The Raven and the Rose Read Online Free PDF

for some time to handle her own money and operate free of the patria potestas , the authority of her father. That worthy gentleman had sold her to the Consul Sejanus and her younger sister Julia to the Vestals and then succumbed, it was said, to a jug of poisoned wine. He’d found both of his daughters advantageous positions before a slave he had flogged took revenge by slipping a tincture of mercury into his after dinner libation cup.
    Now her husband was dead, her father was dead, and the only man she still had to deal with was her grandfather, Casca, whom she wished would die. He was coming to visit her shortly and she did not want to see him. She was tired, restless, and bitter, over three years the widow of a much older man who’d been far more interested in bedding twelve year old slave boys than sleeping with his wife. By some miracle he’d left her pregnant when he went to assume the governorship of Cilicia, and she had begged off accompanying him on account of her condition. She had lost the baby, which might have been some comfort to her, and then made excuses not to join Sejanus until he died of some barbarian fever. Now she had his fortune, but couldn’t have a good time with it because her grandfather Casca, the paterfamilias , still lived, and claimed the father’s authority over Larthia that his son had relinquished when he died. She was snared by the sterile fate of the honorable Roman widow, and she was still less than twenty-two years old.
    Larthia had never accepted the submissive role of Roman women. Controlled completely by the men in their lives, first their fathers, then their husbands, they were free to direct their own destiny only if they were lucky enough to outlive their mates and strong enough to resist the considerable social pressure to marry again. She’d been lucky, and she was strong, but Casca, though old, still exerted his influence, and Larthia was afraid of him.
    His whole family was afraid of him. That’s why Larthia had married Sejanus at the age of fifteen, because her grandfather had wanted the political alliance with the wealthy Consul, even though the latter’s sexual proclivities were well known. Her sister Julia’s fate, also dictated by the family, had been even worse. Larthia had some chance of autonomy if her grandfather died, but Julia was trapped for thirty years in the life of a perpetual virgin because her father had not been man enough to object when Casca put her name forward for the honor.  
    All of it was sordid, and none of it was fair.
    “Decimus Gnaeus Casca awaits you in the atrium, mistress,” the old slave Nestor announced from her bedroom doorway.
    Larthia sighed and rose. She moved quickly through the vast house, which had been decorated tastefully and expensively by Sejanus’ previous wife, and in which she still felt like a guest. She saw her grandfather waiting for her in the atrium, or entry hall, flanked by the masks of Sejanus’ ancestors hanging on the frescoed walls.  
    Larthia bent and kissed the hand he offered. “Grandfather,” she said. “Welcome.”
    Casca was in his sixties, older than any man had a right to be. His thin white hair barely covered his pink skull and his elaborately draped toga was bleached snow white in order to make its purple border more vivid. Under it his tunic sleeves were fringed and the tunic itself, visible at his waist, had two vertical bands of purple woven into the cloth.  
    Larthia found his affectations ridiculous. He was too ancient to be a dandy.  
    She led him inside to the tablinum , or parlor, where they reclined on a plush couch, the carved arms of which were inlaid with African ivory.
    “How is your health?” Larthia inquired. It was the standard first question, and she gestured for Nestor to come forward as her grandfather recounted his recent visit to a physician who prescribed juniper wood wine for his sciatica.
    “Would you like some refreshment?” Larthia asked Casca, who shook his