The Wedding Shroud - A Tale of Ancient Rome (24 page)

Erene’s eyes narrowed. ‘That is fortunate,’ she said, although her doubt was evident. ‘Besides, you may yet please him more than Seianta could.’

‘You mean children.’

‘Yes. Give him a child.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

The Cretan laughed. ‘Bearing children is a wife’s job. Men want heirs not bastards. No, it is only Veientane noblewomen who can play both whore and matron within and without the bedroom.’

Caecilia scanned the woman’s smooth fair skin. For the first time she noticed tiny lines cracking the white make-up at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth. Erene’s laugh had been sour, making Caecilia wonder if this hetaera had broken the rules about falling in love.

A horn sounded. The ceremony was about to commence. Caecilia frowned, not wanting to be interrupted after all, not when Erene was garrulous with advice and secrets.

The courtesan touched Caecilia’s arm again. ‘Remember my advice. Give him a son who is whole and he will never let you go.’

‘Whole?’

She nodded. ‘Not like Seianta’s.’

Caecilia glanced over to her husband. Mastarna had a son?

‘What do you mean ‘whole’?’

Lord Apercu’s wife, stout as her husband but without his smile, approached, cutting short their conversation. Her polite exterior rankled but Caecilia rivalled it. Following behind, she was led to one of the seats set between the two lines of tall black-and-red columns. As the procession of the nobles and priests commenced, Caecilia looked down the row to see if Erene sat with the other wives. She wasn’t there. The mistress had been invited but not included. She had returned to stand with the crowd. A concubine.

*

Hamstrung, the white bull staggered up the ramp of the altar’s podium, the bells on its long, cruel horns tinkling. How could such a beast be reduced to bright ribbons and jingling? Its coat brushed to a shiny brilliance, the animal should have been meek, made docile by potions. With the crush and smell of men and the staggering wall of heat assaulting it, the beast swung its head back and forth in agitation, its horn bells drowned by bellows of distress.

Caecilia suddenly felt uncertain whether she wanted to witness its demise. She may have helped to cure a side of pork or prepare a ram to be butchered but, holy or mundane, gouts of blood made her queasy.

When the sacrificial victim first appeared, an expectant hush had fallen over the eager crowd, but now their silence dropped an octave from anticipation to apprehension as the bull was dragged to the stone killing table. What would the gods think when a proffered sacrifice showed such fear?

Caecilia felt a cool breeze playfully squeeze her neck, making her shiver. It was followed by a gentle wind that made even the goddess Uni sigh with relief. For a moment the cries of the white bull were forgotten as the flames of the great altar fire and the charcoal braziers flickered and wavered with the freshness.

Caecilia closed her eyes, enjoying the respite. When she opened them, the Zilath stood at the altar.

To her surprise, Ulthes bore the trappings of a triumphing general: face painted with vermilion in honour of Jupiter, a crown upon his head, and dressed in a toga of splendid purple embroidered with gold
,
his black
-
clad lictors flanked him, rods and axes bristling. The Etruscan kings of Rome had also worn this costume, evidence of the power they once held over her people.

The Zilath haled the throng, calling for utter silence. His face was impassive despite the increased bawling of the bull. How different Ulthes seemed. The friendly politician changed to an awesome statesman. Yet Erene had not been wrong to worry at his nerves. Caecilia soon noticed how he tapped his thigh persistently with his three-fingered hand.

Artile was no less impressive in his fringed shawl, embroidered with the sun and stars, and his strange hat spiralling to a tip
.
Here, too, was a different man. No longer hemmed in by domestic rivalries, he radiated serenity. He was calm despite the anxious fretting of his priests and the see-sawing temperatures. Despite her disgust for the haruspex, she could not keep her eyes from him, hearing only the deep bass of his chanting. The whites of his eyes were mere rims around dark vision as he observed the souls swirling about him, breathing upon his cheeks and lips, drawing him into their world, granting him power. The people gazed upon Artile, too, heaping their hopes upon his shoulders, their fears into his palms.

