CHAPTER XVII

XVII

The warmth of that embrace struck me. How on earth could it be that you were back? No, it wasn’t possible. You were meant to be busy with the campaigns in Greece, so close to what would happen to be a turning point in the development of the war nundina later. Why was I so certain that you wouldn’t be crushed down by Pompeius Magnus and the optimates? Might this be an enlightening blast through my thoughts again? No, this time I had not felt that painful prophetic female echo... Nevertheless, it was your own touch: hard, sweetly warm... The same slender hands, which, shaking were unravelling my hair, trembling like the first time....

–Calpurnia .... Calpurnia.....

Which voice was that?

–Calpurnia.... What will I.... will you make of yourself? My fragile Calpurnia, how will you manage to face what is yet to come?

I blinked. He was aware of my blushing.

–Do not worry, Calpurnia... I had to hold you and carry you in my arms to a place where you could lie down. Cornelia.... She knows what to do to make you feel stronger. If you intend to go on these experiences, you will need some kind of special physical protection to develop and strengthen that channel which is just on the middle of the top of your head, through which all the forces are filtered, the ones that drive you to vibrate as if foreseeing something.. Yes, Calpurnia; despite everything I told you a while ago, I truly doubt you are physically fit to undergo that initiation into supreme knowledge I spoke to you about.... Notwithstanding all this, Calpurnia, we must do something.

“We must do something!” Hadn’t I repeated that to myself day after day within my loneliness? Something that could make me avoid being repudiated. Who would dare marrying the Great Roman’s rejected wife, no matter how well-off my status could be? It is such a thing that no other childless Roman lady would ever suffer in her lifetime. I had grown too heavily tabooed by my own barrenness, something that was plain to see. Father... No, it would turn out to be no trifle for Lucius Calpurnius, the fact of losing his privileged position, so close to the Great Roman. Mother... What.... would you have said? Who knows...

“Calpurnia...... Calpurnia”

“Calpurnia....”

My belly shook, as if rising up to desperately protest in front of that shadow which seemed to hang over my skin pores... What to do? Could it be.... Perhaps was this idea which seemed to grow almost tangible before my startled eyes?

“ Just let this poor infertile mother be fruitful in wisdom... Let your womb and breasts get profit of that strength which is strange to any man so that it generates that deep primeval wisdom from which what is sacred and female comes....”

“Enlightening shadow... how?”.

–Every time you experience that life impulse to... satisfy that need to feel your lord, Calpurnia... even those days your body wants to be especially fertile... Do concentrate yourself on that primary power which springs out of you, stored inside your lower belly and breasts. Watch it, try to find out which colour it is on each track of your body...Feel it run... how it nourishes each of your limbs...all your inner being. Feel it flow there, at the top of yourself and how it shines through each particle that makes part of your body... Nourishing, enlightening it... Making the Wise woman, the Mother of wisdom flow... From that moment it is you who must see what is happening to you. It does not depend on me how to guide you.. Remember you are the mother of that force. Only you can decode and interpret what it might intend to let you know, Calpurnia, my beautiful loyal Calpurnia. I simply demand of you that you will follow the instructions that I’ll give to Cornelia. You know that, missing some essential things where I live, we must turn to other additional means. I cannot trigger that energeia , as Greeks call it, by exposing yourself to sunbeams through gems. If I may do it, on my next visit I’ll provide you with new means to make it all more effective.

During the days of my stay at Pompeii, Cornelia Sulla did not forget it. Initially twice, then three and later up to five times a day she would made me have a certain amount of wine in which she had boiled incense, myrrh, orange, clove , anis and fennel. She would alternate this brewing with another one mixing “lady’s mantle”, parsley, lavender, rosemary, geranium, orange and camomile. The wine would always be mixed with water from those wells which were linked to the caves that had sheltered sibyls long ago.

–I will help you to open up your body at daybreak and dust in waves of incense that you must burn with cinnamon, laurel, honeysuckle, calendula, sagebrush, rosebud ,absinth, thyme or acacia, clover, cypress, hazel, lily, fir, moss, rosemary and rowan. Do not worry: Cornelia will prepare it all, including the exact amount you must take with yourself when you come back to Rome...The Vestals!!! How could I have forgotten about them?

Perhaps this was the first time I saw Kornel really puzzled, alien to that magnet-like presence which seemed to emanate out of him naturally. I felt some kind of peculiar emotion. He must be more or less your age...or my father’s.

–You must be especially cautious about it, Kornel. The Great Roman’s wife....

I noticed some veiled ironical smile through his beard.

– ... Not only must she be virtuous...

I had a slight glimpse of his glossy teeth..

– ....Ointment vases... Yes, why not? That incense and the rest of the ingredients can be ground into some sort of ointment with which you will massage your body just immediately waking up in the morning and before going to sleep every day. Be careful: do not use it in your privates. Do smear it very slightly and gently on your armpits, groins and inner thighs.

