House Of The Vestals (23 page)

"If they break into the house they'll slaughter us all!" said Appius.

"You're obviously a man of wealth, Marcus Lepidus." I said. "A trader, I understand."

All three cousins looked at me blankly, baffled by my apparent disregard for the crisis at hand. "Yes," said Marcus. "I own a small fleet of ships. We carry grain and slaves and other goods between Alexandria and Rome." Talking about his work calmed him noticeably, as reciting a familiar chant calms a worshiper in a temple.

"Do you own the business jointly with your cousins?" I

"The business is entirely my own," said Marcus, a bit haughtily. "I inherited it from my father."

"Yours alone? You have no brothers?"

"None."

"And your cousins are merely employees, not partners?"

"If you put it that way."

I looked at Rufus, the taller of the cousins. Was it fear of the mob I read on his face, or the bitterness of old resentments? His cousin Appius began to pace the room, biting his fingernails and casting what I took to be hostile glances at me.

"I understand you have no sons, Marcus Lepidus," I said.

"No. My first wife gave me only daughters; they all died of fever. My second wife was barren. I have no wife at present, but I soon will, when the girl arrives from Rome. Her parents are sending her by ship, and they promise me that she will be fertile, like her sisters. This time next year, I could be a proud father at last!" He managed a weak smile, then bit his knuckles. "But what's the use of contemplating my future when I have none? Curse all the gods of Egypt, to have put that dead cat in my path!"

"I think it was not a god who did so," I said. "Tell me, Marcus Lepidus, though Jupiter forbid such a tragedy-if you should die before you marry, before you have a son, who would inherit your property then?"

"My cousins, in equal portions."

Rufus and Appius both looked at me gravely. Another stone struck the shutters and we all gave a start. It was impossible to read their faces for any subtle signs of guilt.

"I see. Tell me, Marcus Lepidus, who could have known, yesterday, that you would be walking up that side street in Rhakotis this morning?"

He shrugged. "I make no secret of my pleasures. There is a house on that street where I spend certain nights in the company of a certain catamite. Having no wife at present…"

"Then either of your cousins might have known that you would be coming home by that route this morning?"

"I suppose," he said, shrugging. If he was too distracted to see the point, his cousins were not. Rufus and Appius both stared at me darkly, and glanced dubiously at one another.

At that moment a gray cat came sauntering into the room, its tail flicking, its head held high, apparently oblivious to the chaos outside the house or the despair of those within.

"The irony of it!" wailed Marcus Lepidus, suddenly breaking into tears. "The bitter irony! To be accused of killing a cat- when I, of all men, would never do such a thing! I adore the little creatures. I give them a place of honor in my home, I feed them from my own plate. Come, precious Nefer!" He stooped down and made a cradle for the cat, who obligingly leaped into his arms. The cat twisted onto its back and purred loudly. Marcus Lepidus held the animal close to him, caressing it to soothe his distress. Rufus appeared to share his older cousin's fondness for cats, for he smiled weakly and joined him in stroking the beast's belly.

I had reached an impasse. It seemed to me quite certain that at least one of the cousins had been in league with the bearded Egyptian in deliberately plotting the destruction of Marcus Lepidus, but which? If only the little girl had been able to give me a better description. "All Romans look the same," indeed!

"You and your cursed cats!" said Appius suddenly, wrinkling his nose and retreating to the far corner of the room. "It's the cats that do this to me. They cast some sort of hateful spell! Alexandria is full of them, making my life a misery. Every time I get close to one, the same thing happens! I never sneezed once in my life before I came here!" And with that he sneezed, and snorted, and pulled a cloth from his tunic to blow his runny nose.

What followed was not pretty, though it may have been just.

I told Marcus Lepidus all I had learned from the little girl. I summoned him to the window and opened the shutters enough to point out the man with the Babylonian beard, who was now overseeing the construction of a bonfire in the square below. Marcus had seen the man before, in the company of his cousin Appius.

What outcome did I expect? I had meant to help a fellow Roman far from home, to save an innocent man from the wrath of an unreasoning mob, and to gain a few coins for my purse in the process-all honorable pursuits. Did I not realize that inevitably a man would die? I was younger then, and did not always think a thing through to its logical result.

