Vestal Virgin: Suspense in Ancient Rome

by Suzanne Tyrpak

  Bells rang, calling the vestals to the morning ritual.

  The marble floor made an uncomfortable bed. Elissa rubbed her neck, loosening the sore muscles. She got up, stirred the embers then fed the fire coal, taking pleasure in the newborn flames.

  Her tongue felt furry, tasted sour. Finding a jug, she swished water around her mouth and spat it out. She ran her tongue over her teeth, and felt the double incisor. A strange sensation flooded through her body. She felt not fully awake and yet not dreaming. She saw herself as a baby, wrapped in swaddling, held not by her mother, but by someone else. A lullaby ran through her mind. It sounded foreign. Not a song she remembered Constantina ever singing.

  Bells drowned the melody, chased away the lullaby.

  She squinted at the sky, pink around the edges, and watched it change from lavender to blue—a mirror of life’s transience. Nothing lasted forever. Not even gods.

  She recalled reading about Re, the Egyptian sun-god who once commanded a following greater than Apollo. Now wind swept through Re’s temples and his altars crumbled into sand. But Re was not the only god to perish. Jupiter, god of the Romans, had snatched the throne from Zeus. Did gods depend on people to achieve their immortality?

  And what of Paul’s almighty God?

  An almighty God would exist whether humans had faith or not. An almighty God would dwell not only on the highest mountain, not just among the stars, but in everything and everywhere.

  “If God created me then I am part of God.”

  Stunned by the revelation, she stared into the fire.

  Wind blasted through the temple as the doors swung open.

  Marcia entered, ruddy-faced and breathless from climbing the seven steps. She was followed by Cornelia, who ran across the room and threw her arms around Elissa’s waist.

  “Priestess Junia is near to death,” the little girl announced, forgetting the rule of silence.

  Marcia burst into tears.

  “Is this true?” Elissa asked. Old Junia had shown her only kindness, and she hated to think of the poor old woman suffering.

  “She won’t wake,” Marcia said. She drew a handkerchief out of her stola and loudly blew her nose. “Her eyes don’t open, and she’s barely breathing. Mother Amelia insists she must be removed from the house.”

  “Will she die soon?” Cornelia asked. “I’ve never seen a dead person.”

  “Where will they take her?” Marcia wailed. “Where can she go?”

  “Surely she has family,” Elissa said.

  “Only a younger sister, whose husband has no use for another woman in his house.” Marcia twisted the handkerchief around her hand as if binding a wound. “That’s why she’s stayed on at the temple. She could have retired years ago, but now, when she’s old and sick, the priests claim her illness pollutes the House of Vestals.”

  “Poor Junia,” Elissa said.

  “Lucky Junia!” Angerona stood in the entryway. “She’ll finally escape this prison. I wish the priests would open up my cage.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Elissa said.

  “Don’t I?” Angerona snorted unbecomingly.

  “I have no wish to leave,” Marcia said. “When my time comes, like Junia, I have nowhere to go.”

  “I thought you were rich,” Cornelia said.

  “Oh, yes, I have money. But my family has no use for me.”

  “Don’t fret, Marcia,” Angerona said. “You’re nearly thirty-seven. Before long you’ll have a man between those solid thighs.”

  “You’re disgusting.” Marcia’s face grew redder than a slab of meat. “You’re not fit to be a priestess, Angerona. I have nothing more to say to you.”

  “But I have more to say to you.”

  “Enough,” Elissa said.

  “Enough? Perhaps for you, Elissa. After all, you have Gallus Justinus. You pretend to be pure, indifferent. Meanwhile, you’re a bitch in heat, and he hounds you like a lovesick dog.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  Elissa stared at Angerona, the woman who had been her closest friend, the girl she had loved since childhood and trusted more deeply than a sister. “Tread lightly,” she said. “Lest you say something you regret.”

  “Like what?” Cornelia asked, her face rapt with interest.

