VII

My lord, you know this so well at this level of your existence, when you are already beyond so many things,…You should not fear anything regarding my loyalty. However, that warm voice and all that was altered within that wise woman’s soul seemed to have taken hold of my anxiety, that urgency to make my belly fertile in order ot give you a male son who could inherit everything that you had been gathering throughout your military career and, at the same time, strengthen my own certainty of knowing myself unique- something which provided me some kind of enticing pleasure that I had never experienced before. A new yearning to go beyond that poor, homely little Calpurnia, cloistered in the Vestals’ house....No, I could not open up my thoughts to any of those girlish priestesses. Your wife, you know, must be the object of the most exaggerated discretion. I would not be able to bribe them in order to make offerings to Vesta so that my belly should get stimulated at its due time. Something, however, so far and uncertain. You still had to remain for a long time in Gaul: there was so much to conquest, submit...according to what your letters told me. I guess what your own legate, just arrived at your camp, would tell you about me, after being questioned in quite an inquisitive way, “She remains pale, fragile, shut in her room within Domus Publica”. You would not have avoided a slight bright ....relieved smile after being given a portrait which had nothing in common with that of a dazzling-eyed, glowing –cheeked, full-breasted woman. This would certainly have shadowed your look into that shade of violent ashy sea which occasionally –hardly ever, to be true –you showed in order to make your will be obeyed.

It was something fugacious. I still tremble remembering it. Behind my eyes something that made my thoughts quiver seemed to become a real thing. It happened the day after our arrival in Cumae. Those emotional ups-and-downs and the previous days’ prostration had made me sleep until noon. When I entered my triclinium I realized my friends and Cornelia’s guest had briskly cut down a conversation. The look in my eyes –fixed, intense and, at the same time, alien to myself –drove them to resume it despite their clear reluctance to do it.

–We were speaking about that little boy who your husband’s legate, Titus, brought with him last time he came to Rome.  It is obvious that you were not allowed to meet him. How on earth could Titus think of letting you see him right in the Pontifex’s house?

 –.... Calpurnia, you had better know this through us rather than learning about it throughout distorted information. It is said that the child does not take after Titus at all –I fugaciously remembered his dark skin and mop-like black hair –The boy has got Gallic people’s rebellious crimson hair. Also that bright ivory-like skin and those eyes... Greyish-blue, strange, so piercing...Calpurnia!!!

Why should everybody always decide for me? That moment was maybe recreating something bestowed by some of the forces who pull the strings of like or even the gods themselves....A heavy haemorrhage, more serious than those from the previous months.

–My dear Calpurnia....no need to speak openly. I deeply know what your belly and woman’s pride vitally need. Something must be done before your lord arrives.

–How....Cornelia? Titus, as you know, always comes unexpectedly, according to Caesar’s orders.

I knew that she had noticed the tears in my eyes and how I was losing my breath, feeling shrunk

–Yes... I know that; regarding this point, he is quite like my father. My own mother or any of his wives fatefully languished into madness, apart from what was said or known about him. Beyond their own self-pride, they would fatally get melted within that force beyond time that was called Sulla.... no, do not believe that I have mentioned anything that could harm your great man’s dignity. I only insist that you need some kind of.... remedy – call it as you like. Something that definitely takes you away from....

 –Destruction!!

Portia’s look was merciless. I could not say whose eyes –hers or her father’s – were those which were piercing through my scarce breath. No, that was not in my Portia’s line.

–My dear friend.... If you don’t do anything, then it must be your three friends’ business to stop all this.... –She did not need to say anything else (at least, before returning to Rome) –Don’t worry about the Vestals’ meddling .Cornelia knows how to manage them.

She was right. They all saw it clearly the day after my return to a house of vestals who did not stop making questions about that famous villa that Sulla had got built in Cumae and where he had spent the last days of his earthly life. –Poor creatures, who will not have a day of their own until they turn thirty!

–It is said... –Little Aelia had blushed –.... Is it true that...the dictator’s spectre sometimes appears in the peristylium?

–My girl! – I pretended getting scandalized but feeling amused inside –Be careful not to say it aloud in front of Lady Cornelia.... – Sulla’s daughter’s mouth did not openly answer but her ironic lowered look did. Yes, we all know that Cornelia was aware of what her father had meant for Rome. She kept a softened sprout of his personality deep within herself. 

