Virgin

Chapter One: The End

Her foot hovered between the third and fourth step, already the ground was crumbling below her, the hastily cut stairs threatening to give way. Still, she took this last glance around, this last moment to feel the breeze on her face and to see the sunlight. The crowd around her were silent, there was no jeering, no insults, the moment was stoic. The whole of Rome there to witness her, as still as the statues that had lined the courtyard of her home. She still couldn’t hold back her anger at them, and she wouldn’t try. She knew that her face held a glare, but what did it matter anymore. They could stare gravely at her all she liked but they were still the ones in the wrong. She was innocent of the crime they accused her off, and even if the Goddess herself was displeased with her, it was not she who should have faced her wrath but those who had held secrets, those people who had wrongly forced her into this position.

  Now, near the end, she could see clearly what she had been, what her whole life had been dedicated to, not to the protection of Rome, but to act as a scapegoat – somebody that suspicion could fall on when the Gods chose to turn their favor away from the people of Rome. It was not because of her that their army had been defeated. She had felt the burn. She had felt the call of her body but had held back. She had brought into the belief that she had to be a state of complete purity to please the gods, to guard the sacred fires of Vesta. All of it had been in vain.

  She could have wished not to have fallen in love with him, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She could control her body, but never her heart. Still, he would be alive if it wasn’t for her. If her eyes had never met his on that day in the forum. A look was all that had been needed to seal their fates. That night they had met on the Appian way, that night they had shared their only touches, Rapunzel, the accusations, the trial, a look was all it had taken to write history.

  “I go to my death, a virgin. It is not my sins who have been the cause of your problems.” She said clearly, her eyes alighting on the pale faces of her sisters. Rapunzel, the one who had tried to save her with a confession, was staring at the ground, too much of a coward to meet her eyes. Well, Cassandra was not a coward. She would face what the fates had chosen for her with dignity, they would always remember her not as a crying woman, but as a dignified priestess – and honest woman who spent her life guarding them.

 She descended into the room they had cut into the dirt under the city walls. A small table was set with a lantern, the light from which didn’t even touch the sides of the walls, there was also a small loaf of bread and a flask of water, not enough to sustain her, just enough to absolve the people of this sin, enough so they weren’t directly responsible for her death. Her head turned as she heard the heavy damp sound of dirt falling into the hole, she looked up to see the soldiers, already shoveling dirt in to block her exit. She caught a glance at the pontifex face, he was stood looking down at her, catching one last look at her. She had been only six when he had arrived to take her from her family, and at first, she had feared the man, but he had always been kind to her, father like. She saw the glint of tear running down his face framed in the tiniest of holes left in the dirt. His face turned to hers, and then more rubble came tumbling down the stairs and the room was pitched into darkness, only the small dim light of the lantern remained. She looked around, knowing that this tiny circle of light would not last long. This sparse furniture, this tiny room, would be the last thing she ever saw.

  She reached below her dress; the Pontifex had given her one last gift. He’d ignored the rules one last time, perhaps it had been the only thing he could to make up for his mistakes. Her hand grasped the hard metal handle of the dagger. She closed her eyes, knowing that if she concentrated, if she shut everything out, she could paint a picture in her mind. Change it so that the last thing she saw was the face of the one she loved. As she took a deep breath the image came to her clearly, the figure working away at the blacksmiths in the forum, the glint of sweat on sun-stained skin, the eyes as blue as the purest waters, tiny freckles and hair midnight black, except that strange light streak. Varian, her love. In her mind he looked up at her, as he had done that first day, and his face broke into a smile that had made her heart stop. A smile that was still in her mind as her heart stopped for the final time.