by Simon Rumney
Julia had used rape and Sulla’s scheming merely as a way of building a platform for what she was about to deliver. She could see that her account had completely shocked the old man and having set the stage moved in for the killer blow. Reaching into the little leather purse attached to her belt Julia retrieved a crumpled piece of parchment and handed it to Marius. “I have proof of Sulla’s deceit, written in his own hand.”
Unfolding the yellowing parchment Marius proceeded to read the report that Sulla had penned during his infamous meeting with the Marsi. It stated quite categorically that the tribes had organized themselves and a war would cost Rome dearly but it was the final recommendation written just above Sulla’s signature which provided the evidence that would destroy Sulla’s reputation forever:
It is my considered opinion that offering Roman citizenship is the only way to prevent the loss of many thousands of Roman lives.
“Where did you get this?” asked an amazed Marius.
“It was the document that Sulla was studying when I surprised him by the well. He dropped it and I picked it up as a souvenir of my meeting with such a powerful Senator of Rome. Was I wrong to do so, Father?”
“You were most certainly not, my dear.”
Julia had picked up the discarded scroll all those years ago, because she wanted to know why Sulla stared at it. She was keen to know what meaning it held for him. She had intended to give it back when he left her, but he never left her.
Julia knew that nothing would stop Marius from using her evidence to remove Sulla from the Senate as he would be propelled by his sense of fair play and justice. She was well aware that the anger her violation placed in his heart would drive him into a position that could cause him terrible damage. The fact that she was manipulating a decent man who loved and trusted her caused her real anguish but all that mattered was the end of Sulla and nothing else warranted even the remotest consideration.
Sure enough, the Senate was convened for an extraordinary meeting on the very next day and all of the eligible Senators responded to the great man’s invitation in the positive. So many of them had already accepted a partial payment to vote for a bill that he would one day propose and they were looking forward to collecting the rest of their money.
The house was abuzz and the Senators tried to guess what was on the yellowing parchment in Marius’ hand while wondering if it had something to do with the matter they were about to agree with.
Waving the incriminating document for all to see, Marius delivered a compassionate speech which ended with him shouting in his faltering voice, “Sulla is totally unfit for this office of Consul!”
After all these years of accusations Marius now had conclusive proof that Sulla had deliberately lied about the strength of the Italian tribes. For purely selfish reasons he had started a war which cost Rome dearly but benefited him greatly and the vote to banish Sulla and forbid him fire and water within a one thousand mile radius of Rome was a veritable landslide.
“Condemno! Condemno! Condemno!” They all shouted at the top of their voices. What a fantastic surprise, they were all making fabulous amounts of money for doing the right thing and that arrogant prick Sulla had got his comeuppance at last.
Transition
On the night of Sulla’s banishment Julia sat alone in his lovely courtyard drinking copious quantities of his finest wine secure in the knowledge that he would never again barge in unannounced.
Julia completely understood how the shame of banishment would be far worse than death for a Roman of Sulla’s status. She had utterly beaten one of the most powerful men in Rome and the much anticipated elation washed over her. Everything she had worked towards for so many years was complete and now she would find security at last.
When Cecilia came looking for her troubled “daughter”, she found Julia slumped over the fountain in a drunken stupor and immediately lifted her head from the shallow water to prevent drowning. After checking to make sure that Julia was still breathing she called for the strong house-slaves and ordered them to pick her up and carry Julia to bed where she continued her nightmare-filled sleep.
Regrettably, the new day did not bring the peace Julia craved. Waking late she found her customary hangover was accompanied by a hollow void which felt far worse than her usual insecurities. It was a realization that her life was now even emptier than before. The destruction of Sulla had been the driving force behind everything she had achieved and now her very reason for being was gone.
Julia had no friends, her commercial empire ran itself and she had nothing more complex than the fear of an impending relationship to occupy her mind. Sulla was on his way to the East and would not hear the news of his banishment for many months so, even that gave her no pleasure. The fantasy of being a fly on the wall of his tent when he received the news gave Julia some pleasure but it was insufficient to distract her for any length of time.
Reaching for the numbing effects of wine, Julia began drinking everyday as the sun came up. She needed to deaden her mind because it wasn’t easy for someone of her tender years to accept that she no longer had a reason to live. Only the thought of seeing her “lions” provided Julia with an incentive to bathe and dress herself so, unenthusiastically, that is what she did. Like a jilted lover Julia walked to the home of Marius seeking the comfort of a stolen glimpse of her beloved amulet but when she arrived Clitumna had left.
Julia made enquiries and one of the house slaves informed her that the big woman was on her way to Hispania, for what purpose she did not say. Falling deeper and deeper into her lonely trance Julia berated herself for not taking more aggressive action. She had offered Clitumna a small fortune for the amulet on many occasions but to no avail. Even ridiculous sums had been refused out of hand. Julia had regularly fantasized about having Clitumna murdered and now she cursed her weakness for not employing an assassin sooner.
