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‘At your request, I present you with my sister,’ said the round woman. ‘She has a talent for seeing the ill.’
The thin woman gave a curt nod and seated herself beside Atia. She pointed a bony finger to a symbol inside the seventh wedge. ‘Here is Saturn in the girl’s house of marriage. It bodes ill. Many obstacles. And look here—it makes a bad angle to Jupiter, the planet of progeny.’
Atia’s mother nodded gravely. ‘Anything else?’
The thin woman sighed. ‘Where to begin?’ She pointed to a red line. ‘The girl will labour beneath the control of a wicked, powerful man.’ She pointed to another red line. ‘She will travel to foreign lands where she will face grave danger.’ She pointed to yet another red line. ‘She will witness terrible things and her heart will break a thousand times.’
Atia did not understand. She looked to her mother for reassurance, but her mother’s expression was ghostly. ‘What can be done?’ her mother asked.
The thin woman shrugged. ‘The girl must weather the storm and wait to be reborn.’
What did she mean, wait to be reborn? Atia opened her mouth to ask, but no words came.
‘Look, Decima!’ clipped the round woman. ‘You have upset the girl!’ She patted Atia’s hand reassuringly. ‘The girl must not dwell on the bad,’ she told Atia.
‘Why not?’ asked the thin woman. ‘If it is the truth?’
‘It is not all of the truth!’ said the round woman. She pointed to one blue line. ‘Look here. She will appreciate the beauty of the world.’
‘But she will seek to escape from it!’ croaked the thin woman, pointing to a red one.
‘She will be bold.’
‘She will also be shy.’
‘She will have many husbands.’
‘Disappointments all.’
‘She will be very clever.’
‘Yes, but she will never be beautiful.’
Atia heard her mother draw a breath. She will never be beautiful. The words were like burning coals dropped into Atia’s lap. She closed her eyes and pretended they were not there. She did not like this game any more.
‘What do you mean, she will never be beautiful?’ asked Atia’s mother. ‘Just look at her. She is well on her way.’
‘The girl is indeed lovely,’ said the round woman, nodding approvingly at Atia. ‘She has nice large eyes and such fine auburn hair. And her lips are shapely and abundant, are they not?’
The thin woman shook her head. ‘Yes, but look at that nose. It is not lovely, and nothing can be done to change it.’
‘The nose is a small flaw,’ said the round woman. ‘It means nothing.’
‘It is a distasteful shape. And it occupies far too much of her face.’
Atia placed her hand over her nose. The thin woman was right. It was not lovely. Her two older sisters had jested about it all her life. It was overly large and bony, with a terrible, hooking angle that made it resemble nothing so much as an eagle’s beak.
‘But she has beauty pronounced in her chart!’ protested Atia’s mother. ‘Just look at her fourth house!’
‘That house does not describe the daughter’s beauty, but the mother’s,’ said the thin woman. ‘The mother’s beauty is a part of the daughter’s life.’
The thin woman might have said more, but Atia had ceased to listen. All she could hear were those five terrible words: she will never be beautiful.
What could a woman become if she were not beautiful? Beauty was necessary for women, for it meant they married great men, and what other ambition was there for a woman but to marry a great man? Beggar, barmaid or brothel dweller—those were the alternatives, at least according to Atia’s mother.
‘I do not agree with you about my daughter,’ her mother was saying, but the thin woman was already pointing to another part of the wheel. ‘It is this relationship here that is of most concern. It bodes very ill for the mother.’
Atia’s mother shook her head. ‘This is my daughter’s chart. How could it bode ill for me?’
The thin woman glanced at her mother’s stomach and Atia saw her mother’s lip quiver slightly. ‘You cannot know that.’
‘The threads of the Fates bind the members of a family as surely as they bind the world,’ said the thin woman. ‘When one thread comes unravelled it affects all the rest.’
‘Will I lose it?’ whispered Atia’s mother, gently touching her stomach. The thin woman remained silent. ‘Tell me!’ her mother shouted. ‘I command you!’
‘I am afraid you will lose more than just the child, domina.’
Atia’s mother began to weep. Fearful tears sent drops of green malachite down her lovely cheeks.
‘Why do you tell me this?’ sobbed Atia’s mother.
‘Because you asked for it, my dear,’ said the round woman. ‘Do you not remember? The good and the ill. You said that you could endure the knowing.’
Atia rose from her chair. She did not wish to hear any more of what the sisters had to say—good or ill.
‘I will wait for you outside, Mother,’ she said, though her mother was no longer listening to anything but her own sobs.
Atia was hurrying towards the exit when she heard a third voice. ‘Do not go,’ it crooned. ‘You should not leave in such a state.’
‘I am not in a state,’ snapped Atia, pausing before the dark corridor.
‘Come closer, dear.’
Atia peered into the shadows and saw a tiny, ancient woman surrounded by shelves full of scrolls. ‘Do not be shy,’ said the woman.
‘The thin woman says that I am shy,’ Atia said, hovering beneath the corridor’s low arch. ‘But the round woman says that I am bold.’
‘Can you not be both?’
Atia cocked her head.
‘Sometimes I am shy,’ continued the woman. ‘Other times I am bold. Sometimes I am even ruthless.’ She flashed Atia a toothless grin.
‘Ruthless? What is that?’ asked Atia. There was something menacing about this tiny woman, yet Atia could not bring herself to leave.
‘You will learn,’ said the woman.
‘Who are you?’ asked Atia.
‘Who I am matters little. Step closer.’ Atia took one step through the archway, though it felt more as though she was being pulled.
