by Crystal King
“Then he pushed her aside and she fell to the floor. He staggered away and left us there, in a heap, storming out with his guards in tow.”
I poured her a glass of water from the pitcher I kept near the bed. She gulped it down.
I remembered the litter that had passed us as we returned to the villa. “That was last week, correct? Why was he here today?”
“It was as Aelia said. He brought Apicata a gift, a pair of earrings that are quite costly for a child. Aelia wouldn’t let him see her to give Apicata the earrings himself. Before Aelia let Sejanus in, she made sure that there were ten of the household guards lining the atrium, which he smirked at when he strode through the door.
“ ‘Dear cousin,’ he said to her. ‘I came here to be nice, but I see you don’t trust me. No matter. Just remember, I own your family. I own you, and I own your husband. Therefore, I own your daughter. Someday, I will call upon your family to deliver what is mine. Now be a good woman and keep your mouth shut about our little secret. Remind your daughter and your slaves. It will be nothing to me if Apicius is put to death, but I imagine it will be a bit more traumatic for you.’
“Before he left he walked over to me and put a hand on my breast and told me that taking me was still in the stars for the future.”
Anger consumed me. I picked up the jug of water next to the bed and smashed it against the wall. The terra-cotta shattered in a hundred wet, orange shards that spiraled across the floor.
“Thrasius, stop.” Passia threw her arms around me from behind. “Everyone will hear you. They will think we are fighting.”
I stood. “We must tell Apicius.”
Passia grabbed at me and pulled me back down to the bed. “No! You cannot! If Apicius shows any sign that he knows, any at all, then I fear what Sejanus might do!”
I pulled away and stood once more, unable to sit still.
“May Jove curse Sejanus! I have to do something. When he is here again, it is possible something he eats will make him quite ill.”
“You can’t poison him.”
“Why not?”
“Thrasius, you must be careful. We are slaves. This is a fight that is not ours—it is that of our masters. If something befalls them, it could mean worse for us.”
She rose and I held her, brushing her hair away from her face with my fingers. She looked deep into my eyes and for a moment I thought I could see the spark of her genius flickering in her pupils.
“Thrasius, please think. If you make one wrong step, you would be sacrificing yourself but dooming me to a life without you.”
In my anger, I had not stopped to consider what would happen to the woman I had grown to love beyond all others. I wiped her tears away with the pads of my thumbs. Oh, by the gods, she was beautiful.
“Tomorrow we will take care of Sejanus,” I said, a plan suddenly forming in my mind. “Aelia too. It’s best if she joins us. You will need to talk to her.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Tomorrow night, at midnight, we will do what is required.”
She let out a small sound of understanding. “You want to curse him.”
“I do.” A sense of purpose filled me. “If I must be careful, I can at least start there. And perhaps it will bring Aelia some ease.”
She nodded, her chin moving against my chest. I blew out the lamp and held my lover, stroking her arm with my hand until we both fell asleep.
• • •
The next day was strained. Aelia and Apicius barely talked and Apicata was sullen and listless. I made the little girl all of her favorite dishes, and carved her little animals out of vegetables to adorn her plate. When she saw them, she ran to me and gave me a giant hug and told me how much she missed me. I hugged her for a long time and said nothing when I saw she was trying very hard not to cry.
When I went to the market that day, I bought a honey cake from the temple of Ceres, paying extra for a protection blessing from the priestess. I gave it to Apicata with her afternoon meal, and while surely she had seen temple protection cakes and knew what they were, she ate it without a word.
Passia took Aelia aside and, after much discussion and help from Helene, convinced our domina of what would be the one course of action she could take as a woman, and which we could help her with as slaves. I am sure she did not like the idea of me knowing what had happened, but she did not act ashamed when she was around me. I felt proud that she trusted me with knowledge so close to her heart.
• • •
I enlisted Sotas to accompany us. It was one of his few nights off duty and he wouldn’t be required to sleep at the foot of Apicius’s bed. He knew where the tombs were and I wasn’t as sure. Plus wandering around Rome at night was never a safe thing, and knowing that we would have a man like Sotas at hand gave me comfort.
