The Wedding Shroud - A Tale of Ancient Rome (23 page)

The courtesan nodded towards the cluster of women. ‘I agree. We should ignore them.’

Caecilia suppressed a smile.

‘I see you have decided to dress like a woman,’ observed the Cretan. ‘Or at least like half a woman.’

The Roman girl instinctively put her hand to her hair. Cytheris had dressed it in the Etruscan way. A small lapse, surely. The curls were disconcerting. She thought the maid was about to brand her when she produced the curling tongs. The scorched smell of hair was also unnerving, yet the brutal instrument had forged sinuous ringlets that even now tickled her cheeks. A band of bright blue was threaded through her locks. A blue that matched the fine eastern boots upon her feet.

The courtesan was not pointing to her hair, though. Caecilia was suddenly conscious of her golden whorl earrings, Atlenta pendant and the five amber bangles that challenged Marcus’ simple amulet on her wrist.

They had been hard to resist. More small trinkets. More little temptations.

Despite her resolve to remain aloof, Caecilia felt the need to defend herself. After all, she still wore a sober Roman tunic.

‘In respect to my Rasennan family,’ she said, ‘I choose to bow to some of their customs. It does not mean that dressing modestly makes me any less a woman.’

‘I see,’ said the hetaera. ‘So you wish to please the Rasenna? Or perhaps you wish to please your husband?’ The woman leaned closer. ‘Or half please him at least.’

The girl wished she could squeeze the smugness from the other’s voice or deny outright that there was any truth to her jest.

That morning Mastarna had given her another present. A silken palla dyed from pure saffron, not the juice of cheap marigolds or humble weld. ‘The colour suits those hazel eyes of yours,’ he said. ‘You should wear more of it.’

She was getting used to his compliments. He was never reluctant to tell her she was clever or appealing. At first she’d been embarrassed at such unfamiliar flattery, sparks of doubt always flaring to melt his praise. Over time, repetition softened her suspicions. Sometimes she even dared to accept that, possibly, she was as he described.

‘I think you have gained some curves,’ continued Erene when there was no reply.

‘Mastarna will like that. You are too tall and thin.’ The Cretan companion spiked any of Caecilia’s delusions that she’d suddenly grown winsome. ‘After all, he frowns on women visiting the gymnasium.’

Caecilia was surprised Mastarna had never mentioned this. ‘I thought only men used such places.’

‘That is the custom in Athens, but the Rasenna are much more liberal. They allow women to exercise their limbs,’ she paused, ‘beyond the bedroom.’

‘You are mocking me.’

Erene shook her head. ‘No, as I said, Mastarna likes soft contours to counter his hard lines.’

Caecilia remembered Tarchon’s words; how Mastarna had called Seianta his plum: firm, round and sweet. She glanced down at herself. The courtesan was right. She had gained weight. The midday and evening fare had rounded her shape and increased her appetite. Not just for food either. Suddenly she was hungry for beautiful things. And knowledge.

Erene took her wrist. ‘You bite your nails. All this Roman disdain is merely show.’

The girl twisted away, but not before noticing the softness of the other’s skin, her sensual touch. How many men had she delighted?

The wives’ murmuring had grown louder. Erene gave them an acid smile. ‘Of course, half measures will never win him.’

‘What makes you think I want to?’

‘Oh, you want to. I can tell. You no longer have that timid virginal look. In fact I think you want to do more than half please him with your kiss curls and blue boots.’

Caecilia willed the ceremony to begin. Their conversation was beginning to assume a familiarity that did not exist. She wished Mastarna would gesture her to take her seat, instead he remained intent on his conversation.

The trouble, of course, was there was some truth in what the courtesan said. Erene was no longer speaking of silks or jewellery or ribbons. Caecilia had become greedy for something else. Greedy for the pleasure granted by her husband and the contents of a tiny flask.

Her appetite had increased, a hunger emerging for the Alpan and the delight felt under its sway.

There was a routine. When he produced the little blue vial she understood that he wanted her. Cytheris would be dismissed. He would undress her and they would lie naked together. There was no need for the dice game.

