The Saint's Mistress (2 page)

a plague when I was eight and Numa was nine.

Numa stirred porridge with a wooden paddle. We were quiet this evening, each of us

separately brooding about the attack on our way home.

I was kneading a little precious salt into the soft white cheese when father and our older

brothers, Maron and Tito, arrived home from their work in the fields.

“The number of Romans must be more than the stars in the sky then,” Tito was complaining.

“The poor work and the rich eat. Always been that way and always will be,” father grunted.

He hung his hat on a hook by the door without greeting me or Numa.

“Well, what’s next? What are we supposed to eat?” Maron wanted to know.

“I hope Ammon feels like fucking Murzuk a lot this winter,” was father’s reply. Father was a

casual worshipper of the god Ammon and believed that sexual relations between the sun god

Ammon and his consort Murzuk, the moon goddess, brought rain.

Father and our brothers sat down at the table and father cut himself a slice of yesterday’s

cheese. Tito and Maron popped olives into their mouths, spitting the pits onto the floor. Our

brothers were both tall like Numa, with smooth brown skin. They barely resembled our wiry,

hawk-nosed father, with his weather-beaten tan face.

“Where’s my supper, daughters?” father called.

Numa hustled to the table with three bowls of porridge and a loaf of bread. I set a pitcher of

whey on the table while Numa got bowls for the two of us.

Father, Maron and Tito were already slurping porridge when Numa and I sat down.

“What’s wrong, father?” I asked.

“Grazing lands allowed to the plebs have been cut by half,” he growled. “The lords have to

plant more of their acres in grain to feed Rome.”

Distant Rome was the hungriest city in the world, and western North Africa was its

breadbasket. In every direction outside Thagaste, mile after mile of golden wheat shimmered in

the hot breezes. The vast fields were sometimes owned by local lords like Urbanus, or more

often by absentee Roman landlords who might never even see them and instead appointed local

bailiffs to operate their acres. Regardless of who owned them, the fields were worked by plebs

like father, landless peasants who were obligated to provide a certain number of days’ labor to

their lord every year. In exchange, they received the right to use small plots for crops of their

own, and grazing rights on certain of the lord’s pastures.

Father was prosperous for a pleb, with goats to graze on the public pastures, cheese to sell,

two sons to work the fields with him, and two daughters to send into town to work for cash. If

the pasture lands were reduced, he would have trouble keeping his goats alive.

“What will happen?” Numa asked.

Father took a long drink of water and it seemed he would not choose to answer. Finally he

responded, “We can slaughter our goats if we have to, and dry the meat. It will last for a time.”

5

“Why can’t the Romans grow their own wheat and let us use our land for ourselves?” Maron

growled.

Father grimaced. “Because they have the army. Or haven’t you noticed?”

“There are more peasants than legionnaires,” Maron muttered, frowning into his cup.

Tito stopped his spoon halfway to his mouth and glanced at father, waiting for the explosion.

Father set down his cup. There was a short silence before he slammed his palm on the table

and then jabbed a finger at Maron. “Now, you listen to me, boy. That kind of talk will get you

nothing but crucified in the town square. It’s those crazy hut people putting those ideas into your

head. Yes, I know about it. I want you to stay away from them, do you hear?”

Maron pressed his lips together. I could see he was surprised father knew about his

associations. The hut people were a radical faction of the Donatist Christian sect, mostly young

men, who stood up for the poor against the lords, and for the Donatists against other Christians.

They sought martyrdom, believing that a martyr’s death was rewarded with entrance into their

heaven. They were known to be violent, valuing heaven so much that they saw death as a release

from suffering.

“Bunch of nuts,” father muttered.

“At least they stand up for something, instead of always knuckling under to Rome,” Maron

argued.

“And get themselves killed. For what? So they can go straight to some made-up heaven?

Their god couldn’t even save himself.”

“Their god loves the poor.”

“Their god
is
poor. Does he bring us rain? No. Does he have an army? No. Could he save

himself from the Romans? No. Some god. The Romans crucified him, and that’s what they’ll do

to you if you don’t stop this foolishness.”

“Brother Luke says their God will return and establish a rule of justice.”

Father snorted. “Let him come back. They’ll crucify him all over again.” He rose and looked

at me. “Did you bring the goats back?”

“Yes, Father.”

“All right, then. I’m going out to do the milking.” Before he went through the door, he turned

around and drilled Maron with his small black eyes. “Rome is like those mountains out there,

boy. They’ll rule the world forever. You can either fight them and be crushed, or you can survive

the best you can on their terms.”

6

The next morning I hurried toward the cloth shop where I worked, after separating from

Numa at the café where she spent her day serving goat meat, watered wine and flat bread. My

work took me into Thagaste six days a week. Miriam, the owner of the shop, was a Christian and

did no business on Sunday, her Sabbath.

The Empire had been Christian for forty years, but here on its fringes people honored that or

not, just as they saw fit. Temples to the Roman gods still flourished, the cult of Mithras had its

adherents, and, like my father, many peasants still worshipped the old Berber gods. Scholars

studied Platonism and Stoicism, and might never open the Christian Bible. And, if one did want

to be a Christian, what kind of Christianity should he choose? Donatist? Manichean? Caecelian?

Miriam was a Caecelian and never stopped trying to convert me.

