The Saint's Mistress (8 page)

the bench where we’d been sitting.

He tried to embrace me. “Come on, Leona, don’t be this way. Surely you don’t want a child

either. And this doesn’t have to change things between us, does it?” He put a hand to my cheek

and tried to get me to look at him.

I shrugged him off and kept my eyes on the ground. “I’m not feeling well. I have to go now.”

“Leona, I’m sorry. I’ll pay, if there’s a cost to getting rid of it.”

I started walking towards the gate.

He kept pace beside me. “Do you want to have the baby? Just tell me. Leona, don’t be this

way.”

I opened the garden gate, shrugged off his restraining arm, and passed through, back into the

hot street, into my old, dusty world, not looking back.

I expected an evil-looking old crone, and was surprised when Miriam’s midwife was young

and pretty, with three small children of her own playing in the room.

She asked about my last bleeding, gently felt my belly, examined my eyes and teeth, then

leaned forward in her chair and said, “Are you sure you don’t want this child?”

I nodded, lips pressed together.

“There are ways to abort a pregnancy which are almost certain to work, but they’re

dangerous. If you want to try one of them, find another midwife. What I’m going to give you

won’t hurt you, and it won’t hurt the baby if it survives, but it doesn’t always work. You

understand this?”

I nodded again, tempted to try the other midwife with the method that always worked, but

afraid to die.

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“All right, then,” she said, and took some pots off a shelf.

I spent another sleepless night, the air thick and still. I made a tisane of one bag of the

midwife’s herbs late in the afternoon, and drank the bitter mixture. At night, while the rest of the

house slept, I created another infusion by steeping the other bag of herbs in water. In this, I

soaked a rag, which the midwife had instructed me to wring out and then wad into a pessary to

place inside myself. I tiptoed outside to do this, but when I was finished, I turned and saw Numa

standing in the doorway watching me, arms folded.

“So you got yourself in trouble, just like I said you would,” she whispered, “and now you’re

trying to get rid of it.

“No, I just have cramps,” I lied.

Numa rolled her eyes and curled her lip, expelling a disgusted breath. She was quiet a

moment, then asked, “Need any help?”

I shook my head. Then I changed my mind. “I’m about done with this. Now I have to walk for

an hour. You could walk with me.”

I emptied the whey bucket I’d used to steep the rag, and we began to walk around the house.

“How long did you say you had to walk?” Numa asked me.

“An hour she said.”

“Walk two hours.”

“How do you know so much about this?”

Numa shrugged. “That Ariana at the shop. I told you she’d get herself into trouble. She took

the medicine twice before it worked.” Numa held two fingers in front of my face. “Almost killed

her, too. She bled so bad I swore she’d turn as white as a Roman.” She grinned at me. Then she

frowned. “Don’t try this again. If it doesn’t work, it wasn’t meant to.”

“It has to work,” I insisted. “Talk to me about something else while we walk.”

She looked down for a few seconds as we walked, and then she said, “Father’s found me a

husband.”

I stopped and grasped her shoulder. “Numa! You didn’t tell me!”

She shrugged again. “You’ve been a little preoccupied – and I was mad at you for taking on

with that boy, maybe a little jealous.”

“Well, who is it? Is it anyone we know?”

“No, he lives in Hippo. His uncle is Corvinus, who owns the tavern.”

“Have you seen him?”

She nodded. “I didn’t like him at first. He’s not beautiful to look at, Leona, not beautiful at all.

He was burned by lye on the side of his face as a small child and he’s wrinkled as a date on that

side – brown as a date, too,” she added. “But I think he’s kind. He makes me laugh, and he

brought me a little gift when he came the second time – some flowers. Imagine, Leona, as if I

were a lady.”

“He’s from Hippo? Will you have to go live there?”

Numa nodded. “He and his father work in the ship building yards there. He says men with

ship-building skills make a fine living in the sea towns, even if they are plebs and don’t own

property. Leona, I’ll see the sea every day. I can’t imagine what so much water must look like.

He says the sea washes to the shore in great waves and then washes back out. I can’t even picture

it.”

I remembered the mosaics in Urbanus’ dining room. What a foolish girl I’d been, giving away

my virtue for a few pompous words and a glimpse of a picture of the sea. Numa, no prettier than

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I was, had been wiser, and won the sight of the sea itself. I tried not to be jealous, but a hard

lump of regret filled my throat. “I’m happy for you.”

“I wasn’t happy at first,” she admitted. “I was afraid until I met him. And then the first time

we met, I didn’t like his looks at all. I wouldn’t talk to him and I cried after he left. But I think he

understood, and he tried hard to charm me on our second meeting. And I came to see his

goodness. I think I’ll be happy,” she finished.

We kept walking. “Well, I’ll be happy for you then,” I repeated, but I was lying. As much as I

loved Numa, I didn’t want her to be happy while I was miserable, and I thought then about her

leaving. I would be alone to face father’s wrath and to wait on him and Tito for the rest of my

bleak life.

The night was pretty, with a little eyelash of moon, and a smell of lilies. We walked carefully

in the dark, the grass cool and damp under our feet.

“So,” she asked, “your boy…he knows about the baby?”

“He knows.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said get rid of it and that’s what I’m doing.” I lifted my chin and marched a little harder.

Numa nodded. “For the best, since he can’t marry you. Now you’re free to find a good man to

marry – like I did,” she added, her face lighting up. “Leona, you’re prettier than I am, and, look, I

found a good man. Think how well you might do.” She hesitated. “So, this boy? He’s in the past

for you?”

