Early Draft -- The Bloodstained Shade: Januarius

An early version of a few key moments

[Note from Cass: Spoilers ahead if you haven't read Shade yet!

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[This is from the Spring 2021 draft, but this sequence hung on until the final batch of revisions. You may recognize bits and pieces that got reworked, but in this early version, we see both Vibia and Latona for the New Year. This scene accomplishes several things that needed doing, but, in the end, they were happening at the wrong time! I needed Latona to get to her realization about building a mages' collegium much earlier in the story, and then I decided to hold off Latona and Vibia finding out about Scaeva until much later -- though I didn't withhold him from the reader. That gave me a different opportunity, to show more of him and Corinna working together, and it also made his reveal to Latona and Vibia during the Lemuralia sequence a point of greater dramatic tension.

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JANUARIUS

691 ab urbe condita

Campus Martius, City of Aven

On the first morning of the first month, Vibia Sempronia Mellanis hied herself to a temple that did not usually see her devotions. With two burly-boys beating a path for her and her girl Hermia in tow, she crossed the city, all the way to the edge of the Field of Mars, where the Temple of Bellona stood.

Most temples saw heavier traffic on the Kalends of Januarius than on other days of the year. The New Year wasn’t only a lucky day; it was a day when the gods’ ears were assured to be open and available to mortals below. Olympus felt a little closer, and Aven liked to make the most of it.

With so many men fighting in Iberia, Bellona, goddess of war, had more than her share of petitioners this year. The small temple was crowded with mothers, wives, sisters, brothers, and fathers, all those left behind wished to pray for their loved ones, that they would win glory for Aven and then come safely home.

Vibia hadn’t set foot in the place since Sempronius had been in Numidia, back before the Dictatorship. Bellona was not a goddess with a friendly aspect. Like Minerva, she wore a breastplate and helmet, but her carved face was not placidly remote like Minerva’s. Not for Bellona the guise of far-off wisdom. Her beauty was fierce and terrible, rendered in sharp angles, with an expression that promised violence. Her hair was painted a bloody crimson, and the darkness of her eyes was like the night unending. One hand bore a spear; the other, a sword. Bellona would give no quarter and show no mercy.

But she might show favor.