The way she managed to introduce Blodwynn into the Pontifex Maximus’ is the proof.. . Obviously, none of the girls were aware of her alien priestly status since Cornelia had only told them that she was a friend of hers. Moreover, Blodwynn had been careful to mask herself with a tunic and a palla in some kind of iridescent blue shade which intensified her ivory-like pale skin and the golden crimson of her many braids.  Cornelia had announced that, in her own name, the priestess would perform the ritual offering of a magnificent present to the Goddess. Something that did not sound strange to anybody: all of them knew that Sulla’s daughter enjoyed  a very well-off position….they  did not know  its origin, that wine trading between Rome and other provinces and colonies, mainly dealing with those kinds of spiced wine which nobody could guess how she had managed to get. It did not take me long to find out that it might have been Blodwynn herself who had instructed her on which herbs and spices would be suitable for each situation and illness. All this had generated a widespread clandestine demand for it all over the peninsula and even overseas.

Of course, everybody knew about that unique cellar that Sulla had behind his cryptoporticus, even though few could imagine that during his last years he had devoted himself to growing vineyards, something that, after his death, his daughter and only heiress had encouraged, promoting active overseas trading in order to enrich her property with vines from other colonies, such as Gades’, whose wine she had made us taste in Cumae, enhanced with those herbs which she had heated inside the wine, a small sample of that immense range whose uses she seemed to master, thanks to that woman who , during the first evening  at home, had brought a huge trunk, possibly made of carved  hazel, oak and ash-wood, whose natural scent seemed to the melt with the contents of  many little boxes, made out of almost twenty sorts of wood and various scents which mixed up with the perfume of incense and myrrh .... I shivered at the thought that it could linger through the rooms and get to the peristylium where the girls might be enjoying their spare time. Luckily, as it had happened in another previous occasion, we had warned them that we needed some privacy, something that they were able to understand with no need to argue, and, thanks to their discretion, we were able to perform what had to be carried about.

We had announced that Lady Cornelia and her friend were going to be lodged in my room until the following day. It was quite a likely thing, as I have plenty of room here, both what initially belonged to me and those who were your mother Aurelia’s lodging. Therefore, as soon as the slaves cleared up dinner trays and goblets, Blodwynn started to proceed.

How on earth did I manage to be cunning enough as to avoid that all of it could reach your ears? It was a matter of will... and respect for you. I would never allow it, that you might feel vexed by your own wife ‘s agreeing on having her body handled , precisely on that spot of which your most private treasure had been lord and master, by means of formulae and manoeuvres which you had loathed in your writings, the body of that virtuous wife that had enhanced your prestige all over Rome. Yes, my lord.... I could not stoop to destroy the most excelling pride of the Roman world if I ever disclosed that this son, bound to inherit your legacy, should owe his own existence to the doings of a barbarian witch, as you would consider her, of the same lineage as those who offered their deities massive propitiating human sacrifices. You, who privately despised that old custom of making battles depend on the aruspex’s considerations on animal organs.... and, eventually, fall naïvely into the bewitchment of that heiress of oldest hermetic knowledge that lies overseas. I would not even have allowed myself those experiments years before. However, the influence of that Eternal Mother’s enlivening power was letting itself be felt in my initial anxiety, so I should seek for a desperate way out at the right time. I knew that none of these women would dare telling it to me openly, that the fact of being repudiated by Rome’s Great Man would mean closing my door to any prospective marriage since the news about my sterility would become ruthlessly public. Besides, against what my friends or you might believe, no matter how distant in time and space all this may seem...Believe me, I know you noticed that, the way I vibrated when, unexpectedly, you would noiselessly come into my triclinium. All my being would boil and melt within your fortress-like arms.  On the other hand, my father would consider me a small failure: his allegiance with you would not have succeeded in getting consolidated.

All of that was what drove me to lie down, barely naked, while a Barbarian priestess was reciting formulae in her own language, in an alarmingly deep voice, repeating them three times in a rhythmical, hypnotic way while she was smearing my breasts and vulva with an anointment which had prepared on the premises, within an atmosphere which was drenched in incense, myrrh and other herbs that  were being burnt.

