The Wedding Shroud - A Tale of Ancient Rome (18 page)

When he irritated her, though, she could not be stern with him because, after all, he and Larthia had freed her. Even so it was disconcerting to cope with his familiarity, how he would take her hand or, worse, put his arm around her waist, touch her hair or kiss her cheek. Even Marcus, who at times afforded her affection as a first cousin, would not have dared to do other than hold her hand. It was shocking how this stranger had so quickly secured her affections; shocking, too, that she should let him.

He had become a friend who gossiped and teased and shared confidences and laughter as though he were another woman. Marcus had always made it clear that he was a man offering kindness and protection. Marcus and Tarchon were as unalike as earth and water, and yet there was something about them that made her think there was not so great a divide. In the end she concluded it was Tarchon’s eyes that summoned comparison. Not the shape or colour, eyebrows or lashes, but rather the hint of an emotion that haunted them both—the need for approval, the dread of failing expectations.

‘Why don’t you ever wear anything pretty?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my stola and tunic.’ She continued to search for the acorns in the far corners of the atrium.

‘How can you resist the elegance of pleated skirts and vivid hues?’

It was not easy, she thought, when each day she saw Larthia wear more wondrous gowns and even more dazzling jewellery. She fingered the simple amulet on her wrist then touched the fine artistry of the Atlenta pendant. Both sheltered her from evil, through Roman and Rasennan means.

‘I have my wedding slippers on today,’ she said, stretching out her feet to display the orange shoes.

‘A sad sight,’ he scoffed. ‘I will buy you some shoes that are worth displaying. With spiralling toes and soft, fine leather. Just wait.’

Caecilia sighed. Each day she asked herself what danger was there in relenting to temptation. What did it matter if she curled her hair or wore elegant robes? But old rules were hard to break. She knew she must remain resolute because there was a peril. One change would lead to another, then another, and one day she wouldn’t be Roman at all.

‘You are so lazy, Tarchon. Help me find them.’

Her tutor resumed his seat beside the hearth. Irritated by his idleness, Caecilia stopped searching and instead studied the ceramic plaques on one wall that chronicled the deeds of family ancestors, their surfaces shiny, the figures upon them finely drawn and coloured.

‘The sons of the House of Mastarna are prestigious, Caecilia,’ said Tarchon, noticing her studying the medallions. ‘Even the Zilath defers to Artile in matters of ritual and prophesy. He is a haruspex above all others, a seer of immense talent. The gods often whisper in his ear.’

‘Haruspex?’

‘Yes. A priest who reads the livers of animals to foretell the fate of cities and men.’

‘A type of augur?’

‘Yes, but far more skilled than your Roman priests who only ask the gods to answer yes or no to their questions.’

‘And Mastarna? You said both sons of the house were esteemed. Exactly how wealthy is my husband?’

‘Most of the pasture that you passed through is owned by him. Why do you think he has been away so long? Because his estate is vast and his tenants many.’

Caecilia shook her head when she realised that the green, watered fields she had compared to the parched land of her people belonged to her bridegroom.

‘Why do you think he can marry you, a Roman? Do you think his friendship with Ulthes alone shelters him from the disapproval of many in this city?’

Annoyed at his condescension, Caecilia picked up the vase and resumed her task. The kernels rattled as she dropped them inside. ‘The leaders of Rome told me very little, Tarchon. If they had, I would have begged my uncle to either kill or spare me.’

Tarchon took her hand and kissed it. ‘So dramatic! Would you really have wanted to miss the chance to have these lessons with me?’

Caecilia chewed her thumbnail, trying not to smile. ‘Why does Mastarna dislike Artile?’

Tarchon hesitated. ‘What do you mean?’

‘They circle each other like cocks spoiling for a fight,’ she said in broken Rasennan.

Tarchon took the urn from her, emptied its contents onto the table and studiously began counting. ‘I dread what you will be like when you speak our language fluently.’

‘You have not answered my question.’

