Читать книгу Seduced By Her Rebel Warrior - Greta Gilbert - Страница 9

Atia always knew she would die young. Even before she visited the ancient sisters she sensed her days were numbered.

On the morning of her twelfth birthday, Atia’s mother shook her awake. ‘Dress quickly, my dear,’ she said. ‘Today all will be revealed.’

Together they hurried down the Via Sacra, their heads hooded, their eyes fixed upon the paving stones.

‘Faster, Atia,’ her mother urged, for gossip moved like brushfire through the streets of Rome. ‘If your father finds out about our errand, we will feel his wrath in lashes.’

Atia hurried after her mother as they made their way into the Subura slum. They entered a towering insula and began to climb—one floor, five floors, ten. Finally, they reached the highest floor and stood before a door. Atia’s mother knocked and it creaked open.

‘May I help you?’ called an ancient voice. Atia peered into the shadows and beheld a short, round woman with hair as white as the moon.

‘We have an appointment,’ said Atia’s mother. ‘A reading for my daughter.’

‘Ah yes—the ladies of Palatine Hill,’ said the woman. She gave Atia’s mother a second glance, as all people did. ‘Please, seat yourselves,’ the old woman said, then disappeared down a dark corridor.

Atia and her mother took their seats at a large circular table. Soon the round woman re-emerged, carrying an incense lamp. A chunk of amber-coloured rock smouldered inside the lamp’s wide belly, producing a rich, otherworldly scent.

‘Frankincense,’ her mother remarked admiringly.

‘To invite the goddess’s favour,’ said the woman. She set the lamp on the table, then pulled a large scroll from beneath her belt and ceremoniously unfurled it.

Atia gazed in wonder at the eerie drawing: a perfect circle divided into twelve proportionate wedges. Strange symbols decorated the insides of the wedges and colourful lines crossed between them—some of the lines blue, but most of them red.

The round woman placed the scroll on the table and studied it, then fixed Atia with an onyx stare. ‘The girl is good,’ she pronounced.

Atia released a breath she did not realise she had been holding.

The woman pointed to a blue line. ‘This means her heart is tender. She abhors the suffering of others.’

‘It is true,’ trumpeted her mother. ‘Atia has always been kind. A blessing from Juno.’

‘And look at this,’ said the woman. ‘Mercury conjunct Saturn. A disciplined mind. Like a general or a politician.’

Her mother smiled wistfully and Atia knew what she was thinking: If only Atia had been a boy.

‘Sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others!’ exclaimed the woman.

Atia took a long whiff of the sacred smoke and began to relax. ‘The girl is loving and helpful,’ said the woman. ‘The girl likes to jest.’ Atia was almost enjoying the game now. ‘She is a natural peacemaker.’

The woman puzzled over the wheel some more, tugging her silver chin hairs. She pointed to a symbol that looked like the moon. ‘Here is the girl’s mother. Very well aspected in the house of Venus. So much beauty.’

Since Atia could remember, strangers had remarked on her mother’s uncommon beauty, often expressing disbelief that Atia was indeed her mother’s daughter.

‘You speak only of my daughter’s gifts, Grandmother,’ said Atia’s mother, turning the subject back to Atia. ‘What of the ill? What challenges will she face?’

‘The ill? I am sorry, domina. We do not usually speak of ill in such a reading.’

Atia’s mother gave a loud tsk, then plunged her fingers into the depths of her coin purse. She held up two gold coins. ‘One for the good and one for the ill,’ she said.

The old woman shook her head. ‘The ill can be difficult for some to bear.’

‘You mean that it can be difficult for some patricians to bear,’ her mother said.

The old woman only bowed her head.

‘Grandmother, I was born in this very neighbourhood. I rose to my station by the blessing of this alone.’ Atia’s mother gestured to her own face. ‘I can bear whatever it is you have to say and so can my daughter. We are stronger than we look.’

Atia had never heard her mother speak so forcefully in all her life. Nor had she heard her lie with such conviction. After all, her mother had been born to a family of Roman patricians from the province of Hispania.

Had she not?

Her mother pressed the coins into the old woman’s palm and a kind of knowing passed between the two women.

‘Decima!’ the round woman called.

Suddenly, another old woman emerged from the corridor. She was tall and thin and wore a pronounced scowl. Her bones made creaking complaints as she walked.

‘At your request, I present you with my sister,’ said the round woman. ‘She has a talent for seeing the ill.’

The thin woman gave a curt nod and seated herself beside Atia. She pointed a bony finger to a symbol inside the seventh wedge. ‘Here is Saturn in the girl’s house of marriage. It bodes ill. Many obstacles. And look here—it makes a bad angle to Jupiter, the planet of progeny.’

Atia’s mother nodded gravely. ‘Anything else?’

The thin woman sighed. ‘Where to begin?’ She pointed to a red line. ‘The girl will labour beneath the control of a wicked, powerful man.’ She pointed to another red line. ‘She will travel to foreign lands where she will face grave danger.’ She pointed to yet another red line. ‘She will witness terrible things and her heart will break a thousand times.’

Atia did not understand. She looked to her mother for reassurance, but her mother’s expression was ghostly. ‘What can be done?’ her mother asked.

The thin woman shrugged. ‘The girl must weather the storm and wait to be reborn.’

What did she mean, wait to be reborn? Atia opened her mouth to ask, but no words came.

‘Look, Decima!’ clipped the round woman. ‘You have upset the girl!’ She patted Atia’s hand reassuringly. ‘The girl must not dwell on the bad,’ she told Atia.

‘Why not?’ asked the thin woman. ‘If it is the truth?’

