The Saint's Mistress (26 page)

been staring him in the face all his life. But, my point here is the wife. I’m asking you to free him

to make this marriage. I know that he will not agree to set you aside without your consent.

Therefore you must consent.”

I listened in silence, my face turned to ice.

Monnica went on, twisting the fringe on her cloak. “I know that since you accepted the

Church, you have no sexual relations with him. Nevertheless, this girl’s family will not tolerate

your remaining, and, if you’re honest with yourself, you couldn’t tolerate it either. I have found a

place for you, too, back in Thagaste.”

I found my voice. “Thagaste! I’d be across the sea from Adeo! You can’t possibly think that

I’d agree to this!”

“He’s almost a man, Leona. Your work is done.”

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“My love isn’t done. He’s still my son. He’ll be my son until I die.”

Monnica held her hands up. “Just hear me out. There’s a community of chaste women in

Thagaste. They live to serve our Lord. I could purchase you a place there. You would want for

nothing. Adeo could visit you any time he wanted.”

“Any time he wanted to make the journey across the sea! Which could be never! I will not

agree to this! I will not!” I stood, vibrating with rage. “I don’t need to think about my answer.

The answer is no. I won’t be separated from Adeo by an ocean. I can’t believe you would even

suggest this to me.”

Her fading brown eyes pleaded with me. “Please think it over. The girl is won’t be legally

able to marry for two more years, but I want the commitment now, before someone else snatches

her up, and her family won’t consent to even an engagement unless the mistress is out of the

picture.”

“Too young to be married? How young is she?”

“Ten,” Monnica admitted. She burrowed further down into her cloak and gazed at the fire.

“Ten! You want to marry him off to a girl younger than Adeo!”

“She comes with 10,000 acres. Her family’s wealth and connections could secure not only

Aurelius’ future, but Adeo’s as well. Think of your son.”

“I am thinking of my son. This conversation is over.”

I whirled and left the room, my feet beating against the carpeted stone floor. When I reached

my own chamber, I sat, breathing hard, listening to the blood pounding in my ears. The nerve of

her! The nerve! Making plans to send me away without any regard for my own feelings or

Aurelius’. I stood again and paced the small room, picking things up and throwing them to the

ground in impotent rage: a hairbrush, a wooden cup, a book. My eyes rested finally on a small

icon of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which I kept on my table. I picked it up and peered into her

sad, inscrutable eyes. “What shall I do?” I whispered. She remained lost in the heartbreak of her

own loss, too grief-stricken to respond to my smaller sorrow.

I knelt then and prayed until my knees were raw.

That evening, Aurelius knocked on my bed chamber door for the first time in a very long

while.

“You’ve spoken with my mother?” he said.

I raised my eyebrows and nodded.

“For my part, you’re welcome to stay under my roof forever. You’re my son’s mother.”

I avoided his eyes and started brushing my hair. “And what about the 10-year-old bride and

her family?”

He rubbed his face. “I’d just as soon never marry. And a child! But you see how it is. It’s a

good match. It secures my future and Adeo’s.”

“Then I’m not welcome under your roof. Because – or so I’m told – her family will not permit

it.”

“Let me work on that. We’ll work out something.” His face had the hard look of a man who

wants to appear more resolved than he is.

“Fine,” I said. I put the brush down and turned my back to him, busying myself with rubbing

lotion on my sore knees.

“Leona … “He touched my arm. His callused fingertips brushed the small hairs of my arm,

raising gooseflesh and sending a shivering pang through me.

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I turned and I knew my desire was in my face, because I saw it reflected in his. He tightened

his grip on my arm and drew me closer to him, staring fiercely into my eyes. I was held by his

gaze, unable to look away and compose myself.

He placed a hand on each of my cheeks and bent his lips towards mine. His lips were barely

moist. He kissed me gently at first and then harder, his thumbs pressing on the delicate blades of

my jawbones. Then my arms clung to his back and I pressed against him, our bodies warm and

wildly alive against each other.

“Leona,” he rasped, grazing his lips over my cheek, my ear, down my neck, branding each

spot with his warmth.

He lifted me, carried me to my bed, and laid me there, his eyes never leaving mine. He laid

beside me and drew me to him again, pressing firmly against me. And then he rolled on top of

me and entered me, both of us still in our robes. My desire, like a spoiled child, slammed the

door on my resolve and I gave myself over to the sweet music of joining with him.

Afterward, though, my joy ebbed and remorse spread in my heart like a stain. My stomach

heaved with shame. Aurelius was lying with his eyes closed, a relaxed smile on his full lips,

gently stroking my belly. I recoiled from him, and his eyes sprang open.

I covered my face with my hands. “I can’t believe what I just did,” I moaned.

“But, we can’t help ourselves,” he replied, as if that explained and excused everything.

“We can help ourselves! We should help ourselves! You’re still a Manichean at heart,

Aurelius. You think that anything you do wrong is out of your control.” I leapt from the bed and

rearranged my disheveled robe, as if to hide myself from him.

He raised himself on one elbow and his voice hardened. “You underestimate me, Leona. Or

maybe you overestimate me; I don’t know. You’re wrong if you think I don’t try to resist you. If

you recall, I’ve believed in celibacy longer than you have. I just can’t do it. I fail every time. So

it clearly is out of my control, isn’t it?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Here’s the difference between me and you, Aurelius. You

think it’s just a philosophical thing, with no consequences anywhere except in this life. I know

that the fate of my immortal soul hangs on it.”

“You know? Really? And you know this how?”

