The Wedding Shroud - A Tale of Ancient Rome (52 page)

‘I owe my allegiance to you.’

‘Then you must despise me for failing as a wife.’

The Greek girl shook her head. In the firelight the ends of her frizzy hair were lit up, a layer of light over the dark tresses. She knelt before Caecilia, pressing her face into the folds of her gown.

‘How could I hate you? You who asked the master to free my child? What other mistress would have done that? Don’t leave me. Please take us with you.’

Caecilia stroked Cytheris’ head, then, kneeling, put her arms around the maid. ‘Don’t you see I can’t? If I do I would be stealing my husband’s property. I can’t do that when I’ve already sought to deprive him of a child.’

Seeing her mistress would not heed her, Cytheris called to Aricia. On her mother’s order the girl fetched a razor so that Cytheris could cut a lock from the vast spread of her own hair, then from her daughter’s. Opening the Atlenta pendant, she furled the black and brown tresses into the locket and returned it to Caecilia. ‘Don’t lose it, mistress. Don’t forget us.’

Before she could reply, Tarchon appeared. There was a seriousness about him that Caecilia had never seen before. An air of authority which danger can sometimes make in a man. Impatient, he frowned at the familiarity of a mistress with her slave, but Caecilia took her time in her farewells. Breathing in Cytheris’ aniseed scent for the last time, she kissed both servants. Then, amid a kitchen where metal lions and griffins glared from the sides of pots and pans, Caecilia slid Marcus’ iron amulet upon Cytheris’ wrist and bade her goodbye.

*

Tarchon led her to the Great Temple in darkness. The bodyguards, her perpetual shadows, lay sleeping in Mastarna’s garden, dregs of valerian drying in their wine cups, their snores surprisingly soothing for two such large and ugly men.

Although a mere slice, the moon shed enough light upon the backstreets and the sides of buildings as they crept along. When they reached the sanctuary’s forecourt, they sped across the flagstones.

Caecilia’s escape route lay within the temple’s portico and ornate pillars at the very feet of Uni herself. One of the secret shafts of which Tarchon had spoken months before lay beneath the skirts of the goddess, gouged from the rock to enable her priests to escape into the drains should ever the Arx be sacked.

In the dimness, the great goddess loomed above Caecilia, the hard surfaces of her terracotta frame and face softened by the half-light. The girl stood before the statue and gently laid one hand upon a giant toe, thanking the deity for her protection.

On the day the lightning bolt struck the palace she’d begged Uni to save her. She had tried to be devout. She hoped the goddess would not think she was abandoning her because she was returning home; assuring her that she would still be worshipped under the name Juno when she did.

*

‘Who’s there?’

The darkness rimming the portico braziers was dense with mystery. A door to the far cell opened, a shard of light piercing the gloom. Artile stepped forward with a lamp causing Caecilia to shiver and tug at Tarchon’s sleeve. Both had thought the haruspex would be absent from the temple. When there was no reply, Artile strode towards them, forcing the two interlopers to immediately retreat.

‘Who’s there?’ There was no fear in his voice. What had been an inquiry was now a demand.

Tarchon stepped into the radius of lamplight. Caecilia saw how the priest smiled, thinking the youth had come to him unexpectedly as he used to do, not as they had become—complacent and treading the same pattern of recrimination and forgiveness.

But when Tarchon drew Caecilia forward, Artile’s tender glance was replaced with surprise and then anger when the youth explained his intention to help her escape. ‘Don’t be foolish. You’ll be punished.’

‘I cannot stand by and let Tulumnes hurt her.’

Caecilia felt proud of Tarchon’s defiance. He was combative, almost eager to confront the priest. Earlier he’d assured her that he could deal with him, arrogant in his power over his aging lover. Yet Caecilia knew that the youth could easily accede to the man who had once acted as a parent.

Artile’s voice took on the familiar rhythms of persuasion as he reached for Tarchon’s hand. ‘Come, my love, why risk your life for this Roman? I don’t want to see you come to harm.’

