‘You have been out foraging tonight?’ She gestured with surprise to my dew-covered bundle of herbs on the ground.
‘They are at their most potent when they are fat with dew and starlight. Sweeter and stronger,’ I said. She looked at me with more surprise – suddenly intrigued by me, maybe a little comforted, I hoped. Emboldened, I carried on, seizing my moment. ‘Only the baby shoots. Full moon is a good time for new things. Beginnings.’
‘You are beginning to sound like Urgulania. What would your new beginning be then?’
I wanted to say the thing that would change everything, the magic words that would finally ignite her fire that would sear away everything but Elian and a life of freedom in Petra. But I could think of nothing. No one had ever asked me what I dreamed of.
‘A real name.’ My voice came in that empty husk sound that I hate. Too weak, when she needed strength. My body was instinctively holding me back. The words were too true. They had taken me by surprise.
‘A name can be a curse,’ she said.
‘Better to have a name than be just a thing – a cook.’
‘You are not just a cook. You are the most talented cook I know. You are the bravest person I know.’
‘Because I’m ugly.’ We both knew it’s what she meant: because you are so far from the perfection of us.
‘Because you don’t try to be perfect. You embrace your wild, your fire, in all its ways.’
‘Little point trying for perfection.’ I gestured to my face.
‘Sometimes lives depend on it.’ She swallowed hard on the last black morsel of pork scratching and her eyes fattened with moisture just like my morning’s herbs.
I panicked.
‘You are more than a thing too. With or without the family name,’ I rasped. ‘Perhaps, even, you are a priestess, in your soul, who does not need the temple and its rules like the fire does not need a brazier?’
I was too scared to look at her, I was being so bold. I poked at the fire for a little while and didn’t realise until she stood and took my hands that she had tears running down her cheeks, letting them fall before me like a scroll unravelling, displaying all the information in her heart.
Without thinking I gently brushed tears from one cheek and wiped my finger on the edge of a spoon. A gemstone of deep-seated fire and passion, held deep and squeezed for goodness knows how long.
‘So, we need to pick you a name,’ she said after a swollen moment. She circled me, then circled me and my fire together, looking at my eyes, my hair, my scars. ‘Amber. No . . . Aemilia Secunda? You don’t want that, my girl full of fire...’ An idea suddenly grabbed her and she spun on me. ‘I like you for Ember.’
I loved it. It did indeed sit inside me like a hot ember; I felt it warm me all the way through.
‘You like it?’
‘I am Ember,’ I said, smiling wider, wanting to throw my arms around her, or fall at her feet.
‘You are Ember.’
She went within for a moment, where I couldn’t follow her, but I was happy to quietly enjoy my moment, staring into my fire.
‘Now, Ember who tends the true hearth fire in the Temple of Vesta, will you teach me how to cook?’
I think I giggled, or cried, or both, and I nodded and we laughed and the rest of the night was a blur of happiness and light and warmth I will take to my grave. Urgulania roused herself from her bed, having heard us, and joined in, producing wine from her quarters which only she and I drank, while she entertained us with loud stories of her youth.
I walked Aemilia through the bread-making and she called Pompeia and the others to join us. ‘It’s a full moon! What better way to honour Vesta that at a hearth from which we can see the moon and stars!’
We dropped into the fire an offering of bread dough, and the tears of a Vestal.
‘I can never sleep on a full moon anyway,’ said Pompeia, picking at the olives set aside for the bread. We wrapped ourselves in our shawls and stared for long minutes at the sky and the fire, and breathed deep of the crisp alive smells of cooling leaves and clear night, and rotated round the fire to avoid the smoke.
Aemilia’s bread was terrible. Flat and dry and hard but we dipped it in oil and salt, and I never enjoyed as much as that day having cooked an awful meal.
‘So if I can be a priestess anywhere, you can be a cook anywhere, right?’ Aemilia had her arm around me and whispered it into my hair, on her way to bed.
I nodded, I suppose.
‘How about the desert of Arabia? Evidently I’m going to need help!’
WATER
Pompeia
November 114 BC
It was the gods’ hour.
That hour before dawn when the moon has made its arc and the sky is deep turquoise as the light slowly warms. The city is at its most quiet. Gods and spirits are better heard, and sneak most easily through as we sleep. The fires are at their lowest and the people are curled tight under the covers, at the end of dreams.
For us, it’s the most private time, when the forum is empty.
That morning, Ember bustled happily about me and Aemilia, oblivious to our purpose. She toasted leftover bread in the pan and handed it to me to wipe at the scratchings of last night’s dinner with some olive oil and salt. (There is really nothing more pleasurable than crispy things!)
‘I’ll get Terentia,’ I said.
‘Give me a minute.’ Aemilia was staring lovingly into the fire and I knew she was reaching for him. I could feel it in her as she imagined Elian in the cool of the morning with his fire low. I felt her command to Vesta to turn attention to Elian’s rooftop fire and redouble it. For the goddess was already there, always, just like a person can suddenly turn their attention to a finger or a toe. We imagined him noticing, warming his hands, smiling because he could feel her and he would know.
