Petra Read online

  “I will do what I must. If it means I die in revenge of my mother’s murder, then so be it.”

  Petra almost felt the slice of the blade the master had slid cleanly through her mother’s neck. Had it only been just last night? Her anger surged, and she pulled back from Lucipor.

  Master Clarius Avidus commanded loyalty at the end of a whip. If he did not get it, he would fly into a rage. At twenty-five, he was young in mind if not in body—too young to take control over his father Lucius Valerius Avidus’s villa and vast latifundia filled with endless wheat fields. But his father, a man they had all loved and respected, had died late last year of the fever. A fair master and pater he was, and a kind one.

  Clarius was the opposite; his rage was so uncontrollable even his father refused him as he lay dying. Young Clarius’s mercurial nature had left him unwilling to reconcile with his father at the bitter end. Everything had changed that day, and the once idyllic life at the Villa di Avidus turned into misery. It was no worse a life than those lived by other slaves in the vast Roman Republic, which stretched all the way from Hispania to Asiana. Many suffered a far worse fate. She had heard rumors of slave revolts in previous decades led by Spartacus somewhere south of Rome, and she often wondered if she would have had the courage to join them had she been born a man. She was glad Lucipor had never talked of escape. She could not have born Clarius’s cruelties without him by her side.

  “Go, Petra,” Lucipor said. “Be silent. Do good work. And come back to me. Don’t do this for the master. Do it for his father and his father’s grandchild. Please.”

  She did not answer, only turned to slip on her tunic and tie her long black hair away from her face. She glanced at him from time to time, trying to memorize his face. Tonight, his dark brown hair was curled behind his ears but, as always, a few strands had fallen loose to tumble down his gaunt cheeks. His shoulders, once thin, were now broad and wide, perfect for enveloping her in an all-consuming embrace.

  Many months ago, the master had ridden away in his chariot all in a rage. The horses charged through the fields, unable to stop. The master had not seen her crouched over near the road leading away from the villa, picking grapes from the vines alongside Lucipor. So focused had Petra been on her own thoughts, her own daydreams of soaking in a pool of cool water, she hadn’t noticed in time. Lucipor was laboring behind her as she dawdled, but he tossed the fruit to the ground and caught her around the waist, whipping her back against his body as the master’s horses galloped by no more than an arm’s length away.

  The shock of the moment did nothing to make her forget the feel of Lucipor’s arms around her. She had always thought him thin, short, gaunt. But as his chin hovered over the top of her head and his muscled arms surrounded hers, Petra realized Lucipor had grown into a man. She asked him later that day how old he was. He said he couldn’t remember, but he figured he was probably at least eighteen, the same as she was. It only took a single moment—a single touch—and then her daydreams were filled with him. It wasn’t just her in the cool pool of water. Lucipor was there now, with those same strong arms surrounding her.

  Before Petra left the slave quarters, Lucipor’s arms came around her again. He held her hard against him, muscles taut. Petra lifted her face up to his last kiss, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the little slave girls wake up and stare wide-eyed up at them.

  Let the girl stare, Petra thought. Let the slaves whisper. I defy them all.

  “Remember our Sappho, Petra?” Lucipor whispered. “Labor and fill my heart with fire. Stand by me and be my ally.”

  “Te amo,” Petra said a little too loudly, her recklessness growing along with her anger.

  “Then love me enough to live.”

  “Come, girl,” Silvipor whispered harshly from across the room, his shadow trailing across the beds of snoring slave women as he stood in the moonlight pouring in through the open doorway.

  She moved to follow him, but Lucipor grabbed her arm, his eyes piercing her even in the half-dark.

  “Promise me,” he said.

  Petra nodded, but only so he would release her. She had no intention of keeping her word. He could not ask this of her. No one could.

  Ever vigilant, Silvipor licked his fingers and smoothed back the frizzy strands of dark brown hair at her temples when she reached him.

  “Your eyes are puffy,” he said gruffly.

  “Let the master see my grief.”

  “You forget it was your own mother who refused to do as he commanded. He was well within his rights.”

