can read and write.” Well, I was learning. “I can speak five languages.”
I had spoken too eagerly. I saw my mistake. To offer or ask anything gave her power.
“Cara stulta,” (dear stupid one) “we have Greeks for that sort of thing. Scores of them. You, I think, will assist the a cubiculo. Empty slops, hold the mirror for the ornatrix, the things none of the other slaves want to do—they’re so particular about their positions. But we must have a title for your position. Ah, I know just the thing. You will be my pedisequa.”
“Pedisequa?” I repeated. I didn’t know the term but figured it meant something like a female slave who sits at the mistress’s feet, a human pet.
“Yes, you will attend me at all times; you will do whatever I ask. Is that clear?”
It was clear. Clear as a barren desert under a harsh noon sun.
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?” she demanded.
“Yes, domina.”
I finally lowered my eyes. Insolence took too much energy.
“Show me your back.”
Lightly she traced the wounds, as if they were inscriptions she was trying to decipher.
“I don’t think you will scar. Not much anyway,” she said, whether with regret or as reassurance I couldn’t tell. “Listen, Red.” Abruptly her tone changed; she almost whispered. “I need someone. I need someone who belongs to me. Someone I can tell things to. Someone I can trust, who won’t…who isn’t a spy for someone else. Do you understand?”
I looked at her again. Her face was very close to mine, unguarded. I had known before that she was a young woman, but now it hit me—she was as young as I was, maybe younger, and far more frightened. She was also crazy. The woman had just had me publicly beaten and humiliated. And she wanted me to be her trusted confidante?
I didn’t answer her. And just as suddenly her face closed again.
“I will have a tunic sent to you,” she said as she rose to go. “You will report to my bed chamber at the second hour.”
“How will I find it?”
“You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.” She smiled nastily. “It will be the first test of your obedience. I’ll give you a tip, though. Don’t even think about trying to escape. All the porters have your description, and they are all rather attached to their body parts—the ones that still have any. Bribing them with whorish tricks won’t work.”
With that she flounced away, trailing a ragged bit of her shift in the dust.
The Vine and Fig Tree had seemed a large and complex dwelling to me. I’d grown up in 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?”
