Curses and Smoke (12 page)

Cornelia pushed herself to stand with a grunt. “Lucia, no, please don’t leave,” she said. “Antyllus is not himself tonight. He … he has been suffering from a terrible head pain. Please apologize, husband. My friend has misunderstood your attempts at humor.”

To Tag’s astonishment, Antyllus merely swirled and sipped his wine. A heavy, awkward silence filled the room as a slave brought Lucia’s sandals to her and began helping her put them on.

“Lucia, stay,” Quintus said, standing as well. “I find your theories charming.”

Tag stepped forward. “I will escort you home,
Domina
,” he said.

“No,” Quintus said to Tag, unexpected iron in his voice. “You will stay here with
me
.”

Tag blinked in surprise and confusion.

“Lucia, I don’t want you to go,” Cornelia said, her face splotched and her expression pleading.

“I must,” Lucia said, and moved toward the door. Tag began following her out.

“Tages!” Quintus called. “You are to stay here with me.”

Lucia turned to look at Tag, shaking her head almost imperceptibly, telling him to stay and not make a scene. She walked out of the room with her head held high. Tag gritted his teeth and returned to his position behind Quintus, watching as Cornelia waddled after Lucia.

Cornelia did not return. Tag was forced to pour drink after drink for the patrician he loathed, all the while seething at the insult to Lucia’s dignity. When Quintus and his host — both heavy-eyed and drunk — fell asleep on their respective dining couches, Tag left for the compound. Quintus would have to find another slave to take him back to the school.

S
he could not sleep. How could she, knowing that her best friend’s husband thought her both ridiculous and barely above contempt? Was it possible that he had always looked down on her and she had never noticed? She tried to remember the last time she had dined or socialized with both Cornelia and Antyllus. She could not recall even one occasion. He had always been “too busy” to join them. It had never occurred to her that that was by design.

Cornelia had never let on that her rich husband thought so little of her. Lucia’s heart contracted at the idea of her friend trying to protect her from her husband’s snobbishness. Still, she didn’t understand why she’d had to. Cornelia and Lucia both belonged to the equites, and Antyllus had married Cornelia. Yet he treated Lucia as if she’d been an unwashed plebeian. Was it really all because of what her father did? She knew the noble classes looked down on gladiatorial school owners — calling them “Butchers of Men” — but did the disdain really go that deep?

If so, it certainly explained Quintus’s endless, casual insults. And it proved that Cornelia’s plan for her to go after Quintus was utter foolishness. A patrician of his stature would never marry a lanista’s daughter.

Cornelia had clearly tried to coach her husband — she must have been worried that Antyllus might treat Lucia rudely. So why had she set her up for such humiliation? She had initially said that Pliny would treat her like a talking monkey. Was this her way of
showing
her that fact? But that was not like Cornelia. Cornelia was merely desperate for Lucia to stay near her in Pompeii, especially as her due date neared. Lucia wondered if Antyllus was dismissive of
Cornelia
as well — despite how often Cornelia warbled about his “wonderfulness” — and if that contributed to her determination to find a way to keep her close. Perhaps she needed Lucia more than she let on….

When she could take her endless thoughts no longer, Lucia lit a small oil lamp, stepped over Metrodona snoring away on her straw-filled sleeping mat outside Lucia’s
cubiculum
, and went in search of Minos. For years she had begged her father to let Minos sleep in her
cubiculum
, but no amount of pleading ever swayed him. “That’s what poor people and farmers do,” he always said. “And we are better than they are.”

Well, apparently, not by much, according to Antyllus.

When Minos saw her, he whined with surprise and pleasure, tail thumping in circles.

“Shhhhh,” Lucia whispered as she hugged his neck. “No noise.” She untied him and signaled for him to follow. He trotted happily beside her as they headed into the woods.

Once outside the opening of the city wall, Lucia felt swallowed up by the blackness. She paused, wondering if maybe she shouldn’t venture out. Minos seemed to sense her trepidation, for he stuck closer to her than normal as he led the way through the woods to her wooden enclosure.

Once in the clearing, she took a deep breath of pine-scented air. Maybe now she would sleep, even if only for a short while. She needed to be back in her bed well before dawn.

When she crawled inside, a dark form in the shadows shifted, and she froze.

“Who’s there?” came a sleepy voice.

Her heart skipped a beat and her breath returned when she recognized the voice. “Tag? What are you doing here?”

“I was sleeping,” he said, sitting up.

“But why come here? You should sleep in your own
cubiculum
!”

He rubbed his eyes and snorted. “There are no
cubicula
for slaves in this house,” he said. “You know that. And this is better than sleeping on the floor of the herbal room.”

