‘She doesn’t work Sabine nearly as hard as you,’ Aurelia pointed out.
Now that I thought about it, I realised it was true; generally Prisca left Sabine alone to her gardening and horticulture books. She’d order her to practise the cithara every now and then, and occasionally quiz her on her Greek, but by and large she left her to her own devices.
‘Maybe she thinks Sabine is too young,’ I said.
‘Sabine’s such a strange little thing,’ Aurelia mused. She rolled onto her back, crossing her ankles and staring at the ceiling. ‘I think it has something to do with our father.’
I waited for her to continue. I hadn’t heard much about their father.
‘Sabine was there when he died. Did you know that?’
I shook my head.
‘He was a lovely man, Papa, very soft-hearted, and he doted on Sabine. She was walking in the garden with him one morning while Mother and I were at the baths — he loved the garden; perhaps that’s where Sabine gets it from. Anyway, he had some kind of seizure. It must have been terrifying. We didn’t have a physician in the house at the time, and one had to be sent for. She sat with Papa as he died — he went before help could arrive. I wonder if that’s why she’s so fixated on herbs and healing now — so that if something like that should happen again she would know what to do.’
Aurelia’s story explained a lot. ‘Poor Sabine. What a horrible thing to go through.’ I shuddered, imagining how I’d feel if I had to watch Uncle Marius die. ‘I can see why healing is so important to her. So why isn’t your mother more understanding?’
Aurelia shrugged. ‘As I’m sure you’ve noticed, no one would accuse Mother of being overly sympathetic. She thinks Sabine’s interest is morbid, and not suitable for a young lady. But though Sabine is nervy, she’s surprisingly obstinate. No matter how much Mother scolds her or the rest of us tease her about her gardening, she hasn’t given it up. She can’t go on like this forever, though; she’ll have to marry one day. She’s fifteen already.’
Sabine was my age? I bent my head to the figures on the parchment to hide my shock. In so many ways Sabine seemed to be still just a girl. Maybe she was using her girlishness as a shield, I speculated, to protect herself from her mother’s scheming. She would probably have to abandon her gardening when she got married — and spend the rest of her life in the weaving room, counting bales of wool and bolts of cloth, I thought sourly. My mind turned to Penelope in the legend of Odysseus; she had used weaving as a way to postpone marriage. Her husband Odysseus had been missing for years and everyone thought he must be dead, but she didn’t want to remarry even though she had lots of suitors. So she told her suitors she was weaving a funeral shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes, and would not think of remarrying till she was done. Then she spent all day weaving, and every night she undid what she’d done that day so that work on the shroud went very slowly.
I didn’t exactly have Penelope’s problem — there was no multitude of suitors clamouring for my hand. At best, I might have one suitor, who definitely wasn’t clamouring. Still, I could learn something from her: she had managed to put off her unwanted suitors for three years with her unravelling trick. Come to think of it, three years was about how long it would take me to weave a shroud even if I wasn’t undoing my work every night …
At the rate Prisca was working to teach me to run a household, though, I didn’t like my chances of delaying marriage for three years.
‘What’s your brother like?’ I asked Aurelia, trying to sound casual.
‘Marcus?’ Aurelia snorted. ‘Bossy and opinionated,’ she declared. ‘Come to think of it, he’s a bit like our mother, though he’d hate to hear me say so.’
‘Don’t they get on?’ I recalled Prisca complaining, I have written to Marcus three times now ordering him to visit. Perhaps it was his mother he was trying to avoid rather than me? The thought made me smile.
Aurelia lifted a slim shoulder. ‘In some ways, they’re very close — they have a lot of respect for each other — but they’re both stubborn and they’re both always sure they’re right. So they argue a lot.’
Bossy, stubborn, argumentative. Like Prisca. Did I want to marry a man who was just like Prisca? No way! Except maybe if he was very handsome …
I opened my mouth to ask Aurelia what he looked like, then closed it again. The question would definitely make her suspect I knew something. But ever since I’d overheard Prisca’s plan for me I had spent a lot of time wondering about Marcus’s looks. Was he fair like Sabine, or auburn like Aurelia? If only he was golden and full of light like Lucius. But if Marcus was often in the law courts, he was probably pale and studious-looking and serious. The kind of man who would definitely expect his wife to know how many bales made a bolt. I picked up my quill and attacked the figures once more.
