Vestal Virgin: Suspense in Ancient Rome (28 page)

Justinus knelt within the charred remains of the Temple of Vesta. Head bowed, hands clenched together, he prayed for forgiveness. He had caused this devastation. His hubris. His stupidity.

For days, he wasn’t sure how many, he’d wandered through the burning city lending muscle to the vigiles. Using an axe, he’d hacked down walls. He’d strung up boulders with hemp rope, swinging them at plaster to demolish buildings. Anything to arrest the blaze and create a firebreak. But seven thousand vigiles were no match for the conflagration, a fire more enormous than any in memory, heat so intense it transformed statues into puddles. Corpses lay piled in the streets while homeless people wandered through the devastation. The dead haunted Justinus.

He looked up from his prayers.

Skeletal remains of the imperial palace lined Palatine Hill, phantasms of magnificence. Sparks whirled through the blood-red sky, and ancient trees raised blackened limbs pleading to the heavens. Scooping up ashes, Justinus threw them on his head and shouted, “Forgive me, Lord.”

But even if God forgave him, how could he forgive himself? He thought of Elissa, slowly starving, asphyxiating. To maintain a shred of honor, his only course was suicide.

“Justinus?”

Angerona hovered over him, robes stained with soot, hair in disarray. More lemur than woman. The last person he hoped to see.

“Go away,” he muttered. Stumbling to his feet, he sought escape.

She caught him by the arm. “Hear me out.”

“Let go of me.”

Her face, usually a placid mask, disintegrated into tears. “Please, forgive me. I did what I had to do to save my family.”

His fortitude crumbled. How could he, guilty of the worst atrocities, refuse anyone forgiveness?

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I need your help.”

He followed Angerona’s gaze and looked toward the smoldering House of Vestals where charred statues of the priestesses stood among the courtyard’s ruin.

“Help me to redeem myself,” she said.

“I can’t help you, Angerona. Redemption comes from God.”

“Then help me save Elissa.”

With sooty fists, Justinus swiped at his eyes. “Elissa’s dead.”

“Are you certain?”

“It’s been days.”

“Come with me to the Colline Gate. In all the confusion of the fire, the guards have fled and no one will notice us. Grant me the chance to prove myself.” She held out her hand to him.

Justinus saw sorrow in her eyes, and yearning for forgiveness. Goddess or Gorgon?

It made no difference, if Elissa lived.

With bloody fists, Elissa hammered at the tufa bricks. Bits of rubble broke away, rattling down the wall, but her prison remained invincible. Her throat was raw from screaming, her tongue swollen.

She lacked the grace to die like Jesus.

Clinging to the wall with blistered fingers, she tried to stand. Her legs buckled, and she fell onto the sleeping pallet. Straw poked through the fabric, stabbing her. She rolled onto her stomach, pressed her hands into the pallet and raised herself onto all fours. Standing seemed impossible. Exhausted, she sat staring into darkness.

The fragment of a lullaby haunted her.

She drew her knees into her chest, feeling her body’s warmth, imagining that someone held her. An unfamiliar touch, a long forgotten scent, tugged at her memory. She squeezed her eyes shut, banishing her birthmother.

Hugging her knees tighter, she hummed the lullaby.

When the end came who would be here?

Not Mater. Not Pater.

Not even the gods.

She rocked back and forth and imagined she was in her father’s arms. When she had been a child, she and Honoratus had often walked hand-in-hand along the garden path. Half-running, she had struggled to keep pace with him. When she grew tired, he carried her small body in his arms and held her close. She’d felt safe then. Petals drifting down like snow, whirling on the breeze. White flakes kissing her with ice. But, it must have been spring.

And now it was summer.

Wasn’t it?

She pressed her burning cheek against the tufa wall. So cool. So soothing. Inviting her to sleep. To lose herself in sweet oblivion. She sank onto the pallet, lay down and closed her eyes as peace crept through her consciousness.

