Lupercalia

Pushing the thoughts away, he continued to test each stone of the walls. He had to get out. Gaius must have a plan. He would need to re-supply the room eventually. Marcus decided he would escape when that happened, whether by overpowering or persuading his cousin, he would get out. Once he was free, he would go to the temple and claim that he had raped Julia. That would satisfy Tertius' needs and might spare Julia's life. She could no longer serve Vesta, but perhaps she might be allowed to live.

With these thoughts weaving through his mind, he felt an almost unbearable weariness come over him. Feeling through the darkness, he dragged a blanket off the bed and wrapped himself in it, shielding himself from view of the door by creating a hollow in the pile of supplies. Though his head throbbed with every heartbeat, he quickly fell asleep.

A sound from the door awakened him. A blinding knife of light cut into the chamber as the door was removed. Confused noises came into the room from above. A priest was trying to speak above the sounds of an angry mob. A rope ladder descended into the chamber and the foot of a woman began to descend it. As the figure descended, he recognized Julia. She was dressed in the clothes of a person that had been prepared for burial. In horror, he realized he was in the chamber where Vestals that had lost their virtue were buried alive. He had run out of time.

Marcus silently stood up, ready to announce himself in one last hope of keeping her from her fate, when Julia looked over to him and glared, vehemently shaking her head. A hand that had been offered to her to help her descend was withdrawn, thinking she had rejected its help. Turning from the door as the chamber was sealed, Julia went to sit on the bed, watching Marcus intently until all light was shut out of the room again.

"Stay quiet, Marcus. If you love me at all, I beg you to let them think I am dying alone," she whispered. Soon, all they heard were the sounds of dirt and rubble being shoveled onto the outside of the chamber door, sealing them forever inside to die.

Going to her, he knelt and took her in his arms in the darkness. "What have you done? I could have saved you. Why did you do this?" he whispered into her cruelly shorn hair.

"I had to. There was no other way. Gaius and I overheard Tertius conspiring with the High Priest after you left the feast. You were to be conscripted into the Army and then left to die in an indefensible position as repayment for your father's business dealings. We couldn't let that happen."

"What I said about the High Priest was true, in part. He did intend to make me his whore, but his obsession was such that he would never have allowed me to face this judgment if I had not confessed to the guard that found me. It made my crime public. He even tried to get me to protest my innocence by having me carry water in a sieve to show that the goddess' favor was still upon me. Of course, this was after coating my hands in a clear sealant that would keep the water inside, but I refused. Everything would have been for naught if I couldn't come to meet you in here."

"So, we could die buried alive together? What madness—" he began shouting, when she covered his mouth with her hand, then her lips, kissing him. Her tears covered his face, and realizing that blame was only pointless and cruel at this point, he gave up his arguments. Despair fueled their passions until long after the sounds of rubble being shoveled onto and over the door no longer penetrated the chamber. They were soon too far underground to hear anything of the living world now.

The chamber was silent, but for the sounds of their breathing. The darkness was a living thing, sticking to their skin, weighing them down. This was a place of death. So revered were they, that it was forbidden to shed the blood of a Vestal, even after she had lost her virtue. Even that act would be an insult to Vesta. So, it was devised that a punishment of death for a Vestal could be meted out in a bloodless manner: they would be buried alive. Of course, Roman law forbade the burial of bodies within the city, so to satisfy both the goddess and the law an underground chamber was constructed in the Evil Fields, the Campus Sceleratus, where the defiled Vestal was placed with provisions and air to last her a few days until she would finally begin succumb to a slow death. Her blood was neither shed, nor was a dead body buried, but the law and the gods were satisfied.

"Where is the lamp?" Julia asked, taking the fire striker and lighting the lamp when she found them nearby. She took the lamp, got to her hands and knees, and then began feeling each floor stone carefully.