  “He murdered her.”

  “It is the way of it, girl.” His tone brooked no further insolence.

  As they rushed along the rocky path toward the master’s quarters, Petra was glad she had donned her second tunic. A chill had descended into the valley on this windless night. They entered through the servants’ posticum at the side of the main house.

  “Wait, I need to fetch my mother’s supplies.” As Silvipor grunted in irritation, his scowl reminding her of an angry bear, Petra hurried into one of the tiny rooms along the side of the house where the slaves’ cleaning supplies were kept. There was no one in the room, so she quickly knelt before the tiny trunk where her mother kept medical instruments and midwifery tools. She would take the supplies with her, of course, but she was looking for something else.

  Beneath all of the other tools, she found the bottle she sought. The phial was unmarked and the liquid inside was clear. It came from the red mortanine flowers growing along the banks of a tiny island in the lake beyond the master’s fields. Her mother discovered it was an effective rat poison years before.

  With shaking hands, Petra slipped the phial into her mother’s bag and followed Silvipor out of the room. Every house servant they passed upon entering the villa rushed them along with either a gesture or a word until, eventually, Petra heard the screams.

  She had often accompanied her mother, Diantha, on her midwifery rounds among the Avidus slaves and servants as well as those in neighboring villas throughout the countryside, but while the master had once trusted her mother’s skills before he took her life, he had forbidden Petra to assist in his child’s birth. Petra’s mother was renowned for her skill, much of which her own mother had taught her back in Corinth, Greece, before Roman soldiers had taken her whole family as slaves. Diantha had helped the slave women deliver their babies. In fact, she had helped deliver the master himself before Petra was born.

  As little as she knew about midwifery, Petra could tell by the sheer terror lacing Constantia Avidus’s screams something had gone horribly wrong. Petra assumed it was a breech baby, but her mother had never let her deliver one before. Even if she did help them, and Clarius’s wife and child died anyway, Petra knew he would kill her purely out of vengeance.

  The master did not care for his wife, but he remained loyal to her. Such a man could never love. Not truly. Not the kind of love she and Lucipor felt. The kind that turned hearts into liquid. The kind that melted a gaze into moonlight. Petra said a prayer to Venus and Artemis, the Roman and Greek goddesses of fertility, though why she could not say. She believed in her mother’s Greek gods and goddesses—not those of her masters. This child’s delivery meant only another master to serve, and who was to say he wouldn’t be as cruel as Clarius when he came of age? She rubbed the smooth glass of the phial within the supply bag and slipped into the mistress’s quarters. The master was there, his back turned to her, and Petra thought it strange. Birthing was women’s work. Then again, he had killed his midwife, so who was left but inexperienced slaves and servants?

  Constantia was looking up at him with terror in her eyes as he held the backs of his fingers to her perspiring temple. Rarely had Petra seen him showing such tenderness toward her. Petra had expected him to be raging at Constantia for putting his baby at risk, or at least the servants for not serving him fast enough. It was his way. And, yet, both he and his wife were locked together in this silent moment of anguish. Petra want
ed to hate Clarius for evoking this strange sense of pity for them, but she could not. She squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head, and it was then Constantia noticed her.

  “Come here, girl,” Constantia said, her voice cracked and weakened from exhaustion. Petra knew she had been in labor for at least a day already.

  “Yes, Era Constantia.” Petra locked eyes with the woman, avoiding Clarius’s gaze burning a hole in her head as she passed him by. At one point, she thought he would reach out and strike her, but instead, he stood like a stone in the center of the room, his growing anger at her presence as tangible as the child who would not come from his wife’s womb. It must have been Constantia who called for her and not the master.

  Petra knew what was in his mind. He wished her dead and at the same time hoped she would keep his child alive. Petra’s heart raced in time with her breathing. The skin along the surface of her arms tingled with fear.

  “The baby is turned, girl. I can feel it.” Constantia grabbed her arm hard, but Petra did not cry out. She set the tools aside and moved around to the other side of the bed so she could gauge how far along the woman was. Petra tried to remember her mother’s teachings, but all her thoughts were focused on one thing: the mortanine poison.

