eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504023474 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The Permanent Press |
| Publication date: | 10/27/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 323 |
| File size: | 777 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Door in the Wall
By Benita Kane Jaro
The Permanent Press
Copyright © 1994 Benita Kane JaroAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2347-4
CHAPTER 1
Someone laughed in the dark under the archway. "Shut up," another voice said and the laughter died away. I heard Clodius swear.
"What's the matter, darling?" the first voice continued. It was my cousin Catullus', rusty on the cold night air. "Is your dress too tight?"
"By the Dog," Clodius mumbled, but a drift of music from the building silenced him. I looked out into the Forum where the first brightness of the sky had extinguished the stars, though it had so far failed to reveal the earth below. A breeze had begun to blow off the Tiber, bringing the smell of silt and damp, chilly stone. I felt cold and sober, robbed of the wine I had drunk during the evening. A sadness as of loss gripped me, and I wandered a few steps into the open space. "If we're going to get him into the festival, you'd better hurry," I said over my shoulder. "It's almost dawn." From the house behind the archway the music came constantly, a thread of sound over the muffled rumble of the drum. "The women must be getting ready for the sacrifice in there," I urged them, rubbing the stubble on my chin. I wouldn't mind a bath, I thought. It had already been a long evening.
"By the Dog, I'd like to know what they're doing now," Clodius hiccupped. He was standing in front of me — weaving a bit, it was true — looking at me with ludicrous solemnity out of his large black eyes. I could just make them out, hollows in the pale oval of his face, his mouth another. He had his finger over his lips to warn me to be quiet, but he was trying to talk around it. "No one's allowed to know what the women do in there on the night of the feshtival."
"But you're going to find out, aren't you, darling?" Catullus said, coming up beside me. "How does he look?"
The light in the sky must have been growing, though I could see no difference in the slow seep of grayness overhead, but against the east now I could make out the roof of the Temple of Castor, and when I looked down, there was Clodius in a woman's dress.
"Great Gods," I said.
"He'll be better when we get the wig on — put it on, will you? Good. See?" Catullus passed me the wine jar he had had the foresight to bring with him, and I felt better at once. The wine did not seem to reach my stomach at all, but to go directly to my head. I laughed. "The Pontifex Maximus' wife is going to love him," I said, and drank some more.
"She already does," Clodius boasted. "Point of the whole operation." He closed his eyes and shook his head, but he was so drunk he forgot he was making these gestures and while he talked his eyes remained closed and his head went on bobbing. "They're having a feshtival there. Women's goddessh. All the men have to leave — even the slaves. Good time for me. Opportunity. Won't meet her husband in the atrium, see?"
"Yes," I said. "We know." I was laughing. We had arranged this in a bar. after a party. To Catullus I said, "He does look pretty good. You think he'll pass? That wig ..." It was strange how completely the wig disguised him; he really did look like a woman. He was a grown man — nearly thirty as far as I could tell, which made him almost ten years older than I — but he was short and slight. That helped his disguise, I suppose. I could never have gotten away with it myself, for I am tall and strongly built. But it was more than that — there was something strange about Clodius. The dress did not create it, it only seemed to bring it out.
"He'll do just fine, won't you, darling?" Catullus was crooning in his grating voice. I could see that he recognized Clodius' ambiguous character, too.
"There'll be a lot of women in there." I was thinking how unreliable — and how drunk — Clodius looked. "I mean, do you think it's a good idea? It's not just his girl-friend, you know, but her husband's female connections — the whole clan, I wouldn't be surprised. Plus the maids, the musicians —"
"The musicians!" Catullus cried, hunting busily around him. He seemed to wink in and out of the darkness of the arches on the Pontifex Maximus' house. Clodius, muttering, lurched back and forth on his feet. "You're not going to fall down, are you?" I asked, making a grab for his arm.
"There." Catullus reappeared and shoved a lyre into Clodius' hands. The strings gave out a startled cry of protest. "All set then? Let's go." He took Clodius' arm, gesturing me to take the other. We led him back under the darkness toward the music, but he shook us off. "Go alone. Perfectly shober now."
"Come on." Catullus dug his elbow into my ribs to force me to be quiet, for the door was opening. The light from inside spilled out toward us, making the darkness around it deeper, but showing Clodius in its brilliant glow. His slim figure looked graceful and feminine in its flame-colored dress, his head under the saffron-dyed wig was as proud and delicate as a statue's. He turned and I saw his profile. "Great gods," I whispered to Catullus. "He's a handsome man." Even the wig could not disguise that: his skin was white, his eyes black; his features were arrogant and aristocratic and stamped with so pure a beauty that this little prank all of a sudden seemed silly and rather tawdry.
Catullus at my shoulder gave me his irregular grin. "Nice for the Pontifex Maximus' wife."
Clodius had disappeared into the doorway to the sound of flutes and finger- cymbals. "Like the god Dionysus," I said, and Catullus nudged me again in the ribs. "Yes. And he's escorted by two drunken satyrs, just as in the traditional pictures." He laughed and handed me the wine-jar. It was a big one. He must have persuaded the bartender to part with half the evening's supply. Clever Catullus. Holding it in my arms very carefully I wandered into the Forum.
