Читать книгу The Passion of Mary Magdalen - Elizabeth Cunningham - Страница 23

“We can forget about getting a litter now.” Bone held his nose. “I swear I can’t take you anywhere, Red.”

And so my wish for a long walk was granted. I got to see extremes of poverty and wealth as we left the slums, where the plebeians tossed slops and stood in long lines for public baths, and began to climb the Palatine with its terraced gardens and sprawling palaces. Anecius had a particularly classy address on the Forum side of the hill not far from the Via Sacra.

With her legendary skill for flouting the conventions and intimidating the members of her own class, Domitia Tertia had arranged for us to be received as guests at the front door. Without turning a hair at the sight of a bevy of bedraggled whores, the ab admissione (a slave title that translates roughly as the perfect butler) escorted us to a room furnished with couches. Here, he informed us, we could rest and dress for the evening’s festivities after enjoying the house’s private women’s baths. At the mention of the latter, he could not resist a pointed sniff.

We were more than happy to take the hint and wasted no time in stripping off our whores’ togas and slipping into the bath robes the house had thoughtfully provided us. But when we entered the caldarium, we were greeted by gasps and shrieks.

“Well, I never! What is the meaning of this intrusion?”

Through the steam we saw a dozen women clutching their bosoms. It seemed we had walked in on Anecius’s wife and her distinguished guests.

“Pardon us, dominae,” said Bone, who was still with us.

“By Diana, is that a man?”

The woman was not taking Diana’s name in vain. The virgin goddess had once punished a peeping Tom (or Acteon in this case) by turning him into a stag and hunting him down with his own hounds. A popular theme for bathhouse dÈcor. (Not that any of the assembled qualified as virgin or goddess.)

“No, dear, of course not. It’s a eunuch.”

“We are the guests of the Senator,” Bone explained. “We do not mean to disturb you. We shall retire until you are done.”

“Why, they’re whores!” someone hissed. “Filthy, dirty whores.” The woman sniffed. (Guess I should have lost the sandals.) “This is an outrage.”

“An arrangement of my husband’s, it would seem,” said the hostess, a gaunt colorless woman, who spoke almost without moving her lips. “A failure on the part of his staff to communicate with mine. My apologies to all of you. I assure you, those responsible for the error shall be beaten.”

“Come on, ladies, let’s go,” said Bone, under his breath.

“Calm yourself, Marcia dear.” I looked back to see an older woman with a beautifully kept body rise from the bath. “Such misunderstandings can occur in the most efficiently run households.” The woman’s tone implied that they never occurred in her house. “Weren’t we just remarking that it is time to dress?”

This woman clearly outranked all the others. Could she be Livia? We stood and waited while she snapped her fingers for her slaves, who helped her from the bath and robed her. The others had no choice but to follow her lead.

Their dismissal of Bone’s offer to leave, I suspect, had to do with arrogance. If they had allowed us to withdraw, they would have acknowledged us as persons, however undesirable. By making a show of being finished with their bath, calling their attendants, and dressing in front of us, they made it plain that our existence was of no consequence. For our part, we struck poses of nonchalance and boredom.

It was all a sham. We wanted to stare at them—the female counterparts of the men we serviced—and they wanted to gawk at us. In fact, there wasn’t much difference between us. Expensive whores and wealthy matrons both spent hours every day tending their flesh, maintaining appearances in order to please and control men. The main difference was in the face, the expression. The dominae looked peevish, as though nothing was quite what they expected. They looked disappointed. If we did not, it was because we didn’t expect anything. Or if we did—(who am I kidding)—we didn’t let it show.

Now they began to file past us out of the room, not turning their heads to acknowledge us—except for the last one. She was younger than the rest with masses of dark hair piled carelessly on her head. Her expression was even more petulant, but she didn’t bother to hide her curiosity about us—or her rather sumptuous breasts. As she passed me, she contrived to brush her breasts against mine. I felt her nipples go erect.

“Scorta!” Succula spat the rudest Roman street term for whore as the woman’s swaying hindquarters disappeared into the mists.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“Only the latest wife of Appius Claudius,” said Bone, who knew these things. His tone was dismissive.

“The one who owns all those insulae near us?”

Bone nodded. “The man is rich, but he has no pedigree. Believe it or not the bitch does. Old republican stock.”

We all eased into the hot water; a collective sigh rose with the steam.

