CHAPTER XLI

XLI

It might have been that thing which you had to face within my body that night…. or you

could not find in me what would lead you to justify your leaving me alone long before I

could wake up, day after day after that night, obviously encouraged by that presence

beyond the river. I could only get news of you through Marcia or Cornelia, who would

let me know everything she could learn through her family and friends, such as the

Senate’s idea of approving a series of special honours like diverse commemorative

festivities which would remind Romans of your Hispanian victory or devoting a

bloodless day to yourself in all the ludi to be held from then on. They also meant to

erect your statue on Capitol Hill next to… those of ancient kings!!!, whose attributes

you had been allowed to wear in public, just like a new Tarquinius or Servius Tullius….

–Even a temple which would be….twinned to that of Concordia. It’s even said that,

during the celebration of next Lupercalia, he has the intention of donating a

considerable sum of money in order to create an order of equites lupercii that will be

called Lupercii Iulii. No wonder he may be trying to avoid your contact… Now he is in

…. What could I say?...a different existential level. So you must think about how to face

it.

–I think that this excitement at this ... turning point? in Gens Iulia’s history is disturbing

him beyond what was said about him during his latest military campaign...Can you

 

imagine that, when a senatorial committee went to the temple of Venus Genitrix to tell

him about their intention of conferring him all those honours, his answer was an almost

violent refusal? I think he is aware of the Senate’s hidden purposes, that all of it is a

plot to finally undermine his prestige and destroy him.

–Do not discard either reason .Your husband is an exceptional man and, therefore -you

know this much better than I–his personality will be especially prone to great

contradictions.

No doubt Lucius Cornelius Sulla’s daughter was deeply aware of it.

–Until the day he....disappears he will remain split between the temptation of the

greatness that lies beyond what’s simply human and the cautiousness which his

intelligence and cunning will impose on him.

Yes, I could not deny it. That had happened the day when, unaware of how my serfs

 

could distort whatever thing that might be said inside Domus Publica, you arrived home

in panic while it was getting dark, so alien to that husband who I believed I really knew,

away from that leader whose legions would blindly follow and Iulus and Aeneas’

descendant. Just a poor handful of sickly fears, lacerated, out of control... I

momentarily feared that you had fatefully included my own father and me in that

conspiracy of traitors who could be planning to cut your life short. And that unknown

voice, deprived of any harmony and control, suitable to a poor drifting human waste...

No, I realized that I couldn’t allow myself to cradle and comfort you in my arms...No,

that being who seemed to have possessed you would violently reject, even despise me

...I felt strangely relieved by the probability that the shadow who inhabited the gardens

next to the Tiber could have also been the victim of that force which was getting hold of

you so ruthlessly....

–Calpurnia ... Calpurnia...Aren’t you listening to me?

–Yes... Excuse me, Marcia......I was just thinking of Cornelia has just told us...

–I heard my father say so...I think you shouldn’t tell your husband about it. The Senate

 

will approve those measures during Saturnalia, while he’s away from Rome.

Cato’s widow watched me for a long while, understanding what my puzzled look

seemed to be telling her. No, I did not know that you had the intention of spending

Saturnalia away from home. You had not even asked me if I wished to go with you....

 

–I think Marcus Tulius has a villa not far from Rome. No wonder they may have

planned to meet up there.

–Thanks for letting me know, Marcia. I’ll try to keep my father unaware of this, 

although, you know, he would obviously understand it.

I felt a sudden blast of thankfulness running through. Not only for that truth that, though

being painful, they were unveiling to me but also because they also supplied that

anguishing need of warm sincerity and emotional support which were gnawing at me. I

fully understood that I was bond to spend the rest of my life that way: buried under the

 

immense loneliness of Domus Publica while generations of young Vestals would pass

by, considering me just some kind of dusty ghost hanging over on the other side of the

house. For this reason, I felt urged to strengthen my emotional bonds to those people

who really seemed willing to keep them.... Kornel... If only I could... Yes, perhaps by

then, as rumour had it, you would have already wed the She-Pharaoh so that you could

settle in Egypt. Yes, after all, if you left someone as your lieutenant in Rome, this would

be Lepidus instead of this Antonius, able to spy on me so ruthlessly that he will even be

willing to destroy me if this meant any profit for him... Kornel... Yes.... more than once I

had found myself yearning that Cornelia might slide some other crimson tube with her

seal in my hands .I was afraid she would notice my silent anxiety. Anyway, as if

invoking him, every day I would anoint my body with that ointment, focusing my

thoughts on each occasion he had made himself present in my life, either personally or

through his letters, evoking everything he had told me... He had even turned into a

spectre-like presence throughout my daily life, as if I were unconsciously trying to find

a shelter for this uncertainty in which I felt myself sinking... yearning for a support which

neither my father nor my friends could give me. I even came to desperately desire to be

taken away by him, kidnapped in that distant island on the other side of our sea, inside

that cave almost under the sea, feeling the Sibyl’s salty damp voice in my skin pores...

 

Sibyl... Mother... Is this my ultimate destiny? Drying off in Domus Publica, forgotten by

almost everyone and thus be somehow sublimated.... Sublimated.... What for....? No, I

discarded the idea of going to Cumae in search of him. The future King of Rome’s wife

must stay in Rome all the time he should be here just in case... Again that piercing ice

that I could even feel breaking my veins... I knew it could be imminent. I had learnt –

through Marcia or Cornelia, as usual –that you constantly wore your cuirass under your

 

toga, though your personal guard would have been enough for your protection. And

also that you even had your trustiest serf crucified, as he was thought to have tried to

poison you. Nevertheless, you were still reluctant to see her scheming hand in all of

that.... I suddenly remembered the promise that I had made to Blodwynn. To erect a

temple for Mother Goddess, even in the name of one of our deities. Enlightened, I rose

up. But….how to tell Cornelia about it? No, she’d simply do as Kornel would. She

would be discreet, too.