The Last Girls of Pompeii Read online

  “We’ll go to the fuller’s first,” Sura announced as she and Julia stepped into the litter. She wanted to get that part over with as soon as possible. Julia was prattling on about how sick she was of weddings, and how impossible Cornelia was. Sura had been hearing this for weeks on end, and she was also weary of the wedding talk but she had to admit, just as tired of Julia’s constant complaining. At the moment, however, Julia’s complaints were not her concerns. It was the fuller. What if he does try something in front of Julia? His advances had become bolder. And she had heard rumors about him in the market place. She knew a woman who knew a woman who knew of another woman—not even a woman really, a mere girl—whom Stephanus had bought as a concubine. She was very young and very pretty, but he grew tired of her and sold her to a brothel. The girl had been pointed out to her just a few weeks before. Now she looked like an old woman, a hag. Sura might be a slave, but her life was just fine as far as she was concerned. She was a house slave of the highest kind. She never scrubbed floors. She ran important errands for her mistress. But most important, she was entrusted with the care of Julia.

  “You say that we are to go to Fabulla’s for hair locks for me?” Julia asked.

  “Yes,”

  “I hate those coils. They remind me of snakes hanging over my ears.”

  “Well, don’t worry. She probably won’t be able to match your color.” Sura laughed as she watched Julia unpin one of her braids from its neat coil and cross her eyes to examine its tail. “Now see, you’ve undone my artful work.”

  “Sorry. Just wanted to check that’s all. Not a very pretty color is it?”

  “It’s a fine color and it’s yours. You watch. Cornelia’s hair will be dry as straw if she keeps dying it the way she does.”

  “Mother’s isn’t, and she’s been dying it longer than Cornelia.”

  “She has more natural oils.”

  “Can you pin my braid back for me?”

  “Not while we’re jiggling along. That’s one of those sharp pins. You want to get stuck?”

  “Not really.” Julia tucked the pin in a fold of her tunic.

  “Oh!” Sura let out a small startled gasp. “We’re here so quickly.”

  At the corner of the fullery they saw a man relieving himself into a large pot by the door. Urine was the single most important ingredient for the work of the fuller. Newly woven clothes or clothes needing to be cleaned were soaked in it for bleaching. The urine made them softer and easier to work with. Sura’s heart sank as Stephanus the owner of the fullery came out to greet them. He looked boldly at Sura.

  “You have brought me the daughter of a citizen! Another vote, perhaps, from your honorable father, Flavius Cornelius Petreius.” He nodded at the inscription painted on the wall of his shop. SUPPORT THE ELECTION OF STEPHANUS AS DECURION. But the entire time Stephanus spoke, his eyes crawled over Sura, and he never even glanced at Julia.

  “I have brought you cloth to be finished,” Sura snapped.

  “Well, step inside. Let’s see how much you have. Your young mistress—the name is Julia—she can wait outside.” He did not waste a glance in her direction. How incredibly rude, Julia thought. It seemed to her as if in a split second her and Sura’s roles had been reversed. Julia suddenly felt that she was here to protect Sura and to serve her slave, rather than the opposite. She stepped forward between Stephanus and Sura.

  “The name is Julia. Julia Petreia and I do not wish to be left outside.”

  “As you wish,” he replied, finally looking at her.

  Sura shot Julia an appreciative glance. The acrid fumes from the basins of urine assaulted them as they stepped into the atrium of the fuller’s shop. In the small shallow pool, the impluvium, where rainwater collected, soda had been added and two female slaves were washing a long piece of gray wool. Aside from the water sloshing in the well of the impluvium there were three vats immediately visible and on a platform above them smaller basins of urine and other rinsing liquids. The sounds of the stomping feet of perhaps half a dozen fullers could be heard as they trampled the fabrics in the treatment basins to soften them further.

  Julia and Sura followed Stephanus toward a long table. Two slaves were at work on a piece of linen spread over the table. “Away! Away!” Stephanus flicked his hand at them as if he was shooing flies. “And careful how you roll that piece,” he barked as they began to remove the linen from the table. Then he turned to Julia. “That cloth is for Popidius Celsinus, a supporter of mine for decurion. Might you mention to your father my campaign?”

