Fire and Sacrifice

by Victoria Collins

  ‘Mother, please.’

  ‘Elian’s work is renowned across the Roman dominion and beyond. He is the best possible. It will cost him a considerable amount of time to work with you.’ A thinner warning. Dalmaticus shifted.

  Again that feeling that my insides dropped between my legs with a thud I am sure could be heard. Searing bile spewed into the hollow. A considerable amount of time? With Shadow Man?

  Aemilia resigned. ‘Of course.’ She turned to Shadow Man with forced warmth. ‘I’m so sorry. I have been impolite. It is an honour to meet you, I’m sure.’ Shadow Man bowed again. I could have vomited.

  ‘Secunda will be your chaperon.’ As Terentia spoke, Shadow Man acknowledged me with a tiny bow and the same mischievous glint in his eye that I’d seen before. Cheeky bastard knew I wouldn’t reveal his spying lest it reveal my own.

  ‘Along with Dalmaticus, of course.’ Terentia strode heavily from the room, the message from the back of Terentia’s head very clear: ‘Deal with it.’

  It would have been improper for a Vestal to meet alone with a man without a chaperon. And what better way to appear purest of pure than to meet in the residence of the head priest. Terentia was clever.

  Aemilia turned back to Shadow Man, bewildered. The slight breeze lifted Aemilia’s veil from the little curls near her ears. Don’t be so beautiful today, my lovely.

  Dalmaticus watched, amused. Aemilia pulled herself in and up, smoothed her robes, smiled politely. ‘So. You are to be my sculptor. An attempt at a portrait for the sacred square?’

  Shadow Man gave a slow bow in confirmation.

  We looked him up and down. There were long lines of dirt down the front of his robes where he wiped his hands. The dust was all through his hair, which stuck out where he’d run his fingers through it. He caught our look.

  One of two things happen when you toss a foreign object into my fire: the thing is quickly consumed (the priestesses call it purification) or it sizzles and spits and repels the flame and on the morrow will still be right where it was. I had that feeling about Shadow Man.

  ‘Forgive me, mistress. I see you disapprove of my attire. I am an artist, and I look like an artist.’ He held out his arms and shrugged, smiling. ‘I am what you see.’

  A little light sneaked across her face and she suppressed a smile.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘I am Nabataean.’ He laid his hand on the column beside him, same as that day I caught him prowling for her, and trailed it theatrically as he circled the column.

  Dalmaticus raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Nabataea? And what does a Nabataean know of the style of the Roman Forum? I have never heard of sculpture from the Arabia,’ Aemilia said, softening. She moved to sit on the stone bench but did not take her eyes off him.

  He pressed against the column and ran fingers through his hair. Settle down, Shadow Man, that’s all you get. ‘Nabataeans know more of sculpture than most. All of our city Petra is carved from the stone.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘A secret.’

  ‘How they like it.’ Dalmaticus moved to stand in the middle of their conversation. Thank you, Dalmaticus. ‘Knowledge is the source of their riches, correct?’

  ‘You are correct.’ Elian gave him a wry grin.

  Aemilia gathered herself back in. ‘Well, I imagine Terentia would have us make progress.’ She motioned for Shadow Man to unpack the bag of tools at his feet.

  ‘Ah!’ He sprang into action, turning to find his spot to set up, running his fingers through his thumbs and back and back again, then running his fingers over the leaves of a shrub as he circled the little yard for the best place to study her from. Touching, always touching.

  She glanced at me sideways, a look that said she wanted me to stay where I was, quiet.

  Hated the Shadow Man.

  Hated standing there stupidly with nothing to do. I had grain to grind. The bread dough needs time to rest but I hadn’t even ground the grain yet. He was ruining my cook.

  I plonked myself heavily beside Aemilia, smouldering. You cannot touch her!

  Dalmaticus barked a short laugh. ‘I think you are in safe hands here,’ he said to Aemilia with a nod at me. ‘I will be in my rooms.’

