The Wedding Shroud - A Tale of Ancient Rome (17 page)

The maid grinned. ‘Men are ruled by only one thing, my lady. It lives between their thighs like a rudder beneath a boat.’ She held her hand between her legs as though grasping a pole.

Caecilia blushed, suddenly unsure if she should be sharing confidences with this servant but wanting to hear more. ‘And why should that be worth knowing?’

‘Because a tiller needs a helmsman,’ said Cytheris, laughing. ‘And if you are clever, mistress, you can play that role.’

Caecilia stopped the maid fussing over her as she climbed into bed. ‘I still do not know what you mean.’

‘It is very simple. When I am with a man, for that brief moment, he is the slave, not me. He wants me to govern his rudder, so to speak. And in pleasing him, sometimes a woman can steer a man both with and without the bedchamber.’

‘Like Seianta?’

The maid nodded.

‘Like Erene?’

‘Ah, that one can captain more than one ship.’

Caecilia leaned closer. ‘And did she lead Mastarna?’

Smoothing the bed’s cover, Cytheris mumbled. ‘That’s gossip, mistress.’

Irritated that the maid had suddenly grown circumspect, Caecilia pressed her, wanting to discover why Seianta and Erene sought out Mastarna’s caresses. Why they savoured what she found sour. ‘Are you saying women can enjoy lying with men?’

‘Of course,’ said the maid, putting away the brush and mirror. ‘I love men. I love their smell and taste and feel, their strength, their deep voices, the hugeness of their embrace and, if I am lucky, their—’

Caecilia cut her short. ‘And was it always so? Was the first time easy for you?’

Cytheris lowered her eyes. ‘No, mistress.’

‘But you still— You still like lying with men?’

‘Yes, mistress, when I choose the man.’

‘That is a choice I do not have.’

The maid began filling a lamp with oil rather than face her. ‘I am sure the master will not let you hate the marriage bed,’ she said quickly.

Caecilia shook her head slightly, disbelieving but still wanting to comprehend; thinking that perhaps Cytheris had not suffered so badly at the hands of her lover if she’d found the pleasure of which she spoke. ‘What happened your first time?’

The slave girl placed the light on the table, subdued; no more chattering, no more gossip. ‘It is a long story and not worth the telling.’

‘Please, I want to know.’

The maid fidgeted, avoiding Caecilia’s gaze, but when her mistress was insistent, she reluctantly began to speak. ‘When I was ten years old my father sold me to a fat innkeeper to repay his debts. This innkeeper had tits as large as a woman’s and his farts smelled of cabbage and his breath of fish. He liked young girls whose breasts were not yet budding and whose mounds were smooth and hairless. For two years I suffered him bruising my womb and crushing me, my face buried in his thick belly hair. Then I began to bleed each month and I was spared.’

Caecilia listen, wide-eyed, remembering how at ten she’d played with her dolls and walked in the woods looking for birds’ nests.

‘The fat pig would have sold me but he needed a housekeeper. He kept me to tend his home and bought another little girl to warm his bed. And another, and another after that. All of them sold when they became women. Only I remained.’

Caecilia watched her, digesting the maid’s story, reflecting on her own.

‘Yet you lay with other men after that?’

‘Yes, mistress. I was lucky. A trader from Latium taught me that not all men are like the innkeeper. He was kind and gentle. It was then that I discovered I could choose men. And there was a lot of choice. All those travellers: Latin, Greek,Tyrrhenian, even a few Romans. They mainly liked my big, soft breasts. Some used them as pillows, others cried between them, but all of them liked to squeeze them. And then I fell with child. The innkeeper was delighted. It was so much cheaper to breed slaves than to buy them.’

‘But the baby could not have been Aricia.’

‘No, she was my fourth.’

‘Fourth! Where are the others?’

Cytheris paused, taking a breath, using it again to sigh. ‘Gone, mistress. All except Aricia.’

‘And the first?’

‘The little girl died after a few days. I was fourteen.’