The chanting ceased. The haruspex washed his fingers in a deep bronze salver, then signalled to the sacrificing priest and his helpers. One slender acolyte had delicately tapered hands. A woman’s hands, and mouth, and brow. A priestess. Wondrous. It would seem that Rasennan gods allowed females to do blood sacrifice alongside men.

The animal struggled as wine was poured on its head and flour sprinkled on its horns. The priest backed gingerly away from the dangerous swing of the points. Flour was sprinkled on the knife and handed to Artile for consecration. With the beast trussed tightly, even the priestess gained courage to approach the bull with the others. Between them they turned its head to the sky and then to the earth.

Still the beast roared as the crowd stood silent, doubts rippling across the Veientanes as they shifted their feet from side to side and craned their necks to watch.

Above the distress, Artile raised his curved lituus staff above his head. ‘O, Great and Mighty Veiled Ones, we pray and beseech you to be well disposed to us. We offer this bull. We have worshipped you and still worship you. Accept it in thanksgiving.’ Then, pointing to the acolytes, he called in a voice that rivalled the bellow of the bull, ‘Am I to strike?’

The wind was rising, whipping Caecilia’s robes. She glanced across to Mastarna, who was also concentrating on the bull’s writhing. His frown commanded his features, a deep furrow upon his brow. Her scrutiny moved to his hands, knowing, like Erene, what his tell would be. Fingers clenched at his side where the golden dice box was secreted in his robes.

Observing her husband, Caecilia did not see the first lightning streak, but she jumped at the crash of thunder. Turning to the skyline, she searched for the next flash. The mass of people all turned, too.

And then the whistling began. The sound increased, in varying pitch and duration, discordant and increasingly frenetic as more thunderbolts exploded in the darkening skies, illuminating the city below in freakish displays.

Ulthes stood, eyes scanning the horizon for the next strike. He commanded the crowd to cease their eerie whistling. ‘Be silent. You do not ward off the evil ones,’ he shouted. ‘Instead you harry the gods. Let them speak,’ he shouted. ‘Let us hear what they say!’

The sound faded with only a few stray notes wheezing into whispers. Artile motioned the priests to cease preparing the bull for killing. Two cepens laboured to hold the beast still as it strained at its bonds.

As the haruspex hastened up the stairs of the temple to better behold the horizon, a bewildered Caecilia mimicked the other wives and crowded to the edge of the portico. Enrapt, they waited for Artile to speak. Caecilia searched the crowd for Erene. The hetaera was staring at Ulthes, anxiety wreathing her face.

Watching the storm, Caecilia did not notice at first that Arruns was now standing behind her. Mastarna must have sent him to keep guard. She turned to the Phoenician. ‘Should I be afraid?’

Arruns bowed but did not reply as yet another flash struck and thunder boomed.

Faced with this violent storm, Caecilia knew what the people must be feeling. Hysterical, fervent, afraid. She knew she would think the same if such a violent portent occurred in Rome; that disaster was about to strike. Or that a travesty should be righted.

Perhaps the travesty of continuing a treaty with a foe.

Did Jupiter wish such a pact to be broken? Was he demanding expiation by sacrificing her for bringing divine wrath upon this city? Panic tore through her nerves to the top of her head, leaving her arms weak and tingling. Turning her back on the brilliance and clamour about her, she left Arruns and ran to Uni’s chamber, sinking to her knees.

The goddess sat in darkness, the torches about her buffeted by the wind and casting little light. Caecilia hoped that she was indeed the Roman Juno, the great saviour and sky goddess. ‘If you spare me, O Great and Just One, I will make sacrifice to you every day. I will bring you offerings of riches. I will be your servant always.’ Frantically pulling off her earrings, she laid them at the goddess’ feet, the amber bangles and the golden wolf fibula clattering beside them; gifts to show that she would keep the bargain.

Not the Atlenta pendant, though. It surprised her that she hesitated to add Mastarna’s other gift to the pile. Such a good luck charm would be needed in a tomb where Tuchulcha and Vanth might lurk. Nor could she part with the iron amulet. She must be buried with Roman luck as well.