  I was happy to be the monster that day. I glared at him as though I could shoot flames from my burned skin. I straightened my back and bared my scars. Shadow Man looked from me to Aemilia and back again. ‘Yes, I see,’ he said to himself. To me he said, ‘You are quite extraordinary.’

  Aemilia shuffled her hand across the bench to just touch mine, which sucked the monster right out of me. We sat there with our little fingers clutching. We knew we were at the edge of something.

  ‘So what is expected of us, artist? What is the process?’

  Shadow Man: ‘If I may?’

  Aemilia: ‘You may.’

  Shadow Man: ‘I begin with the sketch’ – he showed us his flat stone and charcoal, and mimed sketching – ‘to . . . understand. Then with clay, to know the form.’ He moulded a form in the air, far too sensual. ‘Then into the marble’ – he made a chiselling motion – ‘for the masterpiece!’

  ‘You are very good?’ she challenged him.

  Shadow Man, smiling: ‘My family has carved a city from the stone in Nabataea. I have made portraits of kings and warriors and Roman gods.’ He shrugged. ‘But I have not carved a priestess.’

  Aemilia: ‘You will carve a priestess’s image.’

  Shadow Man, nodding assent, amused by her again: ‘Perhaps.’

  She grinned to herself and I could feel her fire weaken.

  He brought out a little folding stool and sat in the middle of the courtyard, staring at us. She looked a little bewildered as he then brought out a stone tablet and a pointed knob of charcoal and set to work sketching.

  For a few moments Aemilia held her pose, well used to having eyes on her. But she still clutched my finger and soon began to squirm under his scrutiny.

  ‘Tell me about Petra,’ she said.

  His hands moved faster across the drawing as he talked. ‘It is magnificent. The city is hidden in a valley between mountains that rise out of the desert. It is a rugged place. Wild. Beautiful. From the very top, the view is peace, softest like velvet, to engulf your heart.’

  Her heart is not yours to engulf.

  ‘The desert, my lady. The desert has power. Perhaps even for you. And you.’ He smiled cheekily at me. ‘And all through Petra the rock is smooth and flowing with colour like a river, only this way.’ He gestured vertical walls. ‘Purples and reds, orange and sand and honey.’

  ‘And the houses?’

  ‘There are none. The house she is carved into the rock or caves, or tents. Petra is like an unfinished sculpture, still coming out of the rock. You can mistake it for a jewel cast into the sands by the gods.’

  I remember that very moment she first left me and went to Petra. Right then. Light came across her like the sun over the dawn horizon, lighting and warming field by field over her cheeks, and I watched as her heart went to the desert.

  I couldn’t stand sitting idle a moment longer. I cleared my throat. ‘Perhaps some water, priestess?’

  ‘Thank you, Secunda. That would be –’ It dawned on us all at the same moment. To fetch water I’d have to leave them together alone and that could not be done. What if people talked?

  ‘If I may?’ Shadow Man pulled a water bottle from his kit.

  ‘We have no cup for the priestess,’ I said with satisfaction.

  ‘No matter, Secunda. Here,’ she said, cupping her hands for him to pour in the water which she brought to her mouth. My heart sank at her beauty, now dotted with diamonds of water at her lips.

  Stupid, stupid me.

  I think he went slower at returning to his drawing just to tease me. ‘Tell me a piece about yourself, lady priestess.’

  I busied myself pulling weeds from between the pavers, working my way back to her, pretending not to pressure her to answer but dying to
hear what she said.

  She faltered over an answer. ‘I am a priestess of Rome, what is to know?’ she replied coolly.

  He was drawing as he talked. She squirmed under his gaze and looked at the ground; I knew how she felt, I would hate that. I wanted to leap in front of her and block his view.

  ‘So you are to become Vestal head, yes?’ he pressed her.

  Head Vestal! Of course. Of course, the most perfect thing!

  ‘Is that what she told you?’ she said, a bit too sharp, too hot, like I do.

  ‘Yes. I thought this is why the statue?’

  ‘This is why the statue. But it is not decided yet.’

  ‘You have a rival?’ He rose to the idea and she chuckled at his enthusiasm, shaking her head.

  ‘No? But you do not want to take the lady Terentia’s position?’

