Dark Resurrection

by Frederick Preston

  Chapter Seven: Julian of Tibernum

  Fall passed quickly, becoming a colder than usual winter for eastern Cappadocia, snow falling in early December for the first time in many years.

  Electra now visited Mary every day. She put an ear to her belly, listening for sounds of the child moving and then put a hand to her forehead, checking for signs of fever. Frowning, she sat on the bed, figuring the gestation time on a piece of papyrus.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Mary.

  “Not exactly mistress, you say you missed starting in February?”

  “Late February, I figure I’m a week or two overdue.”

  “Sometimes children are late, but if the child doesn’t come soon I may have to induce labor.”

  “How?”

  “Have no fear, there are herbs one can use, causing no harm to the mother or child,” Electra replied, placing a hand on her arm.

  Jesus and consort had taken to staying close to home, as his mother’s time would come very soon. Another two weeks passing, it was now the third week of December. The baby nearly a month overdue, it was only a matter of days before the mother of Jesus would bring a new healthy life into the world, after some difficulty.

  The male child, born on the eve of the winter solstice, would one day run the farm with his Roman wife Marcia Divia. She, yet to be conceived, would be born three years later as the lovely daughter of their neighbor Marcus Pertinax. He, the future patriarch of the clan, would be charged with carrying on the legacy of Joseph and Mary, his Hebrew parents, and would also come to know and safeguard the incredible truth about his eldest brother – the ageless man called Jesus Christ, the vampire.

  “Her time has come!” a hysterical Ruth cried just after dusk on the twentieth, “Her water has broken on the sheets, please fetch Maria, Electra and Penelope, I know not what to do!”

  A startled Joseph, getting drunk in the kitchen with Jesus, quickly sobered up and answered, “Right away, Maria’s in the slave quarters, I’ll bring them!”

  “Shall I follow?” asked Jesus.

  “You’d better, I’m pretty drunk, there’s snow and ice out there and you can catch me if I fall on my ass,” Joseph answered, turning for the door.

  “Right,” said a sober Jesus, having much greater tolerance for wine.

  Walking to the slave quarters with his father, Jesus knocked on the door. The Magdalene was conversing with Icarus, Electra and Penelope. Cyril was asleep from a long day of reading scrolls Jesus had brought from Gavinal, Brutus was snoring away in his room, and muscular Ganymede was sleeping in his room, exhausted from chopping wood for their hearths and for the smokehouse.

  “Yes Julius?” the Magdalene asked, opening the door.

  “Mother’s having her baby, we need you women to assist her,” answered a stoic Jesus.

  “My God, she is?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve delivered many babies,” said Electra, placing a hand on the Magdalene’s arm, grabbing a satchel from a table containing a first-aid kit.

  “I’ve never done it in my uh, life,” Mary replied as the women scrambled for the house, leaving Jesus and Joseph in their wake.

  “What should I do, I’m just a blacksmith,” said Icarus.

  “Would you like to come to the house for fine wine?” asked Jesus.

  “Sure, I’ve delivered calves and shoats before, but I don’t know anything about foaling human critters.”

  “Neither do we, that’s why we’re leaving it to the women,” said Joseph with a nervous laugh, the trio making their way to the house. During the next hours, cries of the labors of childbirth came from the bedroom as Joseph, Jesus and Icarus sat in the kitchen drinking strong wine.

  The labor growing difficult at ten-thirty, Electra remarked to Ruth, “Please bring me tar of opium to ease her suffering.”

  “Where is it?” asked Ruth.

  Electra looked to her and retorted, “Ask the master, if he doesn’t know go to my quarters and open my apothecary box, I have resin there wrapped in cotton cloth.”

  Joseph was drunk and Jesus didn’t know where any opium was, so Ruth headed to the slave quarters, retrieving the painkiller. Mixing the strong drug with wine, Electra handed the concoction to Mary.

  “Drink this mistress, it will ease your pain.”

  “Thank you,” said a tired Mary, downing the pain relieving opium.

  “It’s a breach birth!” the Magdalene exclaimed near midnight, beholding one of the infant’s feet protruding from a screaming Mary, other still in the womb, trapping the helpless child within her.

  “It’s been much too long, the child could die, bring a sharp knife from the kitchen,” Electra ordered.

  “Why?” asked Penelope, not very intelligent when it came to such things.

  “Get it stupid, you’ve seen me do it before!” Electra exclaimed, using her authority as a midwife to order family and slaves alike.

  Penelope did as told, the Magdalene asking, “I’ve heard of this, they call it caesarian, right?”