Telling Sotas was not easy. Before I told him the story, I asked if he would swear to keep the truth from Apicius. He refused, saying it would break the oath of loyalty he had with the goddess Fides. Ultimately, I convinced him that this was the type of situation that warranted secrecy precisely to protect Apicius. Only Sotas’s faith in the friendship between us swayed him. I had never lied to him before nor would I ever want him to break his oath, so he agreed, and I told him about the wrong against his domina.
Rarely had I seen the man as angry as he was when I revealed what had happened. I was glad that we were in the garden when I told him, and not near any of Apicius’s priceless statues inside the house. While I know he has deep loyalty to Apicius, he bore genuine love for his domina and to have her come to harm enraged him.
That night, I slipped a little poppy juice into Apicata’s wine before she went to bed. Passia didn’t want her to wake and find her gone. The little girl had been having nightmares since the evening with Sejanus. Passia found a fellow slave to sleep in the room with her in case she needed comfort from night terrors.
I did the same for Apicius as an extra safeguard. Aelia had her own rooms in the house so could slip away undetected, but I did not want him to wake and decide to seek her out in the night.
When the water clocks ran a little past sexta, we slipped out of the house. Aelia seemed surprised to see Sotas with us, but said nothing. She, Helene, and Passia all wore dark cloaks of the type that a slave would wear.
Even during the blackness of night the city seemed loud, with small groups of people walking through the streets, prostitutes offering their services, and city workers hauling vats of urine to the toga cleaners to be used for bleach. Despite all the activity, and the occasional breaks of light through open windows, the darkness was unnerving. I hoped that Sotas’s huge size would make a thief think twice before sneaking up on us to try to score a purse. Aelia had to have been scared, but when I could catch glimpses of her face under the heavy cloak, she appeared stoic.
It was a long walk to the Appian Way leading out of Rome, where the Aelii family tombs were located. In general, slaves could not leave Rome without a note with the seal of their master, but the guards at the city gates gave us little issue once a few denarii and a basket of pastries were placed in their hands. An orgy in the fields beyond Rome never hurt anyone, we told them, and the guards, happy for the treats, ushered us through the gate.
The Appian Way is a strange and sinister road at night. The cobbles are lined for miles with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of gravestones and elaborate multilevel mausoleums rising at varying heights. That night the moon was only a slim crescent, giving us just enough light to discern our surroundings and to enable the stones and buildings to cast their shadows on the ground, creating a supernatural atmosphere down the length of the street.
The tombs of the gens Aelia were grouped in a cluster about a quarter of a mile outside town. A large rock wall marked the group of carefully constructed and artfully carved mausoleums. We slipped through the wooden gate. Aelia led the way once we reached the tombs. She stopped in front of the elaborate mausoleum where her family rested. It was decorated with colorful
tiles and symbols of the dead. She pulled a key out of her pocket and opened the lock, letting us into the tomb. The first floor housed dozens of urns of the Aelia family, tucked into niches chest high along the tiled walls. We climbed the short flight of stairs to the second floor and lit the oil lamps. We sat in a circle around the ornate feasting table where, once a year, in the spring, the ancestors of the Aelii would throw a big party to commemorate the dead.
I pulled several objects out of my bag for the ritual, the most important of them being a poppet half the size of my hand and made of clay. I’d spent the evening before forming it into the shape of a human body. It was still semisoft and ready for the spell that we were about to invoke.
“What is that?” Aelia whispered.
“Yes, why do we need a doll?” Sotas asked.
“When I lived with Maximus, there was an old woman who took care of the chickens. She was from Greece and she taught me many things about my country. One of the things she taught me was the ancient practice of using magic with poppets. That’s what this is.” I held up the clay doll.
“How does it work?” Sotas’s features seemed unusually dark and menacing in the lamplight.
“I’ll show you.”
I placed the poppet on a small cloth on the table in front of me. It was shaped like a man, with a featureless face, but included carved locks of hair, nipples, genitalia, and even a navel. The hands were bent behind the figure’s back, as were his legs. The feet touched the hands at the small of the back and its head was twisted sharply to one side. Goose bumps rose along my arms as I studied it.
