Читать книгу The Passion of Mary Magdalen - Elizabeth Cunningham - Страница 35

The Vine and Fig Tree had seemed a large and complex dwelling to me. I’d grown up in a round wattle and daub hut; accommodations at druid school were only variations on the same theme. Domus Claudius seemed more like an enclosed city than a house. It had four stories, not including the basement storerooms, and as Succula had pointed out to me, it took up an entire city block. Four long streets, all with shop fronts, enclosed its numerous atriums, each with a four-story cluster of rooms surrounding it. There were countless bedrooms, several banqueting halls with corresponding kitchens, as well as receiving rooms where the clients lined up every morning. And of course the house had private baths—though everyone went to the lavish public ones anyway—as well as private stables.

Even more overwhelming than the size of the house was the sheer number of slaves and hangers on who inhabited it. You couldn’t easily tell the difference between the two. Some of the slaves were richly dressed, and some of the ne’er-do-well relatives and friends looked like they should be plucking chickens or pushing a mop. There were almost one hundred titled slaves in Domus Claudius, and dozens more without titles. Like everything Roman, including the Latin language, the household was hierarchical and bureaucratic. The titled slaves jealously guarded their status. If your title was a purpuris—servant in charge of purple garments—then you were a cut above the a vesta, who had charge over ordinary clothes. Likewise the ab ornamentis—the servant in charge of hair and accessories for ceremonial occasions—held rank over the ornatrix. There were slaves whose only job was to dust busts and statues, and slaves who did nothing but keep track of unguents.

Of course, it took me months to learn all the overt and covert rules of slave society and protocol. On my first morning poor tongueless Boca brought me a plain tunic like hers and guided me for what seemed like miles of corridor and courtyard, as well as up and down staircases. None of the scurrying people we passed paid any attention to us, not even a curious glance. Everyone seemed as enclosed and lifeless as the insularium itself. I had lived in square walls at the Vine and Fig Tree, too, but at least from my room I could hear the sound of the fountain, and the cats gave relief from the relentlessly human scale and focus of city life. I did not know how I could survive in Domus Claudius. I did not.

At last we came to yet another courtyard, and Boca stopped, gesturing across it. I turned and looked at her; her eyes were so huge and empty I could see my reflection—a flash of brightness like a salmon leaping into an alien element. She shook her head as if I’d asked her something. Then she turned and fled.

“You botched abortion,” a woman shrieked. “Your mother should have exposed you at birth!”

I did not need further guidance to find Paulina’s cubiculo. The invective continued, but the words were lost in the sound of something shattering. A moment later two female slaves scurried out of the chamber and down the stairs to the courtyard.

“That’s the third mirror she’s broken this week,” one muttered to the other.

“You know why she’s been so touchy lately, don’t you?”

“What do you mean? That spoiled brat is always like that.”

“Well, if you don’t know, perhaps I’d better not say. But there’s them that ought to know, and when they do—”

At that point, they caught sight of me and abruptly ceased their innuendo.

“Who are you?” the one who had spoken first demanded.

I could not bring myself to say, I’m the domina’s new slave, her pedisequa. Or maybe it was the effect of spending time with Boca, the only person in domus Claudius who had shown me any kindness. She had imprinted on me, as if I were some motherless duckling. I shrugged and gestured ambiguously.

Before I knew what was happening, my cheek was stinging with the woman’s slap, and inadvertent tears blinded me.

“What the fuck—”

“Oh, so you do have a tongue. Then answer me civil like. Who are you?”

My eyes cleared. I looked at the graceless woman. She was thin and bony with a pinched face. I was a big, strapping barbarian. I could easily pick her up and hurl her into the far corner of the courtyard. I gave the idea serious consideration.

“Oh, I know who she is,” said the other woman, a bit broader of beam; I didn’t know that I could take on both of them. “She’s the one the domina tied up bare-naked and flogged in the banquet room.”

“What’s going on out there!” Paulina roared from her cubiculo.

“Tell you what, you get the broom,” said Bony. “I’ll get the mirror. We’ll take our time about it, too. After all, it is not our job to fetch and carry like untitled slaves, so why should we rush? You,” the skinny one poked me in the ribs, “get in there and take what’s coming to you—and to us.”

