by Anne Rice
That night I did make a very funny epic. My Father laughed. He fell asleep on his couch. And then, as if from a trance state, he spoke, “Lydia, don’t live out your life alone on account of me. Marry for love! You must not give up!”
By the time I turned around, he was breathing deeply again.
Two weeks later, or maybe it was a month, our life came abruptly to an end.
I came home one day, found the house completely empty except for two terrified old slave men—men who actually belonged to the household of my brother Antony—who let me in and bolted the door ferociously.
I walked through the huge vestibule and then into the peristyle and into the dining room. I beheld an amazing sight.
My Father was in full battle dress, armed with sword and dagger, lacking only his shield. He even wore his red cloak. His breastplate was polished and gleaming.
He stared at the floor and with reason. It had been dug up. The old Hearth from generations ago had been dug up. This had been the first room of this house in the very ancient days of Rome, and it was around this Hearth that the family gathered, worshiped, dined.
I had never even seen it. We had our household Shrines, but this, this giant circle of burnt stones! There were actually ashes there, uncovered. How ominous and sacred it appeared.
“What in the name of the gods is going on?” I asked. “Where is everybody?”
“They are gone,” he said. “I have freed the slaves, sent them packing. I’ve been waiting for you. You have to leave here now!”
“Not without you!”
“You will not disobey me, Lydia!” I had never seen such an imploring yet dignified expression in his face. “There’s a wagon out back, ready to take you to the coast, and a Jewish merchant who is my most trusted friend who will take you by ship out of Italy! I want you to go! Your money’s been loaded on board the ship. Your clothing. Everything. These are men I trust. Nevertheless take this dagger.”
He picked up a dagger from the nearby table and gave it to me. “You’ve watched your brothers enough to know how to use it,” he said, “and this.” He reached for a sack. “This is gold, the currency that all the world accepts. Take it and go.”
I always carried a dagger, and it was in the sling on my forearm but I could not shock him with this just now, so I put the dagger in my girdle and took the purse.
“Father, I’m not afraid to stand by you! Who’s turned on us? Father, you are Senator of Rome. Accused of any crime, you are entitled to a trial before the Senate.”
“Oh, my precious quick-witted daughter! You think that evil Sejanus and his Delatores bring charges out in the open? His Speculatores have already surprised your brothers and their wives and children. These are Antony’s slaves. He sent them to warn me as he fought, as he died. He saw his son dashed against the wall. Lydia, go.”
Of course I knew this was a Roman custom—to murder the entire family, to wipe out the spouse and offspring of the condemned. It was even the law. And in matters such as this, when word got out that the Emperor had turned his back on a man, any of his enemies could precede the assassins.
“You come with me,” I said. “Why do you stay here?”
“I will die a Roman in my house,” he said. “Now go if you love me, my poet, my singer, my thinker. My Lydia. Go! I will not be disobeyed. I have spent the last hour of my life arranging for your salvation! Kiss me and obey me.”
I ran to him, kissed him on the lips and at once the slaves led me through the garden.
I knew my Father. I could not revolt against him in this final wish. I knew that, in old-fashioned Roman style, he would probably take his life before the Speculatores broke down the front door.
When I reached the gate, when I saw the Hebrew merchants and their wagon, I couldn’t go.
This is what I saw.
My Father had cut both his wrists and was walking around the household hearth in a circle, letting the blood flow right down onto the floor. He had really given his wrists the slash. He was turning white as he walked. In his eyes there was an expression I would only come to understand later.
There came a loud crash. The front door was being bashed in. My Father stopped quite still. And two of the Praetorian Guard came at him, one making sneering remarks, “Why don’t you finish yourself off, Maximus, and save us the trouble. Go on.”
“Are you proud of yourselves!” my Father said. “Cowards. You like killing whole families? How much money do you get? Did you ever fight in a true battle. Come on, die with me!”
