The Wedding Shroud - A Tale of Ancient Rome (2 page)

Living on her husband’s estate, away from the city of Rome, Aemilia bore the shame of her marriage in seclusion by refusing to greet other matrons who sought to visit.

Caecilia’s memories of her mother were distant for the patrician woman cloistered herself within the rambling country house, and when confronted with her child looked disappointed, almost perturbed, that the proof of Aemilius’ betrayal still lived and breathed and had taken form as a little girl.

Humiliation formed a canker both within and upon Aemilias’ breast, and she lay in a darkened chamber brimming with stuttering coughs, rasping breaths and resentment. The air was heavy with the bittersweet scent of the hypericum oil she rubbed upon her sores that left a bright red stain as if to declare she could never be cured. To Caecilia, even the slightest hint of such an odour would forever more return her to that fetid room, assaulting all her senses. All except for one. All except for touch.

One day, though, Aemilia pressed a fascinum into her daughter’s hand, a tiny phallus crafted from bone and tipped in iron. ‘To keep away the evil eye,’ she whispered. ‘You, most of all, will need it.’

Such a gesture of concern caused confusion in the child as to whether her mother wished to protect her or thought she was already cursed.

While Aemilia lived, Lucius resided in the city, visiting rarely, always anxious to escape his wife’s chilly reserve. And so, knowing nothing else than her mother’s disdain and her father’s diffidence, the young Caecilia learned to hide in shadowy corners away from the servants. For she soon understood from listening to their gossip that they saw her neither as a patrician nor even a plebeian but only as a brat.

Lonely and silent, she became invisible, only finding happiness when she could slip from dimness into sunlight to trace on foot the limits of her father’s land, tying woollen puppets to the boundary stones to remind the spirits to remember and protect her.

*

When Aemilia died there was relief. An observation of duty. Nothing more. No tears. Tata hired mourners for that. Ashes caking their faces and hair. Keening. It must have been costly.

Freed of the gloom of that oppressive household, the little girl ran wild, dressed in dark blue mourning clothes but not grieving, using only oil and the scrape of iron strigil to keep clean, hair uncombed, chores left unattended, and wondering now and then whether she should weep.

Seeing Tata’s reaction to his wife’s death did not help her uncertainty. On the day her mother died, Lucius hesitated before placing his lips over Aemilia’s, as though uncomfortable that he should inhale her dying soul with such a kiss.

*

Not long after the funeral, Caecilia ran into Tata’s study to escape the rain leaking from under the atrium roof covers. Discovering in her father’s domain a feast long denied her, the ten year old raided its secrets as hungrily as she plundered his beehives for honey, intrigued by scrolls that slithered and curled into rolls when she played with them, or wax tablets upon which words or numbers could be etched.

Summoned by his steward, Lucius was startled to find his wayward daughter guiltily handling his books as though she were a thief caught in his wine cellar.

To her surprise he did not chide her. Instead, father and daughter came to an understanding. Lucius’ fingers were crippled by an affliction that made his joints gnarled and his flesh frozen with pain. It had become hard for him to hold a stylus without splattering ink or digging unwanted strokes onto a fresh page. And so he taught Caecilia to read and write, telling her the laws of their people and reciting unwritten customs in long, worn sentences. And in time she wrote his letters and read aloud to him when eyesight and candlelight were both failing.

Amid the tablets and scrolls, bills and invoices, inventories and manuals, Caecilia gained an education that would have been reserved for a son: religion and law, arithmetic and history.

She gained his love as well.

Each night, after she’d ground a salve of calendula by mortar and pestle, she’d massage his gnarled and tortured knuckles, smoothing the pungent ointment into his skin. And always, while she did so, he’d lace his crippled fingers between hers and murmur: ‘My honey-eyed child, what would I do without you?’

*

Tata was wealthy. Being plebeian did not preclude riches. Riches built upon salt.

