“To begin with,” she said, “you know that, before I was taken for a Vestal, I was plighted to Caius Segontius Almo.”
“Certainly, I knew that,” Aurelius replied. “All Rome knew of his ride from Falerii and of his arriving just too late.”
“You knew I was in love with him?”
“I assumed that,” the Emperor told her.
“Well,” she said, a pathetic break in her voice, “I can’t make myself stop loving Almo. I always have loved him, I always shall, I love him now.”
“I assumed that too,” the Emperor said. “All Rome knows of his resolve to remain unmarried, to wait thirty years for you, to marry you the very day you are free. I assumed that he would not be so constant unless he believed you equally constant. No harm in that! You have a right to marry at the end of your service and a right to look forward to it.”
“That is what troubles me,” Brinnaria said. “I cannot feel that I have a right to look forward to it.”
“Now listen to me,” said the Emperor. “Few Vestals have left the Atrium at the end of their thirty years. Not every one that has left has married, the third Terentia withdrew at the end of her term and did not marry, nor did the only Licinia who ever completed her service. But Appellasia married and so did Quetonia and Seppia. Others have married after their service, though it is thought unlucky. The right to leave the order implies the right to marry after leaving. The right to leave implies the right to mean to leave, to plan to leave, to look forward to leaving and marrying. You have that right, like any other Vestal. Does that satisfy you?”
“It does not,” Brinnaria asserted. “I know a Vestal has a right to leave and marry and to plan to leave and marry. But, after thirty years of service, or nearly thirty years of service, to plan to leave and marry and to look forward to it for a few days or months appear to me very different from looking forward to it from the first hour of my service, and knowing not only that I mean to marry, but just the man I mean to marry, and loving him all the time, and longing for him. I can’t help it; I feel that way, and I dread that I am not an acceptable ministrant and I tremble for fear of the consequences to you and to Rome. I think I ought to hang myself and be done with it. You haven’t comforted me a bit.”
The Emperor stood up.