The Raven's Wing

by Frances Watts

  The trader turned his attention to another man. ‘You there, show us your lovely legs, gorgeous.’

  This raised a laugh among the onlookers.

  ‘What couldn’t you do with a gang like this, eh? Perhaps you’re looking for labourers — maybe you’ve got a large building project in mind, like a bridge or an aqueduct, eh? Here you have a strong team, readymade. Used to hard work and discipline.’ He cracked the whip again. ‘Lively on their feet too.’ He chuckled. ‘And speaking of lively, anyone here from a gladiator school? They don’t come much more athletic than this. Put a couple of these warriors in an arena with a sword each and then you’ll see some blood spilled.’

  I couldn’t repress a shudder. ‘Sabine, let’s go.’

  Sabine was watching the auction in fascinated horror, her mouth slightly open.

  I nudged her. ‘Come on, we need to find who is selling Averni slaves.’

  We continued up and down the aisles. Most of the slaves had placards around their necks stating where they were from and so it was necessary to stare at them, though it shamed me to do so.

  ‘Here.’ I grabbed Sabine’s arm when I saw a placard identifying its bearer as a native of Gergovia. Aballa’s village was near there, I remembered.

  The man standing by the platform was a giant, all beard and belly and heavy brow; he looked exactly like I’d always pictured Orcus, one of the gods of the underworld.

  His eyes raked over us. ‘Can I help you, ladies?’ he said, his tone doubtful.

  Mimicking the imperious tone that Prisca used to such great effect I said, ‘We are seeking a slave for our father, the brother of a girl he bought here with whom he is very pleased. A young boy, maybe ten years of age. He has a scar like this.’ I ran a finger from the corner of my left eye down my cheek.

  The man gestured to the platform. ‘As you can see, I have no such boy.’

  ‘But you did,’ I persisted.

  The man shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But if you are seeking him specially, he must be more valuable than I realised. If I’ve sold the boy for less than he is worth, I am out of pocket.’

  I took a handful of denarii from the bag concealed in the folds of my cloak. What would Uncle Marius think if he knew I was using his gift to bribe a slave trader?

  The man’s eyes widened at the sight of the coins. ‘I’ll check my register.’

  Sabine was growing more anxious by the minute. ‘Mama will wonder where we are if we’re not home soon.’

  ‘Just a few more minutes,’ I promised.

  ‘This might be it,’ the man said at last, tapping his finger on his ledger. ‘A couple who own a tavern in the Subura bought such a boy a few months ago. The Peacock, near Oppius. But I wouldn’t recommend two young ladies such as yourselves go there unaccompanied.’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said with dignity, though I couldn’t see that it was any of his business where we went. Sabine had said we shouldn’t go to the slave market either, but nothing had gone wrong, had it? In fact, everything had gone right.

  As we made our way back to the Forum, I was bubbling with elation. When we were safely inside the litter I turned to Sabine in triumph. ‘We did it — we’ve found Andalos! We can go to the tavern and see that he is well, and then tell Aballa. I can’t wait to see her face!’

  ‘But, Claudia, we can’t go to the tavern ourselves; it’s in the Subura.’ Sabine pointed to a street running off to the left and made a face.

  ‘What’s wrong with the Subura?’ I wanted to know.

  Sabine turned her eyes on me. They looked huge in her pale face. ‘It’s the very worst part of the city. It’s — it’s dirty and crowded and violent. I’m serious, Claudia. If you go, I’ll … I’ll tell Mama.’

  I sat back, deflated. If we couldn’t go to the Subura, we couldn’t see Andalos. Maybe we could send someone in our place? Father, Lucius … they would scoff at the idea of going out of their way for a slave girl. The only person I could think of who might sympathise with Aballa was Marcus, but there was no way I was going to ask him for a favour, not even for Aballa’s sake.

  My elation faded. We were both quiet for the rest of the journey home. Sabine, I presumed, was scared of being found out. I’d meant for us to go to the baths after the slave market, as Prisca would be sure to ask who we’d met there, but we’d already been away too long.