When given the chance, Caecilia would hungrily savour the grains sprinkled from the heavy saltcellar upon the table, sometimes pouring the precious particles onto the oak and making finger trails. And a supply was always certain because Tata owned a concession to a salt mine, a treasure trove at the mouth of the Tiber seized from the enemy city of Veii many years ago.

Despite possessing a fortune, Lucius lived humbly and was generous to the people, never forgetting it was they he represented in the Forum. Yet he could not always help them.

On the few occasions when Tata took Caecilia to the village she would sit safely within the confines of his carriage while he went about his business. For he treated her as a patrician virgin, forbidding her to drink wine and vigilantly guarding her virtue. By thirteen she was old enough to wed; her potential to marry an aristocrat valuable. Tata did not want such a chance threatened by a plebeian suitor. He wanted a grandchild that would be three quarters patrician. Nobility by degrees.

One day, when peeping through the gap in the carriage curtains, Caecilia saw a man in the square fettered in chains. Filth was spattered across his tunic, remnants of missiles lobbed at him by village urchins. The skin of his face and arms was burned, blisters forming, hair and beard caked with dirt. He looked hungry and thirsty and defeated, his humiliation heavier than his bonds.

A young girl stood beside him. It was not his daughter, wearing as she was the stola overdress and the hair bun of a matron. She carried a baby in her belly and one upon her hip. The little boy was screaming; cheeks red, his mouth so wide with sound it seemed he’d forgotten to take a breath. His mother, face lined and eyes weary, ignored him. She was too busy feeding her husband a watery gruel. He gulped it down, almost choking in his haste to take a mouthful.

Caecilia tugged at Tata’s sleeve. ‘Who is he?’

‘A soldier who has fallen into debt. He’s been chained there for nearly two months waiting for the magistrate to pass final judgment.’

Caecilia stared at the veteran. ‘He is a citizen?’

Lucius frowned and sighed. ‘Rome has many enemies, Cilla. Volscians in the south, Aequians in the east and the sleeping threat of the Veientanes in the north. And so to defend our city our citizens march out to war in spring and only return in winter to plough and sow their land. While they are away their wives and children must see to the harvest which grows ever meagre with each passing year of drought. Debts accrue. Men return to impatient creditors. And so warriors who have not already sacrificed their lives return to forfeit their liberty instead.’

‘And if he cannot pay his debts?’

Lucius carefully closed the curtains. ‘He will become a bondsman, Cilla. Or his new master could do as the Laws of the Twelve Tables permits and sell him across the Tiber to become a slave.’

‘And his wife and children?’

‘I will do what I can but the girl must hope her family will support her.’

‘And if you were a judge, could you help him?’

She felt him tense. ‘I’m afraid only patricians can be magistrate, judge or consul. To take office you need to light a sacred flame. A man must have holy blood to do that. And so, because no plebeian can claim a lineage to the gods, no plebeian will ever sit upon a magistrate’s ivory chair or thereafter don the purple-bordered toga of a senator in the Curia.’

Caecilia leaned against him so that her cheek was warmed by the soft wool of his cloak, bewildered by such injustice. ‘So a commoner will never govern Rome?’

Tata gently grasped her fingers. ‘Cilla, don’t you understand? That is why you are the future of this city, my own little patrician, proof that holy and mundane can merge. When there are more born like you all of Rome will feel the trickle of the divine within their veins and then no one can claim greater rights to power than another.’

Caecilia smiled, puffed with pride at hearing she had such purpose. Then uncertainty filled her. Just what part of her was godly? Her toes or elbows? Chin or shoulders? Some awkward part, no doubt. Gracefulness did not seem to have been ordained. And if indeed she possessed such blood, how was it that the servants scowled at her and even the cat would not heed what she said? Whatever doubts she had about herself, though, did not stop her believing in her father.

Yet over time, as gossip drifted on city breezes from the Forum, it slowly dawned on her that Tata no longer held office as a tribune of the people, and that his world had shrivelled, like his once-strong hands, to the confines of his farm.