“The gods are good,” said Broad Beam as they sauntered away. “They’ve sent us a whipping girl.”

An unidentified flying object hurtled into the courtyard just too late to hit the two laggard slaves. I managed to duck. When I looked up again, Paulina was in the doorway looking down at me.

“You!”

The sight of me momentarily diverted her from her rage. I could hear the slaves in the chamber behind her hurrying to set the rooms to right.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“Yes, what?” she prompted.

“Yes, it is me, I mean I,” I corrected the case.

Let her throw the curling tongues at me; let her throw the entire contents of the room. I wanted to stay outside as long as I could.

She frowned. “Yes, domina, delight of my eyes,” she prompted.

“Just say it, toots,” a male voice called from within the room.

“Shut up, Reginus,” said Paulina. “She’s my pedisequa. I’m training her.”

I’d had lots of acting experience at the Vine and Fig Tree, I told myself. Playing Paulina’s pedisequa was just another gig. Another trick to turn.

“Yes, domina, delight of my eyes.”

“With feeling this time.”

“It’s true,” I said thoughtfully. “You’re not hard on the eyes. Glossy hair, smooth skin. Great tits. But you’d look a lot better if you stopped sticking out your lower lip.”

Whatever doom was to befall me, I had the pleasure of seeing the blood drain from her face, then shoot back up in two big red blotches.

“You asked for a mirror,” I said, taking advantage of her speechless shock.

“Very well, then,” she said, recovering with surprising swiftness. “My mirror you shall be. Upstairs. Now!”

I found out what Paulina meant when the skinny one returned. At Paulina’s order, the sullen slave handed the mirror to me and huffily resumed her proper duties as sarnatrix, (mender of clothes)—though Paulina, I noticed, still wore the torn shift. You might think holding a mirror would be a simple job requiring no great skill. In fact it was exacting and exhausting. Paulina sat in the center of the crowded room, while the tontrix and ornatrix hovered over her and three slaves, including me, circled her with mirrors. The only thing more tedious than her minute directions—a little higher, to the right, no, that’s too much, lower, stulta!—was when she settled on an angle she wanted and we had to hold our arms absolutely still, the brass-backed mirrors growing heavier by the second.

Although it was late November now, and the air outside held a distinct chill, Paulina’s chamber was stuffy with heat and smoke from the charcoal brazier and the torches. The tontrix sweated as she rolled Paulina’s thick black hair—that needed no improvement—into long sausage curls, and then wound them one after the other in a rising beehive dome. The ornatrix plucked and shaped Paulina’s eyebrows and outlined lips that were already vivid. Paulina had stopped raging for the moment, but the atmosphere was silent and tense. It was all so different from the same rite at the Vine and Fig Tree with the whores trading friendly insults, the old women cackling over lewd jokes, the little girls competing to help and getting in the way.

At last Paulina’s face and hair were done. The ornatrix and the tontrix stepped back, and Paulina again examined herself from every possible angle. There was a collective holding of breath as everyone waited for the verdict.

“Stola!” She snapped her fingers.

A colorless little woman who’d been standing on the sidelines now stepped forward with a dull looking garment the color of an old bruise. To call it aubergine would have been a stretch. The woman’s hands shook as she held it up.

“Not that one, stulta!”

The woman nimbly skipped just out of range of Paulina’s raised hand.

“But, domina, I thought—”

“No one has my permission to think anything unless I say so. Put it back.” She sighed as if she were a patient long-suffering adult surrounded by backward children. “I told you before. I will have the red.”

“Domina, honey.” I recognized the voice of the man who had called out to me before. He had been standing, almost leaning against the far wall, plainly bored. Now he took a step towards her. “May I remind you that your esteemed pater, the honorable senator Publius Paulus, is calling today and plans to dine.”

“I know my father’s name,” she snapped. “And no, you may not remind me. I’ll do the reminding. You are in charge of my chamber, not my life, Reginus. Just because you belong to my father, and I can’t discipline you myself, doesn’t mean he won’t do worse than I could ever dream of doing if I tell him of your insolence.”

The man made an obscene gesture with his hands, which were hidden behind his back even as he bowed to her, saying. “Yes, domina, delight of my eyes.” He couldn’t quite keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“As for the rest of you—” Paulina stopped mid-sentence. If she had been a dog her ears and nose would have been quivering; she might have whined softly in anticipation as the voice she strained to hear came closer.