But one night Cytheris brought in a tray of peaches, steeped in syrup. She also placed the usual jug of wine onto the table. His wine.

‘Have one,’ he said, offering Caecilia a slice of fruit.

Beneath the sweetness of the syrup there was a strange flavour. If heat had a taste then this was it. Headiness spread through her as it had on the night of the wedding banquet.

‘The fruit is soaked in Sardinian wine. You can taste the grapes, sun-drenched, near bursting with nectar.’

‘You know I cannot drink wine.’

Reaching for the jug, he poured some into the two goblets.

‘Come, Bellatrix, don’t be foolish. You no longer need to abide by Aemilius’ rules.’

‘It will make me wayward, wanton.’

He laughed. ‘Wayward? You are already wayward!’ He gestured for Cytheris to leave. The Greek girl smiled as she left the room. ‘You have become wanton, too.’

Her heartbeat quickened. He had broken the routine. ‘Where is the Alpan?’

‘You trust me, don’t you?’

‘I do not fear your touch.’

‘Then there is no need for it anymore,’ he said evenly. ‘I gave it to you to quell the nerves of a bride, not for it to become a habit.’

Caecilia frowned. ‘I want it. It brings peace.’

‘It was a mistake. I did not think you would grow to crave it.’ He held out his hand to her. She did not take it. ‘Don’t you understand, Bellatrix? The elixir will possess you. Your visions will grow shorter, your dreams less vivid. Your need for it will be stronger than the draught can assuage.’

His tone was earnest, almost imploring. Caecilia pondered whether he had suffered such symptoms. She scanned his face, remembering that he, too, had a reason for taking the philtre. He was a man escaping grief. Was he saying that he could forget Seianta?

‘It will make you sick, too. It is not wise to keep supping on mandragora, no matter how small the dose.’

His words made her pause. Caecilia had not dared to brew some of the potion because she was ignorant of how much of the herb was in it. Aurelia had always been careful not to add too much to her medicines.

‘There is always good and bad to everything,’ he continued. ‘Alpan is a guardian angel but she also anoints the dead with unguents from her alabastron. Keep her as your protector, Caecilia, but don’t let her tend to your corpse just yet.’

She hesitated. How many times had his lips touched her skin? With the Alpan they had left the emptiness of the wedding night behind, the cold embrace and sadness.
And she could not deny that, even within the reverie, she knew that it was Mastarna’s arms around her, that it was he who was leading her into a world of senses and sensuousness and sensation; that it was not just the potency of the draught but also the warmth of his hands that pleased her.

And she recognised some truth in his warning. It was getting harder to imagine Drusus. The light seemed to brush his face away, how he smiled, how he frowned. There were only fragments of memory now. Yet she wanted to remain true to her Roman. Under the Alpan she could be flagrant in her unfaithfulness to Mastarna, careless of her vows.

She pointed to his scarred face, battered knuckles and the bruises upon his arms. ‘How can you preach? You hunt the drug of danger. Tell me you are not in thrall to risk.’

Ignoring her, he moved closer, tipping over the serving table as he did so. Peaches slithered across the floor, the dark syrup staining the tiles.

She stared at the splattering of segments of fruit, ‘Please, Mastarna,’ she said, confused. ‘I want the Alpan.’

‘Don’t you understand? The elixir douses passion.’

He meant lust. And lust was what lay beneath the reed.

‘If you lie with me without it you will become a lover, Caecilia, not just a beloved.’ When she would not reply, he drew her to him. ‘Believe me, Caecilia. If you keep taking the Alpan you will end up its slave.’

She raised her eyes to him. ‘You are already my master.’

Bringing her hand to his lips, he kissed the inside of her wrist, her palm, then each fingertip before placing it against his cheek. His skin was taut, freshly shaven.

‘No, I am your husband.’

Kissing her throat, he cupped one breast in his hand, smoothing the small of her back with his other. A heat coursed through her, rising, fiercer than the burn of the peach’s liquor. She raised her face to his, seeking the taste of the syrup on his tongue.