The unleashed fury of Marcus Lepidus took me by surprise. Perhaps it should not have, considering the terrible shock he had suffered that day, considering also that he was a successful businessman, and therefore to some degree ruthless; considering finally that treachery within a family often drives men to acts of extreme revenge.

Quailing before Marcus Lepidus, Appius confessed his guilt. Rufus, whom he declared to be innocent of the plot, begged for mercy on his cousin's behalf, but his pleadings were ineffectual. Though we might be hundreds of miles from Rome, the rule or the Roman family held sway in that house in Alexandria, and all power resided in the head of the household. When Marcus Lepidus stripped off his blue tunic and ordered that his cousin Appius should be dressed in it, the slaves of the household obeyed; Appius resisted, but was overwhelmed. When Marcus ordered that Appius should then be thrown from the window into the mob, it was done.

Rufus, pale and trembling, withdrew into another room. Marcus made his face as hard as stone and turned away. The gray cat twined itself about his feet, but the solace it offered was ignored.

The bearded Egyptian, not realizing the substitution, screamed to the others in the mob to take their vengeance on the man in blue. It was only much later, when the mob had largely dispersed and the Egyptian was able to get a closer look at the trampled, bloody corpse, that he realized the mistake. I shall never forget the look on his face, which changed from a leer of triumph to a mask of horror as he approached the body, studied its face, and then looked up at the window where I stood. He had overseen the killing of his own confederate.

Perhaps it was fitting that Appius received the fate which he had intended for his cousin. No doubt he thought that while he waited, safe and sound in the family house, the bearded Egyptian would proceed with the plot as they had planned and his older cousin would be torn to pieces on the Street of the Bread-makers. He did not foresee that Marcus Lepidus would be able to elude the crowd and flee all the way to his house, where all three cousins became trapped. Nor did he foresee the intervention of Gordianus the Finder-or for that matter, the intervention of the gray cat, which caused him to betray himself with a sneeze.

Thus ended the episode of the Alexandrian cat, whose death was terribly avenged.

Some days after telling this tale to Lucius Claudius, I chanced to visit him again at his house on the Palatine. I was surprised to see that a new mosaic had been installed on his doorstep. The colorful little tiles pictured a snarling Molossian mastiff, together with the stern caption cave canem.

A slave admitted me and escorted me to the garden at the center of the house. As I approached I heard a yapping noise, accompanied by deep-throated laughter. I came upon Lucius Claudius, who sat with what appeared to be a gigantic white rat on his lap.

"What on earth is that?" I exclaimed. "This is my darling, my sweet, my adorable little Momo."

"Your doorstep shows a Molossian mastiff, which that animal most certainly is not."

"Momo is a Melitene terrier-tiny, true, but very fierce," said Lucius defensively. As if to prove her master's point, the little lapdog began to yap again. Then she nervously began lapping at Lucius's chin, which he appeared to enjoy immensely.

"The doorstep advises visitors to beware the dog," I said skeptically.

"As indeed they should-especially unwelcome visitors of the four-footed variety."

"You expect this dog to keep cats away?"

"I do! Never again shall my peace be violated by those accursed creatures, not with little Momo here to protect me. Is that not right, Momo? Are you not the fiercest cat chaser who ever lived? Brave, bold little Momo-"

I rolled my eyes, and caught a glimpse of something black and sleek on the roof. It was almost certainly the very cat who had terrified Lucius on my last visit.

An instant later the terrier was out of her master's lap, performing a frantic circular dance on the floor, yapping frantically and baring her teeth. Up on the roof, the black cat arched its back, hissed, and disappeared.

"There, you see, Gordianus! Beware this dog, all you cats of Rome!" Lucius scooped the terrier up in his arms and kissed her nose. "There, there, Momo! And disbelieving Gordianus doubted you…"

I thought of a truism I had learned from Bethesda: there are those in this world who love cats, and those who love dogs, and never shall the two close ranks. But we could at least share a cup of wine, Lucius Claudius and I, and exchange the latest gossip from the Forum.

"What do you know about the Vestal Virgins?" said Cicero.