The youth gestured him away. ‘She is my friend. I won’t desert her.’

The priest’s eyes narrowed, fists clenched at his side. It was the first time Caecilia had seen fury rise in him. Until then she’d only witnessed the evidence of the depth of his anger in the marks on Tarchon’s face and arms. ‘Do you think I’ve protected you all this time from the threat of Mastarna’s wives only to see you executed for helping this Roman?’

‘Protected me?’

‘They would have deprived you of your inheritance.’

‘You aren’t making sense. I only inherit if there is no child of Mastarna’s flesh.’

‘You are the rightful heir to this house. No one else!’

Caecilia turned to Tarchon for an explanation, but he shook his head.

‘I did nothing that those women did not want themselves,’ said the haruspex. ‘Driven to control their destinies. Both of them knelt before me willingly.’

He turned to Caecilia. ‘Both of them did not deserve to bear a living child.’

The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. For a moment she wavered in meeting Artile’s gaze, a gaze that had led to trance and then submission before. The priest’s face had finally gained a warrior’s harshness. All this time he’d been waging a war she’d not even known had been declared.

‘Seianta was persistent in her quest to bear a child. And it amused me that you wished the opposite. Both of you drank the Zeri thirstily.’

‘The elixir,’ whispered Tarchon. ‘What was in the Zeri?’

‘A guarantee. The pulp of pomegranates and a touch of sylphion.’

It took a moment to understand, but when she did Caecilia felt a hurt that was more than betrayal. It was a cruel pain meted out by one who gained pleasure from inflicting it. It was different, too, from Artile’s callous neglect at the feast. Even then she’d believed that he still cared for her. Instead he must have always hated her, his loathing polished and tended carefully ever since she’d arrived in Veii.

How gullible she’d been to think the Chief Priest would respect a Roman, remembering how he’d steered her fingers too close to the flame upon her wedding day. How many times had she poured a libation of blood and prayed under his guidance? How many times had Seianta done the same?  Both vulnerable. Both trusting. Both, in a way, loving.

And in return he’d given them a special sacrament dowsed with Persephone’s fruit.

Pomegranate that could stop a woman falling with child.

Sylphion that might scour a child from a mother’s womb.

Zeri that might create a monster.

Small monsters. Mastarna’s dead children.

‘You’re mad,’ said Tarchon, grabbing hold of the priest and shaking him. ‘I can’t inherit. My father is about to disown me because you won’t give me up!’

The priest reached up to touch the youth’s cheek but Tarchon shied away.

‘Don’t you see? That is why I hate Mastarna most of all,’ said Artile, dropping his hand to his side. ‘He’s forcing me to surrender you to him. Stopping his wives bearing children was the only way both of us could rule this house together.’

He grasped at Tarchon’s robes. ‘If you leave with her I will not be able to protect you. Tulumnes will know you helped her.’

The youth shook off the priest as he would a leper, the need to escape urgent, to be freed from the possessive sickness within the room. ‘If all goes well I will return,’ he said, coldly. ‘But not to you. Never again to you.’

Artile turned to Caecilia. It made her skin crawl to hear his desperation. ‘Please don’t take him from me. Please, I beg you.’

‘There is no use seeking her help,’ said Tarchon. ‘I am my own man now.’

Crestfallen, the haruspex watched the youth strain to lift a trap door behind the statue. Lifting the lantern, he beckoned Caecilia to follow.

‘If Tulumnes’ men seek me while I am gone, you must lie. You will say I’ve been with you in this chamber. Do not add being an informer to your sins.’

Caecilia paused, realising this was another permanent farewell, but, unlike Cytheris, she would be glad never to see Artile again. ‘Did you always hate me?’

His eyes remained hard. ‘Do you really think I could let a descendant of Mamercus Aemilius bear my family’s heir? The grand niece of the man who killed my father?’

‘You’re not the great seer you profess to be.’