  “What’s wrong with her?” the master demanded. “What do you see?”

  Petra avoided his gaze, knowing she would not be able to stop herself from spitting in his face. She took stock of the contents of the room. The house slaves had brought in all the necessary items. There was a hard couch for the mother’s resting periods between labor pains and a softer couch for resting after the birth. Next to the hard couch where Constantia lay stood Diantha’s birthing chair, a tool of her trade she had carried with her since their days in Greece. It offered strong support to the mother’s back and a crescent-shaped opening in the seat through which the child would eventually pass.

  On a nearby table lay a small amphora of olive oil for massaging the belly as well as bottles of salt and honey to scrub mucous from the baby’s skin after birth. Warm water filled a bowl and cloth strips were stacked at the ready.

  All this was useless in the end. A single glance at the poorly presenting cervix and the shocking amount of blood loss told Petra everything she needed to know. This woman would likely die and the baby along with her if it were not stillborn already. Perhaps Diantha could have saved them with her decades of experience, but Petra had never even seen a breech birth, much less delivered one. To confirm it, she patted Constantia’s thigh to have her open wider and examined her. She probed inside gently and realized what she felt was only one of the baby’s feet. She couldn’t locate the other foot at all. Blood had soaked the bed and covered the poor woman’s legs.

  Petra did not look at the master as she finally responded to his question. “The baby is breech.”

  Constantia moaned at the confirmation of her suspicions. “It’s too much, Clarius. I must have a tonic for the pain.” She leaned onto her side with a hand to her belly as the contractions started again.

  “Give her something, girl!” the master shouted with a dismissive wave of his hand.

  Petra hesitated. This was the moment, when she would choose life or death: for Constantia, for the baby… for herself.

  Faced with this woman’s agony, she poured through the supply bag looking for anything to ease her pain. It wasn’t truly Constantia and this baby she wanted to suffer—it was the master himself. She knew the mother and baby would die whether she helped or not. The poison would end her suffering faster if nothing else.

  “Do it now!” Desperation tinged Clarius’s angry shout, as his wife’s contractions reached a fever pitch. He grabbed the bag and dumped it out all over the couch beside his wife, who was screaming from the pain. He threw the instruments to the floor, recklessly sifting through the contents for something useful.

  “I have no true tonic,” Petra said evenly.

  “Then what exactly is in this phial here, girl?” Clarius held up the mortanine poison, and Petra resisted the overwhelming urge to snatch it back from him.

  “I—I don’t know what it’s for or…,” Petra said, backing away from the master, “…or if it would harm the baby.”

  “Give!” was all Constantia could get out before a contraction left her speechless.

  Petra knew the woman was in excruciating pain. Wouldn’t it be a mercy to give her a quicker release? Petra looked up at Clarius, then, an overarching revenge filling her chest, shivers and heat vying for dominance inside the layers of her skin.

  The master took one last look at the liquid in the phial and handed it to his wife. The woman took it, the greed of relief shining in her eyes.

  “No!” Petra screamed. Then her vision blurred into a vision of her mother out in the midday dust as the blood poured from her open neck and her body crumpled into the dirt at the master’s feet. Mother… Mother, please come back to me…

  The vision faded into darkness. Petra shook her whole body, trying to rid herself of the images of death, of murder. When she opened her mind to reality once more, death looked out through Constantia’s eyes as she clutched the half-empty phial in her trembling fist.

  Petra stared as a strange expression came over the woman’s face, as she began to understand something was horribly wrong. She looked straight at Clarius as he slowly turned to stare at her, confusion and anger flashing in his expression.

  “Now we are even, master.” Petra’s voice was steady but held none of the real contempt she wanted to feel. She felt empty, hollow, ashamed.

  It took him only a moment to realize what she meant, and only a moment more to strike her senseless.

