by Joan Wolf
I jerked away from him. “No! No, you must not kill him, Marcus! You can’t stain my hands with Jewish blood. Please, please—I beg of you. I couldn’t live with myself if you did that.”
The atrium fountain trickled gently, forming a peaceful background to my hysterical voice. He didn’t answer, and I said again, “Please, Marcus. Don’t do anything to him. Let him go.”
Lion eyes looked back at me. “He said unforgivable things about you. I can’t allow that to go unpunished.”
For a moment my mind flashed back to that time in the courtyard, when Daniel had found Samuel touching my hair. I shivered. “Please, Marcus,” I repeated. “Let him go. Please.” I put my hand on his wrist.
He looked down at my hand, and I could see the physical effort he was making to calm himself. When he raised his eyes again, he looked like Marcus. “He deserves to be killed.”
I shook my head. “No one deserves to be killed for what they say.”
He stood up. “All right. If that is what you want, I will give the order.”
As Marcus went out the door, Julia came in. She rushed to my side and put her arms around me. “I am so sorry, my dearest one.” The feel of her arms, the gentleness of her sympathy, released my tears, and I wept into the softness of her breasts.
The next day I was sitting on the side of the bed in Julia’s small garden chamber when Marcus came in. He was wearing his military uniform, and I was wearing a thin silk robe that revealed my body.
He sat beside me and asked me how I was.
“All right,” I replied, although I wasn’t sure that was true. I had stayed awake all night thinking about the words that man had screamed at me. I asked, “Did you find out who he was?”
“He was a Zealot. They’re the group giving us the most problems, but I didn’t think they’d dare act in Sepphoris, where they don’t even have support from their own people.”
I had heard of the Zealots, of course. They were an underground Jewish military movement dedicated to throwing the Romans out of our land. The group had started twenty or so years before in a small town north of the Sea of Galilee, and many younger Jewish men had joined it.
Marcus was frowning.
“What did you do to him?” I asked in a small voice.
“We questioned him and let him go with a message to his friends. The next time I catch any of that kind, I will have their lives.”
I bent my head and said nothing.
“Mary, do you know anything about this messiah the Zealots talk of? There’s another group seeking him too—a bunch of crazy monks who live in the desert.”
“The Essenes,” I said, with a catch in my voice.
“Yes, that’s the name.” He looked down at me. “Who is this messiah?”
“Our scriptures have promised that a great warrior will come to us, that he will defeat the occupiers of our land and rule over us as a great Jewish king. Like David once did.”
Marcus bent down to remove his sandals. “This messiah is just a prophecy, then?”
“Yes.”
He stood up and pulled his tunic over his head. “It’s a nice dream, but it isn’t going to happen. The Empire will crush any so-called messiah like a bug under our feet, just as we have done with all rebellions.”
He stretched himself out on the bed and pulled me to join him. Afterward I lay with my cheek pillowed on his chest, listening to the slowing beat of his heart.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you again, Mary,” he said, stroking my hair. “I’ll always take care of you, I promise.”
I didn’t reply. I had never felt so torn. Was I a Jew or a Roman? Was it possible to be both?
He said, “I’m going to be away for a week or so. Rome has appointed a new procurator for Judea, a man named Pontius Pilate, and I must go to Caesarea to greet him and brief him on the state of the province.”
“I’ll miss you,” I said.
“I’ll miss you too,” he replied, sounding sleepy.
We were quiet, and when Marcus’ arm around me loosened, I glanced at his face and saw that he had fallen asleep. I leaned up on my elbow, so I could look down at him. His lashes—those absurdly long, little-boy lashes—rested gently against hard cheekbones. His hair was too long; he would be getting it cut at the baths today. His shoulders and chest were bare, and I studied the sheer male strength of him as he lay there beside me. I bent and kissed him lightly on the arched bridge of his nose.
I can’t give him up.
