Dragon Curse

Chapter Two

Agrivespa
The Earth Mother

Ginae woke Gaius in the middle of the night. “Husband, I still have a headache that will not stop. It pounds and throbs like a slave driving a pylon into the ground. I need relief. Those women are still out there day and night with their mutters and peeps. I feel like snakes are crawling on me.”

“Do you want to go to see Doctor Phillipos or perhaps a healer I know of in the country,” Gaius replied as he sat up on the side of the bed. “A daylong ride into the interior will take us to the Dragon Cave shrine where the Earth Mother oracle lives and works. I think getting away from this town will do us both good. I also have someone who will rid us of this nonsense for good soon.”

“Sooner than later, I hope.”

During that night someone hired a professional sign maker to paint on a blank wall of the forum in black letters a notice that read: For Women Only! The Earth Mother, Agrivespa, visits tomorrow. In the Forum. A crowd gathered to read it that morning and the news spread quickly throughout the town.

The small Christian community in Alerios was once only about thirty strong. A few years previously, orders from Rome arrived that all who practiced “That pernicious and hateful religion, called Christianity,” should be ordered to renounce it or face death by crucifixion. The city fathers, some of whom were believers themselves, got these orders from the island governor and did nothing. Now, with a new emperor, the tide of persecution receded and there were about one hundred practicing Christians who met in various houses and rural barns during bad weather and outdoors during good. They were led by a woman named Agnes the Good, the town midwife.

Justa was an active member of the group. Gaius, who didn’t believe in the Christian God, and still maintained his household lares altar, really didn’t care what his slaves believed in. He knew that Justa had healing power but he had rarely seen her use it except when she healed Portia’s split tongue, years ago.

Agnes the Good was an occasional visitor to Gaius’s house but held little sway over Justa’s master and mistress. She did talk to Telesforus but he would only skulk away when she came around. She laughed and called him Telesforus the Unholy or sometimes the Ill-Ordered Ghost.

Justa prayed that the women outside tormenting them would go away. She left the house under the cover of darkness and went across town to the small apartment above a butcher shop where Agnes lived with her teenage daughters. Agnes, a widow who mended clothes, between birthing babies, would never accept support from the believers. Justa brought an oil lamp in a glass-enclosed bronze lantern to light her way through the darkened streets. Next to the shop, a door led up a flight of wooden stairs to a rickety loggia where four tiny apartments lay. The entire place smelled of blood from the shop below. She went to the third door and tapped lightly.

Agnes, a short plump woman of about thirty-five stood to answer the door. Her hair, dark and curly, was piled up high on her head and tied in a bun. Little strands escaped like uncombed wool and wisped around her ruddy pink face.

“Sister Justa, come in,” she motioned with her hand and spoke with a small soft voice. “I don’t wish to awaken my neighbors. What brings you here at this hour?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard of the man called, Simon Magus, The Standing-One?”

“Yes, he’s a spawn of Satanas our enemy. The late apostle, Simon Peter the Rock, warned us about people like him. I heard it read from one of his letters he sent to some of the churches.”

Justa’s eyes adjusted to the dim light in the small apartment. “My master, Gaius, took Portia to this charlatan to see if he could get her healed. Poscoe told me Simon Magus tried to molest her and my master bit his ear off.”

“We shouldn’t rejoice in others misfortunes, should we? That’s not what our Lord taught us, but….” she hesitated a moment and grinned, “I might make an exception for this one time. I see nothing but problems in the future for us unless he repents.”

“My mistress, Ginae,” Justa said, “is being tormented day and night by his three wives, who stand outside of our house and chant endlessly. They mutter curses which disrupts her sleep and cause her headaches. She’s looking to her idols for relief and can find none. How can I help?”

“Let us pray together tonight and we will get the assembly to pray as a body tomorrow at our meeting.”

After a few minutes of earnest prayer and wise councel from Agnes, Justa left and went back home.

“This kitchen is a mess, Antonia Rufa,” said Ginae the next morning. “I thought you knew how to cook and keep a tidy kitchen. Clean it up. We will all die of disease if you leave dirty pots lying around on the ground. Flies are blowing in and out of them.”