Turning his back on them, he whipped around with sword and dagger, and brought down both of them, as they came at him, with unanticipated thrusts. He stabbed them repeatedly.
My Father wobbled as if he would faint. He was white. The blood flowed and flowed from his wrists. His eyes rolled up into his head.
Mad schemes came to me. We must get him into the wagon. But a Roman like my Father would never have cooperated.
Suddenly the Hebrews, one young and one elderly, had me by the arms and were carrying me out of the house.
“I vowed I would save you,” said the old man. “And you will not make a liar of me to my old friend.”
“Let go of me!” I whispered. “I will see him through it!”
Throwing them off in their polite timidity I turned and saw from a great distance my Father’s body by the hearth. He had finished himself with his own dagger.
I was thrown into the wagon, my eyes closed, my hands over my mouth. I fell among soft pillows, bolts of fabric, tumbling as the wagon began to roll very slowly down the winding road of the Palatine Hill.
Soldiers shouted at us to get the hell out of the way.
The elderly Hebrew said, “I am nearly deaf, sir, what did you say?”
It worked perfectly. They rode past us.
The Hebrew knew exactly what he was doing. As crowds rushed past us he kept to his slow pace.
The one young one came into the back of the wagon. “My name is Jacob,” he said. “Here, put on all these white mantles. You look now like an Eastern woman. If questioned at the gate, hold up your veil and pretend you do not understand.”
We went through the Gates of Rome with amazing ease. It was “Hail David and Jacob, has it been a good trip?”
I was helped aboard a large merchant vessel, with galley slaves and sails, nothing unusual at all, and then into a small barren wooden room.
“This is all we have for you,” said Jacob. “But we are sailing now.” He had long wavy brown hair and a beard. He wore striped robes to the ground.
“In the dark?” I asked. “Sailing in the dark?”
This was not usual.
But as we moved out, as the oars began to dip, and the ship found its proper distance and began to move South, I saw what we were doing.
All the beautiful Southwestern coast of Italy was well lighted by her hundreds and hundreds of palatial villas. Lighthouses stood on the rocks.
“We will never see the Republic again,” said Jacob wearily, as though he were a Roman citizen, which I think in fact he was. “But your Father’s last wish is fulfilled. We are safe now.”
The old man stepped up to me. He told me that his name was David.
The old man apologized profusely that there were no female attendants for me. I was the only woman on board.
“Oh, please, banish any such thoughts from your mind! Why have you taken these risks?”
“For years we have done business with your Father,” said David. “Years ago, when pirates sank our ships, your Father carried the debt. He trusted us again, and we repaid him fivefold. He has laid up riches for you. They are all stowed, among cargo we carried, as if they were nothing.”
I went into the cabin and collapsed on the small bed. The old man, averting his eyes, brought a cover for me.
Slowly I realized something. I had fully expected them to betray me.
I had no words. I had no gestures or sentiments inside me. I turned my head to the wall. “Sleep, lady,
” he said.
A nightmare came to me, a dream such as I have never had in my life. I was near a river. I wanted to drink blood. I waited in high grass to catch one of the villagers, and when I had this poor man, I took him by his shoulders, and I sank two fang teeth into his neck. My mouth filled with delicious blood. It was too sweet and too potent to be described, and even in the dream I knew it. But I had to move on. The man was nearly dead. I let him fall. Others who were more dangerous were after me. And there was another terrible threat to my life.
I came to the ruins of a Temple, far from the marsh. Here it was desert—just with the snap of the fingers, from wetland to sand. I was afraid. Morning was coming. I had to hide. Besides, I was also being hunted. I digested this delicious blood, and I entered the Temple. No place to hide! I lay my whole body on the cold walls! They were graven with pictures. But there was no small room, no hiding place for me.
I had to make it to the hills before sunrise, but that wasn’t possible. I was moving right towards the sun!