I curled up next to him and let the finality of that thought sink into my brain. I didn’t know what our future would be, but it wasn’t in me to give him up.
Marcus was gone for ten days, and during that time I became certain of what I had suspected for a month. I was with child.
All my life I had been regular as the moon, and now I had missed two cycles. I also felt different. My breasts were tender and my stomach not quite as flat as usual. Fortunately I wasn’t sick, so Aaron didn’t suspect anything.
I should have been happy. This was what I had always wanted—my own baby. Every fiber in me longed to feel my child in my arms, to touch my lips to the warm little head, to inhale the wonderful baby smell I had known when I held other women’s children.
But I was worried. I didn’t know what Marcus would do when I told him. We had never discussed the possibility of my becoming pregnant. However, I knew all too well what Aaron would do. He would immediately claim the child as his own. He would say that since he was my husband, no one could deny him that right.
I wished with all my heart that I led a normal life, that my child was the child of a husband whom I loved, and that we could celebrate this moment together. But it was not like that. I had lost my first love, I was married to a man I disliked, and I was bearing the child of a non-Jew whom I loved, but wasn’t married to.
How had I allowed myself to get into this position?
Trepidation seized me when I received a note from Marcus that he had returned and would meet me at Julia’s that afternoon. I wanted so badly to pray for my baby, but I couldn’t. I was unclean. I was a sinner. I couldn’t ask God to help me when I had done this to myself.
Plutus let me into Julia’s as usual, and I walked through the quiet house and out the wide-open doors into the garden, where I found Marcus sitting on a bench by the fountain. I went to sit beside him.
He said, “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are when you walk?”
This comment was so far from my own troubled thoughts that I looked at him in bewilderment. “What do you mean?”
He smiled. “My darling, I love that you really have no idea how beautiful you are. Watching you walk always makes me think of how the old men must have felt when they watched Helen walking on the walls of Troy in the Iliad.”
I had read a Latin translation of the Iliad Julia loaned me, and I wasn’t sure I liked being compared to Helen, who had started a war. But he had meant it as a compliment. “Thank you,” I said.
Laughing, he took my hand, kissed my palm, and then folded my fingers over the kiss. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too. How was your meeting?”
He sighed. “I don’t think Pilate is the right choice to be procurator, Mary. He strikes me as the sort who likes to make unimportant gestures just to demonstrate his power.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean gestures that do nothing to further the strength of Rome but only serve to outrage the population. I told him it’s always wiser to let an occupied people have their little customs, as long as they don’t interfere with the governance of the country, but I’m not sure he agreed.”
I nodded.
“Now, before I take you to the bedchamber and show you how much I missed you, tell me about you,” he said.
This was the moment. I drew a deep breath, looked up into his hawk face, and said, “Marcus, I am going to have a child.”
He didn’t answer at first. I felt myself go stiff, preparing to hear something I didn�
�t want to hear. Then his face broke into a boyish smile, and he said, “It was only a matter of time, my darling. How are you feeling?”
My breath rushed out of my lungs. “All right, I think.”
“Good.” He put his arm around my shoulders and rested his cheek on the top of my head. “I did a lot of thinking about us while I was away, Mary, and mostly I was thinking about what I would have to do to marry you.”
I had thought of many things he might say, but this wasn’t one of them. I shut my eyes and leaned my cheek into his shoulder. “You can’t marry me, Marcus; I’m already married.”
I felt his shoulder shrug under my cheek. “You will divorce him. The old man will agree as soon as he hears you are bearing someone else’s child.”
I pulled away from him. I didn’t deserve his love and support. Looking straight ahead, I told him all about Aaron’s scheme to get an heir.
When he didn’t reply, I glanced at him. The contempt on that proud, aristocratic face made me shiver.
Marcus said, “How could he possibly have imagined that I would allow a son of mine to be brought up as a Jew?”
I raised my chin. “I am a Jew, Marcus.”
