Which was why she found it puzzling that she had arrived at the base of the Caelian Hill without having yet considered the problem of her situation. She had been walking for at least an hour, had passed many a towering insula without even seeing it. She was supposed to be looking for a place to live, not dreaming of a man she barely knew.
She gazed up at the large insula apartment building rising before her now: a titan she was determined to tame. She walked towards the entrance.
A handful of minutes later, she was walking away from the entrance, telling herself not to lose her spirit. Of course, there were no vacancies. She should have expected as much. Rome was full to brimming. It was the reason emperors often gave for their unrelenting expansion of Rome’s borders. There was simply not enough space to accommodate its million souls.
Still, Vita would not be deterred. She said a small prayer to Diana and kept going up the hill. The next insula was the same and also the next. Full and fuller. At the top of the hill, the manager of a small, well-kept insula had an attractive room available with a view of the Tiber, but he required six months of rent in advance—a small fortune.
Another landlord was offering several rooms on the top floor of a five-storey building that did not yet have its roof. In another building, a grandmotherly manager escorted Vita to a room with a variety of droppings on the floor. ‘You would not happen to own a cat?’ she asked.
On a whim, Vita wandered to the area of Capitoline Hill and gazed up at what was considered to be the best insula in the city. She did not even knock on the door. Even if she could afford a room in such a dwelling, she knew she would not have been allowed to rent it. Renting to an unmarried woman was forbidden anywhere near Rome’s sacred heart.
Discouraged, Vita returned to her home and began to clean up the atrium flood. By the time Magnus returned from his work, the house was sparkling clean.
‘Where is my dinner?’ he asked.
‘Apologies, Magnus, I did not think you would be wanting one.’ Now that we are divorced.
‘Why not? You are still living here, are you not?’ he said. ‘At least for another three days?’
Vita nodded.
‘In that case I will have the rest of the oysters in a stew with fish sauce and onions.’
Vita turned towards the kitchen.
‘And bring me bread. I am famished.’
Vita sliced into a loaf of bread, unsure of how to feel. On the one hand, she was grateful as to how cheerfully Magnus seemed to accept the situation. He appeared genuinely glad that she was leaving him, though she should not have been surprised. It was not as if his life was going to change.
He certainly was not going to miss her. He had made that abundantly clear, though she wondered if he would miss the food she purchased and the expenses she regularly covered on his behalf. Perhaps he loathed her enough to be able to overlook those contributions or perhaps he had never even noticed them at all.
She served him his dinner in the triclinium. ‘Is this all that remains of the honey?’ he asked, holding up an empty clay pot.
‘I believe it is.’
‘You must get more tomorrow in that case,’ he said. ‘Since you are still living in this house.’
‘If you wish,’ said Vita.
‘And my toga needs to be picked up from the fuller,’ he added.
‘Very well.’
He took one sip of the soup and frowned. ‘After you are gone, I believe I will purchase a slave,’ he said. ‘One who can cook.’
He could not have stung her worse with an actual whip. Now that she was leaving, it seemed that he would use his savings to simply purchase her replacement: savings that he had been able to acquire thanks to her. No wonder he seemed so carefree. Her departure would leave him with the house, his freedom and tastier stews.
She retired to her bedroom and counted up her savings for a second time. It remained only twenty-two sesterces—less than half the cost of the room she had found in the Caelian that day.
She would have to look elsewhere, in a cheaper part of the city.
At the baths the day before, several matrons had mentioned the affordability of the Subura neighbourhood, though it was not recommended. ‘So many fires and crumbling cement!’ one matron had warned.
‘You would be safer living inside a mine,’ another had said.
Vita and Avidia had converged in the caldarium and decided to pool their resources. The prospect of having a roommate was a comfort to Vita, though she doubted Avidia would be able to contribute much in the way of rent.
Vita smiled sadly. Over the years, she must have sold over a hundred capes, some for over twenty sesterces each. What had become of all that coin? She looked up and spied a place in the ceiling that she had recently paid to have patched. She lay back upon her new pillows. She had bought them only a month ago so that she and Magnus might rest more comfortably in their respective beds.
She had made many similar purchases over the years—too many to count. Her life with Magnus had been rather grey and she had spent many of the proceeds from her sewing towards making it brighter. She had lived in the present instead of the future. She had been a fool.
Now she had only twenty-two sesterces to her name and a husband who wanted her out in three days.
Vita closed her eyes and pictured herself on the massage bench once again, lying beneath Ven’s reassuring touch. Do not despair, she thought. All will be well.
She wanted to believe him, but how could she? Nothing would be well at all if she could not find a safe place to sleep at night. Rome’s streets were dangerous for unaccompanied women, no matter what their station. Surely that was the reason Ven had urged her to recover her dowry—he did not wish for her to become destitute. He had wanted the best for her, as if she were worthy of such a thing.
Perhaps she was worthy.