“I hate when you take that Socratic tone with me! Have I ever told you that? I hate it! Your

eternal fate is at stake here and you don’t even know it! So you’re not as smart as you think. No,

no, wait, it isn’t that.” I put my face in my hands for a second, trying to gather my thoughts.

When I looked up, I felt calmer. “Here’s what it is: you thought you could save yourself with

your own willpower. And you’ve found that you can’t. You’re right about that, but you think

that’s the end of it and that’s where you’re wrong.”

He sat up and leaned towards me. “Oh, really? And what is the end of it, since you’re

suddenly such a scholar?”

“You have an option other than your own will.”

“I’m waiting, Leona, to hear what that is.”

“You can surrender to Christ and place your hope of salvation in the cross instead of in your

own will. You can take your sins to Him and let Him heal you.”

“Well. I see how well that’s worked for you.”

The urge to slap him flared and then subsided into the stinging pressure of tears. “It worked

until today,” I whispered. He was still sitting on my bed with his robe open, his flaccid penis

leaning off to one side atop his powerful thigh, as if temporarily cast aside. He was still so

beautiful to me that I could barely breathe in his presence.

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“I can hardly be near you without wanting you,” I confessed. “I pray every day for strength.”

This silenced him. His face softened for a moment and he seemed ready to say one thing, but

he set his jaw and said instead, “Well, let me be the first to wish you success.”

He lifted himself from the bed. “Decide as you wish about the community. Stay if you like; as

Adeo’s mother, you always have a home under my roof, and the ten-year-old virgin and her

family can be damned. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be glad to support your Messiah’s efforts by

not bothering you anymore.”

I reached out an arm to him. “Aurelius..”

“Good night, Leona.” He left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

I spent the rest of the night on my suffering knees, and in the morning I knew what to do.

108

THE LOVE

109

Thagaste, 389 A.D.

I hurried to the bishop’s house, the dust of the path soft and warm under my callused bare

feet. Our previous bishop had died suddenly eight weeks ago, and all the chaste women of our

community were eager to meet the new Bishop of Thagaste, but I couldn’t imagine why he had

summoned me alone, first.

The bishop lived in a house that I remembered from my childhood, on the opposite side of the

forum from Urbanus’ palace, a spacious and comfortable house but not as grand as Urbanus’.

Aurelius’ former patron conducted his business back and forth between Rome and Carthage

these days, leaving his fields and orchards near Thagaste to be managed by factors. I had not

seen him a single time since my return to my old home town six years before.

My heart beat fast, from my brisk walk in the heat and from nervous curiosity as I lifted the

heavy door knocker. The door was opened by an Aitheope servant, who showed me into the

bishop’s sitting room. I gazed down at the mosaic floor, which showed a scene of Neptune and

several naked water nymphs. Neptune’s oversized penis plowed ahead of him like the prow of a

ship.

“Mind you don’t have cause to pluck out your eye, Sister. I’ve already ordered carpets to

cover that and several others.”

I jerked my head up at the sound of the voice, and my astonishment stopped my heart for a

second. “Quintus?”

The new Bishop of Thagaste sat on a red-fringed stool across the room, sweeping his robe

over his knees and crossing his legs. “I anticipated that you would be surprised. This was one of

the reasons why I did you the courtesy of calling for you alone.”

“You’re the new bishop.” I blinked, still not quite taking it in.

“You should be pleased. We’re old friends.”

I wouldn’t quite have put it that way, but I said, “Of course. I’m only surprised.”

“I thought, too, that you could tell me something of how the women’s house is currently

managed.”

A servant brought Quintus a tray bearing a decanter of wine and one cup, and set it on the

table near his stool. Quintus poured himself a cup of wine without offering any to me. The cup

was a jeweled glass one that I had never seen before, one of Quintus’ own, I imagined. Well, I

thought, he was a rich man before he was a bishop.

“What did you want to know?” I asked.

Quintus sipped his wine, closed his eyes blissfully for a second, and then waved his hand at

me. “Everything you can tell. Who manages the work and spiritual life of the women? What

work do they do? Who manages the finances? Is the community growing? Is it self-supporting

with the endowments that the women bring?”

“God, of course, is our ultimate lord,” I said carefully, “and we obey our bishop, His

representative here on earth.”

Quintus pursed his lips and gazed at me over the rim of his cup, eyebrows raised.

“In recent years,” I continued, “I’ve managed the women – under the supervision of the

bishop, of course.”

“Go on,” he urged.

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I hesitated.

Quintus waved an impatient hand again. “Leona, you always seem to consider me your

enemy, when I am, in fact, your friend. You can be frank with me.”

I went on. “The community is growing. In the past year alone, three widows have joined us,

bringing with them substantial estates and, in one case, several thousand denarii. So, the Church

is enriched by their generosity, and we are able to take in some young women on charity.”

I glanced at Quintus to gauge his reaction to this, but he just nodded distractedly and waved

his hand for me to continue.

“The strong young women work in your fields,” I told him. “The older women who have less

strength do the work inside the women’s house and the monastery, preparing meals or sweeping

floors and so on. We also grow herbs and make cheese. We have a small flock of goats and I

learned to make cheese as a young girl. We are self-supporting even without endowments.”

“And any profits that you earn?” He stood and poured himself another cup of wine.

“We earn no profit, Bishop. Any little extra above our own needs and our tithe of labor to the

bishopric, we dedicate to the poor of Thagaste. Many of the people in this town are desperate,

Father. We distribute our excess weekly, whenever we have any, and there are always more

people in need than food to feed them.”