CHAPTER XXIII

XXIII

Despite Antonius’ hovering shadow and the consequences that all those consciously experienced sensations might cause on myself, that night I shut myself into my room, when feeble moonlight was a little more intense. Again the same repelling drive against that sour-and-sweet scent…. Would I really resist it to the end? Anointed on those red golden beads around my neck which fell over my waist, that soft crystallized glow merging into that liquid note torn from the harp, echoing within that voice which could be mine, unfolded within myself, around me, whirling around my thoughts. Could I submit that nausea which was springing up? I decided to watch it, face to face, scrutinize that sour thing which was shaking through my throat , weakening me, making me feel like a coward, showing me how reduced and little I was… Nothing to do with New Alexander or that that divine force incarnated inside a queen who lived in the East of the Roman world. Definitively this made me think that I possessed some natural power which enabled me to look into the eyes of that quivering that which was shaking my own roots like a snake waving up through my life points , those power knots which I was trying to strengthen… That snake – a cobra? –had stood up in front of me, sneeringly “ Calpurnia, plain Calpurnia… who do you thing you can compete with? “…I remembered wisdom serpents Gallic priests always spoke about. This quietened me up. I tried to listen to it …. No… where was I? My voice was reverberating in the cubiculum, plucking that harp cord which gave a slightly higher note than that of the day before. I blinked and neatly saw my everyday surroundings. “Well… at least it hasn’t been such a traumatic experience!”

During the next days, as usual, I was visited by Marcia, Portia and Cornelia, who, with resignation, told me about that predictable speech which Antonius had delivered in front of still smoking remainders of what had been Bellona’s temple and how he had captivated all the people who crowded the surroundings.

–Well…He is no more than one more of their gang, Demagogy, you know, is contagious…A sort of invisible stream that starts flowing through Clodius, then Curio…and finally Marcus…

They stared at me, absorbed rather than silent. In their puzzlement they had noticed how my voice had been growing tinged with some rare undertones…Warm, even melodious, in sundry shades…multicoloured… Full moon had already flooded the cypresses and pines in the peristylium with its fertile light. Unlike what I had expected, the following steps of that learning –should I call it so? - did not mean any risky personal tribute. From the moment I started practising with topaz, I felt that this salty flow which used to take hold of my mind remained peaceful and while my voice and the notes from the harp were merging into a stream, some kind of serene deep consciousness through that yellow sparkle possessed me, not through clear-cut, well-defined images but through the certainty that I was really wise and had the power… or that at least I started to be like that. I kept watching that awareness of my own ability till the blackbirds renewed their daily dialogue one hour before dawn. And the next dusk, through jade and those notes which were becoming a little bit brighter, in my voice I discovered all that shaped my feelings, my ability to quiver, that immaterial beating which was parallel to that of my blood… and the following nights, while the womb of the moon was waxing, that potential Calpurnia who had lived by my side since I was begotten started showing herself. Finally, the day which was ruled by a plentiful, huge, pale purple moon…my amethysts became a sort of corpse whose slight transparency only partly invoked that dazzling life-generating force which had begotten the inner self of that one whose motherly, almost sibyl-like voice had reverberated within myself for a long time, and also the nature of those primeval beings who shared her nature…. And mine… That fruitful enlightening power which, depending on the place and time, could be called Tanit, Isis…. Ishtar…Tellus… Artemis… Keridwenn …. Rhiannon… Bona Dea…Magna Mater…. My voice was slipping off my fingers, which plucked the last string of my harp, ascending towards the perfume of those pines which had just been fruitful with ivory-like light … Were they shafts of amber-like, crimson, emerald-like, purple, iridescent force which, like immense birds, were fading away beyond that ruthlessly black sky sheltering Palatine Hill ….? It could have been real, the fact that my notes, like some energy beyond my fleshy self, would make me hover all over Rome, transcending it, ascending towards spheres beyond what’s tangible, strip myself from its topaz, sapphire or ruby sparkling and then, reduced to the nakedness of this most subtle harmony, merge into that invisible flow that has lived forever…? No, I couldn’t let myself be taken away …. No, you are no shadow which has been engulfed by that force of being lying beyond our understanding … You are a real woman who must… assert her own pride? Keep her man?

And a solid Calpurnia had sprung up, with a voice that had been modulated by rites… Calpurnia?... Am I still Calpurnilla? Marcia and Portia are discreetly looking at each other, puzzled by my intense sparkling eyes and the way my movements have become so paused and measured. Oh, Gods…I am intimidating them…. Is this the price to pay?