by Stant Litore
Polycarp considered her. Regina was the gathering’s only surviving deaconess; there had been two, but the other had been seized by the Romans in the month of Mars. She was a remarkable woman; besides her beauty and the sturdiness of her spirit, she possessed an education almost unknown in the Subura, something she had acquired in her youth. She was excellent at ciphering; she held the insula (and the gathering within it) together as though she were herself the owner. During the day, Regina ministered to the poorest in their community, bringing them food and talk, hearing their stories, and carrying some of these stories back to share with Polycarp. They worked closely together, and Polycarp trusted Regina; if she said a family on the Via Claudia XII had need, he listened and did what he could to answer the need. If she said a landowner on the Via Noctis was not withholding his promised tithe out of laziness but because one of the crossroads brotherhoods had been extorting his earnings from him until his own family was near starvation, Polycarp listened and tried to exert pressure on the brotherhoods.
Polycarp was the insula’s heart, and Regina was its head; yet that seemed a strange way to put it, for Regina was a most deep-hearted woman. But her life had not always been as it was now.
The first time Polycarp had seen her, he’d been walking to the market by the Fulvian Cistern and had stopped, stunned. The woman who would later be the deaconess was kneeling outside the door of a cracked and graffitied insula, her head down, her wrists fastened with rough rope to a stump of an iron post. She’d been stripped to the waist, and her back was a thicket of welts. Something deep inside Polycarp growled when he saw that, even as something very like a torch’s heat lit in his loins at the sight of her nakedness. He forced himself to focus not on the sight of her breasts but on the placard that had been tied about her neck and that now rested on her shoulders. She is a slut, the placard read, and I put her from my house. You may cut her loose and have her, if you leave a copper in the dish. It is what she is worth.
A small clay cup lay on its side by the woman’s knees.
Polycarp stood there for a while, reading that placard and looking at the welts on the woman’s back. It was not common in Rome to beat slaves so savagely, but such things happened in the Subura. Even free women were beaten so by their husbands, by men living lives miserable and without hope; it was not uncommon to be awakened in the night by screams from a nearby tenement. But then, one woke often to screams of murder or rape in the streets below one’s windows, or stepped over a body at one’s threshold in the morning to walk to the market. This was the Subura. Guardsmen rarely came here, and only the crossroads brotherhoods kept any real order.
This was a part of Rome where people who wished to hide hid in plain sight.
Polycarp moved across the street warily, uncertain it was wise to attract attention. He stood by the woman. She did not look up.
“What is your name, daughter?”
Her shoulders jerked when he called her that. Still, she did not look up. “Dora,” she whispered. “Dora Syriacae.”
His heart ached at the edge of defiance he heard under her whisper.
“Syriacae,” he said. “This is a long way from Syria.”
She was silent for a moment. Then she took a deep breath. “The master of this insula bought me from flesh thieves.”
She was a pleasure slave then, and had no doubt been bought for the master’s enjoyment, or his sons’. “Why were you beaten, daughter?” he asked softly.
Her shoulders trembled briefly, and her voice rasped with pain and fear. “A tenant kissed me—touched me. Grabbed me as I walked by.” She closed her eyes. “The master saw.”
Her welts were many, and around them all the skin of her back was discolored. It must hurt her even to breathe. An ache and a discomfort grew in Polycarp’s breast. It was clear to him what needed to be done. With the toe of his sandal he nudged the cup upright, and the ring of the coin against its clay interior brought the woman’s head up, her eyes wide with hope and fear. Hope, because she clearly could not stay where she was, and who knew how long the master would leave her bound to that post, rejected, if no one bought her? Fear, because the beating you have already received is a known quantity, and a new master might be more cruel.
“You are Regina Romae,” Polycarp said softly. “You have suffered too much under your old name, and it seems Rome, not Syria, is now your home. I ask you to put your old name away. Regina is a better one, I think, and you have a queen’s strength, that is clear to me.”
Her eyes searched him. “Am I yours?” she asked after a moment, and her voice broke.
“No.” Polycarp sighed. “You are God’s. It is his coin I have dropped into that cup, and he has bought you. As he bought me, a very long time ago. Though that was a different slavery, and a different coin that released me. Come.” He bent and slipped a knife from beneath his tunic. Swiftly he cut the rope from her wrists. He spoke in a low voice, trying to ignore her soft breath near his face and the way it affected him. “No man owns you. You are free. I would be glad to give you a place to stay, if you need one. But you are no property of mine.”
He took Regina’s hands in his, chafing her wrists. She winced, and a cry escaped her lips. He wished to weep for her. He took his cloak and put it about her shoulders; it was heavy wool from the flocks of Transalpine Gaul and would have cost him much to purchase had it not been a gift. It was far too warm a garment for a summer in Rome, but other than in the middle of Augustus, Polycarp felt always a little chilled, however hot the day. Now Regina pressed her lips together tightly as the coarse wool brushed the welts on her back; tears started at her eyes. Yet she gave Polycarp a look of gratitude that was naked in its intensity, and she held it closed over her breasts, concealing herself. Polycarp nodded and lifted her to her feet. He was not a woman, but he could well understand the desire to hide from demanding eyes. He held her tightly until he was certain her legs were steady, and she made no protest.
