The Golden Dice - A Tale of Ancient Rome (11 page)

Humoring them sometimes averted the pain. The highborn did not seek out tomb whores, but she suspected that under his fine woolen weave this one’s prick and needs would be the same. “It’s more exciting when you know a lemur spirit is watching.” She took his hand and rubbed it along the damp skin of her breasts while lifting the hemline of her tunic.

Lacerta darted across his fingers. Startled, Drusus shoved the girl away. “Get out! I can smell your last customer upon you.”

“
Please, my lord, I’m afraid of the lightning.”

He raised the lamp higher to scan her. Pinna studied him, too—his tear-stained face, his reddened nose. Thinking her no threat, he pushed her away. “Leave!” He picked up the mallet, centering the nailhead to hammer in both sheets. “Go back to fucking the city’s scum.”

Pinna should have known better, should have obeyed meekly as she’d done all her life. Yet his words stirred her ire. Contempt taught her by her family for the haughtiness of patricians. This man was dismissing her when it was he who should be ridiculed. There had never been time or money enough to indulge her in learning, but even though she could not read she had heard treason spoken plainly.

“
I may be a night moth but I do not pine after a traitor. You’re a fool to declare your love for Aemilia Caeciliana. What would Rome think if it knew you would betray it for that bitch?”

He clipped her jaw, felling her, his fury exploding; a long pent-up wrath transcribed within a curse and now transferred to force.

Pinna did not cry nor sob nor wail. She was paid to do that at other people’s funerals. There was nothing left within her to lament her own pain. She cowered before him, waiting for the next blow, knowing that some men cannot stop at one as though an odd number was a bad omen. When he raised his hand again he knocked the spell to the floor. Realizing in one brief moment of brightness that it could save her, Pinna scrabbled to retrieve it, running out into the downpour, the needles slicing through her clothes.

The soldier blundered after her but the graveyard was hers. She knew where to hide.

“
Night moth, stop! Give that to me. It’s not what you think.”

Her mother had taught her their trade, but Pinna had learned business opportunity from experience. Patricians always talked of honor. A commodity that was affordable when a man wasn’t starving. They detested being shamed. She perched upon one of the tombs, taunting Drusus as she held the leaden sheet high above her. “Hit me again and I will nail this to the speaker’s platform. Word will soon spread that a Claudian is lovesick for a betrayer. That he needs magic to overcome his foe.”

“
Come down, I won’t hurt you,” he shouted, his beard and hair dripping, his robes sodden as he swiped at her feet with one arm. She shuffled back, alarmed at his height. She’d not realized how tall he was as he’d crouched over his inscription.

“
Do you think that, because I’m a whore, I’m stupid?” She prayed he would not manage to drag her down and beat her, and to her relief he stopped his pursuit. Drusus leaned his head against the wall, shoulders slumping, letting the rain smash upon his face.

Pinna slipped the defixio into her tunic to let Lacerta guard it. The pain of the welt upon her chin and cheek smarted. Unsure if she was being foolish, she slid down beside him. She was embarrassed for him, uncomfortable at seeing a warrior display such emotion. Felt sorry, briefly, that an enemy could cause a soldier this type of wound.

Fumbling at his clothes, he pulled out a purse and shook two weights onto her palm. “Please, you must tell no one about this.”

Pinna stared at the bronze with the boars stamped upon them. She’d never seen so much wealth in her life. The currency this patrician had tumbled into her hands was life-changing, not small change.

At that moment the rain ceased, a few patters of errant drops hitting them as the wind swept through the graveyard. Then all was still, dripping, puddles forming.

The night moth stared at him, then retrieved the defixio from her clothes. He snatched it from her, drying it with his sleeve.

“
Don’t cross me.” He straightened his shoulders, confidence regained. “Or I will find you and kill you.”

His threat was pointless. With the bronze now hers, Pinna didn’t care about the strips of lead that weighed heavy in both his hand and mind.

As she watched the nobleman thread his way back through the sepulchres to the Claudian tomb, Pinna did not try to follow. She knew what he would do. How he would clench the mallet, knuckles whitening, and hammer both desire and curse into the brickwork with one long iron nail—to remain there forever potent and terrible, guarded by ghosts.

The tub of melted snow was freezing but Pinna needed a bath. She’d not had one for months and the daily washing of arms, face and legs in the murky rainwater from the communal well made little headway on her filthy skin. She had collected the snow from the Campus Martius, determined to be clean when she stood before the city magistrate. Teeth chattering, she scrubbed until her skin was red and her lips were blue. The sweet-smelling oil was a treat, though, as she combed out the tangles and clumps of ash from her hair, shedding lice and nits and knots until it gleamed.

Next she slipped a new tunic over her head and began wrapping a length of colored cloth around her that would mark her as a registered whore. A toga. It was the cloak of a male citizen but she was far from that in status. Far also from being a decent woman, entitled to wear a stola and palla shawl. Pinna did not mind. She had long ago lost the chance to shield her face in modesty when walking through the streets of Rome. She was just pleased to wear any robes that were not sackcloth. The sandals that she donned, though, seemed cumbersome on calloused feet that had trod barefoot for years.

As she fingered the moss green woolen cloak, she noticed her nails were still black from grime. She glanced over to a sleeping form in the corner of the room. “I know, I know, Mama. It’s not a market day. It could be unlucky to cut them, but I can’t go before the magistrate with dirty fingers.”

There was no answer and Pinna began to trim them, starting with a forefinger so as not to invoke ill fortune. To be doubly sure she was protected from the evil eye, she tied a shell of Venus around her neck together with her tiny wooden fascinum. Lacerta furiously darted over her fingers as though irritated she must share her space with so many luck charms.

