“A Catacomb. A Christian cemetery, from the days of persecution. They dug out such cellars to bury their dead without interference. The owner of the estate in those days must have been sympathetic. There are many such holes in the ground, here along the Appian Way.”
“And here you think we will be safe.”
“The barbarians are not Romans,” Regina said dryly. “They will not even know such places exist. And if they did they would ignore them for the easier pickings of the mansions and churches above the ground. As soon as I learned this place was here I realized its usefulness, and had passageways sunk to it from the house. I used workmen from outside the city — I doubt we will be betrayed.”
“You always did think ahead, Mother,” Brica said dryly. “We must fetch the others.”
“I’ll do that,” Regina said sharply. “You stay here. When they come they will be confused, frightened. Drunk! Organize them. Reassure them. I am counting on you, Brica. Look — there is food here, a little water to be had from this spigot, torches to be lit here.”
Brica nodded. “I understand.”
“Good.” Regina hurried up to the surface.
Julia and the elders had already organized a queue, reasonably orderly, before the gaping hole in the ground, where Castor still stood patiently.
Regina clambered up on a low wall and clapped her hands for attention. “We can take only the children, and some women. Julia, you go first, and help Brica. Then the children, the smallest first. If we can take mothers, we will do so. Husbands, fathers, please go to your homes. I know you will all understand your duty.”
She was greeted by somber, blanched faces. There were grave nods of acquiescence.
The children started to file nervously into the shaft, many of them weeping to be separated from their mothers. Regina saw Venus pass into the ground, and the baby Aemilia in the arms of her mother, Regina’s half sister Leda.
Sulla came to her. His broad, slightly bloated face was streaked with tears. But Amator was just behind him. Sulla said, “Regina, let me come. The Vandals — someone like me—” There had been rumors of how the Vandals treated those they saw as decadent, of pretty boys being murdered by impalement.
Amator pulled at his arm. “No, Come away, my love, come away with me. I will make you safe — you don’t need this witch and her hole in the ground—”
Regina felt a cold satisfaction. She had not planned the arrival of the barbarians that day, but by keeping Sulla and Amator close to her, she had set up this opportunity. And now it was unfolding perfectly.
She stepped close to Sulla and whispered, “You can join us.” You and Amator’s legacy, she thought. “But first you must free yourself.” Sulla looked confused. She let a knife fall from her sleeve — a knife she always carried in these difficult times — and slipped it into his hand. “Free yourself.”
His eyes widened. He nodded and pulled away.
Castor approached Regina. “Is Brica—”
“She is safe.”
He nodded. “Soon I will be with her.”
“No. I have an assignment for you. When the last of us has descended, close the hatch and cover it over with turf. Move the furniture — a table, a couch — conceal the entrance. Do you understand? I know it means you will be kept apart from Brica. But it is the only way she can be safe. She is counting on you, Castor.”
His eyes narrowed, and she wondered briefly if he read her calculation: that despite the marriage only that morning, already she was separating him from Brica, drawing her back into the family. But he nodded, and he hurried to help the elders usher the children to the shaft.
Regina stayed by the trapdoor, helping the students descend into the dark, until she saw Sulla embrace Amator — and Amator fell to the ground, unnoticed in the chaotic confusion in the garden — and then, as the smoke of the fires grew thick in the air, she clambered down into the ground herself.
The Vandals remained in the city for two weeks. They invaded the homes of the rich, broke into the Christian churches, stripped the gilded tiles from the ancient Temple of Capitoline Jupiter. And they murdered, maimed, and raped Romans both high and low.
Regina had prepared for a siege. She had installed a lead-pipe feed from the main water supply, and there were caches of food — dried fruit, meat, nuts. Even if the trapdoor entrance in the peristylium was discovered and broken open, the Catacombs were a warren that extended far underground, and there were many places where the tunnels could be blocked off and defended. There was even another tunnel that led out of here altogether to one of the main city sewers, out of which they could find a way to the daylight. It wouldn’t be a pleasant journey, but it would lead them to safety.
Stuck in these soot-stained tunnels, it wasn’t a happy time for anybody. But despite their protests at deprivation, fear for their families, and plain discomfort in this place of corpses, Regina knew that her charges accepted that she had delivered them to safety, out of sight of the black-painted monsters rampaging above.
Brica pined for Castor, but Regina was unconcerned. In the final crisis Brica had shown her true loyalties — to the family buried in the ground, not to the boy on the surface — and she sensed that their marriage, even children, would not change that. Brica, after all, carried Regina’s own blood, and the blood of Julia, and it was no surprise that her instincts had in the end proven similar.
At last the Vandals marched back to their camps, with thousands of captives and wagons piled high with plunder. Regina kept her charges safe until she was certain the last of them had gone.
Chapter 29
It was only two days after her meeting with Giuliano that Rosa came for Lucia. Maria Ludovica had, peacefully, died. And Lucia must be prepared.
It took a month. Then the day of her final induction arrived.
In a small chamber, deep on the third level, Lucia was asked to strip. She was examined quickly by a female doctor. In the last few days she had already endured a whole battery of medical tests.
Then she was dressed in a simple smocklike dress called a stola. It was white, but with a little purple fabric sewn in. The cloth was very soft, and she wondered how old it was. Her watch and bits of jewelry were taken from her. She wasn’t allowed any underwear; she would be naked, save for the stola. But she was given leather sandals to protect her feet from the cold rock. Murmuring wordlessly, Pina braided Lucia’s hair and tied it up into a bun.
Nothing had been explained to Lucia in advance. She did not know what to expect today. Since Pina had woken her that morning she had felt detached — as if she were a mere observer of what her body was going through, or as if she were fading back into the ghostlike, invisible, unreal figure she had become during her ostracism. She only wanted to be part of the Order, a sister again. She didn’t want her head cluttered up with more questions. She simply accepted each event as it happened, trying not to think any further.
But she was glad Pina was here. Lucia had asked for her. At this strange time it would be comforting to have somebody who knew her so deeply close by.
Pina led her from the brightly lit changing room, out into the dark.
They followed a narrow, dank passage. Arches supported the roof — small red bricks embedded in thick mortar, just as you would see in Rome’s imperial ruins. This was a very old place, she thought, very old indeed.