“Claudius is not exactly in his first youth,” Bone became expansive with the heat. “Rumor has it he can no longer rise to the occasion. At least not for a woman.”

“That is not just a rumor, kinder,” Berta winked. “What I went through with that man the last time I have to do him. A few years ago it is now, thank the goddess. Never let anyone tell you whores just lie on their back and spread their legs. Before he can get it up, I have to stand the man on his head and fuck him upside down. I tell you it’s no joke,” she protested as we all started to howl. “Stop! I will piss the bath water!”

“Too bad we didn’t get the bath first,” said Dido.

“Those cunts are pissy enough as it is,” said Succula. “Not that I’d mind giving any of them a golden shower, especially that horny, little—”

“Now, now, liebling, she can’t help it if she’s horny. Look what she married!”

“Why can’t she take a lover?” I asked. “Would the husband care?”

“The husband, no,” said Bone. “Probably not. He doesn’t even much care about an heir. He’s got a pretty good racket going. Lots of gorgeous young men hanging around him, flattering him, hoping to be adopted.”

“But then why lumber himself with another wife?” I persisted. I did not understand Roman ways.

“Simple. Her pater’s connections. Why Publius Paulus ever agreed to the match is more of a mystery. Some of the old families are cash poor, but I suspect there’s more to it than that. Anyway, he kept the manus. That’s not done much nowadays, even in the old families. But Paulus made a point of it.”

“The manus?” I had not heard the term before. “What is that?”

“It comes down to who owns her. A daughter is a father’s property unless he gives the manus to the husband. If he keeps it, the father has the right to protect or punish his daughter as he sees fit.”

“To put it crudely, honey, if she gets caught with her stola up around her ears, it’s daddy, not hubby, who gets to strangle her,” said Succula. “I could almost feel sorry for her—almost.” She nestled against me and cupped one of my breasts. “Bitch better keep away from these or I’ll show her who’s got manus.”

“Her father could kill her without a trial?” I didn’t know why my hands shook and my stomach churned. I certainly didn’t care about some spoiled young Roman matron.

“Red,” said Dido, “this is the real world. Fathers don’t need trials to dispose of their daughters. When did they ever? I thought Uncle Joseph was trying to civilize you with those Greek lessons. Didn’t he tell you about Agamemnon, sugar? Need a fair wind? Sacrifice a daughter.” Her tone was angry, bitter. “Are you seriously trying to tell us it’s different where you come from?”

“Tell them, liebling,” Berta urged. “Tell them who is really the barbarians.”

I wanted to tell them. Damn right, it’s different. We have a law older than all other laws called mother right. Women of my people own their own herds; we can be queens; we can make poems and recite law. And we can fuck whomever we want to fuck. We have sovereignty, goddess bless us.

And yet hadn’t my father raped me, and no one would believe me? Hadn’t my father tried more than once to kill me? In the end, when he killed himself, hadn’t the druids blamed me for his death? Even when they learned the truth, they sang his praises.

Me they put in a boat with only a knife and let the tide take me away.

So I didn’t answer Dido. I leaned back in the bath. For a moment the steam thinned and I could just see the high ceiling. There were birds flying around in the upper reaches. Were they looking for the way out—or had they forgotten the sky?

“How in the three worlds” (I reverted to Celtic cosmology when I was in extremis) “am I supposed to dance after eating all that! No one told me there was going to be dancing.”

I clutched my stomach. I could feel the bulkiness of sugar-glazed meats. The spicy sauces of stewed vegetables and fruit repeated on me. Then there were the cakes, at least twenty different kinds. I’d kept a loose count as I sampled them all. We ate well enough at the Vine and the Fig Tree, but I was used to scanter, simpler fare. And for Bride’s sake, I’d been raised on oats and apples and the occasional roast pig.

“There’s always dancing at banquets,” said Succula. “Why do you think we’ve been practicing that routine?”

“I don’t know these things,” I groaned. “I didn’t even know I was going to a banquet till yesterday.”

“That’s right,” Berta said. “It’s your first time out. You’ll learn.”

“Didn’t I tell you to stop stuffing your face, Red?” said Helen, who had joined us for a swan song performance. “No, stulta!” she raged at the ornatrix who was arranging her hair. “Not like that. I told you. I want it exactly like the domina Livia’s hair. Ouch!”

It seemed Anecius’s slave—or his wife’s—did not like being ordered around by another slave and a whore at that.

