The Patricians
By C.S. Lund
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 C.S. Lund
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Chapter I
I want to tell you about someone I loved. What else is there to tell?
The story began in autumn, which in Rome is cool and blue and precious, and that one I was sure I had never seen before. I was sure I had never really seen autumn at all.
I was young, then, in every way a person can be young. In breath, in spirit, in experience. Least of all in years- I was sixteen, and I thought things would never change. But they were already changing. The orange sky was rolling over; the dusky atmosphere was revolving; overwhelming my green lungs. Promise hung over everything- my father’s house included. It was indeed a miracle.
I was going to the theatre. Rather, I was being taken to the theatre to see Plautus’ Menaechmi, for the first time, by my brother Umberto and his old African slave Cassius, who escorted us through the hot, teeming streets of Rome with care, though, thankfully, several steps ahead of us. This allowed my eyes to open wide, and drink (for the Roman Forum is indeed a powerful elixir, better consumed than merely observed). Many times had I seen the roiling streets from behind the silk curtains of a litter; kohl-eyed and shuttered as the ragged, pink-faced children passed me, tilting their necks in an attempt to steal a glimpse of black-velvet immortality, the boys tightly gripping the hands of their smaller, thumb-sucking sisters, my unabashed envy. For though our eyes might briefly meet, of the two of us it was only they who reserved the power to break the spell and run. I was left alone, captured and crated, and only with my eyes could I follow them from the litter, weaving through the narrow streets, overturning market-baskets, upsetting chickens, ducking under the legs of perspiring horses, and over the hill to sit on the steps of the Temple of Jupiter the Thunderer; or to the Circus Maximus to eat peanuts and lay money on the races; or beyond all else, the foothills of the Capitoline.
I had rejoiced at the junking of the litter for the day, but thus far my brother had been working diligently to ensure that the much-anticipated outing was thus far falling tragically short of my expectations. Though happily, my dearest friend Rebeca Cornelia Arva, the daughter of my father’s lictor, was also permitted to come along, and for once, my father himself was not to accompany us. The two us, therefore, conspired to fall the appropriate length behind him, that we might be able to talk and observe unmolested– unhindered by curtains; our feet free to run if we chose.
“Stay clear of the buyers and sellers,” my brother called back warily to us. “Their biggest business is often not vegetables or pottery, but young girls.”
Rebeca giggled, unperturbed. She’d heard the stories before, listened briefly and promptly disregarded them. She gaily moved from stall to stall, fingering silk and organza; patting children on the head and bantering with their boisterous parents: all fruitless, naturally, since neither of us were allowed any money to call our own.
“Wouldn’t this look simply heavenly as a ballgown, Thalia?” she called to me. “Thalia?”
My mouth was open, drinking. Mesmerized by the throngs that joined us in our walk, most no doubt pointed toward the theatre and glittering treasure it promised: people both ragged and gilded, smudged children almost naked calling to each other over the noise, shoving through even larger crowds: grey-bearded government magistrates, plebeian tribunes and their attendants, Greek and Egyptian women in cackling groups; public slaves; merchant’s wives. I put a hand to my breast as if to keep my heart in: never before had I seen them all like this—free from curtains, outside of velvet. I couldn’t help but notice a fair share of litters, and I couldn’t help but think that for once a pair of cloistered blue eyes might well be gazing at me in envy. My heart darkened when I thought about the prospect of ever going back to the litter, as my father would undoubtedly insist upon in the future. I was afraid I would be forced to leap out of it; to hide in a rain barrel or a chicken crate, then spend the night on a tenement rooftop surrounded by mangy dogs and filthy, cherubic children. I blushed with excitement at the very thought.
“Pardon me, miss,” a gruff voice said, and I was roughly shoved aside to make way for a giant man carrying two squirming piglets, one under each arm. I laughed despite myself.
“What’s so funny?” Rebeca asked, though she was smiling as well. She dropped the swatch of fabric, prompting a glower from the plump vendor, who cradled a squalling baby nearly as unceremoniously as the man had hoisted the pigs.
“Nothing,” I said. “It only seems as if I’ve finally discovered what I’ve been missing, down here on the ground.”
Rebeca, who had never rode in a litter in her life, said skeptically, “What, fat swineherds who’ll shove you in the mud to get by? Give me the litter any day of the week, thank you.”
“No, it’s more than that,” I said. “It’s…well, what if I decided to take off running, right now…just get lost in the theatre crowd? You’d never be able to find me. I’d run off with a group of traveling players…” I trailed off, getting lost in my own speculation.
“Thalia, what are you talking about? See the actors perform first, then run off with them.” She smirked.
“I know,” I said. “I can’t wait.”
Rebeca, a year older than I and having already experienced the privilege of a day at the theatre, sagely explained to me what I was about to encounter at the great stage. But she, too, I could see, was having trouble containing her excitement.
“I’ve heard Cantus and Miramus are playing the Menaechmi. You didn’t see them in Miles Gloriosus, but they were hysterical.”
“But how do you know?” I asked suspiciously. “I thought you saw Andria. Your father wouldn’t let you see Miles because it was the day before Saturnalia.”
“I know,” she said softly, and I noticed her round, usually wan face turn a peculiar shade of pink. “But I went with Ervium.” She paused, her face searching mine in a way I wasn’t used to. “You’re not to tell anyone, Thalia. I mean it.” She looked almost frightened.
I knew well the importance of my silence. Although far more permissive than many heads of household, Arvus was nevertheless fiercely protective of his daughter’s snow-covered virtue. Over the last several years, Rebeca’s silver spirit had tried its best to foil his efforts at every turn, and only now was she beginning to draw herself inward, fighting her small rebellions in the shade of secrecy rather than bathed in day sun as they had been at their tender beginnings. I had watched with mute, guileless wonder then, and grieved at the change. And yet I knew that the winds pointed there for all of our kind eventually; myself included. Still my heart would not sink to the bottom so soon- it inhaled, though sometimes gasping, at the surface. And it lived.