‘Now tell me what has upset you.’ The woman’s eyes were on Atia, but her hands were busy knitting. A fine-threaded white shawl stretched up from a basket on the floor beside her. Inside the basket, Atia caught the glint of a pair of shears.
‘The women speak in circles,’ said Atia, gesturing towards the others. ‘They make me confused.’
‘I understand. If I were twelve years old, I would be confused, too.’
‘How do you know my age?’ asked Atia.
‘I know many things.’
‘Do you know if I will ever be beautiful?’
‘You will and you will not,’ said the woman. ‘What else do you wish to know?’
Atia shook her head. ‘You are just like the other two. You speak in circles.’
‘I assure you that I am nothing like my sisters,’ creaked the woman.
‘Then tell me one true thing about myself,’ said Atia. ‘No more circles.’
‘Ah, one true thing...’ The old woman lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘For that you must come closer, lest the goddess overhear us.’
Before she even knew that she had moved, Atia found herself bending her ear to the old woman’s wrinkled lips.
‘I can tell you the time and the day of your own death,’ she whispered.
A chill tickled Atia’s skin. ‘That is impossible. How could you know something like that?’
‘It is written in the stars, my dear,’ she said. ‘It is the one true thing in your life.’
In a single motion, the old woman lifted the shears from the basket and sliced through a strand of yarn. She offered the shawl to Atia. ‘Well? Do you wish to know it or not?’
City of Bostra (modern Bosra in southern Syria), Roman Province of Arabia Petraea—119 CE
The trouble started with dates—sweet, cloying dates from the plantations of Palmyra. The camels were wild for them and Rab fed the beasts handfuls before they raced.
It was the sweetness of dates that had spurred his white camel to victory that day, or so Rab believed, and what had made her so skittish in the winners’ circle. The agitated giant danced about the enclosure like a harem girl, her large hooves calling up clouds of dust.
‘Calm her, Zaidu!’ Rab urged his nephew, who was perched high in the saddle.
‘I am trying!’ the boy shouted. His arms flailed uselessly as the white beast lurched towards a group of admirers. Rab seized the camel’s bridle and attempted to tug her backwards, but she resisted, apparently wishing to be admired.
‘Shush her to her knees,’ Rab told his nephew. ‘Now!’
Zaidu nodded, filling his small chest with air and hissing out a fearsome down command that would have sent a normal camel to the dust. But not the white. She reared up, then wheeled around, tugging Rab with her and sending him stumbling into the person of a woman.
A Roman woman.
‘By Jupiter...’ The woman cursed in Latin and for a fleeting moment Rab felt the softness of her body against his.
She was clad all in white—just like the camel—and had covered her hair with a shawl so ethereal and white it seemed to be made from the sheen of a cloud.
‘Apologies,’ Rab said, righting himself, then heard the sound of tearing thread. No, he thought, cringing. Not the shawl.
The woman gasped. Her flowing headpiece had somehow become attached to the belt of his robe and had torn slightly.
‘Untether it quickly,’ she commanded, glancing behind her. ‘Lest my father see us.’
‘By the gods!’ Rab muttered, and in his efforts he somehow yanked the shawl from atop the woman’s head to reveal a cap of shiny auburn hair gathered into a tight, oiled bun. It was a practical coiffure—not meant to be seen—and Rab could not conceal his blush at having glimpsed it.
‘Forgive me,’ he said, freeing the damaged shawl from his belt and thrusting it at her. Their eyes locked and desire rollicked through his body. ‘I will pay you for it.’
‘There is no need to pay for the damage,’ she said. ‘It is an old shawl.’
As she rearranged the garment on her head, Rab rearranged his wits, which seemed to have gone the way of the camel.
The camel! Curses, he had forgotten about the camel. He spun around, fully expecting to see its humped silhouette bounding towards the horizon. But the beast stood calmly behind him, his little nephew perched high in the saddle. Both boy and camel wore the same placid grin.
Rab smiled back. ‘Well done, Zaidu,’ he told his nephew. ‘You brought her to heel.’
‘It was not my doing,’ said Zaidu, glancing at the woman.
The woman frowned and her strange beauty hit Rab like a hot wind. Mystic eyes, hooded and sad, perched above a nose so large and regal it might have belonged to Cleopatra herself. So much stern dignity—and almost totally undone by her lips, whose rosy extravagance brought to mind an abundance of cherries.
‘It appears that you have calmed my camel,’ he said.
‘Do you really think I could have any effect whatsoever on such a beast?’
‘Yes, yes, I do,’ Rab replied stupidly.
‘But how?’
‘Perhaps she was drawn to your white clothing? As you can see, she also wears white.’ It was the most ridiculous thing he had ever said and he was shocked to discover a smile traverse her lips.
‘May I touch her?’ she asked.
‘You are welcome to do so,’ said Rab—with far too much enthusiasm. What in the name of the Great God Dushara was the matter with him? The woman was Roman. Rab did not converse with Romans and he certainly did not allow them to touch his camels.
But there she went, stroking the white beast’s nose, and he did nothing at all to stop her. Nor did he say anything when she began to coo softly in Latin. He only closed his eyes, as if she were whispering the sweet words to Rab himself.
An angry voice split his reverie. ‘Daughter, why do you engage with these dirty Arabs?’
A man in a purple-trimmed toga stepped forward. He pointed a bejewelled finger at Rab. ‘Can you not control your own camel?’
Rab opened his mouth to respond, but no words came.
‘I am speaking to you!’ shouted the Roman. He gave Rab a mighty shove, sending Rab crashing against the camel’s middle. Zaidu shouted something from his perch in the saddle and the agitated camel thrust out her long leg.