“Do you really think that’s wise, Helen?” asked Dido. “Do you think the first lady of Rome wants to be imitated by a tart?”

“She’ll be flattered,” said Helen with unshakable confidence. “Besides, the style will look better on me than it does on her.”

Bonia was right. Helen was stupid. Domitia Tertia was not. She was unloading a dumb whore at a premium price. In a few years, when Helen’s looks were gone, she’d be a dead loss.

“Don’t worry, liebling,” Berta clucked over me. “So you eat a little too much at a banquet. There will be that much more of you to jiggle so prettily.”

I groaned. “If I jiggle too much I’m going to be sick.”

“Ew.” Helen moved further away from me. “Then go to the vomitorium. Now.”

“The what?”

“Red, don’t tell me you don’t know,” said Dido. “All the best homes have a vomitorium. I’m sure Aetius is having one built specially for Helen. How else do the best people keep their figures? If they’re going to gorge every damn day, they have to disgorge.”

“They make themselves vomit?” I was horrified. “They waste food? On purpose?”

“It’s not such a big deal,” said Helen. “Everybody does it.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Honey,” Succula came over and put her arm around me. “I think maybe you better, just this once. You don’t look so good.”

“If you vomit on the purple during the dance, you’ll end up looking a whole lot worse,” said Dido, “and Domitia will never let you out again.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Succula.

“Thanks, honey, but there are some things I’d rather do alone.”

“It’s actually considered a social activity,” Dido informed me.

One of the house slaves had to escort me or I would have been hopelessly lost. When we finally arrived, I found that Dido was right. The vomitorium was the place to be seen. Anyone who was anyone was there. I hung back for as long as I could, hoping not to be recognized by any of the aging nymphs from the baths. When the traffic thinned, I took my turn. Kneeling before the gutters that were being continuously sluiced by slaves, I imitated the best people, stuck my finger down my throat, and gave most of my dinner the old heave ho.

I had to admit I did feel better. I rose and stretched, began to take a deep breath, then thought better of it. It really didn’t smell very good in here despite the unceasing efforts of the slaves. Ignoring the woman retching next to me (how did people manage polite chitchat when they were puking?) I headed out.

“You!”

How did I know so certainly that “you” meant me? And why didn’t I keep walking anyway? One of those reversals of fortune you could say. I turned. I did not immediately recognize the woman in the gold colored, purple-fringed stola. She had a jeweled filet over dark hair coiled and wound up and around so that it added inches to her height. On the swell of her pushed-up breasts flashed huge stones that I now know to be sapphires. In fact, it was her breasts that I recognized first.

I’d had one brush with them already.

“What’s your name?” she demanded.

No way was I telling this woman my true name. For the first time I was sincerely glad that I had a nom de twat.

“They call me Red.”

“What kind of dye do you use to get that color?”

“I don’t.”

“Come on now. All whores dye their hair.”

“How do you know I’m a whore?”

The woman threw back her head and laughed. She had a very long white but somewhat thick neck. Her breasts bulged almost to her collarbone.

“What else could you possibly be?”

I decided not to answer that.

“All right.” She smiled at me, a smile that could have been used to illustrate the word “seductive.” I knew she had practiced it for hours in front of a mirror. “I want proof.”

As she started swaying toward me, I realized she was drunk. I backed away, but not fast enough. She grabbed my toga and lifted it.

“Oo la la!” she giggled.

And before I knew it, she had her hand between my legs. I had been a whore for months now, but I still hadn’t quite grasped the fundamental fact that to a member of the aristocracy, all slaves are up for grabs. Before I could stop myself, I slapped her face.

She withdrew her hand and put it on her cheek and stood there open-mouthed, too shocked for a moment to speak or even breathe.

“I may be a whore,” I said. “But I’m not your whore.”

“I could have you flayed alive for what you just did.” Unfortunately she’d found her voice again.

I shrugged. “That’s up to Domitia Tertia.”

I turned and sauntered away with confidence, though my escort had fled.

“You haven’t seen the last of me, you red-bushed slut.”

I didn’t answer, but suddenly I realized that I had given her all the information she needed to find me again. That was the problem with having a smart mouth. I had a tendency to shut it a moment too late. Oh well, she could have found out where I came from simply by shaking her tits at Anecius. So it didn’t matter what I’d said. What mattered was that I had assaulted her, a senator’s daughter.

In all honesty, I can’t say I was very sorry.

