Curses and Smoke
Authors: Vicky Alvear Shecter
TO MY MOTHER, MARILYN STROUSBERG, WHO TOOK ME TO POMPEII
L
ucia was sure that the white-haired gentleman reclining on the dining couch before her would make a delightful grandfather. As a future husband, though, he left a great deal to be desired.
The man’s bushy eyebrows rose as he waited for her to speak. A breeze from the open atrium ruffled the leaves of the potted palms behind her. She stood frozen, staring down at him. “It is a pleasure to see you again, sir,” she finally managed.
Lucia’s father, Lucius Titurius, waved his dented bronze wine cup at her. “Do not call him
sir
, daughter,” he chided from his own dining couch beside the old man. “In a matter of weeks you will be Vitulus’s wife.”
Her betrothed picked up his goblet — the one her father usually kept locked up, the silver one carved with tiny fighting gladiators — and held it up as well. “I would have us joined sooner — this very night, even — if I did not need to attend to my properties in Sicilia,” Vitulus said, the loose skin from his upper arm waving slightly with the movement. His gaze moved languidly from her feet to her face and he added, “Then again, waiting for the wedding night only increases anticipation, does it not, my darling?”
Lucia suppressed a shudder and looked down.
Jupiter and Juno
. How could her father do this to her?
“Lucia, why don’t you join your betrothed on his couch?” her father prodded.
She forced a smile. “I will sit,” she said, thankful someone had left a chair near the dining couches. She pulled it closer to her father and sat.
The old man chuckled. “Ah. You have brought her up well, Lucius. She knows a woman’s place. I have never believed men and women should share couches. Indeed, no one in my family has ever allowed it. I’m a great admirer of Cato and the old ways, you know.”
Wonderful
. Wait until he found out about her writings. He would probably ban that too. Would he even let her
read
?
Lucia smoothed her pale blue
tunica
over her thighs and looked at the sky through the atrium rain pool, seeing, in her mind’s eye, the woods leading up the slope of Mount Vesuvius. The late-afternoon light would catch the gold and green flutters of leaves from the vineyards on the lush mountain’s flanks. She could be
out there
, in the countryside, that very moment with her dog.
Just as the eggs poached in wine and fish sauce were being served, Pontius, the overseer of the gladiatorial school, entered the atrium. Her father’s face darkened. He did not like to be interrupted when he was courting a wealthy guest.
Pontius gave Lucia a quick wink, and she smiled back at him as her father joined him at the other end of the room. The big man bent his head to speak urgently into her father’s ear.
Titurius returned to their guest. “I’m sorry,” he said with a slight bow. “My newest fighter has been injured, and I must assess the situation. Would you excuse me?”
“Of course,” said Vitulus, waving a spotted hand.
When her father disappeared with Pontius, Vitulus focused his gaze on her chest, and her skin prickled with distaste. Keeping her eyes down, she hoped, would discourage him from trying to engage her in conversation. Maybe he would think her a dullard and cancel the betrothal.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to join me on this couch, my girl?” Vitulus asked, smoothing the area beside him. “I don’t mind the occasional break with old customs.”
“Oh, no. Thank you,” she said, suppressing another shudder.
“Ah, well. I’ve noticed girls from the country are a bit old-fashioned, which is part of your charm. Country girls are at least better bred than city women, who are much too modern and full of themselves.” Vitulus gulped his wine.
“I would hardly call Pompeii the ‘
country
,’ ” Lucia said, bristling. “We have everything Rome has — not to mention a thriving port, and Rome’s navy right across the bay.”
Vitulus laughed. “Oh, child, you have not been to Rome yet, have you? When we are married, you will see the difference. Trust me. Pompeii is a backwater.”
Backwater or not, Pompeii is my home. I don’t want to live anywhere else
.
An idea came to her. She stood. “I must inform the kitchen that they need to delay bringing the rest of the food out until Father returns,” she said. “Excuse me while I attend to these matters.”
He nodded, and she released a breath as she hurried out of the atrium, her bare feet skimming over the black-and-white geometric mosaic. The pits and cracks in the floor made her wonder if she should’ve slipped into her shoes, which a slave had left beside her chair. No, she just needed to get out of there.
Once in the colonnaded inner courtyard, she slowed. Her nurse, Metrodona, who had been waiting nearby, looked at her aghast as she approached.
“What are you doing, child?”
“Father was called away, and I am not staying with that man by myself. I told him I was going to check on the food.”
“You’ve left a guest alone?” gasped Metrodona. “That is the height of bad manners. You cannot insult the man so. You must return right away!”
“But don’t you think it would be highly improper for a young girl to remain in the same room with a man without supervision?” Lucia asked with exaggerated concern.
“It is not improper if he is your betrothed!”
Lucia continued her slow pace toward the back of the house. Metrodona huffed after her. Maybe if she walked toe to heel, she could make this trip last until Vitulus left.