  Julia pressed her lips into a firm line and looked directly at the fuller before replying.

  “Might? Should?” As Julia spoke, she felt Sura stiffen beside her.

  “Oh my goodness,” He raised one thin eyebrow. It reminded Julia of a small leaping fish. An anchovy, she thought. “Do you study rhetoric my dear?”

  “No I do not study rhetoric. Rhetoric is not a part of the curriculum for girls. Nor can females vote. Nor do men listen to women on such matters. So why would I waste my breath on a candidate that I do not know, for a vote I cannot give, to a father who will not listen?”

  “My, my,” Stephanus said.

  But before he could continue, Julia stepped toward the table where two women had spread out the wedding fabric. “So when will this be ready? I must tell my mother.”

  Stephanus sighed and edged closer to the table and closer to Sura. Julia saw Sura flinch, and glanced down.

  “Ouch!” the fuller cried out. His hand jerked away from Sura’s bottom. A spot of blood appeared just beneath his elbow.

  “Oh my hairpin! So sorry,” Julia said sweetly. She was holding the pin from the braid she had loosened. “Now I think in five days we might have this back. Wouldn’t you say so?”

  “Yes, five days will be enough time.” Stephanus said shortly. And then almost as an afterthought, he added, “I could deliver it myself. I have some other business to discuss with your parents.”

  Julia was confused. What possible business could this man have with her parents? Was it regarding the election? She stammered, “That . . . that won’t be necessary. I shall have my mother send Faustus for it. Come Sura we have much to do.”

  “What a vile, disgusting human being,” Julia said as she and Sura sank back into the cushions of the litter. “Does he always do that?”

  “Yes, except when his wife is around.”

  “Oh, he has a wife?”

  “Yes,” Sura sighed.

  “Poor thing!” She paused. “I should lend her my hairpin.”

  Sura laughed. “Julia!”

  Seven

  DINNER WAS IN THE SUMMER dining room which opened onto the garden. a At last Cornelia and her fiancé Cassius would occupy the place of honor on the middle couch. On a second couch, the customary place for the master of the house and his wife, Julia’s parents were just reclining. Opposite them, sharing the third couch, was her cousin Marcus, his mother Livia, and her husband, also named Marcus. Julia was late. She came rushing into the dining room. Cornelia shot her a furious glance. Foot! Cornelia mouthed. Julia quickly backed up, then stepped forward placing her right foot, and not her left, very deliberately over the threshold to avoid bringing bad luck. No one else had noticed this violation of dining etiquette except perhaps for her cousin Marcus, who would think it was funny. Julia then proceeded to a basin, where a slave poured water over her hands. She removed her sandals, and another slave washed her feet.

  “These sea urchins are simply marvelous,” Julia’s aunt Livia exclaimed, and helped herself to another as a servant walked by with a platter heaped with delicacies from the sea that included everything from the urchins to sardines and conger eel.

  “Try the pullet, Livia.” Cornelius said, and signalled a slave to bring over another platter with two young hens that had been roasted to golden perfection.

  “And the dormice,” Herminia added. “A new recipe—try and guess the stuffing.” Roasted dormice were a staple of every Roman table.
Julia liked to help the cook catch the dormice, who roamed in a fenced-off area of the garden.

  Livia took a bite of one, closed her eyes and thoughtfully chewed. “Minced venison and pine nuts?”

  “Pork,” Herminia answered. “Yes, and pine nuts,”

  “Delicious,” Livia said, and then turned her attention to Julia. “How sweet you look child. Now tell us what you shall wear for your sister Cornelia’s wedding. You looked charming for Flavia’s. I dare say you should wear the same stola, or at least that color. It so becomes you.”

  “No,” Cornelia interrupted sharply. “She must look different for my wedding.”

  “What does it matter?” Cassius asked, and pinched Cornelia’s cheek. “No one shall take their eyes off my beautiful bride.” Cornelia tucked her chin in and giggled. Nestling up to her fiancé, she tipped her cheek so it rested on Cassius’s arm. They were always nuzzling and saying completely inane things to one another. It made Julia want to vomit.