His smug knowing smile made her hate him afresh. ‘Ah, you think my prediction false? Not so. It was you who misunderstood, just as Seianta did. The gods revealed you would bear a son who would beget a son. It seems we were both wrong to believe it would be Mastarna’s.’

‘And the lightning from the northeast? What did the goddess say?’

‘Nothing, sister. The bolt I saw thrown that night was not from Uni. Your quest to defer your child’s birth failed.’

*

Anyone else would think they were descending into the lair of demons, but Caecilia knew better. She was climbing down a slippery wooden ladder into freedom, heading away from vice.

The rock of the shaft smelled of damp. Dankness so thick she felt she could peel it from the walls as she would the rind of a ripe blue cheese. She clutched each rung tightly, petrified of slipping, of hurtling into the darkness, thumping and bouncing off the sides of the rough walls.

Tarchon was below her, holding a lantern above his head with one hand as he edged downwards. The pathetic circle of yellow light did little other than to illuminate the hem of her gown and the leather of her sandals. She was descending by touch alone, concentrating on the rhythm of her descent, forgetting everything but the pattern of movement. One foot, one hand, one foot, one hand. Over and over again inside the belly of the citadel of Veii.

The stench of stagnant water assaulted them when they stepped from the shaft into the drainage channel at the foot of the cliff, making her gag. But a short time later, as she splashed her way through the tunnel in the dark, Caecilia suddenly saw a different blackness overhead, one of stars and space.

Two horsemen stood waiting for them, holding a gelding by its reins; hired guards for the ride ahead.

Clouds now blotted out the sliver of moon. The journey would be in darkness, the hills and flats, plateaus and ridges of the Etruscan countryside hidden. Trees of laurel and oak would be gloomy shapes, only their scent and the sound of the breeze through leaves would mark their presence. Caecilia felt disappointed that she would not pass through such scenes in daylight, that she could not enjoy Veii’s countryside for one last time.

Tarchon leaned down from his horse, offering her his hand.

‘I don’t know how to ride,’ she said, remembering how Tata had stubbornly denied her the chance.

‘There is no need. Sit behind me and hold on.’

When she had mounted, the horse stepped forward, frightening her. The strangeness of having a beast beneath her, muscle and hide and heat shifting out of her control, distracted her from her worries briefly as she clung to her tutor. For the first time in hours Tarchon laughed and gently placed her hands upon his sides.

By dawn she would be at Fidenae, if no brigands waylaid them and if Artile did not raise the alarm.

And by nightfall she would be in Rome.

How would she see her city after the splendour and depravity of Veii? As a country cousin with crooked teeth, large feet and ungainly walk? Would she look down upon it as she had once looked down on Veii? She knew it was right that she was leaving, so why did her heart stutter and stammer in its beat? Why did she feel as though she was travelling into the unknown?

The pace was relentless, but as distance was put between them and Veii the riders slowed from a gallop to a trot and then to a walk as they passed through the straggly end hours of the night. At first terrified she would fall off, Caecilia soon relaxed into the gait of the horse, although after a time the bones of her backside were jarred and jolted against the saddle. Her hands did not leave Tarchon’s sides either, but after a time she relaxed her grip on his tunic.

Her tutor rode the fine long-legged horse with a skilled ease that surprised her, his aptitude for horsemanship belying the effete manner he fostered. The fact that the youth had continued to help her was also a revelation. He could have left her with the bodyguards and hoped they escorted her to safety. Suddenly Caecilia found herself wondering what type of man he could have been had his mentor been one such as Ulthes rather than Artile.

She laid her head against his back in tiredness wishing her mind was clear, that her thoughts could disappear. Perhaps in Rome they would stop cluttering her head. It was thinking that was a torment. It was thinking that made her weary.

Soon the song of the larks chivvied the sound of clip-clopping hooves. The birds were disembodied heralds of daybreak. Sunrise mimicked sunset, only the colours were fresh, unused. In the distance Caecilia spied Fidenae, its citadel perched upon the horizon. Seeing it made her think of the journey to Veii. Soon they would be passing the clearing where the bandits had attacked her.