as she took her turn approaching Dalmaticus, watching for a hint of uncertainty, a hint that that she was not convinced of her cargo.

  ‘Don’t look at them,’ Urgulania warned harshly. So they are there every month. What kind of man has such a thing in his calendar?

  Dalmaticus stood square, with the distinct aura of a man forcing himself to not run, or throw up.

  We put Aemilia at the end, by which time he’d be wishing it was over and his inspections most cursory. At the front of the line, and long since exempt, Terentia opened proceedings. ‘Lucius Caecilius Metellus Dalmaticus, High Priest of Rome, we thank you for receiving us.’ She took in the other priests but pointedly did not acknowledge them.

  ‘The priestesses of Vesta offer reassurance that their wombs remain barren as the goddess herself, and their rites continue according to the laws of the Temple of Vesta, for the people and the republic of Rome.’

  Dalmaticus nodded formally and waved Terentia p
ast.

  She continued. ‘As the priestesses present the blood of their wombs they allow you to glimpse into the mystery of the sacred feminine, to witness the most private, most unknowable and enduring of abilities of the childless goddess and her childless priestesses. As the fire goddess cleanses and purifies all, so before you is the ash of the priestesses’ wombs in their perpetual cycle of cleansing and renewal of the untouched body. You have before you proof of their power and their purity. Men can never understand Vesta’s truths but they have long known her power, and as Virgins of the Vestal Temple we stand each as trusted protectress of her rites.’

  Dalmaticus’s eyes glinted acknowledgment of Terentia’s challenge.

  ‘The priestesses of Vesta have served Rome well, your grace.’ Terentia stepped aside for Marcia to step forward first and lift the lid on her pot.

  And so it was that our inspection became not the disgusting, shameful ordeal I expected but a dance of power, our hearts pounding not in fear but because we rose to a challenge, answered a call to prove our worth and each priestess opened her lid and looked right at Dalmaticus as though she were presenting him a pot of gold.

  Looking back, I have to respect Dalmaticus for holding himself in the face of it. He was a man, after all, and they didn’t come any more manly than him.

  He was caught between the priestesses and the rest of the College of Priests, and probably the senate.

  But I hated all the priests that day. I revelled in watching Dalmaticus’s face go red, then green, as each lid was lifted and he was forced to look inside. Look, damn you!

  And he did.

  As soon as Aemilia had presented her pot, which to Dalmaticus seemed somehow the most distasteful, he made his ritual announcement that we had passed our test, and made immediately for his chambers, walking past the other priests without a single glance of recognition.

  ***

  ‘Aemilia will go to the festival of Bona Dea!’ Tristan said excitedly, loud enough for all three of us, me and Urgulania and Helvi, scattered about our work. Brilliant. Let’s see the fresco ladies take her on. I called the women at Peducaeus’s house the ‘frescos’, their faces all painted but nothing underneath. They had no depth. My beautiful priestesses have no show, no painted faces, no fancy fabrics and colours to hide behind. They can’t pretend at wonderful, they have to be it.

  ‘Licinia’s going too,’ Tristan kept on. ‘I heard Dalmaticus with one of the priests in the Temple of Castor and Pollux. He was livid.’

  ‘Dalmaticus?’ I didn’t know where Dalmaticus stood anymore.

  ‘The priest. He said the priestesses will defile another ritual and make everything worse. People won’t believe in their powers at Bona Dea and they’ll ruin the whole thing . . . in not so many words.’

  ‘What? Lying bastard.’ I thonked down a log, too hard.

  ‘But Dalmaticus said if they don’t go, the people will lose faith. They’ll take that as him and the pontifices removing the priestesses from public ritual and then everyone will think the worst and panic even more. “The priestesses will hear nothing of it,” Dalmaticus said. But the priest didn’t like that. He said, “You do not want to accommodate any questioning over your ability to control your priestesses, Maximus – or your objectivity.”’

  Tristan was fairly alight with his tale. He talked so fast I barely followed, but I got the gist. Helvi didn’t take her eyes off him, not following at all except that something very exciting was on.

  ‘But Dalmaticus is Dalmaticus. He said, “The priestesses are not yet proven guilty. Are you afraid they may use the event to garner allies?” Then – and this is the thing – Dalmaticus said, “You would not have me pre-empt the word of the College of Priests? Deny them their right to preside over the matter for themselves, in the sanctity of trial?”’ Tristan paused and looked me fearfully. Red blotches rose up his neck, how it gets when he’s stressed or embarrassed.

  I didn’t follow for a moment, then Urgulania threw her knife into the chopping board, burying the tip deep with a thonk and twang. She strode off, I guessed in search of Terentia.

  ‘There is to be a trial,’ I whispered to myself.

  ‘Yes. December sixteenth. Aemilia first. Then Marcia and Licinia after Saturnalia.’

  AIR

  Tristan

  December 114 BC

  It was the kind of thing that slithers past your feet in black water. It was not a thinking thing anymore, just a hungry thing that fed on darkness.

