Vestal Virgin: Suspense in Ancient Rome

by Suzanne Tyrpak

  “Let’s go,” Tigellinus shouted. “This procession doesn’t have to take all day.”

  Smoke stung Elissa’s nostrils. Beneath the blindfold, her eyes watered. She heard people coughing. The palanquin tipped precariously as they climbed Viminal Hill. The procession traveled northeast to the far end of the city. Just inside the Colline Gate they came to a halt. The litter and Elissa were lowered to the ground.

  Mother Amelia pronounced an invocation. Whether it was long or short Elissa couldn’t tell. Her heart thumped louder than a drum. Acutely aware of each inhale, each exhale, she filled her lungs with acrid air. Prayers were said and hymns were sung. Finally the leather straps were loosened, the gag and blindfold removed.

  Light blinded her.

  “I pray the next world will be better,” Mother Amelia said.

  She draped a veil over Elissa’s face and helped her from the palanquin. Even here, on a hill above the city, smoke was evident. Through the veil Elissa saw a hazy sun. Black clouds choked the western horizon, too dark for a summer thunderstorm.

  “Rome burns,” she said softly. “And from union unholy the sister will bring forth a son.”

  “The tomb is prepared,” Tigellinus announced.

  Mother Amelia led Elissa away from her weeping parents and walked her through the Field of Iniquity. Removing Elissa’s veil she mumbled a final prayer.

  Elissa faced a mound of dirt. Guards stood at the entryway, where they would remain until her death was certain.

  Darkness cannot prevail within the light of a happy soul.

  For an instant the phrase made sense. But when she peered into the gaping hole, the dark pit she was to enter, she felt terror.

  “My Lord,” she whispered. “Why have you forsaken me?”

  Tears streamed down Mother Amelia’s face as she handed Elissa an oil lamp. In light of day the flame seemed weak.

  “I will pray for you,” she said.

  “Pray for Rome.”

  Elissa glanced at the sky, gray with smoke, yet infinitely brighter than the tomb. Holding up the lamp, she steadied her foot on the first rung of the ladder and began her descent.

  The crypt was windowless. The air smelled of earth. She ran her hand along the wall and felt the porous tufa bricks cut from volcanic stone and, in between the bricks, smooth mortar. She set the lamp on a small table that also held a loaf of bread, a jug of milk, a ration of olive oil.

  A rock tumbled through the hole as the ladder was withdrawn. More rocks followed as a slab of stone thumped into place, sealing her inside the tomb, plunging her into darkness more profound than Hades.

  The oil lamp sputtered. How many days could she survive? How many hours?

  Recently, workmen, excavating a new road, had uncovered a coffin. Inside they found a woman, her face contorted in a silent scream, her fingers worn to bone from clawing.

  Elissa breathed in dust and tasted dirt.

  She strained to hear sounds from outside the tomb. Surely birds were still singing, her mother weeping, mourners wailing.

  Down here, silence ruled.

  She walked the tomb’s length and counted ten paces. The width was identical and the height seemed about the same. She thought of lions in their cages.

  Thought of Marcus.

  Thought of Jesus. He had risen from the dead.

  Hours must have passed.

  Reclaiming the lamp, she lifted the light toward the ceiling. Without a ladder, she couldn’t reach the slab of stone.

  Her gaze fell on the three-legged table.

  She removed the provisions, taking care not to spill the precious oil. Dragging the table across the room, she positioned it under the opening. She hiked up her tunica and climbed onto the table. It wobbled, nearly threw her off. Regaining her balance, she stood on tip-toe. Her fingertips brushed against the ceiling, but offered her no leverage. The stone slab didn’t budge.

  She climbed down from the table, dizzy and nauseated. Lately she had not felt well, especially in the mornings, and she found eating repulsive. But now hunger tugged at her. She took a sip of milk, already warm and slightly curdled, then glanced around the crypt.

