Steven Saylor - The House Of The Vestals

"But her horrid appearance…"

"An illusion. When I followed Furius's widow to market, I saw her purchase a considerable quantity of calf's blood. She also gathered a spray of juniper berries, which her little girl carried for her."

"Berries?"

"The cankers pasted on Furia's face-juniper berries cut in half. The blood was for matting her hair and daubing on her neck. As for the rest of her appearance, her ghastly makeup and costuming, you and I can only guess at the ingenuity of a household of women united toward a single goal. Furia has been in seclusion for months, which explains the almost uncanny paleness of her flesh-and the fact that she was able to cut off her hair without anyone taking notice."

I shook my head. "A remarkable woman. I wonder why she never married? I suppose the turmoil of the civil war must have destroyed any plans she had, and the death of her brothers ruined her prospects forever. Misery is like a pebble cast into a pond, sending out a wave that spreads and spreads."

I headed home that night weary and wistful. There are days when one sees too much of the world's wickedness, and only a long sleep in the safe seclusion of home can restore an appetite for life. I thought of Bethesda and Eco, and tried to push the face of Furia from my thoughts. The last thing on my mind was the haunted soldier and his legion of lemures.

I passed by the wall of his garden, smelled the familiar tang of burning leaves, but thought nothing of it until I heard the little wooden door open behind me and the voice of his old retainer.

"Finder! Thank the gods you've finally returned!" he whispered hoarsely. He seemed to be in the grip of a strange malady, for even though the door allowed him more room to stand, he remained oddly bent. His eyes gleamed dully and his jaw trembled. "The master sent messengers to your house-only to be told that you're out, but may return at any time. But when the lemures come, time stops. Please, come! Save the master-save us all!"

From beyond the wall I heard the sound of moaning, not from one man but from many. I heard a woman shriek, and the sound of heavy objects being overturned. What madness was taking place within the soldier's house.

"Please, help us! The lemures, the lemures!" The old slave made a face of such horror that I started back. I reached inside my tunic and felt my dagger. But of what use would a dagger be, to deal with those already dead?

I stepped through the little door. My heart pounded like a hammer in my chest.

The air of the garden was dank and smoky; after the drizzle, a clammy cold had descended like a blanket on the hills of Rome, holding down the smoke of hearth fires, making the air thick and stagnant. I breathed in an acrid breath and coughed.

The soldier came running from within the house. He tripped, fell, and staggered forward on his knees, wrapped his arms around my waist and looked up at me in abject terror. "There!" He pointed back toward the house. "They pursue me! Gods have mercy-the boy without a head, the soldier with his belly cut open, all the others!"

I peered into the hazy darkness, but saw nothing except a bit of whorling smoke. I suddenly felt dizzy and lightheaded. It was because I had not eaten all day, I told myself; I should have been less proud and presumed upon Cornelia's hospitality for a meal. Then, while I watched, the whorl of smoke began to expand and change shape. A face emerged from the murky darkness-a boy's face, twisted with agony.

"See!" cried the soldier. "See how the poor lad holds his own head in his fist, like Perseus holding the head of the Gorgon! See how he stares, blaming me!"

Indeed, out of the darkness and smoke I began to see exactly what the wretched man described, a headless boy in battle garb clutching his dismembered head by the hair and holding it aloft. I opened my mouth in awe. Behind the boy, other shapes began to emerge-first a few, then many, then a legion of phantoms covered with blood and writhing like maggots in the air.

It was a terrifying spectacle. I would have fled, but I was rooted to the spot. The soldier clutched my knees. The old slave began to weep and babble. From within the house came the sound of others in distress, moaning and crying out.

"Don't you hear them?" cried the soldiers. "The lemures, shrieking like harpies!" The great looming mass of corpses began to keen and wail-surely all of Rome could hear it!

Like a drowning man, the mind in great distress will clutch at anything to save itself. A bit of straw will float, but will not support a thrashing man; a plank of wood may give him respite, but best of all is a steady rock within the raging current. So my mind clutched at anything that might preserve it in the face of such overwhelming, inexplicable horror. Time had come to a stop, just as the old slave had said, and in that endlessly attenuated moment a flood of images, memories, schemes and notions raged through my mind. I clutched at straws. Madness pulled me downward, like an unseen current in black water. I sank-until I suddenly found the solid truth to cling to.

"The bush!" I whispered. "The burning bush, which speaks aloud!"

The soldier, thinking I spied something within the mass of writhing lemures, clutched at me and trembled. "What bush? Ah yes, I see it, too…"

"No, the bush here in your garden! That strange, gnarled tree among the yews, with yellow leaves all around. But now the leaves have all been swept in among the others… burnt with the others in the brazier… the smoke hangs in the air__"

I pulled the soldier out of the garden, through the small door and onto the pathway. I returned for the old slave, and then, one by one, for the others. They huddled together on the cobblestones, trembling and confused, their eyes wide with terror and red with blood.

"There are no lemures!" I whispered hoarsely, my throat sore from the smoke-even though I kept glimpsing the lemures above the wall, cackling and dangling their entrails in the empty air.

The slaves shrieked and clutched one another. The soldier hid behind his hands.

As the slaves grew more manageable, I led them in groups to my house, where they huddled together, frightened but safe. Bethesda was perplexed and displeased at the sudden invasion of half-mad strangers, but Eco was delighted at the opportunity to stay up until dawn under such novel circumstances. It was a long, cold night, marked by fits of panic and orgies of mutual reassurance, while we waited for sanity to return.

The first light of morning broke, bringing a cold dew that was a tonic to senses still befuddled by sleeplessness and poisoned by smoke. My head pounded like thunder, with a hangover far worse than any I had ever gotten from wine. A ray of pale sunlight was like a knife in my eyes, but I no longer saw visions of lemures or heard their mad wailing.

The soldier, haggard and dazed, begged me for an explanation.

"The truth came to me in a flash," I said. "Your annual ritual of burning leaves, and the annual visitation of the lemures… the smoke that filled your garden, and the plague of spirits… these things were all somehow connected. That odd, twisted tree in your garden isn't native to Rome, or to Italy. How it came here, I have no idea, but I suspect the seeds for it came from the East, where plants which induce visions are not uncommon. There is the snake plant of Ethiopia, the juice of which causes such terrible visions that it drives men to suicide; men convicted of sacrilege are forced to drink it as punishment. The river-gleam plant that grows on the banks of the Indus is famous for making men rave and see weird visions. But I suspect that the tree in your garden may be a specimen of a rare bush found in the rocky mountains east of Egypt; Bethesda tells a tale about it."

"What tale?" said Bethesda.