Whether he’d had a fourth summons from his mother, one more persuasive than the previous three, or whether he had decided it was in his interests to visit, I couldn’t say, but a few days later a messenger brought a letter from Marcus announcing his imminent arrival.
‘He’ll be here by dinnertime,’ Prisca announced as we ate lunch in the garden, and the lightening of her normally severe expression made me think that it was not just her schemes that had made her demand his presence; she was a mother who loved her son and wanted to see him.
After lunch I went to my room and looked at my different dresses, trying to decide which I should be wearing when the man who might be my future husband saw me for the first time. Of course, it mustn’t seem like I was trying too hard, because nobody knew that I knew.
I thought of how exciting my engagement to Rufus had been — and it wasn’t just me: Aunt Quinta and Anthusa had been excited too, as well as Rufus’s mother and sister. But this … this was little more than a business arrangement in the eyes of Marcus and his mother. Where was the excitement in that?
Gloomy now, I sat on the stool at my dressing table and picked up the silver mirror. Almost at once a second gloomy face appeared at my shoulder. It was Aballa. Seeing our two identically gloomy faces together made me laugh. Aballa looked puzzled by my change in mood, but smiled tentatively.
‘What do you think, Aballa? Can you make me look beautiful but like I’m not trying to look beautiful?’ I asked. She didn’t understand, of course, but I handed her the silver comb and she knew what that meant. Undoing the arrangement she’d made only a few hours before, she set to work.
The touch of her hands on my scalp and the smooth flow of the comb through my hair were calming. I let out a long breath and felt the tension in my neck and shoulders ease.
I chose a dress of pale ivory, plain but elegant, and gestured to Aballa to make up my eyes. That was really all I could do to prepare. Perhaps Prisca should hang a placard around my neck with a list of my abilities, like I’d heard they did to slaves at the markets. I was sure she had a list in her head of what qualities were required to make a perfect wife and daughter and had been ticking off accomplishments as I acquired them. (Reads Greek, plays an instrument, can stand next to an amphora of garum without throwing up — the perfect wife!)
I took a last look in the mirror then jumped up. What to do now? I picked up a book I had been reading then put it down. I felt too unsettled to read.
Craving distraction, I went to Sabine’s garden and sat on the bench while she tended to her plot. I was feeling nervous, and cross at myself for feeling nervous, but Sabine didn’t notice. She prattled away happily about her brother’s arrival.
‘I can’t wait for you to meet Marcus, Claudia. He’s so clever. Do you know he has even been compared to Cicero as a young man?’
Was she being sincere, I wondered, or had Prisca told her to praise him in front of me?
‘I hope he’ll have something for my garden. He has beautiful gardens at his estate near Veii, and he’s sure to bring me something if he’s visited recently. Of course, Mama tells him he should bring me jewels instead, but Marcus knows I’d rather a new plant.’<
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If he took an interest in Sabine’s hobby, Prisca definitely couldn’t be involved. I was glad to hear that someone encouraged Sabine; she needed an antidote to her mother’s constant putdowns. So it was possible he was kind as well as bossy, stubborn and argumentative. He was beginning to sound like a most unusual man.
Come to think of it, why wasn’t Marcus engaged or married already? Was there something terribly wrong with his looks, perhaps, that meant no one in Rome wanted him, and that’s why Prisca had had to send for me? Did he have a huge wart on his nose? Maybe that was what had earned the comparison to Cicero: an ancestor of Cicero’s had had a wart like a chickpea, or cicero, on the end of his nose, giving the family its name. Oh good. I was going to have a warty husband.
‘Sabine?’ It was Prisca calling. ‘Sabine, your brother is here.’
‘Marcus!’ Sabine sprang to her feet, hastily brushing dirt from her dress.
She hurried out of her garden and I followed.