–Calpurnia, relax yourself... Otherwise, this will be useless... –Cornelia whispered in my ears. Considering the dense atmosphere that had been created, I did not answer to her, trying to hide my fear that those intense smelling clouds would spread around the house. However, an enervating stream, both exultant and soothing, got hold of my veins and all my skin, possessing me like a male force, driving me to avoid any ostensible moan....When Blodwynn finished, she made me have a drink in which some sleep-inducing camomile flowers had been brewed. Sleep came along soundly.  The following noon Bilia –you know, my personal female slave – came to wake me up, worried that I had not got up yet. I did not even eat or drink anything until sunset, when I had an appointment like that of the previous day. Blodwynn had been careful to lay her trunk in the room that had been destined to her, sheltered from the slaves and girls’ curiosity. I noticed that she had covered it with a cotton cloth which had been dyed in an amethyst-like shade , something that surprised me a lot. No, I do not think these Northern peoples may have any access to murex .No doubt that it would have been the wisest thing to cover up all that mess of geometric, misshaped animals combined with those entangled knotty design, which could even make us shiver.  I did not dare asking her how she had made the ointment. It might have to do with that comment about how great it was that pine trees would start giving fruits at that time of the year. She even recommended me to have one pine under the mattress especially during.... fecundatio

– Your mattresses are too thick for him to notice that.

I remember how she perused through the garden rosebuds –What would Aurelia have made of it if she had been able to see the avid eyes! – and her interest to know if they were also available anywhere around Rome. Perhaps she succeeded in finding them, who knows if near Cumae, but the truth is that one day, before going to sleep, she gave one fistful of what looked like rose and laurel leaves and insisted on my keeping them under my cushion every night, She made me drink a brewing –which was no camomile –in which I saw some rose or calendula petal floating .They might be blended with the contents of Blodwynn’s tiny trunks. Its taste was rather sour. Therefore, I drank it up quickly.