This was not how she had intended things to be; money was supposed to provide security, not this empty fear. Her gloom-filled mind was now more self doubting than when she had absolutely nothing. In an attempt to deaden the pain Julia spent aimless hours drinking while sitting by the ornamental fountain and time simply slipped away in great drunken chunks until the moment everything changed.
Julia heard a few unusual noises throughout the house but she was too lost in her stupor to bother about looking. Trancelike, she watched two of the dirtiest-looking men she had ever seen walking across the flagstones towards her. As they came closer Julia could see that they were covered in blood. With her mind racing she wanted to leap into action but her drink-addled body would not respond.
Effortlessly binding Julia’s hands behind her back the two men rolled her into one of Sulla’s ornate rugs and manhandled her to a waiting carriage. With no idea what was happening or where she was being taken Julia lay terrified in the darkness listening to the familiar street sounds of Rome. At the end of a short journey the rug was carried to a darkened room where it was opened and Julia was strapped to a muck-encrusted table.
From the very moment they cut the binding on the carpet and rolled her out, Julia began speaking. Even as the two men raped her one after the other she continued to talk in a seemingly futile attempt to win them over. It took some time for her to realize they could not understand Latin because they said nothing to each other and never appeared to listen to anything she said. Speaking the dialect of her birth provoked no recognition but a few words in Greek caused a brief moment of hesitation and much to their obvious irritation she immediately translated everything she had already said in Latin into Greek.
“I can give you riches that you can only imagine!” she begged but they were never even distracted from their task.
The pain was like nothing she had ever experienced as they expertly used a device that looked like a smaller version of the tongs she had seen furriers using to remove worn-out horseshoes. They expertly inserted one tip of the device between the back of her nail and the finger then slowly and with extraordinary pre
cision bent it back away from the finger until she heard and felt a blood-curdling crack. Crying out Julia was in the depths of paradoxical despair, the richest person in Rome was at the mercy of the only people who would not take a bribe.
There were so many people in the empire who would have been justified in doing this to her but most of them had no idea who she was. It could not be Sulla because he was still oblivious to what happened in the Senate. Even if he had known he would not be able to link Julia with his downfall. Bromidus was another suspect but he could never return to Rome and Clitumna was on her way to Hispania.
Joseph, Calpurnius, Antonius and even Young Gaius all had grounds for revenge but the great ocean stood between them and Rome. Only one living person had any idea of her full power but Gavius would never have the courage to arrange this house of horrors.
In an attempt to end the pain Julia continued to talk through her destruction, desperate to find out who was behind her torture. If she could establish who was paying them she may be able to find a way out of what was very clearly going to be a protracted death sentence, but none of the names she mentioned provoked any kind of response. They simply went about their workman-like business totally ignoring everything she said until she mercifully slipped into her pain numbing memory of her past.
It was a simple bucket of freezing-cold water that put an end to the re-enactment of her incredible life and returned her to the horrors of the torture chamber. Laying in renewed agony Julia realized that she must have been drifting in and out of consciousness for several hours, or was it days? Or was it weeks? Her whole remarkable life had been remembered, sifted though, as a means of pin-pointing her nemesis.
As she thought about her amazing achievements, an idea formulated entirely of its own volition and it was the key thought. Julia was standing on the very cusp of finding the truth about who she really was when the sound of a heavily accented Greek voice snatched the most valuable notion of her existence from the forefront of her mind.
“I think she is coming back to us; yes, here she is.”
A second Latin voice added, “You have played me for a fool for the last time.”
There before her straining eyes was the source of her pain and in that split second Julia realized how foolish she had been to underestimate this person. She tried to talk but no words came because the connection between mind and speech was completely lost.
As Julia let go of this pain-filled life her discomfort was suddenly replaced by secure, floating feelings of inner calm. Distant rhythmic pounding made everything safe and cocooned in warmth she felt completely new. This poor exhausted creature could never remember a time of such security — it was intoxicating and right — just how things should always have been. But with barely enough time to even guess what was happening and without warning, the brief respite was ended by an abrupt pulsating expulsion.
In an instant she was cast from the secure place to be confronted by light, cold and unwelcome physical contact, and there she lay on her back in an unfamiliar cot as Julia ended and Robert began.
His first realization as a male was a painful one. It came in the form of a revelation. He intuitively understood that Julia had lived twenty three lives and he had been the one who linked them all. He was the other side of her curse and he had also lived twenty three lives. They had been living and dying, one following the other, for hundreds of years. He also knew that her memory of Rome would soon be completely erased by the act of transition and destiny would determine that her insecurity and doubt would linger throughout his life about to start.
She was now Robert John Pishiobury born to Lord and Lady Pishiobury in Hertfordshire a county in the countryside of Southeast England. The year was 1793, Louis XVI had just lost his head as a result of the people’s revolution and France was soon to declare war on England. His new parents loved each other very much. They were extremely wealthy members of the aristocracy who lived on a very large estate set in a wonderful part of the English countryside. There was absolutely no reason for Robert to be a troubled boy and not a soul in this secure environment ever understood why he was to become so.