Lucia stared at him. He didn’t have a place to sleep? She remembered now seeing the kitchen slaves sleeping where they worked, the gardener slumbering in the shed. She’d never even noticed — or, more accurately, never paid attention. It seemed perfectly normal. But thinking about Tag not having the dignity of his own room made her ache with the familiar frustration of their different stations.

“It’s still dark,” he said, swallowing a yawn. “What are you doing here? Are you all right?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said.

“Right,” he said, and she could see the events of the evening slowly come back to him. “Antyllus is an idiot, Lucia,” he continued. “He may be your friend’s husband, but he’s a superior, rich, pompous idiot. You
have
to know that.”

Her throat grew tight at how quickly he had come to her defense. She placed the lamp between them, sat, and pulled up her knees, draping her loose sleep
tunica
to cover her legs. He wore only a loincloth, and she found herself stealing glances at the planes of his smooth torso, the shadows pooling in the contours of his muscles, the unruly curls that gathered at the nape of his neck. In the small, flickering light, he looked like a sleepy young statue of Apollo, who just moments ago stepped down from his base for a quick nap. But unlike marble, his skin would be warm and soft with sleep.

She shook her head and looked away. “The worst part will be facing Cornelia,” she said. “I don’t know if I can look her in the eye again.”

“You have no reason to be embarrassed. You did nothing wrong.”

She wrapped her arms around her legs and put her chin on her knees. “I had no idea my best friend’s husband thought so little of me. I also don’t understand why it was so absurd that I might create my own theories and want to share them with a man like Pliny. And just because I used a birth metaphor doesn’t mean it isn’t valid. Something
is
happening in Pompeii, Tag. I know it. It could be a birth of nature that results in death. That is often a risk in childbirth, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. Too often.”

“So it is our duty to do what we can to prevent such deaths. But no — according to Antyllus, I am not capable of such thinking. Gods, Tag, all I have to look forward to is being forced to breed like a sow for a rich old man — who will likely look down on me like Antyllus — because my father needs the money. Why can’t I be free to make my own choices?”

“I wish you could,” Tag said.

“And … and then what if I’m like my mother?” she continued. “What if I cannot bear live children and then die of a broken heart like her?”

Tag blinked. “Broken heart?”

“Yes.
Mater
couldn’t take the pain of her lost babies anymore.”

“Lucia …”

She began to cry. “I miss her. I miss her so much. She would help me. She would stand up for me and not force me to marry a man who disgusts and frightens me like Father is doing. I know she would.”

Tag cleared his throat and leaned forward, his brow deeply furrowed. “Lucia, your mother did not die of a broken heart,” he said.

Something about his expression made her stomach contract with fear. What was he talking about?

“Tell me what you remember about that time,” he urged her.

“When … when my mother went into labor, I was sent to Cornelia’s house, where I was to stay until the baby came and Mother felt better.”

“And …”

“And several days later, your
tata
came —”

“
My
father?” he asked. “Your father didn’t even come for you after what happened?”

“No, he didn’t. Your
tata
told me Father was too upset to fetch me. He — he told me the baby had died at birth, and that
Mater
had died of a broken heart because of it.”

Tag put his head in his hands and shook it slowly.

“What?”

He raised his eyes and looked at her. “Nobody — your father or your nurse — ever told you the truth? What really happened?”

She shook her head.

“Did you know the sex of the baby?” he asked.

“A girl.”

“The last several births were girls. Did you know that?”

She nodded slowly.

“The girls did not die at birth, Lucia.”

Lucia stared at him, wide-eyed, a yawning pit of dread opening beneath her lungs.

“Your father …” He seemed to find it hard to get the words out. “He had the babies exposed. Because … because they were girls.”

She shook her head. No.
No
. Her father could be harsh, but he would never do that. “You expect me to believe my father had his own babies thrown on the rubbish heap outside the city? Simply because they were
girls
?”

“It happens more than you think. And it
is
what happened,” he said quietly.

Lucia shook her head. “That’s not true. That’s not possible! He never would have done that.
Mater
never would have
allowed
it!”

“Lucia. You know your mother had no say in the matter. After your brother died in Germania, your father became desperate to have more sons. When your mother only delivered girls, he commanded that they be left outside the city gates. With the last baby, your mother screamed and fought with your father, but he refused to relent.”

Lucia covered her ears. “No. This cannot be true.”

Tag gently removed her hands from her ears and clasped them in his. She wanted to lose herself in the warmth of his skin, to stop this conversation and pretend the whole day had been a bad dream.

“We all heard,” he said. “I thought you knew. He claimed your mother had no right to complain, and that she deserved the punishment — that she brought it on herself for not giving him any more sons.”

“I don’t want to hear any more, Tag.” Because somehow, she knew. Deep inside, she knew that what he was saying was true.

