Regina got a little upset now, for she had brought nothing to give her father. “Nobody told me!” she hissed to Carta, only to be admonished for making a noise.
She pulled away from Carta and looked around the mausoleum. In grassy corners she found some mayweed, poppy, and knapweed. The petals were closed and heavy with dew, for it was night. Still, she picked the wildflowers and dropped them into the grave. Perhaps they would open in the afterlife, where it was surely light all the time.
A load of chalk, pale in the starlight, was dumped into the coffin, to preserve the body. Finally the coffin lid was lowered and the heaps of earth beside the open grave briskly returned. The soil smelled damp and rich. A simple tombstone was placed over the fresh earth — smaller than her grandfather’s, for, as she had been told, such things were very expensive nowadays. She bent to read its inscription, but the writing was fine and in Latin, and it was too dark.
At the end of the burial, the mourners departed for the funerary banquet back at the villa. Regina looked for her mother. She couldn’t see her.
But Aetius was here. He got to his haunches and faced Regina. He had something in his hand that he hid from her; she wondered if it was a toy, a present. But his broad face was dark.
“Little one, you have to understand what has happened here. Do you know why your father died?”
“I saw the blood.”
“Yes. You saw the blood. Regina, Marcus followed a goddess called Cybele.”
“Cybele and Atys. Yes.”
“It’s a strange business. On Cybele’s birthday you drench yourself in the blood of sacrificed bulls, and dance yourself into a frenzy.” His hard soldier’s face told her what he thought of such foolishness. “But the most significant thing the priests of Cybele do is castration.” He had to explain what that meant. “They do it to themselves. They have special forceps that stanch the blood flow. It is an act of remembrance of Atys, who castrated himself as punishment for a moment of unfaithfulness.”
She tried to work all this out. “My father—”
“He castrated himself. Just like Atys. But he didn’t have any priests’ forceps,” Aetius said grimly.
“Why did he do that? Was he unfaithful?”
“Yes, he was.” Aetius kept his eyes on Regina’s face.
Regina was aware of the stiffness of Cartumandua beside her, and she knew there was much she did not yet understand.
“But he didn’t mean to kill himself.”
Aetius cupped Regina’s face. “No. He wouldn’t have left you behind, little one. And anyhow he probably thought that even if he did die he would be resurrected, just like Atys … Well. Your father even now is finding out the truth of that. And I suspect he may not be sorry to be gone. At least he won’t have to face recalcitrant farmers anymore. It was all getting a little difficult for him …”
“Grandfather?”
It was as if he had forgotten she was there. “Whether he meant it or not, he is gone. And you, little Regina, are the most important person in the family.”
“I am?”
“Yes. Because you are the future. Here — you must take these.” Now he opened his hand, and, to Regina’s shock and surprise, he showed her the matres, the three little goddesses from the lararium, the family shrine. They were figures of women in heavy hooded cloaks, crudely carved, little bigger than Aetius’s thumb. Aetius shook his head. “I remember when my own father brought these back — they are just trinkets, really, produced in their thousands by the artisans along the Rhine — but they became precious to us. The family is the center of everything for all good Romans, you know. And now you must take care of our gods, our family. Give me your hand now.”
As she opened her palm to take the goddesses, Regina couldn’t keep from flinching. She thought the matres might burn her flesh, or freeze it, or crumble her bones. But they were just like lumps of rock, like pebbles, warm from Aetius’s grasp. She closed her fingers over them. “I’ll keep them safe for my mother.”
“Yes,” Aetius said. He stood up. “Now you must go with Carta and pack up your things. Your clothes — everything you want to take. We’re going on a journey, you and I.”
“Is Mother coming?”
“It will be exciting,” he said. “Fun.” He forced a smile, but his face was hard.
“Should I take my toys?”
He rested his hand on her head. “Some. Yes. Of course.”
“Grandfather—”
“Yes?”
“Why did you make those men put my father facedown in the coffin?”
But he wouldn’t reply, saying only, “Be ready first thing tomorrow — both of you.”
Excited, clutching the goddesses, Regina tugged at Carta’s hand, and they began to make their way back to the villa.
It was only much later that Regina learned that laying a corpse facedown in a coffin was a way of ensuring that the dead would not return to the world of the living.
The next day, not long after dawn, Aetius sacrificed a small chicken. Seeking omens for the journey, he inspected its entrails briskly, muttered a prayer, then buried the carcass in the ground. He cleaned his hands of blood by rubbing them in the dirt.
A sturdy-looking cart drew up in the villa’s courtyard.
Of course Regina was only half packed, even with Carta’s help. When Aetius saw the number of boxes and trunks that lay open around her room, he growled and began to pull out clothes and toys. “Only take what you need, child! You are so spoiled — you would never make a soldier.”
She ran around picking up precious garments and games and bits of cheap jewelry. “I don’t want to be a soldier! And I need this and this—”
Aetius sighed and rolled his eyes. But he argued until he had reduced her to just four big wooden trunks, and, in the final heated stages, allowed her a few more luxuries. A beefy male slave called Macco hauled the boxes out to the cart.
Carta helped her dress in her best outdoor outfit. It was a smart woolen tunic, woven in one piece with long sleeves and a slit for her neck. She wore it over a fine wool undertunic, with a belt tied around her waist.
Aetius stood before her stiffly, clenching and unclenching a fist. Then he knelt to adjust her belt. “Beautiful, beautiful,” he said gruffly. “You look like a princess.”
“Look at the colors,” Regina said, pointing. “The yellow is nettle dye, the orange is onion skins, and the red is madder. It’s all fixed with salt so it will never fade.”
“Not ever? Not in a thousand years?”
“Never.”
He grunted. He straightened and glanced up. “Cartumandua! Are you ready?”
Carta was wearing a tunic of her own, of plain bleached wool, and she carried a small valise.
Regina asked, “Is Carta coming, too?”
“Yes, Carta is coming.”
“And Mother — shall I go and find her?”
But Aetius grabbed her arm. “Your mother isn’t coming with us today.”
“She’ll come later.”
“Yes, she’ll come later.” He clapped his hands. “And the sun is already halfway across the sky and I hoped to be a speck on the horizon by now. Hurry, now, before the day fades altogether …”
Regina ran outside and clambered onto the carriage. It was a simple open frame, but it had big wooden wheels with iron rims and complicated hubs. She was going to ride in front, with Aetius, so she could see everywhere she went. Cartumandua would be in the back, with Macco, the burly slave, and the lashed-down boxes.