  A straw pallet lay on the floor. She grabbed hold of a corner and heaved the pallet onto the table. A few more inches of elevation allowed her to press her palms against the ceiling. The slab blocking the opening was heavier than she’d imagined. She bent her knees and, gathering her strength, pushed upward. The stone shifted slightly, allowing in a breath of air. With a thud the slab fell back into place. Again, she tried to move the stone, with similar results. She continued trying, until sweat streamed down her face and she felt breathless, sick to her stomach.

  Was it her imagination, or had the air become thinner?

  Exhausted, she climbed down from the table and threw the pallet on the floor.

  She tried to think. Tried to conceive how she might lever the stone, dig her way out, tunnel through the earth to freedom.

  She yawned.

  Maybe if she rested, not for long, just to regain her strength. She sank onto the pallet. Gathering her knees into her chest, she leaned against the cold stone wall, rocking like a child. A song drifted through her memory.

  A lullaby.

  Her wrists and ankles still ached from Tigellinus’s bindings, her arms were sore from pushing at the slab of stone. The sour milk unsettled her stomach.

  And the oil lamp grew dimmer.

  CHAPTER XLI

  Flavia twitched.

  Pain stabbed her gut, her spine stretched to the breaking point as she dangled from the ceiling. She gagged at her own stench.

  Memories slipped through her mind, and she grabbed hold of one…spinning with her mother—the green scent of flax, the tug of thread, the whirring spindle.

  A firebrand poked at her womb, forcing her back to consciousness.

  Suspended between this world and the next, she swung back and forth. Vibrations rattled through her arms as if the ceiling trembled. But how could that be possible? She must be dreaming, lost in yet another nightmare.

  The ceiling shook, the joists creaked and timbers groaned. She imagined the walls shifting. Imagined a door opening at her command, like the story Marcus had once told her about a magic treasure-trove. The walls rumbled. The shift was unmistakable. Dirt rained from the concrete ceiling. A chip of plaster jabbed her eye. She blinked, trying to dislodge the shard.

  The shackles slipped and loosened. With a crack the iron bolt gave way, and she fell to the floor. The boom of rupturing concrete followed as the ceiling collapsed. A hailstorm of wood and sand and stone pelted her. It grew into an avalanche, burying her until she couldn’t move.

  Stunned, she lay beneath the weight of wreckage.

  Thought she must be dead.

  She tasted the paste of plaster, the grit of sand.

  Something heavy pressed against her shoulders. She tried to arch her back and the pressure shifted, bringing a new flurry of stones and dirt. But she’d gained more space in which she could maneuver. Sucking in dust, she wriggled her hands out of the leather straps. Blood pulsed through her fingers and brought back feeling. Pain. She pushed herself onto her battered hands and knees, managing to crawl a short distance.

  If she hoped to survive, she’d have to surface.

  Closing her eyes, she heaved her shoulders through an ocean of debris, kept shoving upward through rocks and plaster. Clawing with broken fingernails, she swam through rubble, fighting her way to the surface. Dust clogged her nostrils, made her cough. She gulped air. Acrid, smoky. Breathed the stink of excrement.

  Wiping sand from her eyes, she studied her surroundings.

  Light, dancing with particles of dirt, filtered through a hole, high above a mountain of ruptured wood and concrete. Any attempt to scale the pile would cause a landslide. All that remained of the chamber was a narrow passage. And, at the end of the passage: hope.

  Crumbling walls revealed a tunnel. The sewer. It ran beneath the palace, met the Cloaca Maxima at t
he forum and emptied into the Tiber.

  Weakened by pain and thirst, Flavia knew she couldn’t last much longer. But determination gave her strength. The ceiling sloped down at an angle, grew progressively lower as she crawled toward the sewer’s opening. Lying on her sore belly, she wriggled like a snake. She made slow progress, and the stench was overwhelming. Vomit gurgled in her throat.

  A rat’s eyes gleamed as she approached the tunnel, and she wanted to scream. But her lips were pressed into the dirt and she could barely breathe.

  She wished she were home, back at her parents’ domus, back in her old life.

  But wishes were only granted in tales told to children.

  CHAPTER XLII

  Justinus knelt within the charred remains of the Temple of Vesta. Head bowed, hands clenched together, he prayed for forgiveness. He had caused this devastation. His hubris. His stupidity.