"I tried all the stones of the walls. They're solid. I doubt the floor is any—" Marcus began, when Julia exclaimed in excitement, feeling a small indentation in the floor. "What is it?" he asked. She led him to the stone and put his fingers over the depression. "Feels like... a fish..." he said, confused.

"It is," she said, her voice trembling with excitement. "One of the Sisters told me to look for it," Julia said, lifting the lid of the chamber pot and taking a stone-working tool out of it. Handing it to Marcus, she pointed him toward the stone and stood back. He brought the pick down on the tile which shattered into pieces and fell into a tunnel that went down under the chamber, just large enough to crawl through. "Painted clay..." he murmured.

Julia grabbed the lamp and tied her skirts up between her legs to keep them from tripping her, and descended face first into the hole. Stunned, Marcus followed her into the tunnel, which after a short distance opened into a hole broken through the side of an aqueduct. Once they were through, Julia examined the hole by the light of the lamp until she found a small fish drawn on one side of the hole. Erasing it, she grabbed his hand and ran in the direction the fish indicated until they came to another passage in the aqueduct which had a small fish drawn above it.

After erasing the mark, Julia climbed into the passage, which ascended gradually until they reached a covered opening. Julia knocked on the cover with the pick and waited. Soon, the stone was lifted to reveal the grinning, relieved face of Gaius, who took Julia's hand and pulled her out into a beautiful walled garden, secluded from outside view. Marcus climbed out of the hole without help and replaced the stone covering to the tunnel. "The Horti Sallustiani job..." he murmured, looking around in recognition.

"Is he ready? Are you sure about him?" Julia questioned Gaius, who raised his hands in a calming gesture. "Don't you try to calm me down, Gaius. My face is known to every priest in Rome and you think you've found one that will help us? Priests just killed me! I'm supposed to be dead!" she said, bearing down on him with a pointed finger until he tripped backward over a garden cart and fell down.

"It's okay! It's okay! Sheesh!" Gaius complained, getting up with a hand from Marcus. "You can trust this guy... he helps people. He's agreed to help us."

"I also happen to specialize in serving people who have trouble staying dead," said a warm voice of a man walking out of the house. Something radiated from the man, something good and bright, like sunlight made of hope. "Peace be with you, child," the priest said, his eyes crinkling as he smiled and took her hands in his own.

"You...?" she said, breathlessly. Julia swallowed, stunned into silence.

"Me," the priest answered with a shrug, chuckling. Then, turning to Marcus, "It is my understanding that you've come here today with the intention of marrying this woman?"

"Sir, I... what?" Marcus said, confused.

"Yeah, this is the guy. I can't figure why everyone thinks he's the smart one, except that he has just barely enough sense to keep his mouth shut most of the time," Gaius offered. Turning to Marcus, he explained, "He's helping us get you two out of Rome as soon as we can, giving you new identities and then we're heading north. Problem is, if you're a single man, you'll get conscripted into the army at the first town and then this whole plan was for nothing," he explained. "So, shut up and marry the love of your life so I can go enlist in the army and, with a few choice bribes, be your escort to Gaul."

Marcus turned back to the priest, who was waiting patiently with amusement in his merry eyes. "Um... yes. I... I love Julia. I always have. If she is willing, I would marry her -- whatever the cost may be. Please forgive me if this union offends the gods, Sir, but—"

"That will do, young man," the priest said, patting him on the shoulder. "The God I serve is not offended by love, only by artifice dressing itself as such. I will marry you."

"Thank you..." Marcus said, humbled by the grace of the man. In a short period of time, he had been protected from death, impossibly reunited with the woman he loved, and given a new life with her. Marcus was one of the most reviled criminals in Rome, and this priest was inexplicably risking his life to protect him. "Sir..." Marcus asked, finding it difficult to hold up his head because it would force him to look down upon the diminutive man who was saving his life, "Who... who are you?" he whispered.

"Oh, I'm just another child of God, Marcus," he said, warming them again with the peace in his voice. "But if you would know my name, you may call me... Valentine."

Lupercalia