The Saint's Mistress (5 page)

used to beat the olives from the trees, but also punishing as weapons.

I squeezed through the crowd, yelling, “Peter! Peter!” The crowd was mostly men, stinking of

sweat and urine and goat. My stomach and throat clenched. I couldn’t get a deep breath. Then I

felt a strong hand grip my forearm. I instinctively jerked away, but the grip held and I looked up

to discover who the hand belonged to.

It was Maron, club in hand. “What the hell are you doing here?” he hissed.

“I’m looking for Peter. He ran off.”

“Well get in somewhere and stay in. There’s going to be trouble.”

“Looks like you’ll be the one causing it.”

We both spun our heads towards a loud tramping, and saw another unit of legionnaires

approach the crowd from the direction of the church. They cut through the swarm in two

disciplined lines, and anyone who couldn’t get out of their way fast enough was knocked to the

ground.

Maron gripped my arm and shook me. “Just get in somewhere safe and stay there. Do you

hear me?”

“No! I have to find Peter!” I twisted my arm out of his grasp and slipped away from him, into

the crowd.

I slotted myself between milling bodies. My foot throbbed, and I realized it must have been

tramped on at some point.

The swarm washed me towards the church. “What’s the decision? What’s the decision?”

people kept asking.

Someone in front of us turned and shouted, “Paulonius’ ordination stands! The church

belongs to the Caecelians!”

17

Some nearby gave roars of victory, but I could hear a chant of “Injustice! Injustice!” which

grew louder and louder as the news spread.

Some of the crowd started chanting, “Martyrs! Martyrs!” answered by cries of “Caecelian!”

Now that a decision had been announced, the crowd would turn ugly. It looked like everyone

in town was now in the forum, but I couldn’t catch sight of Maron or Peter.

If I were Peter, where would I be? I thought wildly. By now, he’d be frightened. Maybe he’d

found some hiding place. As the press of bodies carried me closer to the church, I spied a pair of

skinny legs which might have been Peter’s, then lost sight of them. I pressed myself in the

direction where I’d seen them and caught a glimpse again, just as the boy stumbled and was

about to be trampled. I jabbed my elbows into the nearby legs and hauled him up by his arm.

“Peter!” My heart flooded with joy and relief, followed by anger. “Why did you go running

off after your mother told you to stay in the shop? She’s worried to death about you.” I gave him

a shake.

“I wanted to see what was happening.”

I picked him up and he clung to my neck, his legs wrapped around my waist. I was slick with

sweat, my hair separating into ringlets. I craned my neck, looking for an opening in the mass of

people, to take us back to the shop. It seemed impossible to make our way through that ocean,

trying to move opposite to their surge. Exhausted and paralyzed, I looked around again. The

street leading to Urbanus’ house was only a few yards from us. It felt safe and familiar to me

after my weeks of study there with Aurelius, but did I dare?

I made my decision and started pushing out of the crowd towards Urbanus’ street. Going that

direction, we were moving with the crowd and the danger was that we’d be pushed along too

fast, and I would lose my footing. Using Peter as a wedge, I forced us between close-packed

shoulders, trying to keep a little ahead of the heaving crowd.

“Watch it,” a boy my age snarled, and shoved me back, hard. I felt my knee buckle and

dropped Peter.

“Peter!” I bent, frantic to lift him before he was trampled. I gathered him up, scraping my

knuckles and seeing his tunic rip under someone’s spiked sandal. Still bent over, I lurched

forward, trying to regain my balance. Finally, we were expelled into the side street, like a pit

popping from an olive. I fell onto all fours, dropping Peter again.

I paused to catch my breath and stood. “You can walk now,” I told him. “We’re going to see

one of my friends.”
I hope
, I added mentally.

We reached Urbanus’ front door and I banged desperately. A door slave opened the door just

a slit.

“I’m a friend of Aurelius Augustine. Please let us in,” I pleaded.

The slave squinted at us and tilted his head. I could tell he was about to slam the door to the

panicked peasant woman with her skinny little boy. “Please! Tell Urbanus friends of Aurelius

need protection!”

I could hear sandals pounding the street behind me, more trouble-makers rioters racing

towards the trouble.

Then, to my joy, I saw Aurelius emerge behind the slave. “Leona? Let her in,” he ordered the

slave.

We were admitted, and the door slammed and bolted.

“What are you doing here?” Aurelius demanded.

“Peter ran away from the shop to see what was going on, and I went to find him.”

18

I was caked with sweat and dust, my head pounded, my knees and knuckles stung, and my

throat was on fire. Blood trickled down Peter’s knees, and the remains of his dusty tunic hung off

his skinny body like the flag of a defeated army.

I had forgotten about my foot, but now I looked down and saw that it was bleeding, one

toenail peeled off. As soon as I saw it, it started to sting and throb again.

“Your foot!” Aurelius gestured to the slave, and in a few minutes the slave boy returned with

a basin of perfumed water. The slave boy knelt to wash my feet, but I gestured to Peter. “Please.

Can you get him cleaned up and find him something decent to wear?”

Aurelius nodded to the boy, who led Peter away with surprising tenderness.

I sat and dipped my injured foot into the basin, wincing as I began to clean the damaged toe.

Aurelius knelt. “Here, let me.”

I stared at him as if he were mad: a man of the aristocratic class offering to wash the feet of a

peasant girl? But I was too tired to object. Now that I was safe, I was trembling from the terror

and exhaustion.

I watched mesmerized as he took my small foot in his hands and wiped it with the soft cloth.

He was awkward, but careful, gentle and surprisingly thorough. He rubbed one spot at a time, in

little circles, until my foot was warmed by a tingling feeling that began to travel up my leg.