  For days, he wasn’t sure how many, he’d wandered through the burning city lending muscle to the vigiles. Using an axe, he’d hacked down walls. He’d strung up boulders with hemp rope, swinging them at plaster to demolish buildings. Anything to arrest the blaze and create a firebreak. But seven thousand vigiles were no match for the conflagration, a fire more enormous than any in memory, heat so intense it transformed statues into puddles. Corpses lay piled in the streets while homeless people wandered through the devastation. The dead haunted Justinus.

  He looked up from his prayers.

  Skeletal remains of the imperial palace lined Palatine Hill, phantasms of magnificence. Sparks whirled through the blood-red sky, and ancient trees raised blackened limbs pleading to the heavens. Scooping up ashes, Justinus threw them on his head and shouted, “Forgive me, Lord.”

  But even if God forgave him, how could he forgive himself? He thought of Elissa, slowly starving, asphyxiating. To maintain a shred of honor, his only course was suicide.

  “Justinus?”

  Angerona hovered over him, robes stained with soot, hair in disarray. More lemur than woman. The last person he hoped to see.

  “Go away,” he muttered. Stumbling to his feet, he sought escape.

  She caught him by the arm. “Hear me out.”

  “Let go of me.”

  Her face, usually a placid mask, disintegrated into tears. “Please, forgive me. I did what I had to do to save my family.”

  His fortitude crumbled. How could he, guilty of the worst atrocities, refuse anyone forgiveness?

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I need your help.”

  He followed Angerona’s gaze and looked toward the smoldering House of Vestals where charred statues of the priestesses stood among the courtyard’s ruin.

  “Help me to redeem myself,” she said.

  “I can’t help you, Angerona. Redemption comes from God.”

  “Then help me save Elissa.”

  With sooty fists, Justinus swiped at his eyes. “Elissa’s dead.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “It’s been days.”

  “Come with me to the Colline Gate. In all the confusion of the fire, the guards have fled and no one will notice us. Grant me the chance to prove myself.” She held out her hand to him.

  Justinus saw sorrow in her eyes, and yearning for forgiveness. Goddess or Gorgon?

  It made no difference, if Elissa lived.

  CHAPTER XLIII

  With bloody fists, Elissa hammered at the tufa bricks. Bits of rubble broke away, rattling down the wall, but her prison remained invincible. Her throat was raw from screaming, her tongue swollen.

  She lacked the grace to die like Jesus.

  Clinging to the wall with blistered fingers, she tried to stand. Her legs buckled, and she fell onto the sleeping pallet. Straw poked through the fabric, stabbing her. She rolled onto her stomach, pressed her hands into the pallet and raised herself onto all fours. Standing seemed impossible. Exhausted, she sat staring into darkness.

  The fragment of a lullaby haunted her.

  She drew her knees into her chest, feeling her body’s warmth, imagining that someone held her. An unfamiliar touch, a long forgotten scent, tugged at her memory. She squeezed her eyes shut, banishing her birthmother.

  Hugging her knees tighter, she hummed the lullaby.

  When the end came who would be here?

  Not Mater. Not Pater.

  Not even the gods.

  She rocked back and forth and imagined she was in her father’s arms. When she had been a child, she and Honoratus had often walked hand-in-hand along the garden path. Half-running, she had struggled to keep pace with him. When she grew tired, he carried her small body in his arms and held her close. She’d felt safe then. Petals drifting down like snow, whirling on the breeze. White flakes kissing her with ice. But, it must have been spring.

  And now it was summer.

  Wasn’t it?

  She pressed her burning cheek against the tufa wall. So cool. So soothing. Inviting her to sleep. To lose herself in sweet oblivion. She sank onto the pallet, lay down and closed her eyes as peace crept through her consciousness.

  But sleep meant death.

  Forcing her eyes open, she focused on a light.

  The oil lamp?

  No.

  The oil lamp had burned out.

  An image stared at her. A dark circle in a ring of light. The sun. The eye of God. A face, kinder than any she had ever known, gazed into hers. Smiling and radiant. A diadem of thorns encircled his head; trails of blood ran down his brow. How he must be suffering.