"Only what every Roman knows: that there are six of them; that they watch over the eternal flame in the Temple of Vesta; that they serve for no less than thirty years, during which time they take a vow of chastity. And that once every generation or so a terrible scandal erupts-"

"Yes, yes," said Cicero. The litter gave a small lurch, pitching him forward. It was a moonless night, and the litter-bearers, proceeding over the rough paving stones by torchlight, were giving us a bumpy ride. "I bring up the matter only because one never knows nowadays-we live in such irreligious times-not that I myself set any store by mindless superstition…"

The sharpest mind in Rome was rambling. Cicero was uncommonly agitated.

He had arrived at my door in the middle of the night, called me from my bed, and insisted I accompany him to an unspecified destination.

The bearers trotted along at a quick pace, jostling us about; I would almost have preferred to get out and trot myself. I parted the curtains and peered outside. Within the covered box I had lost my bearings; the darkened street looked like any other. "Where are we going, Cicero?"

He ignored my question. "As you noted, Gordianus, the Vestals are particularly vulnerable to scandal. You have heard, no doubt, of the pending case against Marcus Crassus?"

"It's the talk of every tavern in town-the richest man in Rome is accused of corrupting a Vestal. And not just any Vestal, but Licinia herself."

"Yes, the Virgo Maxima, high priestess of Vesta and a distant cousin of Crassus. The charge is absurd, of course. Crassus is no more likely to involve himself in such an affair than I would be. Like myself, and unlike so many of our contemporaries, Crassus is above the base appetites of the flesh. Even so, there are plenty of witnesses ready to testify that he has been seen in Licinia's company on numerous occasions-at the theater during festivals, in the Forum-hovering about her in an unseemly fashion, appearing almost to badger her. I am told also that circumstantial evidence exists to indicate he has visited her, during daylight hours in the House of the Vestals, without chaperones present. Even so, there is no crime in that, unless poor judgment is a crime. Men hate Crassus only because he's made himself so rich. That, too, is not a crime…"

The great mind had begun to wander again. The hour, after all, was late. I cleared my throat. "Will you be defending Crassus in the courts? Or Licinia?"

"Neither! My political career has entered a very delicate phase. I cannot be seen to have any public connection with a scandal involving the Vestals. Which is why the events of this evening are such a disaster!"

At last, I thought, we shall get down to business. I peered between the curtains again. It seemed that we were approaching the Forum. What possible business could we have among the temples and public squares in the middle of the night?

"As you probably know, Gordianus, one of the younger Vestals happens to be a relative of mine."

"No, I didn't know."

"A relative by marriage, anyway; Fabia is my wife's half sister, and therefore my sister-in-law."

"But the Vestal under investigation is the Virgo Maxima, Licinia."

"Yes, the scandal involved only Licinia… until the events of this evening."

"Cicero, are you being deliberately obscure?"

"Very well. Something occurred earlier tonight in the House of the Vestals. Something quite terrible. Unthinkable! Something which threatens not only to destroy Fabia, but to throw calumny upon the very institution of the Vestals, and to undermine the whole religious establishment of Rome." Cicero lowered his voice, which had begun to rise to orator's pitch. "I have no doubt that the prosecution of Licinia and Crassus is somehow related to this latest disaster; there is an organized conspiracy afoot to spread doubt and chaos in the city, using the Vestals as a starting point. If my years in the Forum have taught me anything, it is that some Roman politicians will stop at nothing!"

He leaned forward and clutched my arm. "You are aware that this year marks the tenth anniversary of the fire which razed the Temple of Jupiter and destroyed the Sibylline oracles? The masses are superstitious, Gordianus; they are quite ready to believe that on the tenth anniversary of such a terrible catastrophe, something equally terrible must occur. Now it has. Whether it was manufactured by gods or by men, that is the question."

The litter gave a final lurch and came to a halt. Cicero released his grip on my arm, sat back and sighed. "We have reached your destination."

I pulled back the curtains and saw the colonnaded facade of the House of the Vestals.

"Cicero, I may not be an expert in religious matters, but I do know that for a man to enter the House of the Vestals after dark is an offense punishable by death. I hope you don't expect me-"

"Tonight is not like other nights, Gordianus."