But sleep meant death.

Forcing her eyes open, she focused on a light.

The oil lamp?

No.

The oil lamp had burned out.

An image stared at her. A dark circle in a ring of light. The sun. The eye of God. A face, kinder than any she had ever known, gazed into hers. Smiling and radiant. A diadem of thorns encircled his head; trails of blood ran down his brow. How he must be suffering.

He had died in pain.

Died for her salvation.

What was her death in comparison? A final breath, a letting go, the last flicker of a flame.

She watched in wonder as the thorns of his crown fell away. The vine turned green and smooth, sprouted leaves then blossomed with roses.

He reached out his hand to her.

Light flowed into her body, pulsing through her heart, rushing through her arteries. Hatred, rage, the need for vengeance, vanished at his touch.

He drew her up beyond the darkness, carried her within his arms. They traveled past the sun, past stars, and through the heavens. When they reached the moon they sat perched on its silver crescent, legs swinging.

Humming a lullaby.

He handed her a rose, pink and blooming.

Justinus ran a cloth over his face. It came away with sweat and soot. Even here, far from the city’s center, the fire’s heat combined with the day’s increasing temperature to create a furnace.

“Over here,” Angerona called.

Peering through the smoky haze, he saw her standing by a mound of earth.

Elissa’s tomb.

Spikes of purple lupine, yellow-centered asters, and drooping bluebells lay scattered in the dirt and marked her grave. A slab of granite blocked the tomb’s opening. Falling to his knees, Justinus tried to lift the stone. Rough edges cut into his callused hands and the slab barely moved.

“Help me,” he said.

Angerona’s hands were smooth and white. “I don’t think I can—”

“On the count of three.” Together they heaved, and the stone shifted slightly, enough for Justinus to peer through a narrow fissure.

“Elissa,” he called into the darkness.

No answer.

He needed something for leverage. He glanced at Angerona, noticing her palla. “Give me your shawl.”

Slowly, she unwound the fabric, exposing pale shoulders, slender arms. Through her stola, he saw the silhouette of her body—she wore no tunica beneath it. She dangled the palla in front of his face. He should have come alone. Should have known she would be trouble.

“When I lift, run your shawl under the slab,” he instructed her.

She bent toward the slab, allowing him an eye-full.

He managed to lift the stone enough for Angerona to saw the palla back and forth, creating a sling. Grabbing hold of both ends of the fabric, he tugged, and the slab shifted. Gritting his teeth, he levered the palla over his shoulder and pulled as if he were an ox, moving the stone inch by inch, sweat stinging his eyes. He heard the fabric tearing. The palla ripped and sent him to his knees.

“I see her,” Angerona shouted. She knelt beside a crevice large enough to squeeze through.

“Is she alive?”

“I can’t tell.”

Justinus pushed her aside. In the dim light, he saw Elissa lying on a pallet, unmoving, and her eyes closed.

“We need a ladder,” Angerona said.

“They’ve taken it.”

Beneath the opening, Justinus saw a table. Lowering his legs into the hole, his feet found the table’s surface.

Pebbles tumbled after him.

The tomb felt dank, stank of sour milk and vomit.

Elissa looked pale and fragile. Afraid if he touched her she might break, shatter like fine glass.

He whispered her name.

Her lips moved silently.

“Elissa!” He reached for her, felt the moisture of her breath. “Do you hear me?”

Her eyelids fluttered open.

“Is this Hades?”

“I think it might be heaven.” Justinus smiled, could have laughed. “And finding you is my salvation.” He took her in his arms, felt her heart beating against his, and lifted her toward the light.

* * * * *

Elissa weighed no more than a child as Justinus carried her from the Colline Gates and across the Field of Iniquity. Despite the lightness of his burden, his lungs ached. Brown haze settled on the city, crept along Viminal Hill, made his eyes water, his throat raw.

He lay Elissa on a grassy bank and sat beside her, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest. She was not fully awake, but seemed to be gaining strength.