  “Come sit next to me,” Flavia said. Her sister and her husband, Cuspius, were at the other end of her parents couch.

  Julia looked at her mother. “May I, Mother?”

  “Of course, dear.”

  “There’s more room over here,” Marcus said.

  “Oh we’ll fit her in,” Flavia replied.

  Julia blushed. “I’ll be right across from you Marcus—see!” And she plucked a grape and flung it at him. He opened his mouth and caught it. Everyone laughed. Julia walked over to the couch and wedged herself in between Flavia and Cuspius.

  She liked Cuspius so much. He never spoke down to her but treated her as if she were the same age as her older sisters. Her aunt Livia, however, was occupying his attention completely. She was trying to wheedle out any information about the upcoming games for the Vulcanalia festival. Julia found this conversation much more interesting than the endless talk about weddings. But she couldn’t understand her aunt’s sudden interest in the games. Aunt Livia was married to her father’s brother, and there was often tension between her mother and Livia. They were about as different as two women could be. Her mother considered Livia “coarse,” coarse in her looks—she was overly painted and as stuffed as a roasted thrush, as Herminia once said—and coarse in her conduct. Herminia also thought Livia put on airs. Julia agreed, and she often wondered how Marcus had turned out so nice and smart. She didn’t think either her aunt or her uncle was very bright.

  She looked at her aunt now and studied her. In spite of being fat, she was very pretty. Her kohl-rimmed eyes were sparkling now as she talked with Cuspius. The violet stola she was wearing matched the color of her eyes and set off her heavy necklace with its large chunks of gleaming pyrite and turquoise beads the size of hen’s eggs. Her hair was dyed a violent shade of red, and her over-rouged cheeks gave her a rather hectic complexion. To Julia’s eyes Livia appeared almost encrusted with jewels and overly embroidered stolas and tunics. Her villa was the same. Every wall was painted with elaborate gilt-edged scenes, and she had a newly commissioned fountain of Apollo driving his chariot that was the talk of Pompeii. “Spends money like a fool!” Herminia would often mutter. Julia sensed it was not the money that offended her mother so much as the poor taste that Livia unfailingly demonstrated. The Apollo statue had been called tawdry and overdone, and Apollo was said to be cast in the likeness of her husband. Supposedly this helped Marcus Octavian part with the thousands of sesterces it had cost. But despite all this, Julia still liked her aunt Livia quite a bit.

  “So,” Aunt Livia said to Cuspius, “is now . . . what is his name? Oh my goodness. Things just fly out of my head these days.” She tapped the elaborate coils of braids as if to jostle her brains. “You know my dear, the retiarius who fought so beautifully at the Neptunalia games.” A retiarius was a net fighter. His weapons were a net and a trident.

  “You mean Gavianus?” Cuspius replied.

  “Yes! That’s the one. What a fine fighter. A beautiful fighter!” she said dreamily.

  “Yes, he shall be fighting. I can’t tell who he’ll be against. But the roster of fighters is a good one. That lanista from Rome, despite what they say about him, does get good gladiators.”

  “But such a repulsive trade,” Herminia said, sucking on the bone of the pullet. “Trading in human flesh really, isn’t it?”

  “No agents, no games, my dear,” Cornelius said. “Old Tullius gave us over a decade of wonderful gladiators. It’s a hard business. You buy, you sell, you rent. You have to come up with twenty good pairs of gladiators for every feast day, not to mention the games to honor dignitaries, or for important funerals. Then you have to maintain them, take care of them. That was what was wrong with Gaius Rufus. Now there was a degenerate man if there every was one. The human flesh he wasted!

  “They ran him out of town finally didn’t they?” Cornelius’s brother Marcus said.

  “Yes, and it was good riddance.”

  The main course had finished and slaves began clearing away the dishes. Sura and another slave girl came with loaves of bread which were broken and then passed around for wiping mouths and hands. Cornelia summoned Sura, and as the slave bent over, she sneaked a wipe of her greasy hands on Sura’s long thick hair.