And she knew that what he was about to tell her was true too, and would change everything.

“Your mother killed herself,” he said softly. “With poison. She told my father she couldn’t keep giving birth only to watch your father kill her baby girls. So she put a stop to it.”

“No. Please …”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, brushing the hair off her face.

Something broke inside her then. She felt the snap. Her mother had made the decision to leave, to abandon her to a father who had once adored her but now hated her for being a girl. “May … maybe that’s what I should do. You could get me the herbs, the poison, yes?”

“No, don’t say that. Please.”

“But what’s left for me? Marrying a man harsher than my own father? What will he make me do if I displease him? I couldn’t bear having to surrender my babies, Tag, I couldn’t!”

As she wept, he moved closer. He wrapped his arms around her and she curled into him like an animal seeking shelter in a storm.

There were two things she knew absolutely in that moment — he was telling the truth. And in Tag’s arms was the only place she ever wanted to be.

W
hen Lucia finally slept, he gently laid her down on her side and kissed her forehead. He knew he should leave. He could be killed for being alone with the master’s daughter in such incriminating circumstances.

But he couldn’t move. In all the years they’d known each other, he’d never seen Lucia so upset. Gods, why had he told her the truth?

At least he hadn’t told her everything. He closed his eyes, remembering.

Three years ago, his father told him he was going to take a “special herbal tonic” to Lucia’s mother, who had just had her newest baby taken from her.

Tag had wanted to be helpful to the kind, sad
domina
, so he grabbed the cup and rushed to her room. Damocles had called after him, but he outpaced his father.

When he entered,
Domina
sat up in her bed. “Your father prepared this?” she asked, her eyes looking haunted and her face pale and swollen from crying.

He nodded. Behind him he heard Pontius call out for Damocles. Someone had been hurt.

“Not now,” his father had barked back, entering the room and staring at the mistress with the cup in her hand. “I can’t —”

But a fighter was bleeding badly and Pontius insisted. Before he left, his father held
Domina
’s gaze with an expression Tag couldn’t read. She nodded slightly and mouthed, “Thank you.”

They watched Damocles disappear. Then, “You must do something for me,” Lucia’s mother said quietly, turning to Tag. “In place of your father.”

He nodded, hoping that it wasn’t anything related to the birth.

She reached into a small wooden chest beside the bed and pulled out a rectangular object covered in a baby blanket. He wondered if she had intended that blanket for the babe that
Dominus
had removed from the house. She handed him the wrapped bundle. “When I am gone, the true power of this will be sealed. Throw it into the sacred spring of Aegeria outside the city. Do you understand?”

He nodded again, although he didn’t understand. When she was gone? Gone where? And why the spring pregnant women used to bless their unborn children? But there was something about the look in her eyes that kept him from asking any questions.

“Go,” she said, suddenly smiling. “It will all be fine. My girls await their mother.”

That made his heart beat a little faster. “
Domina
, what do you mean? Is everything —”

“Go now,” she repeated, waving her free hand in a sweeping gesture.

He nodded and left. His last sight of Lucia’s mother was her bringing the terra-cotta cup to her lips with two shaking hands.

Maybe he would have made it to the spring if he hadn’t stopped in a dark corner of the compound to see what was inside the bundle. But curiosity overcame caution, and he unwrapped the blanket. Inside was a very thin lead tablet, partially rolled. An iron nail fell out of the fabric, clattering onto the pebbled ground at his feet.

His heart thudded in his ears. He looked around to make sure no one had spotted him. This was something he’d only ever heard about — a curse tablet. This was dangerous.

He unrolled the thin lead all the way. A beam of afternoon sun suddenly shone through a break in the terra-cotta shingles, lighting on the metal. It was as if Jupiter himself breathed on the tablet, heating it with his sacred power. Sweat broke out on Tag’s brow as he read the scratchy words:

Tag didn’t know how long he stood there staring at the light-suffused metal. The strength of
Domina
’s pain and anger vibrated through the words. Dimly he became aware of people running and voices calling out. Someone wailed. He heard the master being summoned. And still Tag did not move.

As cries for the dead reverberated around the compound, slowly, thickly, understanding came.
Domina
had taken poison — poison that he had handed her. He heard a sound he never imagined hearing — the anguished sobs of the man who owned him. Tag thought of Lucia, grateful she wasn’t around to witness this, and worried what would happen to her without her mother.

As the man’s cries continued, Tag found himself unable to move. Was the power of the curse so strong that it held him captive simply because he’d read it? When a cloud covered the sun, the beam of light illuminating the tablet disappeared. He felt as if he could breathe again.