“Yes,” I gritted through my teeth. I had gone to the midwife with Miriam after work today

instead of meeting Aurelius as usual, and had avoided thinking about what might happen

tomorrow and the next day and the next. But, now, talking to Numa, I felt my decision was

made. I would get rid of the baby and I would get on with my life: forget about Romanized men

with their reading and their fine food and their ways of using common women, and find myself a

good plain husband with olive trees and a herd of goats. It occurred to me that Aurelius had

gotten what his friend Marcus had been ready to take by force that first evening, and I had given

it away for free. He’d just been more subtle than his friend about how he went about gaining it. I

blushed to remember, and my heart stiffened with renewed fury and determination. “Yes,” I

repeated. “He is in the past.”

We kept walking. We walked one hour, two, more than two, until the glowing ripe peach of

the sun reddened the sky in the east. And still I didn’t bleed. The child lived.

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He was waiting for me outside Miriam’s shop when I turned into the alley the next morning. I

ignored my heart’s leap, and refused to make eye contact with him as I approached.

He was leaning on the building, looking this way and then that. “Where were you yesterday?”

he asked without preamble when I reached the door to the shop.

I still refused to meet his eyes. “Trying to get rid of your baby, just as you asked,” I hissed.

“Well?”

“Well, I’m sorry to tell you it didn’t work – and, yes, I’m okay, thanks for asking.”

“Are you okay?”

“I just said I was.”

“You’ll meet me today, right? In the square like always?”

I was still angry with him. I longed to tell him to go sell himself at a slave market, but I

carried his child. I hated myself for it, but I also carried a small hope for something from him; I

didn’t know what. Still not looking at him, I agreed to meet him that afternoon at our usual place,

and then I went upstairs.

He was waiting for me in the long shadow of the well, all concern. “How are you feeling?” he

murmured.

Working hard to keep my heart from softening, I shrugged.

He cupped his hand under my elbow, steering me onto the road to Urbanus’ town house. “I

spoke with Urbanus this morning. He wants to talk to us together this afternoon. He may be

willing to set up a household for me in Carthage.”

I stopped walking and finally met his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean a small house and a servant. So you and the baby could join me.”

Against my will, hope began to blossom in my heart. What if it actually happened? I imagined

myself and Aurelius, and our child in a house in the city of Carthage, with its markets and

theaters far beyond anything we knew in Thagaste. I imagined having a servant put a meal in

front of us every evening, dining at leisure in our cool, marble-tiled house, practicing our

grammar and rhetoric while our child played.

Although the evening was cool, I was flushed and sweating by the time Urbanus’ door slave

let us in and led us to the sitting room, grateful for the watered-down wine which another slave

poured for us.

Urbanus soon joined us, stretching himself out on the couch opposite us, and motioning

wordlessly for a goblet of wine.

“So you find yourself in a predicament,” he said.

Surprised by his bluntness, I nodded, looking down.

“Have you considered getting rid of it?”

I looked up. “I already tried. It didn’t work.”

Urbanus nodded, frowning. “Well,” he continued, “I have high hopes for your young man. I

think you know that. At risk of swelling his head so it won’t fit through the doorway and he’ll be

stuck in this room forever, I will tell you that he is brilliant. I have extracted from him a promise

to come back to Thagaste and teach, in return for my financing his further education in Carthage.

I would like to see our town turn into a great center of learning and rhetoric. Not only that, but I

need a rhetoritician to argue my cases with the government. And, lastly,” he grinned, “I just

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enjoy the company of intelligent young men.” He swung himself around to a sitting position and

leaned towards me. “And here you sit: beautiful, intelligent for a woman from what I can see,

and the daughter of a pleb and sister of an executed rebel. Yet, he is determined to have you, and

I can’t say I blame him. Further, there is a child. What to do?” He pretended to ponder, although

I suspected he had already reached a decision. Finally, he sighed and rose to his feet. From my

studies with Aurelius, I recognized in the Urbanus himself something of the rhetoritician, his

pauses and movements those of a professional who knew how to keep his audience’s attention. “I

can only see one solution,” he said. “In order to protect the investment I’ve already made, and

guarantee the success of my plan, I see I must add to the pot. I am prepared, Aurelius Augustine,

to finance a household for you and your beloved and child in Carthage.”

Aurelius bowed his head. “Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.”

“Thank you, sir,” I murmured. “When shall we be married?”

“Married?” Urbanus’ hand froze on its way to his lips with the wine goblet, and the word

seemed to echo from every wall of the room, looking for a home. “Oh, no,” he said, “you

misunderstood. You must surely know it’s impossible for young Aurelius to marry you.”

I tingled with shame and could not look up at him, willing the tears to stay behind my cheeks.

Urbanus continued, “I thought you understood. You must think of his future, Leona. Not only

would marriage to a pleb force him to forfeit his inheritance, but it would destroy his political

prospects. Frankly, he’ll advance only insofar as he’s seen as eligible to eventually combine his

fortunes with some other family’s. And my investment is only good insofar as he advances. But,

don’t worry: he doesn’t need to marry for years yet. In fact, he might do better by dangling the

bait as long as he can. And a mistress and children are no impediment to that, believe me. This

sort of thing happens all the time.”

He shrugged and waved a hand and, with those gestures, effected an utter change in the way I

saw my situation. How foolish I had been, to think the love the Aurelius and I shared was

something uniquely beautiful. How foolish I had been even in my fear and panic when I found

myself with child, as if this were a catastrophe unique to me. Urbanus was right: “this sort of

thing” had been enacted on many, many stages before, with the stock characters of the randy

nobleman looking for a little fun, and the pretty peasant girl who is flattered by his attention and