His words echoed in her mind. ‘You are owed the full value of your dowry.’ She wondered what exactly that might be. She guessed that the house was worth at least forty thousand sesterces, possibly more. Just a fraction of that sum could keep her in a Capitoline apartment for the rest of her life. It could even enable her to purchase a dwelling of her own. A sewing shop!
‘The law is on your side in this. You must not be afraid to use it.’
The words were like honeybees. They swirled around in her mind, not allowing it to rest. Vita feared Magnus, but she was beginning to fear her destitution more. What was the purpose of a dowry if not to support a woman when her husband no longer would?
* * *
That was what she was thinking as she sneaked into Magnus’s tablinium late that night and slowly pulled open the top desk drawer. She lifted her oil lamp above the shallow box and studied its contents. There were several scrolls inside, but none had anything to do with their marriage.
She glanced down at the deeper drawer running along the right side of the desk. Where did Magnus keep the key?
She was crouching beneath the desk, feeling along the wood for any crevices or secret compartments, when she heard his booming voice. ‘Vita? Is that you?’
She jerked upwards, slamming her head against the top of the desk. ‘Oh!’ she yelped, then sank back down on to the floor.
‘What are you doing, Vita?’
The pain was so intense that she could not answer him at first. ‘Nothing. I—ah... Hello, Magnus. I was just—um—looking for my citizenship papers.’
‘Your citizenship papers? Beneath my desk?’
‘I did not know where you kept them,’ she replied lamely.
She could barely see his expression amid the shadows, but his voice seemed plugged with a false cheer. ‘I believe you keep your citizenship papers with your things, do you not? You should check.’
‘All right, I will do that.’
Slowly, Vita stood. She felt dizzy and afraid. She lifted her lamp
and watched Magnus disappear silently back into the house. She made her way back to her bedchamber, scolding herself. Why had she listened to Ven’s advice? Now Magnus would be suspicious. If the marriage contract was in the desk as she suspected, he would surely remove it—or simply hide the key.
She touched the growing bump on her head—surely a sign from the gods. She could not afford to let herself be influenced by the opinions of others any more—no matter how well meaning. She was her own woman now and needed to keep her own counsel.
She was going to find an inexpensive place to rent, move out of the house, then get to work sewing the most magnificent capes in all the Empire. That was how she would survive.
She sat on her bed and laid out all her coin. Twenty-two sesterces.
She pulled one sesterce out of the pile and set it aside, for she would need it tomorrow to purchase honey and to pay the fuller.
The third bell of evening chimed and she counted up her sesterces again. Now there were twenty-one.
* * *
That evening after dinner, Ven stood outside his master’s tablinium as the third bell chimed, then pushed open the door. ‘Good evening, Dominus, I—’
Ven bit his tongue. His dominus sat upon his chair as usual, but his legs were sprawled wide, creating a space for the woman between them. She was pleasuring Lepidus with her mouth.
Ven lunged out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him.
It was not the first time he had caught his master enjoying a female slave, though he had hoped the old man would leave the Dacian woman alone for a bit longer. He closed his eyes and said a silent prayer for the woman, a captive from the previous Emperor’s war. She did not deserve such a fate. No woman did.
‘Come in, Ven,’ his master said at last. ‘We are done now.’
Ven stepped inside the chamber. The woman was fumbling to tie her hair and he saw the wetness of tears on her cheeks.
A rare grin stretched across his master’s face. ‘There is something about the look of terror in their eyes.’ Lepidus said. ‘She will improve with time.’
Ven bit his own tongue. He knew that it was customary for a paterfamilias to take liberties with his slaves. It was his right, after all, by Roman law. Still, Ven could not help the anger that welled up inside him, seeing the look on the filthy old man’s face.
Gods, what was wrong with him? First Vita’s safety and now his master’s sins. He was allowing his emotions free rein and no good could come of it. He reminded himself that his life was not his own, nor was his will. Besides, he deserved his wretched fate. He had chosen it the winter that he had failed to save his mother’s life.
* * *
It was the autumn of Ven’s twelfth year, and throughout Brigante territory the grain harvest had failed—cursed by an early frost. The heads of wheat lay empty and bent in the fields and, as the days passed, the people of Ven’s tribe grew empty and bent as well.
The Samhain feast was cancelled and it was determined there was not enough grain for the scattered Brigante settlements to survive the winter.
Livestock was slaughtered, plants gathered; sacrifices made. Requests for aid were discreetly sent to allied tribes, all of whom had experienced the same frost. Finally the tribal elders determined that there was no other choice but to appeal to the Romans.
The Roman soldiers stationed in Brigante territory were loved by none. They regularly extracted tribute from the Brigantes in exchange for ‘protection’, though it was never clear what that protection entailed.
Nor was it just grain they took from the Brigantes. The Romans took deer from their forests and fish from their streams and cows from their wide-ranging herds. They seduced their Brigante women, promising them better lives, and offered their ablest young men careers in the Roman army. They took and took and took.
That year, however, the Brigantes had nothing left to give. An envoy of northern Brigante leaders, including Ven’s father, had travelled to the Roman fort at Vindolanda to request a deferral of their tribute requirements. The visit did not go well.