“I will take the name Regina,” she whispered, and suddenly Polycarp felt her small body shaking within the wool cloak. “Am I truly freed?”
“Yes.” Polycarp took her shoulders in his hands and stepped back, looking at her face.
He did not offer to bring her to a clerk to get citizenship papers, nor did she ask. This was the Subura. No one had papers. Regina’s eyes were looking elsewhere, into some other place. She was alone, he realized. Entirely alone, and realizing it. Polycarp simply held her shoulders, hoping the firmness of his hands would comfort her in her solitude.
She closed her eyes after a while. She might have been praying; her lips moved softly.
“I will come to your insula,” she said.
“Good,” he smiled. “There is an empty first-floor room that no one wants, because there was once a ghost there. But it is gone now, and restful, though no one will believe it. If that doesn’t frighten you, you can stay there for a time. The rent I will attend to myself, until the next month. We will use the time finding you employment. I assure you, I am exceptionally good at finding things for people to do.”
She stiffened. Her eyes took on a look of panic and, behind the panic, a gray shadow that Polycarp knew too well. Despair.
“No,” he said quietly, and he put his arm about her and began walking her back up the street toward the insula. His trip to the market could wait. He whispered words for her ears alone, though others brushed by them in the street. His knife he still held unsheathed in his hand, and no one molested them as they walked. “No,” he said, “I am not looking for a pleasure slave myself.”
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered.
He glanced at her face. Considered telling her it was as his master would want. But that was not really a true answer. He might have passed her by if she had been some other slave. He sacrificed mightily for the people in his insula, both those of the gathering and those who were not—but he followed a strict policy of minding his own matters when he was out in the Subura. He pursed his lips a moment, then told h
er the truth, or as much of it as he knew. “I never had a daughter, or a wife. Even a sister. You might have been her. I thought of that when I saw you.”
“But I am none of those.” An edge of bitterness.
“No.” He shook his head. “No, you aren’t. Nor anything else I might want you to be. Whoever it is that you are, you may reveal it to me or not, with time, as you choose. Your body also is yours to conceal, or reveal to one who suits you. You may keep the cloak.”
They walked silently for a while. When they reached the door of the insula, she glanced up at him, and he found that her eyes stirred things in him.
“Are you kind,” she asked gently, “like an old grandfather—or are you only mad?”
“I have no idea. But doubtless one of those is true.” He touched her cheek and smiled, and then stepped through the door, leaving it up to her whether to follow.
Now Polycarp settled back, folding his hands across his chest, and watched as Regina and Marcus shared the cup. What was going on with Regina tonight? It was rare to see her so unsettled or to see the desires of her heart shown so nakedly in her eyes. Marcus he understood: the boy was terrified, though now that he had eaten and sipped and shared in the Covenant, his face was calmer. But Regina—
Again he pressed his lips together tightly. Had his daughter had some part, unknowingly, in Julia’s falling away? He couldn’t imagine what that part that might be, but plainly something was profoundly awake in Regina’s heart—and just as plainly, she was loosing the latches that she usually kept locked tight over her desire for him. He suspected that she had never fully reconciled in her own heart whether to approach Polycarp as a daughter or a lover, and she had kept her feelings under tight discipline. Now there were guardsmen coming for Polycarp, to take him from the insula, likely to suffer a painful death. They might not see each other again; indeed, the last moment might be this very breaking of bread, this drinking of wine. If there was something she must say, this could be the last moment to say it. He looked again at her eyes, and the plea he saw there pulled at his heart. Marcus didn’t notice; he was looking at the door, perhaps wrestling down the last of his fears. Polycarp coughed and straightened. It was time to bring them all back to their task and sense of mission—himself included. Their strength must survive his death.
“My children,” he rumbled, “our master calls us to repair what is broken, to heal what is ill, to bring good word to the despairing, to reclaim all that is lost.” He drew in a ragged breath, for the pain in his hands was sharper now. “Our master wishes us to stand fast, no matter the peril, no matter how many fall away.” He felt the bread in his belly, felt the comfort of it. “It is possible that when the guardsmen come, they will empty the insula. But it is also possible that they will be looking for me, and that when they find me they will not look too hard for others. We are already a city within this City. They will look for a Caesar. They likely know my name. But I am not our Caesar, who lives now in a heavenly city and not in this one. My arrest will change nothing.” His voice hardened. “Marcus, there is an empty cellar beneath the larder. The entry is cunningly disguised—you must look beneath the barrel of olive oil. Look where I have scratched the fish, and it will be apparent to you. I had it made after the raid on the widows.”
“We won’t abandon you.”
“But you will heed me.” Polycarp’s voice hardened. “You will protect your brothers and sisters. Crowd into the cellar with those on the first and second floor. Those on the upper stories must pray. It is possible the Romans may tire of searching empty rooms and depart swiftly.” He smiled grimly. “They will, after all, have found their ‘Caesar.’”