  ‘The lady Terentia will be with us for many years yet. The statue is a play, to entice me to stay by making me feel important.’

  ‘So you will leave?’

  Alarm leapt to her eyes, like someone who’s been found out breaking a vase.

  I went cold. I jumped up and had fairly run to the wall before I knew it. I don’t know why, didn’t think, just had to get away, get away from this. No!

  ‘Inter-est-inggh.’ He watched me.

  Oh don’t you dare, bastard, don’t you make it interesting. This is not interesting – she’s leaving and you made her say it.

  She rushed to me. She reached for my cheek but lowered her hand to my shoulder instead. ‘Secunda, sweet girl, it’s alright. Nothing is decided.’

  I didn’t answer. I knew my voice would fail me in some horrible sound and I’d be even more pathetic. I felt so stupid clinging to the wall. What was I doing there?

  ‘Come.’ She held a hand out to pull me back to the bench beside her, where I sat with my hands clasped in my lap. We both sat straight-backed, steeling ourselves against his next.

  Shadow Man spoke again. ‘I am sorry, I did not mean to upset you. Your matron, he has given me the rules’ – cheeky grin – ‘but not the system. It is not for the Romans simply a, um, a calling? The work of your soul? Like my art?’

  He made her think. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, frowning.

  Black bastard, he smiled at her frown.

  ‘We are selected as children to serve for thirty years,’ she said simply.

  ‘You are chosen! And for you now is thirty years and you can choose.’

  She wouldn’t. No, no, no, not now, not ever. She was Aemilia.

  ‘After the solstice.’ She got up and walked around, ignoring that he needed her to be still.

  But I just got here! She walked past me and I realised I had moved, I was back at the wall again.

  She walked past and did not look at me. Look at me!

  Why? Why would she leave? And why was he not asking? Don’t you dare pretend to understand her. I needed to know why and I couldn’t ask and he wouldn’t! I could have lunged at him in frustration.

  Shadow Man: ‘I have upset you.’

  Back in her seat, she said, ‘No. I’m sorry, it’s not you. It’s just . . . perhaps . . . Shall we finish your sketch and Terentia will be satisfied and we can stop for today? Just for now. But tomorrow, tomorrow we will meet again?’

  ‘It is your command, mistress. It is not my wish to upset you. But, my lady,’ he walked towards us, cupping an invisible something in his hands, ‘I must be able to find you inside the stone.’

  She stared at him, slack with incomprehension.

  ‘To make a carving in the stone is to take away everything that is not there. I must take everything that is not truth. For this, I must know the truth of you.’

  She blushed! She watched him like he was her fortune teller. He stared into her eyes and she let him. Stop! Get out of there! But I couldn’t speak either. Couldn’t bring myself to stop this thing that mesmerised her. She wasn’t squirming anymore. That horse forever bucking at the scent of a storm had stilled, watched warily still, but let the handler soothe it.

  AIR

  Tristan

  October 114 BC

  Three things would happen every day in the Temple of Vesta under Terentia’s rule: Terentia would check the temple chimney for smoke that the city could see; I would check the wood and coal for the sacred fire so it never ran short (or anywhere close); and I would head off to shadow the forum, basillicas and the markets (and, unspoken, the toilets, baths and outside the senate house) to listen for information.

  That was me: the tall blonde Gaul spy in their midst. It didn’t take much. No one wants to make chit-chat with the Gaul slave. How am I? Since coming to Rome? Well we didn't have to rebuild the village, that's a positive.

  I was good at going unnoticed. I could make myself skinny as a shadow or a pillar, and I mastered the art of never being truly seen: never make eye contact, never stand or walk right beside anyone, never engage in conversation. Besides, Gaul slaves were everywhere in Rome and it was presumed that because I was a slave I was also stupid or at least had no idea about or interest in Roman politics.

  As it was, an interest in Roman politics was what made me most valuable to Terentia.

  I would slink about the grounds of the forum or in the corners of the basillicas, pretending at fetching or cleaning something, or skulking in the shade until some senator clipped me round the ear and told me to get to work doing gods know what. And I would take my snippets back to the priestesses.