The kitchen abutted the dusty courtyard housing the gladiatorial school’s barracks and training rooms. A couple of slaves rushed past her toward the school’s courtyard.
“What is happening?” Lucia asked as she watched them race away.
“Someone is getting whipped,” a young slave cried, running toward the commotion.
Idly, she wondered if her father was having the gladiator who’d been hurt punished. Perhaps the man had shown terrible form, which caused the injury. Before she even got to the cook, a serving slave rushed back to report that the master had returned to his dining couch. She sighed. No point in telling them to wait now — she had no other choice but to return to the atrium.
Her father barely flicked a glance at her when she resumed her seat.
“So,” Vitulus said to him, “did you tour Vespasian’s amphitheater when you were in Rome last? No matter how many times I see it, the colossal size of that arena takes my breath away. Titus Caesar promises it will be finished within the year. Do you think it will happen?”
Titurius warmed to the topic, but Lucia’s attention drifted away.
Suddenly, their wine goblets rattled. Somebody yelped as crockery smashed on the floor. Lucia’s chair swayed. She gripped the seat with both hands.
Vitulus sat up in alarm. “What … what is happening?”
“Just tremors. They are quite common here in Pompeii,” her father explained.
After another moment, the shaking stilled.
“They are common, yes,” added Lucia. “But lately they have been stronger and more frequent. In fact, I have noticed quite a number of strange phenomena recently —”
“Now is not the time, daughter,” Lucius hissed at her.
“Does that mean a big earthquake is imminent?” asked Vitulus, throwing his hairless, spotted legs over the side of the couch. “I do not want to pour money into your school if the city expects another major earthquake!”
“No, no,” her father soothed Vitulus. “That disaster was seventeen years ago! This kind of trembling is
quite
ordinary.”
“I have heard rumors,” Vitulus persisted.
“One should not listen to the superstitious imaginings of farmers and fishermen, truly,” Lucius said. “Once our houses are aligned, you shall see —”
But the earth trembled once more, cutting him off. A dog howled. Lucia shot to her feet. Poor Minos was chained in the back garden, and he was probably terrified. “Excuse me, Father,” she said. “I must go and make sure all is well with the household.”
Not waiting for permission, she raced out of the atrium, this time grabbing her shoes.
T
ag mopped up blood from the warped wooden table. The new gladiator was all sewn up, and he’d done it without having to take out the man’s eye. True, the stitches were more ragged than he would have liked, but the beefy fighter would just end up looking extra dangerous in the arena, which he’d use to his advantage. So, all in all, not bad.
Tag blew air out of his cheeks and rolled his shoulders, looking up every time a shadow flicked by the doorway. His father — Damocles, the head medical slave — had been summoned to treat the injured fighter, but he had never appeared. Tag had waited as long as he could, then stitched the man up himself. It was not like his father to dawdle when a fighter needed medical attention.
“I want a full report on my new gladiator,” boomed a voice outside the room. “How bad was his injury, and when will he be able to resume training?”
Tag groaned inwardly. The stocky form of his owner, Lucius Titurius, loomed in the doorway. Despite knowing that it was unlikely, he had still hoped — prayed even — that he would somehow manage to avoid seeing the master after being away for three years.
“The injury was on the right orbital ridge,
Dominus
,” Tag reported. “Though there is no damage to the eye, he received twelve stitches. If there is no inflammation, he should be able to resume light training within a matter of days.”
The master looked at Tag incredulously. “And who in Pluto’s world are
you
?”
He didn’t recognize him? “Tag … er, Tages,
Dominus
. Back from training in Rome.”
The master’s face blanched as he stared at Tag with wide eyes. Tag tried to keep his expression impassive as images of the last time he’d seen the master flashed through his mind. Titurius’s red face and bulging neck-cords as he yelled. His spittle hitting Tag’s cheeks like tiny poison darts. The blows to Tag’s ribs that followed. His absolute certainty — before he’d lost consciousness — that he would die at the hands of the man who owned him. Tag forced himself to push it all away.
“I called him back,” Pontius the overseer explained, stooping to enter the small room. “He came yesterday.”
Titurius signaled for the overseer to follow him back outside. Tag couldn’t help but listen as his master hissed at the man, “I thought I made it clear that I did not want that slave boy returned yet!”
“We’ve gone over this,
Dominus
. We’re gettin’ a new group of fighters as soon as the little
domina
is married, and they will need a lot of attention in the beginning. The old man is barely keepin’ up as it is. It’s either him or we purchase a new medical slave.”
Tag’s stomach clenched. Was his father failing? He hadn’t seemed himself when Tag had arrived the night before, but he just assumed Damocles had been tired from overwork.
“We don’t have the money to buy another medical slave,” Titurius said angrily.
“Then sell the boy and we will.”
“You know I can’t,” Titurius said, lowering his voice. Tag sneaked forward to catch the rest. “The priest said the curse-bearer must stay part of the household.”
The curse-bearer
. Is that what Titurius called him now?
