The Egyptian Royals Collection (138 page)

I could see that Pollio wanted to object, but he nodded instead. “Yes.… Yes, of course. Up the stairs, to the right,” he directed.

Julia looked at me.

“You’re going to go with her?” Alexander exclaimed.

“Why not?”

“Because there’ll be blood. And sickness.”

“It’s a birth, not the plague.”

“Women don’t mind it,” Marcellus assured my brother.

I followed Julia up the stairs, and the pitiful sound of a woman’s cries led us to a dimly lit chamber at the very back of the house. When we opened the door, the stench of sweat made my stomach clench, and I wondered if my brother had been right.

Horatia gasped when she saw us. “Julia!” She was already seated on the birthing chair. She was entirely naked except for a
palla
around her shoulders. Midwives were huddled at the base of the chair where the child would drop through the hole into their arms. Horatia was breathing very heavily, and as Julia rushed forward, I held back. I had never before witnessed a birth.

“Horatia,” Julia said tenderly, and she wiped her friend’s brow with her hand.

“It’s coming,” Horatia groaned. “I can feel it.”

“Keep pushing,” a midwife encouraged.

“What have they given you?” Julia asked.

“A little wine.”

“That’s it?” Julia cried. “No verbena?”

“Nothing!” Horatia groaned, gripping the leather arms of the chair. “Pollio won’t allow it.”

“Those are peasants’ superstitions!” Julia shouted. She looked at me, and although I felt faint, I helped wipe the sweat from Horatia’s brow with a linen square dipped in lavender water.

“I should have used
silphium,”
Horatia panted. “I may never even live to see the new year.”

“Nonsense,” Julia said firmly. “You’re healthy, and this is only your first child.”

Horatia gritted her teeth, and when she screamed, I was sure her cries could be heard above the harpists in the triclinium. For several hours we remained like this, encouraging and fanning the air into Horatia’s face. Then finally one of the midwives cried, “It’s coming, Domina! Keep pushing!”

Horatia looked up into Julia’s face. “Thank you.” She began to weep. “Thank you for coming.”

“Don’t thank me! Concentrate!”

Horatia gripped the arms of the chair, and her face was a mask of terrible pain. Again and again she strained, screaming, crying, then finally pushing a child into the world in a rush of blood and water. I held my breath, and Julia cried out, “A girl! It’s a girl!”

“No,” Horatia whispered. The midwives swaddled the crying infant in wool, and Horatia sat up on the birthing chair. “It can’t be!”

“It’s a girl, Domina. A healthy child.”

“But he wanted a son.”

“So next time—”

“You don’t understand!” She looked from the midwife to Julia in desperation. “He will never accept it!”

“Of course he will!” Julia took the baby girl into her arms while the midwives packed Horatia’s womb with wool. “Look.” Julia stroked
the little nose with her fingertip, then placed the infant gently in her friend’s arms. I had never seen her so tender with anyone.

Tears welled in Horatia’s eyes. She took the crying baby to her breast, but the infant refused to suck. “She’s not hungry.”

The eldest midwife smiled. “Leave it to the
nutrice
. That is her job.”

“What will you name her?” Julia asked.

Horatia was silent, stroking her daughter’s brow with two fingers. Then she said, “Gaia. Like the Greeks’ Mother Goddess.” She held Gaia for a little while, as the music and feasting went on below us.

“You must wash, Domina. It isn’t healthy to stay here with all this blood.”

Horatia passed her daughter to Julia, and then the midwives helped her into the bathing room.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Julia said.

Gaia had the thick hair of her mother, and her dark eyes were already open.

“Do you think that Pollio will be terribly angry?” I asked.

“Probably,” Julia admitted. “But she’ll have a son next time. Do you want children?”

In fourteen days I would be old enough to marry, and when my monthly blood came, to have children of my own. “Yes, but not for many years.”

“I would like them now,” she confided.

“At twelve?”

