The Saint's Mistress (34 page)

wooden warehouse and set fire to it. They left Deborah and her baby alive to warn other towns of

their coming and tell what happened to anyone who held anything back from them.

“We held back nothing, and still they put the whole town to death. Then they put me and my

baby on the road with only a skin of water. We nearly died, too. You should flee with us to

Hippo,” Deborah warned.

Hippo was the only walled city within hundreds of miles, and the only possible protection

against the Vandal horde. I knew also who was bishop there, and it passed through my mind to

wonder how he had fared all these years, and whether I would get a look at him.

“They call themselves Christians!” Deborah spat.

“Christians?” I blinked. Surely she was mistaken.

“They all wore crosses painted on their leather armor, and wooden crosses around their

necks.”

I turned to Rufus. “Take charge here. I’m going to town. I should talk to Quintus and Marius

right away.”

“We should evacuate to Hippo immediately, of course,” Marius said.

Quintus laid claim to 75 years, and even I believed that he probably spoke the truth. He was

completely bald now, and his freckled skin hung like feedbags from his jaws. He was as thin and

bent as an olive tree, and his brown eyes had gone muddy. His assistant, Marius, did most of the

preaching and most of the management of the priests and monks and the acres owned by the

Church in Thagaste.

Quintus nodded slowly. “We should leave,” he agreed.

“And take as much of the town with us as wants to go,” I added.

“Of course, of course,” Quintus agreed, waving a feeble hand.

“Bishop?” I said.

Quintus’s eyes were closed and he seemed to have nodded off. “Hmmmm?”

“The woman who escaped said something that surprised me. She said the Vandals were

Christians.”

“They’re Arians,” Quintus told me. “Heretics. They deny that the Father and the Son are co-

eternal. The Empire and the Church must put them down.”

So it was true. I sighed. Would there never be an end to the claims of heresy?

Marius had been busy pouring himself a goblet of wine, but now he spoke. “It’s a shame

you’ll have to leave your harvest behind.”

Regret pricked me at the thought of the stacks of newly-harvested wheat that we would be

leaving to the Vandals. “The timing couldn’t be worse,” I agreed. “If only we had a few more

days.”

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“A shame for the Church also,” he went on, “since without a harvest you won’t be able to pay

your tithe.” He watered down some wine for Quintus and the bishop accepted it with a trembling

hand.

“We’ll make it up next year.”

“Who’s to say what might happen next year? There could be a drought or another invasion.”

“Or Christ could finally come again,” I snapped. “Why are you talking nonsense at a time like

this?” But, with a sudden stab of rage and horror, I realized exactly what he was getting at.

“If you can’t pay your tithe, we could discuss turning over some of the women’s acreage to

the bishop,” Marius continued, and could not keep a tight smile from his lips as he sipped his

wine.

Now Quintus’s soggy eyes lit with understanding as well. I longed to slap him.

At that moment, I hated Marius and Quintus far more than I hated the heretical Vandals. I

ground my folded hands together in my lap and offered and incoherent silent prayer before I

replied. “I’ll stay then.”

“By yourself?” Marius snorted.

“Lucy will stay with me, and Rufus, and perhaps a few others.” I prayed that this was true.

“We’ll bring in a harvest and pay you a fifth of what we yield, just we are obligated to do.”

Marius flushed. “Don’t be foolish,” he argued. “You said you had no idea where the

barbarians were. They could be here tonight for all we know. And, even if you bring in your

harvest, how will you protect it from them?”

“We’ll bring it with us to Hippo. We have two wagons.”

“You’re out of your mind!”

I stood. “Marius, listen to me,” I said, but I was looking at Quintus, my old adversary. “You

will never get my acres. Do you hear me? Never. They came from my son’s grandmother, and it

was his last wish that they be used to feed the needy people of this community, and that is what I

intend to do until I drop dead. And if I drop dead under a Vandal sword, so be it. I’m almost as

old as the bishop and I’m ready to meet my Lord.”

Quintus looked away from me.