  At home, I started to feel some of Sabine’s trepidation. The atmosphere was strangely quiet as we entered the atrium. There was no sign of the slaves who should be dusting and polishing, and, most unusually, my father and Lucius were still at home, though it was far past the time they should have left for the Forum. Both were sitting on stools, Father looking grave and Lucius’s face ashen. I was about to ask what had detained them when Father put a finger to his lips and gestured to Prisca. My stepmother, her hair loose, was on her knees by the household shrine. I couldn’t make out the prayers she was murmuring but I heard their beseeching tone.

  Sabine ran to her at once. ‘Mama, what is it?’

  Prisca turned at the sound of her daughter’s voice and I saw her face was wet, her eyes swollen with tears. ‘It’s Aurelia,’ she choked out. ‘She is paralysed. Theodotus is with her now. He fears she will be dead by nightfall!’

  ‘No!’ With a dreadful cry, Sabine fell to the floor in a faint.

  My own skin felt clammy and I clutched at the doorframe for support as Lucius rushed to Sabine’s side.

  ‘Fetch the ammonia salts!’ he roared at the slave standing by the door. With one arm beneath Sabine’s knees and the other supporting her head, he lifted her gently and carried her over to the couch.

  I saw him hesitate as if, like me, he was struck by Aurelia’s absence; the striped divan was always her place. Then, with a sigh that was barely audible, he lowered Sabine onto it.

  Prisca, almost tripping over the hem of her dress in her haste to rise, rushed over. ‘Please,’ she begged, ‘don’t tell me the gods would take her too.’

  Lucius put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I don’t believe she is ill,’ he said. ‘I think the shock has overwhelmed her.’

  A slave arrived with the salts and Sabine was revived, though she looked dazed, as if struggling to comprehend the strange and awful direction the day had taken.

  I watched helplessly, overcome by a desire to do something but of no use to anyone. I went to stand by my father.

  ‘I sent a messenger to Marcus’s house on the Esquiline,’ he said in a low voice, ‘but the steward said he left for Veii this morning. The messenger has gone after him.’ He gave a heavy sigh. ‘I only hope he arrives in time.’

  ‘But what’s wrong with her?’ I asked, not troubling to disguise my bewilderment.

  ‘Theodotus doesn’t know. The paralysis started in her legs then moved up her body. She fell unconscious a short while ago. It might be a disease, or possibly an allergic reaction to something she ate.’ He shrugged. The lines of strain I had noticed when I first arrived in Rome were back now. ‘Marcus will never forgive himself if he is not here for her last breath.’

  Feeling suddenly stifled by the heavy fog of dread that filled every corner of the room, I went out into the garden. Barely a week before we had gathered here to celebrate Aurelia’s engagement. I remembered how she had glowed, her skin sparkling with mica; her looks had seemed a perfect reflection of her personality, bright and lively and lovely. But as I paced towards the terrace at the far end of the garden, I had a vision of her lying on the stone couch that night. Had her illness already struck? If its cause had been detected then, could she still have been saved? I hurried back to the atrium and away from the question, for now it was too late. Too late …

  Sabine had been taken into her sister’s room in my absence, but was escorted out by her mother only minutes later, weeping so violently she was barely able to stand.

  ‘I can fix her, I can fix her,’ she was wailing between sobs. ‘I will find a cure — I swear, Mama, I can.’

  ‘Quiet, Sabine,’ Prisca said wi
th a hint of impatience. ‘It’s in the hands of the gods now.’ As I hurried forwards to help her guide Sabine to a seat, she said hopelessly, ‘She is hysterical. I just — I can’t cope with her now.’

  Sabine sat on the edge of the couch, bent over double, sobbing so hard she could barely draw breath. I went to sit beside her, rubbing her back in slow circles as Aunt Quinta had used to do for me when I was ill. Gradually her sobs eased, though she kept her face in her hands. Aurelia’s death would hit her extra hard on account of what happened with her father, I knew. After all her study of healing, she had been absent when her skill was needed. And that’s my fault, I thought miserably.

  ‘Oh, Lucius!’ Sabine hiccupped. With a start of guilt I realised that I had quite forgotten how Lucius must be suffering. He was showing such tenderness to Sabine, and supporting my father, when all along he was mourning his fiancée, and the golden future they had planned.

