The Passion of Mary Magdalen. Elizabeth Cunningham
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us. Isis understands.”
“But can we go to the Isia?” I persisted. “Will the priestesses let us?”
“It’s more a question of will Domitia Tertia let us,” said Dido. “And the answer is no. Not if it interferes with business.”
“But, kinder, listen. The third day, the procession to the river when the priestesses go in the boats, it happens at dawn. We come back in plenty of time to work.”
“Dawn,” shuddered Dido. “Ugh!”
“Just this once,” said Berta. “We get up, all together, we go. Succula will ask Domitia Tertia.”
“Will you, Succula?” I appealed to her.
She looked at me, her dark eyes strangely fearful. I knew that next to Domitia Tertia, Succula loved me more than she loved anyone. I knew that love sometimes gives people the sight. What did she see?
“You never answered my question, Red,” she said. “Why are you so interested in Isis now? Why does the Isia matter so much to you?”
I had become so self-protective, so secretive. My first impulse was to evade her question. Succula loved me. I was asking her to do something for me out of that love, so I made myself answer.
“I had a dream, Succula. I dreamed about the Isia before I could possibly know what it was. I think it’s a message. A message from Isis.”
Succula continued to watch me, her eyes no less troubled. Dido and Berta for once held back, watching, the silent chorus to some drama none of us understood.
“All right, Red,” she said. “I’ll ask her. And I’ll go with you. We’ll all go.”
And she turned her fierce gaze on the other two. “Whores’ deal.”
And we sealed our agreement according to our custom.
Whatever her apprehensions, Succula kept her word and succeeded in securing permission from Domitia Tertia. An hour before dawn on the appointed day, we rose in the dark having barely slept. In the atrium we found old Nona waiting for us with her arms full of something that looked like moonlight. When we approached her she held up white linen robes just like the ones the priestesses at the temple wore. Wasting no time or breath and with a curious authority for someone at the bottom of the slave heap, she made it clear that she would dress us, and she did so with efficiency and care, making sure to tie the knot of the fringed mantle so that it fell in two pleats down the front. In the damp, chilly dregs of night, we were so glad to have some extra garments that none of us questioned her. Then Bonia came out with mulled wine and bread.
“Magna Mater!” She almost dropped the tray. “You look like a gaggle of virgin sacrifices. Where on earth did you get these garments? Please don’t tell me you robbed a temple.”
“I made them,” old Nona said with that eerie command, and she stuck out her lower lip. “Long ago, long since for this very day.”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to check with the domina about this. You’re breaking the law not wearing your whores’ togas. Not to mention impersonating priestesses.”
“We are not impersonating priestesses,” I countered. “Obviously this is what a priestess looks like.”
Bonia was already gone. She returned with Domitia Tertia more quickly than I would have thought possible. I had never seen her face naked, untended by her ornatrix. The moon, I thought looking at her, she is like the moon—stark, removed, beautiful, and, if possible, even less vulnerable than usual—which struck me as odd. She eyed us without expression.
“They look dignified,” she pronounced at last. “At these festivals many devotees wear white, I believe. They will blend in. Remember,” she addressed us now. “Even if no one recognizes you, you are from the Vine and Fig Tree. You have our reputation for quality to uphold. The Isia attracts the vulgari. You are not to mix with them. Nor must you allow yourselves to get carried away in unseemly emotional displays. Is that quite clear? Go then. Be back at the sixth hour. No later.” And she turned and disappeared into the recesses of the house.
“Drink up,” said Bonia. “Take the bread with you.”
Old Nona made some kind of blessing or protecting sign over us.
“Where’s Bone? Isn’t Bone going with us?” Succula sounded panicked.
“He has important business to attend to for the domina today,” said Bonia. “It’s not his job description or mine to indulge your whims. I don’t know why she’s allowed you to go at all. I told her I didn’t think it was wise. Gadding about Rome on your own when decent people are still asleep. Most mistresses are not so lenient. Don’t make her regret it or you’ll regret it. All right, I’m going back to bed. You’re on your own.”
On your own, on your own, I repeated the words over and over to myself as we trudged through the quiet streets. It was the first time since my capture that I’d had no one watching me, guarding me. I felt dizzy with the illusion of freedom. I knew it was illusion, but I was having difficulty remembering. The air tasted different; my body felt light and unfamiliar.
Gradually more and more people joined us, in little streams and tributaries, until we all merged with the festival procession in the Via Sacra. The priestesses and priests led the way, sustaining a hypnotic rhythm with frame drum and sistrum as we danced through the heart of the Forum, past Capitoline Hill and out through the Flumentana gate. There we walked along the Tiber River with its thick dawn fog floating and swirling above it until we came to Campus Martius—broad, flat fields where games were held and military formations practiced.
During the Isia a festival city had mushroomed with the usual vendors and side entertainments. The priests and priestesses went directly towards a central pavilion—a large golden tent on a raised platform. The laity fell back as the priesthood entered the makeshift temple. It is a very strange thing to stand in a large, silent crowd. Even more so in the half-light before sunrise in a field full of ground mist with the last stars faint but still there. Then the priestesses emerged from the tent and began to sing a song full of piercing, sweet dissonance—the way stars might sound if we could hear them.
Look how the sky’s doors open to your beauty
Look how the goddess waits to receive you
This is death. This is life beyond life.
Look how the day is breaking in the east.
Look how the goddess awakens you.
Listen to us singing to you, there among the stars.
I closed my eyes, and I was somewhere else, somewhere I had never been, standing in a high place overlooking wide water, wide sky, full of those star voices—no it was my voice, my voice singing to my Beloved.
I opened my eyes again when the singing stopped. Two priestesses stepped forward, one robed in gold, wearing a horned headdress and a lotus crown. She sang the part of Isis, the other of her sister Nepthys. As they sang a call and response lamentation, they descended the steps. The crowd parted as the priestesses, followed by the rest of the priesthood, led the procession to the river, which was no longer the Tiber, but the River, the river of life, the river of sorrow, the river of re-membering.
“Come on,” I urged my friends. “Let’s fall