Marilyn Todd - Second Act

‘You’ll rue the day you set up with a Roman,’ her mother had said. ‘It doesn’t do, two cultures crossing. No good can ever come of it.’

Deva spat on to the pavement. What did her mother know? The old crone had been a widow these past fifteen years, she’d grown sour and miserable, and you’d think she’d have been pleased her only daughter had found a good man to settle down with. A herbalist, too! In fact, if Deva only had a child to present to him, her joy would be complete. She giggled. Of course, they’d only been together six months, her and her man. He’d hardly leap for joy if she handed him a bawling bundle and said, ‘There you are, love, that’s your son.’

The joke sustained her as she crossed the Sublician Bridge, its timbers reverberating under the solid clomp of her clogs. Ahead, the sheds and warehouses lined up along the river looked grey and forbidding on this dull, damp day, the shadow of the Aventine Hill looming over them, but Deva wasn’t worried that there was no one else around so early in the morning. A pleasant change, not having to step over piles of steaming dung, or sidestep refuse left behind by the delivery carts, or be on the constant lookout for pickpockets and gropers.

Turning up between the spice warehouse and a marble store and shifting her basket to her other arm, she squeezed the small brooch which lay in the palm of her hand. Bronze and engraved with an intricate leaf pattern, she knew her mother would find the gift ‘too Roman’ for her taste, but then the old crab found fault with everything these days, and you’d think she’d just get on with it and accept that she was a Damascan living in Rome and bloody well get on and enjoy the life and the customs.

‘That’s because you don’t know no better,’ her mother would snap. ‘You was born into it, Deva.’

‘Yes, I do know better,’ she’d reply. ‘You keep telling me,’ and then she and her mother would argue, and then she’d regret going to visit, much less taking the gift she always brought, which was inevitably far more than she could afford, but she did it anyway, because they always parted on a quarrel and even though it was as much her mother’s fault as hers, Deva still felt guilty. And it always bloody hurt that the gift was never good enough…

Between the tall buildings, she found herself sheltered from the wind blowing straight down from the north. There’d be rain later, she thought. Cold, icy rain, but it wouldn’t dampen the spirits of the people crushed into the Circus cheering on the chariots, waving their team colours in the air. Out of the wind, Deva paused to pull the shawl from her head, and thought she saw movement behind her. Obviously not. Nothing stirred. Rats, in all likelihood.

The shawl was Damascan, too. Rich red and deeply fringed, it was her best shawl, because today was a triple celebration. Not only the Festival of the Seven Hills, but her seventeenth birthday and the six-month anniversary of her and her man getting together as a live-in couple. He was twice her age and more. A widower with receding hair. But he was funny, clever, good in bed, too, and he knew a lot about a lot of things, her herbalist. Deva was happy. Why shouldn’t she be? She had a good life with a good man, and good honey to sell at market this morning which should bring her a good profit to tide her over the holidays. Who wouldn’t be dancing for joy? And, of course, if she became pregnant…

That was her reason for visiting her mother. The dance. She stopped again, glanced round, but there was no shadow, no echo of footsteps. Just Deva and her lovely red, fringed shawl. She shook the soft, woollen cloth, draped it across her right shoulder then tied the ends round her waist. Tonight, of course, she would not be wearing her winter bodice and thick skirt. She would put on her best beaded top, the white skirt and then, barefoot, she would act out the Fertility Dance that her mother had showed her when she was a child.

‘You have to tie the shawl right, Deva. It’s all in the k nots.’

Bunkum. It was all in the dance. But believing’s conceiving, and Deva did so want to give her man a son. A little redheaded herbalist, just like his daddy, to fill the crib that her man had carved himself. And if she got the dance just so (and tied the bloody knots right), then they were looking at a plump little autumn equinox baby!

Singing to herself, the bronze brooch clenched in her hand, Deva hurried up the alleyway towards the apartment above the weaver’s that her mother shared with her oldest brother and his family. With luck, she’d have timed it so that her sister-in-law would be coming back from the public ovens with a basket of hot rolls.

The hand that lashed out round her neck and pulled her into the open doorway came so fast, that for a moment Deva didn’t realize what was happening. All she knew was a strong smell of aniseed and that the brooch had gone spinning out of her hand, but she had to get the brooch back. It was for her mother, and had cost a small fortune.

‘Whore!’

Again, she didn’t connect. Whoever this person was talking to, it couldn’t be her. She was a virgin when she’d met her man. Had known no other. Wanted none, either.

‘Dirty, filthy, common little bitch!’ The voice seemed to echo behind her. ‘Scream and I’ll cut your throat like the worthless trash that you are.’

‘P-please. I have no money. Only the brooch.’

What brooch? She’d dropped it, he’d never believe her. Her mind was whirling. He was taking her shawl, her precious shawl, because she had no money to give him. The shawl was worth more than the brooch. Not in financial terms. It was her fertility shawl. The shawl that would give her a baby. Deva began to claw at the cloth until she felt the prick of the knife at the side of her throat. Felt a hot dribble of liquid run down her neck. Instinctively, she stopped fighting.

‘There’s a good little whore.’

Laughing, he flung her to the ground, the stone flagstones sending a shooting pain through one of her knees as the bone cracked.

‘Do as I say and I won’t kill you.’

Deva nodded dumbly. He had dragged her into an empty storehouse. Grain from the smell of it, the dry dusty air. A store that would not be used until the harvest was in. Months-light years-away. If she resisted, tried to run, he would kill her and then, when her body was eventually found, it would be unrecognizable. In the meantime, her man would think she had run off and left him.

So Deva obeyed every twisted and deviant command the Halcyon Rapist gave her.

With her elbows resting on the rail that ran round the upstairs gallery, Claudia watched the frenzied activity in the atrium below. Any fears she might have harboured about the production not being professional had vanished. The pulleys had been rigged up for the canvas scenery and Ion and Doris were hauling on one side, Skyles and Felix on the other, and with every run-through, the backdrop was changed that little bit faster.

‘That bloody rumpus in the street last night,’ Ion grumbled, his handsome face made ugly with a scowl. ‘I couldn’t sleep a bloody wink after that.’

All four men shared the same room, Claudia remembered. The same room where she and a Buffoon with a craggy, lived-in face had sipped wine…

‘Oh, really?’ Doris laughed. ‘Then who was snoring like a carthorse in the bunk above me? It’s the rest of us who couldn’t sleep, kiddo.’

‘Is that why you slipped out?’ Felix asked.

Perhaps it would have happened anyway, but the rope slithered through Doris’s hand, tilting the canvas at a drunken angle.

‘The bleach from your hair has washed into your ears and softened your brain,’ he said, and Claudia noticed a tightness around his mouth as he replied. ‘I didn’t go anywhere.’