Although I often teased her by parroting my father’s arguments against her religion, I admired

Miriam. Ten years older than I, she was a widow, with two children, 6-year-old Peter, and Lucy,

3. Her own family had died in the last plague and her late husband’s family had agreed to pay for

Peter’s education but offered no further help, hoping to force her into another marriage and off

their hands. Miriam was a talented weaver, owned her own loom, and made a living for herself

and her children. She did well enough that she could pay me to tend the shop and the children

while she sat in the back room working at her loom. Her shop and rooms were on the second

floor of a narrow building on a side street, above where her brother-in-law, Xanthos, ran a

grocery.

The jagged sun already pierced me, making me squint and pricking my skin with sweat. I

passed a public well where children stood in line, the lucky ones shaded by a few dusty trees. As

I passed Urbanus’ town house, I could hear the gurgle of his courtyard fountain, cooling and

refreshing even in its sound. Now I reached the dense part of town, where the stone buildings

squeezed shoulder to shoulder and provided some shade. By noon, the stones would have

absorbed the sun’s heat and would blast it back in my face, but at this hour when I walked into

their shadow I felt a sudden cooling that brought out small pimples on my arms and made me

shiver once.

I dropped off four cheeses with Xanthos, who sold our cheese in his grocery, and then I

hurried up the stairs to Miriam’s shop. There was no particular reason to hurry, except I was

young then and hurried everywhere.

Miriam sat in the back room at her loom. Lucy crooned to a wax doll wrapped in a scrap of

cloth, and Peter raced two clay horses around an imaginary circus oval. The stone rooms were

cool and gray, except for a knife of yellow morning light slicing through the narrow workroom

window, directly onto Miriam and her loom. I stopped in the doorway for a second, gazing at my

friend, her small hands tying weights to the bottoms of her warp threads. Her black hair was

curly and unruly, escaping in spots from its morning bindings. Her skin and her enormous eyes

were both the color of weak tea. She turned those eyes to me now and smiled her slow smile. I

loved her more than anyone except Numa.

“Good morning,” she said. “I want your opinion on something. Which do you think will be

better as an accent thread: this yellow or the red?”

She already had green and blue warp threads hanging from her loom’s heading band, in a

random pattern completely unlike the strict geometric patterns of Roman cloth. Miriam’s unique

designs were becoming popular, and other weavers were beginning to copy her.

7

“The yellow,” I replied immediately. “It will stand out more. Now that other weavers are

copying you, you want to keep your customers’ attention by creating things that draw attention.”

She leaned back a little, as if trying to get a better head-to-toe look at me. “You’re a business

woman, Leona,” she said.

“No, just a barefoot goat herder’s daughter,” I insisted, secretly pleased.

The shop was quiet for a short time, until our first customers appeared. The woman was the

most beautiful middle-aged woman I had ever seen. Her hair, which must have been a rich brown

in her youth, was faded and shot through with silver, but her skin was pale and unlined, as if she

had always been protected from the fierce North African sun. But her true beauty was in her

bearing. Spine straight, shoulders squared, chin high, she moved with the authority of a man and

the grace of a woman.

Behind her stood a young man who must have been her son. Although he was tall, towering

over his mother, I at first barely noticed him, so impressed was I by his regal mother. I raised my

eyes up to his face and, to my horror, I recognized him. It was Aurelius, the boy who had failed

to defend me and Numa against his friend Marcus.

He recognized me in the same moment. Determined not to be the first to look away, I glared

at him until he blushed and swiveled his head, as if looking for an escape route.

“How may I help you, my lady?” I asked his mother.

“My son needs a new cloak. He saw a cloak he liked on a man in town, and we found that the

cloth had been bought here. The cloth was unusual: the pattern looked like it had leaves of many

colors woven into it. My son would like something similar. He would not consent to my

choosing it, but insists on making his own choice.” She said this with a frank, wry smile, as if we

already shared knowledge of her son’s stubbornness. Aurelius blushed even more deeply.

“I know exactly the cloth you describe,” I assured her. “We have many similar, and my

mistress accepts custom orders, too. Let me show you what we have first.”

I had gotten used to spreading out bolts of materials for highborn customers. They usually

liked me. I was pretty, and I knew how to be deferential and respectful, although I seethed inside

at the inequality between us, and envied the patrician women their lives of ease and their slaves

and fine clothing. Wasn’t I smart? Wasn’t I as good as them? It seemed to me outrageously

unfair that some should have so much and others so little. It especially annoyed me now, to be

forced to help select something beautiful for the back of this Aurelius, this careless hooligan who

stole for the fun of it.

I turned to the storeroom and gained my composure. I was putting food into the mouths of

Miriam’s children, and adding to my father’s flock of goats. What did I care what this overgrown

boy wore on his back? If his mother bought, I would take a sesterce of what Miriam paid me, and

buy a bag of dates to share with Numa on the way home this evening. I smiled as my eyes lit on

the perfect roll of cloth for young Aurelius.

“I think I have just the thing, ma’am,” I announced, carrying the heavy roll in my arms. I laid

it on the table and unrolled a bit. “Does the young master like pears perhaps?” I asked, glancing

at Aurelius out of the corners of my eyes. “Look at this gorgeous piece: brown, so it won’t show

the dust of the road, and look at how my mistress has woven in the design of this lovely green.

The green comes from Persia, very rare, and such a beautiful color: bright as a ripe pear, don’t

you think?”

“Do you like this one, Aurelius Augustine?” his mother asked.

“No.”

“You’re not even looking at it. Come closer. The green is beautiful.”

8

Aurelius shambled over to the table, close enough that I could smell him, a smell not like my

father’s or my brothers’ at all, but a combination of sweat and olives and whatever sweet things