The Furies of Rome Read Online Free PDF Page B

favouring him with a radiant smile that put him in mind of Flavia when he had first met her in Cyrenaica, ‘that served the little beast right.’
    Crowded around the body in the death-chamber, Vespasian stood with Sabinus, Flavia and his three children – Domitian snivelling quietly and Titus, his eldest son, still in his hunting clothes – in contemplation of the deceased, who remained exactly as she had died, untouched until the ritual of death could commence. Outside the room all the family’s freedmen and slaves had gathered in the dusk-swathed courtyard garden, ready to play their part in the lamentation.
    After a respectable period of reflection, Sabinus, as the eldest blood relative present, stepped forward and knelt down next to Vespasia. ‘May your spirit pass,’ he whispered before leaning over her, kissing her lips and then pulling the palm of his hand over her eyes, closing them for the last time, thus sealing the passing of the spirit. ‘Vespasia Polla!’ Sabinus cried, ‘Vespasia Polla!’
    Vespasian and the rest of the family joined in the calling of the deceased’s name and were soon followed by the men in the household outside as the women began to wail in grief, the sound echoing around the house as it grew in intensity and conviction.
    Vespasian shouted himself almost hoarse calling his mother’s name, but to no avail as she had already begun her final journey and was now beyond hearing.
    When Sabinus deemed the grieving to be sufficient, he got back to his feet and placed his hands under the arms of the corpse as Vespasian took hold of the ankles; between them they lifted Vespasia from the bed and laid her on the ground. This final duty done, the menfolk left the corpse in the charge of Flavia and Domitilla, along with the rest of the women for washing and anointing before being dressed in her finest attire and then brought into the atrium to lie in state with her feet pointing towards the front door.
    ‘So it’s to be tomorrow then,’ Magnus, Vespasian’s friend of many years despite their very different social status, said as Sabinus concluded the final prayer at the household altar in the atrium, having placed a coin under the tongue of his dead mother.
    ‘Yes,’ Vespasian replied, pulling down the fold of his toga with which he had covered his head during the religious ceremony. ‘Pallo is going to have the slaves work all night to build a pyre for her and assemble her tomb.’
    Magnus’ lined and battered face, moulded over sixty-eight years, creased into a questioning aspect; his left eye, a crude glass replica, stared at Vespasian with the same intensity as his real one. ‘Assemble her tomb? Do you mean you’ve already commissioned it? Before she was even dead?’
    ‘Well, yes, evidently, otherwise the slaves wouldn’t be able to put it together tonight.’
    ‘Wasn’t that a bit previous, if you don’t mind me saying, sir? I mean, what if she had got better? Might it not have looked as if you were actually hoping that she would die and were so keen on the idea that you’d got everything ready because you couldn’t wait?’
    ‘Of course not; a lot of people order tombs in advance because you can get a better price from the stonemasons if you’re not in a hurry for it.’
    Magnus scratched his grey hair and sucked the air through his teeth, nodding his ironic understanding. ‘Ah, I see, economising in death; very wise. After all, she was only your mother; you wouldn’t want her to cause you too much unnecessary expense now, would you?’
    Vespasian smiled, used to his friend’s criticisms of his use – or lack of it – of his purse. ‘It makes no difference to my mother whether her ashes are placed tomorrow in a tomb or if they hang about in the casket for four or five days while a stonemason builds exactly the same tomb for twice the money.’
    ‘I’m sure it don’t,’ Magnus agreed as the rest of the family started to make their way, past Vespasia’s body