  The day dragged on interminably. With the exception of Prisca, who stayed by Aurelia’s side, we huddled together in the atrium as if sheltering together from a storm.

  Marcus must have ridden like the wind, for he was in Rome before the sun had set. He stood at the entrance to the atrium, dusty and dishevelled, his face streaked with dirt and sweat.

  ‘Where is Aurelia? What is wrong with her?’ he demanded of the room. ‘What does Theodotus say?’

  It was my father who answered. ‘He cannot tell.’

  ‘Is she awake?’

  ‘I’m sorry, son.’

  Marcus clenched his fists, which trembled as though he were barely restraining himself from lashing out. ‘I must see her.’ He strode away.

  We had settled into apathy, but Marcus’s arrival roused us, and the feelings that had subsided into dumb misery became raw and fresh once more. Still, we remained in helpless limbo. None of us felt like dinner, but a platter of fruit and nuts was sent out from the kitchen. We were all aghast at the sight of the dates drizzled with honey. Sabine, with a sudden movement, flung out her arm and dashed the platter to the floor. Father signalled to a slave to clear the mess away and murmured a few words.

  A few minutes later another platter was sent out, this time without dates.

  Eventually Marcus appeared, his face tight and expressionless. ‘She is near the end. It is time to say goodbye.’ He held out a hand. ‘Sabine?’

  She rose. ‘I’m afraid,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’ll be with you,’ her brother reassured her.

  He put an arm around her shoulders as they left the room.

  Sabine returned alone about ten minutes later. She fixed her large eyes on Lucius. ‘Would you like to say … goodbye?’ The last word was muffled by the hand she put over her mouth to repress her sobs, her shoulders shaking.

  Lucius moved forwards to hold her for a minute, rocking her back and forth as she cried. I couldn’t help but notice how easily he gave comfort compared to my father’s awkwardness and Prisca’s stiffness. Lucius responded as Aunt Quinta or Uncle Marius would. I missed them so much at that moment I was almost winded by the sharpness of their absence.

  When Sabine had calmed a little, Lucius detached himself and walked away towards Aurelia’s room. He returned a short while later with Marcus.

  ‘Claudia?’ Marcus’s eyes were so bleak and full of pain that I felt tears spring to my own. As I stood, I heard him say, ‘Gaius, would you join us?’

  My father and I walked together along the colonnade.

  Husn squatted outside Aurelia’s door, weeping quietly and muttering in her own language.

  Inside, Theodotus stood by the dressing table. Prisca, calm now, sat on a stool near the head of the bed.

  My father gently urged me forwards.

  Aurelia lay lifeless on the bed, her auburn hair limp around her wan face. I stared at her, trying to comprehend that she wouldn’t be coming back. I thought of her humour and wisdom and generosity. She and Sabine had welcomed me into their lives and for a brief time I had known what it was like to have an older sister. I touched her arm, which lay on top of the blanket. It was cold.

  ‘Thank you,’ I murmured as I bent to kiss her cheek.

  She didn’t stir.

  Father stood behind Prisca with his hands on her shoulders. She had bent her head so that her cheek rested on his hand.

  As I left the room, I was startled by a terrible rasping. It was coming from Aurelia.

  Prisca made a keening sound.

  Theodotus said, ‘Domina, perhaps you should leave now.’

  My father helped Prisca up.

  ‘I’ll stay with Aurelia till the end,’ Marcus said quietly. A relative had to be near to catch her last breath with his mouth.

  Prisca, my father and I returned to the atrium and Father led us in prayers around the shrine. He was interrupted by a hoarse cry of ‘Aurelia!’ It was Marcus, trying to call his sister back to life.

  It was over. She was dead.

  Prisca ran from the atrium to join her son, followed by the rest of us. We reached Aurelia’s doorway in time to see Marcus seal her eyelids.

  ‘Aurelia! Aurelia!’ As the dead girl’s mother and brother began the lament, I felt a cold black misery swamp me.

  Sabine broke free of Lucius’s grip and pushed her way into the room. Dropping to her knees beside her sister’s bed, she began to scream until Prisca, wild with emotion, stepped forwards and slapped her.