The overseer sighed. “Look, we need to put all that behind us. The kid can do the work and we need ’im.”
Tag straightened to attention as Titurius reentered the room. Titurius narrowed his eyes, and Tag suddenly realized he was looking down at his master. He had grown more than he had realized in the years he’d been gone.
Bow your head. Look at the floor
. He knew he needed to act subservient, but a sudden surge of defiance burbled in his blood. His neck stiffened.
Titurius bared his teeth. “Do not test me, boy,” he said in a low and dangerous tone. Tag forced his eyes down. The master spit on the floor. “I don’t have time for this. I need to return to Lucia’s betrothed,” he said, turning away from Tag. As he stooped to leave, he called over his shoulder to Pontius, “That boy needs to remember who his master is. Whip him for daring to look at me in the eye.
Now
.”
Gods
. He’d been back in Pompeii one day —
one day
— and his owner was already having him whipped. Tag swallowed, steeling himself to show no fear. It only made them want to beat you harder.
“Strip,” the overseer ordered, grabbing the handle of the black whip tied to his thick leather belt.
With great reluctance, Tag pulled the tunic over his head and tossed it on the table next to the bowl of blood.
But instead of taking him by the wrists and tying him to the whipping rope in the outside hall, Pontius crossed his hairy arms and examined him. The whip tip coiled onto the dirt floor like a cat’s tail. “Ye have grown well, boy. Still skinny, but how did a medic slave get such well-formed muscles?”
“The gladiators in the Ludus Aemilius let me train with them.”
The big Samnite’s eyebrows rose. “Really? Why’d they let ye do that?”
“At first for fun when we got bored,” Tag said. “Then because I’m actually pretty good.”
Pontius grinned. “So yer good, are ye now?”
Heat rose up Tag’s neck at his look of disbelief. “I could be. With some training.”
The old gladiator shrugged his shoulders as if to say,
That’s what everyone thinks
. “Did ye know that I am free now?” he said.
“
Dominus
freed you?”
He nodded, pointing to the wooden sword of freedom, his
rudis
, tucked in his belt. A wide smile broke through his woolly black beard. “I am now the school’s highest-ranked freedman!”
“Congratulations,” Tag said, frowning.
The Samnite laughed. “Don’t look too excited for me now, boy.”
“It’s just … that you’re free, and yet you are still
here
.”
“Where else is an old gladiator gonna go?” Pontius pointed out. “Fighting is what I know.”
“But you could have gone to another school. Maybe even your friend’s school in Rome. You could act as a bodyguard anywhere. Why stay here?”
“Settin’ off without the protection of my former master makes me look untrustworthy,” the overseer said. “Why would I risk my reputation in such a way? I’d still have to find another patron.”
“If I won my freedom in the arena, finding a new patron is the
first
thing I’d do.”
“Sounds like ye’ve been thinking a lot about this. So lemme guess,” Pontius said, his leathery face settling into disapproving grooves. “Ye want to fight in the arena so that ye can win yer freedom and get away.”
Tag nodded. No point in lying.
“Achh! And here I thought ye were smart. Ye of all people should know most gladiators never make it out, boy! Ye have it easy as a healer. Titurius feeds ye, educates ye. Ye have an easy life.”
Tag laughed bitterly. “Should I remind you that you are here to whip me for merely looking the man in the eye? I’d rather die on the sands. At least that has some honor.”
Pontius sighed. “Well, if circumstances with the
dominus
were different, I’d consider trainin’ ye. Turnin’ a pretty, fancy slave into an arena fighter would be an interestin’ challenge.” He stared up at the ceiling, clearly imagining it. “I can see it now — ‘The Scowling Young Apollo!’ The ladies would love ye!”
Tag blinked. “So train me.
Dominus
doesn’t have to know.”
The hairy Samnite’s laugh sounded like someone hopping up and down on a giant bellows. Tag clenched his fists.
“Ah, young’in, I meant no insult with my laughter. But ’twould be impossible to hide that. And
Dominus
would never allow it. Concentrate on yer healin’, boy. That’s what yer good at.”
Tag swallowed his wave of disappointment.
“Now, don’ look at me like that! I’m savin’ yer life for ye.”
A life forever owned by Lucius Titurius
.
“But,” Pontius added, uncrossing his arms, “I
can
teach ye one of the most important fightin’ tricks every champion knows. One that ye can start using this very moment.”
Tag lifted his head. “What’s that?”
“Showmanship,” the old Samnite whispered theatrically. “Crowds love the boys who know how to act their hearts out.”
“I don’t understand how that applies to me.”
Pontius gave the whip a small snap in the air. “I
have to
draw blood, but I won’t go so hard as to make ye pass out,” he promised. Then, leaning in and lowering his voice even further, he added, “But ye can make it go faster by making it sound like I’m
killin
’ ye, understand?”
Tag swallowed and nodded.
“Now. Into the hallway, and grab that rope over yer head.”