“You know, in the Christian Bible, it says that Christ did this: washed his disciples’ feet,” he

said, watching his own hands at work. Everything was a lesson with him, always.

I didn’t respond. He was washing my ankle now, his strong hands circling it and moving up

and down from my calf to my heel. I shivered, although the room was warm.

Gently, he set my injured foot on the mosaic floor, and lifted the other into the warm water.

He pressed his thumb against my instep. I shivered again, and he looked up at me. His eyes

burned with something that made my heart flutter, and I couldn’t look away from him.

I pulled my foot away. “I have to get Peter home to Miriam,” I said.

“Don’t be foolish. You and Peter can spend the night here and go home tomorrow when it’s

safe.” The spell of what I’d seen in his eyes was broken.

I shook my head. “Miriam will be frantic.”

“We can send a slave to let her know Peter is safe. Please. Stay. You need something to eat

and a good rest, and the streets will be safer tomorrow.”

“How do you know it will be safer tomorrow?”

“The legionnaires will make sure.”

I thought of my brother with a needle of worry.

“Please stay,” he said again. “I promise we’ll send someone to let Miriam know you’re both

safe.”

I knew he was right, and I looked around myself in curiosity for the first time since we’d

arrived. I would like to spend a night in this palace, I thought, and eat what food Urbanus ate.

“All right,” I agreed.

Peter was put to bed, a slave dispatched to Miriam, and Aurelius and I went in to dinner with

Urbanus.

Until now, I had seen only his gardens, which were beautiful enough. To enter his dining

salon was like seeing for the first time after a lifetime of blindness. The table top was a mosaic of

small tiles set in a pattern depicting Sol Invictus, the Roman sun god, with his horses and his

radiating diadem. The mosaic top rested on a set of immense bronze legs, fashioned into thick

vines, studded here and there with colorful jewels and ending in clawed lion’s feet. Twenty could

19

easily have been seated on the couches that surrounded this table. The couches themselves, also

ornately legged in bronze, were covered with thick silk cushions of various colors and patterns.

A mural on one wall depicted a scene of satyrs and naked, full-hipped young women frolicking

at the seashore. Three slaves stood silent around the table.

What left me even more speechless was the array and quantity of food on the table. I didn’t

know what some of it was, and began to worry that I would embarrass myself. Surely he was

expecting more guests, to consume such a quantity. But who would come out on such a wild

evening?

I hesitated before entering the room, taking it all in, and Aurelius had to nudge my back a

little.

“It seems you made it just in time,” Urbanus greeted us. “Storms of all kinds are about to

break.”

As if he had the power to cue the heavens, a clap of thunder broke the afternoon, and then

came the drumming of rain on the. Urbanus grinned and pointed upward as if he had, indeed,

cued the spectacle just for our entertainment. “Lie down and eat,” he urged.

I was unused to lying on a couch to eat, although I knew this was the custom of the Roman

nobility. My own family sat on wooden benches for our meals. I worried about dropping food on

the silk cushions.

I lowered myself onto one of the couches and fidgeted into a reclining position. Aurelius lay

beside me on the couch, completely at ease. I, on the other hand, felt as if my tongue had been

cut out. I didn’t know if it would be polite to start eating before the other guests arrived, I wasn’t

sure if there was some order in which we were supposed to eat the foods, or whether the host or

the guests were supposed to eat first. For all my resentment of them, I was naïve about how the

noble people lived. I realized suddenly that I knew nothing about these people, other than to envy

from afar their carriages and gardens and fine clothes.

“Eat!” Urbanus repeated. “Is there something you’d like that isn’t on the table?” he asked me.

“I can have more fetched.”

It was a wonder to me that the great man was being so solicitous to please us, and I found my

voice. “No, nothing else.” I couldn’t imagine anything else. I looked pleadingly at Aurelius, and

he seemed to awaken from some dream, and beckoned to one of the slaves and pointed to a plate

of snails, glistening with oil and sprinkled with parsley. As each dish was served to him, he

indicated that it should be offered next to me and I either accepted or declined each offering. By

the time the slaves had finished serving us, a large goblet of wine stood in front of me and I had

on my plate helpings of the snails, some spiced goat meat, asparagus and leeks covered in a

yellow sauce, olives both ripe and unripe, stuffed and unstuffed, and some fish which I accepted

only because Aurelius urged me to try it. It looked like an enormous, many-legged bug from a

child’s nightmare. I had no idea how I would manage to eat such a large quantity of food. At

home, we ate bread and cheese and porridge at most meals, eggs and goat meat rarely, and

whatever vegetables and fruits were in season.

While we were being served, Aurelius and Urbanus talked about the events of the day. “Well,

Aurelius Augustine, what do you think of the governor’s decision?” he asked.

“It was the right one, sir,” Aurelius replied confidently. “The Caecelians have held the church

for many years. Even if the Donatists are right and the Caecelian priest’s ordination is suspect,

they should get another priest, not be forced to forfeit their property.”

“Who’s right in the larger situation, though? Say I’m a priest back at the time of the

persecution. Was I right to obey the law and hand over sacred texts for destruction”?

20

“Yes,” Aurelius answered immediately.

“Even if I had the only copy?” Urbanus prodded.

Aurelius shifted a little on the couch and hesitated. “Well, maybe not in that case.”

“So I was wrong if I had the only copy. Why?”

“Well, because it’s the only copy. Then that truth is lost to time forever.”

“I see, I see.” Urbanus rubbed his chin and smiled a little. It came to me that he was playing

with Aurelius, and I wondered that Aurelius failed to see this and kept rising to his bait and

answering impulsively. “So, right and wrong are situational, then? You can only tell what’s right

or wrong by knowing all the particulars of a situation.” He held up his cup and immediately one