  “Listen and learn, little girl,” Angerona said. “I regret the years I’ve spent locked in this pretty cage. I don’t intend to perish in this place, loveless like old Junia. When my thirty years are done, I plan to make up for lost time.” She smiled slyly. “You’re all welcome to join my brothel. I think I’ll name it Holy Whores, or maybe Vestal Prosti—”

  “Angerona!” The doors flew open, and the Vestal Maxima stood at the entryway. “How dare you desecrate this sacred ground?”

  “I merely sought to lighten our spirits.”

  “You may find a diet of bread and water elevating.”

  “Why chastise me for idle words and, meanwhile, allow blasphemous acts to go unpunished?”

  “What blasphemous acts?”

  Angerona shot Elissa a menacing look. “Apparently, you have your favorites.”

  “That’s enough,” Mother Amelia warned. “You’re not to leave the house, Angerona.”

  “You might want to reconsider how you mete out punishment,” Angerona said. “Others might take great interest in your discrepancies—The Collegiate of Pontiffs, for example.”

  Icy fingers squeezed Elissa’s heart.

  “Are you threatening me, Priestess Angerona?” The high vestal’s eyes narrowed. “How dare you question my authority?”

  “I’m beholden to a higher power.”

  “Tigellinus?” Elissa said. “Or should I say Nero?” She spoke his name as if it were a curse. “There is none lower. For the gods’ sake, Angerona, he murdered my brother, forced your father to suicide—”

  “Shut up!”

  “And to think I trusted you.” Suddenly, Elissa saw the truth. “You betrayed Marcus, didn’t you?”

  Angerona’s face went pale.

  “It’s true,” Elissa said. “I see it in your face. You’re despicable.”

  Angerona threw herself at Elissa, knocking her onto the floor.

  Elissa fought her off, twisting and scratching, trying to get out from under her. “You disgust me,” she yelled.

  Angerona tore off Elissa’s suffibulum and grabbed a fist of hair, yanking till the roots gave way. They tumbled over one another, kicking, clawing, biting, nearly toppling the cauldron and the sacred fire, as Marcia ran around the temple shrieking and Cornelia wailed.

  “Stop at once!” Mother Amelia’s icy voice was followed by a shower of cold water.

  Elissa broke from Angerona, panting and furious.

  “Get up,” Mother Amelia ordered. She stood over them, in her hands the empty urn meant for holy water. “See me in my chambers now. Both of you.”

  * * * * *

  Elissa hurried to her cubicle, drew the curtain shut, and fell into the chair.

  Angerona could not be trusted.

  Her impulse was to run to Justinus, warn him of possible allegations. Warn him Angerona was a spy. But first she had to face the Vestal Maxima.

  She changed her soaking clothes, making sure her shoes were spotless, her robe immaculate. Straightening her suffibulum, she carefully arranged the veil. But she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking.

  Angerona had thrown Marcus to his death—the man she’d claimed to love—to save her family. Clearly she would stop at nothing. Elissa wracked her memory, trying to remember anything damning she might have told Angerona. Even the suggestion of a vestal’s impropriety would necessitate an inquiry. An examination. Elissa had heard stories about priestesses forced to endure tests—carrying water in a sieve, being thrown into the river to see if she would sink or float, walking barefoot through fire. And if she failed, she would be entombed alive.

  Is that what Angerona wanted?

  “Jesus, if you’re listening
, help me now. I promise to sacrifice thirty sheep, two bullocks, a hundred birds to you.” That would be more than enough to appease Jupiter.

  Bracing herself for her meeting with the Vestal Maxima, and hoping to avoid Angerona, she slipped out of her cubicle. She hurried through the dormitory, past the servants’ quarters, and was halfway down the stairway when a shrill wail broke the silence.

  Shouting echoed through the atrium.

  “Priestess Junia is dead!”

  “Death pollutes the House of Vestals!”

  Weeping servants ran through the halls.

  Elissa sprinted through the tablinum and found the foyer deserted. The front door stood open. A stray dog tore through the doorway, and a kitchen slave chased after it.

  Elissa moved toward the door, considered running.