The girl prostrated herself upon the cold temple floor, praying her offerings would be enough. That a contract had been sealed.

‘Caecilia?’ Tarchon’s eyes were bright, his pupils pinpoints. As he dragged her to her feet, he smiled broadly and spoke a little too loudly. His breath was sour and his teeth stained with the juice of something he was chewing. He seemed not to realise she was trembling, his lack of concern strange.

It was not the first time that she wondered whether Tarchon supped on an elixir more powerful than Alpan or wine. Or was the manic glitter in his eyes pure elation from watching the lightning?

Relieved he had come for her, she gripped his hand as he led her to the portico again, tracing an arc in front of him. The temple commanded a view southwards to Rome. It was as though the whole world was spread before them as they studied the lightning coming closer.

‘Watch carefully, Caecilia, at how the gods’ knuckles whiten as they clench their darts and spear them through the thin autumn air.’

‘Why do you speak of gods? Only Jupiter hurls thunderbolts.’

‘Jupiter? No, these thunderbolts are not from his domain. Artile will tell us which god throws them.’

‘But I don’t understand.’

He shook his head impatiently. ‘You are such a child.’

The gods must have agreed because there was a flash so intense that Caecilia felt as though she had looked into the sun. The thunderclap that followed reverberated around the sanctuary, jolting her senses, setting her nerves thrumming.

Artile held his arms to the darkened skies, chanting loudly. The yearning to commune with the divine was burning among the crowd with as much heat as the day had bestowed upon them only hours before. Many were shrieking, their dancing frenzied. Others were standing as though entranced, eyes rolling back in their heads. Many stamped the ground and howled, their prayers ecstatic.

Tarchon screeched hysterically, shouting praise, too, his eyes transfixed on Artile. His gaze was of adoration; naked, vulnerable, devoted. Caecilia backed away from him, wanting the Tarchon she knew to return, realising with nauseating clarity that the youth did, indeed, adore this man, this priest, this freeborn.

Every scream of the throng grated. Once again she turned towards Juno’s chamber, thinking that if she could cling tightly enough to the goddess’ terracotta feet, the crowd would not be able to take her.

‘Do not be afraid, mistress,’ said Arruns, subtlely barring her way. She had forgotten the protector and the safety he afforded. Moving as near to him as was proper, she watched Tarchon and the crowd crying and surging together to the deafening thunderclaps.

The wind was fierce, yanking at the canopies on buildings and snatching up handfuls of dust. It shepherded the clouds, massing them together to hang over the city like tightened fists. Soon another cloud would collide and a bolt would be thrown. Caecilia waited. She was not disappointed. There was a searing flash and, simultaneously, a deafening crack. A drop of rain smashed onto her cheek. A driving needle.

Caecilia peered through the curtain of water, trying to see what the lightning had hit. She could not see but she heard. The word was spreading.

The palace had been struck.

*

The thunderbolts ceased with the rain.

Ulthes shouted over the din of the crowd. ‘Go home. Wait there until the will of the gods can be announced.’

The people trudged away, pushing dripping hair from their eyes, bowing their heads, their shoulders hunched, their ecstasy drowned.

The sanctuary’s braziers had been doused, the flames extinguished, although remnants of smoke still threaded their way through the air. The temple steps were smooth and slick, puddles forming in the hollows between the river stones of the forecourt.

Tarchon had left her, moving to Artile’s side like a dog to its master. He stood in adulation, waiting for a command. She wondered at such attachment. And still Arruns stood faithfully by her, a different type of hound.

Erene remained alone, watching Ulthes prepare to lead the procession from the temple.

The atmosphere was of anxiety and uncertainty, and as the other women joined their husbands, all pushed Caecilia away with fretful glances.

Mastarna moved to her, taking her hand. Searching around in irritation for his adopted son he frowned when she told him that Tarchon had gone with Artile. ‘Come,’ he said, leading her towards the entourage of principes leaving the precincts.