His Twenty-Third Beginning
“Fine young boy you have there Pishiobury, what? Be good for one of the guards’ regiments one day, what, what?”
The four-year-old Robert wondered why his father’s friend Arthur Wellesley said “what” or “what, what,” after each sentence. It made no sense to use the word at the end of a sentence. His beloved Nanny had taught him how to speak English correctly and the word “what” is used in a completely different context.
“Thank you Sir,” replied Lord Pishiobury. “Lady Pishiobury and I are both very proud of young Robert.” Lord Pishiobury looked at his boy with pride.
“As you should be my dear fellow, what.”
The master of the hounds walked up to Lord Pishiobury doffing his cap before saying, “The hounds are ready for the off my Lord.”
Robert enjoyed how his voice was turning to clouds of vapor in the frigid air as he spoke.
Lord Pishiobury, or Pishiobury as his friends called him, made an imposing sight dressed in his hunting pink and mounted on his favorite grey horse. Placing a silver goblet on the tray held by his loyal butler he said, “Be a good fellow Pinker, collect the stirrup cups and inform lady Pishiobury that we are ready for the off.”
“Certainly my Lord.” Albert Pinker turned to one of the many footmen and nodded an indication to carry out the request.
“On my way Sir,” said the footman.
Dressed all in black Lady Amelia Pishiobury glided down the stairway from the main entrance hall of Pishiobury house to the spot where the hunt was gathered. She looked mesmerizing but the agony of grief could still be clearly seen through her stoic expression. This was the first time she had been seen by anyone outside of the immediate household since her beloved sister had been guillotined by the angry mob in Paris and all of her guests sympathized with her pain.
As an English-born lady in waiting to Queen Marie Antoinette, Lady Pishiobury’s younger sister was being held in the Bastille prior to her deportation to England when the mob broke in and massacred hundreds of aristocratic prisoners. Poor dear Prudence and her French husband had been unlucky enough to be taken before the citizenry could restore order. The revolution taking place across the English Channel was so hard for the aristocrats who attended the Pishiobury annual hunt to understand. Many of them had been guests at the wedding of Lady Amelia’s sister; they had even met some the people who were now losing their heads and the tragedy was unbearable.
Young Robert looked nervously at his mother as she walked directly over to him. He hated being separated from her even for the duration of the hunt and today he appeared particularly unsettled. Lowering herself to kiss Robert she said, “Be a good boy while we are hunting, my darling.”
“I will mother, but please hurry back.” He was a nervous lad.
“Such a sweet boy,” said lady Pishiobury to Miss Parks, Robert’s nanny of many years.
“Yes Ma'am a fine young man, a credit to you both.” Nanny Parks clutched young Robert’s hand.
Lady Pishiobury walked over to her husband and with a pained but loving smile she handed him his favorite tricornered hat.
“Thank you my love, what would I do without you?” He was a handsome and pleasant-looking man with a warm and friendly temperament.
John held the bridal of the powerful black mare for Lady Pishiobury who wore her wonderful brunette hair in a net under a top hat to keep it from blowing into her deep hazel eyes as she rode with the hounds.
The breath of the wide-eyed animal turned to a bellowing cloud of vapor as it hit the cold, crisp air and the most senior of all the grooms calmed her Ladyship’s mount with a soothing touch as he ordered one of the young apprentice stable-lads to kneel down by its side.
“Thank you Philip,” said the lady of the house as she stood on the boy’s back to mount her distinctive, brown leather sidesaddle. Lady Pi
shiobury’s personal handmaid then stood on the lad to make sure that her wraparound sidesaddle skirt was properly in place. As he watched the garment being attached John relished the fact that no matter how many staff worked on the estate both his Lord and his Lady always knew them by name. This treatment was by no means the norm on every estate in England and all staff at Pishiobury were extremely grateful and happy with their lot in life.
“Shall we?” Lord Pishiobury asked this year’s special guest of honor for the Pishiobury Park annual hunt.
“Yes please, lead us off Pishiobury, what?” It was said in a warm voice. Arthur Wellesley held an obvious regard for his friend of many years.
“On on!” cried the master and off moved the party of over one hundred mounted huntsmen and women. The hounds made a terrible din as they ran ahead enthusiastically searching for the scent of a fox.
Young Robert wondered at the spectacle as the impulsive horses strained at heavy leather bridles while their iron-shod hooves carried them away from the house across the vast frozen lawns towards the hedge-lined fields of the estate. Robert loved these excited hunters and their musky aroma which still lingering in the freezing air gave him a comfortable feeling of familiarity and safety.
Brittle, white, frost-laden blades of grass had been snapped by the galloping limbs and the disturbance had left a passage of green behind them like the wake of a great ship crossing a white ocean. Robert had never seen a ship or the ocean so he wondered how he had so clearly pictured such a sight. It could only have been in a book. He could not remember seeing such a book but that was the only explanation which made sense.