“We should have you in the cellar,” Marcus protested. “If it is you they are looking for, they will spend all their effort searching for you and take little heed of the rest of us. If we—”
A scuffling in the alley interrupted him. His head jerked up; he listened. Regina turned white. Marcus gasped. “They’re here!” Every line in the boy’s body was tense. If Roman guardsmen burst through that door now—at this moment—they would find them all unprepared, unhidden, sitting with the wine and the bread.
The very air in the room went cold and sharp with fear.
Polycarp growled low in his throat. Part of him had been waiting to hear this sound all night, he realized, ever since waking at Marcus’s knock with his mind still caught in that dream. “Listen, Marcus. God gave you better ears than that.”
There was no sound of marching in the alley, no clink of metal.
“The undead,” Regina whispered.
Marcus jumped to his feet. Polycarp rose more slowly, stood unsteadily, and might have fallen, but Regina caught him, and he leaned on her for an instant before straightening, embarrassed. His body cried out for his bed. He was too old for the demands of this night. Yet he was the father of this gathering; he was the only one who could answer them.
He looked to the door, the outer door. The scraping of feet—many feet—half-dragged along stones outside. A thump and then a slide along the wall. Somewhere to the right, the sound of nails scratching against rock. For a long moment they listened to the sounds, hearts beating. Somewhere up the alley outside, a low moan. Polycarp heard Regina suck in her breath.
For a moment more, the shock of it held them. This was not a visitation by one or two dead, or even by the pack Regina had spoken of. Perhaps that pack had lurched back into the alley again, but there were more of them now. Polycarp couldn’t tell from the sounds how many, but surely more than ten. And these dead knew that there were living here—that moan confirmed it. Perhaps their voices had been heard through the door. Perhaps something else had drawn them to the alley. It didn’t matter; they were here now.
“Father, don’t!” Marcus whispered.
Polycarp had moved to the door. Now he turned. “Marcus, Regina.” He stopped a moment, uncertain what to say. “What do you believe, Marcus? What do we know to be true? Nothing is broken that cannot be remade. Nothing is ill that cannot be healed, nothing captive that cannot be freed. That is what he taught us. I am going through that door, my son.”
He gripped the boy’s shoulder, saw both worship and fear in his eyes. They were the eyes of a young man witnessing his father at the brink of a cliff confronting harpies of Greek legend, and half the desire of his heart was to hide behind a boulder, and the other half was to grab his father by the shoulders and pull him back from the peril. Yet his eyes were dazed with the knowledge that were he to do so, he would lessen his father.
“Either I can meet them at the door, young Marcus,” Polycarp told him, “or I can wait for them to break through. Except that they might not break through. They might go down to our neighbor’s door. And that would be intolerable.” He thought for a moment. “Go to the other rooms. Wake them, warn them, bring those you can to the cellar.” That task was not too much for the boy’s courage, he decided, and he would feel courageous doing it.
Marcus nodded once and, turning, almost bolted out of the room. After a moment Polycarp heard the inner door creak open and then shut. He drew in a breath, faced Regina.
She stood there with her face a mask of inexpressible pain, like one of the masks Attican actors wear in a tragedy.
“Ah, Regina,” he rumbled, “please don’t defy me in this. Either throw open that door, or move aside and stand behind me.”
“Father, there are too many. Too many.” Her voice was low and intense. “You’ll be eaten!”
“Enough,” he growled. “Move aside.”
She sucked in her breath. “Wait.” She pressed herself quickly to him, her arms going around his neck and her lips finding his. With a shock, he felt the softness of her breasts pressed to him under her tunic, the warmth of her. Her kiss was open mouthed, passionate, desperate. She smelled of love and fear. An unwelcome fire lit in his loins and spread to all his flesh.
Carefully he took her arms in his hands and detached himself from her, pushing her gently back.
&n
bsp; “Be careful,” she whispered, her eyes too full to look at.
“Regina,” he whispered back. “Daughter.”
Her eyes grew moist at the word. Frowning, Polycarp bent and took up the lamp of rancid oil. He held it high by his ear, just a little back so the flame would not obscure his vision. As he straightened, the taste of the sacrificial wine and the taste of Regina’s kiss were still sweet in his mouth. He threw the latch on the door.
The alley was filled with dead. The light of the lamp Polycarp held brought them out of the dark, showing the gashes and bites in their gray skin in stark detail. For a moment his hand shook, and the light guttered. The dead slouched and slid along the wall of the insula toward him; several milling at the outlet to the Via Aquae Bruneae turned their heads with unnatural slowness, and their eyes reflected back the lamp. Their mouths opened, filling the alley with the low groaning of their hunger.
Never had he faced so many.
He sucked in his breath. That thought was so similar to his dream that it froze him. He stood in the door.
“Father!” Regina cried.
“Take the lamp,” he muttered, and held it out to her without taking his eyes from the street. He felt the brush of her hand. Then the weight of the lamp was gone, and its light behind him cast his shadow, vast and dark, over a shuffling, broad-shouldered figure as it lurched in front of him and almost into him.