He put his arm back around my shoulders and drew me to him. “You’re going to be my wife, Mary, and that will make you a Roman.”
“But don’t you understand, Marcus? Aaron will never divorce me. I know a Roman woman can divorce her husband, but a Jewish woman cannot. The decree of divorce must come from the man, and Aaron won’t do it. I know he won’t. We cannot marry if I am still bound to Aaron under the law.”
His green eyes glittered. “In Galilee, I am the law.”
“Remember what you just said to me about not stirring up the population? Thus far Rome has had the support of the Temple priests because you let them keep their status, but for you to violate our law so blatantly will be something they cannot countenance. You don’t want to anger them; it wouldn’t be wise.”
“Do you really think the Temple priests would involve themselves in the divorce of one Jewish woman?”
“They might. Aaron is a very powerful man in Jewish circles. And he won’t give up this child without a fight.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “You make a good point. I’ll have to arrange it some other way.” He gave me a commanding stare. “Don’t tell your husband about the child.”
I had no intention of telling Aaron, and I agreed quickly.
He stood up and pulled me to my feet. “You aren’t to worry yourself about this, Mary. The only thing that matters is that I love you and that we’ll be married. Our child will be a Roman citizen and my legal heir. I promise you that.”
He began to kiss me and the familiar magic of his touch ran through me like fire. I put my hands behind his head, feeling the crispness of his short black hair under my fingers, and he picked me up and carried me to the room.
Chapter Fourteen
Marcus left for an appointment, and I stayed behind at Julia’s. I felt bowed down by the weight of my own emotions. Julia had been like a mother to me these last years, and I needed to talk to someone I could trust. So I waited for her siesta to be over, and then I asked a servant to tell her I was waiting.
She came downstairs, took one look at me, and whisked me back up the stairs to her private apartment. “What has happened?” she asked when we were seated side by side on the white upholstered couch.
I told her about the baby and then I told her what Marcus had said.
She gave me a radiant smile. “He said he wanted to marry you?”
“Yes, he did. But Julia, he seems to be forgetting that I’m already married! I told him that Aaron wouldn’t divorce me, that Jewish women cannot initiate a divorce. And Aaron is desperate for an heir. He’ll never let me go. I don’t know what I should do.”
I began to cry. It seemed now that I cried at the smallest thing.
Julia put her arms around me, and I leaned against her, comforted by the maternal warmth she radiated. Julia had the most wonderful scent. She smelled like roses.
She said, “Are you certain Marcus was serious?”
I sniffled. “He seemed to be. He said that I wasn’t to worry, that he would arrange things.”
Julia patted my back. “If Marcus Novius Claudius wants to marry you, my dear, he will. But it won’t be as easy to arrange as he might think. Do you know what has to happen before such a marriage would be possible?”
I straightened up and wiped away my tears with my fingers. “No. What?”
“By law, a patrician cannot marry out of his class, so you’d have to be made a patrician. Such a jump in status requires either the approval of the Senate or the personal approval of the emperor himself.”
“But … how can he accomplish that? I’m a Jew.”
“You may have been born a Jew, but in every other way you’re one of us. My goodness, you’re one of the most sought-after guests in Sepphoris.”
Julia looked at me the way a proud mother would look at her daughter. I couldn’t meet her gaze. I had certainly not been a good Jew these last few years, but I didn’t feel that I was a Roman either.
“Marcus’ family must be very highly placed if he thinks he can get the emperor or the Senate to do as he asks.”
Julia shifted so she was facing me. “His father will ask Tiberius. Marcus’ father and the emperor were old campaigning partners in the Gallic wars. Tiberius, unfortunately, has deteriorated into a licentious drunk, but I think he’ll do it—if not to please Marcus’ father, then to infuriate all the old men in the Senate who despise him.”
I stared at the picture of the goddess Diana on the wall, her hunting bow in hand, a stag by her side. A chasm of doubt had opened in my mind. If I married Marcus, I would have to live with his family. What if they looked down on me?
