Read Online The Vestal Vanishes by Rosemary Rowe - Free Book Online Page A

disappointment of my husband, citizen. Of course I was lucky that he agreed to marry me at all – my inheritance was hardly generous, scarcely enough to make a decent dowry. For a time, I feared I’d never wed. Fortunately my guardian found Lavinius for me. He was a widower, whose first wife had been barren and he was prepared to take me so he could have an heir. I did provide one, in the end, though even then it took me many years – and many sacrifices to the gods – to bear a child that lived. I believe that otherwise he would have cut me off in a divorce. Of course, with my ill-fortune, it turned out to be a girl and now I’ve had to hand her to the Vestal temple, too.’
    ‘She has gone to be a Vestal?’ I was genuinely surprised. Modesta had spoken as if the child was young, but a Vestal novice must be six years old at least and cannot be more than ten. I did a calculation in my head. If Cyra was five years older than her niece, who had just completed thirty years of service at the Vestal House, then – even if Audelia had joined the Vestals young, and Cyra’s daughter was joining very late – Cyra must have been all of thirty when the child was born. No wonder the babe had seemed a present from the gods. ‘Another provision of your father’s will?’
    She shook her head. ‘This was my husband’s doing. It was the one way a daughter could bring esteem to him, he said, without the necessity of giving half our land as dowry payment to someone else’s son. Of course my father had given him the idea.’
    ‘So you sent her to the shrine,’ I said.
    ‘Not I, citizen!’ The voice was icy cold. ‘It was a shock to me. I begged Lavinius not to let her go. But he formally offered her to the pontifex, who came and ritually dragged her from my knee, and it is the priest who is accompanying her on her way, not us. So my daughter is not legally even a member of this family any more. My only living child, after years of barrenness. All my other children died in infancy – perhaps it is a family failing in some way. But she is on her way to the temple as we speak.’
    ‘I see. But surely her place is not yet a certainty? Did you not say something about a lottery?’
    She gave a bitter laugh. ‘If a well-born citizen offers his daughter to the shrine, and she meets the criteria of perfect form and two living parents of sufficient degree, she is usually accepted without the need for drawing straws – especially if a dowry is provided with the girl. As of course it was. Lavinius saw to that. My daughter will take the same sum with her thirty years from now, when she retires, but until that time the Vestal House will have the use of it.’
    ‘Just as her husband would have done if she had wed,’ I murmured.
    Cyra cast a furious glance at me. ‘And now she never will!’ She gestured to Modesta to fill the empty cup which was still lying used on the tray, and when it was brimming she picked it up herself. That was astonishing enough: it is not customary for a well-bred Roman matron to drink wine at all, except at a banquet – and especially not before a male guest in the mid-afternoon – but Cyra raised the cup and, far from sipping, drained it at a gulp. ‘So I’ll not see her again. I won’t survive another thirty years and my husband will never take me to the Vestal shrine. If I had borne a son, it would be a different thing.’
    I could not like this woman – she was bitter and resentful – but I couldn’t help feeling some sympathy for her. I tried to turn the subject to more cheerful things while, of course, continuing to probe. ‘But when she returns she will be provided for. Not only will she have her dowry sum to spend, and of course the famous pension which the state provides for retired Vestals, but I believe that there will also be a house for her. You are building on that piece of land, I think?’
    She brightened, just a little. ‘We are. It is a much finer villa than this one, too. You must