*

The bellowing of the bull broke through the haze of noise and heat. The crowd quietened. The ceremony would soon begin.

‘I hope Ulthes is well,’ said Erene. ‘He gets so nervous on these occasions.’

Her tone was affectionate, that of a wife who can easily read the moods and manners of her husband. But she was not Ulthes’ wife. Ulthes’ wife lay at home in a darkened room smothered by dark thoughts.

‘Do you love him?’

The courtesan kept her gaze on him, smiling. ‘You are naïve, Roman. Besides, what is it to you?’

Caecilia reddened, wishing she’d remained silent. She turned to join the gaggle of wives, realising it was simple of her to think there would be love between an expensive whore and a man. Why there was not even such an expectation between a husband and a wife.

‘Wait,’ said the hetaera. ‘It is rare for one such as me to love, but there can be loyalty. There can be devotion.’

Erene’s gaze moved to Mastarna. ‘And there can be pleasure, too. Even a Veientane wife can expect that, despite her husband’s dead wife still calling to him.’

Caecilia felt the scorch of embarrassment. Intimacy was being forced upon her. A sharing of secrets that she had not hoped for and was uncertain she wanted. Before Veii she’d not stood naked before another person. Now she was being exposed in public by a courtesan. Yet there seemed a kindness to Erene. No spite tinged her teasing. Perhaps the hetaera hoped for solace even as she confirmed what had been hinted—that she had lain with Mastarna and with Seianta’s ghost.

Forgoing the Alpan had made a difference. Yet the discovery that she wanted to be bedded by her husband without it was complicated. For she’d also found that Mastarna could not forget Seianta.

The spirit of Mastarna’s dead wife was persistent, always present, so real that she’d often wake to find the dent in the bed where the ghost had slept between them and feel the remnants of warmth as she smoothed the sheet with her hand. When she lay with him, it was confusing to think that he was imagining his first wife’s legs wrapped around him. Yet she did not need to wrest him from Seianta.

They had become lovers. Without loving.

Held in his potent embrace, Mastarna made her believe that he wanted her, that while in his bed she was beautiful not plain. He spoke tender words, not hoarding his smiles as he did outside. And she, in turn, no longer doled out hers.

She did not want his love but she did want his desire. And she knew it was wiser not to compare Drusus’ gaze to her husband’s. The Roman’s had merely traced her curves, the Veientane’s stripped her.

Mastarna had shown her why the maids in her uncle’s house bedded men and why the women at the wedding feast climbed onto their partners’ dining couches. She had learned to relish lust enough to seek Mastarna readily in the rectangle of their rumpled bed.

She liked to cling to him in the surge, to hold on to him as they climbed. The distant abandonment granted by the elixir was no match for the explosion of tangled limbs and grinding bodies, of moaning and sighs, and the taste and smell of seed and sweat and musk, or the exquisite sensations wrought by fingers and tongue.

‘So take heed.’ Erene touched the girl’s arm, making Caecilia concentrate upon her again. ‘You may please him but do not try to possess him. Nor hope to truly be the mistress of his house. For, you see, in the ebb of your lovemaking she will sidle up beside him and lay her head upon his shoulder, enjoying how his body heat merges with hers until he falls sleep.’

Caecilia avoided the hetaera’s gaze, recalling how after lying with Mastarna he would hold her for only a short time as though counting a beat in his head. Then they would break apart, a gap between them. He was always gone when she awoke.

Should she expect more, even if she didn’t love him? Would it be different if Seianta did not claim him? Wasn’t it enough that he made her feel desirable while teaching her what Roman men cosseted and guarded from the ears and eyes of maids and matrons? Allowing her to digest politics with honeyed venison, savour knowledge with roasted peacock, or drink in secrets that were scooped up and spilled across her pillow from one conspirator to another.

‘I do not want to possess him,’ she said, instantly regretting her disclosure. She wanted to know what the concubine felt, not to tell the other of her thoughts.