Goddess
Chapter 3

Marta and I gape at him. “Of course Vesta is areal goddess,” I say defensively, although just this morning I was doubting thisvery same point. “She’s been worshipped in that temple for over a thousandyears.”

“She hasn’t,” Cassius says. “That was a Templeof Minerva until a little over a hundred and twenty years ago.”

“And how would you know?” scoffs Marta.

“Look, my father and grandfather were bothpontiffs. And you know one of the sacred duties of a pontiff, right? Keepingthe city records, which are meant to be secret. But pontiffs can be a littleloose with their tongues in their own families, especially after a few bottles ofwine,” Cassius says. “Let’s stop and go back to the very beginning of Vesta.What happened one hundred and twenty years ago in Parcaean history, Olivia?” heshoots.

“The Farrinean Wars ended,” I say.

“Right. And how long did they last?”

“Seven years.”

“And when the majority of Parcaean men were awayfighting a war that decimated our entire country’s population, where were theParcaean women?” Cassius asks.

Marta and I look at each other and then at him.

“They were minding the store, of course!” hesays. “No able-bodied men around meant that they took on a huge share of maleresponsibility. They were business owners, landlords, even political officeholders in their husbands’ absences, although you wouldn’t know it from thehistory lessons. And when the men came back from a brutal seven-year slog,every day of which they spent missing their mothers, wives, children, andhearths, what do you think they came home to?”

“Um…,” we say together.

“Liberated women. Women doing their jobs. Takingtheir places. Women who were not minding their hearths or rocking their babiesby the fire. And they didn’t like it.”

“So the men all decided to force their wivesback home again?” I ask, shocked.

“Not in a collective way,” he says. “But therewas a rift in society, and the religious leaders of the time were hard pressedto mend it. Ultimately, a few schemers created an information campaign aboutthe virtues of home, family, and hearth, and started touting a ‘little-known’goddess called Vesta as the deity to worship to get all those good things back.They snagged a seldom-used, yet rather grand, Temple of Minerva for the homebase. And as far as my father or grandfather could tell, the goddess Vestacan’t be found in any myth or text before that time.”

“But if the women loved male responsibility somuch, why did they happily start worshipping Vesta? It doesn’t sound as if theywere trying to keep any of that power,” I point out.

“At first, it was the men dragging their wivesto worship. If they had children, the daughters were regularly being taken topray to Vesta and learn her devotionals, and it only took one generation forher to become the most popular goddess in the country,” Cassius says.

“And what about the Virgins?” Marta asks. “Iassume they were part of the kickoff campaign for Vesta?”

“Yes, that’s logical,” he says. “Also, thevirginity thing is simply practical. If they’re going to train you, they wantto keep you. And back then they didn’t want any of you vixens seducing all themen who came to the temple, for obvious reasons. Thus, the hot poker in theeye.” He chuckles.

Marta and I stare at him with intense dislike.“Since we’re discussing pokers in eyes,” she says, “why exactly are you riskinglife and limb to give us this stimulating history lesson?”

“I have my reasons. All will be revealed intime,” he says, waving his hands.

Marta starts to object, but I have morequestions. “Are the other gods real?” I ask.

“Are the other gods real?” Cassius repeats,eyebrows raised. “My, my, we have lost our faith in a big way, haven’t we? Alittle lamp oil and your whole world comes tumbling down. Yes, they are real,”he assures me. “But the religious tomfoolery you heard about today is lurkingaround every corner. You just need to know how to separate the sound theology fromthe false. For example, I want to show you something. Do you have a little moretime? We need to go deeper into the forest.”

I can’t refuse him now, and I know Marta’s alsohooked, so we follow him into the woods. As we walk, he gives us more tidbitsabout the shift in religious traditions that took place after the war. “Here’sa fun one,” he says. “You know the Polonian Triad statues of Mars, Jupiter, andMinerva?”

“Of course.”

“Well, believe it or not, that statue of Marsused to be a statue of Juno.”

“Shut up.”I gawk at him. Juno is the wife of Jupiter and the goddess of politics, alongwith many other things.

“Yes, the female goddess of politics becamerather unpopular with the religious elite. They kept the same statue too, theyjust fixed her up with a helmet, shield, and spear and all that stuff.”

