The Saint's Mistress (14 page)

made for him as playthings. He was something new every morning, and he exhausted and

delighted me, but tonight I was glad to lay him down on his pallet in our bedroom. I had other

plans for the evening.

Reaching into my bag, I drew out the red paste that I had bought at the baths that afternoon,

and applied some to my cheeks and lips. Then I withdrew another alabaster flask and opened the

cork stopper. I sniffed and felt pleased. I had never worn scent before, and this perfume had cost

more than all of the others, but the woman in the booth had assured me that it worked like a love

potion: one drop behind each ear, and then seduce your man just as usual, and he would do

whatever you wanted. I’d had to present the seller with a few strands of Aurelius’ hair, but this

presented no difficulty, as his hair was so luxuriant that he was constantly shedding all over our

apartment and still had a mane like a black lion. I had then whispered my intention in her ear

while she cut the hair into tiny shreds and sprinkled them into the flask. Then I had paid her a

whole denarius, saved over the weeks by bargaining sharply at the markets. Surely something so

costly must work as planned.

My stomach fluttered a little, and I composed myself by smoothing my best tunic over my

thighs. I took a deep breath and walked into our sitting room.

Aurelius sat at our dining table, frowning over a book by the light of an oil lamp.

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“You’ll ruin your eyes,” I said.

“You’re right,” he admitted, “and this is so hard to read. I’ve gotten used to reading your

beautiful hand.” It was true that my writing was fine and clear. I took all of Aurelius’ dictation

for him, and even occasionally attended a class with him, and recorded his masters’ speeches.

Even the taciturn Sextus complimented my work. Sometimes I forgot myself that three years

before, I had been illiterate.

“I have a better idea anyway,” I said, and slinked over to him and sat on his lap. I ran my

hands through his hair and drew his face towards mine.

To my shock, Aurelius sprang up, nearly throwing me to the floor. “Don’t do that!”

I gained my balance before toppling over and stared at him.

He walked to the other side of the room, hand to his head, and stood staring back at me, his

eyes huge, as if witnessing some horror. “I…I was looking for the right time to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“I’ve decided to become one of the elect. I’ve chosen to become an ascetic.”

“You what?” I felt like I’d been clubbed in the stomach by some fanatic’s israel.

He held up his hands. “Listen. Listen. Just listen to me, Leona. It’s all right. I checked it out.

We can still live together and we can raise Adeo together and you can write my books for me

and everything. We just have to be celibate is all.”

“That’s all? That’s all?” Then I laughed. “You won’t last a week. You can’t do this anymore

than Nebridius can stop drowning a pound of spiced goat in garum.”

“Well, that’s it, see. We’re all doing it: me, Amicus, Nebridius, Quintus. We’ve been talking

about it and talking about it, and we finally decided to do it. You know, that arrest gave them a

real scare. I don’t know if you noticed, but they reformed. Quintus doesn’t even go to watch the

gladiators any more. He’s really trying, Leona, and when he decided to go celibate, Amicus and

Nebridius and I decided it was time for us, too.”

Quintus, that
diabolus
, I thought bitterly, will he ever stop being a thorn in my foot?

“You know,” Aurelius said, “Cicero said ‘If the souls which we have are eternal and divine,

we must conclude that the less they are caught up in the vices and errors of mankind, the easier it

will be for them to ascend and return to Heaven’.” He placed one hand across his waist and

raised the other as he declaimed, like some senator in the curia, and I felt such a thunderclap of

fury that I could have murdered him in that moment.

Instead, I threw his book at him, grunting with rage and frustration. I was grimly elated to see

the corner of the binding strike his eyebrow, and he winced and clapped hand to his eye.

“You won’t last a week,” I repeated over my shoulder, as I marched into our bedroom and

threw myself onto our bed.

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Sunlight bore down on us heavy as an anvil and the crowd roared as the charioteers made

their seventh and final lap around the circuit. Standing next to me, Quintus jerked his torso back

and forth spastically as if he were the one driving the chariot. “Drive, you bastards! Come on,

you
diaboli
, you sons of dogs! Drive! Drive! Send those red bastards straight to hell! Oh! Yes!

Yes! That’s it! Hurt that
cevor
!” He and Nebridius hugged each other, as their blue driver lashed

a red charioteer in the face with a whip. Amicus and Aurelius flung their fists into the air in

approval. The four great ascetics, I thought sourly. They had even painted themselves blue for

this event, and had not failed throughout the race to shout encouragement to their beloved blues

to visit every form of pain on the rival red, green and white charioteers. It was still only the first

race and all four of them were already hoarse. Just to spite them, I had tied a green ribbon in my

hair. Like many Carthaginian women, I favored Justin the Saxon, a handsome yellow-haired

charioteer of the green team.

“Go, Justin!” I screamed now, just as a matter of form. Today, my hero had fallen far behind

the reds and the blues.

I glanced toward the stairway nearest us where Adeo was playing with some other small

children. The bigger boys skipped and galloped around in circles, pretending to be chariot

drivers, and Adeo and the other littler boys toddled behind them, laughing. I smiled to see how

easily our little boy mixed with the other children, his raisin eyes sparkling.

As soon as Aurelius and his friends had made the decision to go ascetic, they had given up

going to the gladiatorial games at the arena. I was glad for that. The blood sports of the arena

sickened me, and Adeo and I had to stand in the upper stands with the other women, children and

slaves, while Aurelius and his friends sat in the mid stands where the students and common men

sat. At the circus, men and women, citizen, freeman and slave, all mixed, and, though the sport

could be cruel and violent, death was not the point as it was at the arena. Adeo enjoyed the

animal spectacles that were performed between races, and I liked watching Justin the Saxon’s

arm muscles ripple as he controlled his reins and lashed at his horse and the other drivers.