  Cypress branches were hung by the door to tell the world outside that death had entered our house.

  Aurelia’s body was washed and dressed in her finest gown, the one she had worn to her engagement party. She was placed on a funeral couch in the entrance to the atrium with her feet pointing towards the door. The room was filled with flowers, and incense burned day and night.

  On the eighth day after Aurelia’s death, the funeral was held. There had been some discussion between Marcus and his mother as to whether Aurelia should be laid to rest in her father’s tomb or her late husband’s. Eventually Prisca prevailed: Aurelia’s ashes would be put in Decimus Paullus’s tomb on Via Appia. ‘She will be better remembered as a senator’s widow than a daughter,’ she argued.

  The procession to the tomb was led by musicians playing dirges, and behind them came the professional mourners, tearing at their hair and garments and wailing.

  Then came Aurelia herself, carried on the funeral couch by undertakers as we walked behind her, followed by the elderly cousins of her dead husband and various friends and relations, nearly all of whom had been at her engagement party. Husn, who had been Aurelia’s closest attendant, walked among the mourners.

  Prisca walked straight-backed and dry-eyed, though her face looked drawn, and Marcus too looked as impassive as stone. Between them, Sabine drifted like a pale wraith, silent, though the tears ran freely down her face.

  We did not have far to go, walking down Via Sacra as far as Via Triumphalis, passing the baths before turning into Via Appia. The streets of the city were especially crowded, as the day of the funeral coincided with the celebrations for Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, and throngs of women were on their way to the Forum to make sacrifices at the temple. The couch was jostled and I began to worry that Aurelia’s corpse would fall onto the road, but the undertakers took care that it did not.

  We passed through the gate in the wall that circled the city and soon the way was lined with tombs both grand and modest, pine trees standing sentinel over them.

  The tomb of Decimus Julius Paullus was in the second mile, a large brick tower with a frontispiece inset with busts of the senator’s ancestors. Here the funeral couch was lowered onto a bed of dry wood set in a shallow grave. It was lit, and spices and perfumes were thrown onto the burning pyre.

  It took several hours for the pyre to burn down. When only embers remained they were extinguished with water. Purification water was sprinkled three times over all present so that we were not polluted by death. People began to leave until only the family remained. The ashes were dried then scooped into
an urn that was placed in the tomb. It was done.

  As daylight faded, we headed for home, where we would pray to the household gods, asking them to purify our house. A gust of breeze had sprung up, loosening my hair and whipping it around my face. As I brushed a strand away, I was reminded suddenly of the crow’s wing that had brushed my cheek the day I learned that my brother was dead. Was Aurelia’s death the ill fortune that the crow had foretold? My family had lost a son and a daughter now: surely nothing more could befall us.

  After the funeral came the Nine Days of Sorrow. In their mourning, Prisca and her two remaining children drew together like the petals of a flower at the fading of the light. Father, Lucius and I were not part of their circle, though I doubt Father noticed. Lucius did, however.

  ‘I should probably consider leaving Rome soon,’ he said one morning when Prisca, Marcus and Sabine had gone to visit Aurelia’s tomb. ‘It feels like the ending of a dream. It’s not just Aurelia I’ll miss: it’s the whole family. Of course I have a family of my own I love dearly, but … my father and I were not very close — my fault as much as his.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘With Gaius I feel I’ve been given the chance to try again, to be a good son.’

  ‘You have to stay,’ I urged. ‘For Father’s sake. Imagine how he’d feel if you were to leave now.’

  Lucius nodded thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

  Prisca was remarkably changed after Aurelia’s death. Her confidence, her briskness were gone. Not so long ago, when Aurelia had warned her, The gods will not always oblige by arranging things in your favour, her reply had been almost defiant: I don’t bother the gods; I arrange things myself. Now she seemed frightened, as if the gods had taught her a lesson and might yet teach her another. She was no more affectionate with Sabine than before, but she watched over her closely, and Sabine, as if catching some of her mother’s fear, was more subdued than ever. Whenever Marcus left the house, for no matter how trivial an errand — to go to the baths, perhaps — Prisca would exhort him to take care as if she might never see him again.