“Horatia is only thirteen. And now she has a little girl of her own who will always love her. Who will never abandon her.”

I was reminded of what Gallia had said about judging Julia too harshly, and suddenly I felt sorry for her. She had a father who valued her only for what marriage she could make, and a mother she could visit only in secret. Although my parents were gone, I had always
known I was loved. And my parents had only ever left me in death.

When Horatia emerged from the bathing room, she walked gingerly. The midwives were careful in their movements, slowly helping her into an embroidered tunic and heavy new
palla
trimmed with fur. Only married women wore the
palla
, and I could see the admiration in Julia’s eyes as the midwife draped her friend in the beautiful mantle. Horatia held out her arms for her new daughter, and I thought that Julia handed the infant back with regret.

“May Juno bless her first day,” the gray-haired midwife intoned, “and may Cunina watch over the cradle.”

“Will you go to him now?” Julia asked.

“Absolutely not!” The midwife clicked her tongue. “Dominus must come to her in their chamber. He must accept his daughter first.”

We followed Horatia down the hall to the chamber where she and Pollio slept. A slave was sent to fetch Pollio from the festivities, and we waited outside while Horatia sat on a chair with her infant daughter in her arms.

“Is he coming to name the child?” I asked.

“No. That happens in eight days with the
lustratio
. This is the
tollere liberos.”

There was no time to ask Julia what that meant. I could hear Pollio’s heavy footsteps on the stairs, and when he reached the landing, he looked expectantly at Julia. “Is it a son?”

The midwife inclined her head. “Your wife is in there, Domine.”

Pollio entered his chamber, and before the door swung shut behind him I could hear him demanding, “Is it a son?”

Julia’s dark eyes flashed at me. “He doesn’t even care if she’s well.”

“What a terrible marriage.”

“They’re all terrible,” she said bitterly.

“But yours won’t be.”

She gave me a long, calculated look. “If my father doesn’t change his mind.”

There was a shriek on the other side of the wall, then the door was flung open, and Pollio emerged. “Take it away!” he ordered the midwives. I looked inside the chamber, where Horatia’s daughter lay alone on the floor.

“Pollio, please!” Horatia ran after him.

“I said a son.” He turned on her. “Not a daughter. A
son!”

“But I will give you a son. Pollio,
please
, she’s ours!”

“She belongs to the gods.” He made his way down the stairs, and Julia rushed to Horatia so that she wouldn’t faint. “Take her to the dump,” Pollio called over his shoulder.

Horatia fell on her knees. “Please!” she begged. “Take her to the Columna Lactaria. Give her a chance!” But Pollio was gone. She looked up into the face of the midwife. “Don’t take her away,” she pleaded, but the midwife had already gathered the child in her arms. “You can’t take her away from me!” Horatia shrieked.

Hot tears burned my cheeks, and I realized that my hands were trembling. “Don’t do this,” I said.

The midwife’s look was firm. “It’s Dominus who pays me. They are Dominus Pollio’s orders that I follow.”

“But don’t take her to the dump. She’s a child. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

The woman’s smile was full of vengeance. “Neither did those two hundred slaves.”

“So what?” Julia cried. “Because slaves die, patrician children must die as well?”

The woman didn’t respond.

“Let me give you denarii,” Horatia said desperately. “Please. Just don’t take her to the dump.”

The midwife hesitated, then turned to the other slaves and
snapped, “Go!” The women swiftly disappeared, some down the stairs, others to separate chambers. When the hall was empty, the midwife said, “Two hundred denarii.”

Horatia went pale. “That’s my entire dowry.”

“And this is your daughter’s chance at life. Maybe someone will take her, maybe they won’t, but at the dump the wolves will eat her.”

“Wait.” Horatia was trembling. “I will give you the money.”

Julia stared at the midwife, who looked back at us without any remorse.

“You are no better than a beast,” Julia said.

“And isn’t that what slaves are supposed to be? Beasts of burden?”