Suddenly, there came above the hills a great fatal light. My eyes hurt unbearably. They were on fire. “My eyes,” I cried and reached to cover them. Fire covered me. I screamed. “Amon Ra, I curse you!” I cried another name. I knew it meant Isis, but it was not that name, it was another title for her that flew from my lips.
I woke up. I sat bolt upright, shivering.
The dream had been as sharply defined as a vision. It had a deep resonance in me of memory. Had I lived before?
I went out on the deck of the ship. All was well enough. We could see the coastline clearly still, and the lighthouses, and the ship moved on. I stared at the sea, and I wanted blood.
“This is not possible. This is some evil omen, some twisted grief,” I said. I felt the fire. I could not shut out the taste of the blood, how natural it had seemed, how good, how perfect for my thirst. I saw the twisted body of the villager again in the marshes.
This was a horror; it was no escape from what I had just witnessed. I was incensed, and feverish.
Jacob, the tall young one, came to me. He had with him a young Roman. The young man had shaved his first beard, but otherwise he seemed a flushed and glistening child.
I wondered wearily if I were so old at thirty-five that everyone young looked beautiful to me.
He cried, “My family, too, has been betrayed. My Mother made me leave!”
“To whom do we owe this shared catastrophe?” I asked. I put my hands on his wet cheeks. He had a baby’s mouth, but the shaven beard was rough. He had broad strong shoulders, and wore only a light, simple tunic. Why wasn’t he cold out here on the water? Perhaps he was.
He shook his head. He was pretty still and would be handsome later. He had a nice curl to his dark hair. He didn’t fear his tears, or apologize for them.
“My Mother stayed alive to tell me. She lay gasping until I came. When the Delatores had told my Father that he plotted against the Emperor, my Father had laughed. He had actually laughed. They had accused him of plotting with Germanicus! My Mother wouldn’t die until she’d told me. She said that all my Father was accused of doing was talking with other men about how he would serve under Germanicus again if they were sent North.”
I nodded wearily. “I see. My brothers probably said the same thing. And Germanicus is the Emperor’s heir and Imperium Maius of the East. Yet this is treason, to speak of serving Rome under a pretty general.”
I turned to go. To understand gave no consolation.
“We are taking you to different cities,” said Jacob, “to different friends. Better that we not say.”
“Don’t leave me,” said the boy. “Not tonight.”
“All right,” I said. I took him into the cabin and closed the door, with a polite nod to Jacob, who was watching all with a guardian’s conscience.
“What do you want?” I asked.
The boy stared at me. He shook his head. He flung his hands out. He turned and drew close to me and kissed me. We went into a rampage of kisses.
I took off my shift and sank into the bed with him. He was a man all right, tender face or no.
And when I came to the moment of ecstasy, which was quite easy, given his phenomenal stamina, I tasted blood. I was the blood drinker in the dream. I went limp, but it didn’t matter. He had all he needed to finish the rites to his satisfaction.
He rose up. “You’re a goddess,” he said.
“No,” I whispered. The dream was rising. I heard the wind on the sand. I smelled the river. “I am a god . . . a god who drinks blood.”
We did the rites of love until we could do them no more.
“Be circumspect and very proper with our Hebrew hosts,” I said. “They will never understand this sort of thing.”
He nodded. “I adore you.”
“Not necessary. What is your name?”
“Marcellus.”
“Fine, Marcellus, go to sleep.”
Marcellus and I made a night of every night after that until we finally saw the famous lighthouse of Pharos and knew we had come to Egypt.
It was perfectly obvious that Marcellus was being left in Alexandria. He explained to me that his maternal grandmother was still alive, a Greek, and indeed her whole clan.
“Don’t tell me so much, just go,” I said. “And be wise and safe.”
He begged me to come with him. He said he had fallen in love with me. He would marry me. He didn’t care if I bore no children. He didn’t care that I was thirty-five. I laughed softly, mercifully.
Jacob noted all this with lowered eyes. And David looked away.
Quite a few trunks followed Marcellus into Alexandria.