Therefore I learnt how to slowly smash that huge amount of resinous grains, tiny leaves and flower petals that Cornelia would provide in the exact proportions that Kornel had prescribed , after having exposed me to those clouds which were spirally ascending from those recipients where incense, myrrh, flowers and herbs were being slowly consumed, filtering that sensuously sacred sweetness throughout my skin pores and body openings, fading all that old embarrassing modesty into a wave of careless pleasure which was getting hold of me, making me feel like being about to be possessed by you, my lord..... Luckily, that exposure was too short to make me lose consciousness. Just as it had been on the verge of happening to me while I was firmly handling that bronze masher inside that resinous dough within the huge, incredibly transparent crystal bowl that Cornelia had given me.

–It must all be prepared only right here. We mustn’t use any other recipients, according to Kornel’s instructions.

.... And the masher was going deeper and deeper into that whirlwind of grains which were still reluctant to be crushed...Crawling along that spiral tunnel that my hand had opened within that incense cloud... And I watched that translucent, almost bright, pale emerald-like flow which had sprung up at the pace of my heartbeat and was flying upwards to merge into that wave of sunbeams which were being filtered through sapphires, ascending through my throat and face and finally getting lost in that mauve twilight-like light in the centre of my head....

Could it be true, this thing I felt swallowing me, dragging this self of mine into that spiral stream my hands had just shaped???

–Calpurnia.... That’s enough for today.

CHAPTER XVI

XVI

Why should I remain submitted to all this useless passive boredom, waiting for something that I could not even value in its true measure? Gods… why on earth must I reduce my hopes to someone of whom I could not expect that thing I secretly yearned for…The opening to what? Maybe Wisdom, the consequence of something that was intensely beating within that deepest part of myself? That obsession to find out why I should remain here? Since I was aware of it, my lord, that my life as your wife was bound to be abruptly cut off one day or another, barren and repudiated. Gods…how deeply I used to envy the High Vestal, even Servilia herself… and your own mother. Perhaps they all had some natural inner force, possessing some kind of assertive individuality that nobody had tried to instil in me. Mother …why?

–Six attempts to light Vesta’s fire!!!

That marble-like chiselled face had grown almost translucent behind his silver-streaked coppery beard.

–How many years have gone by since something like this last happened?

I obviously didn’t know anything about it. I saw him reading my scared astonishment.

–Calpurnia…. Are you really aware of this? I once told that you would only be able to find out which sort of gift might be bestowed on you just by yourself. Nothing, thus, depends on my own will. Little could I do out of my own initiative. However….Did you feel any hint by chance?

My puzzlement was growing on and on.

– Six….Twice the face of the Great Goddess. Maybe one of her three faces… Which one is missing? The Maiden is already present in young vestals! And the Wise woman, who knows about the Occult Lore, represented, as you know, by the high Vestal.

I saw that he was allowing me to develop my own thoughts. Yes, the Mother, Fertile Sensuousness, was missing… Should I personify that myself? However… why now instead of so many times before, when I had presided over the same ceremony?

–Calpurnia …. Perhaps…Who knows! How about interpreting it as sign to let you know that it’s time for you to start performing that task you have been waiting for so long?

Some slight shuddering started vibrating under my skin. Could he have perceived it? Yes, he was saying it out loud, that idea I had kept hidden so fiercely and in which I had always wanted to involve him. What might it be like, that task which would go beyond what was expected? I slowly watched him. That net of tiny wrinkles around his firm invasive look seemed to vanish ...Was that my fate, the one that I thought to be deciphering within that chiasm of silvery blue sparkles, merging into those translucent eyelashes? Whereto did he mean to lead me? In fact, what did I really want to do about

my own life? Was it really anything beyond my own wish, which I had to carry out in order to justify my own breathing, my daily obsessions? Anyway, who else but she has the right to justify it, to give an explanation to all these days, years that I had to spend here , cloistered within this Domus Publica .Mother ....

“Sibyl….!!!”

How could it have happened? We weren’t staying in that island on the other side of our sea, where that lament impregnated the porous rock with its echo... Might it be any remote sensation, perhaps trembling remainders of those oracles which still vibrated inside the subterranean caves in Cumae, the same ones which were linked through galleries to the wells of the villa which had once belonged to Sulla?

“Mother...”

Was it that again, that voiceless flow rising beyond the air, coming from that inner being of mine, the same one that had fully manifested itself that night? I made an effort within that stream which seemed to come from the bottom of my womb.

“Mother…???”

It flowed, flowed.....

“Sibyl....listen to me ....answer....”

What could I expect of all this? May I be bound to wear Minerva’s face? Shouldn’t I represent that fertile Artemise which is worshipped in Aephesus?

