Pilate's Wife: A Novel of the Roman Empire (15 page)

He drew closer, bowed slightly. "I am Holtan. Did you never know my name?"

I brushed back a tendril of hair that had escaped from my elaborate headdress. "Of course, I've never forgotten it, but the Holtan I remember was hardly more than a boy. He was, I recall, a slave."

"Boys grow up. This one is no longer a slave."

I looked into his eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to meet you."

I stared at him in shocked silence.

"Why should that surprise you? I have always wondered about the little girl who predicted my victory."

"I remember that day too--you've no idea--so much happened afterward. Everything changed for me, for my family, almost overnight." I tilted my head to look at him. "What about you? Why have you come to Antioch?"

"I was lucky. You were lucky for me. The last time you saw me was the first of many victories. Eventually I bought my freedom and a few other things." He smiled again briefly. "I came to Antioch for the games. I fought yesterday."

"And won, obviously. I wish I'd known."

"You don't attend the games?"

"Not often." I fell silent, studying him. He was dressed in white, his tunic and toga of the finest Egyptian linen judging from how they draped. The toga was held in place by a ruby brooch, the largest ruby I had ever seen. "You must have everything you desire now."

"And so must you."

I shook my head, smiling at the irony of his words.

"You still have your beautiful smile."

I fought a foolish desire to run my fingers over the cleft in Holtan's chin, to touch the indentations in his cheeks. "Women must find you irresistible."

He shrugged. "Some enjoy flirting with danger."

"What about you? Why continue to risk your life now that you are free?"

"Why not? It is one way--the only way for most of us--to make a lot of sesterces in a hurry. You wouldn't know about that, you have always had wealth."

"Not always, I assure you."

"But now."

"Now I don't find sesterces very important. They buy nothing that really matters."

"Like your husband's loyalty?"

I felt suddenly ill. Was my life such public knowledge that even a wandering gladiator knew of it?

"No one told me," he said as though reading my thoughts.

"Then how did you know?"

"I saw you as I came in. Your eyes so intent, watching him with that blond woman."

"You saw too much."

"In the arena you learn to read signs. A shifting glance means life or death."

I paused a moment. "Will you be in Antioch long?"

"I should leave tomorrow for Alexandria...unless..."

"Impossible!"

"
You
are impossible."

Our eyes caught and held. "It would never have been possible," I said, wondering if that were true.

"Your husband is a fool."

"I beg your pardon!"

"A fool to take you lightly--to cause you pain. A fool," Holtan repeated, his voice thick with anger.

I brushed his arm lightly, looked away, fearful of tears.

He placed his hands on my shoulders. "Pilate merely plays. I know his kind. He likes rich women, likes their power. Perhaps he uses that to his advantage. It is only a game. You are the one he loves. How could he otherwise?"

My eyes met his. For a second I swayed forward, then caught myself and broke free.

Not daring to look back, I ran across the garden, back to the lighted room and the sound of Pilate's voice.

I
loved Pilate, I hated Pilate--hated my dependence on him. I was scarcely aware of myself except as reflected in his cobalt eyes. Again and again, pulling him tightly against me, drawing him into me, I thought of the child I wanted desperately, the child that would hold him forever.

One morning, rising from breakfast, he kissed me lightly, gathered his stylus and tablet and set off. Pausing in the doorway, he looked back. "Plutonius and I are going boar hunting this afternoon. We may not return until tomorrow."

"You never mentioned it."
Was the potion wearing off?

"Come, come!" A hint of impatience flickered in his eyes. "You look like an orphan, not my Claudia. Surely you can find a means of occupying yourself." He frowned, still watching me. "Think about that trip to Pergamum. Plutonius and Sempronia are leaving next week."

Plutonius, Piso's former client. Not to be trusted, his fawning wife no better.

"I don't like them."

"Plutonius is devoted. He will watch over you. You can't go alone."

"I don't want to go at all."

"But you will go--for me and the dynasty we will found." Pilate took my shoulders lightly in his hands, kissed my nose, released me as suddenly, and was off.

That afternoon, acting on an impulse, I visited the Iseneum. To my surprise, a priestess took me directly to the mystagogue's library. Three walls were lined with cedarwood cabinets, packed with rolls of papyri stacked end on end from floor to ceiling, the other taken up by an altar to Isis.

"I've been expecting you," he said, glancing up from a scroll.

"How can that be?" I exclaimed. "It was only an hour ago that I decided--"

"I knew," he said simply, setting the scroll down on a polished rosewood table.

My heart ached with longing for such attunement to the goddess.

"Once you too were close to Isis," he said as though reading my mind.

"I thought I was, but now I am bound to him."

"As you seek to bind
him
?" The mystagogue's voice was silken.

"Are you mocking me?"

He rose from his desk. "It is a lovely afternoon, let's take a stroll."

Curious, I followed him down a broad passage set with mosaic tiles into a sunny garden. Three priestesses, reclining beside a large pool, smiled at us over the tops of their scrolls. Nearby a fountain splashed. The mystagogue led me past an extensive herb garden tended by two more priestesses to a secluded cypress grove. We seated ourselves before a small pond. A half smile played about his lips as he turned to me. "You were speaking of your husband..."