Domina
had asked him to take this to the spring “in place of your father.” Well then, he’d let Damocles do it — just as
Domina
intended. He picked up the iron nail, and after wrapping the tablet and the nail back up in the baby blanket, he retraced his steps into the compound.

Shouts came from the area outside the mistress’s room, and he rushed toward the sound. He stopped at the sight of his father being held by two men as the master railed at him, his face red and tearstained.

“You did this! You did this!” Titurius roared.

“I brought her only a tonic to relieve the pain and the bleeding,” his father replied calmly. “She lost a lot of blood. Her emotional agitation, I believe, set her humors out of balance and the potion caused —”

“You lie!” Titurius yelled and leapt at Damocles, pummeling him on his face and chest as the two men continued holding him up.

“No!” Tag cried, running forward. “Stop. Leave him alone!”

Titurius turned to him. His eyes widened at the sight of the baby blanket. Damocles shook his head at Tag, clearly telling him to stay quiet.

“What’s in that bundle?” his master barked.

Fury crawled up Tag’s throat at the sight of his father’s battered face. He wanted to punish Titurius not just for hurting his elderly
apa
, but for every beating and whipping they’d both unfairly received over the years.

“
I
gave your wife the tonic,” he said. “And she gave me this. These are her words.” He let the blanket fall to the ground to reveal the curse tablet, holding the iron nail in his other hand. “She curses you for killing her daughters. And she told me that when she was gone, the power in this would be sealed. I felt the magic. The gods illuminated the tablet the moment she died. It glowed in my hands.”

Titurius’s face blanched. “Give that to me,” he rasped. “I can have the curse undone.”

“No,” Tag said. It felt so good to refuse his master’s command, he yelled it again. “
No!
”

Damocles groaned.

“There is one more way to seal the magic,” Tag announced, holding up the nail. He wasn’t sure this was true, but he’d heard other slaves whisper about strengthening a curse by piercing it with iron.

Titurius’s eyes widened. “No!” He lunged at Tag just as Tag drove the nail as hard as he could into the metal.

Tag did not remember much of what had happened after that, as Titurius had almost beaten him to death. Pontius had pulled him off. “The master were going to kill ye,” the overseer said later. “No doubt about it.”

“So why didn’t he?”

“Because the tablet said he would die right off if he killed anybody else in the household. Including you. It were simple — he didn’t want to die.”

“So why didn’t he sell me, then?”

Pontius admitted that he had wanted to. “But a priest the master consulted told him ye had to stay part of the household to contain the magic.”

Now doubt wormed through Tag’s insides. Maybe he should have told Lucia about the curse tablet. She was as much a victim of the curse as her father, because the school had begun to fail after her mother’s death, prompting Titurius to try to make a rich match for his daughter. But it seemed cruel to point out to her that one consequence of her mother’s curse was that she was being married off to the highest bidder.

He sighed and stared at the flame from the boat-shaped little lamp she’d brought, following the flickering light as it danced over the contours of her body. Despite himself, he couldn’t stop stealing looks at the way her
tunica
revealed the curves of her breasts and hips, or the way the fabric had hitched up her legs as she lay on her side. He longed to brush his fingertips along her warm, silky skin….

He needed to stop torturing himself. But he drank her in with his eyes as if he were dying of thirst. As he followed the line of her neck up to her mouth, he sucked in a breath. Her eyes were open, and she was staring at him.

She opened her arms to him and everything inside him dropped. Gods, he needed to go. This was too dangerous. He needed to be the strong one, but how could he?

“Lucia,” he whispered. “I should return to the —”

He stopped, mesmerized. She leaned up, her
tunica
sliding partway down her shoulder, exposing honey-smooth skin. The scent of her warm body surrounded him as she brought her lips to the base of his throat. He closed his eyes as she trailed soft kisses upward, his breath loud in his ears. When she pressed her mouth to his, he grabbed a fistful of her long, wavy hair and brought her hard against him.

After a time, he leaned up on one elbow, forcing himself from her. He could not catch his breath, and she was not making it any easier by running her hands up and down his body.

“I need to … I should go,” he croaked.

“No, stay with me,” she whispered.

He groaned. “We cannot, Lucia, you know that.” The consequences were too great. He pulled away a little more and took another shuddering breath.

She sighed and closed her eyes. “I want to be with you,” she whispered.

He swallowed. “We cannot take the risk,” he said. “You know this.”

“Let’s run away, Tag. We’ll disappear where no one will ever find us. We’ll live free, together.”

He touched his forehead to hers, surprised at the sudden lump in his throat. “There is nothing more in this life that I would want,” he whispered.

“Let’s dream together and make it come true,” she said, snuggling into him.

And despite the ache in his body and soul, after a time he slept too, holding her close against him.