“Will Ervium be at the theatre today?” I asked her in a teasing voice.
She nodded happily and looked down at the ground.
“Ah hah! So that’s why you tried so hard to get Umberto to convince Father to let you come.” I lowered my voice as I spoke. Umberto and Cassius now walked several paces ahead of us, but I thought it still wise to be cautious.
She smiled. “Well, that, and the fact that I wanted to be present at your first introduction to the glorious, bloated underworld of the Roman theatre.”
For the last week and half, ever since my father announced he would allow me to go, I had been hearing nothing but elaborate, purple tales of the people that inhabited that strange world. Closed off as I ever had been from most of the unsavory characters of Rome among which we now walked, I was more than a bit apprehensive, and I steeled myself for the coming blast. I felt that life lay there- real, throbbing, unapologetic life; the kind of life I had missed for so long and grown ever more anemic without. Most of all, I felt ready.
“Did Ervium finally convince Malachus to give him a role in the chorus?” I asked, remembering the aspiring thespian’s endeavors to finally be elevated from lowly stage carpenter.
“Yes, finally. And not only that, but he told me that he and a few other boys our age are putting together their own covert group of aspiring thespians to practice and perform below the behind the stands after each show.”
“Oh, Rebeca! Will we get to see them?” I felt like singing. The day was raising itself above my highest hopes.
“Their first ‘performance,’ such as it were, is at noon today,” she said. “Ervium’s calling it their debut, but I can’t help but wonder at the level of quality- after all, they’ve only had a month to rehearse. They’re just so impatient,” she laughed.
“Well, I’m sure they’ll be wonderful,” I said confidently, shivering with delight. “Isn’t there something to be said for youth? I mean, Miramus is almost fifty, isn’t he? They need new blood. In fact, I bet one of these boys will someday be the next Thespis himself. ‘
At that moment, the theatre itself rose up before us, almost in one grand swoop. I had passed it by on the way out of the market countless times, eyes reeling with my need to see what lay within; following its patrons with my sheltered eyes, the children that seemed to move like schools of fish, darting in and out of buildings as if they were formations of coral. Now that I had finally been granted divine permission to become a part of it, its marble columns leaped, and made my knees weak to look at them. The intense melodrama it contained seemed to rush out of its very walls- large and pressing and wondrous, like gazing at the house of a Titan.
When we arrived inside, carried by the throng which had swelled nearly double since the Forum, Umberto led us to my father’s private viewing-box, which lent us a divine view of not only the stage and the orchestra, but of the rest of the place as well- row after row after row, seemingly stretching to infinity, and each one overflowing with souls. It seemed as if the whole Republic were there, and Greece and Mesopotamia besides.
“Rebeca,” I said excitedly, turning her way. “Did you see-“
”Shhhh,” she interrupted, and all around, I noticed audience members who had once been talking animatedly hush themselves. The consuls turned from their attendants and looked to the stage expectantly. “The play is starting.”
At once, the theatre, full to capacity with thousands upon thousands, was silent. I marveled at the power of an institution that could lay silent the citizens of a city that often seemed to never tire of its own voice.
All of a sudden, a single actor came onstage carrying a torch. “Hail Consuls, Senators, citizens and friends. Tonight we place ourselves in the care of the god of the theatre, Thespis the great. Whether it be comedy or tragedy, let him bless the traffic of our stage.” He placed the torch in a sconce on the side of the proscenium.
The theatre verily exploded. The audience fell into a rumble of cheers and applause, and the orchestra melted in strains of music that overtook even the mad crowd. And the play began.
At once, I was thrown into the flames of Plautus’ Menaechmi. The story of two identical sets of twins- two slaves and their masters- separated at their birth by a fantastic shipwreck, was a silver tether that held me bound and mute for the two hours the story played before me. I had never dared to dream that something so wonderful could be conceived by a mortal. The story itself was only the beginning. The thespians playing the roles of the characters in the story were so adeptly skilled at their work that I marveled at their disbelief- the fact that they could so easily cast away their own identities and take on those of characters was something sacred and new to me. And within those identities they were so convincing and hysterical that I was wiping tears out of my eyes within the first ten minutes of the play. It was all achingly real to me, so much so that often I wished myself there on the stage beside them, playing out the story of humanity for all the Republic to see. The utter fiction of it made it all the more real- perhaps as a reflection of the emptiness and ennui of everything I knew around me. My life was growing cold and sterile and had rules that must be followed. This place was bursting with hot, radiant color- breaking in dyed balloons and running down in gushes. Pirates and courtesans and magicians made their homes here; I wanted to be permitted to roost for a time too. Let me sing; let me cry, let me erupt the room in laughter- I wanted it!
When the whole magnificent thing smashed to a close, I was speechless, and I must have been gaping, too, because Rebeca poked my shoulder and asked “Thalia? Are you quite well?”
I turned around and embraced her. “I’m well, Rebeca. Quite well indeed!”
She pulled me off of her and looked at me critically, wondering what had come over me. “Good, because we’ve got to think of a way to lose Umberto long enough for us to see the boys!”
I gasped. I had quite forgotten.
“What will we do, Rebeca?! Umberto won’t let us go off on our own for very long. He’s under strict orders from Father.”
“Wait, Thalia, I’ve got it! Cassius!”
Of course!
“Cassius!” we called, “come here, please.”
Cassius, who had belonged to Umberto since before I was born, lumbered over to us from where he had been sitting. I looked for Umberto, and saw that he had struck up conversation with one of the other senators and his son in the box next to our own. We all knew he had ambitions to follow my father into politics, and he never wasted an opportunity to forge connections.
“Cassius, we need to get off on our own for about an hour. Will you try to convince Umberto to let you accompany us?”