He gazed down at the city. A battlefield. Fire had marched through the Forum Romanum, destroying palaces of senators, claiming granaries and warehouses, plundering the Temple of Jupiter built by Romulus. Then without warning the winds had shifted, and the fire had turned back, ravaging the Subura’s twisting streets. Meanwhile, people huddled within the tufa walls of the Forum of Augustus while flames raged around them.

A million lives destroyed.

Angerona appeared over the rise, her face reflecting terror as she stared at the city’s devastation. “When will it end?”

Justinus had no answer.

They watched in silence as a hazy sun looked down from mid-heaven. The air felt heavy, still. Birds had ceased singing.

“Nero has returned from Antium,” Justinus said.

“They say, while the city burns he stands on his balcony and plays his lyre. They say he sings of Troy.”

“His palace is destroyed. He has no balcony to stand upon.”

“Do you think Nero’s agents set the fire?” Angerona asked. “Rumors claim he wants to clear the city so he can build his Golden House.”

“There are easier methods,” Justinus said. “Extortion, threats, forced suicide—” He stopped mid-sentence, remembering Angerona’s father.

“Timing is everything.” She stole a sideways glance at him. “And I can’t help noticing the fire’s timing coincided with Elissa’s funeral.”

Justinus felt his face redden.

Elissa moaned, seemed to be waking.

“She’s thirsty,” he said, glad to change the subject.

Angerona handed him the water bladder.

He fed Elissa water, prayed that she’d recover soon. Since the death of his parents he’d become used to self reliance. He’d thrown himself into a soldier’s life and accepted the post in Britannia as far from Rome as possible. But he could not continue. Not without Elissa.

“Are you crying, Justinus?”

“Smoke.” He ran his hands over his face. “The smoke is getting to me.”

Angerona settled beside him, touched his cheek and brushed away a tear. “You and I, we’re the same.”

“How so?” Justinus gazed at the seven hills, studying the drifting smoke.

“We’ll do anything to meet our desires. Do anything as a means to our desired end. Wouldn’t we?”

“The fire’s traveling west toward the river.”

“I understand your passion. I sense your longing, and I feel it too.”

“I hope the fire doesn’t jump the wall and reach the Campus Martius.”

“Why can’t you love me, Justinus?”

He glanced at Elissa. She had fallen back asleep, one hand held protectively over her belly.

“It always comes down to her.” Angerona sounded bitter. “Elissa the chaste, the pure, the perfect. No matter what I do, I’m never good enough.”

“It’s not that—”

“What then?” Angerona stood, brushing bits of grass from her stola.

Justinus stood as well. Avoiding Angerona’s stare, he scanned the seven hills. “The fire hasn’t reached the Esquiline. If we walk along the ridge we should manage to reach my domus.”

* * * * *

Cradling Elissa in his arms, Justinus leaned against the front door of his domus. It swung open. Strange. Usually the servants kept the front door bolted.

He stepped into the foyer, and Angerona followed.

“Hello,” he called.

“What’s this?” Angerona pointed to a figurine that lay broken on the floor.

“Must have fallen from the altar.”

Justinus kicked the pieces across the mosaic and wondered why a slave hadn’t swept up the mess. He carried Elissa through the unlit vestibule. It seemed barren. Busts of his ancestors were missing from their niches. Even the wax masks were gone.

They entered the atrium, and he lay Elissa on a couch. The room’s sole piece of furniture. Where were the tables? The high-backed chairs and cushioned benches? Ashes covered every surface and sunlight fell in smoky rays through the open ceiling. Except for the cat, crouching by the central pool, the house seemed deserted. Upon seeing the intruders, the cat jumped down from its perch and bolted from the room.

“Akeem,” Justinus called.

Curtains leading to the tablinum rustled, and Akeem peered out, his eyes wide and frightened. “Are you a lemur?” he asked.

“Where are all the servants?”