  He had died in pain.

  Died for her salvation.

  What was her death in comparison? A final breath, a letting go, the last flicker of a flame.

  She watched in wonder as the thorns of his crown fell away. The vine turned green and smooth, sprouted leaves then blossomed with roses.

  He reached out his hand to her.

  Light flowed into her body, pulsing through her heart, rushing through her arteries. Hatred, rage, the need for vengeance, vanished at his touch.

  He drew her up beyond the darkness, carried her within his arms. They traveled past the sun, past stars, and through the heavens. When they reached the moon they sat perched on its silver crescent, legs swinging.

  Humming a lullaby.

  He handed her a rose, pink and blooming.

  CHAPTER XLIV

  Justinus ran a cloth over his face. It came away with sweat and soot. Even here, far from the city’s center, the fire’s heat combined with the day’s increasing temperature to create a furnace.

  “Over here,” Angerona called.

  Peering through the smoky haze, he saw her standing by a mound of earth.

  Elissa’s tomb.

  Spikes of purple lupine, yellow-centered asters, and drooping bluebells lay scattered in the dirt and marked her grave. A slab of granite blocked the tomb’s opening. Falling to his knees, Justinus tried to lift the stone. Rough edges cut into his callused hands and the slab barely moved.

  “Help me,” he said.

  Angerona’s hands were smooth and white. “I don’t think I can—”

  “On the count of three.” Together they heaved, and the stone shifted slightly, enough for Justinus to peer through a narrow fissure.

  “Elissa,” he called into the darkness.

  No answer.

  He needed something for leverage. He glanced at Angerona, noticing her palla. “Give me your shawl.”

  Slowly, she unwound the fabric, exposing pale shoulders, slender arms. Through her stola, he saw the silhouette of her body—she wore no tunica beneath it. She dangled the palla in front of his face. He should have come alone. Should have known she would be trouble.

  “When I lift, run your shawl under the slab,” he instructed her.

  She bent toward the slab, allowing him an eye-full.

  He managed to lift the stone enough for Angerona to saw the palla back and forth, creating a sling. Grabbing hold of both ends of the fabric, he tugged, and the slab shifted. Gri
tting his teeth, he levered the palla over his shoulder and pulled as if he were an ox, moving the stone inch by inch, sweat stinging his eyes. He heard the fabric tearing. The palla ripped and sent him to his knees.

  “I see her,” Angerona shouted. She knelt beside a crevice large enough to squeeze through.

  “Is she alive?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  Justinus pushed her aside. In the dim light, he saw Elissa lying on a pallet, unmoving, and her eyes closed.

  “We need a ladder,” Angerona said.

  “They’ve taken it.”

  Beneath the opening, Justinus saw a table. Lowering his legs into the hole, his feet found the table’s surface.

  Pebbles tumbled after him.

  The tomb felt dank, stank of sour milk and vomit.

  Elissa looked pale and fragile. Afraid if he touched her she might break, shatter like fine glass.

  He whispered her name.

  Her lips moved silently.

  “Elissa!” He reached for her, felt the moisture of her breath. “Do you hear me?”

  Her eyelids fluttered open.

  “Is this Hades?”

  “I think it might be heaven.” Justinus smiled, could have laughed. “And finding you is my salvation.” He took her in his arms, felt her heart beating against his, and lifted her toward the light.

  * * * * *

  Elissa weighed no more than a child as Justinus carried her from the Colline Gates and across the Field of Iniquity. Despite the lightness of his burden, his lungs ached. Brown haze settled on the city, crept along Viminal Hill, made his eyes water, his throat raw.

  He lay Elissa on a grassy bank and sat beside her, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest. She was not fully awake, but seemed to be gaining strength.

  He gazed down at the city. A battlefield. Fire had marched through the Forum Romanum, destroying palaces of senators, claiming granaries and warehouses, plundering the Temple of Jupiter built by Romulus. Then without warning the winds had shifted, and the fire had turned back, ravaging the Subura’s twisting streets. Meanwhile, people huddled within the tufa walls of the Forum of Augustus while flames raged around them.