“Just where do you girls think you’re running off to?” he asked suspiciously. We knew he wasn’t obligated to obey us. We were only a couple of teenage girls, and he wasn’t our slave. But in the past he’d been willing to help us in our schemes to outwit Umberto and my father, provided he was in no danger of punishment. I had learned that most slaves would, unless they are unusually loyal to their masters.
“We’re going to see a play by some boys our age, underneath the stands. No danger,” I assured him, because he’d always been protective of us. “Just some local boys putting on a play like this one, only smaller.”
“All right. I could stand to get away for awhile, myself. I’ve always been partial to a good play.”
I let out my breath and looked at Rebeca, then back at him. “All right. That’s good, Cassius. Now for Umberto,” I said, drawing it in again. This would be harder.
“Umberto,” I called to where he was still conversing with the senator and his son. The task was mine, since Cassius would probably be beaten for interrupting such an important conversation with such a triviality. “Is it all right if Cassius-“
”Thalia,’ he said, turning around, but seeming to ignore what I’d said. “I’d like you to meet Senator Brysius Julius Timerius and his son Apexium.” He spoke their names importantly, in a way that told me it would be foolish of me to ignore these particular two men.
I looked up in their faces. The senator was about sixty, commanding, imperial and reproachless, the way I’d come to think of all the endless array of senators I’d met in my life, the kind of man who appeared utterly unbowed to the spectacle surrounding us, leaving me utterly puzzled as to the nature of his presence at the theatre. He pulled me toward him and looked upon me as a judge, accusingly. I felt examined.
I observed his son, who was a classically, mythically handsome young man, blond, athletic and chiseled like a cult statue, and probably identical to his father at that age. Unlike his father, however, he hardly glanced my way, even as he took my hand limply. His eyes were fixated on the other private boxes below us, and, I observed, the many coquettish young girls who sat alongside their fathers; some even younger than I.
“She is exquisite, Umberto,” said the senator, and I realized he was referring to me. “Turn around, girl, let me look at you.”
Mindlessly, I obeyed. Apexium’s eyes were still turned elsewhere, even though I was beginning to gather that I was being put on display for his benefit.
The senator cleared his throat and spoke to my brother. “And you say she is a virgin?”
I felt my face grow hot. Although to them it may have been merely a euphemism, the frank suggestion of my yet-to-blossom flower left me reeling. To them I might well have been a rare Persian carpet, or a golden chalice. An object.
“Indeed, Senator, without question. My father can confirm it in writing if you wish. She has never so much as touched another man.”
I almost spoke then. How would my brother know that, or anyone? I hadn’t spent every moment of my life carefully supervised, although at times it seemed that I had. And even so, what business had these strangers with some small, white egg-like object in my body they called my virginity?
“Sixteen, eh? And no suitors? My own girl’s younger than she, and is already a mother twice over.”
Umberto paused. “Oh, there have been suitors. But I admit she’s shown some…resistance…to marriage in the past. But,” he looked at me quickly “there will be no more of that. And she’s nowhere near our other little friend here. So far over the hill she’s almost out of sight.”
I realized he was referring to Rebeca and I wanted to spit. I turned to her to see if she had heard. Her round, normally pleasant face was white, and her lower lip quivered. The worst was that I could say nothing to comfort her.
The senator gave me one last, long look, as if sealing an envelope, then turned to his son. “Apexium, what do you say, eh?”
The younger man slowly, boredly turned around. “I don’t want damaged goods,” he said, looking at me like a dead fish he was buying in the market.
Instead of defending me, as I had expected, the senator chortled, and slapped his son on the back. “Hear that? My boy doesn’t want damaged goods!” he laughed, and my brother joined in. “Just like his old man, I say!”
When that had died down, Umberto said “I assure you she could be one of the best investments you ever make. My father would be happy to draw up the paperwork if you’d come by his office in the next week. He’s been exceedingly busy lately, but for this matter, I know he’d be glad to make an exception.” Lowering his voice, he leaned close to them and said “Even the loveliest flower wilts if it sits in the house too long.”
Chapter II
I don’t remember how we managed to break away from Umberto after that. I suppose I invented some tale about Rebeca and I wishing to see the inner workings of the theatre, and promising that we would not be away long and that we would be accompanied by Cassius. Umberto, understandingly apprehensive about the reaction of my father, who had never appreciated the theatre and had even been resistant to our outing that day, reluctantly agreed. But I was too angry to credit him for his permission. I felt sold.
“Come, Cassius,” Rebeca said, and for a few moments we walked speechless, the background noise supplied by the giddy shouts of the masses, who took their time filing in a disorderly manner out of the theatre. The color had not yet completely returned to her face. I wanted to reassure her, but my mouth felt numb.
“He sold you to that man,” she finally said. “And he didn’t even ask for your opinion.” Her tone was even and emotionless.
“No, he didn’t,” I countered. “Only my father can marry me off. And he hasn’t agreed yet.” I must have been trying to reassure myself, but it was slow work.
“But you heard what Umberto said. He said he’d sign the papers right away. He said-“
”I know what he said!” I snapped at her, then looked down, abashed. I remembered the remark about the flower. Wilting? “I just- I just need some time to figure it out. All right? My chest felt heavy. The hot, joyous storm of an hour ago was becoming limp and dead. Just like me. “Where’s Cassius?”
“I thought he was behind us,” she said, looking back. “Oh, there he is, far back in the crowd. He’s so slow,” she said, exasperated.
“He’s quite old, you know,” I said, then stopped. He was indeed old. He also suffered from severe arthritis. He was old enough to be my grandfather, but my own grandfather lay ensconced in a private, silk-draped suite in a townhouse near the Forum, being waited on in bed by slaves. Cassius was certainly no less feeble than he, but I recall well hundreds of mornings when my family and I had piled on him boxes and packages while preparing to go to town, only to double the load on the return trip. Every day, he carried bathwater from the fountain, hundred-pound bags of flour, and endless other heavy things. My father and Umberto, both able-bodied men, carried nothing. I carried nothing.