"Cicero! Back at last!" The voice from the darkness was oddly familiar. A shock of red hair entered the circle of torch-light and I recognized young Marcus Valerius Messalla Rufus- called Rufus on account of his flaming hair-whom I had not seen, close at hand, in the seven years since he had assisted Cicero with the defense of Sextus Roscius. He had been only sixteen then, a boy with red cheeks and a freckled nose; now he was a religious official, one of the youngest men ever elected to the college of augurs, entrusted with interpreting the will of the gods by reading omens in lightning and the flights of birds. He still looked very much like a boy to me. In spite of the obvious gravity of the moment, his eyes shone brightly and he smiled as he stepped toward Cicero and took his hand; it seemed that his love for his mentor had not diminished over the years.

"Rufus will take you from here," said Cicero.

"What?. You've roused me from bed in the middle of the night, carried me halfway across Rome, given me no clear explanation, and now you abandon me?"

"I thought I made it clear that I must not be seen to have any connection whatsoever with tonight's events. Fabia called on the Virgo Maxima for help, who called on Rufus, who is known to her; together they summoned me, knowing my family connection to Fabia; I fetched you, Gordianus-and that is the end of my involvement." He gestured impatiently for me to step from the litter. As soon as my feet touched the paving stones, without even a last farewell, he clapped his hands and the litter lurched into motion. Rufus and I watched it depart in the direction of Cicero's house on the Capitoline Hill.

"There goes an extraordinary man," sighed Rufus. I was thinking something quite different, but bit my tongue. The litter turned a corner and disappeared from sight.

Before us was the entrance to the House of the Vestals. Twin braziers stood at either side; flickering shadows danced across the wide, steep stairway. But the house itself was dark, its high wooden doors thrown shut. Normally they stood open, day and night-for who would dare to enter the abode of the Vestals uninvited or with evil intent? Across the way, the round Temple of Vesta was strangely lit up, and from it came a soft chanting on the still night air.

"Gordianus!" said Rufus. "How strange to see you again, after so many years. I hear of you now and again-"

"As I hear of you, and see you occasionally, presiding at some public or private invocation of the auspices. Nothing important can happen in Rome without an augur present to read the omens. You must stay very busy, Rufus."

He shrugged. "There are fifteen augurs in all, Gordianus. I'm the youngest, and only a beginner. Many of the mysteries are still just that to me-mysteries."

"Lightning on the left, good; lightning on the right, bad. And if the person you're divining for is displeased with the result, you have only to face the opposite direction, reversing right and left. It seems rather simple."

Rufus compressed his lips. "I see that you're as skeptical of religion as Cicero. Yes, a great deal of it is empty formula and politics. But there is another element, the perception of which requires, I suppose, a certain sensibility on the part of the perceiver."

"And do you foresee lightning tonight?" I said, sniffing the air.

He smiled faintly. "Actually, yes, I think it may rain. But we mustn't stand here talking, where anyone could see us. Come along." He started up the steps.

"Into the House of the Vestals? At this hour?"

"The Virgo Maxima herself is awaiting us, Gordianus. Come along!"

Dubiously, I followed him up the stairs. He knocked softly on one of the doors, which swung silently inward. Taking a deep breath, I followed him over the threshold.

We stood in a lofty foyer that opened onto a central courtyard, surrounded all about by a colonnaded walkway. All was dark; not a single torch was lit. The long, shallow pool in the center of the courtyard was black and full of stars, its glassy surface broken only by some reeds that grew from the center.

I felt a sudden superstitious dread. Hackles rose on the back of my neck, a sheen of sweat erupted on my forehead and I was unable to breathe. My heart pounded so hard that I thought the noise must be loud enough to wake a sleeping virgin. I wanted to clutch Rufus's arm and hiss into his ear that we must go back to the Forum, at once-so deep is the fear of the forbidden ingrained from childhood, when one hears tales of men found skulking in sacred precincts and made to suffer unimaginable punishments. Ironically, I thought, it is only through association with the most respectable people in the world-like Cicero and Rufus-that a man can suddenly, unexpectedly find himself in the most forbidden spot in all Rome, at an hour when his mere presence could mean death. One moment, innocently asleep in my own bed, and the next-in the House of the Vestals!

There was a faint noise behind us. I turned to see a vague white shape in the darkness, which by degrees resolved itself into a woman. She must have opened the door for us, but she was not a slave. She was one of the Vestals, as I could tell by her appearance-her hair was cut quite short, and around her forehead she wore a broad white band like a diadem, decorated with ribbons. She was dressed in a plain white stola, and about her shoulders she wore the white linen mantle of the Vestals.

