* * *
Calista’s room festered with the stink of sweat and blood. Olympia writhed at another contraction, feeling as if dozens of fingers twisted her insides. Rusonia gripped one of Olympia’s hands while Flora held the other as the laboring woman crouched on the rush-covered floor, tunic hiked past her knees. The sun had already set and risen once yet the child did not emerge. At last, her womb contracted and the child began to shift through.
“Easy, easy,” she heard Flora’s soothing voice say. “It’s coming. Push again, Olympia, push again. In Candelifera’s name, push.”
Rusonia exclaimed, “I see the babe’s head! You are nearly there, domina.”
However, push as Olympia might, the child seemed to be entangled in something. She leaned against the wall, eyes closing with exhaustion. She had never been so afraid in her life. Pyp’s birth had been a short matter of hours; this labor seemed to have continued for days and she knew that the longer it took the less the Fates swung in her favor.
“I will have to pull the child out myself,” Rusonia muttered to Flora. Fear sliced Olympia’s heart. “Olympia, just one more strong push, alright?” she ordered, reaching her hands inside.
Racked by a spasm, Olympia pushed when she felt cool hands inside her and saw Rusonia, the dear girl who looked so much like Calista, grasp a bloody, grey mass gingerly in her hands but she heard not the familiar squalling that accompanied a child’s entrance into the world.
“Is it well?” she breathed faintly. It would have been too much to hope.
“Have some water,” offered Rusonia and Flora tripped the water, powdered with willow bark, into Olympia’s open mouth. She drank thirstily and the infusion numbed her pain, but her eyes were taken with her child.
Carefully wiping the little body clean, Rusonia said sympathetically but briskly, “I am sorry, but the child was born dead.”
“Dead?” Olympia replied weakly as if she had never heard the word before, as if her only daughter had not died hours before. Hope shattered around her for the umpteenth time.
“I’m sorry,” Rusonia murmured.
Olympia could see her surroundings grow more and more watery and with deathly certainty she knew she was not long for this world. “Bring my son to me, please...Open the windows and clear away the mess.” If she were to die, it would be smelling the ocean and with her Pyp, with his eyes so like Lucretius’, at her side.
Flora went to dispose of the rushes. After washing her hands in a bowl of water that was stained pink after her hands were clean, Rusonia opened the windows and let the ocean breezes and bright sunshine purge the rankness of the room.
“She would have been a beauty,” Olympia whispered dreamily to herself. Shifting a little in uncomfortable wetness, she saw that the sheets beneath her were stained deep scarlet and the blood seeped steadily from her. From me, she thought wonderingly. Tears flickered in her eyes. She did not fear death. No, she looked forward to once more sitting beside Lucretius, Calista, her mother, her father. She would have gone happily had it not been for her son who had no one left in this world.
Flora returned as Rusonia attempted to staunch the flow of blood. To some extent, Flora had expected this to happen. She had helped at her share of births and aye, had birthed her share of children, and she could mark well enough when a birth would turn fatal. Making herself helpful to Rusonia, Flora’s mind wandered across time—she had no interest in watching a gentle woman die a gruesome death.
She had been Avaritus’ mistress when he had first tried to establish a political career. He had been rakishly handsome some thirty years back but his foray into government had been doomed from the beginning. His mother had gotten herself with him by a dark Greek slave and not even the dullest Roman would believe that he had been a child of the fair Silanus clan. Although born Grachhus Silanus, his mother’s husband had changed his name to Avaritus. Silanus was a man of pride who would not allow a bastard to bear his name. When Avaritus had become a man at sixteen, Silanus had denounced him. With his real father killed years ago for impregnating the master’s wife and his mother divorced and disgraced, Avaritus petitioned for the protection of his mother’s half-brother, the husband of Crassus’ grandniece.
He had not exactly welcomed his nephew but still had provided him with a base to launch his political career. In these high Roman circles, he had met the young Flora, a courtesan of a high-end brothel and their affair had begun there, enduring these many years, even when his political aspirations had come to naught after a publicly botched marriage to an heiress. Now, at fifty-four years of age, he had at last fulfilled his desires. And Flora had stood alongside him to reap the rewards.