“Rebeca, we have to wait for him,” I told her, and she rolled her eyes, but agreed to wait.
When he overtook us, looking surprised and pleased that we had taken the time to wait, I asked him “How are you feeling, Cassius?”
The look on his face was so surprised, it was almost pitiable. “I’m all right, miss. All this walking is hard on me, sometimes, though. But why do you ask?”
I had to think about my answer. “Because I want you to be comfortable, that’s all.” I glanced at Rebeca, who looked puzzled.
“Well, thank you, miss, but that’s no concern of yours. I do what I’m told.”
I smiled. “I know, Cassius, I know. You’re a good worker. When we get under the seats, you can sit down and rest.”
He looked absurdly grateful. “I’m obliged, miss.”
Just as I was thinking that I would ponder that subject further when I had more time, we arrived just under the stage, where Rebeca had told me the young thespians would perform.
There was a larger crowd there than I had expected, boisterously milling about and discussing and praising the Menaechmi. I saw mainly groups of young students, curious foreigners and plebeians, most of them no older than we, including some girls. One of them was Epistema Caecilia Meliana, a pudgy girl with stringy red hair that I recognized from our quarter of the city.
I saw that Cassius had found a comfortable seat, then went with Rebeca to speak to Epistema.
“What’s going on?” asked Rebeca. “I would have thought they would be ready to start by now.”
“They’re still waiting for a few of the actors,” she explained. “I’ve been here for half an hour. I just came to see Ervium. Wasn’t he fantastic in the chorus of the Menaechmi?” She noticed Rebeca glaring. “Oh, I didn’t mean that, Rebeca, I just- I mean, he invited me to come, the last time I saw him in town,” she finished, a bit hastily, I thought.
“And speaking of Ervium, where is our favorite boy?” asked Rebeca.
Epistema glanced around her. “Looking for Lido and Paula, I assume, with Traviatus.”
Rebeca and I immediately looked at each other. “Traviatus? Lido? You mean they’re back?” Rebeca asked incredulously.
“Yes, they got back yesterday, in fact…” Out of the names she had mentioned, I recognized only one, but I shared in her excitement.
”Rebeca!” a delighted voice called from behind us, and turned to see my cousin Traviatus Agrippa Tyrex, a skinny young man with pale hair and skin, Rebeca’s age, striding toward us. Rebeca’s eyes grew wide.
“I’ll be damned, Traviatus, it’s been so very long. I suppose they finally threw you out of school?” she asked coyly, throwing her arms around him with affection, which he reciprocated. I noticed she was looking at him in a way I’d never seen her look at Ervium.
“Not quite. They wanted to though, a couple times. Look, I’ll explain later, but right now I really have to find Lido. He said to give him fifteen minutes, and it’s been thirty, and I’m going to kill him, it’s just like him to hold everybody up, even after he begged me for a chance to be in this thing.”
“You mean, you’re letting your…”
A voice called a greeting. I turned around. A boy came out from under the white beams of the theatre stairs, across the public corridor, and I tilted my head for a closer look. He might have been a bit older than Traviatus. He wore a plain reddish tunic and simple leather sandals. He was much better filled out than Traviatus, and looked frankly healthier. He had straight dark hair that had not been cut, so that it was a good bit longer than the close-cropped style considered proper for men and boys at that time in Rome, and held partly back with a green leather headband, with enough still hanging in his eyes that every so often he would flip it away. His complexion was very pale and exquisitely smooth--not a blemish anywhere, which was significant for those our age. At any rate, it stood in stark contrast to Traviatus’ bumpy, blotchy visage.
And he looked at me. For a single second, his eyes, colorless to me, met mine. I promptly looked away.
“Traviatus, there you are! You guys will not believe what happened to me on the way here,” he announced, working the crowd effortlessly and needlessly, since his charisma already had commanded everyone’s complete attention.
“You can explain later, Lido,” spoke up Traviatus, frowning. “And you’re lucky I’m not going to tell my mother. But we really do have to get this going. Is Paula here?”
“Yeah, she just went in back to get her costume,” said the boy, whom I could now call Lido. For a moment I saw him self-consciously raise a hand to his neck to touch the leather collar he wore there, which I had not before noticed. He dropped it almost as quickly.
“I’ve got to talk to her, and Ervium, too. Meanwhile, you go get ready for the first act. You open it, remember,” he reminded him, walking to the back of the makeshift stage they had fashioned of old columns and cedar wood.
“How could I forget?” asked Lido..
With one look back at the rest of the waiting audience, Lido gave a smile, and a slight eye-roll as if he couldn’t even begin to explain. Then he disappeared in the back.
I turned to Rebeca and inquired casually, “Who was that, anyway?”
“Oh, he was just Traviatus’-
“Shhhh,” whispered Epistema harshly. “I don’t want to miss Ervium.”
Rebeca glowered at her.
Suddenly, Lido was onstage again, wearing a gaudy rabbit fur-trimmed purple cloak (still wearing that leather collar) lighting a torch to Thespis, just as the actor had done at the beginning of the Menaechmi. But Lido brought it to the surface. As soon as he appeared onstage, it was evident that no one in the audience ever considered looking anywhere else.
“Hail, Thespis,” he said as he lit the torch. “We worship you, although I’m still not sure how you became a god, since you were just some Greek guy from about 500 years ago.”
The play answered many questions for us. It appeared to be a piece Traviatus had written about a young man’s experiences at school, apparently autobiographical, with Lido playing his slave, Ervium as the schoolmaster, a rather large youth I didn’t immediately recognize as his fellow student, and, to my surprise, the girl called Paula playing a variety of female roles, including a young courtesan that Lido’s character found very fetching. I bit my lip upon seeing this.