Prisca was walking along the avenue of cypress trees, accompanied by a tall, dark-haired man. As they rounded the fountain, my breath caught in my throat. If Lucius resembled a Greek statue, Marcus was every inch a Roman warrior, powerful and confident. In his posture and the imperious tilt of his head I recognised his mother; there surely must have been some conquering generals in her noble lineage. He wore a short tunic belted at the waist, his legs and arms were tanned and muscular, and his chest was broad; not at all what I had imagined. He had dark hair cropped short, fine strong features, and eyes as black as onyx. No warts that I could see.
He was returning my stare with a cool, assessing gaze that made me bridle. Prisca might be offering me to him on a platter, but I was not a slave girl at the market to be appraised, I thought with a surge of pride. I was a senator’s daughter.
While Sabine hurried eagerly towards them, I followed more slowly, trying to look as if I wasn’t particularly bothered about meeting him.
My chin held high, I skirted the fishpond, glad despite my indignation that I was wearing the ivory dress, that Aballa had outlined my eyes in kohl to make them look large and had put soot on the lashes so that they looked long. Glancing at him, I noticed a new expression on his face: was it appreciation? I thought I noticed the hint of a smile, and felt my own lips curve in response.
‘Marcus!’ Sabine cried.
‘Little sister.’ His voice was deep. He kissed Sabine on the cheek then looked up almost at once, as if he couldn’t help but watch me.
As our eyes met, he raised one eyebrow. I was starting to feel a little breathless at the boldness of his gaze; it was so familiar somehow. And then I realised: Marcus was the horseman I had seen near Veii; the one whose look had so thrilled me …
Suddenly something hit my legs, hard. With a cry of alarm I jumped backwards. My heel hit one of the rocks bordering the fishpond and I teetered for a moment, grasping at the air for balance, then fell back into the pond. As the water closed over my head, I thrashed about, reaching for the side, but the bricks at the bottom were slippery and when I tried to stand I fell forwards again. Taking a breath, in my panic I drew water into my nose and lungs, and when I finally caught hold of the edge and hauled myself up, thigh deep in water with slimy green weeds dripping from my dress, water was streaming from my nose and I couldn’t speak for coughing. The other three were staring at me, aghast.
‘Really, Claudia, do try to be more careful,’ Prisca said.
Sabine rushed towards me, tutting sympathetically. ‘Bad cat,’ she said to Jupiter, who was sitting by the edge of the pond regarding me calmly. ‘Why did you pounce on Claudia?’ She extended a hand to help me clamber out of the pond and I put my slimy hand in hers gratefully.
Standing on the path once more, I looked down and, horrified, saw that my dress was drenched and muddy. I could only imagine how my hair must look.
Marcus hadn’t said a word, nor lifted a finger to help me. He just stood watching, his arms folded across his broad chest, looking faintly disgusted. I wished I could sink beneath the weeds and never come up again.
‘Go!’ Prisca ordered. ‘Change your clothes. Actually, you’d better wash — you smell dreadful. We’ll see you in the atrium.’ Her tone was icy. If she was offering me as a marriage prospect, I hadn’t exactly made a good first impression.
She stalked off, followed by her son and daughter. I looked at the grey cat. Traitor.
Back in my room I discovered that my eye makeup had run, leaving black streaks down my face. It reminded me of Arretium, how I’d cried to be leaving and my makeup had run when Anthusa was helping me to prepare for the dinner with Rufus and his family. Now it looked like I was about to lose my second prospective husband … Nice work, Claudia.
Aballa fetched a basin of hot water and I washed and changed my clothes, but hesitated to leave my room. How could I face Marcus again? Still, I knew it was better to go and join them rather than dawdle. Prisca would only be angrier if I kept her waiting.
I found my stepmother and her children in the atrium. Marcus was sitting on the end of the blue and yellow divan on which Aurelia was stretched out. He was eyeing her plate of dates with distaste. ‘I don’t know how you can eat those sickly sweet things,’ he said.
‘That’s because you’re so bitter,’ his sister responded. ‘You should try one, brother — it might improve your temper.’
Despite their harsh words, they were smiling at each other; they were clearly very close.