The sky had lightened again, and the buildings, as if dawn were creating them, appeared as unfinished shapes against the gray. The air was very cold, and I could hear the rattle of leaves in some laurel bushes nearby, the first startled cheep of a sparrow waking under the eaves. Catullus leaned against a pillar, his arms crossed on his chest, his head back. He had a wrestler's stocky body, with heavy muscles dragging down his neck, and forearms that looked bunched and layered. His face was no more than a cluster of ill-assorted features, but his forehead was intelligent and his mouth sensitive. He was twenty-one, two years older than I, and while I had not yet grown into my height and was still awkward sometimes, he was already a man.
He was also either asleep on his feet or deeply absorbed in thought. He did that often — disappeared into himself — even in the middle of a discussion. I wondered what he was thinking of, but his face gave no indication. I sighed and drank some more wine.
"The Forum of Rome," I said, drawing in my breath. I don't know why it moved me, for it was scarcely more at that moment than a sense of space opening out around me, a touch of cold air, a gauzy drift of breeze. All the same I walked out into it with a feeling of elation. The gray in the sky had spread and imperceptibly deepened into a rich wine-blue. Shapes of buildings, recognizable now, were cut against it out of some substance not like stucco and stone but cool, liquid, and dark wavering on the point of disappearing back into the night, like reflections on black water. I thought if I touched them my hand might pass right through; I even laid my palm on the stone of the Pontifex Maximus' house and was surprised to discover that it was as warm and rough-textured as an animal's hide.
I stepped out farther, hugging the wine-jar to me like a baby. I was a little uncertain on my feet and thought I might drop it. It seemed a sad thought. "Here," I muttered. "I've got you. Don't worry, I won't let you fall."
Out in the open Forum the air was still quiet with the silence of night, made as it is of small, distant sounds: the murmur of water tumbling into a fountain, the whisper of leaves, a low thrumming of the wind passing among the columns of a temple porch. But in the side streets it was almost morning. I could hear footsteps on the stones as someone hurried to be the first to wait on his patron; a baker rolled back the shutter of his shop, releasing the smell of bread into the air; smoke from the morning sacrifice eddied out into the darkness, stinging my noise with the pungent cleanliness of incense.
A voice spoke near at hand, and I turned to look at Catullus, but it had not been his. He was leaning where I had left him, a dim shape in the darkness of the archway. His eyes were still closed, and I wondered if he knew how to sleep on his feet, like a horse. It would not have surprised me. He knew a lot of things, a fact which I envied. He was my distant cousin, but we did not, at that moment, seem very much alike.
The voice spoke again. I whirled around, still clutching the wine-jar. Catching myself off balance, I tripped and stumbled against someone, falling heavily on top of him. He thrashed under me like a fish; I could feel the hard bone of his hips grind against mine. I hugged the wine-jar tighter. "Here, what do you think you're doing?" I bellowed, but his legs were tangled with mine, his elbow punched in an undirected way at my mouth.
"Ouf," he said as the breath went out of his lungs. Immediately other hands gripped my arms, pulling me upright. I caught the bluish shine on the edge of a helmet, the blackened flash of a crimson cape. "Great Gods!" I cried. "Lictors!" I had knocked down a magistrate of some kind. I tried to lean down and see who it was, but the hands tightened on my arms, digging into the muscles so that I winced. "Hey, watch out," I protested. "You'll make me drop the wine."
"Name?" a second lictor demanded, planting himself in front of me in a threatening way. He carried his bundle of rods; he was fingering it, waiting for the order to take one out and beat me. I tensed my shoulders, but the arms holding mine did not relax their grip. "Name?" the lictor repeated.
From the ground their magistrate said: "That's all right, Andreius. It was an accident. Let him go."
They were well-trained, these official bodyguards. Immediately they released me and stepped back a pace or two. "I'm sorry," the man in front of me said, "but this is the City Praetor. I thought you might be trying something. The light's poor and I didn't see you were ..."
"I am a Roman knight, a member of the Equestrian Order," I said, feeling I might burst with anger. "My name is Marcus Caelius Rufus. If you have any questions to ask me —"
"No, no. Sorry."
"Marcus Caelius Rufus, is it?" the magistrate said, getting up from the ground. He dusted himself down, taking a lot of time over it. I could see he was a tall man, handsome and slender, and very elegantly dressed. I thought he looked about forty years old. He looked annoyed, too, as I suppose he had a right to be, but he spoke to me kindly. "So, Marcus Caelius Rufus is your name?"
"Yes. And my father is a knight, really. He's a wheat and grain broker here in Rome. We're from Interamnia, over the mountains ..."
"I know Interamnia. And you live here, in the city, yourself?"
"Yes. I'm studying here."
"Oh?" He raised one eyebrow, I stared at him, wishing I could do that.
"Yes. With Marcus Tullius Cicero, and with Marcus Licinius Crassus ..." I was trying to knock him down again with these respectable, not to say distinguished, names, though in truth I had not been anyone's pupil for a while. I had left my principal teacher Cicero's care, and gone back to my father's house on the Oppian Hill — a fact I was not going to mention to this magistrate, whoever he was.