But throughout the better part of it, my mouth was open. The play opened with Lido, as the slave, being dragged to Traviatus by a couple of upright citizens of Rhodes, accusing him of cheating them in a dice game, one that slaves weren’t supposed to be allowed to play at all. He claimed he only did in hopes of winning enough money to buy his freedom, which Traviatus continued to deny him. Apparently the slave had been a sort of gift from his parents, and they would not allow him to set him free.
The slave never got his freedom. The play concluded with Traviatus’ parents begging him to come back from school to care of them in their old age. It was then that I realized, with some trepidation, that if the story were indeed autobiographical, Traviatus would soon be moving into the house my elderly aunt and uncle, Rebeca’s and my next-door neighbors. Rebeca, apparently, had already taken note of this information.
At the end of the play Traviatus introduced himself and the rest of the young thespians, who each made a comment or two for themselves. Lido and the large boy, who had also proven himself talented, and having a unique chemistry with Lido, stood together, and suddenly I realized that I recognized him- he was my aunt and uncle’s slave from next door. The two them acted as if old friends reunited, and I wondered at this relationship.
Lido was the last.The audience roared, but I sat silently. Empty applause would cheapen him.
He spoke for himself. “By the way, if any of you are into this sort of thing we’re always looking for new victims. You know: drunks, lowlifes, the unemployed, angry loners, the desperately poor…people who know me.” Everyone laughed once again. I sat up straight.
To another round of applause, the thespians disappeared backstage again.
The sole topic of conversation among the spectators was Lido- where he had been hiding himself in past years and why he hadn’t found his way to the stage before.
I turned to Rebeca. “That’s the one,” I said. “Remember when I said one of them would be the next Thespis?”
I turned to Epistema, but she, unlike the rest of the crowd, appeared unimpressed with the young actor.
“Eh, I’ve seen better performances on street corners in the Forum.”
Ignoring her, Rebeca frowned at me. “Um, I don’t think that’s likely to happen anytime soon, Thalia.”
“Why not?” I demanded.
“Under law, he’ll never be allowed to be an actor.”
“What? You mean-“ I stopped to think. I remembered the collar. Suddenly I felt as if I’d been punched, deep and low in the stomach. “He really is Traviatus’-”
“Slave. Yes.”
That meant it was all true- that boy really was owned by my cousin. A human chattel, as they say. He really had constantly asked, nearly begged, for his freedom. And the only place he really belonged would never open its doors to him.
And everything else must have only been a trick of the sun.
Suddenly- “Ervium!” two voices cried at once, and I saw Ervium Scribonius Tulla’s tall, sandy-haired form walking toward us, followed by most of the rest of the cast, including Lido, who was talking animatedly to the large boy, whom I now remembered was called Symmachus, for the Stoic philosopher.
“Epistema, oh, it’s great to see you here,” Ervium said, embracing her. I looked to Rebeca, who, with Traviatus about, did not look nearly as murderous as she had on previous similar occasions. “And you, too, Rebeca. And Thalia.” I was the ultimate afterthought, but I didn’t care.
I was gazing at Lido, and this frightened me. Within seconds a single piece of information had transformed him into an alien landscape; something both untouchable and magnetic. I didn’t know what to make of him anymore. Of course, I reasoned, I was mistaken, my mind or eyes addled by the heat or the stress of my first visit to the theatre. He was just a slave, and what I thought I had felt about him could not be real. The very nature of it was…unnatural. I resolved to put the ridiculous thoughts out of my mind and forget them.
I saw Lido go to greet Cassius, who had been sitting beside us but about whom I had nearly forgotten. They embraced as if old friends, and I remembered my sudden discovery, an hour previous, of the mistreatment I believed Cassius had suffered at the hands of my own family. Being a slave didn’t make him a pack animal, or any more impervious to hard labor. I looked at Lido’s hands, most often gesturing animatedly as he spoke. They were human hands; nothing tattooed on them said “slave.” What drudgery had he been forced to do, when he would much rather have been shining on the stage? I drew in my breath and exhaled slowly, as if trying to purge the strange, sudden desire to hold those hands in my own.
Panicked, I looked to Rebeca, who was conversing with Ervium, and to her dismay, Epistema, who had her arms wrapped guardedly around his upper body.
“Rebeca, I really think we’d better go,” I told her. “Umberto’s probably waiting, and if Father-“
”Don’t you want to meet the rest of the actors?” she asked.
“NO!” I nearly screamed. “No. We’d really better go. Now.” I willed myself not to turn around again. But it was too late.
Traviatus said from behind us “Ah, here’s the girls I was looking for. Thalia Agrippina Tyrex, I believe you already know Symmachus, but I want you to meet Lido.”
Giving into my social conditioning, which would not permit me to ignore an introduction, I turned around automatically, all politeness, and curtsied low. Then Lido looked at me, and I returned his gaze, and noticed that he had deep hazel eyes. I had been taught never to look a slave in the eyes. And now that I’d finally done so, I’d found the eyes looking back at me so beautiful I never wanted to look away. But I did, feeling as if I might faint.
“You’ll be seeing a lot more of us now,” said Traviatus. “I’m moving back home.”
Lido did not reach out his hand to mine, or even kiss it, as propriety would have required any male citizen to do; tragic, since I trembled just thinking about how his lips would feel on my skin; my hand light in his hand. However, for a male slave to touch a female citizen who wasn’t his mistress was strictly forbidden. Instead, he self-consciously touched one hand to his other wrist.
“Hi neighbor,” he said to me, and he actually sounded nervous. But he smiled at me.
I grabbed Rebeca and ran.