Days later, Ven and his mother watched from the doorway of their roundhouse as a cohort of Roman soldiers opened the underground grain cache and removed their settlement’s remaining stores.
Throughout Brigante territory it was the same. The Roman soldiers visited every Brigante settlement there was, including the three hill forts. They came, saw and took, and by the time they were through the Brigantes had no more grain.
They had no choice but to attempt to take it back.
* * *
On the eve of their planned raid on the Roman fort, Ven sat on the floor of their roundhouse, sharpening his father’s dagger.
‘Let me go with you, Father,’ he begged. ‘I am already a fine hunter. You told me yourself. I am talented with the bow.’
‘Hunting is different than raiding,’ his father said, casting his mother a glance. ‘Besides, I need you here. If I die, you will become the man of the house. In a few years, perhaps you will become a leader of our settlement.’
Ven’s mother added a log to the fire and nodded at Ven’s father. ‘Will you serve our people, Ven?’ his father asked him. ‘If I die, will you help them stand up to the Romans?’
‘I will, sir,’ said Ven.
‘And will you protect your mother and keep her safe?’
‘I will,’ Ven replied. He lowered his head. It was as if his father were already speaking from the grave.
‘Promise me, Son. Protect your mother, whatever you do.’
Dread pressed down upon Ven’s shoulders. ‘I promise.’
They were the last words he ever said to his father.
The next day, his father and a dozen other warriors left their settlement to join the largest contingent of Brigante raiders ever gathered. By evening, the raid on the Roman grain stores had failed and only three of the warriors returned. Ven’s father was not among them.
The winter came on swift feet. There was no grain and very little other food left. Ven’s mother ate little, giving all of her extra food to Ven.
‘Father died trying to keep us alive,’ Ven told her. ‘You must not give up now.’ But she shook her head and sighed—sick with a broken heart.
Ven spent his days in the forest, hunting for prey. If he could just land a deer, he told himself, he could show his mother that hope was alive, that Father was watching over them. It was the reason he was so far away from the settlement the day the raiders came.
They were Parisi—an enemy tribe from the south. They swept through the weakened Brigante settlements, killing their remaining warriors and enslaving the rest. By the time Ven smelled the smoke from the fires it was too late.
He rushed back to his settlement and discovered everything—and everyone—to be gone.
Not a single soul had escaped the raiders.
The cold nipped at his ears, his face. He tried to follow the raiders’ tracks, but it began to rain and then the rain turned to snow. He rushed back to his small roundhouse—one of the few that had survived the Parisi’s destruction—and lit a fire. He stayed there all night, staring into the flames.
The next morning, he set out for the lands of the Parisi once again, but after only a few hours, his toes grew so numb he could hardly walk. He returned to his home, opened his family’s cellar and stared at the stack of dry wood inside. It was enough to survive a winter.
Day after day, he set out to rescue his mother and, day after day, the cold would not let him do it. He brought tinder into the forest and tried to nurture a blaze, but the kindling was too wet to keep it going for long. He sharpened his arrows and assured himself that there would be good hunting where he was going, but the further he got from his home, the less certain he felt. He knew not where Parisi lands lay, only that they were far.
Fortunately, he knew the forests around his settlement well. He knew whe
re the winter birds clustered and where the fish and rabbits hid, and, when his stomach began to ache with hunger, he set about finding food.
When he shot his first pheasant out of the sky, he shouted with joy, forgetting for a moment that his mother lay somewhere in chains, waiting for him to save her.
Forgetting for a moment that he was a coward.
Each passing moment was proof of his own failure. Every day that went by, he betrayed his mother more. He was surviving, but in disgrace. He did not deserve to feel joy.
The days passed like admonitions. He caught his first fish, but he forbade himself from enjoying the meat. He should have been looking for his mother, braving the cold and the unknown, risking all to bring her home.
But he could not bring himself to do it, for he was afraid of what he did not know.
Thus every time the warmth of happiness crept into his heart, he stealthily blocked its path. He cowered inside his childhood home, stoking his fire and waiting for spring to come.
When it finally did, he sensed a strange loss. He gazed up at the sky one morning and found that it did not contain a single cloud. His stomach felt empty, though he was well fed. He searched his mind for his mother and could not find her.
He set off for the lands of the Parisi and found their hill fort in a handful of days. He lurked outside its timber-spiked walls, peering through the crevices to discover his Brigante brethren enslaved inside.
By day Ven searched for his mother, hoping to find her among them. By night he slept outside the walls and prayed for a miracle.
At last he was able to sneak into an open stable where one of his fellow tribesmen slept. ‘Greetings, Uncle,’ he whispered to the old man. ‘I have come to rescue my mother from servitude.’
‘Your mother?’ The man squinted at Ven beneath the moonlight. ‘Ah, yes, you are the son of Enica. She said that you were coming for her.’
The Roman Lady's Illicit Affair Page 6