He did not seem overly impressed by these sponsors in any case. "How old are you, Marcus Caelius Rufus?"
"Twenty. But I'll be twenty-one in a few months ..."
He smiled. "Twenty is a good enough age. You don't have to be in a hurry. Is there any wine left in that jar?"
I passed it to him, and he drank. I could see the strong, fluid muscles moving in his throat. "So. You drink your wine neat, Caelius Rufus?"
"We were on our way home from a party. I was going to give this to ... to my ..." I cast around for someone who might plausibly receive a gift from me.
"To your parents, of course. Isn't that nice? But you don't seem to have left much for them."
"Well, my ... my friends and I had some on the way ..."
He laughed. The growing light showed him to me clearly now; a man of about my own height with a long face, broad at the cheekbones and hollow over the temples. The early breeze lifted his thin, pale hair and he smoothed it hastily. I could see that he was a man who cared about his appearance, for his toga gleamed like thin milk in the bluish light and the tunic beneath it had elegant long sleeves embroidered half a foot deep with purple and gold.
"Your friends," he said. It was not a question and I did not answer. I was fingering the hem of my own tunic, wondering where he had gotten that embroidery done.
He took the wine-jar again. "What are you doing at the Pontifex Maximus' house at this hour of the morning? Here, have some wine. He's not at home now, is he?"
"No, he's not home. At least I hope he's not. It's the festival of the Women's Goddess. Men aren't allowed in the house at all."
"That's right." The first true daylight was slanting into the Forum, showing the pale, lemon color of his hair and touching the corner of his dark brown eye. "Well," he said, "if the Pontifex Maximus isn't at home, what are you doing at his house?"
There were people in the Forum now: artisans on their way to open their shops or hurrying to their patrons, schoolchildren escorted by their pedagogues with bundles of books and stacks of wax tablets, servants from the big houses chattering in groups, waiting for the markets to open. Here and there a lantern still gleamed in the shadows, but overhead the sky was full of winter color. A flight of pigeons crossed it; the statues on the roof of the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter gave it back in beams of gold. Excited and happy and still quite drunk I suppose, I said, "A friend of mine is visiting his lady friend in the house."
"Really? But I thought you told me no men were allowed in there tonight."
"Hah, that's the beauty of it." I was nearly doubled over with laughter. "He's disguised as a woman."
Behind me one of the lictors stamped his feet restively and the laughter died on my lips. "Good gods," I mumbled. "I ... I ..."
I looked up to see the praetor grinning at me. "Disguised as a woman? Who's his friend? One of the maids?"
A sheep is as good as lamb. "The Pontifex Maximus' wife," I said.
"No." He had fine, clear skin except that a scarlet flush had appeared across the cheekbones. I thought he might be angry, but he was smiling at me, and I liked him very much. "Oh, yes, the Pontifex Maximus' wife," I assured him.
"That will be news to the Pontifex Maximus," he said. I laughed. I was going to dig him in the ribs with my elbow, but at the last moment remembered the wine-jar and clutched it tighter instead. He winked at me. "And who's her lover?"
"A man called Publius Clodius Pulcher. We met him in a bar tonight. He says she's in love with him."
"Is she indeed?" He straightened his toga, preparing to go. His lictors stood to attention, watching him under their shiny bronze helmets.
"Well, Marcus Caelius Rufus, if you ever need anything, come and see me. You understand what I'm saying. I'd be glad to help —"
I did understand. He was offering to make me his client, if I felt the need of another patron. "Thank you," I said, genuinely grateful. He was, after all, the City Praetor.
"And try to keep this business quiet, will you? After all, a scandal about the chief religious officer of the state isn't going to do anybody any good. No bragging in bars, or —"
Under the archway from the house a confused noise was issuing. Women's voices in it, raised in cries of anger or fear, followed by a loud thump or slam. I saw Catullus open his eyes and duck quickly out of sight behind a pillar.
"You'd better attend to that," the City Praetor said, but he stood a moment longer beside me, watching as the door flew open and Publius Clodius, his yellow dress half torn from his body and flying in rags around his shoulders, shot out into the archway. His wig was dangling from his ear, his lyre was gone. He panted, looking once behind him, but he had slammed the door and the women, in their panic and confusion, were having trouble getting it open again. He turned, and seeing me, waved his arms. "Run," he screamed. He made a grab for his wig and darted past me.
"Goodbye," I shouted to the City Praetor and dashed after Clodius. Behind me I heard the tramp of the lictors departing, but the sound was swallowed by the voices of the women, now pouring into the Forum, shouting after Clodius and me.
The sun was up. We dodged through long, slanting bars of light and cold blue shadow, around the circular Temple of Vesta. I could hear the priestesses inside and smell the smoke of their altar fire. "Wait," I shouted after Clodius,
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Door in the Wall by Benita Kane Jaro. Copyright © 1994 Benita Kane Jaro. Excerpted by permission of The Permanent Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.