The Wedding Shroud - A Tale of Ancient Rome (28 page)

Cytheris paused before looking up. ‘Why yes, mistress, but he lived less time than his mother laboured.’

The betrayal stunned her. Learning that Mastarna had lied was more than hurtful. She felt like she was a little girl again just after her mother died and before Tata loved her—alone and forlorn and bewildered.

Why had he denied the little boy? Why had no one told her? Did a few scant breaths not amount to a mention? Not enough to be entitled to a name? Not long enough to form a soul?

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

Again Cytheris hesitated. Just like Mastarna. It was catching. ‘The master doesn’t like us to talk about the baby. Mistress Seianta died giving birth to him.’

‘Why? Wasn’t he whole?’

There was no break in the maid responding this time.

‘Who told you that?’

‘Erene.’

The maid frowned. ‘You should not be talking to one such as her.’

‘At least she was prepared to tell me the truth. What about Mastarna’s daughter? Was she whole?’

‘Yes, but Velia’s heart was weak and she struggled breathing. She never took a step or even learned to crawl.’

‘And what was the matter with their son?’

‘I did not see him, mistress. I was sick that night with fever, but the midwife told me that a curse still hovered over the mistress.’

‘Curse?’

‘There was more than one dead child who slid from the Tarquinian’s womb too early.’

Pity filled Caecilia for Mastarna and his wife. Yet there was no compassion in Cytheris’ voice. ‘You sound as if you hate her.’

Cytheris’ expression became closed and grim. ‘She was jealous that Aricia lived while Velia did not. It amused her to whip me to the beat of castanets and flute. And always when her husband and Mistress Larthia were absent.’

Here was a different version of Seianta. So far all who’d mentioned her did so with affection. The cruelty of the dead girl and her sinister use for music was disturbing.

Caecilia studied the maid with her pockmarked skin, the bright pink tips of her ears jutting from her bundle of hair, and fully comprehended her power over her. It was one she had not known before. Her uncle’s servants only did as she bade after they had first seen to Aemilius, to Marcus, to Aurelia. Cytheris was hers to do with as she wished. To neglect or pamper or torment; whatever a mistress wanted.

Yet the Greek girl had become more than just a slave. She was the cipher to open the mysteries of being a woman. Caecilia had grown used to the servant, her gossip and wisdom, the smell of aniseed upon her breath. Grown used to another woman’s touch, to comfort, to being half dressed or naked without the urge to quickly draw her robes around her, her mother’s legacy and Aurelia’s coldness dispelled. Tarchon might teach her about customs and history and culture but the maid gave her lessons in life.

‘Oh Cytheris, I am so sorry.’

The servant was startled. ‘There is no need for you to be sorry, mistress.’

An awkward silence fell between them and Caecilia once more thought about Mastarna. It was inevitable she would fall with child soon if the marital bed was to be used as constantly as it had been. Unless she was barren.

Suddenly it struck her that Cytheris had not borne a child since Aricia. And given the maid’s liking for men, she doubted it was because the Greek girl was chaste. ‘How is it you have not given birth to any other children?’

Cytheris frowned. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Because I don’t wish to bear a child that could be deformed.’

The maid opened her gap-toothed mouth in surprise. ‘Mistress, you should not speak that way. I told you it was not the master’s fault.’

Caecilia was impatient. ‘Listen to me. I will be the mother of a half-blood child. The gods might curse me for bearing a son of two cities. So tell me how you remain as though a maiden.’

‘Hardly like a maiden, mistress.’

‘Tell me!’

‘There are ways. But you could not use them. Master would be very angry.’

‘I don’t care.’

The maid shook her head. ‘There is only one certain way to stop a seed being planted, mistress, and that is to stop lying with the man. And yet to do so is to fail as a wife.’ Cytheris looked at Caecilia slyly. ‘And when a woman has a liking for pleasure it can be difficult to steer such a course.’

Caecilia blushed. What would Mastarna think when his eager student suddenly showed reluctance? To refuse him would only bring suspicion. She had to admit, too, that having been deprived of love she did not want to surrender desire.

She shook her head. ‘That’s not a choice. In any case, are you telling me you no longer lie with men? Or perhaps you have some secret that keeps you free of children, like Erene?’

Caecilia frowned. ‘No, mistress. I haven’t scraped my womb by rod or potion.’

Here was another thing to learn and, as usual, Cytheris spoke as though it were common knowledge. Did Roman women ever have to deal with such?

‘I have lain with very few men since my daughter was born,’ continued the maid. ‘It is enough to have three living children sold, don’t you think?’

Caecilia was surprised at her defiance.

‘I am careful not to give the master the chance to harvest me for more slaves. Aricia will be the last child my owners take from me.’

Caecilia’s gaze travelled to the small girl who was listening, wide-eyed, to their conversation. The knowledge that she was to be sold often troubled Caecilia. She had grown fond of the little servant. Denied the friendship of other children herself, she found it amusing to watch Aricia’s mischief when Cytheris’ back was turned. Better still to be rewarded with a timid smile when granting the slave a surreptitious kindness.

‘Don’t think your plight hasn’t touched me. I asked Lady Larthia and Lord Mastarna if they would keep Aricia, but I’m afraid they refused me.’

The maid’s expression was first of bewilderment then of gratitude so intense Caecilia had to look away, uncomfortable with such devotion.

Her lack of success at trying to save Aricia still rankled. Larthia had flatly refused to show mercy. Her mother-in-law could be fierce as well as gentle. Her illness did not preclude her running her house and business with authority. No sympathy was shown. Aricia was goods already purchased. The matriarch had given her word.

Mastarna had been similarly disinterested. ‘It’s Ati’s decision, not mine. Slaves are merely assets to be bought or sold. You should not grow too attached to them. It makes you reluctant to discipline them.’

