She returned with Domitia Tertia more quickly than I would have thought possible. I had never seen her face naked, untended by her ornatrix. The moon, I thought looking at her, she is like the moon—stark, removed, beautiful, and, if possible, even less vulnerable than usual—which struck me as odd. She eyed us without expression.
“They look dignified,” she pronounced at last. “At these festivals many devotees wear white, I believe. They will blend in. Remember,” she addressed us now. “Even if no one recognizes you, you are from the Vine and Fig Tree. You have our reputation for quality to uphold. The Isia attracts the vulgari. You are not to mix with them. Nor must you allow yourselves to get carried away in unseemly emotional displays. Is that quite clear? Go then. Be back at the sixth hour. No later.” And she turned and disappeared into the recesses of the house.
“Drink up,” said Bonia. “Take the bread with you.”
Old Nona made some kind of blessing or protecting sign over us.
“Where’s Bone? Isn’t Bone going with us?” Succula sounded panicked.
“He has important business to attend to for the domina today,” said Bonia. “It’s not his job description or mine to indulge your whims. I don’t know why she’s allowed you to go at all. I told her I didn’t think it was wise. Gadding about Rome on your own when decent people are still asleep. Most mistresses are not so lenient. Don’t make her regret it or you’ll regret it. All right, I’m going back to bed. You’re on your own.”
On your own, on your own, I repeated the words over and over to myself as we trudged through the quiet streets. It was the first time since my capture that I’d had no one watching me, guarding me. I felt dizzy with the illusion of freedom. I knew it was illusion, but I was having difficulty remembering. The air tasted different; my body felt light and unfamiliar.
Gradually more and more people joined us, in little streams and tributaries, until we all merged with the festival procession in the Via Sacra. The priestesses and priests led the way, sustaining a hypnotic rhythm with frame drum and sistrum as we danced through the heart of the Forum, past Capitoline Hill and out through the Flumentana gate. There we walked along the Tiber River with its thick dawn fog floating and swirling above it until we came to Campus Martius—broad, flat fields where games were held and military formations practiced.
During the Isia a festival city had mushroomed with the usual vendors and side entertainments. The priests and priestesses went directly towards a central pavilion—a large golden tent on a raised platform. The laity fell back as the priesthood entered the makeshift temple. It is a very strange thing to stand in a large, silent crowd. Even more so in the half-light before sunrise in a field full of ground mist with the last stars faint but still there. Then the priestesses emerged from the tent and began to sing a song full of piercing, sweet dissonance—the way stars might sound if we could hear them.
Look how the sky’s doors open to your beauty
Look how the goddess waits to receive you
This is death. This is life beyond life.
Look how the day is breaking in the east.
Look how the goddess awakens you.
Listen to us singing to you, there among the stars.
I closed my eyes, and I was somewhere else, somewhere I had never been, standing in a high place overlooking wide water, wide sky, full of those star voices—no it was my voice, my voice singing to my Beloved.
I opened my eyes again when the singing stopped. Two priestesses stepped forward, one robed in gold, wearing a horned headdress and a lotus crown. She sang the part of Isis, the other of her sister Nepthys. As they sang a call and response lamentation, they descended the steps. The crowd parted as the priestesses, followed by the rest of the priesthood, led the procession to the river, which was no longer the Tiber, but the River, the river of life, the river of sorrow, the river of re-membering.
“Come on,” I urged my friends. “Let’s fall in with the priestesses. We’ll get a better view.”
“I don’t know, Red,” Succula hung back, but I grabbed her hand and dragged her along, trusting that Berta and Dido were right behind us.
When we reached the water’s edge the whole crowd began to sing while the priestesses boarded the waiting moon-shaped boats.
You are the mother of the living
You are the lover of the dead
From the womb you knew your lover
Now you seek him in the riverbed.
All at once I knew exactly why I’d had the dream, why old Nona had provided the priestess robes. There was a purpose here. Everything had been prepared. All I had to do was act. I dropped Succula’s hand and made for the nearest empty boat. Before anyone could stop me, I was launched, the fog shrouding me, the black water sliding beneath the smooth curve of the boat. The sound of the singing came through the mist, clear, disembodied, but not loud enough to cover the sound of Succula crying my name.
“Row.” I hardened my heart and turned to the oarsman. “By Isis, mistress of the living and the dead, ruler of wind and water, row for all you’re worth to Ostia.”
“Ostia?” He sounded confused, but he did not question my authority. “I thought we was only going to Tiber Island. I never heard nothing about no Ostia.”
“It is the goddess’s command.”
Well, it was. Wasn’t it?
“But domina, what about the rapids?”
The rapids?
“And with the rain we’ve had this autumn, the river is running swift.”
“The goddess will protect us,” I said with more assurance than I felt, and then I thought to add, “And you will be well-rewarded.”
Through the mist I could just see the other boats; the priestesses singing a high, wordless lament as they trailed their arms and hair in the water searching for the scattered god. Around a bend in the river, Tiber Island hove into view, and the other boats veered toward it. My oarsman was looking frightened; I thought I saw him surreptitiously pulling us to the right out of the current.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said.
“But, domina—”
“You are more afraid of the rapids than the goddess’s wrath?”
And then, in a flash, we