Chapter III
My father’s elder brother Regulus, a retired senator, had lived, along with his wife Priscilla, on the far eastern end of the city for most of my life. I had occasionally been to visit as a child, but as the years passed and Traviatus stayed at school for longer and longer periods, the visits dwindled to nearly nothing. Rebeca, however, whose family had also lived in that part of town before moving into the apartment attached to our house when my father hired hers as his chief lictor, had grown close to Traviatus in the years she had spent living next door to him, and had missed him when he’d left for good. Not too long after his departure from his childhood home, my father had advised Priscilla and Regulus, whose mental faculties had declined severely as he aged, to move nearer to us. I think Rebeca had been more eagerly anticipating Traviatus’ return than she was willing to confess.
In the following weeks, she spent every spare, burnished moment of the ripening autumn at the house of Regulus, often sitting with Traviatus in their opulent fruit-filled courtyard, separate only from ours by a low wall. She spoke low to him, a peculiar smile flickering across her face.
I, however, rejected the concept of that household’s existence. I felt it was the safest course of action at the time. I was frightened and embarrassed by the changing nature of my mind’s occupying subject, so much so that I reasoned that if I stayed carefully clear of the wall between and spoke about it to no one, I would eventually clear myself of the muddle.
But it wasn’t to be. I occasionally found myself, sometimes almost unconsciously, peering through the dusky, fading orange and olive trees that separated the two properties. But I was afraid to admit to myself what, or who, I might be seeking, though I knew as well as I knew the drying autumn grass under my feet and floating orange pollen of the trees. In fact, I found myself spending more and more time perched on the marble bench near the courtyard wall, pretending to be absorbed in reading or brushing my hair.
And sometimes I saw him. I even began to memorize the times he was likely to appear outside- early in the dawn’s light, balancing buckets of water from the fountain on his shoulders, later in the morning, chatting earnestly with Traviatus and Symmachus as they accompanied Priscilla to town, and again several hours later, weighted down with shopping boxes and baskets of vegetables or meat or linens or jewelry, tokens of Priscilla’s monetary liberalism. Later in the fading afternoon he would often appear in the garden talking with Traviatus and Rebeca, relating humorous anecdotes that would often leave the two of them split with laughter. Too often, Priscilla’s drawn, withered face would appear at the window during these periods, snapping “You, boy! I gave you five minutes, and it’s been ten! Cut out that worthless chatter and come inside- this floor won’t scrub itself!” Then my heart would curiously shift inside me as I watched him leave his willing audience, the only real place he belonged, and briskly walk inside, his head held high and looking straight ahead, away from the light and my open eyes.
The last time I usually saw him during the day was after the stars took the dark blue stage of sky, when he would lug seemingly armful after armful of firewood into the house through the side door from the pile behind the shed. It was no small task to juggle them, and he would sometimes drop a piece, and I had to fight a welling urge to run to him and snatch it from the ground and carry it inside, and not only that, but take a pile in my own arms and carry it inside, until the ground where the pile lay was bare, and so that by my own feeble strength I could keep his back from aching in the morning, and for the rest of his life. But I stayed motionless, and hidden in the growing darkness, watching him struggle with the fallen logs. He seemed to do it all with a half-smile on his face, as if he refused to defeat, or to be broken.
And sometimes, but only those fleeting precious sometimes evenings, he would appear at the close of day with a pair of metal tongs and snuff the burning candle at the window. And he would always look out. Every time, without fail. Just when I thought he was about to disappear from sight, and my eyes would be left empty for another night, he would raise his tender dark head of hair, and gaze out searchingly. This was when he was most likely to catch sight of me, and it was never clear whether what he saw was my solid form, or just some glittering specter standing there, silent and attentive, and looking right back at him. But I was there. And I saw. And I still remember.
Rebeca waited until Tetra and the other slaves had gone to attend to dinner before ambushing me in the courtyard. I curled my legs in the shade of a coconut palm gazing at the house of Regulus next door. The afternoon was one of absolute stillness. The heat blanketed me oppressively; Tetra had dropped the fan she’d been using, but even a reach across a sunny patch of grass to retrieve it seemed like drudgery. I stiffened upon hearing Rebeca’s voice.
“Thalia, dear, you’ve been mooning about since yesterday,” Rebeca said, scooping up a handful of candied nuts from the bowl next to me and talking with her mouth full, as she always did. “Either tell me what’s the matter or I’ll have to torture you, and you know I know how. My father began his career in the Imperial Guard.”
“What about you? Shouldn’t you be with Ervium?”
“Ervium has decided he’d rather keep company with a fat meretrix than a virtuous woman. But,” she continued, “We’re not here to talk about me. We’re here because you, my dear, are afraid to get married.”
“Afraid to get married? How is that? We all get married.”
“So when the augurs say the time is right, you won’t hesitate to join Apexium in his bed?”
I looked down, trying to keep from shouting something impolite.
“Thalia?”
“Apexium is certainly handsome,” I said slowly. “But…he’s a pointy-nosed spoiled brat who thinks I’m damaged goods. He said so himself.”
“Ah ha!” said Rebeca in triumph.
“But what can I do? My father is the paterfamilias. He has a right to marry me to whomever he wants, and he’s dead set on Apexium.” I felt the bile rise. “Besides, it’s not as if I have any right to complain. Others in Rome have far less choice than I.”
Rebeca gave me a skeptical look, but before she could reply, Epistema’s tinny voice rose above the air around us, unsettling its stillness.
We turned toward the gate in the courtyard wall, and saw her mincing toward us, along with Saroya Sextiliana Sceptilia, another senator’s daughter who had been at the theatre with us. Saroya was accompanied by her olive-skinned slave girl, who looked to be our age and who held a green silk parasol over her mistress’ head. Epistema carried her own.
“Time for some girl talk?” asked Rebeca, a bit icily. She eyed Epistema.
“I’ll say,” said Epistema, taking out a fan and plopping down on a marble bench against which I had been resting my back. Saroya settled herself primly beside her, and her slave continued to stand. The girl shifted her weight from foot to foot, obviously tired, and her large brown eyes had a sadness about them. “Saroya and I just walked all the way here from the Porta Esquilina.”