I carried the pan with me while I fetched Terentia, it was so lovely and warm I didn’t want to put it down and I couldn’t stop picking at the delicious salty crunchy bits.
Aemilia and Ember waited hand-in-hand, with tears in their eyes, smiling.
Terentia’s face dropped before Aemilia could speak. She turned away from us and checked the smoke above the temple.
The plan was to say, ‘Mother, I’ve made my decision,’ as soon as Terentia came, before Aemilia lost her nerve. But something about Terentia’s tightened frame, grey in the half-light, held us back.
‘Oh gods, I can’t!’ Aemilia rasped. ‘I can’t, can I?’
Terentia all but collapsed in relief. ‘My darling girl, these are dangerous times,’ she said.
Ember thumped her coal spade into the bench, slammed down a pot.
Terentia was oblivious. ‘With these accusations flying around, an announcement like that would convince the people of inchastity.’
‘Mother!’ Aemilia said, meaning ‘sorry’ and ‘please’ and ‘help’ all at once.
Terentia took her hands. ‘Of course I could rely on you, my Pet . . . Perhaps, in time . . .’ She pulled away to escape to the temple, stopping for a moment to adjust Ember’s stone mill on the bench, just so.
Ember turned it back.
EARTH
Fragments
Dustin Wade Simmons, From Obscurity to Fame and Back Again: The Caecilii Metelli in the Roman Republic – A thesis submitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University, p. 119.
Toward the end of 114 a storm that had been building against the nobility finally broke with the famous trial of the Vestals. C. Porcius Cato had suffered a defeat earlier in the year at the hands of the Scordisci in Thrace which had scared the Roman people badly, so much so that they were in fear that Rome had been abandoned by the gods. With the recent military defeat and resultant anxiety, the Roman people were ready to pay careful attention to strange occurrences and omens.
AIR
Tristan
November 114 BC
‘They’ve declared inchastity by a Vestal.’ Urgulania said it for me, thank the gods. Every time I’d gone nea
r Terentia she’d been looking at me with raised eyebrows, wanting news from the streets. She knew the Vestals would be the last to be told. I was desperate for the information but the thought of giving it to Terentia made me almost lose my breakfast.
There was no way the senate would go so far as to carry out a sentence on the Vestals, but the rumours almost certainly pointed to them and they might be made examples. Nothing a few good sacrifices wouldn’t fix, but Terentia would be ropable and so would Dalmaticus.
Urgulania blurted it out, in the end. There was no way else to tell her. It had to be done fast before the other priestesses felt the rumble and came to listen.
Terentia sank onto the bench and looked up at me. ‘You too?’
I nodded, confirming the news. Turn left if you throw up or you’ll get her robes.
They had consulted the books. They had put an augur on the hill to watch the birds. They put the haruspices to work over fresh-cut entrails and maps of the sky. They had conferenced in their togas, over scrolls and the best wine to calm the nerves.
But the rumour had already taken a life of its own. It had seeped into every gutter, coiled around pipes, darkened the water and soured the wine. It dripped from arbours onto clusters of chatting wives, and across the floor of barber shops. It spit in the baker’s fire and went home with every loaf, it groped from the shadows at those passing in the streets so the people glanced over their shoulders and walked a little faster.
They had asked for reasons and the portent came: virgins and knights.
‘Our order has not failed Rome.’ As though we needed to be told.
Urgulania clucked her tongue. ‘Of course not. But the haruspices and augurs justify their own existence by giving answers and hope. They are in love with the people’s need and right now all of Rome looks to them. They’ll tell what their clients want to hear.’
‘Even if it is not the truth?’ The moment she said it Terentia grimaced at the naivety of her own question.
‘No one who walks with their truth has need for the likes of we fortune tellers. Insecurities make for good repeat business.’
Terentia nodded absently. ‘But you are where you are for good reason, Laynie. So: what is this?’
It’s a virgin struck down, is what it is. That will be us.
‘Rome’s purity has been challenged, its mortality revealed. Rome’s armies never lose, and yet here we are. It doesn’t matter. We are charged. There’s no escape from it, Terentia. We may have to let them carry out their warnings and their displays and let it pass.’
‘Well it certainly won’t get any further. It can’t. It’s preposterous. They wouldn’t dare: more than half of us are of the Families. Dalmaticus’s own brother is an augur and Dalmaticus knows the truth.’
Terentia broke our uncomfortable silence with a loud bark. ‘Flavia!’ The poor wide-eyed girl came scurrying. ‘Stoke the fire higher now until . . . until I say so. Open the doors.’
Flavia looked bewildered but ran off to obey.
‘Tristan!’ I was still right beside her. I jumped out of my skin. ‘More wood than charcoal, the green wood. Collect more green and take it to the temple. I want to see smoke. Make it clear to the people our fire burns strong.’
Only a moment more and Dalmaticus was at the gate, clearly with the formal news by the ash colour of his face.
***
Dalmaticus was a Minotaur in chains, charging about the Regia while his brother Quintus watched, standing at a safe distance on the other side of the table.
Not even the braziers in Hades would need tending for as long as I’d flugged about Dalamticus’s but there was no way I was missing this. He’d pretty much forgotten my existence anyway.
