It took three days before any of them could touch her without flinching.
But gradually Lucia felt old connections mending, as if she were a bit of broken bone being knitted back into the whole. The change in her mood was astonishing. It was as if the sun had come out from behind clouds.
After a week in the hospital the doctors discharged her. She was sent back to her dormitory, and her work in the scrinium, though the doctors insisted she call back every few days for checks.
She knew she should not reflect on any of this, nor analyze it, but simply accept it. She had to learn again to live in the moment.
Brica went to work in her father’s bakery.
Chapter 26
When she was with Regina, Brica remained withdrawn, sullen, somehow defeated. But away from Regina, Amator reported, she was more open, lively, willing, and she would socialize with the younger workers when the day was done. Amator was no doubt embellishing the truth; Regina was sure he would not miss an opportunity to slide a knife blade of difference between mother and daughter. But she didn’t begrudge her daughter her bit of happiness.
As soon as the money from Amator started to come through, Regina began to search for her mother.
What made that hard was that so much of Rome was so obviously unplanned. The historic core of the city had always been the seven hills, easily defended in the days when Rome had been just one of a number of squabbling communities. The first Forum had been built in the marshy valley that nestled between the hills’ bluff protective shoulders.
But since then, away from the monumental heart, the city had simply grown as it needed to. The streets wandered haphazardly, following the meandering tracks of animals across fields that now lay far beneath the strata of rubbish under her feet, nothing like the arrow-straight highways laid out in the provinces. The only orderly development that had ever been possible was when fire or some other disaster had laid waste to part of the city, giving a rare chance to rebuild. It was whispered that once the Emperor Nero had deliberately started a fire in the central districts to make room for the House of Gold he planned to build for himself.
And yet in this sprawling chaos there were, oddly, patterns.
She could see it in the shops, for instance. There were distinctive artists’ quarters, jewelers’ quarters, fashion quarters. You could see how it happened. Where a successful bakery business opened, like Amator’s, other food stores were attracted, selling fish oil or olives, lamb or fruit. Soon you had a district that became renowned for the quality of its food, and subsidiary businesses like restaurants might be drawn in. Or you might find folk of a similar inclination drawn together by common interests: thus Amator’s house on the fringe of the Trajan complex was one of several in the area owned by grain and water magnates. Then there were more subtle, short-lived changes, as one area became more fashionable for some uncanny reason; or as another became more prone to crime and disorder, thus attracting more criminals and driving out the law abiding.
The way the city somehow organized itself struck her deeply. The growth of the city, street by street, building by building, had been driven not by any conscious intent, not even by the will of the emperors, but by individual decisions, motivated by the greed or nobility, farsightedness or purblindness that afflicted every human being. And out of the millions of small decisions made every day, patterns formed and dissipated, like ripples on a turbulent stream; and somehow, out of these patterns, the soul of the city itself emerged.
Remarkable it may be, but she feared it might take her years to get to know this mighty nest of a million people. She decided that the best thing to do to shorten the search was to let Julia come to her.
Using Amator’s money, she began to make her name known wherever the better-heeled people gathered, in the more prominent baths and restaurants and theaters. She went to the temples, too — not just the new Christian churches that had been sprouting throughout Rome since the days of Constantine, including his mighty basilica over the tomb of Saint Peter, but also the older temples to the pagan cults. She hoped that if her name got to her mother one way or another, Julia might be drawn — by curiosity, shame, even the remnants of love? — to come seek out her daughter. Regina knew the odds were long, but she had no better idea. She got no quick result, however.
And as their weeks in Rome turned into months, Regina was not surprised by a further development: Brica fell in love again. He was a boy called Castor, a customer of the store, a young freedman of good bearing and intelligence who had quickly risen to a position of some responsibility, working for one of the grander senatorial families.
Brica obviously expected Regina to oppose the match. But Regina kept her counsel. Even when Brica defiantly said she wished to marry the boy, Regina gave her blessing. She paid for a betrothal ceremony and banquet, and even provided a small dowry to Castor’s family. This would normally be paid by the bride’s father — and it had actually come out of Amator’s money, if unwillingly extracted.
Brica had to live; Regina accepted that. She had no desire to control her daughter’s every movement. It was enough that her own longer-term goals should be fulfilled. Even a wedding would not hamper that. After all, somebody would eventually have to be the father of Brica’s children, Regina’s grandchildren, and better a Roman boy with prospects than a doltish apprentice of Myrddin.
Besides, anything that encouraged Brica to learn better Latin must be a good thing.
It was more than three months after their arrival in Rome, as the leaves of summer had already begun to brown, that the mysterious package arrived for Regina. It was brought by a slim young girl with startling gray eyes, who would not leave her name.
The package contained a single brass token, which turned out to be for a seat in the amphitheater. There was no other label or note. Regina’s pulse hammered.
As she counted down the days before the show, her sleep was even more disturbed than usual.
On the appointed day, Regina set out early in the morning. As she walked through the dense streets, she felt as nervous as if she were seven years old again and approaching her mother’s bedroom, where Julia would be putting on her jewelry, and Carta would be fixing her hair.
And then she came upon the amphitheater itself. It was a tremendous wall of marble broken by four stories of colonnades, from which statues peered down at the thronging crowd. Her heart surged at its magnificence.
Her little token directed her to a numbered entrance. She had to walk a long way around the perimeter before she found the right one. Vendors worked the milling crowds, selling drinks, sweetmeats, hats, and favors for star performers. There were, she learned, a total of seventy-six entrances through which the crowd could be processed. There were also six unnumbered entrances, four for the Emperor’s party, and two for the use of the gladiators — one through which they would walk back to their barracks if they survived, and the other through which their corpses would be dragged out if not. But no gladiators fought to the death these days; the emperors had banned lethal contests some thirty years before, when a Christian martyr, righteously interposing himself between two warriors, had been killed by a mob eager for its ration of blood.
Her entrance was an arch with detailed stucco paintwork, though much of the paint had faded and cracked away. She passed through and found herself inside the hollowed-out belly of the great building, a maze in three dimensions of corridors and staircases up and down which people trooped — the big radial staircases were graphically called vomitoria. But Regina’s ticket kept her on the ground level, and led her along a short corridor, deeper into the guts of the complex.