‘And the father?’

‘I do not know who her father was,’ the maid said impatiently.

‘And the others?’

Cytheris suddenly smiled, as if blowing on the embers of a sweet memory. ‘I bore twin sons, healthy and bawling.’

‘And why are they not with you?’

Even as she spoke, Caecilia knew she had erred in asking. The Greek girl turned away, touching her face, but if it was to wipe away tears Caecilia could not say.

‘You don’t have to tell me.’

 ‘No, I will, my lady, but then you must ask me no more about it, for it is too painful to keep repeating. Although, strangely enough, it began with contentment. The trader from Latium started to frequent the tavern again. I chose him. And even though my face was coarse, my hair unruly, my body ungainly, he cherished me. Then, when his wife bore him a son, he saw the chance to bring me to his home in Aricia. He bought me to suckle his newborn and, because he loved me, he was prepared to pay a high price to buy my children from the innkeeper so that they could come with me.’

‘And what of his wife? Did she know of this?’

‘She learned soon enough. Wet nurses must not sleep with men in case it curdles the milk. But my trader did not mind his child taking a sour mouthful. All that year, we made love in the cellar with an armful of straw keeping the chill from our backs. But then it ended.’

Caecilia could guess why.

The maid stared at the floor. ‘It is said that a woman who still cups a babe to her breast cannot fall pregnant with another. And we believed that until my flux did not come and my belly grew larger. His wife must have suspected his infidelity when he refused to whip me for my crime.’

‘And the child was Aricia.’

‘Yes. She, with her father’s black curls, is a daily living and breathing reminder.’

Caecilia wanted to stretch over to take the maid’s hand but knew she must maintain decorum. The maid knew the rules, too. She stood up rather than gain comfort from her mistress.

‘He went away soon afterwards to trade his goods in my homeland, Magna Graecia. His wife acted swiftly. The beating was so severe I thought I would lose my child, but Aricia was stubborn, clinging inside me.’

‘And the twins?’

Her already ruddy complexion was highlighted with spots of colour.

‘I did not lose my unborn child but I did lose my little boys. You see, I had taken the wife’s dearest. And so she took what was dearest to me. I alone was sold to a slaver the next day. I have never seen my sons again. Nor their father.’

The Greek girl busied herself, folding Caecilia’s gown and crossing the room to open the heavy wooden linen chest. The room was silent, the only sound that of the slave’s long braid swishing across the tiled floor when she bent to a task. Caecilia could not see her face but she was sure there were no tears, the sorrow was stored in her heavy tread, slumped shoulders and bowed head.

‘But at least you have Aricia.’

Cytheris turned to face her, voice quivering and strained, deference banished. ‘You have already made me prod an unhealed wound, do not ask me to speak of one that is yet to be inflicted.’

‘What are you saying?’

Tears finally welled in Cytheris’ eyes. ‘It has already been decided that Aricia will be sold. When she turns eight she will become a lady’s maid in another household. Her birthday is next summer. I have little under a year to be with her.’

‘Why sold?’

‘She is not needed, mistress. And she will bring a good sum.’

 ‘Why, then, are you so stern with the child? You have so little time to hold her close.’

Cytheris brushed away her tears and once again spoke more like the mistress than the slave, the wise one than the fool.

‘I still dream of my sons, even though they would be fierce slayers of monsters by now with dirty faces, sturdy limbs and wielding wooden swords. Now that I know Aricia is leaving, it is better that my memories of her are less tender.’

Caecilia could not meet the Greek girl’s gaze.

‘I am lucky, though,’ said the servant, gathering up some slippers and dropping them into one of the baskets on the wall.

‘How can that be?’

‘There is always good fortune to be found, especially if you are not seeking it.’

‘And why would you possibly think Fortuna has blessed you?’

‘At least the master has let me keep my girl all this time. It could have been different. I could have been alone with someone like the innkeeper. Instead, two weeks after Aricia was born, the slaver brought me to Tyrrhenia and the master bid highest to buy me to be wet nurse to his daughter.’