“I’ve never been that far without a litter, but Epistema insisted I meet her on foot. She’d had what we’ll call, for propriety’s sake, a special engagement with Ervium at his father’s house, and she didn’t want to raise suspicion upon leaving alone,” she said leaning in close, while pudgy Epistema reclined beside her, smirking like a cat with a mouthful of mouse. I immediately turned to Rebeca. I could tell she was seething, but I admired her ability to maintain her composure. I doubted that, under the circumstances, I’d be able to do the same.
“Ervium is a perfect gentleman,” Epistema continued lazily, prolonging Rebeca’s agony. “Despite myself, I find him beginning to grow on me.” She fanned herself with vigor, trying to conceal how out-of-breath she was. “Say, Thalia, have you anything drinkable around this place? I’m fairly dying of thirst.”
“Why, of course,” I told her. “Tet-“ and then stopped myself in mid-shout for one of our house slaves, Tetra.
Saroya asked “Thalia, what’s wrong? Didn’t you hear? Epistema’s thirsty.”
Rebeca started to call for Tetra herself, but I cut her off. “Don’t bother,” I said, rising to pass through the atrium and into the house. It was only after I arrived in the kitchen that I realized that I had no idea where the glasses or the wine were kept.
Finally, after a prolonged search, I wobbled back onto the lawn with five goblets of wine on a golden salver. Epistema took one gratefully, and after a long swig, she commented lazily “Why, thank you, Thalia. I didn’t realize you were the new slave here.” Both Rebeca and Saroya laughed. I scowled and said nothing.
Epistema’s eyes darted toward the fifth glass on the tray. “Are we expecting another caller, Thalia, or are we just hitting the cask a bit hard this morning?”
“No,” I said. “There are five of us here, so I brought five.”
All three girls’ mouths dropped open. Saroya looked at her slave as if she had just now noticed the other person who had been following her about all this time. “You can’t be serious.”
Ignoring her, I turned to the girl. “I thought you might like some wine. You must be thirsty; you walked all this way, too.”
Saying nothing, the poor girl looked to her mistress and then to me. Unaccustomed to this much attention, she looked as if she might burst into tears.
“Forget it,” Saroya said. “She’s fresh off the boat from Boeotia; doesn’t understand a word. You practically have to hit her to get her to do anything.” She grabbed the wine from me and thrust it into the girl’s hands. “Here. Our hostess insists.” She turned to me. “Are you quite satisfied?”
“She can sit down, too.”
“Very well,” Saroya replied, taking the girl’s shoulders and pushing her to the ground. The girl sat there, legs crossed, looking mainly at me. She did not drink at first, but later, when she thought no one was watching, I saw her take several long, grateful gulps.
The other girls looked at me as if I’d sprouted wings, but Rebeca laughed it off. “Don’t mind her,” she said. “She’s been acting quite strange lately. Engagement jitters, I daresay.”
Saroya sat up straight. “Oh, Thalia, are you going to marry Senator Tiberius’ son Apexium? I heard my father talking to a caller yesterday who said he was wooing you.” She sighed. “You are so lucky, dear. I’d give anything to have him for a husband; he’s a regular Adonis.” She giggled.
“I’ll never marry him,” I snapped.
“Thalia!” scolded Rebeca.
“Well, then who, Thalia?” demanded Epistema. “If it’s not Apexium you’ve been mooning about, you must fancy some other boy.”
“Yes, Thalia, who is it?” asked Saroya eagerly, leaning forward. “Have you found someone to rival Apexium? I saw you with some of the actors the other night at the theatre.” She gasped. “Is it Troilus?”
My heart was beginning to race, but I said “Please. As if I would waste my time on some penniless thespian. Besides, you’re wrong. There isn’t anyone else.”
“Liar! I don’t believe you! Come now, tell!” shrieked Epistema.
“There must be someone.”
“No.”
“Darling, I can tell just from the way you’re blushing,” said Saroya, and cruelly, I felt myself blush even deeper as she spoke. Aside from stalking off, I knew I wasn’t about to get out of this.
“Well, if you insist on continuing this silly guessing game, I suppose I can at least make it sporting. Try someone in the house of Regulus. And it isn’t my cousin.”
“Well, then, there isn’t anyone else living there besides old Regulus!”
“Calm down, Rebeca,” I said with a smirk. “I know you have a yen for jowls.”
Rebeca whapped me with the fan Tetra had left.
“Come Thalia, stop stalling and tell us who it is,” said Epistema lazily. “If there even is a ‘he,’ aside from whoever’s hiding in her pillow,” she added to the other two.
“Thalia, you don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to,” Rebeca said, in an attempt to be helpful.
“Think harder,” I said.
“Lido?”
Saroya let out a little shriek.
“Look at her face! It is! It’s Lido! But isn’t he-?”
“But Thalia, he’s a slave,” Saroya explained to me slowly, as if I had been somehow unaware of that fact. She examined my face closely, as if I were some sort of scientific specimen.
“What’s the problem with that?” I said.
“We’re not supposed to, you know, think of them that…way.”
Epistema made a dismissive noise. “It’s not right.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said, feeling suddenly bold. “We’re patricians. We’re supposed to be able to think whatever we want.”
“She’s right,” said Rebeca. “Just because he happens to be a slave doesn’t make him any different from Apexium, or Ervium. Besides, Epistema,” she said, “don’t pretend you haven’t admired Lido yourself. I saw you at the theatre.”
“Why, you spiteful, jealous cow!” Epistema’s fat face flushed, as if she weren’t unattractive enough already. She glanced down at her wine glass, but she’d emptied it ages ago. Turning to Saroya’s slave, she jerked her glass out of her hand and threw the remaining wine into Rebeca’s face.
“Come, Saroya,” she said. “It’s too hot today, and some of us are beginning to reek of desperation.” She removed her gilded headband and swiped at the damp frizz at her hairline, her sharp eyes stabbing at Rebeca.