“Quick,” she hissed to her attendants.

For someone who’d taken almost two hours with hair and make-up alone, Paulina jumped into the stola in record time. She could barely stand still as the ornatrix fastened it with a brooch at the shoulder and tried to drape the folds as modestly as possible, which was difficult as the fine, soft-spun wool had a tendency to cling to her curves.

“You,” Paulina shoved the ornatrix aside and pointed to me, “fix my breasts!”

“What?” Her breasts needed no improvement as far as I could see.

“Tie the girdle under them. Push them up. You’re a whore. You know!”

I decided it was useless to point out that when I was a whore I’d had my own ornatrix and a veste. I knew the effect she was after.

“You,” she said to the ornatrix. “Get the garnets.”

I arranged her breasts as if they were roasted twin birds on a platter while the ornatrix fastened the necklace of dark garnets that would draw every eye to the depths of her cleavage. Then she hurtled across the room to the door. As soon as she crossed the threshold, her entire bearing changed. She moved languorously to the balustrade, stretched as if she had just woken up, and then leaned over it, resting her chin in one hand. Those of us inside the chamber could hear the sound of one male voice below.

“Why Decius Mundus,” she cooed, yes cooed. “My favorite equestrian. What a surprise. I didn’t know you were back.”

There were a few soft snorts from the chamber slaves and a great deal of eye rolling.

“Ah, my dear domina. What a vision you are. Like a goddess calling from on high to a mere mortal.”

The slaves were now in an agony to keep from exploding with laughter. I might have bonded with them then, I suppose, but no one caught my eye, and I felt a new and unwelcome wariness. How could I know who was trustworthy? How could you trust anyone in a place as miserable as this one, where body parts could be lopped off on a whim?

“Are you in Rome for long this time?”

“I’ve been posted here for the winter, domina.”

“Then I shall expect you to dine with us today, Decius.”

“It will be my great pleasure, domina. Until then!”

Paulina turned from the balustrade, her enticing smile still in place for an instant. Then she discarded it—that’s how it seemed—and the petulant expression was back.

“Get me the other stola,” she said wearily.

Wisely no one questioned her. Everyone welcomed the brooding silence into which she had fallen. She was tractable as a doll as the a veste removed the red tunic and dressed her again in the somber one.

“You.” She roused herself and focused on me again. “Can you spin and weave?”

“Not very well.” My mothers had been so busy teaching me things like how to cast a spear from a moving chariot that they’d neglected the traditional female arts.

“Neither can I,” she sighed. “But I have to pretend I can every damn morning while the clients line up to see Claudius.”

“Why?” I asked sincerely puzzled. Wasn’t that the point of having slaves? To do the work for you?

“Don’t you know, honey?” the male slave jumped in. “The virtuous wife of Old Republican Stock, like our lovely domina here, is industrious.” The man seemed incapable of getting his tongue out of his cheek. “She clothes her household. Why, the great Emperor Augustus himself only wore garments made by his womenfolk—”

“Shut up, Reginus!” snapped Paulina; clearly if it was up to her, he would have been as tongueless as Boca. “Nobody asked you, and nobody is to answer her questions anyway, which she has no right to ask.

“Now hear this, all chamber slaves: Red is my slave. Mine! I bought her. I beat her. I’m training her as my pedisequa. She is to attend me whenever I want her and to do whatever I tell her to do. Right now I’m taking her with me to the textile room. If anyone has any complaints about her or notices any disrespect or shirking in her, you are to come directly to me. Not my husband. Not my father. Is that understood?”

There was a hearty chorus of “Yes, domina!”

She could hardly have isolated me more, if she told everyone I was her personal leper.

“Come!” she snapped her fingers.

I had a momentary vision of simply lying down and forcing her to drag me—to my death no doubt, which would be the honorable course to choose. I glanced around the room to see if there was a shard of glass. Then I could cut her throat or mine. Where was a sword when you needed to fall on one? Or a vial of poison or a basket full of asps?

“Red!”

I shrugged and followed her out of the chamber with the eyes of other slaves lodged in my back like knives.