Horatia returned with several heavy purses, and the midwife stuffed them beneath her cloak. “How will you carry her?” Horatia asked worriedly.

“Just fine.”

But even if Gaia survived, she would likely end up in a
lupanar
, abused from the time she was old enough to speak. My mother had told me there were men who liked girls too young to understand what was happening to them. Tears rolled down Horatia’s cheeks, and Julia whispered, “Isn’t there someone who can adopt her?”

“How could I arrange it without Pollio knowing?”

The midwife pulled her cloak over the child, and I turned away from the terrible scene. While Horatia and Julia wept, I made my way slowly down the stairs. In the triclinium, the harpist was still playing, and Pollio was raising a cup of wine in toast.

“What happened?” Alexander asked.

“It’s a girl,” I told him.

Marcellus frowned. “Was she deformed?”

“No. Pollio wanted a son, so he ordered that she be put out.”

“As a foundling?” he cried.

I nodded.

Octavia rose from her couch and came over to me. “Where is Horatia?” she asked quietly.

I told her the story, even the part about the two hundred denarii and the Columna Lactaria. When I was finished, her face was hard.

“What do you think will happen to her?” I asked.

“The infant or Horatia?”

“Both,” I said.

Octavia drew a heavy breath. “If they survive, they will live the rest of their lives in terrible sadness.” She walked back to the table where Octavian was reclining between his wife and Terentilla, then whispered something into his ear. He glanced briefly at me, then rose from the couch.

“What is this?” Pollio exclaimed. “The dessert has not even come.”

Octavian’s voice was clipped. “I hear that your wife has given birth,” he said. “It would be rude of me to stay, when you belong with her.”

Pollio’s fat mouth opened and closed like a fish’s.

“Marcellus,” Octavian said sharply, “go and find Julia.”

Pollio looked around him. “But we cannot let Saturnalia be interrupted by women’s matters.”

“The children of Rome matter to everyone,” Octavian said coldly. “Even foolish men like you.”

Several dozen guests remained in the triclinium, but everyone who had come with Octavian prepared to leave.

“Congratulations,” Agrippa said, not knowing what had happened in the upstairs rooms.

Pollio’s face took on the color of unbaked dough. He led us through the atrium to the carriages outside. “Are you certain?” he protested. “It’s cold. Perhaps you would like to stay the night!”

Octavia turned and said quietly, “I’m sure your daughter would have liked to stay the night as well. When you shiver, remember how cold it is in the dump.”

On the ride back to the Palatine, I thought of Horatia’s daughter freezing beneath the Columna Lactaria while the rest of Rome drank wine beside crackling fires and ate roasted meats. And once all of his guests left, Pollio would probably climb under the covers next to his wife, demanding her attention even as her breasts leaked milk through her bindings. The thought made me wince, and while Julia wept softly, Alexander and Marcellus exchanged doleful looks.

When we reached Octavia’s villa, Juba excused himself, but Agrippa and Octavian remained, settling with the rest of us in the warmth of the library, where Vitruvius’s plans were spread across the tables. No one said anything, until Julia broke the silence.

“What about a home for foundlings?” she asked.

Marcellus looked up from his place near the brazier, and Alexander caught my eye.

“A place where mothers can leave their infants and they can be adopted by freedwomen and citizens,” she said. “Selene has drawn sketches of what such a house might look like.”

“And how would that help Rome?” Octavian demanded.

“We would be saving lives. Roman lives,” Julia protested.

“And increasing the number of mouths on the dole,” Livia retorted.

“Not if citizens were to adopt the infants!”

“And who would want to do that?” Livia asked. “When a woman is barren, she takes a child from a slave. Why would she need a dirty foundling?”

Octavia recoiled. “I doubt that there was anything dirty about Horatia’s child.”

“How do you know? Did you see it? The child was probably deformed.”

“It was perfectly healthy!” Julia exclaimed. “I was there and so was Selene.” She turned to her father. “If there was a foundling house—”