The Carthage circus was not as massive as Rome’s, which was famous for seating 250,000,

but it was large and magnificent enough to my small-town eyes. Row upon row of seating rose

around the oval race track. In the middle of the oval seven dolphin fountains spit a spray of water

as each of the seven circuits of the race was completed. Between races, other entertainments

were offered: animal shows, comic battling dwarves, female gladiators fighting with wooden

swords that never drew blood. The crowds were always noisy and excited, and bets were

constantly being placed, before and during each race.

The seventh circuit was almost complete. Quintus’s blue charioteer lashed his whip at the red

driver again, and the red driver let go his reins. The red chariot careened into the stands and

splintered wood flew into the air. I craned my neck. The oppressive heat had kept today’s

audience small and we had been able to sneak into good seats close to the track, but this limited

our view of what happened closest to the stands.

“He’s been thrown!” Nebridius shouted. Everyone on our side of the stands crowded close to

the rail and leaned forward. The red driver was lying on the ground behind his chariot, and the

trailing greens and whites barely missed running him over.

The blues had won. Aurelius, Amicus, Quintus and Nebridius clapped each other on the back

as if they had been driving the blue chariots themselves. “Too bad I quit drinking!” Nebridius

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declared. “With what I won on that race, we would have had quite the evening tonight, my

friends.”

Aurelius and his friends had maintained their ascetic resolve for 30 days now, which was 29

days longer than I would have predicted. Nebridius still ate like a pig, but the drinking had

stopped, the
eversores
had been disbanded, and my own bed had been cold.

I fixed Aurelius’ meals, we laughed over Adeo together, and I patiently scratched his class

notes and speeches across precious parchment folios. But every night it felt as if a rope had been

strung taut between us, and we sent it humming every time we came close to each other. I longed

for the feel of his sweating, muscular body pressed to mine, and I knew he felt the same. He held

himself stiff, seldom made eye contact with me, and never, ever touched me. I knew that

celibacy was a heroic effort for him, and I thought at first that it would not take much to break

his resolve, but I was wrong. He averted his eyes if I undressed in the same room with him, and

the one time that I had disrobed and then tried to press myself seductively against him, he had

pushed me away as if I were on fire. “Never do that!” he commanded, in a voice that frightened

me, and then he left our home for the rest of that evening. I slept little these days, tortured by my

own desires and by a sense of unmoored panic at losing what little power I had had over

Aurelius.

I was especially cranky today, with the sun assaulting my brow, Justin the Saxon in 8th place,

and that
diabolus
Quintus, who was already rich, flush with gambling winnings.

“I’m going to place a bet for the next race,” Aurelius said. His friends were already headed

for the betting stalls.

“Fine.”

“What’s wrong?” he teased. “Upset that Justin the Saxon made such a poor showing? Must

have been up too late last night with one of his lady admirers. Although I heard it’s not the ladies

he likes best.”

“Shut up, Aurelius.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Gee, I don’t know. The sun’s as hot as a blacksmith’s anvil, my bed’s as cold as the top of

Mount Zaghouan, and we never have enough money, but you seem to have enough to keep up

with your friends’ betting habits.” As we spoke, we were jostled by winning betters crowding

past us to collect their payout.

“I won.”

“This time.”

“I have to have a little fun sometimes. We’re getting by.”

“Only since I started taking on extra scribe work. That was supposed to be so that we could

set something aside.” I didn’t admit to Aurelius that I had been able to put aside a few coins a

week from what I earned copying news from the forum. The price of everything kept going up,

but I had learned to bargain hard in the markets and managed to save some of my earnings

against the day when Aurelius and I might be able to marry and become independent of his

family and patron – or against the day when, despite Amicus’ assurances, he might cast me out.

That day seemed closer all the time since he had taken his vow of celibacy.

“It’s not my fault bread got more expensive,” he complained. “I don’t know what you want

me to do about it. Take Adeo and go home if you’re not having fun.”

“Maybe I’m tired of always being the one responsible for Adeo, too. Maybe you could be in

charge of him every once in a while, instead of burying your nose in a book while I wear myself

out running after a 2-year old.”

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“Fine. I’ll keep him here with me. Where is he?”

“You don’t even know where he is. I’m sure he’d be fine if I left him here with you.”

“I thought you were watching him. Where is he?”

“He’s right. ” I looked over to where Adeo had been running in circles with the other boys

only a few minutes ago. The group of children was gone.

I felt more annoyed than panicked. They couldn’t have gone far, but now I would have to

wedge myself through this crowd in the merciless heat, looking for him. “He was right there.” I

pointed. “I’ll find him.”

The animal show was starting. Through a yawning archway on one short end of the oval

racetrack, a gang of slaves hauled a wheeled cage containing three snarling wolves. Behind

them, another gang drove a small young elephant.

The first time I had seen an elephant, I had been fascinated and terrified. Who could imagine

that such enormous, sail-eared creatures existed outside of children’s tales? Now, after two years

in Carthage, I had seen many elephant shows at both the arena and the circus. I had seen

elephants scratching letters into the dirt of the racetrack with their trunks in answer to trainers’

questions. I had seen them trample to death prisoners armed only with a whip and a knife. I had