  “Yes,” answered Electra, “Done properly both will live, done wrong, one or both will die, should I proceed mistress?”

  “Do what you have to do!” a tearful Magdalene exclaimed.

  Penelope returned with a sharp steel knife, followed by Joseph, Jesus and Icarus.

  “Hold her down, I’ll do it fast,” Electra ordered Ruth, Penelope and the Magdalene.

  “What’s wrong woman?” Joseph cried to his delirious wife.

  “Don’t worry father, I’ve seen this done in Rome,” said Jesus.

  “What’s she going to do to her?” asked a terrified Joseph, ready to go to his wife’s rescue.

  “Save the baby and mother.”

  “With a knife?”

  “It’s called caesarian, it’s said Julius Caesar was – ”

  “You men get the hell out of here!” Electra barked.

  “We should do as Electra says,” said Jesus.

  “She’s my wife, she needs me!”

  “No she doesn’t, Electra knows what she’s doing more than we, verily I say, if there is a God my father, all is in his hands now,” declared Jesus, he and Icarus helping Joseph from the bedroom.

  The Magdalene holding Mary down, Electra cut into her belly, a shriek of pain coming from the mother of Jesus. “I’ve got him, he’s okay,” she said seconds later, cutting and knotting the umbilical, afterward freeing his right leg from the birth canal. Lifting the boy from his mother’s womb and slapping him hard on his bottom, the newborn Levite cried loudly. “Quickly Ruth, fetch my apothecary box, I’ll need gut for the internal stitches,” she ordered, wrapping the babe in swaddling clothes and handing the child to Penelope.

  “I wish you’d told me that earlier,” said Ruth, reaching for her cloak.

  “Do it, I haven’t time for your backtalk!”

  A subdued but dutiful Ruth made her way to the slave quarters, returning with the heavy box, placing it at the side of the bed. “Open it and fetch fine silk thread and a sharp needle of bronze,” Electra ordered her reluctant assistant in the manner of a doctor ordering a nurse, the midwife reaching into her box for animal gut preserved in strong vinegar. Producing the other items from a bedroom drawer, Ruth handed needle and thread to her. “This shouldn’t take long,” the midwife added, removing a threadlike piece of gut from the vinegar.

  The Magdalene, fascinated at witnessing her first caesarian section, had relaxed her hold on the mother of Jesus. Electra threaded the needle with gut, removed the placenta from the womb and proceeded to sew her up, starting with the uterine incision. Mary cried out in agony, writhing at the stabs of the needle, threaded with silk, piercing her nerve-laden outer flesh.

  “Hold her down, are you stupid?” Electra yelled, looking the Magdalene in the eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” said the Magda
lene, tightening her grip while Electra continued stitching Mary up, punctuated by cries of pain. She finally slipped into unconsciousness, exhausted from the ordeal.

  “That’s the last baby she’ll ever have,” said Electra after closing the wound, wiping her brow on a cloth.

  “It is?” asked Ruth.

  “Hopefully,” said Electra, looking to her fellow slave, “Another child would probably kill her, if she survives this. Should she still be able to conceive there are herbs I can prescribe which will keep this from happening again.”

  “Why would you do that?” a curious Ruth asked.

  “For one thing, caesarian birth is extremely dangerous and is damaging to the womb, for another, this woman’s too damn old to have another child,” said Electra with a loud exhale.

  “Will she be all right?” asked the Magdalene.

  “Only the gods know,” answered Electra, taking the newborn from Penelope and putting him to his mother’s breast only five minutes after delivery, the little one latching on and suckling well.

  “You saved the baby!” Ruth exclaimed.

  “Perhaps,” said a tired Electra, ‘”You’ve seen this before child?”

  “No, it’s said I was born that way but my mother died,” Ruth replied, for a moment wondering what her unknown mother had been like.

  “Forgive me, I must pray to Athena Parthenos and Demeter for help in saving them,” said Electra, nodding to the group. Walking from the house to her private altar in her room, the devoted slave prayed for three long days to her powerful goddesses, neither eating nor drinking during this time. Only leaving to clean and care for the newborn and his mother, she carefully inspected and changed the dressing on Mary’s belly at each visitation, her bedside manner comparable with any physician of the time. Applying a fresh poultice of antibiotic herbs to the wound every eight hours for a week, she noted with calm satisfaction there were no signs of infection in her patient. Her skillful nursing and humble supplications to the Greek goddesses of wisdom and fertility were successful, for Mary and her son, named Julian Marius Chrysippus, survived their ordeal and thrived.