The absence of camomile for the first time in several days made me unable to sleep more than an hour. Besides, the intense brightness of the full moon was invading my triclinium through the peristylium, transfiguring the cypresses that Aurelia had had planted. I was aware of this and sat up to enjoy the experience. I sank under my cover as autumn was beginning to be felt. No, Quintilis had not started yet but in those days Roman damp heat had suddenly vanished. The smell of pine and cypress, tinged with the salty breeze that came from Ostia, merged with the spectre-like light through my nostrils and skin pores. Would I ever had that sensation again? That scent was Impregnating the sleepy rosebushes, the ivy around the columns, every bush....  melting my consciousness into them. A slight itch made my eyelashes tremble while I was walking among the trees, feeling the chill stab my bone marrow through my double cover and its hairy fur sheath. It must have been a sudden fever attack, that sensation which was blurring my sight, making me faint… No, I did not want to scream and disturb the small vestals’ sleep. I did not want to bother them or give everyone a good reason to gossip the day after. The image of your former wife –Cornelia’s own daughter –stood too clear-cut amidst my fears and I could not disregard the fact of keeping up appearances. I would not have been able to shout, either. My vocal cords seemed to have vanished away, like the whole rest of my fleshy being, already almost immaterial. So light and languid did it feel… Like my feet, treading on something more evanescent than sand. When I could finally open my eyes again, feeling my body weightless, as if it were bloodless,..I saw that some kind of mist, subtly dense and restless, as if woven with moonbeams, had taken hold of the peristylium, making its way gradually…Sea breeze seemed to become unusual, unexpectedly intense… You could even say that the sea was stirring there below, like at Pater’s villa. I could almost perceive all of them behind me: that full-moon-streaked jet mass, making its way through what my mind perceived as two islands. There sprang some unknown anxiety that I managed to control, trying to unchain violence within my pulse and heartbeat, which still seemed suspended, even when that mute overwhelming hysteria seemed to sharpen my sight, making me see domi and insulae on the rock cliffs. They were similar to Roman houses except for the fact that marble had been substituted by some kind of porous dark-golden stone. On the small inlets of one of the islands there stood colonnaded temples like those of our Forum and Campus Martianus. Far behind them, you could make out the ruins of what might have been an old city, powerful and prosperous, though it did not look like having been devastated so long ago –Maybe one hundred years. It seemed to give off some kind of odourless perfume, which was soon transformed in swift scraps of incense as subtle as if coming from the depths, mixed up with other multiple perfumes whose scent  felt like that supply of herbs which Blodwynn skilfully handled... The flower maiden begotten from a huge bunch of different kinds of flowers, unable to beget a child ... Blodwynn... A greyish-blue sea among the eyelashes, which were sheltered by that wave of imperceptible golden-crimson braids.  Was it that mane-concealed look which was watching me amidst that small beach the sentinel of that portium, so similar to that of the temple which you would dedicate to Venus after your return from the Gaul .That spectre-like transparent look, similar to moonbeams getting into the sea. Timeless. Making its way through that grey-streaked, reddish golden hair...Calpurnia, little Calpurnia. Was it his voice, mature, almost deprived of that despotic coldness from the past? Or maybe that voice which had vanished in my childhood might be coming from some lost place there inside. In the deep…. Perhaps from the sea? Mother!. No, I realized that I had lost my tears. What had happened to me? Something wept silently inside me. ....Her impulse –maybe that pale moony though firm hand of that one who was standing  in front –drove me into the courtyard behind the columns  towards the sacred place . On the podium I recognised that maidenly, curvy imposing figure, the amethyst-coloured mantle and the steer in her right hand. Her golden-green eyes merged into the black sea that spread nearby –her own mother, from whose foam she had been born. In the inner cella fire glowed through emerald sparkles. Maybe it was that look which was invading it all. Or perhaps was it that immense full moon which crowned it, cradled on a crescent ...but deprived from the fleshy bursting femaleness of that figure erected on that podium. That grim which she wore instead of a mouth and her flat eyes made me think of an archaic sculpture, maybe from ancient Etruria  which my father used to keep at home That ghastly dark clay skin... Was she one of those old fertility goddesses? A huge tray with dead-like apples at her feet made my thoughts quiver. According to my father, Carthaginians worshipped a goddess of sexuality and fertility whose attribute was a bunch of apples. No, it could not be like this, so touchable....Through the intense spiral-like waves of incense, myrrh, laurel and some other scents were almost tangible among the lucernae that lit the shadowy path to that descending flight of salt-eroded stairs. A moony outburst of merciless light got hold of me and the cluster of apple trees, willows, blackthorn and other unknown trees which guarded that colossal crystal-like female, maybe carved in immense gems, through whose nakedness moonbeams and the murmuring of that caressing sea were fully filtered. Perhaps all that unbraided mass of hair, violently waving around her body, could be made of woven amethyst shine which might be intensified or tamed under the influence of full moon. Maybe that flying expression, that magnetic, cold transparent look – like yours and also like that one which I felt behind –those slightly smiling lips might have been carved in some kind of dusk–like blue beryl  which grew brighter all over those shoulders and throat, made of sapphire and acquamarine  and then became shades of jade and dazzling emerald  in those stout shaped breasts and, below, in that rounded ,fertile topaz-like belly, which was gradually growing deep crimson as it was descending along those long legs . All of it, moon-like, filtering through my own pores, the fibres of my own body, which, weightless, was lying there, almost suspended. “Mother of fruitful maidenhead, lady of virginal sensuousness, of pale, untouched Moon, of that crimson moon, that which rules hungry fertile blood, of hidden wisdom and death…Do make this barren womb wake up into life through that blood-filled strength of your strong thighs and solar belly, with that intense life breath, beyond our nature, coming from your heart. Feed her with that emerald-like life which flows out of your breasts and nourishes sacred trees… Calm her, soothe her with the sea breeze from your breath… Wake up her mind, her hidden nature, that unknown power of hers with this twilight-like glow of your eyes which flows through your hair”

It could not be heard but felt, vibrating under my skin, as if a rhythmical male voice , long ago accustomed to persuading in an imposing manner, were sailing through my legs, hip contour, the depth of my belly and breasts up to my throat, getting hold of my voice and consciousness , making me flow, pour, pour away…. Some icy brightness came unexpectedly, driving me to blink anxiously and arousing shivers inside a body which was returning to its usual solid weight. Budding dawn was starting to overcome full moonlight, rendering earthliness to the cypresses and rose bushes in the peristylium. Confused and startled , I tried to crawl back to my lectus, where I cuddled in, feeling the shiver not only within my bone marrow but inside my thoughts, still aloof, floating somewhere I did not belong any longer.