“Now,” I said to Jacob, “will you tell me where I’m being taken? I might have some thoughts on the matter, though I doubt I could improve on my Father’s plan.”
I still wondered. Would they deal honestly with me? What about now that they had seen me play the whore with the boy? They were such religious men.
“You’re headed to a great city,” Jacob said. “It couldn’t be a better place. Your Father has Greek friends there!”
“How could it be better than Alexandria?” I said.
“Oh, it is far and away better,” Jacob said. “Let me talk to my Father before I talk to you further.”
We had put out to sea. The land was going away. Egypt. It was growing dark.
“Don’t be afraid,” Jacob said. “You look as though you are terrified.”
“I’m not afraid,” I said. “It’s only that I have to lie in my bed and think and remember and dream.” I looked at him, as he shyly looked away. “I held the boy like a Mother, against me, night after night.”
This was about the biggest lie I’ve told in my life.
“He was a child in my arms.” Some child! “And now I fear nightmares. You must tell me—what is our destination? What is our fate?”
3
NTIOCH,” said Jacob, “Antioch on the Orontes. Greek friends of your Father await you. And they are friends with Germanicus. Perhaps in time . . . but they will be loyal to you. You are to be married to a Greek of breeding and means.”
Married! To a Greek, a provincial Greek? A Greek in Asia! I stifled my laughter and my tears. That was not going to happen to me. Poor man! If he really was a provincial Greek, he was going to have to experience the conquest of Rome all over again.
We sailed on, from port to port. I mulled all this over.
It was nauseating trivia like this which of course protected me from my full and inevitable grief and shock over what happened. Worry about whether your dress is properly girdled. Don’t see your Father lying dead with his own dagger in his chest.
As for Antioch, I had been far too embroiled in the life of Rome to know or hear much about this city. If Tiberius had stationed his “heir,” Germanicus, there to get him away from Roman popularity, then I thought: Antioch must be the end of the civilized world.
Why in the name of the gods had I not run away in Alexandr
ia, I thought? Alexandria was the greatest city in the Empire, next to Rome. It was a young city, built by Alexander, for whom it was named, but it Was a marvelous port. No one would ever dare raze the Temple of Isis in Alexandria. Isis was an Egyptian goddess, wife of the powerful Osiris.
But what had that to do with things? I must have been plotting in the back of my mind already, but I didn’t allow any conscious plot to surface and blemish my highborn Roman moral character.
I quietly thanked my Hebrew guardians for this intelligence, for keeping it even from the young Roman Marcellus, the other man they had rescued from the Emperor’s assassins, and I asked for frank answers to my questions regarding my brothers.
“All taken by surprise,” said Jacob. “The Delatores, those spies of the Praetorian Guard, are so swift. And your Father had so many sons. It was your eldest brother’s slaves who jumped the wall at their Master’s command and ran to warn your Father.”
Antony. I hope you shed their blood. I know you fought with your last breath. And my niece, my little niece Flora, had she run screaming from them, or did they do it with mercy? The Praetorian Guard doing anything with mercy! Stupid to even think so.
I didn’t say anything aloud. Just sighed.
After all, when they looked at me, these two Jewish merchants beheld the body and face of a woman; naturally my protectors should think a woman was inside of me. The disparity between outward appearances and inner disposition had disturbed me all my life. Why disturb Jacob and David? On to Antioch.
But I had no intention of living in any old-fashioned Greek family, if such still existed in the Greek city of Antioch, a family in which women lived apart from the men, and wove wool all day, never going out, having no part in the life of the world whatsoever.
I’d been taught all the virtuous female arts by my nurses and I could indeed do anything with yarn or thread or loom that any other woman could do, but I knew well what the “Old Greek Ways” had been, and I remembered vaguely my Father’s Mother, who had died when I was very young—a virtuous Roman matron who was always making wool. So they had said of her in her Epitaph, and in fact, they had said in my Mother’s Epitaph: “She kept the House. She made wool.”