"Your potion worked well. I'm grateful." I paused, looking down. "Pilate is very attractive to women. Every minute that he is away I wonder--" The familiar desperation swept over me. I looked up at him pleadingly. "If there was a child...then I could be sure of him. My doctor believes that I will heal in time. All he ever says is, 'Let nature take her course.'"

The mystagogue nodded. "I cannot quarrel with that advice, but apparently you do or you would not be here."

I watched him intently. "You must have a potion or incantation, something that will help. Nature will never take her course if Pilate divorces me for not giving him a son. Such things happen. Pilate can do anything he pleases. With Father so far away there would be no one to intercede for me."

"Has he spoken of divorce?"

"No," I acknowledged, "but there's no doubt he wants sons."

"There is something else, I think," the mystagogue prompted.

"Yes, there is," I admitted. "Pilate wants me to visit the Asklepion in Pergamum."

"Why not? It is the most renowned healing center in the world. One hears every day of miracles performed there. Asklepios cures many through dreams. Of all people, you should be a candidate."

"I would be gone at least two months; what if Pilate fell in love while I was away?"

The mystagogue shrugged his slim shoulders. "So? By your return he might as easily have fallen out."

"I couldn't bear that! I love my husband very much." I felt my cheeks flame. "I came here because I thought you would understand my feelings. Instead you laugh at them."

"Your feelings are anything but amusing. I find them a tragic waste."

My voice dropped. "Once you helped..."

"Twice I helped and now you ask me again. If you recall, I warned against both the incantation and the potion."

"But you gave them to me," I reminded him. "Help me again--this one last time. I'll do anything, pay anything. Several times since I lost my baby I've thought I was pregnant and then wasn't. There must be something you can do."

"There is nothing that I
will
do." The mystagogue rose.

"Then there
is
nothing..."

"I did not say that." He touched my shoulder lightly. I looked up, my heart filling with hope. He shook his head once again. "What has eluded you will be found at Pergamum."

"Are you saying that Asklepios will enable me to have a child?"

"I'm saying that Asklepios is a mighty god, perhaps he can cure even you."

O
NCE BOUND FOR
P
ERGAMUM
, I
PRAYED OFTEN TO
A
SKLEPIOS
. T
HE
god's mortal mother, while pregnant with Apollo's child, took another mortal for a lover. Wild with jealousy, Apollo killed her, snatching the unborn child from her body. Their son, Asklepios, was raised by centaurs who taught the boy healing skills he later far exceeded. With such a human background, wouldn't the god understand my problem? I prayed that he would.

The voyage seemed to take forever. One, two, three days passed...The farther we were from Antioch the more authoritarian Plutonius grew. His increasing arrogance was unsettling. Sempronia was merely boring. Boring and nosy. Fortunately, both were gamblers who gathered eagerly with others at a far end of the deck. Sometimes the cries "Jupiter!" or "Dogs!" for high or low dice throws floated back in the wind. The weather was clear and bright with a light breeze, the rocky Lycian coast breathtaking. Pine trees stretched to the water's edge. Mountain peaks, some snowcapped even in summer, shadowed sheltered bays, but again and again, my thoughts turned to Pilate. Did he blame me for the loss of our child? Was my stillbirth somehow related to Germanicus's death?

When the
Persephone
stopped to take on provisions at Halicarnassus my heart sank. We would be in port a whole day--one more away from Pilate.

"There is a famous shrine," Rachel reminded me. "You could pray there."

We eluded Plutonius and Sempronia and set off like errant schoolgirls. Our destination was the tomb of King Mausoleus, an elaborate resting place known the world over as the Mausoleum. I wanted to explore it on my own, free from Sempronia's prattle. The multitiered ziggurat was not only the largest building I had ever seen but also the most elaborate. Brilliantly white, the tomb towered more than a hundred feet above us.

"Very splendid--and none the worse for almost four hundred years," Rachel panted when we had climbed the lofty brick podium. "Artemesia must have loved her husband very much."

Pausing to catch my breath, I stared up at the colonnaded temple topping the edifice. Its opulence was staggering--every square inch crowded with friezes and statues. At its peak, Mausoleus rode a golden chariot into eternity. "A little ostentatious for my taste," I decided, "but I like the Mausoleum anyway. It wasn't built out of fear for a god, but by a woman for her husband. Her love gave him immortality."

"It still couldn't bring him back," Rachel reminded me.

No, but at least she knew where he was at night. Silently I knelt. Should I pray to Isis or to Asklepios? Neither, I decided. Today it would be to Artemesia and Mausoleus, together forever...somewhere. Perhaps this pair of loving spirits would hear my plea.

On our way back down the hill, we browsed the shops. Among the crowded shelves of one tiny store, I discovered a collection of love poems. Signaling for Rachel to pay the eager clerk, I tucked the scroll under my arm. Perhaps I could emulate the poet's erotic style in a poem for Pilate. A returning ship could take it to him.