‘You could not come up with anything else?’ He circled the room, throwing his arms out. ‘No other possible reason, not a single idea but to throw a death sentence at my priestesses? My priestesses. My own brother!’ He shot the words at Quintus from the corner, then rounded on him.
Quintus flinched minutely but hid it. Brothers. In years to come Quintus would match his brother with a military triumph of his own and a new name of his own, Numidicus. But for now he was the augur and Dalmaticus was the high priest with military honours.
‘I had no idea your women meant so much to you. Careful there.’ Quintus made to sit but decided against it. Better to have an escape. For my part I’d already figured on running for a broom to gather up whatever Dalmaticus was about to smash. ‘The people are already terrified the city will be overrun by barbarians from Mars-knows-where, they need to know there are things they can control, here in Rome. It is a plausible’ – he corrected himself – ‘obvious message.’
‘So the people interpret the gods for us now, do they? The augurs are but yes-men, is that it?’ Dalmaticus flew at Quintus, stopped by the table on which he curled his fists, one then the other, and leaned like a bull before the charge. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. ‘Macedonicus is gone. You have to step up.’
Both men seemed to sag under the weight of the great name. Without responding to his brother, Quintus slumped into a chair opposite.
Dalmaticus’s head sagged between his mighty shoulders. ‘They look to me for protection from all this, brother. You augurs have just made this the will of the gods. How can I protect them from that?’
There was no answer.
‘Do you believe the auguries?’ Dalmaticus asked.
Quintus saw the pain in Dalmaticus’s eyes. He must have known already that no priestess would break the rules under a leader like Dalmaticus. ‘No.’
Dalmaticus lowered himself to a chair.
‘But I am only one in the college of augurs. The group decides.’
‘My girls are innocent.’ Dalmaticus said it flatly. It was a moot point, possibly even irrelevant, but he wanted the words said.
I left them sitting in silence, staring at their hands. I didn’t need to share this with the priestesses.
FIRE
Ember
November 114 BC
Terentia gave me directions to Elian’s apartment across the river, to where Aemilia can never go and with every step I betray my dearest, for Terentia has sworn me to secrecy.
‘Not a breath of it to Aemilia until it’s done!’
No one will notice a single dark man slip away in the alleys across the river; let the thousands engulf him and carry him with them to wherever they came from, any place will do, any name or none. He should throw over his black tunic and disappear into a shadow and never come out until he is far away, crouched in the hull of a ship or the back corner of a cart.
She told Cor and Tristan to leave too. I heard her. But they refused. ‘We serve the Vestals, our lady. We stay.’ Cor said they can torture him all they want.
The streets across the river were a soupy place that made me think of slimy meat and the choking dust of mouldy bread. Snotty children hung out of doorways in tiny alleys, and finally I found one with a pretty young mother who smiled readily at Elian’s name and gave me directions as she heaved the wriggling child back to her hip with clear exhaustion. Three doors up, with the light, she said. The big window.
Elian’s door hung half open, forgotten by a mind already on the next thing. I pushed it open enough to stand and peer in at him as he circled a marble statue in the light of the window. The beginnings of the marble piece, so far only a rough, faceless shape – the real Aemilia not yet found inside the marble – a stone veil hung over her features, like a sheet over a body.
‘You have to go. Today. Now!’ I blurted it, half shouted, through the darkness, suddenly panicked by the very real danger I now saw and the knowledge that this love cannot be reasoned but will have to be wrenched away, the stone smashed, or the parting will be impossible.
He was so engrossed in his work my voice made him jump, but his eyes stayed on Aemilia. He slammed down his chisel then gently dropped his forehead to hers – or the ghost of her.
He knew. The whole of Rome knew.
‘I will not leave her when she is in need!’
‘You must, or you could have her killed. Terentia orders it. You know the punishment!’
‘I would never!’
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s still only rumour, this is just for appearances. They must look for men to be her accomplices or there is no crime proven. They will kill any men they accuse, Elian. Don’t make her watch you die!’
‘I cannot go. I will defend myself.’
‘You are not accused yet.’
‘This does not make sense. Does Aemilia ask this?’
In my hesitation he saw my betrayal. His look sucked all the fire out of me.
‘These are Terentia’s words?’
‘We want her safe from accusation. So she can be with you later.’ He didn’t look convinced. ‘She will want you safe. She loves you. Her innocence will be proved and her term will be over and you can be together then.’
‘What can I do? Tell me what I can do to help her. I can take her – now – away from this. Surely there is time.’
‘You can go. I don’t know!’
‘I will not leave her now. No! Absolutely not. I cannot, I will not.’
‘Disappear, Elian.’ I said, empty like a wisp of smoke.
‘I tell you I will not leave.’
‘I didn’t say leave. I said disappear.’
The idea had him. He thought about that for a moment. Then he raced at me with such passion I flinched. He grabbed my shoulders and bored into me with eyes big and round like they would shackle me to my promise. ‘You will look after her. On your life you will look after her for me.’
‘I am! I love her too!’ I rasped.
He spun away, searching the room for the brilliant solution that neither of us could find.
‘What do those Roman friends of yours tell you to do?’ I asked him.
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