  There were no details to be had. We would never know precisely how this nightmare came to be, what plot there was to uncover and rebuke, what name at its head.

  But it was not a single thing, either. It felt to me more like a writhing ball of things twisting together and over each other. A lair of hungry things had been awoken by distant thunder, and each rushed at a sudden opportunity to feed.

  ‘There has to be a trial,’ Scaurus said. ‘Otherwise what? Tell the populace their augurs got it wrong? Another group they put their faith in, to listen to the gods? And what will that do for the precious stability of Rome?’

  ‘Then my girls’ lives are in your hands, friend.’ Something in Terentia’s voice sounded more like a threat. Terentia couldn’t bear sitting. She stood in her white robes like a haunting over Dalmaticus and Scaurus in the dim light of the Regia. I tried to wash the dishes as quietly as possible in the background so as not to remind them I was there.

  Since the trial was set, Terentia grounded me from my daily excursions for the whisper. She didn’t want the people in the forum remembering I was with the priestesses. Being a Gaul, Dad and me represented everything the populace was scared of: barbarians. She never said it but that’s what she meant. She wanted me safe, she said, which meant she didn’t want us flogged as accomplices. So I hung around Dalmaticus’s place as much as I could, because that’s where the visitors went these days.

  ‘Our trust is in you.’ (Terentia.)

  ‘The people want reassurance. I don’t think the deaths of three beloved priestesses will give them that.’

  I wasn’t always sure if Scaurus was to be believed.

  ‘The senate would not dare allow it. Rest assured there are reasons why I am head of the senate and Dalmaticus head priest, and, no doubt, you head Vestal.’

  ‘I’m still trying to work out how you get away with being such an arrogant prick.’ Dalmaticus was not so calm. ‘But sure as shit they won’t dare! They can drop us in it but we come out clean. They have their ridiculous trial, we test the theory and prove it wrong, meantime we win again in Dalmatia, the people go home relieved, and we go home safe.’

  Terentia nodded solemnly but something kept her at the table. It was a little too easy, and they had five girls to protect.

  ‘And why these three, then?’ she asked quietly. ‘Is it coincidence that the three accused are all of the Old Families? Who put forward the names? And why also the names of their brothers among all other men? Tell me there are not some who would use this trial to advantage.’

  Scaurus suppressed a grin of approval. ‘Whoever put the names forward is smart enough to use clients, and clients of clients, to stay removed. In short, we don’t know. But it’s part of the show. It would seem there are some in the populace using this to test the senate against ongoing charges of corruption. We are being challenged to prosecute members of the Old Families because we are charged with looking after them too much, of them ruling the senate still. The question on many lips, matron, is will the Old Families prosecute their own, or will they show their true colours and ignore the charges.’

  ‘But the senate will not preside over this,’ Dalmaticus shifted forward. ‘I will. The College of Priests presides over any religious case. The senate has only so much influence here.’

  Terentia swept off in that way she does, that leaves you unsure whether she’s satisfied or not. She stole a glance at me on her way.

  Dalmaticus and Scaurus were quiet until Terentia would surely have entered the temp
le square and pulled the gate.

  ‘How am I supposed to protect them?’ Dalmaticus picked at the table.

  Scaurus shrugged. ‘The young members of the College of Priests need to show they are their own power, standing apart from the senate. Encourage them. The aristocrat senators get their trial, and as such the appearance of integrity. The college gets to rule acquittal and as such show the senate they are not under the thumb. And, as you say, we go home safe.’

  ‘And what of appeasing the populace? What of the stability of Rome?’

  Scaurus paused. ‘Within forty years we have taken Africa, Macedonia, Dalmatia, Babylon, Pergamum. Power in Rome now is power over lands almost to the sunrise itself, and discontent at home makes that power precarious. The powers that be would kill a hundred of their own sons to protect the stability of Rome.’

  EARTH

  Fragments

  Friedrich Munzer, Roman Aristocratic Parties and Families, with English translation by Therese Ridley, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1999, p. 223.

  Of the families of the other two Vestals, Aemilia and Marcia, we learn nothing more than the accusation preserved in Dio: ‘Licinia had relations with the brother of Aemilia, and Aemilia with the brother of Licinia.’ It is not intended to hazard a guess about these brothers Aemilius and Licinius (Crassus), but rather to remember that in the same period in which the action of the father C Licinius Crassus against the priesthood occurred, we found also an Aemilius and a Marcius in alliance with each other and against one of the high colleges. In 145 Crassus was plebeian tribune, in 144 Q Marcius Rex was praetor, and in 143 M Aemilius Lepidus Porcina was his successor; Crassus clashed with the priesthood over the question of co-optation and Marcius and Lepidus with the decemvri sacris faciundis over the building of the aqueduct. Might not the Vestals convicted almost thirty years later all have been closely related to these men, perhaps even their daughters?