All right. Let your imagination run to glitzy stereotype. We did look like a Las Vegas version of middle-eastern belly dancers minus the stage and the high-tech lighting. Oil lantern is flattering as lighting goes, and certainly would not make us sweat. The rooms that opened onto the atrium where the guests reclined in various groupings (the drinkers and gamers, the literary and the philosophical crowd, the randy young men, the matrons with their virgin daughters making a show of spinning wool) were heated with charcoal braziers, but the atrium, open to the stars, was downright chilly.

I was in a bad, bad mood as we huddled together in a corridor awaiting our cue. My first day and night out in the big Pomegranate had made one thing clear to me. Rome was nothing but one big brothel. I existed for the entertainment of the senatorial class, just as the charioteers did. That we were good at what we did only made it worse.

“Red,” Succula pinched my cheek. “Stop scowling. This is the fun part.”

I loved Succula, but she just didn’t understand.

“Take a swig.” Succula passed me a wineskin. “They’re so in their cups we’ll never catch up.”

I took a big, long, thirsty drink.

“That’s enough.” Succula snatched the skin away. “Only a dumb whore gets drunk. There’s our cue. Get your podex in gear, girl.”

I don’t know if it was the sudden rush of unwatered wine into my bloodstream or the Middle Eastern rhythms—Romans liked ethnic entertainments—or the flickering lights, or the flash of stars overhead, but I let myself go. As we danced, swaying back and forth, circling each other, our hips switching, our arms moving as if we held live serpents, I heard the sistrum, its music a rasp that evoked the wind moving in the river reeds. I smelled the sweet smoke of the Temple of Isis or Venus, whoever she was.

Then I saw it: not the Temple of Venus Obsequens alone, but all the temples that had come before it, in all times and places, one after the other, each temple more ancient and vivid than the last, skin after shed skin revealing what pulsed beneath, the colors and patterns brighter and bolder each time. Then at last there were no more temples, only rock and earth and a chasm where stars spilled through.

When I came to myself again I found I was in a chamber with a frightened boy who wanted to fuck his first whore and instead found himself face to face with some wild divinity. For a moment, I almost felt sorry for him as he cowered on the couch, unable to summon the contempt for a slave that should have protected him and kept him in control.

But then I made myself remember: his people had enslaved and maybe murdered my foster-father. I looked at the soft, pimpled flesh of this over-indulged Roman youth and felt a rage and revulsion I had never known before. I wanted to be sick again. No, I wanted more than that: I wanted to kill him. The hairs on my neck rose as it dawned on me that I could. There he was, alone and vulnerable. Here I was, full of power and fury. I could tear him to pieces.

I closed my eyes and clenched and unclenched my hands. If this is meant to be, I spoke to something I did not name, if I am meant to be an instrument of revenge, use me.

I waited, and my crown ignited as the fire of the stars rained down.

No, I protested silently, without knowing fully what I meant. Not for him.

Open your eyes, a voice inside me said.

Reluctantly I obeyed. When the boy saw me staring at him, he began to whimper.

Find the god in him, the voice prompted.

No, I answered. I hate him. I hate what he will become.

Call forth the god.

The fire was burning in my hands and in my sex, but still I resisted.

Why bother? I challenged the voice. These people already think they’re gods.

Look again. Look deeper. The voice was implacable.

The boy kept his gaze on me as if I were the goddess, death, fate, all in one. And I was. He saw the truth. So I looked at him again. I looked deeper, and I saw it: earth and grain, sun and rain in the form of this boy. In that instant I knew something I could never again forget: all flesh is innocent.

I let out a long breath I hadn’t known I was holding, sat down at one end of the couch and took his feet in my hands, pampered feet, hardly calloused, bigger than the rest of him. I explored their shape, the tendons, the length of the toes. The fire flowed through my hands as I touched this humblest part of the body, the farthest from the head, the closest to the ground.

Then the boy started to cry.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” he said.

“You will.” I released his feet and stretched out beside him.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he begged.

“I am the keeper of secrets. I am the temple of mysteries. Enter.”

The voice that had spoken within me now spoke through me. All distinction was lost between myself and whatever power claimed me. I was the chasm and the stars. I was the riverbed; through me the source flowed relentlessly to the sea.

Afterwards the boy slept on my breast and drooled. I was alone again with my small self, the force that had filled me ebbing away.

“Who are you?” I whispered aloud. “What do you want from my life?”

I heard nothing but the boy’s soft snores.