Saroya looked at us helplessly, but obeyed, following Epistema as she turned and stalked out of the courtyard. Saroya’s slave made an apologetic curtsy to us, then raced to catch up with her mistress, waving the flouncy parasol in vain.
Rebeca dried her face with the hem of her skirt. She was laughing into it. I felt my mood begin to lift.
“Lucky I brought out extra,” I said.
Chapter IV
It was the next morning when I was informed that the previous day’s admission was to result in a calling into the cave of the beast much sooner than I could have imagined.
It began with a call into my father’s study for Umberto and me; always a source of extreme trepidation as far back as I can remember. It could mean anything- punishment, reward, advice, command. Most certainly something worth listening to if we had any interest in avoiding punishment. I glanced at Umberto as we walked to meet our fate. As much as he had disappointed me in recent weeks, it was at those times when we were thrust back into childhood again; to the trembling footsteps on the paneled floor, to the cool, wet sensation of the doorknob against one’s perspiring skin.
My father’s study was actually a three room suite, with an antechamber that gave way into the main office and the side office, in which Rebeca’s father worked. It sat unused and locked whenever he was at the Senate building, which could often be for days at a time. It was then that it regressed into a lifeless, inanimate chamber. It was only when my father sat conducting business imperiously in his velvet-covered mahogany chair that it became something larger than it was; that meant more than it did.
My father’s personal slave, middle-aged Brynchius, who had been with him for ten years at the time, opened the door of the antechamber. He had been carefully trained by my father in bookkeeping, one of the few tasks given to slaves in which they could legally be taught to read, and he so highly valued him that he kept a small apartment for him near the Forum, where I’d heard told he kept a wife and a brood of five children, all of whom legally belonged to my father. Although he and his wife could not actually be married under law, my father’s benefaction and obvious political clout allowed them to live in the city unmolested.
“Thank you, Brynchius,” I said politely to him as he led us into my father. Both he and Umberto looked confused, but he nodded at me and seemed pleased.
I admit that most of my memories of my father consist of him sitting imperviously behind his mahogany desk. It served as a sort of shield between him and the unpleasant tasks and emotions of the world. As long as he stayed behind it, he would remain lord and master of whatever came to supplicate before him, which on this occasion was Umberto and I.
He waited what seemed like two whole minutes before beginning, the first of which he finished up several papers he had been working on. When he finally looked up, he sat perfectly still in his chair and looked at us through emotionless eyes and a downturned mouth. I was frankly startled when he suddenly began.
“My children,” he began, “I am certain that you have been made aware that your cousin Traviatus has returned from school in Rhodes. To mark this occasion, your aunt Priscilla Metellia Tyrex has announced a celebratory ball at the house next door to take place tomorrow night. She has invited all of the prominent families of Rome. Umberto, you will attend with Mia Claudia Palatia, as has been shown your preference in the past, and Agrippina, you will attend with Apexium Julius Timerius.”
I felt faint. Not only did the promise of tomorrow night in the house of someone I had thus far only observed, since our brief first meeting, from afar, loom huge and purple in front of my eyes, I also faced the prospect of being forced to spend the entire evening with a young man I detested, and that my father expected me to marry. I took a step backward, intending to look around and get my bearings, but instead tripped on the edge polished floor that gave way to tile, and fell clear backwards.
My father sighed and rested his head in his hand as Brynchius rushed to help me up. Brushing myself off, I said “That’s all right Brynchius, I can manage-“
”Silence, you insolent chit,” snapped my father suddenly. “I do not recall giving you permission to speak.” He seemed appalled that a daughter of his could be so clumsy.
Despite my determination, I felt a hot tear growing in the corner of my eye. It sat there, wavering. I could almost see its blue clarity through my muddled vision.
“Is everything clear?” he finally asked after more silence.
“Yes, Father,” we chimed in unison.
Crystal, I thought through bleary lenses, cloudy with tears.
My father had assigned Maria, an older slave who in the past had often attended to me in the absence of anyone else’s interest, to assist me in preparing for the ball. I had often wondered why my father had never bought a slave to attend exclusively to me. He’d bought a nurse to care for me exclusively after my mother died, and though I had great affection for her, she herself died when I was barely five years old. I’d also had a succession of tutors, none of whom had lasted long in the household. But many of the girls I knew my age had maid-slaves, and I knew my father could well afford one. But whatever his reasons, I was now grateful that he had never made a move toward that particular purchase. After my recent epiphanies, I knew that had I had one at that time, I would have been incapable of commanding her to perform such tasks as dress me or brush my hair. And it was true, I wasn’t particularly needful for assistance. Maria, obedient and competent in many areas of service, did nicely in that role as she was needed.
At any rate, Maria’s tasks in preparing me included picking out the material for a new gown at the dressmaker’s. The next day, she, Rebeca and I stood in the middle of the finest shop in Rome, surrounded by yards and yards of lace, silk and organza in colors more dazzling than I remembered the last time I had been there. It wasn’t often I was permitted to buy new clothing, and the task, when faced with the importance of the coming event, seemed particularly daunting. I strolled from one shelf to the next, fingering fabric, holding it up to my face in the many long mirrors, and imagining what choice of gown would flatter me best in the eyes of the one I wished most to impress.
Both Maria and Rebeca observed that I was having some difficulty making up my mind. Maria, who still spoke with a Turkish accent, having been captured in war and brought here long ago, observed with a laugh “Ah, I see that she wishes most dearly to impress this handsome senator’s son, eh?”
Rebeca regarded me with raised eyebrows. I smiled mysteriously.
It was just minutes before Apexium was scheduled to arrive to escort me to the ball, which seemed rather absurd to me, since I could have easily walked alone the ten feet it would have taken to get to my uncle and aunt’s door. But I knew I was bound to convention, for that night, at least.