‘Artile hates Mastarna and Mastarna has always been jealous of Artile. Larthia’s pride could not be hidden when it was determined her younger son would be ordained a priest, not just an ordinary cepen but one with the Gift of Sight.’

‘So why does Artile hate Mastarna if he is so favoured?’

‘Because Artile, in turn, could not abide his father favouring his first born or the fact that Mastarna is the youngest man to have ever been elected zilath.’

She thought of the warmth of Mastarna for his mother. ‘Larthia seems to be proud of him also.’

‘Ati loves both equally, but Mastarna thinks Artile gained too much favour when he left to sail upon the Tyrrhenian Sea.’

Caecilia remembered the night Mastarna had shown her the stars. ‘Mastarna was a sailor?’

‘More a soldier who loves the sea. He still keeps a fleet of trading ships that sail with copper and tin from his mines to Carthage and Athens and Rhodes.

‘Why did he first go to sea?’

‘Ati told me he was always restless when he was young. His father died when he was fifteen. War lust soon overcame him. And so, when he turned eighteen Larthia and Mastarna’s grandfather encouraged Ulthes to teach him the art of war. They sailed with the Tarquinian navy, coming home rarely and always eager to return to sea.’

Caecilia paused, remembering how Marcus had told her of Etruscan pirates, but she doubted Mastarna could be a brigand.

‘Yet a man has no duty to fight another city’s battles.’

‘But it is the duty of a man to learn to fight. My mother and Larthia were cousins. Our family lived in Tarquinia where the Syracusan Greeks have cut off our sea lanes and hindered Rasennan trade for years. Mastarna gained battle hardness for the honour of Ati’s people.’

‘And so he gave service to that city’s zilath?’

‘Yes, and that is where he met his wife.’

Noticing he squeezed an acorn between thumb and forefinger as he spoke, Caecilia reached over and gently took it from him. ‘You mean Seianta.’

‘Daughter of Aule Porsenna, Zilath of Tarquinia.’

‘So it was a political marriage? A pact between two cities?’

‘No, it was a marriage arranged as any other, but Mastarna courted her before he made the contract.’

‘Courted her?’

‘Yes, because he had fallen in love with the little girl who’d grown up before his eyes.’

Love? Caecilia thought of Drusus.

‘What was she like?’

‘Tiny, a little plump. Mastarna called her “his plum”.’

‘I see.’ She could not stop herself making a comparison.

‘She had a wicked tongue that made me laugh and was generous with her own mirth, too, not like some who dole out humour as though its supply were scarce. I miss her even now.’

‘And did Mastarna laugh with her?’

Tarchon nodded.

‘And yet he will not speak her name. Why?’

Suddenly Tarchon scooped up the nuts and poured them back into the vase. ‘The lesson is over.’

‘Tell me,’ she said, tugging at his sleeve.

He shook his head. ‘One’s still missing. There should be fourteen.’

In the awkward silence that followed, Caecilia resumed her search, wishing the game had not been spoiled by her curiosity.

‘Here it is.’ She retrieved the errant nut from beside the well. As she straightened she noticed the wellhead had two images sculpted upon it. On one side was a pretty winged woman while on the reverse of the terracotta was a monster.

The monster that had long haunted her dreams.

All sense of sunlight disappeared, her chest constricting. It was if her fingers, like the mouse’s claws, were scrabbling upon the moss of dank slippery walls.

It was the night demon. Only ghastlier. Donkey’s ears, vulture’s beak, face the pale grey-blue of rotting flesh, its knife-shaped feathers were coloured alternate red and white, and coiled around its arms ready to slither towards her were two spotted snakes.

‘Caecilia, what’s the matter?’

‘Who is that?’

‘The demon Tuchulcha. He waits to torment us on our journey to Acheron after death.’

Caecilia studied the gruesome face and shuddered. Would she always suffer from fright and suffocation as the night demon followed her from mortal to eternal sleep? ‘What is this journey?’