If only Marcus were a Jew and not a Roman. I immediately realized how absurd an idea that was. Marcus was the epitome of a Roman. Take that away from him, and he would be someone else entirely.
I bit my lip and asked Julia, “What about Aaron?”
“How many times, Mary, have I told you not to bite your lip!”
“Sorry.” I immediately closed my mouth over my teeth.
Julia picked up a deep blue silk scarf from the end of the lounge and began to refold it. “Aaron isn’t important, my love.”
I watched her clever hands as she handled the vivid material. “Don’t underestimate him, Julia. He’ll go to the Sanhedrin if he has to. The Zealots have made attacks upon tax collectors all over Galilee. So far the Sanhedrin has condemned them, but all that may change if a Roman interferes with the Law of Moses, and that’s how Aaron will present his appeal. I don’t want to see Marcus risk his career by stirring up a rebellion.”
Julia listened to what I was saying, and when I finished, she laid down the scarf and nodded thoughtfully. “I see what you’re saying.” Then she smiled. “Let Marcus deal with it, Mary. He will get your divorce without stirring up a revolution, I’m sure of it. You will be free to marry the father of your child.”
The father of my child. A great surge of happiness swept through me at those words, and I smiled back at Julia. “You’re right.”
I took Julia’s advice and didn’t ask Marcus any more questions about the divorce. I put my trust in him and did my best to avoid Aaron. The longer I kept Aaron ignorant of my condition, I thought, the better things would go.
One afternoon several weeks after I’d told Marcus about the baby, I was sitting in my own garden happily reading a new collection of poetry that Julia had ordered from her book agent in Alexandria. The garden was the one place in the house I had made my own. Since I couldn’t have replicas of any human form in Aaron’s house, I had installed a fish-shaped fountain, with the water coming out of the fish’s mouth. The gardener and I had grown roses. Ever since I was a child, I had loved roses, and now I had hundreds of them.
I was just thinking how very peaceful it was here when one of Aaron’s assistants, Jonah, bur
st through the door that opened into the house. I stared in astonishment as he strode across the mosaic floor toward me; Aaron’s assistants never came into the garden. Jonah’s face was red, and he was breathing heavily. Clearly he had been running hard.
“What is it, Jonah?” I asked, rolling up my papyrus. I wasn’t alarmed, just surprised. “What has happened?”
“My lady, I don’t know how to tell you this, but . . . my master has fallen down the steps by the colonnade, and he . . . he . . .”
I looked at the young man’s sweating face—and I knew. “Is he hurt?”
“Oh my lady, he is dead! The fall broke his neck. I came to tell you that they’ll be bringing his body home shortly.”
“Aaron is dead?” I repeated.
“Yes, my lady. I’m terribly sorry.” Then he repeated himself, to make things clear, “The fall broke his neck.”
My first emotion was shock. Aaron was an old man, but he was still quite healthy. I had always been certain he would live for many more years. I found it difficult to grasp that he no longer existed, that he had actually died.
Elisabeth, one of the house servants, came into the garden carrying a tray with a cup of water. She brought it to me and said, “Drink this, my lady.”
I raised my eyes to her face. “Have you heard?”
She nodded. “My husband was at the market, and he saw it happen. Drink.”
My hand shook as I raised the cup to my lips, and she put hers over mine to steady it. I drank.
“Thank you, Elisabeth,” I said.
She took the empty cup and stepped away, out of hearing but within my call. I turned to Jonah, who was still panting from his run. “How did he come to fall? My husband is . . . was always steady on his feet.”
“I didn’t see how it happened, my lady. Jonathan and I had gone ahead of the master, to make sure his litter was ready. He didn’t like it if we hovered over him. So we didn’t turn to look back until we heard people shouting. Then we saw him lying at the bottom of the stairs. He was dead when we got to him, my lady. We could tell by the way he lay that his neck had been broken.”