“Domina,” the girl cried. “I need some help. My joints hurt day and night since these women started their curses.” She pushed back her long red hair from her forehead. “My daughter Nonia is sick. Telesforus will not lift a finger to help me.”

“Get Poscoe to help you for now,” Ginae said. “I am going to talk to my husband about that lazy slave. He is as useless as a bucket of dog hair.”

Antonia Rufa bowed low. She liked Poscoe although he was much younger than she. He, at least, is trainable, she thought. A lump of bread dough is useless unless it’s been kneaded into something worth baking.

Poscoe, along with Gaius’s young son Marcus, were both infatuated with Nonia. Antonia Rufa kept a close eye on her daughter and they shared a bed together upstairs in the slave cubicles. Although Antonia Rufa was aware of their lovesick pretentions, she remembered how she was seduced by a swine herder, which resulted in the birth of Nonia, and didn’t want the same for her daughter.

To Antonia Rufa, Marcus was a dull young man who plodded through his life with little purpose or direction. He reminded her of Telesforus. Another, but higher branch of the same olive tree, she thought. Poscoe was intelligent and lively. She noticed that Gaius asked Poscoe to accompany him when he transacted business in the forum or in the law court that met in the town basilica. Marcus spent too much time with his mother at the baths and theater. If she had her choice, she pondered, would she prefer Nonia with Marcus rather than Poscoe? Often, masters freed their bastard children by slaves. The women chanting outside made her edgy and she knew they were the ones who made Nonia sick. She fingered the earth mother amulet she wore on a cord around her neck and prayed silently. She wished the old slave Verta, who came from Africa and had skin the color of burned wood, was still alive. She was able to cast effective spells and would have rid them from this dramatic nuisance outside. She often thought her mistress Ginae was just as much of a nuisance. She also hoped Gaius would adopt Poscoe so Nonia could marry him.

In preparation for the family’s next meal, Antonia Rufa took Nonia and Poscoe with her to the market to buy food. Ginae never gave her any money but everything she purchased was on credit. Her first stop was the vegetable seller Cornelia who had a cart and a reputation for the freshest lettuce, cabbages, and onions. She took great pride in making designs from her produce and her stall displays often resembled an artist’s palette. None of the other fruit and vegetable sellers bothered. Her prices were a little higher. Cornelia wore a straw hat covered in felt and always grinned broadly.

“I know the summer crops are not in yet, but do you have any nice radishes or early lettuce?” Antonia Rufa said lifting each item to her nose.

“The farmers promised me we would have some lettuce next week. Carrots and parsnips are available and radishes, yes, my radishes are nice. I hear you have three insane women tormenting your master.”

“We do, and it bothers my mistress more than it does me. I’ll take eight medium onions, a handful of radishes, some pine nuts and two cabbages. Do you have any fresh eggs?”

“Only pigeon and duck eggs today.”

“I want twenty duck eggs and fifteen pigeon eggs. My mistress only eats pigeon eggs. I wish you had a potion that would rid us of these crows that torment our house,”Antonia Rufa grinned.

Cornelia packed the eggs, into a string bag stuffed with fresh straw, placed the vegetables into a moist hemp bag, and handed it to Poscoe to carry. “Osiris doesn’t permit me to kill people for revenge,” she replied. “We will pray for your household.”

Antonia Rufa went next to the fishmonger Old Bacchus. He displayed an assortment of the day’s catch on a bed of wet seaweed. “Ho, young lady,” he cried out, “We’ve some fine fresh-caught sole today. Pulled out of the sea last night. How about some octopus or shrimp?”

“I want twenty large shrimp and six sole. Let me see if their eyes are clear.” She lifted the fish to her nose. “These four look and smell good but these two are as old as my sandals,” she said as she held them up by their tails. “The cat would turn up her nose at these. Maybe I should buy them for the harpies outside our house.”

Old Bacchus made a face. His wife, a half-toothed hag came up to Antonia Rufa and whispered. “Mistress, I know where you can buy a dried fish powder that comes from India that can make a person’s limbs as limp as an octopus out of...