  Julia felt Flavia wince. It was terrible behavior.

  Julia looked at Sura and as she so often did wondered if it bothered her. How was one to know a slave’s mind? And she was close to Sura, closer than any mistress ever was to a slave, or so she thought. But still she knew there stretched between them a vast gulf that was truly uncrossable.

  “Cornelia does it to irritate me,” Julia whispered, glaring as her oldest sister again covertly wiped her hands on Sura’s glossy long black hair. Usually the hand wiping was done with cloth.

  “Attention!” Livia was raising her glass as if to offer a toast. She then looked at her husband. “Marcus?”

  “Yes,” said Marcus. “We have a little announcement to make.”

  Julia glanced at her cousin Marcus. The color had drained from his face.

  “As many of you know our son Marcus has been promised to Drusilla Maximia since he was five years old and she was four. This month on the same day as that the lovely Cornelia and Cuspius are joined in marriage, Marcus turns fifteen. By Roman law he will be a man and therefore shall wear to the wedding the toga virilis for the first time. We too have been consulting with the augurs and the haruspices and have now fixed a date for the wedding of Marcus and Drusilla.”

  “You have?” Marcus croaked.

  “Yes, it is to be on the seventh day of October, my son. And the formal betrothal will be in one month.”

  “My sponsalia in a month?” Marcus seemed in a daze.

  Everyone began to applaud. Julia, though, was as stunned as Marcus. Yes, she had known that Drusilla and he had been betrothed since they were very young, but somehow she never expected the marriage to actually happen. How had he grown up so fast that he could now marry?

  “The seventh day?” Marcus said. “That’s less than two months from now.”

  “Yes, yes, dear plenty of time,” Livia replied. “It’s really the bride’s family that has all the work to do, as I am sure Herminia will agree.”

  “Oh yes!” Herminia nodded.

  “So I say,” the senior Marcus continued, “Let’s raise our cups to young Marcus and his future wife.”

  As cups were raised to be quaffed in one swallow , which was the custom for toasting, Julia slid her eyes toward Marcus, who looked completely bewildered. She had to get them out of here. Her mother often excused them early from the table. She would ask just before dessert was served. By that time everyone would be fairly tipsy.

  It seemed like forever before the platters of dessert began arriving.

  “Mother, might Marcus and I be excused to walk in the garden?”

  Livia gave Marcus a sudden sharp look. “No! Marcus is no longer a child. He is soon to be married. He should remain at the table, not go toddling off with Julia.

  To
ddling off with me! What am I a baby? Julia was furious. She had always thought her aunt Livia liked her.

  “Mother!” Marcus began to rise from the couch.

  “Livia, don’t be ridiculous!” Her husband patted her hand. “Let them have a turn in the garden. “Here have some more wine.” He poured the remainder of his cup into his wife’s. “He has the rest of his life to be a husband.” he sighed and everyone laughed. Everyone except Julia and Marcus, who quickly got up to leave.

  “Did you know this was going to happen?” Julia asked Marcus as soon as they were at the very farthest end of the garden.

  “No, but I should have suspected something. I do turn fifteen in less than three weeks and . . .” His voice dwindled off as they walked through the night shadows that stretched across the garden.

  “It’s not the end of the world,” Julia said, and then immediately regretted it. “Oh, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. That was terrible of me.”

  “No it wasn’t. The thing I love about you, Julia, is that you always say what you think. You are the most honest person I know.” He paused. “It’s not the end of the world.” He paused again and looked deeply into Julia’s eyes. “But it is the end of something, isn’t it?” He took her hand, her limp, dead hand. Marcus, aside from Sura, was the only person with whom Julia was not self conscious about her arm.

  Julia felt the color rising in her face. She was not exactly sure what he meant by these words, or how to respond. “But Drusilla is a sweet girl and so pretty, “ she said. He was still holding her hand, and now he squeezed it gently. She did not have much sensation in those fingers, but she could feel a little, and it both excited and confused her. Was it pity he was showing her, or something else?

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “She’s a cousin on your mother’s side isn’t she?”

  “Second cousin.” Marcus let go of her hand