Chapter III Lela
III
LELA
I neared the pharmakopoles, Mitko and Grigor shadowing behind me. Valerius’s beefy Macedonian slaves served as litter-bearers and bodyguards. And always my watchdogs if I needed to leave the house.
As usual, I garnered stares and pitying looks from passersby. A plebeian woman clutched her son and moved to the far side of the street. I ignored them, keeping my head high as I walked the familiar route through the backstreets of the Aventine.
One reason I hated Valerius’s parties was that he forced me to wear the suffocating bridle that completely covered my mouth, keeping me utterly mute.
It drove me mad to not be able to even open my mouth or say a single word.
Today, I wore a bridle made of cheaper metals that he allowed me to wear during the day.
This one was made of iron. It was ugliest in appearance, looking more like a monster’s jaws, with thin chains draping over the mouthpiece.
People could hear my voice through the loose chains.
Because of its unnaturally fierce design, it made people look away more quickly, as if I must’ve done something hideous indeed to be muzzled by my master in such a way.
Of course, I had. I’d nearly killed him. Nearly.
When I woke this morning, I found my thigh wrapped in a bandage.
I remembered Andreas carrying me from the temple to my room.
I must’ve fallen asleep before he tended to me, as he always did.
I remembered speaking to the senator Trajan as well and everything that transpired between us, but my mind and body floated like in a dream.
The sensation I felt when my blood seeped into his skin gave me a shiver. I snapped that memory closed and focused on the task at hand as I stepped into the medicine woman’s shop, leaving Mitko and Grigor at the door.
The scent of spices and burning incense welcomed me.
Rows of shelves lined the three walls, full of jars and canisters.
Swaths of dried herbs hung on the back wall and from the ceiling, scenting the air with a pungent aroma.
To many, it was overwhelming to the senses, but I found it pleasing to the spirit.
Perhaps that was because Euphemia reminded me of the kind of woman I could’ve been. Headstrong and outspoken and … free.
“Greetings, Thea,” I said upon entering.
The sweet-faced blonde who’d begun working in Euphemia’s shop a few months ago looked up from the bar where she ground herbs with a pestle and mortar.
“Salve, Lela.” She set the pestle down and wiped her hands on an apron. “How may I help you today?”
I liked Thea. She didn’t grimace or curl her lip in disgust at the obscene bridle I was forced to wear.
“Actually, I wondered if Euphemia might be available.”
Thea nodded with a smile and didn’t ask why I wanted to speak to her. It was known that Euphemia could and would get the kinds of herbs a woman wanted for nefarious reasons.
“Of course, Lela. Let me get her for you.”
Thea walked to the curtain of shimmering scarves that separated the front of the shop from the back and spread it open. Her husband—a large, quiet man—worked on something at a table.
“Love, tell Euphemia to come to the front. A customer would like a word.”
He nodded and turned toward the corridor.
Euphemia was the first person who recognized why I wore the bridle. When I first came into her shop, she’d arched a brow at me, and without a proper greeting, she’d said, “You must have a great deal of power for him to cage you in that thing.”
She was right. I had immense power. I’d never believed my bunica, who’d told me my gift would arrive when I needed it most. She’d been right.
But after I’d tried to use it that first and only time, Valerius had beaten me so severely that I’d been too afraid to try again.
What if I failed a second time? He’d kill me for certain.
I’d tried to run away twice after that. And those punishments were worse than the beatings.
So yes, I had power within me. But Valerius had stolen it all away with violence and fear.
Thea returned to me. “Is there something I can help you with while you wait? Perhaps an herbal tea to help you rest at night, calm the nerves?”
“I could always use that, Thea. If I could have a few leaves to take with me for later.”
She smiled and lifted a stone jar from the shelf behind her. She scooped some of the brown tea leaves into a piece of muslin.
“I made this one myself,” she said proudly.
She appeared to be close to my age, but I felt like I’d been on this earth a hundred years. She didn’t wear her troubles on her brow or even in her eyes. Not like me.
“You’re learning your mentor’s trade quickly, aren’t you?”
She looked up, smiling as she tied the muslin with a string. “There is much to learn. And I am hungry for her knowledge. Bless the gods, she is eager to share it. She keeps threatening to die any day now, but I tell Euphemia all the time she will live forever.”