  Petra ended up against the wall in the corner of the room, her jaw on fire, blood filling her mouth from a gash the master had ripped open in her lip, her ears ringing. She kept her eyes closed, waiting… for what, she knew not. Would it be a dagger? A whip? Or perhaps stones or a crucifixion.

  The master’s voice was far away. He was shouting, yes, but not at her. There was something about the baby. He wanted it out. The woman was screaming as if death was only moments away. Petra remembered: it was. Constantia was in her death throes now. At any moment, it would all be over. And, in a few moments more, it would all be over for her too.

  Strange noises came from the bed. The woman was hysterical. No, no, it was the master himself, grunting with effort, shouting as though a madness had entered him. Petra didn’t understand a word, but she had heard the sounds before. She dared to look up. The master was ripping the dead child from its mother’s womb. Blood streamed from Constantia’s corpse, covering Clarius’s arms and the pale cloths surrounding her.

  Petra brought her hand up to her mouth, covering the cry that would not come. The master stared at the blue-skinned infant in his hands, shaking the boy until his head lolled back against his mother’s leg.

  “My son, my son…” the master said over and over, as if by saying the words he could will the boy back to life.

  Petra watched all of this almost unseeing. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind she remembered she was the architect of this bloody scene. Soon, the master would have his own revenge and hasten her own inevitable end.

  The smell of sickness and blood hovered thick in the air. Petra finally noticed the throng of horrified servants who had gathered in the hallway. They dared not enter. They stared at her, accusation and shock burning in their eyes. Only one wore an expression of relief. It was Constantia’s personal slave, the young girl who could never please her mistress, no matter how hard she tried. The girl was glad, at least, the woman was gone. Petra fixed her mind upon the slave girl, clinging to her as if she were a hand outstretched to save her from drowning.

  The master laid the boy down at last and looked at his wife’s face with a finality. With a hand on her bloodied leg, Clarius finally looked full and long at Petra. She stared back at him, and they remained locked in mutual hatred for what seemed an eternity. She realized, then, even if she did somehow escape de
ath this day, that hatred would never dissipate, would never die.

  When the master finally spoke, his voice was dispassionate. “I am going to revel in your death, slave girl. When it is done, I will put your head on a pike for all the slaves to see. I will not order you down until the birds have pecked your skull clean. I will burn your bones until there is nothing left of you but ash and all memory of you is gone. Then, and only then, will we be even.”

  II. The Master

  July 13, 2 BC

  Petra heard the master’s threat as if through a dream. She did not see him through her hazy vision. She saw only Lucipor before her, his eyes willing her not to look away from him. He said the words again, only this time they were a whisper.

  Love me enough to live…

  I couldn’t do it, Lucipor. I couldn’t let this go.

  The master rose from the bed. She knew because his shadow fell across her body as she crouched against the wall.

  Clarius took hold of her wrist and yanked her up to her feet, banishing the comforting image of Lucipor’s beautiful, soft eyes. She did not fight, unsure if it would prolong a more painful death or quicken it. She only hoped Lucipor would not be there to witness it. She didn’t think she could bear that.

  Silvipor stood in the outer corridor beyond the room’s portal. “What is your command, Master?” he asked, and his question felt like a betrayal to Petra. She reminded herself he was not truly one of them and turned her face away, wiping the seeping blood from her mouth, her jaw aching fiercely from the master’s hand.

  “Fetch me a rope. I am not to be disturbed otherwise.”

  “Yes, Master.” Silvipor strode away without a glance in her direction. It surprised her Clarius’s most loyal slave never suspected what she would do, but then he didn’t know of her mother’s poison.

  With a strange sort of detachment, Petra realized the master had some sort of torture or hanging in mind. She felt herself floating outside of her body, wholly separate from her physical form, as if she were entering one of her own vivid memories. Was this a kind of self-protection? Was her ability to see images that weren’t there going to save her from the pain—from death? What would it feel like to die? She determined not to cry out, no matter what the master inflicted upon her. He would not conquer her. She had already destroyed his lineage, his family. As he had destroyed hers. She did not regret it. And if she could figure out a way, she would kill him too.