‘To the Beyond,’ said Tarchon. ‘Each of us is greeted at the gate of Acheron by demons that either guard or terrify us. They are servants of Aita, god of the dead.’

‘Lord Ulthes mentioned this Tuchulcha.’

Tarchon pointed to the carved figure on the other side of wellhead. ‘And this is Vanth, the winged demoness who keeps a scroll of names to announce your fate.’

Caecilia surveyed the carved demon with fair face and lovely form, dressed shamelessly with a tiny pleated skirt, short hunting boots and a baldric crossing bare breasts. An eye painted upon each arch of her wings, she carried a key to open the gate to the Beyond and a torch to guide the dead through the dark. Only the two snakes twisting around her arms like bracelets hinted at her menace.

Caecilia said a quick prayer, hoping that her fate lay with the Roman world of the dead, that milling group of Shades, instead of with these demons.

‘Is our destiny damnation?’

‘If you are devout enough the gods may admit you to be one of the Blessed.’

‘The Blessed?’

‘The Blessed are as important as the gods who guard your house, your storeroom and your larder.’

Caecilia had to sit down. The prospect of being raised to the level of a household god was enthralling. ‘You mean you will be immortal? How?’

‘The rituals of prayer and sacrifice must be followed exactly and we must show devotion to the ancestors.’

‘Exactly?’

‘Every word as prescribed and as often as is decreed.’

Caecilia thought about such strictures. Everything here was elaborate, complex. An honest bowl of beans became steaming and fragrant, and giving thanks for such a dish bordered on ritual. At home a brief prayer sufficed with a daily offering of spelt cakes to the hearth fire. In Veii, when a rite was performed, the food could grow cold if prayers were not precise in movement and word. If any mistakes were made they were repeated and repeated. And so, after only a short time in Veii, Caecilia was aware of just how many errors she could make.

Now, sitting on the edge of the well in front of these demons, she was conscious of the burden of such beliefs, of her inadequacy. Aware that the prospect of reaching a chance of immortality was slim. ‘How do you know if the prayers are the right ones?’

‘The Book of the Acheron, the Book of the Beyond, describes what must be believed and followed and recited.’

Caecilia prided herself on being clever, her arrogance a goad to the dull-witted Aurelia. Now Tarchon was teasing her for being slow with the same conceit. For he spoke of a book of rituals, sacred knowledge written in ink just as the law was laid down in Rome in the Twelve Tables. Her ignorance seemed bottomless.

She glanced once again at Tuchulcha. ‘There is a book? May I see it?’

The youth ushered her away from the well, seeming to gain comfort as he grew further distant from the demons. Caecilia picked up the vase, absently dropping the last kernel into its depths.

‘You may have married the richest man in Veii, Caecilia, but that does not mean that all mysteries can be revealed to you. Only the principes, the nobility of Veii, may read the sacred texts. In time, though, Artile may instruct you in the Book of Acheron, if you wish to follow our religion and if he deigns to teach a Roman.’

They were distracted by the outer door opening. A small cloud of dust swept in through the passageway from the street. Startled, she saw Mastarna entering the atrium, Arruns behind him.

Many times since his departure, Caecilia had imagined their reunion. She would be remote, disdainful. Now that he was here she’d had no time to collect herself.

Servants hastened to take the master’s cloak. Caecilia had forgotten how muscular and broad he was, how his shoulders strained the fabric of his tunic.

Again, she felt as though she was suffocating, her breath becoming short and frantic. She thought she had managed to forget, yet here he was, no more than ten strides away, and the memory of the wedding night welled up in her mind. As he neared her, she dropped the vase, acorns and shattered pottery skittering across the floor.

Mastarna, face bruised and a cut above his eye, glared at Tarchon. ‘You are supposed to be teaching her, not playing games.’

Caecilia put up her hand. ‘Husband, Tarchon is a very good teacher,’ she said in perfect Rasennan.

Mastarna surveyed her, mouth slightly ajar. ‘Is that so, wife? Or perhaps he has a very good pupil.’