“
Shh,” she murmured to the lizard. “Soon we shall be warm within our new home,” but she could hear the tremor in her voice, the hint of apprehension. Her prayers had been answered by the lovelorn soldier, but it was frightening to make the journey into a fresh life. She had grown used to the slums of the Esquiline and the tombs of the Campus—her home and her workplace. “At least I’ll have customers who are better behaved,” she whispered, but remembering the sting of Drusus’ blow she knew that it was just a wish.

The woman in the corner of the room moaned quietly. Pinna knelt beside her, but Fusca’s eyes had closed once more. “Rest, Mama. I will be back soon.”

Heading towards the forum, she passed by the doorway of a lupanaria, a den of so-called she wolves, for the prostitutes of the city were considered dangerous and venal. Yet Pinna doubted these women would be any less vulnerable than night moths.

In daylight the brothel looked no different than any other house, but at night Pinna knew the pimps would be drumming up business outside and customers would lurk in the street waiting their turn. The prospect of working in such an establishment now seemed daunting. She did not think she could summon up courage to speak to one of the lenos. Instead she would try and find customers herself to bring back to her new lodgings. Faced with such a prospect she suddenly felt very much alone.

As she passed through the markets, Pinna’s nerves at meeting the official mingled with excitement as she realized that she could buy some festive treats along the way. The Saturnalia was due to be held soon, the festival where Saturn, god of sowing, would be praised and Juno Lucina would bid light to outlast the dark. For the first time she would be able to eat sweets and spoil her mother with gifts. For the first time they would have something to celebrate—no more graveyards, no more grave clothes.

The Street of Perfumes was crowded. It used to be called the Tuscan Way, but with Rome at war against the Etruscans, the name had been changed to one much sweeter. As she browsed the shopfronts, she absorbed the competing aromas of orris and anise, rose and lily, together with the musky odors from the cattle market nearby.

Pinna knew this artery well. In the past she was not above testing her skill as a cutpurse there. Amid the bustle of vendors and noise from the barkers it had always been easy for her to find victims as they paused at the booksellers or were distracted by purchasing incense and oils. Out of habit, she went to pinch some pretty candles before remembering she could pay for them now.

To her surprise the shopkeepers and passersby did not snub her despite her telltale toga. When she bought honeycomb and chestnuts at the fruit market the upright citizens and traders seemed unconcerned who was walking among them, although a few women hissed at her, less forgiving than their husbands and sons.

Houses and shops crowded the edges of the forum. Pinna wondered where she could rent a room, determined to find one with a humble hearth shrine in a better area. She scanned the great hills of Rome. The wealthy Palatine and holy Capitoline loomed above her. On the roof of the great temple that crowned the sacred mount, the Great and Mighty Jupiter galloped his chariot towards her. He seemed ready to trample her not because she had transgressed but because he did not notice one so unworthy.

The city magistrate was a busy man; dispensing corn and water to the citizens of Rome was onerous, as was policing prostitution. Yet ensuring the supply of both was essential—whores were as necessary as temples, streets and drains. The time caller had shouted the hour twice before the magistrate was ready to see Pinna. She twisted the amulets around her neck and whispered to Lacerta as she entered.

It unnerved her that the man had a cast in one eye, and she was unsure which she should focus upon. It did not really matter though; both were beady and set too close together.

The patrician scanned her from head to toe, tapping his bony fingers upon one skinny knee. At his feet a clerk sat scribbling down decisions, dry points of commerce reduced to scratches in wax tablets. When she stated her business the scribe unrolled an enormous scroll of crackling papyrus. A list stretched across it—a roll of hundreds of whores, their names never to be erased. It reminded her that Rome would never forget who she was and always would be. For a moment Pinna felt an ache within her. What if she managed to live to be as old as forty? What would it be like to try to satisfy men then? Mocked and pathetic, begging for favors from men as desperate as she was.

“
What is your name?” The magistrate was imperious.

“
Lollia, daughter of Lollius, my lord.”

“
And your working name?”

Pinna blinked, wondering how to answer him. She did not want to be known by her nickname. It was special to her. All her life she had loved her patient, quiet mother as surely as she was wary of her father. Her mother had called her “Feather,” her “Little Wing,” as though she hoped one day Pinna could fly away from hardship.

Not that Lollius ever had the chance to register his daughter. A girl’s existence was only officially recorded on her wedding day. How humiliating it would have been for him that she was finally noted not as a citizen but as a whore.

“
Lollia, I’ll just be known as Lollia.” She handed the clerk the amount of one client’s fee by way of payment.

The scribe scratched her name on the roll of she wolves.

The night moth was no more.

Glossary

Cast

Moving into the hubbub Pinna noticed a crowd was heading towards the sanctuary of the Lapis Niger in the Comitium. Curious, she followed them, wondering what was drawing them to the assembly area. Pinna had seen politicians declaiming before in this part of the forum. She’d soon learned to appreciate the various orators for the opportunity they gave her to glean fertile pickings from an audience immersed in rhetoric. There was value in distinguishing those who could keep the crowd’s attention from those who wasted their breath in speaking; spellbound citizens never noticed a thief’s nimble fingers. More than once, she’d been thankful that Romans loved to argue, loved to claim injustice and, most of all, loved speeches. She had not cared what was being debated. It was always the same complaint: the elite claimed the commoners were plotting to bring down Rome, and the plebeians demanded the patricians grant them high office, land and spoils.