‘It is not all of the truth!’ said the round woman. She pointed to one blue line. ‘Look here. She will appreciate the beauty of the world.’

‘But she will seek to escape from it!’ croaked the thin woman, pointing to a red one.

‘She will be bold.’

‘She will also be shy.’

‘She will have many husbands.’

‘Disappointments all.’

‘She will be very clever.’

‘Yes, but she will never be beautiful.’

Atia heard her mother draw a breath. She will never be beautiful. The words were like burning coals dropped into Atia’s lap. She closed her eyes and pretended they were not there. She did not like this game any more.

‘What do you mean, she will never be beautiful?’ asked Atia’s mother. ‘Just look at her. She is well on her way.’

‘The girl is indeed lovely,’ said the round woman, nodding approvingly at Atia. ‘She has nice large eyes and such fine auburn hair. And her lips are shapely and abundant, are they not?’

The thin woman shook her head. ‘Yes, but look at that nose. It is not lovely, and nothing can be done to change it.’

‘The nose is a small flaw,’ said the round woman. ‘It means nothing.’

‘It is a distasteful shape. And it occupies far too much of her face.’

Atia placed her hand over her nose. The thin woman was right. It was not lovely. Her two older sisters had jested about it all her life. It was overly large and bony, with a terrible, hooking angle that made it resemble nothing so much as an eagle’s beak.

‘But she has beauty pronounced in her chart!’ protested Atia’s mother. ‘Just look at her fourth house!’

‘That house does not describe the daughter’s beauty, but the mother’s,’ said the thin woman. ‘The mother’s beauty is a part of the daughter’s life.’

The thin woman might have said more, but Atia had ceased to listen. All she could hear were those five terrible words: she will never be beautiful.

What could a woman become if she were not beautiful? Beauty was necessary for women, for it meant they married great men, and what other ambition was there for a woman but to marry a great man? Beggar, barmaid or brothel dweller—those were the alternatives, at least according to Atia’s mother.

‘I do not agree with you about my daughter,’ her mother was saying, but the thin woman was already pointing to another part of the wheel. ‘It is this relationship here that is of most concern. It bodes very ill for the mother.’

Atia’s mother shook her head. ‘This is my daughter’s chart. How could it bode ill for me?’

The thin woman glanced at her mother’s stomach and Atia saw her mother’s lip quiver slightly. ‘You cannot know that.’

‘The threads of the Fates bind the members of a family as surely as they bind the world,’ said the thin woman. ‘When one thread comes unravelled it affects all the rest.’

‘Will I lose it?’ whispered Atia’s mother, gently touching her stomach. The thin woman remained silent. ‘Tell me!’ her mother shouted. ‘I command you!’

‘I am afraid you will lose more than just the child, domina.’

Atia’s mother began to weep. Fearful tears sent drops of green malachite down her lovely cheeks.

‘Why do you tell me this?’ sobbed Atia’s mother.

‘Because you asked for it, my dear,’ said the round woman. ‘Do you not remember? The good and the ill. You said that you could endure the knowing.’

Atia rose from her chair. She did not wish to hear any more of what the sisters had to say—good or ill.

‘I will wait for you outside, Mother,’ she said, though her mother was no longer listening to anything but her own sobs.

Atia was hurrying towards the exit when she heard a third voice. ‘Do not go,’ it crooned. ‘You should not leave in such a state.’

‘I am not in a state,’ snapped Atia, pausing before the dark corridor.

‘Come closer, dear.’

Atia peered into the shadows and saw a tiny, ancient woman surrounded by shelves full of scrolls. ‘Do not be shy,’ said the woman.

‘The thin woman says that I am shy,’ Atia said, hovering beneath the corridor’s low arch. ‘But the round woman says that I am bold.’

‘Can you not be both?’

Atia cocked her head.

‘Sometimes I am shy,’ continued the woman. ‘Other times I am bold. Sometimes I am even ruthless.’ She flashed Atia a toothless grin.

‘Ruthless? What is that?’ asked Atia. There was something menacing about this tiny woman, yet Atia could not bring herself to leave.

‘You will learn,’ said the woman.

‘Who are you?’ asked Atia.

‘Who I am matters little. Step closer.’ Atia took one step through the archway, though it felt more as though she was being pulled.

‘Now tell me what has upset you.’ The woman’s eyes were on Atia, but her hands were busy knitting. A fine-threaded white shawl stretched up from a basket on the floor beside her. Inside the basket, Atia caught the glint of a pair of shears.

‘The women speak in circles,’ said Atia, gesturing towards the others. ‘They make me confused.’

‘I understand. If I were twelve years old, I would be confused, too.’

‘How do you know my age?’ asked Atia.

‘I know many things.’

‘Do you know if I will ever be beautiful?’

‘You will and you will not,’ said the woman. ‘What else do you wish to know?’

Atia shook her head. ‘You are just like the other two. You speak in circles.’

‘I assure you that I am nothing like my sisters,’ creaked the woman.

‘Then tell me one true thing about myself,’ said Atia. ‘No more circles.’

‘Ah, one true thing...’ The old woman lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘For that you must come closer, lest the goddess overhear us.’

Before she even knew that she had moved, Atia found herself bending her ear to the old woman’s wrinkled lips.

‘I can tell you the time and the day of your own death,’ she whispered.

A chill tickled Atia’s skin. ‘That is impossible. How could you know something like that?’

‘It is written in the stars, my dear,’ she said. ‘It is the one true thing in your life.’

In a single motion, the old woman lifted the shears from the basket and sliced through a strand of yarn. She offered the shawl to Atia. ‘Well? Do you wish to know it or not?’