‘And yet you never rebuke your servant.’

‘Because Arruns is obedient. He is also a freedman.’

‘Free Cytheris then. She is loyal. Free her daughter.’

Unlike her father, Mastarna was rarely worn down by pleading. He did not change his mind. And, in truth, his answer was not surprising, not when charity was looked upon with suspicion and human bondage was a business. Yet she did not regret asking. After all, she was unable to forget what it was to be small and powerless, humbled and humiliated, or how it felt when her ownership had passed from dead father to adopted one.

As she watched Cytheris scold her daughter to return to the carding, Caecilia was suddenly aware that, although she’d failed to help the maid, the bond between them was stronger.

‘Now, tell me,’ she said. ‘How do I stop falling with child?’

Cytheris spoke of the moon. How powerful it was to bewitch the tides of the sea and the ebb and flow of a woman’s blood. How women could tell, from its waxing and waning, when they were fertile so that a seed will either flourish or languish in the womb.

‘But you cannot rely on this, mistress, for your flux does not always follow the moon’s cycle.’

‘And is there no other way?’

‘Yes, but it would be dangerous.’

Caecilia was not ready to concede so easily. She needed to have hope when he caressed her and his seed flowed into her.

‘Please, I’ll try again to get him to free both of you.’

Cytheris’ reluctance was still obvious as she answered. ‘There are certain plants that can help stop a child from growing. One is called sylphion, imported from the distant city of Cyrene. It is very potent and used by most of the women here.’

‘Procure it for me.’

The maid was trembling. ‘Mistress, it could be hard to keep such a purchase secret. If the apothecary told the master we could both be thrashed.’

Caecilia sank into a chair. ‘Are there no other ways then?’

Cytheris took a deep breath. ‘The skin and pips of some fruits are useful. Persephone’s fruit, the pomegranate, can keep a woman infertile. I have used the rind and seeds combined with rue. But Mistress,’ she said, her voice imploring, ‘Nortia ignores such puny measures if a child is destined to be born.’

‘And Erene’s way? She seems to have survived. Is it not the best choice?’

‘A bloody mess in a pail? It is the last choice you would make. Mother and child often die. Leave that to those who cannot choose.’

*

She would never eat pomegranates again. The sharp, pungent smell of the coarse red fruit would linger upon her fingers for some time.

Pulp discarded, Cytheris smeared a paste of its juicy seeds, rind, rue and oil upon a scrap of fleece and held it ready. Caecilia’s blank look turned to horror when the girl moved to assist her. ‘Leave me alone,’ she said, knowing it would take time to find courage, that she would not suffer such intimacy easily.

It was not just the dislike of the red fruit that made her queasy. The scent brought to mind an odour of long-ago admonishment. And a taste of guilt.

At eight years of age, her mother had discovered Caecilia trying to look at her nakedness in a mirror, each part reflected in the small burnished oval of bronze. There was a crash as Aemilia had cuffed the mirror from her daughter’s hand. A harder slap across her face. ‘Cover yourself!’

Aemilia did not often visit her daughter’s room because she was too ill, confined most days to her putrid bed in her dank chamber. The absence suited the little girl. Meetings brought rebukes and humiliation. And always that same smell. Faint and clinging, it pervaded even the two paces distance that Aemilia demanded be kept between them. This time the girl’s crime had closed the gap. The daughter gagged at her mother’s stench. The blow was sharp. The welt would be angry and swollen. ‘Decent women do not expose their bodies,’ said the patrician, retreating after the assault. ‘Roman women are modest.’

Caecilia believed in the virtues taught her by her mother. Understood modesty most of all. But at eight, her timid exploration of limbs and torso when she bathed in the cloudy, second-hand water of the bath was unsatisfactory. She wanted to know exactly how she looked, why it was that people stared when they saw her mark. She needed to know that her body was whole and that it did not bear any other spot, any signs of sickness.

Because her mother had made her afraid. Had shown her what could lie ahead. What caused the smell.

Aemilia wore many layers. Layers of the finest weave of linen and wool, soft and textured. Layers that she rarely changed: undergown, two tunics, a stola and a cloak. Even in summer. But steeped perspiration was not the only smell that turned Caecilia’s stomach. It was the stink of ooze from the creamy fibrous growth encrusting her mother’s breast, a canker the girl had seen by accident when she’d spied the maid smoothing hypericum upon it. That Aemilia allowed herself any relief from pain surprised Caecilia. Even as a little girl she could tell her mother yearned for death and did not mind joining the Shades. As though gladly enduring penance for a sin imposed upon her by her family.

Fortitude was a virtue.

*

Tentatively, Caecilia pushed the fleece inside her, intrigued by the soft, satiny warmth of the fleshy cushioning of her womb.

How could she be so ignorant? A stranger to her body?

How could it be that he had learned more about her than she? For this is what he desired. Where all men came from.

She let her hand linger. There was pleasure here for her as well. He’d taught her that, too.

Hoping that she had placed the soaked pad correctly, she withdrew her fingers, noticing a trace of her own scent fleetingly, realising that what she was doing was not wifely.

Imagining, too, how a child would feel, pushing his way along the narrow, slippery passage. Defiant. Covered in pomegranates and rue.

*

That night she felt guilty, even though he also had deceived her. Then she forgot for a time because Mastarna sought all her attention. She did not mind all of his.

Later, instead of holding her even briefly, he broke from her, turned on his side and blew out the lamp. The gap resumed between them, a hand’s breath apart as always. When he did not bid her goodnight, did not speak at all, she grew anxious. His silence seemed a reproach but she could not be certain.

In the darkness she so loathed she wondered whether next time her deceit would be easier or if he would let there be a chance for trickery at all.