  Thais burst into the foyer with a sob. “Death has taken Junia,” she cried. “Rome is cursed.”

  Bells clanged, announcing the disaster.

  A vestal’s death on sacred ground portended drought, plague, pestilence—all manner of catastrophe.

  Junia’s death sent the city into turmoil. Over the next month, countless prodigies occurred: a fiery comet streaked through the sky and fell into the Tiber, giants abandoned mountaintops and scoured villages in search of children, a woman gave birth to a goat, a shadow swallowed up the moon, and on the Nones of November all water-clocks were said to stop at night’s eleventh hour.

  Elissa’s routine of quiet meals, scholarly pursuits and working in the garden became a memory. The ten day ordeal of Junia’s state funeral took precedence, and the vestals’ days were filled with ritual. Each morning at dawn they sprinkled salt along the perimeter of the House of Vestals to drive out demons. Each noon they fasted in silent contemplation. Each evening they offered prayers, sacrificing not only cedar wood and wine, but all manner of animals. Rumor claimed blood ran from the temple like the Tiber, and the sacred fire was sustained by bones.

  The altercation between Elissa and Angerona seemed forgotten. But every time Elissa sought to escape the House of Vestals, Angerona appeared close behind her, watching.

  End of Part Two

  PART THREE

  Dark Eternity

  She held him, and they nestled tenderly.

  He followed her meandering path

  trilling his song to her alone.

  She wanders down a road, lost in shadows,

  from which, they say, no one returns.

  I follow, shaking my fist at evil gods.

  All beauty is destroyed within your dark eternity.

  You, who have absconded with my songbird…

  —Catullus

  CHAPTER XXI

  A month had passed since the awful night of Nero’s Meditrinalia banquet, a month since Justinus had been banished from the House of Rubrius.

  “When did you last see her?” Akeem asked.

  “Who?”

  “The girl. The girl you can’t stop thinking of. The one who receives your letters.”

  “Those are documents of state.”

  “Is that why their deliverance includes a bribe to ensure secrecy?”

  Tact was not an attribute in which Akeem excelled. The slave had the annoying habit of saying what he thought. Justinus glanced at the sodden sky.

  “It’s going to rain.”

  “In Egypt we have an expression for your affliction, ‘Isis has you by the balls.’”

  “It’s going to rain soon.”

  A creature of the desert, Akeem despised thunderstorms. Throwing Justinus a surly look, he left the courtyard.

  Justinus returned to tending his apple trees. He’d wrapped the trunks with muslin to protect them against frost, doused the soil with eggshells, and now he mulched the roots with pine needles. A gust of wind blew lingering leaves from barren branches. A metaphor, Justinus thought, for his barren life.

  Akeem was right.

  He could not stop thinking about Elissa. In the past month he’d received little news of her, except for what he gleaned from their exchange of letters. According to Elissa’s missives, her father had recovered from his bout of apoplexy and a wedding was in store for Flavia. Her betrothal to Egnatius would soon be publicly announced. Once the dowry was settled there could be no change of heart without reparation to the injured party. Justinus felt sorry for Flavia. She was foolish, impetuous, but marriage to Egnatius seemed unjust punishment. But, if life were fair, he and Elissa would be getting married.

  He scattered a handful of pine needles, breathing in their sharp, clean scent. Elissa’s last letter had been less of news and more of questions. She seemed preoccupied by death, and had asked about the resurrection, wanted to know how it could be possible.

  Raindrops began to fall, leaving coin-sized marks on the courtyard’s paving stones. Justinus welcomed them. Rain filled the aqueducts, watered fields, quenched his apple trees.

  Akeem poked his head outside. “Come in,” he called, venturing no further than the edge of the covered portico. A clap of thunder sent him scurrying back into the house.

  Storms didn’t bother Justinus. When he’d been a soldier in Britannia gray skies had been the norm and rain became a way of life. The Fourteenth Legion had been founded a century ago by Julius Caesar and had been stationed in Britannia for seventeen years, though Justinus had joined them at the finish of the tour. His men despised the endless damp, water seeping through their boots, mildewed clothes and moldy bread. Most couldn’t wait to return to the sunny warmth of Italy, but Justinus reveled in the wake of green.

