Steven Saylor - A murder on the Appian way

Still, the wizened slave woman who answered the door peered at Eco and me as if she had never seen a man before, or so I thought until I realized that her squinting was due to her poor eyesight. Her hearing also seemed to be impaired. I found myself repeating my request to see the Virgo Maxima in a louder and louder voice, until at last a stout woman wearing the simple white woollen gown of a Vestal appeared behind the slave and gently told her to move aside.

The Vestal wore the traditional headdress of her order, an oblong, purple-bordered scarf wound around her close-cropped hair and secured with a metal clasp at her forehead. Her plain, round face was untouched by cosmetics, but her skin had the smooth creaminess of women who have spent their lives indoors and have never had to labour. I judged her to be well into her sixties, which meant that she had long ago completed her original thirty-year term of service to the goddess and had voluntarily elected to stay on as a virgin for life.

"You'll have to excuse the slave," she said. "She's a little deaf."

"So I noticed, except that she didn't seem to have any trouble understanding you, even though her back was turned to you."

"She only has difficulty hearing a lower range of tones — men's voices. She can understand most of the women here with no trouble. Her deafness is not a disability under this roof Now, you say you wish to see the Virgo Maxima. What is your business?"

"It's a matter of some delicacy. I would rather speak of it only to the Virgo Maxima."

She gave me a brittle smile at odds with the softness of her face. "You'll have to do better than that, I'm afraid. To begin with, who are you and where do you come from?"

"My name is Gordianus. This is my son Eco. There's also a slave with us, looking after our horses in the court. We come from Rome."

"What business brought you here?"

"Once again, I'd rather speak of that only to — "

"You must understand, Gordianus of Rome, that there recently has been a great deal of violence and disruption in these parts. Men have been killed in broad daylight only a few steps from our door. The local innkeeper was horribly murdered, his young wife made a widow. And the troubles of this house started well before the recent violence. Driven from our home, forced to look on helplessly while sacred groves were desecrated — I won't go into those marten, except to say that at the best of times the women of this house are accustomed to being suspicious of men from the outside world, if only for the sake of preserving their purity. Given our recent experiences, we have even greater reason to be cautious. And I must say, just to look at you, Gordianus of Rome, I can't imagine what possible business you could have with the Virgo Maxima."

It is unusual to encounter a woman used to dealing with men strictly on her own terms. The Vestal clearly had no intention of admitting me to the Virgo Maxima's presence without good cause, and just as clearly she was not the sort to let slip any confidences behind her superior's back. How, then, to gain her trust? It was Felicia who had pointed me here, but she had also forbidden me to invoke her name. There was another name I could invoke, and though I was wary of revealing my commission from Pompey even within these walls, it began to seem the only way. Then the Vestal spoke my name again, under her breath.

"Gordianus…" She wrinkled her fleshy brow and gazed pensively into space. "Gordianus of Rome… the name is unusual." -

"There are not a great many of us."

"I suppose not. And even fewer who would be about your age." She eyed me carefully. "Was it you who came to Licinia's assistance those many years ago?"

"If you mean, am I the Gordianus who assisted the Virgo Maxima in Rome to get to the truth of a certain impropriety, the answer is yes."

"A 'certain impropriety'? I would call the discovery of a dead man in the sleeping chamber of a young Vestal something more than that."

"I didn't wish to mention the details myself" "Good; you are discreet. And modest, perhaps. Not a typical man at all."

"How is it that you know of that incident? The trials of Catilina and Crassus and the Vestals were public knowledge, of course, but the dead body was kept secret."

"Not from me. I know everything, including the fact that it was Clodius who arranged the murder, in a vain attempt to implicate

Catilina. That odious scoundrel was making trouble for us even then, and getting away with it."

"Were you there at the time, serving the goddess in Rome?"

"No. I have always served here, at Vesta's temple on Mount Alba."

"And yet you know the most intimate secrets of the mother house in Rome?"

"The mother house?" She flared her nostrils.

"The headquarters of your order, I mean — "

"Headquarters? If you are implying that the House of the Vestals in Rome is somehow the superior of this House, you are sorely mistaken, even if you are Gordianus the so-called Finder. The order of the Vestal Virgins was founded here, on Mount Alba, in the most ancient of days; Silvia the mother of Romulus was a member of the local sisterhood and helped preserve the eternal flame in Vesta's temple. The order in Rome was not established until much later, in the days of King Numa, and the eternal flame in the Temple of Vesta in Rome was lit from the original flame here on Mount Alba. Oh, yes, Rome takes pre-eminence nowadays; great men leave their wills in the keeping of the Roman Vestals, and the Roman Vestals have the honour of protecting the sacred relics that Aeneas brought from Troy. But we of Mount Alba are the original sisterhood. 'Mother house', indeed!"

"I meant no offence, Virgo Maxima."

She looked at me shrewdly. "Why do you call me that?"

"Because you are the Virgo Maxima here, are you not?"

She tilted her head back, and though she was too short to look down her nose at me, she did her best. "Of course lam." She smiled faintly. "Which is why I know certain secrets of the Virgo Maxima in Rome, and why I honour the name of Gordianus the Finder, who once helped in secret to save the honour of the sisterhood, not to mention the life of an innocent young Vestal So, you wished to speak with me in private? Come, and bring your son. We can talk in the room outside my chamber. The door slave will act as chaperone. If I pitch my voice low enough, she won't hear a word that either of us says."

What struck me most about what little I saw of the interior ofthe House of the Vestals that day was how shoddy the construction appeared to be. From a distance, the facade of brick and wood appeared to be at least sound if not distinguished, but all the craftsmanship that had gone into the building had been put on the outside, for show. The foyer, the hallway down which the Virgo Maxima led me, and the anteroom where she allowed me an audience were all marked by a carelessness on the part of the carpenters that was painfully obvious. Corners met at the wrong angles with crude patchwork to make up the difference, the floors were uneven, and gobs of plaster seemed to have been laid on with all the skill of a bored child. The Virgo Maxima followed my gaze and read my thoughts.

"It's nothing at all like our old house. What a grand place that was, so full of memories. It wasn't the original house where Silvia served, of course, not nearly that old. But a very old house, nonetheless, full of history. Generations of Vestals had lived and died there. The place had a sacred character such as only accrues with time. Ah, but how could the ancient sisters who chose the location of that house have known that one day long after they were dead, along would come a fellow like Clodius who couldn't be satisfied until he'd got his greedy hands on the land and the house itself"

"I've heard a bit about this from some of the local people," I said.