As unbelievable as this sounds, it could betrue. I have always thought that statue of Mars seemed a little busty.

“Aha, here we are,” Cassius says, pleased.

We’ve arrived at a sunny clearing where stands alarge, raised garden bed, growing wheat. The raised bed is very tall, hittingme at about waist height, and one of its walls is made of glass, a rare andexpensive material.

“Is this a garden or something?” I ask.

“This is an academic study,” he explains. “Theother students would be extremely jealous of my setup, which is one of thereasons I keep this hidden. Look here.” He points to the glass side. Throughit, I can see the root structures of each stalk of wheat he’s growing.

“I thought you were Academy of Mars,” Martasays.

He shakes his head. “Academy of Ceres.”

Agriculture. I’m surprised I never knew thisabout him.

“So we come to our next lesson,” Cassius says.“Olivia, your father owns a farm. He makes gifts to Ceres, I assume? Sacrificesa bunch of poor cows every year?”

“Yes, absolutely. He always gives as much as hecan.”

“And in return for that, the priests arrive withcarts and carts of foul-smelling ‘sacred earth,’ correct?” Cassius asks.

I nod.

“Well here’s the big secret. That stuff is actuallysomething we call fertilizer, and it’s manufactured from various naturalcomponents. It’s only been around for the last fifty years or so, invented bythe priests here at the academy. And it makes plants grow well without anydivine intervention. My experiment here is actually testing whether wheatstalks grow taller when they’re given a fertilizer mixture with a higherconcentration of phosphorus. Er, that’s the name of a chemical. I mean, we canget into all the details later,” he says. “But the point is, your priests ofCeres are pretending this stuff has some sort of power sent from the gods. Ican prove that’s not true. In this first section here, I’m growing wheat withno fertilizer added. The next section contains wheat fertilized with a low-phosphorusmixture, and the dosage increases from there. As you can see, the wheat withfertilizer is doing much better than the wheat without. And you’ll have to takemy word for this, but there was noprayer or offering involved whatsoever.”

I can immediately see that the height and stalksize of the fertilized wheat is far superior, and I can even see the effect onthe roots as well thanks to the glass side of the trough.

“Does your father ever request sacred rain?”Cassius asks.

“Sometimes,” I say.

He nods his head. “Similar thing. That’s anatural pesticide.”

“So Ceres doesn’t make plants grow?” I say,saddened by this new blow.

“Oh, of course you can help plants grow byinvoking Ceres,” Cassius says reassuringly. “It’s been proven many times inexperiments just like this one. Unfortunately, the effectiveness decreasesdramatically when that method is applied to entire fields, rather than just oneplant. In the old days, priests had to stage massive seven-day festivals ofconstant prayer and hold dozens of sacrifices before their efforts had anyeffect on grain production. It was very expensive. This is a far better way todo business.”

“Why keep all this secret from the people?” saysMarta.

“It’s simple: profit. If only the priests ofCeres know how to make this stuff, then everybody’s going to be sending themlots of offerings. As soon as the private citizens start figuring out how tomake it, their importance in the community, and their tithes, will decrease. Sothey’re very serious about keeping quiet. Only students at the academy who havetaken holy vows of secrecy are allowed to know about this.” Cassius smiles.“And now you do too.”

I feel another pang of this morning’s fear. Weare not making good decisions today. This is dangerous information, andsomething doesn’t feel right. “Hold on. You said Gaius asked you to tell us all this?”

“Oh gods, no.” Cassius laughs. “Gaius wanted meto come up with some lie to make you feel better about the whole lamp thing.I’m known as something of an expert on Vesta, you know,” he says proudly. “Hewas very coy with me too. He didn’t give me any of the fascinating details youshared with Marta earlier. He just said you saw Sextus Tacitus carrying someoil around. But I could tell he was holding something back.”

“Unbelievable!” I shriek. “I would never havetold you those things!”

Cassius ignores this. “So I said to Gaius, sure,no problem. I will take care of those poor little lost lambs for you. Don’tworry about a thing.” He laughs. “But unlike Gaius, I am a man of science. Idon’t believe in peddling lies. I have too much respect for your intelligence.And besides, I’ve had bigger plans for you girls for a while now.”

Marta and I both look wary. “So what are thesebig plans?” I ask.

Cassius smiles broadly. “You girls are going tobe my next experiment.”