  Until that day in June.

  Even now he heard the cries for war. Smelled the stench of fallen bodies. A part of him had died that day.

  Rain pelted him, but he kept working, lost in memories of war.

  Akeem ran into the courtyard, a blanket draped over his head. “Master,” he pleaded. “Come in now.”

  “Rain won’t kill me.”

  “But Priestess Angerona might.” Akeem danced from foot to foot, avoiding rivulets.

  “Angerona?” Justinus’s mood grew darker than the sky.

  “She just arrived and waits inside.”

  With the next lightning flash, like Mercury, Akeem bolted from the courtyard, his soggy blanket flapping in the wind. Reluctantly, Justinus followed him inside. Dripping wet, his boots leaving muddy tracks, he walked through the vestibule and into the atrium. Rain streamed through the open roof, showering the central pool, waking the cat.

  “She’s in there.” Akeem pointed to the library.

  Justinus ripped open the curtain and found Angerona sitting in his chair, the chair that had once belonged to his father. He glanced at the cedar chest that housed important documents and stood bolted to the floor, half expecting to find the lock broken, its contents plundered, but Angerona was busy examining her nails. No lictor stood inside the doorway, no escort of any kind. She must have come alone. She looked up with a smile that Justinus did not return.

  He bowed slightly, meeting the requirement for good manners. It was possible that Angerona had been sent by the Vestal Maxima on an important matter. Maybe the House of the Vestals required a supply grain for the coming winter, maybe their stable needed horses—

  “To what may I attribute the honor of your presence?” he asked.

  “Must you always be so formal, Justinus? My reason for coming here is personal.”

  “How so?”

  “A matter of utmost delicacy.”

  Angerona got up from the chair and walked toward him, hips swaying beneath her stola.

  “Do you find me attractive, Justinus?”

  “Of course not.” Realizing how insulting that must sound, he added, “You’re a vestal virgin.”

  “Not a woman?”

  Angerona’s laughter sounded sharp as breaking glass. She pushed away her suffibulum, releasing her auburn curls, then lifted her chin in expectation of a kiss. Justinus clenched his fists, held them at his sides.

  “What do you want?”

>   Her lips froze in a smile. “Have you heard from Elissa lately?”

  Justinus clenched his fists tighter. “I haven’t seen her.”

  “But somehow you communicate?”

  He refused to lie, so he said nothing.

  “About a month ago, at Meditrinalia, I followed the two of you into the Subura.”

  “Elissa told me.” He’d said too much.

  “Told you, how? By letter?”

  “That’s not your concern.”

  “I think it is. Love letters are forbidden to vestal virgins.”

  “You’d better leave.”

  “What would you say if I told you I found one of those letters? A letter she meant to send and lost? Do I make you nervous, Justinus?” She moved closer, so close her scent traveled up his nostrils. “Your clothes are soaking wet,” she said. “Maybe you should take them off.”

  “Where is this so-called letter?”

  She pointed to her bosom.

  “Give it to me,” he said.

  She pulled away her palla and leaned toward him. “You’ll have to fish it out.”

  He snatched the letter from between her breasts.

  She tried to grab it back, but he held it away from her.

  “I’m willing to forget that day in the Subura,” she said, “deny I saw anything, retract all accusations if—”

  “What?”

  Using the oil-lamp on his desk, he set fire to a corner of the letter, and watched it burn. The papyrus turned brown, curling around his name and Elissa’s, white ash drifting to the floor.

  Angerona stood behind him, her breathing shallow and rapid. He felt heat rising from her body. She stroked his neck.

  “Make love to me.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?” She ran her fingers through his hair, and he felt himself weaken.

  “You’re a vestal virgin, remember?”

  “That didn’t stop you from bedding Elissa.”

  “Have you lost your senses?” It took all his strength to restrain himself from hitting her.