*

Years later, on a night so cold the wind howled through the atrium’s blackened rafters, Caecilia learned of Tata’s true ambitions.

On that night, when Marcus Furius Camillus came to call, wearing a thick woollen toga edged in purple, the charcoal and flame flared within the hearth, making her wonder if he would douse the fire or fan it with his fervour.

‘What brings you to the country on such a night, Senator,’ asked Lucius, drawing aside the curtain to the doorway of his study,‘when you could be warming yourself in the Curia’s heated debate?’

Caecilia followed closely behind Tata and the patrician. She could smell the faint odour of urine and sulphur used to clean his robes. His hands were strong and handsome compared to her father’s, and he wore a gold signet ring, a touch of flamboyance for a society used to wearing iron.

Scanning the pile of books that lay scattered on the floor of the study, Camillus turned his attention briefly to her. ‘Your daughter should be married, Lucius, not straining her eyes on reading.’

Tata nodded to Caecilia in dismissal as he led the senator to his study. The gesture was gentle but it was as though she had been slapped, reminding her of what a woman’s place should be—would be—if not for his indulgence. She made a show of gathering up the scrolls to delay a moment longer.

‘I came here to speak of war,’ Camillus said.

Lucius seemed puzzled. ‘Which war? Against the Volscians or the Aequians?’

‘Why, against Veii, of course,’ he said, glaring at Caecilia for still loitering. ‘The murderers of our kinsmen and the coveters of Rome’s salt mines.’

Caecilia’s eyes widened. The ruthlessness and treachery of the Veientanes could never be forgotten. They had killed Tata’s brothers and many other Romans before the present treaty was signed. Knowing this she frowned as she left the study wondering if the Etruscans planned to steal the salt mines that were prized as though the white stuff were gold.

Pausing behind the bronze safe beside the doorway, she glanced back inside. Camillus was limping slightly as he paced the room, legacy of a Volscian spear thrust in his thigh, proof also of glory gained when very young.

‘You talk of war with Veii,’ said Lucius, ‘and yet this wretched truce is still on foot.’

The senator loomed closer to the door causing the girl to shrink away. ‘Wretched truce, indeed. Nearly twenty years has passed with those pampered Veientanes doling out corn to us while we let go the chance to cross the Tiber and seize their land. And all because peacemakers like your brother-in-law hold power.’

The tirade startled her. She was used to Tata teaching his tenets, together with grammar and dictation, with a gentle zeal. This man spoke not just the language of hatred but of passion for Rome.

‘I don’t disagree,’ said Tata. ‘I, too, would see Veii crushed, but our soldiers are already fighting the Volscians at Anxur and Verrugo while the Aequians stalk our borders. Resources are low, as is morale. Aemilius has good cause to counsel caution.

Camillus scraped a chair along the floor to sit close by the plebeian, his body tensed upon the edge of the seat. ‘Haven’t you heard? Martial law has been proclaimed. Rome fights on so many warfronts it needs more generals. While the city is under military rule, four consular generals will be elected instead of two ordained consuls. Do you know what that means, my friend? Commoners will not be precluded from holding such a position. It is possible that a plebeian could lead a legion of Rome.’

Caecilia’s heart beat faster. How pleased Tata would be that his prayers had been answered and that his counsel was being sought.

Lucius did not reply. The senator’s startling news had caused him to cough. It was a racking cough that had persisted all winter; hoarse and painful, deep and wheezy. ‘Your words bring hope to the people,’ he eventually said, gaining breath, ‘but it does not explain how our soldiers will be convinced to fight another war.’

The politician leaned forward and gripped the armrests of Tata’s chair. ‘Pay them a wage,’ he said loudly, as if Lucius needed greater volume to understand him. ‘Pay them a wage and then their spirits will rise enough to fight ten foes!’

Caecilia thought of the soldier whose valour had been rewarded by bondage. Thought, too, of all those Roman dead who called to be avenged.