“You should give your childhood dolls to Venus,” Livia told me. “It’s the elegant thing to do.”
I didn’t really want to give Lucia away, even to a goddess. But after I had shown off about becoming a grown-up married lady, I felt I had to. Besides, it would get me out of the house for once. My mother listened, then nodded: the idea pleased her.
“I am glad you are accepting childhood is over,” she said. “You are of the age when you should be married – whatever the philosophers say. You need a household of your own, and some children to keep you busy.”
I wasn’t sure about that, but at least I was going outside.
“You can come with me to the temple,” I told Nurse. “You will enjoy that, won’t you? You have never seen the temple of Venus.”
Nurse smiled at me. There seemed a shadow in her eyes though, and she moved more slowly these days, as if carrying a heavy weight. But I had no time to worry about her as the days went on and my father began to arrange our passage to Rome. A whole household – all of us, and our belongings, and our slaves – had to be packed up. The horses were sold and the hens, too. I cried when the horses were taken away. I loved them.
“Perhaps I can have a horse when I am married,” I said to Livia.
Livia snorted.
“Horses are only for men. Roman women do not ride – they are carried, like precious treasures.”
The only creatures that still hung around the courtyard were the stray cats. Last year’s kittens were young toms now. Late in the night the brothers wailed and squalled and slashed each other’s ears with their sharp claws, fighting over territory, until someone forced themself to get out of bed and sling a sandal and a string of curses at them.
One evening, the moment I had quietly dreaded arrived.
“Miss,” Nurse began. She was at the door of my bedroom. “May I speak to you?”
I knew she had come to see me especially, and chosen a moment my parents were both busy at the opposite end of the house. I feared what she was going to say, so I began talking quickly, trying to pretend she was not going to say it.
“Of course, Nurse!” I rushed. “I am so looking forward to going to Rome! They say that everyone must see it once before they die. Aren’t you excited, Nurse? I’m so excited for you! Just think, who could have known you would be lucky enough to see Rome? You know Livia said we should sell you before we leave, but I said I would never sell you; I want you with me forever. I may have children some day and then you could look after them too and we would be so happy, wouldn’t we? So happy!”
I went on like this for a long time. I can hardly bear to remember it. She waited for me to stop talking, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t. And in the end, because my throat was getting dry, I said: “I’m so sorry, Nurse, I have to go, my mother is calling me.”
There was a pause as we both listened to the complete silence, and then she smiled sadly, and nodded, and stepped back into the shadows.
In the end, there was so much to do that it was not until the day before we were due to take ship for Rome that my mother had time to take me to dedicate Lucia to Venus at the temple. The night before, I folded Lucia’s best dresses, thinking how long I had spent making them, imagining the day I would be a woman myself and have dresses like these. My heart beat fast. It made me feel a little sick to think that tomorrow, Lucia would be gone forever – gone to the goddess of love. It did not matter that it was years since I had played with her. She was leaving me. I would be alone. Grown up. A woman. The future looked as dark and mysterious as the sea at night, with only a dim path of moonlight, and shadows everywhere else.
“Look after her, Venus,” I whispered. It took me a long time to fall asleep.
When I woke up, I thought at once of Nurse. I would need her to help me get ready. I opened the door but she was not sleeping outside as she usually was.
“Nurse,” I called, but she did not come. Annoyed at her laziness – today of all days – I hurried to get myself dressed. When I needed my hair brushed I came out again to look for her. But she was not there.
My mother was looking for me, flustered. No one had seen Nurse, but there was no time to hunt for her. We had to hurry to the temple. My mother’s slave girl did my hair, and we went out in the litter – our hand-carried chair – together. My mother insisted on a closed litter, for her usual reason: “Now that you are soon to be married.”
Behind the curtains of the litter, it was stuffy. I could not see the streets, except glimpses as the curtains swayed. I could smell things though: donkeys and goats, the fishmongers, baking bread and the vinegary sharp smell of wine and pickles. And garum: my favourite, salty fish sauce that made everything taste better. On a horse, I thought, I would be able to see far above people’s heads.
We took a long time to get to the