“Ready?”
My companions grunted their assent. Their faces gleamed in the weak light, full of both hope and fear. In that moment, the weight of what I was about to do hit me and I took a few deep breaths to calm myself.
When I held up the poppet its smooth body shone. “This is the body of Lucius Aelius Sejanus. We now prepare to bind him to our will and to the will of the gods.” I picked up the nail and, with the tip, inscribed Sejanus’s full name sideways across the belly of the doll. The clay gave way easily and I flicked away the specks displaced from the grooves made by the nail.
I picked up my knife and pricked my finger. I let a drop of blood fall onto the poppet’s head. I took Aelia’s finger first, then did the same to Helene, Passia, and Sotas.
There was a noise above us then, a racing sound across the top of the tomb. We held our breaths.
“Just squirrels,” Helene said, and we all relaxed, recognizing that sound to be true.
I smeared the blood across the poppet, covering as much of the clay as I could with the shimmery fluid.
“Aelia, would you read this?” I handed her a piece of parchment.
She took it with one hand and with the other she wiped her eyes of tears. Her voice shook as she read the Latin.
“With my blood and the blood of my slaves, I call down the powers of the gods against the man Lucius Aelius Sejanus. I call forth the di Manes of the Aelii who will revenge the shame of a family member brought by another family member. I call forth Hecate, who will power this spell with the magic of ancestral ghosts. I call forth Nemesis, who will seek revenge for wrongdoing brought by Sejanus. I call forth Averna, goddess of the Underworld, who will beckon to Sejanus every day of his life with her siren song. Finally, I call forth Mercury, who will bear the soul of Sejanus to the depths of the Underworld, bringing him to the feet of Pluto himself.”
I felt Passia shiver beside me. It was as though the spirits were pressing against us, hovering around the lanterns, ready to whisper in our ears.
I took up the nails. “With this nail I bind and curse Sejanus. May any harm he seeks to bring down upon the Gavia or the Aelia family harm him back tenfold.” I plunged the nail into the top of the clay figure’s head. I repeated the curse with each nail I placed, in both eyes, in the mouth, ears, chest, belly, genitals, hands, feet, and anus. I bound the poppet carefully with the bronze wire before setting it aside and picking up the blank sheet of lead.
“Now for the most important part.” With another nail I inscribed a curse deep into the lead tablet, backward, starting at the bottom of the tablet and working carefully up the page.
The lanterns flickered. I told myself it was just a draft of wind through the cracks of the tomb but a part of me could feel the spirits swirling around us. The hairs on the back of my neck raised and my skin grew cold.
I passed out more pieces of parchment, each inscribed with the curse. Together we read it aloud, our voices rising with each word.
“Oh gods, curse Lucius Aelius Sejanus! Hear our plea!
Together we commit Sejanus to the gods, to the di Manes of the Aelii,
to Nemesis, Averna, Mercury, and Hecate.
As this clay is cold and powerless,
also cold and powerless is Sejanus,
cold in knowledge, thinking, and memory!
“As the dead are powerless and still,
just so powerless and still will Sejanus be,
his feet, hands, and body!
“Just as this image will break and decay,
Let Sejanus likewise break and decay,
and perish all his seed and property!
Oh gods, curse Sejanus! Hear our plea!
Together we commit Sejanus to the gods, to the di Manes of the gens Aelia, to Hecate, Nemesis, Averna, Mercury.”
The air seemed to hum when we finished the last word. One of our lanterns flickered and sputtered out.
I folded the lead sheet three times. Again I pricked each of our fingers and smeared the blood. I hammered the final nail into the center of the lead tablet.
“With this nail I bind and curse Sejanus. May any harm he brings down upon the Gavia family return to him tenfold.”
I bent the nail against the tablet with the hammer and bound the tablet and poppet together with the bronze wire. My hands shook as I spun the wire round and round. When I was done, I worked the wire and the poppet full of nails into the lead tin. I pushed the lid down on the tin and handed it to Sotas. “Now we bury that damned thing and let the Aelii ancestors help the gods take care of Sejanus.”