She flicked her fingers, and I felt drops of water on my face. "Be purified," she whispered. "Do you swear by the goddess of the hearth that you enter this house with no evil intent, and at the request of the mistress of this house, who is the Virgo Maxima, the highest priestess of Vesta?"

"I do," said Rufus. I followed his example.

The Vestal led us across the courtyard. As we passed the pool I heard a soft splash. I stiffened at the noise but saw only a gentle ripple traverse the black surface, causing the reflected starlight to glimmer and wink. I leaned close to Rufus's ear and whispered: "A frog?"

"But surely not a male one!" he whispered back, then gestured for me to be quiet.

We stepped beneath the colonnade, into deep shadow, and stopped before a door that was invisible except for the faint bar of light that escaped beneath its bottom edge. The Vestal knocked very gently and whispered something I couldn't hear, then left us and disappeared into the shadows. A moment later the door opened inward. A face appeared-frightened, beautiful, and quite young. She, too, wore the diadem of a Vestal.

She pulled the door open to allow us to enter. The room was dimly lit by a single lamp, beneath which another Vestal sat holding an open scroll. She was older than her companion, of middle age. Her short hair was touched with silver at the ternples. As we approached, she kept her eyes on the scroll and began to read aloud in Greek. Her voice was soft and mellow:

"Evening star, gatherer of all The bright daybreak parted: You gather the sheep, the goat; You gather the child safe to its mother."

She laid the scroll aside and looked up, first at Rufus, then at me. She sighed. "In times of distress, the poetess comforts me. Ate you familiar with Sappho?"

"A little," I said.

She laid the scroll aside. "I am Licinia."

I looked at her more closely. Was this the woman for whom the richest man in Rome had endangered his life? The Virgo Maxima seemed in no way extraordinary, at least not to my eye; on the other hand, what sort of woman could sit calmly and read Sappho in the midst of what even staid Cicero had decreed a catastrophe?

"You are Gordianus, called the Finder?" she said.

I nodded.

"Cicero sent word by Rufus that you would come. Ah, what would we have done tonight without Cicero to help us?"

" 'Like is he to a god immortal,' " said Rufus, quoting another line from Sappho.

There followed an uneasy silence. The girl who had opened the door remained in the shadows.

"Let's get on with it, then," said Licinia. "You must know already that I have been indicted for conduct forbidden to a Vestal; they accuse me of a dalliance with my kinsman Marcus Crassus."

"So I've heard."

"I'm far past my youth, and have no interest in men. The charge is absurd! It is true that Crassus seeks out my company in the Forum and the theater and pesters me constantly-but if our accusers only knew what he talks about when we're alone! Believe me, it has nothing to do with matters of the heart. Crassus is as legendary for his greed as are the Vestals for their chastity-but I will not elaborate. Crassus has his defense and I have mine, and in three days the courts will hear our cases and decide. There are no witnesses and no evidence of any act contrary to my vow; the suit is nothing more than a nuisance intended to embarrass Crassus and to undermine the people's faith in the Vestals. No reasonable panel of judges could possibly find us guilty; and yet, after the events of this evening, things could go very badly for us both."

She looked into the darkness and frowned, and caressed the scroll in her lap, as if the conversation had grown distasteful to her and she longed to escape again into the soothing rhythms of the Lesbian poet. When she spoke again, her voice was languid and dreamy.

"I was consecrated to Vesta at the age of eight; all Vestals are chosen at an early age, between six and ten. We serve for no less than thirty years. For the first ten years, we are novices, students of the mysteries like Fabia here." She gestured to the girl in the shadows. "In the second ten years we perform the sacred duties-purify the shrine and make offerings of salt, watch over the eternal flame, consecrate temples, attend the holy festivals, guard the sacred relics. In the third ten years, we become teachers and instruct the novices, passing on the mysteries. At the end of thirty years we are permitted to leave the consecrated life, but the few who choose to do so almost always end in misery." She sighed. "Within the House of the Vestals a woman acquires certain habits and expectations, falls into rhythms of life incompatible with the world outside. Most Vestals die as they have lived, in chaste service to the goddess and her everlasting hearth.