  Terentia liked to know what was being said. Particularly interesting snippets were shared also with Dalmaticus, since he came along last year.

  It was fun to wander back into the temple square and go about my work knowing the priestesses were bursting to ask me what I’d heard. Sometimes I’d play at a grin, pretending to have a juicy secret just to drive them mad.

  Urgulania and Secunda always had some leftovers set aside for a little reward.

  ‘What’s the whisper?’ they’d ask.

  Sometimes, though, I’d really rather not have to tell. ‘They say the Celts in Thrace are emboldened by their victories and have rushed our strongholds in Dalmatia. They’re almost at the sea.’

  WATER

  Pompeia

  October 114 BC

  Sitting with me in the temple, Aemilia held her hand over the fire, lowering it bit by bit until her little finger hung so close to the flame that I jumped up and snatched her hand away.

  Chapter 4

  FIRE

  Secunda

  October 114 BC

  I cooked the best I could all over again that night. I marinated fowl in the most delicate lavender, with orange and dates. (An extra serve in the fire for Vesta). I fried the meat in fish sauce and olive oil with leek and dill. I served it on a plate painted with orange syrup and dill sprigs.

  But I could not compete with Elian.

  Pompeia ate in great heaps and went for seconds as if she could bury whatever angry thing rose inside her that evening. She had seen what Elian had done to our Aemilia.

  She caught Helvi looking up at her, confused, and me watching too. She wiped her plate with her finger. ‘Scrummy,’ she said.

  Terentia said it was impressive but ‘We need only eat modestly here, mind’. She ate it all, though.

  Aemilia wasn’t at supper. She shut herself in her room and I had to take her meal to her after the others. She said it looked beautiful and thank you but next morning only half of it was eaten. Aemilia’s room was just big enough for one. Thick tapestries covered the grey stone walls and the floor. Old money. Warmth I’d never known. A private burst of luxury and colour out of sight of the masses who see her only in white. On a narrow dresser was arranged a little collection of treasures – shells and stones and a necklace with big blue stones and a gold disc, too flashy to be allowed here. There was a row of tiny drawers and I wondered what jewels she hides away, what precious things she kept only for her and what they meant. Who were they from?

  ***

  Shadow Man came again
the afternoon of the next day. For all appearances he threw his concentration into the work: drawing drawing scratching rubbing the charcoal with the ball of his hand, even his hair moved with the effort of it. But what do we do now? What do we do now you have cut us open and left us here in silence? You will draw her while she bleeds before you? Look at her! Look what you made her say!

  Dalmaticus had shown us into our positions and left us to it. It was politely and coolly done and Aemilia and me sat straight-backed and centred, slowly heating up at Terentia for putting us here, and Shadow Man for being here, and Dalmaticus for not stopping it, and Shadow Man for not… looking… We were like stones sitting silent in a campfire until they explode open.

  ‘What are you drawing now?’ she asked, meaning which body part was he looking at.

  ‘The image of a priestess.’ He amused himself.

  ‘Only the image?’

  ‘She did not yet show herself.

  Aemilia fidgeted in her seat, her grin a sugar coated lemon drop in her mouth.

  I had taken my little stone mill with me, knowing it would be more bearable if I had something to do with myself while I had to watch. And I would feel better if I was seen to be working. I was employed now. It took three trips across to the Regia to carry both stones, plus a bucket of grain, my sieve and bowl, and set it up on the floor, but I was glad of it. I moved to the floor and set to work. The challenge then was to make my grain last when I was turning the stones so furiously.

  He kept working, totally absorbed.

  How could he? How could the world fall away when Aemilia is in front of him?

  How could it not?

  ‘Tell me your favourite colour,’ he said, finally. ‘The colour you like most to wear, to have on your skin.’

  I think I stopped grinding.

  ‘I can only wear white.’

  He smiled again, relishing the game. I know that kind.

  She bit on another grin and looked away from us both with a turn of her head that would beg any man come forth.

  ‘What do you think, Secunda? What colour for your beloved Aemilia?’