In the sparse light of the remaining lanterns we made our way down the steps to the outside of the tomb. At the foot of the door we dug a deep hole, dropped the poppet in, and covered it back up.
We stood back and stared at the smooth dirt where the hole had been. Passia wrapped an arm around Aelia to comfort her. Suddenly, the wind picked up and a strong gust blew out one of the remaining lanterns, leaving the other to flicker almost out before sparking back to life.
“I think the di Manes have spoken,” Aelia murmured.
My heart hammered like a mallet pounding meat. While I wanted the help of the gods, I wasn’t sure I was comfortable being in their presence.
A pack of dogs barked in the distance. The sign of Hecate! I took Passia’s shaking hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
The five of us ran away from the mausoleums, not looking back until we reached the gates of Rome.
CHAPTER 12
“I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” Aelia said as we disembarked from the litter in front of Tiberius’s vast villa on the other side of the Palatine Hill from our own domus. “Everyone knows Thrasius is your coquus. It doesn’t make any sense that you would bring him along with us today.”
The night before, Tiberius’s son, Drusus, had married his paternal cousin, Livilla, who also happened to be Tiberius’s niece and Livia’s granddaughter. It was a twisted sort of arrangement, confusing to all of Rome. The marriage was meant to keep an heir in the family, but many talked of how it smacked of the same arrangements that the old kings of Italy once had. Apicius and Aelia had been invited to the wedding party, and despite Aelia’s concerns, he insisted on bringing me. They had been arguing all morning about my presence at the event. I too had tried to convince Dominus of the folly of bringing me along, especially when both Livia and Octavius would be in attendance. It
was like flaunting his defiance in front of them. Despite our protests, Apicius would not be swayed.
A slave greeted us at the door, checked our names off the tablet he held, and led us forward.
“I myself don’t understand why he brought me,” I whispered to Sotas as we entered the wide courtyard. I kept step with him and with Helene as we followed behind our masters. Sejanus had been sent to war not long after that night on the Appian Way, a sign that we hoped meant our curse was working. But I suspected that Sejanus’s absence did not mean that all of Apicius’s enemies had been swept away.
“He’s nervous going places without you,” Sotas observed.
“I’m more of a steward than a cook these days,” I muttered.
“You are his good luck charm. He thinks it will be auspicious for you to be present if he speaks with Caesar,” Helene whispered.
“Ridiculous.”
Apicius glanced back at us with a withering stare. I doubted he could hear our words but he hated it when his slaves whispered around him. Chastised, we followed Apicius and Aelia through the villa in silence.
I stared at the back of Apicius’s head. At thirty-three, he had just started to show the signs of baldness, mostly hidden by his thick hair. An errant piece had fallen, exposing a slice of pale skin. He scolded Aelia, a sign that he was nervous. All the way to Tiberius’s palace he’d talked about how desperately he wanted to make Caesar’s acquaintance, but he didn’t know how he could without Livia being present. Despite the passing of nearly four years, none of us believed she would have forgotten Apicius’s refusal to sell me. Bringing me was dangerous. In the time that had passed since that day I realized that the danger lay not in Apicius’s rivalry with Octavius, but in that of Livia still wanting to exact revenge against Fannia for sleeping with her ex-husband. Apicius was caught in the hazardous middle.
The slave left us with dozens of other guests in a vast central garden decorated with a multitude of brightly painted statues, pots spilling with flowers, and fountains spluttering in small ponds stocked with fish. The walls were decorated with frescoes filled with such detail that the people and animals appeared almost alive. The doors were under the surveillance of tall, stern Praetorian guards, Caesar’s personal army. More than a hundred patricians and their wives milled about. Tall boys stood throughout the garden, fanning the hot June air above the visitors with their long-poled Egyptian-style fans. The guests wore a thin wreath of laurel and ivy about their necks or upon their heads and the smell of flowers permeated the midsummer air. The drinking portion of the wedding reception wouldn’t commence until after the traditional speeches by the patron throwing the party—in this case, Caesar Augustus and his newly appointed heir, Tiberius. Sotas and I stood a pace behind our masters and watched the party unfold.