Caecilia straightened her back, stunned. ‘Daughter?’

‘Yes, but the sweet girl passed away. Only a year old, the poor mite. And that is why the master is a troubled man, losing a wife and daughter so closely in time.’

Words failed Caecilia. There had been no babes born within her family to cherish. She tried to imagine losing a child but was not yet able to compare all shapes of distress with these women—with Cytheris, with Seianta—nor the double loss felt by Mastarna.

Cytheris picked up the oil lamp before retiring. ‘Time for sleep, mistress. And remember, no more weeping. Not over a man. Crying should be kept for our children until the tears run out.’

The girl caught the servant’s hand, no longer reluctant for contact. ‘Cytheris. What am I to do? I don’t want to lie with him.’

The maid hesitated but did not break from Caecilia’s grasp. ‘Listen to me. The master was upset that night. Lady Seianta still wraps her arms around him. But he will be kinder when he forgets her.’

‘When will that happen?’

‘You must make him need you. Make him want only what you can give him. Then you can have what you desire.’

‘But I don’t want him to love me. Nor I to love him.’

Cytheris patted the girl’s hand. ‘This has nothing to do with love, mistress.’

‘Then what could I possibly give him that is alone in my power?’

‘That is easy, mistress, very easy,’ said the slave. ‘Give him living children. Give him a son.’

*

Caecilia tried to calm her mind and think through all that had happened that day—and, in particular, in this last hour—wondering again about family secrets and whether she would ever learn all of the House of Mastarna’s. Another piece of the puzzle that was Seianta had been revealed, the same piece of the puzzle that explained Mastarna’s pain.

She did not fully understand what Cytheris had told her about men, though. She was ignorant of their world, their needs, their wants.

When she finally blew out her lamp, her thoughts played with sleep like a kitten with a ball of string as she realised she shared something with her mother after all. A dilemma that Aemilius had caused both of them to face.

What would happen to a half-blood son or daughter?

Could she love an unchosen child?

Glossary

 
Cast of Characters

Dust motes danced, captured by the sun. Standing on her toes, Caecilia swiped at the particles, sending them swirling in a flurry as pretty and fanciful as first snowflakes.

‘It is good that you can find delight here, even in so small a miracle,’ said Tarchon, watching her childish play. ‘But try and concentrate. Guess how many acorns I hold in my hand.’

Caecilia laughed and held up five fingers while saying the number’s name in Rasennan.

‘Wrong.’

Prying open his hand she counted five. ‘What is the word for ‘cheat?’’

Tarchon grinned. ‘There are five but you said four.’

Caecilia put her hands on her hips.

‘It is not my fault you don’t like losing,’ he laughed.

‘Another game then,’ she said, greedy for nonsense.

Tarchon put a large vase a few steps away and drew a line on the ground. ‘Stand here and see how many nuts you can toss into the jar.’

Her acorn banged the lip and spun off to the side.

‘Let me show you.’ He lobbed a kernel into the neck. It clicked as it hit its brothers within. ‘Superior aim,’ he said smugly.

She tried unsuccessfully, once again, to hit the mark.

‘Now count aloud the number of nuts in Rasennan. And don’t forget all the ones strewn across the ground.’

Caecilia hummed to herself as she counted the acorns. Weeks had passed and, unlike Rome where sunlight was for utility not ornament, each day the sun’s rays revealed beauty, beauty that somehow diluted her shock into disquiet, and her disquiet into a discomfort that she could mostly abide.

One such beauty was Tarchon. Having always felt plain, it made her uneasy, at first, to compare herself to his face with its perfect symmetry, his body with its taut contours made smooth after the hair had been stripped away by pitch—pain in return for comeliness. His smile promised whoever was with him that they were his dearest, but she soon realised that, although he was the tutor, she was much older than he in common sense. He was an exotic creature, first admired but later taken for granted.