She was immediately struck by a sense of richness. It was like a drawing room, she thought, with dark oak panels on the walls, and marble inlays in the floor, and furniture, tables and chairs and couches. The furniture looked as if it had come from a number of periods, perhaps as far back as the eighteenth century, but there was a wide-screen television, set in a large walnut cabinet. The furniture was heavily used: worn patches on the seat covers, scuffs on the table surfaces, even wear in the marble tiles on the floor. Clocks ticked patiently, their faces darkened by a patina of time. There was more of a sense of age here than in any room she had ever visited in the Crypt.
And there was a unique smell — sour, strong, quite unlike the antiseptic hospital smell of the corridor — something hot, animal, oddly disturbing.
At the center there was a bed, or a couch, the single largest piece of furniture in the room. There was somebody lying on the couch, still, frail looking, reading a book. There was one other person in the room, a young woman who sat patiently in a big, worn armchair, quietly watching the woman in the bed. Rosa nodded at the attendant, smiling.
Rosa led Lucia forward. Their footsteps seemed loud on the marble, but as they neared the bed they reached a thick rug that deadened the noise.
There was one large painting on the rear wall, Lucia saw now. It showed a melodramatic scene of a line of women, their clothing rent, standing before a mob of marauding men. The women were wounded and defenseless, and the intent of the men was obvious. But the women would not give way. The picture was captioned: 1527 — SACCO DI ROMA, the Sack of Rome.
The woman on the bed did not look up from her book. She was very old, Lucia saw. Her face looked as if it had dried out and imploded, like a sun-dried tomato, her skin leathery and marked with liver spots. Wisps of gray hair lay scattered on the cushion behind her head. On a metal stand beside her bed a plastic bag fed some pale fluid into her arm. A blanket lay over her legs, and she wore a heavy, warm- looking bed jacket, although the room seemed hot to Lucia.
This was Maria Ludovica, then, one of the legendary matres. She looked terribly old, tired, ill — and yet she was pregnant; the swelling in her belly, under the blanket, was unmistakable.
The stink was powerful here, a stink like urine. Lucia felt drawn, repelled at the same time.
Rosa leaned forward and said softly, “Mamma — Mamma—”
Maria looked up blearily, her eyes rheumy gray pebbles. “What, what? Who’s that? Oh, it’s you, Rosa Poole.” She glanced down at her book irritably, tried to focus, then closed the book with a sigh. “Oh, never mind. I always thought old age would at least give me time to read. But by the time I’ve got to the bottom of the page I’ve forgotten what was at the top …” She leered at Lucia, showing a toothless mouth. “What an irony — eh? So, Rosa Poole, who is this you’ve brought to see me? One of mine?”
“One of yours, Mamma. She is Lucia. Fifteen years old.”
“And you’ve reached your menarche.” Maria reached out with one clawlike hand; she compressed Lucia’s breast, not unkindly. Lucia forced herself not to flinch. “Well, perhaps she’ll do. Is she to be your champion, Rosa?”
“Mamma, you shouldn’t talk that way—”
Maria winked, hideously, at Lucia. “I’m too old not to speak the truth. Too old and sick and tired. And Rosa doesn’t like it. Well, I’ve stirred you all up — haven’t I? At least I can still do that. It’s just as when I’m ready to pup. I can see how it agitates them, all these slim breastless sisters. Their little nipples ache, and their dry bellies cramp — isn’t that true, Cecilia?” She snapped the question at her patient nurse, who merely smiled. “Well, I’m pregnant again — and I’m dying, and that’s stirred them up even more. Hasn’t it, Rosa Poole?” Maria cackled. “I feel like the pope, by God. White smoke, white smoke …”
Lucia remembered what Pina had said, about a disturbance in the Crypt going back years, of more girls like her — more freaks, she thought gloomily — coming into their menarche, instead of staying young, like everybody else, everybody normal. Perhaps the illness of this strange old woman really was having some kind of effect — perhaps it had somehow affected her.
If so, she resented it.
Maria Ludovica saw that in her eyes. “By Coventina’s dugs, there is steel in this one, Rosa. If she is your choice she is a good one.” That claw hand shot out again to grab Lucia’s arm. She whispered, “You know, child, I’m old, and shut up in here, but I’m no fool, and I’m not out of touch. Things are changing in the world, faster than ever, faster than I can remember. The new technology — phones and computers, wires and cables and radio waves everywhere — everybody joined up … We have many new opportunities to do business — don’t we, Rosa? You see, Rosa and her rivals know this. But they know that if it is to prosper in a time of change the Order must be based on the firmest of foundations. And I, a foundation stone, am crumbling. And so the rivals maneuver, through looks and glances, visits of their candidates and inquiries after my health, testing their strength against each other as against me—”
Lucia said, “Rosa, what does she mean?”
Rosa shook her head. “Nothing. She means nothing. Mamma, you should not say these things. There are no rivalries, no candidates. There is only the Order. That’s all there ever has been.”
Maria held her gaze for a few seconds, and then subsided. “Very well, Rosa Poole. If you say so.”
Rosa said, “I think the mamma is tiring, Lucia. I wanted you to meet her before—”
“Before I die, Rosa Poole?”
“Not at all, Mamma-nonna, ” Rosa said, gently scolding. “You’ll be giving us all trouble for a long time to come yet. Say good-bye, Lucia … Give Maria a kiss.”
Lucia could think of few things she would less rather do. Maria watched with her wet, birdlike eyes as Lucia took a step forward, leaned over, and brushed her lips against Maria’s imploded cheek. But despite its off-putting appearance it was just skin, after all, human skin, soft and warm.
“Good, good,” Rosa murmured. “After all, she is your mother.”
When the interview was over, Rosa took Lucia to one side. “You know, you are honored, the way she spoke to you. But you still don’t understand, do you? Let me ask you something. When you were a child, here in the Order — were you happy?”
“Yes,” Lucia said honestly. “Immensely happy.”
“Why?”
She thought about that. “Because I always knew I was safe. Nothing I needed was denied me. I was surrounded by people who protected me.”
“What would they have done for you?”
“They would have given their lives for me,” she said firmly. “Any one of them. There was nobody near me who would have harmed me.”
Rosa nodded. “Yes. They would have sacrificed themselves for you; they really would. I was brought up in a family — a nuclear family — a family with difficulties. My parents loved me, but they were remote … That is how it is for most people, how it has been for all of human history — how it was for me. But you are one of the lucky few for whom it was different. And that was why you were happy.” Rosa stepped closer to Lucia, her face intent. “But, you must realize, one day you will have to pay for your happiness, your safety. That is the way of things. You have to pay it back. And that time is coming, Lucia.”
Lucia quailed, baffled, trying not to show her fear.