* * *
Later, the Magdalene presented her gifts to the slave women, starting with Ruth, the girl dutifully tending to Jesus’ pregnant mother. “I thank you Mistress Maria Hittica,” she said, looking at her reflection in a silver mirror.
“Please Ruth, call me Maria will you?”
“Yes Maria.”
“Now then Ruth, please follow me to the slave quarters, I have gifts I wish to present to the three of you.”
“You do?”
“You will be pleased, I promise,” answered a smiling Mary, heading for the door.
Ruth nodded, following the Magdalene to the slave quarters. Knocking and entering with Ruth, Mary greeted the slaves, Cyril looking up from a scroll he was reading.
“Good evening Maria the younger,” said Cyril.
“Greetings Cyril,” Mary replied, “Are Electra and Penelope here?”
“They are in their quarters, I shall fetch them for you,” Cyril answered, rising from his seat and walking to their rooms. A few moments later the slave women appeared, Cyril returning to a seat and resuming reading, a scroll penned by Herodotus.
“Good evening, I’ve brought gifts we purchased during our trip south, jewelry, cosmetics, and fine silk,” said Mary, producing the items from a sack.
“Silk fabric?” asked Penelope, “Why?”
“Why not?” the Magdalene replied, “In your leisure you can make fine dresses with it, and using the jewelry and cosmetics, can make yourselves the best looking slaves in Tibernum.”
“I knew it, master Julius is going to open a private brothel, using us for the whores,” said Electra.
“No,” a surprised Magdalene protested, shaking her head, “That’s not my intention, you’ve helped us, so I’m rewarding you for your efforts.”
“Why?” asked Electra as Cyril looked up from his scroll, “No one gives anyone gifts without a price, what do you want from us in return?”
Mary fell silent for a moment, gazing at the slave women with a compassionate look. “You must realize by now that we are not your typical slave owners, we look at you as members of our extended family, good people helping us tend our farm. The least we can do is to make you feel more at home with us,” she replied, hurt by Electra’s candid remarks.
“They are truly different, especially Julius the younger,” said Cyril, looking to Electra.
“But – ”
“No buts my dear woman, they are very different,” said Cyril.
Electra looked to the floor and replied, “I’m sorry mistress Maria, life has not been kind to me. When I was younger I was sold into slavery as a prostitute by my uncle, having been raped for several years by my father.”
Mary pursed her lips in reflection and answered, “I understand.”
“You do?” asked Electra, staring at who she saw as a pampered, wealthy Roman woman, thinking of terrible nights when she had been violated by up to fifteen men at a time, many of them Roman soldiers.
“Not personally, but a long time ago a close friend of mine had a similar experience in Rome,” she lied, thinking of her past employment in the trade of prostitution, until Jesus of Nazareth happened upon her in Magdala, just as the townspeople were about to stone her.
Saving her from certain death, the Christ had walked up with disciples John, Judas, Peter and Thomas; livid at the scene he was seeing. “May he who is without sin cast the first stone!” Jesus exclaimed, grabbing an arm of a zealous Benjaminite, pulling a rock from his hand and throwing it to the ground. “Verily I say, stone me first you hypocrites, if you have the guts!” he shouted, moving between Mary and the hypocritical people of Magdala.
“But you haven’t…”
“Really?” asked Electra, breaking Mary from her reverie.
“Her parents died when she was young and her aunt threw her out in the street when she was a teenager. She had to sell her body to live, life was cruel to her too.”
“Where is she now?” asked Electra, looking for an end to the story.
“She is dead,” Mary replied. Cyril looked to her, raising an eyebrow at the statement.
“Oh,” said Electra, having nothing further to say.
The Magdalene talked with the slave women for several hours, gaining their confidence, leaving near midnight while an exhausted Cyril snored in a chair. His scroll of Herodotus had dropped to the floor – the treatise on legends. They returned to the house, Ruth heading for the bedroom to tend to Jesus’ mother.
She met Jesus in the kitchen. He remarked, finishing a goblet of wine, “This is a change woman, I was heading out for supper without you.”
“I have before, I was talking to Electra and Penelope.”
“And?”
“Electra thought we were going to make them into whores when I showed her the cosmetics and jewelry.”
“What about the silk?”
“That only added to it, Electra was a whore in the past, forced into doing so as a slave.”
“Unfortunate, verily I say, if there is a God somewhere he must not care at all about man, with pain, death and misfortune all around us.”
“Jesus Christ, your words sound like the utterances of an atheist!”
“I’m damn close to atheism now,” said Jesus, rising from his chair. They walked into the dark night, transforming in the shadows, finding and killing a trio of highwaymen fifteen miles west of Tibernum, enriching themselves physically and materially. A heavy bag of gold and silver, amounting to nearly 300 aurei, was in the haul, the vampiric Christ having to walk back due to the weight.
“Why don’t you throw some of the gold away?” Mary asked after walking several miles.
“Because it’s gold. At this rate, given a few years, we could buy Tibernum.”
“Why?”
“What else have we to do?”
“We don’t really need an entire town do we?”
“No, it was just a thought,” said Jesus.
Dark Resurrection Page 43