‘Ah, there you are, Claudia,’ said Prisca. ‘Let’s try that introduction again, shall we? This is my son Marcus. Marcus, this is Claudia.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ I murmured.
The look Marcus gave me was brief and uninterested. The black eyes that had earlier burned like coals were now cold, all fire extinguished.
Without a word to me he returned his attention to his mother. ‘Will dinner be soon?’
‘As soon as Gaius and Lucius arrive.’
‘I’m looking forward to meeting this Lucius,’ Marcus said. ‘So Gaius has taken a shine to him, has he?’ He didn’t sound at all put out.
‘Yes, he has,’ said Prisca, her tone curt. ‘In one month he has managed to please Gaius more than you have in four years. Now go change out of your travelling clothes and make yourself respectable.’
The late-spring air was balmy, and we ate outside that night, the stone couches covered in cushions. Lucius hung back as my father and Prisca took their customary positions on the couch. Usually he sat in the top position of the couch opposite, but surely that honoured position would go to Marcus now?
But my father beckoned to him. ‘Well, Lucius? Aren’t you planning to dine with us tonight?’ He pointed to the space where the younger man normally sat.
‘Of course, sir. I just …’ He shot an apologetic glance at Marcus, who stood with his arms crossed, the corners of his lips twitching as if in amusement or disdain.
‘Please, sit,’ Marcus said magnanimously. ‘I’d better stay close to Aurelia. Someone has to keep her from eating all the dessert.’
He stretched out on the third couch and gestured to Aurelia, patting the place beside him. Sabine and I sat on stools at the end of the table.
‘Claudia, don’t you think Marcus is handsome?’ Sabine whispered loudly.
My face burning, I busied myself with my napkin as if I hadn’t heard her. On the other side of the table, I saw Aurelia with her hand across her mouth, trying not to laugh. It was hard to pretend I knew nothing of their schemes when Sabine was dropping such obvious hints, I thought crossly.
As the meal went on and on, I was barely able to swallow over the lump in my throat. I kept seeing the disgust on Marcus’s face as I had stood before him in the fishpond, covered in weeds and mud.
Prisca kept trying to draw me into the conversation with questions obviously designed to show off my accomplishments — well read, fluent Greek, cithara, blah blah blah — but it was all I could do to mumble answers. I could sense her growing fr
ustrated with me but I was too dejected to care.
I saw Lucius look at me with concern a few times, but Marcus never once glanced at me. It was as if I were invisible.
As usual, the talk turned to politics. Caesar Augustus was trying to reduce the size of the Senate and planned to form a committee to undertake a revision of the list of senators. Those of low birth, or who didn’t meet the property requirements, would be expelled.
‘Of course there is a good deal of sense in these proposals,’ my father declared as he rinsed his hands in a bowl of water held by a slave. ‘There are too many men of low birth in the Senate.’
Lucius was quick to agree, and Prisca shot Marcus a look that I thought I could interpret: he should agree too.
But Marcus ignored Prisca’s signal. ‘I don’t know that I quite follow the logic of that. You’d agree, would you, that laws such as the Lex sumptuaria are necessary to counter the excesses of the nobility, who are growing too decadent?’
‘I can’t argue with that,’ said my father. ‘Another of Caesar’s fine innovations.’
‘Yet this is the very class whom Augustus wants to breed more of — isn’t that the point of the Lex de maritandis ordinibus? — so that they can maintain their dominance over Rome. It seems to me that we need more men of low birth in the Senate, men who will work hard and appreciate their positions, not fewer.’
I could see my father struggling to form an argument against him. Prisca said hastily, ‘Claudia, why don’t you play and sing for us?’ The tone of her voice made it clear that this was an order, not a request.
I called to a slave to fetch my cithara and tried to compose myself. Now Marcus would see me at my best.
When the slave returned I positioned my stool beneath a hanging lamp and cradled the cithara in my left arm. Playing and singing was something I knew I was good at, but tonight my confidence had deserted me, and I could feel my heart thudding in my chest.
I strummed a few bars, then, drawing a deep breath, began. ‘Sing, clear-voiced Muses …’ But my nerves got the better of me and my voice wavered.
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