The Passion of Mary Magdalen. Elizabeth Cunningham
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a round wattle and daub hut; accommodations at druid school were only variations on the same theme. Domus Claudius seemed more like an enclosed city than a house. It had four stories, not including the basement storerooms, and as Succula had pointed out to me, it took up an entire city block. Four long streets, all with shop fronts, enclosed its numerous atriums, each with a four-story cluster of rooms surrounding it. There were countless bedrooms, several banqueting halls with corresponding kitchens, as well as receiving rooms where the clients lined up every morning. And of course the house had private baths—though everyone went to the lavish public ones anyway—as well as private stables.
Even more overwhelming than the size of the house was the sheer number of slaves and hangers on who inhabited it. You couldn’t easily tell the difference between the two. Some of the slaves were richly dressed, and some of the ne’er-do-well relatives and friends looked like they should be plucking chickens or pushing a mop. There were almost one hundred titled slaves in Domus Claudius, and dozens more without titles. Like everything Roman, including the Latin language, the household was hierarchical and bureaucratic. The titled slaves jealously guarded their status. If your title was a purpuris—servant in charge of purple garments—then you were a cut above the a vesta, who had charge over ordinary clothes. Likewise the ab ornamentis—the servant in charge of hair and accessories for ceremonial occasions—held rank over the ornatrix. There were slaves whose only job was to dust busts and statues, and slaves who did nothing but keep track of unguents.
Of course, it took me months to learn all the overt and covert rules of slave society and protocol. On my first morning poor tongueless Boca brought me a plain tunic like hers and guided me for what seemed like miles of corridor and courtyard, as well as up and down staircases. None of the scurrying people we passed paid any attention to us, not even a curious glance. Everyone seemed as enclosed and lifeless as the insularium itself. I had lived in square walls at the Vine and Fig Tree, too, but at least from my room I could hear the sound of the fountain, and the cats gave relief from the relentlessly human scale and focus of city life. I did not know how I could survive in Domus Claudius. I did not.
At last we came to yet another courtyard, and Boca stopped, gesturing across it. I turned and looked at her; her eyes were so huge and empty I could see my reflection—a flash of brightness like a salmon leaping into an alien element. She shook her head as if I’d asked her something. Then she turned and fled.
“You botched abortion,” a woman shrieked. “Your mother should have exposed you at birth!”
I did not need further guidance to find Paulina’s cubiculo. The invective continued, but the words were lost in the sound of something shattering. A moment later two female slaves scurried out of the chamber and down the stairs to the courtyard.
“That’s the third mirror she’s broken this week,” one muttered to the other.
“You know why she’s been so touchy lately, don’t you?”
“What do you mean? That spoiled brat is always like that.”
“Well, if you don’t know, perhaps I’d better not say. But there’s them that ought to know, and when they do—”
At that point, they caught sight of me and abruptly ceased their innuendo.
“Who are you?” the one who had spoken first demanded.
I could not bring myself to say, I’m the domina’s new slave, her pedisequa. Or maybe it was the effect of spending time with Boca, the only person in domus Claudius who had shown me any kindness. She had imprinted on me, as if I were some motherless duckling. I shrugged and gestured ambiguously.
Before I knew what was happening, my cheek was stinging with the woman’s slap, and inadvertent tears blinded me.
“What the fuck—”
“Oh, so you do have a tongue. Then answer me civil like. Who are you?”
My eyes cleared. I looked at the graceless woman. She was thin and bony with a pinched face. I was a big, strapping barbarian. I could easily pick her up and hurl her into the far corner of the courtyard. I gave the idea serious consideration.
“Oh, I know who she is,” said the other woman, a bit broader of beam; I didn’t know that I could take on both of them. “She’s the one the domina tied up bare-naked and flogged in the banquet room.”
“What’s going on out there!” Paulina roared from her cubiculo.
“Tell you what, you get the broom,” said Bony. “I’ll get the mirror. We’ll take our time about it, too. After all, it is not our job to fetch and carry like untitled slaves, so why should we rush? You,” the skinny one poked me in the ribs, “get in there and take what’s coming to you—and to us.”
“The gods are good,” said Broad Beam as they sauntered away. “They’ve sent us a whipping girl.”
An unidentified flying object hurtled into the courtyard just too late to hit the two laggard slaves. I managed to duck. When I looked up again, Paulina was in the doorway looking down at me.
“You!”
The sight of me momentarily diverted her from her rage. I could hear the slaves in the chamber behind her hurrying to set the rooms to right.
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Yes, what?” she prompted.
“Yes, it is me, I mean I,” I corrected the case.
Let her throw the curling tongues at me; let her throw the entire contents of the room. I wanted to stay outside as long as I could.
She frowned. “Yes, domina, delight of my eyes,” she prompted.
“Just say it, toots,” a male voice called from within the room.
“Shut up, Reginus,” said Paulina. “She’s my pedisequa. I’m training her.”
I’d had lots of acting experience at the Vine and Fig Tree, I told myself. Playing Paulina’s pedisequa was just another gig. Another trick to turn.
“Yes, domina, delight of my eyes.”
“With feeling this time.”
“It’s true,” I said thoughtfully. “You’re not hard on the eyes. Glossy hair, smooth skin. Great tits. But you’d look a lot better if you stopped sticking out your lower lip.”
Whatever doom was to befall me, I had the pleasure of seeing the blood drain from her face, then shoot back up in two big red blotches.
“You asked for a mirror,” I said, taking advantage of her speechless shock.
“Very well, then,” she said, recovering with surprising swiftness. “My mirror you shall be. Upstairs. Now!”
I found out what Paulina meant when the skinny one returned. At Paulina’s order, the sullen slave handed the mirror to me and huffily resumed her proper duties as sarnatrix, (mender of clothes)—though Paulina, I noticed, still wore the torn shift. You might think holding a mirror would be a simple job requiring no great skill. In fact it was exacting and exhausting. Paulina sat in the center of the crowded room, while the tontrix and ornatrix hovered over her and three slaves, including me, circled her with mirrors. The only thing more tedious than her minute directions—a little higher, to the right, no, that’s too much, lower, stulta!—was when she settled on an angle she wanted and we had to hold our arms absolutely still, the brass-backed mirrors growing heavier by the second.
Although it was late November now, and the air outside held a distinct chill, Paulina’s chamber was stuffy with heat and smoke from the charcoal brazier and the torches. The tontrix sweated as she rolled Paulina’s thick black hair—that needed no improvement—into long sausage curls, and then wound them one after the other in a rising beehive dome. The ornatrix