The Passion of Mary Magdalen. Elizabeth Cunningham
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the dark waters of the river.
You may argue that what I saw was a trick of the eye caused by going from bright morning light to cavernous dusk of what turned out to be a hole-in-the-wall shrine. But in that suspended moment I felt as though I had stepped into the cosmos, stars and comets blazing by me, the waters rushing past me. And then I saw her, shining horns above a face black and luminous as a clear night, her head crowned with a many-petaled star. Her breasts flooded the sky with milk; her wide wings were made of fire, of fine mist, of colors I did not know how to name. I had known her all my life, and I had never known her before now. But she had called me. She had found me in this terrible place far from home, and she called me to her.
“Bride,” I tried to whisper, for so she must be, “Bride.”
“Welcome, daughter, in the name of Isis.”
In a literal blink of an eye the goddess was gone. A plain middle-aged priestess in an unadorned white stola greeted me. A half-dozen other priestesses stood by, holding frame drums and sistrums. They made a semi-circle around a statue—a small unimpressive statue, garishly painted like all Roman statues and dressed in gold cloth. The figure held a sistrum in one hand and what I came to know as an ankh in the other. She had been garlanded with fresh flowers.
“Isis?” I repeated.
“Our goddess is called by many names: Demeter, Aphrodite, Dyktynna, Proserpina, Hekate, Bellona, a thousand other names. The Temple is known from the outside as The Temple of Venus. Within these walls we know the mother of all, mistress of the living and the dead, ruler of wind and water, builder of ships, guide of the planets, queen of the stars, star of the sea, giver of grain by her true name—Almighty Isis.”
“Red!”
The door darkened with Bone’s huge bulk. The priestess, who had been swaying as she chanted her goddess’s attributes, looked past me towards the eunuch, her eyes mild as a cow’s, utterly unperturbed. When I turned to face Bone, he hesitated in the doorway, not so much as a toe inside. There is something intimidating to a man about a phalanx of priestesses.
“Red?” He sounded confused, as if he wasn’t sure who I was, though he was looking straight at me. Was the light that dim?
“I’m coming, Bone.”
“If you are a fugitive, the goddess gives sanctuary,” the priestess said.
“She is a slave,” stated Bone, recovering himself.
“Our goddess makes no distinctions between slave and free.”
“Your goddess may not distinguish between slave and free, domina, but Roman law does. There is no sanctuary for runaway slaves.”
“Listen, Bone.” I went to him. I had to assure him that I hadn’t been trying to escape or I would never be allowed outside again. It was hard to persuade eunuchs of anything, because, in contrast to most men, their brains were actually between their ears. The usual methods didn’t work. “I wasn’t running away. I just got carried away. I heard the drums and the singing, and it reminded me of…of home.” I didn’t want to talk about my dream of the river. “I had to see what the music was. That’s all. I’m sorry. Let’s go.”
“You will come back,” the priestess called after me; it was neither a question nor a command; I recognized the tone: it was a prophecy. “You belong to her.”
I looked back at the priestess; her face was impassive, masked in the maddening way of priestesses.
“I don’t belong to…” anyone, I finished silently as Bone’s huge hand closed easily around my upper arm.
But it wasn’t Bone’s unspoken assertion of Domitia Tertia’s ownership that silenced me.
“No one belongs to himself or herself,” my beloved had once insisted, angry with me for my arrogance. I knew what he meant: he belonged to his god, Yahweh. A god I resented and mistrusted, whom I had nonetheless invoked in the end to save Esus’s life.
“Yeshua ben Miriam,” I had said. “In the name of the unnameable one, the god of your forefathers, the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I command you to go.”
He didn’t want to, but when I called his god’s name, he had no choice. And so he left me on the shore with no god or goddess to protect me; or so it seemed then.
Now here I was, stepping out of some fusty little temple back into the streets of Rome, not sure of what had just happened. Who was Isis? What did she want with me? And what did she have to do with my dream of the river and the floating coffin?
The Circus Maximus took up the entire valley of Murcia between the Palatine and Aventine Hills. It could seat a crowd of fifty thousand. By the time Bone and I arrived on foot—he had sent the litters ahead—the huge stadium was almost full. The sound of the crowd was like nothing I had ever heard; the closest comparison is surf, storm surf in a high wind, but without the rhythmic ebb and flow. I had seen plenty of Romans up close; held them as they panted and heaved. They were just flesh, as vulnerable and absurd as anyone else. But to see so many all at once, more people than I had ever seen in my life, was overwhelming—and they were all Romans, of all classes. Slaves and freed slaves were not allowed to buy seats—another rule Domitia Tertia was flouting.
As Bone and I made our way to the top row, I found myself wondering, who are they all, how can there be so many, each one conceived in some heated moment, born of some woman’s wracked body, each one with secrets and passions, each one with a story that might break your heart, if she knew how to tell it, if he knew. Looking into a star-crammed sky was no less awesome, though perhaps more aesthetic. And of course stars do not sweat or reek of garlic, so far as we know.
Only Dido was sitting in our row, looking bored and above it all. I glanced at Bone, but he did not appear concerned about the absence of the others. He gestured for me to sit down, while he stood at the end of the row. I was surprised that he hadn’t berated me when we left the Temple, though I’d caught him casting uneasy glances at me. Something about what happened at the Temple had unnerved him.
“Where were you?” Dido demanded. “I know you’re green, but I didn’t think you were stupid—running down a dead end street your first day out of the house.”
Before I could answer or decide if I wanted to, Berta returned, puffing and sweating, and plopped herself down next to me.
“Three is enough for me!” she mopped her brow with her sleeve. “Succula’s already done five. Where were you, liebling? We were so worried about you. You have to stay with us. You don’t know your way around the streets yet. Dido, did you tell her? Anything we make at the Circus, we keep.”
“I think she better stay put for now.” Dido cut her eyes in Bone’s direction. “Besides, Berta, you know what I think about doing just anybody. It’s not worth it.”
“When I am free, Dido, and you’re still on your back, we’ll talk—or maybe not. I’ll be far away eating roast pig and drinking beer. Oh, here come the mimes!” Berta clapped her hands and laughed at their antics.
Dido had her eyes on other things. “Look across the arena, Red. No, down,” Dido gestured. “That’s the Emperor’s box. The purple is arriving. There! I think that’s the Emperor.” Dido gripped my arm.
Her excitement surprised me. I would have thought she’d scorn imperial Rome on principle. As for me, I had grown up believing I was of divine descent; I was the foster daughter of Bran, a valiant,