Once on board, I eagerly settled myself on deck with scroll, stylus, and tablet. The
Persephone
swung out from the dock, oars sprouting. A drum sounded belowdecks, and blades dipped on either side of the trim hull. It sounded again and they splashed the surface, three men pulling on each shaft. The ship glided forward, picking up speed as the drumbeats quickened. Gesturing to the slaves to take up their lyres, I reached for the scroll.

"So here you are, little dove!" Sempronia plopped down on the couch beside me. The tablet clattered to the deck, but she ignored it. "I searched the whole ship for you. We missed you at the landing too. Did you not remember that we planned to shop together? Plutonius hunted all over for a litter large enough for all of us, and when he returned, you were nowhere in sight. Where did you go?"

"Oh, I am sorry! I must have misunderstood," I apologized. "A litter wasn't necessary. Surely I told you that. After so much time on the ship, a walk was exactly what I needed."

"A walk! You walked? Plutonius would have been distraught if he had known you were walking alone."

"I was not alone. Rachel was with me."

"A female slave is scarcely protection, let alone companionship," Sempronia reproved.

"You worry far too much. It keeps you from more important things." I leaned over to retrieve my tablet. As a girl, I had been admonished by the priestesses of Isis to search for the goddess's face in every woman. I still made an effort, but found the task impossible with Sempronia.

"There's nothing I'd rather do than visit with you," she replied, settling back against the cushions.

Resigned to a lost afternoon, I eyed my self-appointed companion reflectively. Sempronia was well into her thirties, and her body was heavy, her face thickly covered with a pinkish-white powder. She enhanced her hair as well, it was several shades of yellow. Sempronia certainly was not the first to do that. Missing my mother desperately, why could I not find comfort in the older woman's eager attentions?

"My! Is this what you young girls fancy?" Sempronia's fleshy arm reached across me to pick up the scroll. "Plutonius would never allow me to read such a thing."

"Indeed?"

"He would not think it proper for a Roman matron. Look at this, 'Her breasts, how smooth to my caress. How smooth her body beneath her bosom. How fair her thighs! We lay--'" She put the scroll down. "He would be shocked."

"Perhaps if you read it together. The poems are really quite lovely...evocative."

Sempronia giggled. "Not likely. He never reads poetry, not even this dirty kind. Military histories are all I've ever seen him look at. I'm not much of a reader either."

"I love reading."

"So I have noticed. Your nose is buried in a scroll most of the time."

Not that it has discouraged you any. "I've been reading about the miracle cures at Pergamum," I explained. "The god visits so many in their sleep. He's given sight to the blind, allowed cripples to walk, even raised the dead."

"Just be careful what you wish for," Sempronia warned. "You've heard about the woman who asked the god for a daughter?...You haven't? I thought
everyone
had." Sempronia appeared to inflate as she settled further into the cushions. "It seems," she began in a voice that carried the length of the deck, "that a woman went to the Asklepion and followed the priest's guidance. Sure enough, the god appeared in a dream and asked if there was anything she desired. 'I want to be pregnant with a daughter,' the woman told him. 'Is there anything else?' Asklepios asked. 'No,' she said, 'that is all I want.'"

"Did she get her wish?" I asked, curiosity overcoming my irritation.

"She certainly did, but..." Sempronia paused, prolonging the moment as long as possible. "Three years passed and she was still pregnant."

"How dreadful!" I exclaimed. "What happened?"

"Exhausted, the supplicant returned to the Asklepion. Once again the god appeared in a dream. This time Asklepios said, 'I see you are pregnant, you must have everything you desire.'"

"Did she ask to have her child?" I leaned forward eagerly.

"Yes, and according to the story, her pains came on so fast that her daughter was born right there in the sanctuary."

I laughed until tears formed in my eyes. "Thank you," I said at last. "It has been a while since I've enjoyed a joke."

"A joke? Surely you don't doubt that it happened?" Sempronia's pale eyes widened.

"Truly, I don't know what to believe. But I shall indeed be careful what I ask for. It would appear that Asklepios is a god with a sense of humor."

P
ERGAMUM, A CITADEL CITY, COMMANDED STUNNING VIEWS OF SEA
and valley. Had the circumstances been different, I would have loved it. As it was, praying that my time there would be short, I went directly to the Asklepion's reception hall. The walls encouraged me, covered as they were with gold offerings, replicas not only of arms and legs, eyes and hearts, but male genitals, breasts, and even uteruses. In the room's center, an imposing statue of Asklepios rested on a column decorated with snakes twined about a laurel branch. Studying the fine-looking form, I was struck by how handsome the god was. More than handsome, his eyes, his mouth, his very essence radiated strength and compassion. Asklepios was the hero physician whom everyone longed for in time of need. Dear God, answer my prayers! I pleaded silently.

Galen, the priest assigned me, was a robust man with clear, unlined skin, bright sapphire eyes, and a ready smile. I guessed his age at thirty-five and was surprised to learn that he had recently celebrated his fiftieth birthday. Galen prescribed prayers, mud baths, massages, herbal teas, and long walks. His assurance impressed me. All the Asklepion staff seemed efficient and dedicated. The caliber of the guests--no one called us patients--reassured me too. Most were affluent and worldly, not the sort easily taken in by charlatans.