Olympia had passed out from the blood loss. Delicately, Flora took the child away, placing the bundle on a table. She could not help but grimace in disgust.
“Shall I fetch her son?” Flora asked of Rusonia. She admired the girl, so confident in herself and felt no shame in deferring to a child less than half her age.
Wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, Rusonia replied, “Yes, that would be best. I fear she is not long for this world. Here, let me cover her with a blanket and then bring the son inside.”
Slipping outside, Flora found the boy dozing against the wall. “Your mother wants you, lad,” she said not unkindly, her sympathy rising for the boy.
Quietly, anxiously, eagerly, Pyp went to his mother, his eyes large shocked pools at the sight of her. “Mother.”
Olympia did not stir and Rusonia patted the boy’s shoulder comfortingly.
“Mother!” Pyp demanded louder, gently shaking her, desperation tightening his face.
Before Rusonia could reprimand him, Olympia’s eyes fluttered open. “Pyp?” she exhaled. Then her face fell immobile again.
“I love you, I love you,” he repeated. The stench of blood threatened to overwhelm him as he touched his forehead to his mother’s clammy hand. From the corner of his eye, he discerned a small bundle, the contents of which he recognized as the cause of his mother’s sickness. His throat tightened at the thought of losing his mother. Cold gripped him. He would miss his mother. Had the gods not taken everyone away from him? Calista? His father? He would be alone in the world, at Avaritus’ mercy. Oh, if anyone would help me, he prayed in despair. Warm tears slid down his cheeks despite his efforts at keeping them beneath his lids.
The lightest of touches fell on his hair. Thinking it was his mother, he looked up hopefully. Instead, he saw a tall women, draped in a blue-green stola shimmering with gold. Her body was translucent, almost invisible where the sun shone through.
Pyp darted a look at Rusonia. She seemed oblivious to the presence in the room. Pyp blinked, but the woman’s image remained steady. Registering a peacock feather in the apparition’s golden-brown hair, Pyp breathed, “Juno?”
She nodded with a quiet smile, pressing a long finger to her lips, a motion Pyp found himself imitating. Ephemeral, she made no noise as she bent over Olympia, running a transparent hand over his mother’s sweat drenched hair and face. Pyp watched raptly as Juno stood patiently at Olympia’s side for a few moments.
Finally, Olympia muttered something and Rusonia flew to her side. She checked under the blankets and listened to Olympia’s heart. “The bleeding has stopped.” Seeing the color slowly returning to Olympia’s cheeks, she smiled at Pyp. “I do not know how, I do not understand it, but I believe your mother will recover.”
The goddess emitted a soft transitory glow, her lips curved slightly just for Pyp, who had his cheek pressed to his mother’s. Juno’s immense sapphire eyes drifted to the inanimate bundle which began to emanate a faint golden light. Then a figure as unreal as Juno’s emerged. It was a young girl with dark curls and darker eyes who smiled the same knowing smile as the goddess.
“Amantia,” he whispered, naming his younger sister.
Juno’s bow-shaped lips moved: Beloved?
Pyp nodded. Thank you, he mouthed, knowing that from this moment he would be
a devotee of the goddess for the rest of his days in gratitude for the inestimable service she had rendered to him. Juno was known to be a vindictive, jealous goddess but many failed to recall the kindness with which her hand moved. Pyp would never forget.
Bending down, she softly kissed Pyp on the forehead. A warm shiver ran through him. With a gracious incline of her head, she extended her hand to clasp Amantia’s and they faded gradually until Pyp could have sworn he had imagined the entire encounter had the fragrance of lilies not lingered in the air.
Olympia’s voice was soft but strong when she demanded, “Come here, Pyp. Give your mother a kiss.”
Pyp obliged. He had never been more happy to accept a command in his short, rebellious life.
CHAPTER XII