“Calpurnia... Calpurnia... my little one.... they are all faces of the same mother....Dear Calpurnia.... there isn’t one single kind of fertility.....There are other ways to be fruitful....”

What other choice could I have? Which priesthood would be allowed to the Great Roman’s wife? Should I have been destined to it ....why couldn’t my life have been channelled into that since my childhood, just like Vestals and Blodwynn-like priestesses? That desperate drive which was coming from my bosom seemed to be about to split me in two, tearing my consciousness away, as if it were a dried-off, brittle barren willow-tree...

“Calpurnia...”

This time it was a deeper, familiar nearby voice ....Perhaps a male one?

“You must be the Lady of Wisdom. Otherwise, another woman will bear your face. The one which legitimately belongs to you. The face of a fruitful-wombed wife. Never let her crush you down...”

No, it wasn`t Kornel’s voice but an echo-impregnated vibration. Like that other prophetic, almost motherly one. Just the same which seemed to have come to him.

–My lady Calpurnia...what ...wise lady was that?

–My lord Kornel....

I had recovered my usual voice, which I felt somehow rusty, due to the scarce use I used to make of it.

–... Whatever thing I could tell you is already known to you....

Suddenly, as I would finally understand such a long time later, I knew he had been aware of all that. Might he also know, in spite of all, anything more about that misty being that had been initiated into some kind of wisdom and might be enabled to wear my face? Anyway, he well knew which steps he had to take.

–Lady Calpurnia, despite all my initial doubts, now I see you are really destined to attain knowledge. That sensitivity of yours, open to respond to intangible callings. Yes, I don´t know how aware you may be of all of this, how useful you could be to advise so many people on a large number of things that any other Roman lady ignores. But you, nevertheless...

–My lord, you know I am obliged to be much more discreet than most patrician women. Moreover, do not forget that we Calpurnii are plebeians. No matter how rich and powerful we have become.

–Yes, I told you. Rumour has it all around Rome that...

He stopped so as not to hurt me.

–Calpurnia ...

His transparent blue eyes had grown unusually bright.

–Now I am fully sure that you should go there... Not only your subtle bodiless being ... But all of yourself... would gain all the wisdom which belongs to you. You would learn about the healing power of each gem according to their colours and crystal structure… and how to transform the function of each body organ and each aspect of your personality and emotions by making moon and sunbeams flow through crystal... Something that is only allowed to certain beings of a race about whom you may have never heard about... You have the right to possess it and, since it is something forbidden to most men and women, you may have the duty to master that lore in order that it will not get lost or limited to that unreachable small place from which I come... though having been born, raised and grown up in Rome. Calpurnia... What shall we do....? I will teach you to modulate your voice and make it vibrate as light does through different gems. They will help you not only to heal... but to seduce as well.... No, my little one, I am not proposing you any wicked thing... I only want you to cast your influence on many different kinds of people, including those powerful ones that will certainly overwhelm you, in order to empower you to face your future.

–My lord Kornel.... what do you really know about my future?

I firmly kept my gaze within those freezing sparkles in his eyes.

–I only have my intuition, which has been properly developed through years of

retirement, relative silence and the study of everything life might wish to transmit me. It is you, Calpurnia, to see beyond what I can perceive, since this lies in your blood. Calpurnia, i can only advise you to learn how to defend your own ground in time.... before it is too late.

–No, Kornel!!!

My own hysterical reaction startled both of us.

–You know there’s so much more... Why can`t you ... or maybe you don´t want to tell about it?

–Calpurnia!!! In the name of all that enlivens Life….

I noticed him making an effort to keep calm.

–I just have...intuition blasts...Perceptions coming through those... ethereal streams from the womb of the cave which is dedicated to the Fertile, Sensuous Great Mother, that which is said to be the dwelling of those living forces which are thought to have begotten those non-human beings who brought arcane magical wisdom to Britannia and Hibernia. The same one which survived the sinking of that primeval world into the depth of the sea and which also spread all over the East, growing its roots on both sides of the Fertile Great River in Kheme. It all happened one day, during the offering of apples to the Mother Goddess... Some kind of shuddering vibration shook my skin. Perhaps it was She –Isis, Astarte or whatever she might be called –trying to make me see... Might she intend to rule again, flesh and blood, just where she once used to...? Nevertheless, as far as I know, Egypt has returned to the hands of that dynasty, the descendants from one of Alexander’s generals, whose children-kings leave State affairs to royal civil servants and marry their own sisters. Forgive me, Calpurnia; it is not proper to say this to a virtuous roman matron. Well, as you see, I just have such vague inconsistent hints that I can’t give you more information about this issue than all that you may imagine. What else can I do but make you see by yourself through that natural channel you own and must train?

His voice was controlled, rhythmical, mildly deep, reverberating through my fibres, within my head... wrapping itself around me, getting hold of me like a whirlpool, possessing my fainting being....

–Calpurnia!!!