“Ha!” said the elderly woman striding through the curtain of gossamer fabric. “Nonsense, girl. No one can live forever.”
Her gray-black hair was wound in a knot on her head, her eyes lined with kohl. She wore a cream top—stained with soot or dirt—and a colorful skirt. The skirt reminded me of the fust? my sisters and I used to wear when we danced onstage. A piercing ache stabbed me in the heart.
“If anyone could live forever,” I said mildly, “it would be you, Euphemia.”
“That’s for certain,” she agreed with a wink. “Now, what can I get you, my dear? Silphium?”
“Of course, yes.” But that wasn’t what I’d come for.
She recognized my hesitancy. “Why don’t you come to the back with me? Thea, prepare a vial of silphium powder.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Mitko and Grigor still stood outside, sentinels at the entrance.
They knew there was no back exit for me to escape the shop if I’d dare to do so, and they didn’t like Euphemia.
They thought her a witch. I thought so too, which was why I liked her so much.
Their dislike of her was a boon, giving me privacy with her inside the shop. As long as I didn’t take too long.
“Don’t worry. If they come in asking where you are, Thea will take care of them. She flirts so prettily, men forget what they were even doing.”
“Hush, Euphemia. You’ll upset my husband.”
But when I followed Euphemia through the curtain, Thea’s large husband was nowhere to be found. The workroom was empty, with a number of tools and odd mechanical things lying about, a sheet covering part of the table. There were several doorways leading elsewhere from the room.
“Come. I was working in my garden when you arrived.”
She led me down a narrow hallway and opened a door to the right that appeared to be part of the wall. If she hadn’t opened the hidden latch, I might never have seen it. Her home was much like her—unusual, secretive, and useful.
I ducked through the narrow doorway and stepped out into an enclosed courtyard.
There were stone walls on every side, but no windows from the buildings looking down onto it.
To one side, there was a wild garden with many rows of heady-scented plants.
Pretty purple-leafed stems of lavender merged with a thick thatch of hyssop, then also violet, cinnamon, verbena, and the bright yellow flowers of charlock.
A few of these, Valerius’s cook, Chava, grew in the garden behind the house.
I liked to escape there and help her harvest most days.
At the center of the courtyard garden, a pump and small well stood.
Fat pots of plants lined every wall with different herbs I recognized—fennel, sage, lemon balm, and silphium.
The last was difficult to grow—one we didn’t have in Valerius’s garden—but its black stems and yellow blooms were easily recognizable.
It was the plant whose leaves could be ground and consumed for women wanting to prevent pregnancy—certainly a valued plant by many women in Rome. Like myself.
To the other side stood a covered worktable where clippings of dried flowers and herbs were cast about. In one corner, a pen of chickens clucked peacefully, pecking in the straw.
“A secret garden, Euphemia. How lovely.”
She cackled as she waved me over to the worktable. “And my own well right at the center.”
“How did you manage that?”
The wells in the city were for public use or were in bathhouses.
“Magic,” she said, looking over her shoulder with a wink.
Shaking my head, I followed her over to the table.
“So you need my special leaves to keep his root soft, eh? Keep that bastard away from you?”
When she looked up, I shook my head. That wasn’t why I came today.
I’d used her special leaves many times, fearing that he’d begin to make the connection that he only lost desire on the nights he drank the overly aromatic tea I made for him.
But he hadn’t come to me in many months, thank the gods.
Not since he bought Roza. And some nights, his appetite leaned toward Andreas.
I’d become numb for so long—accepting my fate—that I wondered what had awakened inside me to do something like this.
It wasn’t long after I’d heard about the woman flying out of Rome on the back of her dragon lover that this compulsion overcame me.
It was then that the thought of Valerius touching me became so abhorrent I’d become physically ill.
And last night. Something about meeting that senator.
You are going to protect me.
I’d told him that, but it had felt like another creature entirely whispering those words in the dark.
I didn’t know where they’d come from or why I’d said them.
But they felt real. They felt true—in that moment.
This morning, the pain felt sharp, my heart tender, my soul hollow. I simply couldn’t bear it any longer.
“Actually,” I started hesitantly, “I was hoping for something stronger. Like belladonna or hemlock.”