“Gone.” Akeem waved his hand over the room. “All gone. I alone remain.”

Touched by Akeem’s loyalty, Justinus asked, “Why haven’t you left as well?”

Akeem shrugged. “I have nowhere to go, and the wine here is excellent.”

“What happened to the furniture?”

“Thieves. I couldn’t stop them, except for the couch. Too heavy.”

Justinus ripped open the curtain leading to the tablinum. The strong box had been pried open, the desk overturned, and papers lay scattered on the floor. He kept important documents at the House of Vestals, but all those records had been burned.

“Could be worse,” he said, allowing the curtain to fall. “At least we’re alive.”

“Barely. You look terrible, Master.”

“Is there anything to eat or drink?”

Akeem retrieved a flagon from behind the curtain. He left the room, apparently in search of cups.

“At least your domus is still standing,” Angerona said. She wandered around the atrium running a hand along the wall. She studied her palm then held it out to Justinus so he could see the soot. “Thank the gods, my mother and sisters are safe in the countryside. Our palace in the forum, the domus Nero confiscated, has burned. Nothing remains. Not even my mother’s garden.”

“Sit down, Angerona. You make me nervous.”

“There’s nowhere to sit.” She peered out of a window to the courtyard. “Your apple trees are still standing.”

“My father planted them.”

“You never speak of your parents.”

“They died long ago.”

“Don’t you get lonely?”

“Hurry with that wine,” Justinus shouted, but Akeem didn’t answer. Justinus opened the front door and called again. He saw the slave running down the garden path away from the house. And who could blame him?

Angerona touched his back. “You can count on me.”

Elissa moaned.

Glad to escape Angerona, Justinus hurried to the couch.

“Where am I?” Elissa asked.

“You’re safe, Elissa. Safe with me.” He helped her to sit up.

She rubbed her eyes and looked around the room, her gaze falling on Angerona. “What’s she doing here?”

“You have every right to hate me,” Angerona said, “every reason—”

“You’re dead to me.”

Angerona’s eyes grew hard. “I should have left you in that tomb.”

“So you wouldn’t have to face yourself?”

“Elissa, you need to rest.” Justinus shot an angry glance at Angerona. “You’d better go.”

Elissa touched his face. “Has Flavia returned from Antium?”

“We’ll talk about your sister later.” He handed her the flagon of water, hoping to delay her questions.

“Apparently, your sister never went to Antium,” Angerona said.

“Where is she then?”

“No one has seen her since the fire started,” Justinus said.

The flagon fell from Elissa’s hands, and a stream ran across floor. “The fire is still burning?”

“For three days with no end in sight.” Angerona stared at Justinus. “No one knows exactly how it started, but I can guess.”

“Probably an accident,” Justinus said.

“By accident or by intent, the result is criminal. In my opinion the culprit should be strung on a cross and burned alive,” said Angerona.

Justinus flinched, but said nothing. In his heart of hearts, he agreed with Angerona.

Elissa stood shakily, her eyes unfocused, her complexion pale. “Rome burns,” she said, “and from union unholy the sister will bring forth a son.”

“Lie down, Elissa,” Justinus said.

“The prophecy has come to pass.”

“What prophecy?”

She headed toward the vestibule.

“Where are you going?”

“I must speak to Nero.”

“Elissa,” Justinus said, “If Nero sees you are alive—”

“He’ll bury you again,” Angerona’s voice was sharp.

“I don’t think so. I know him better than he knows himself.” Elissa’s face looked ashen, yet determined. “In any case, the dead protect me. After all, I’m one of them.”

“Stay here where you’ll be safe,” Justinus pleaded.

“You’ll find Nero at the Campus Martius,” Angerona said, “tending survivors.”

“Shut up, Angerona!” If she had been a man, Justinus would have slugged her. “You’ve done enough damage.”

“As have you, Justinus.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m referring to your pyrotechnics.”

Justinus edged away from her and ran after Elissa.