“Fine,” Marius snarled. “Meet Him then. We’re leaving tomorrow and taking the church’s

valuables with us. Follow us when you’re ready with your little bags of grain – if you live.”

“And my relic,” Quintus quavered.

“What?” Marius replied.

“My relic. Saint Perpetua’s milk. It must go, too.”

“Of course, of course,” Marius said. He curled his lip and shook his head at me. “Let us know

if you change your mind. If you don’t I doubt that I’ll ever see you again.”

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Parched and sweating, we approached the city walls of Hippo one week after my argument

with Quintus and Marius, our exhausted mules pulling two wagons filled with bags of milled

wheat.

Lucy had stayed with me, and Rufus and his sons Stephen and Leo, along with Julian and six

young sisters. The twelve of us had worked from the time the sun first appeared between the

eastern hills of Thagaste until its remains lit the hillsides with red. After two days, we had filled

our two wagons with as much bagged grain as we dared try the mules to carry, and stored the rest

of the unmilled wheat in the barn, in the small hope that it would be safe there from the Vandals.

Thagaste was empty when we set out at dawn on the third day, and the countryside that we

passed through on our 60-mile journey to Hippo was equally deserted. We made good time on

the cobblestoned Roman roads, through a landscape as lovely and orderly as any other North

African spring: ripe yellow winter wheat ruffled by the breeze, tulips and daffodils and yellow

pea flowers blooming on the side of the road, small shoots of vegetables raising their green heads

in household plots. The sun was warm by afternoon, in blue, cloudless skies. But we met no one

on the road or in any of the villages we passed, and we saw tools abandoned in their fields, and

laundry left on tree branches, and, here and there, cows bellowing sadly in their pastures, as if all

the population of Numidia had been gathered up in God’s hand. The sisters kept looking over

their shoulders, as if the Vandals might at any moment appear on the road behind us.

The first human beings we saw were the remains of a legion, marching towards Hippo from

the west as we approached from the southern road.

“Look! The legion!” Stephen cried, when he spotted them, and the young sisters cheered.

“Thanks be to God,” Lucy whispered to me.

But we were disappointed when we came closer to the soldiers and got a good look at them.

Most of their horses were dragging litters or wagons carrying wounded, and many of those still

marching were filthy and bleeding. For all their wounds and their empty eyes, they marched at a

quick pace, already flowing through the city gates ahead of us.

“This looks like a defeated army to me,” Rufus said.

Hippo was a more ancient city than Thagaste, and its winding streets were clogged with

people and their animals, stinking of
merda
and sweat. It seemed that all of North Africa had

been harvested by the approaching Vandals and deposited in this one town. Colorless, exhausted

forms, like giant snails, curled up on blankets in the first town square we passed, and the water of

the fountain was already gray with their filth. It took us an hour to get directions to the basilica

and then climb the hill to the old Christian quarter where it was located.

“Wait out here with the rest,” I instructed Lucy. “I’ll go inside and see if anyone knows where

our bishop is and where we might stay.”

As I passed into the cool darkness I was once again overpowered by a nauseating stench. The

interior of the basilica was as littered with bodies as the town squares that we had passed. Some

curled up asleep on thin pallets on the stone floor. Some sat talking quietly in corners. I paused,

looking around in blank discouragement for the second time that day.

A young priest with a sharp nose and thinning hair approached me. “Sister, do you need

assistance?”

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“I’ve brought a party of refugees from Thagaste. We’re looking for our bishop, Quintus, and

wondering if there is any place we can stay.”

“You can stay here in the basilica. Bishop Augustine has given instructions that no religious

are to be turned away, but it’s getting harder and harder to feed everyone and find places for

them to sleep. As you see,” he added, gesturing towards the crowd in the cathedral. “You might

be able to ask Bishop Augustine about your bishop. He’s right over there.” He nodded towards

another corner of the nave. “He walks through every evening,” he added worshipfully. “It gives

everyone so much hope.”

I gazed on Aurelius now for the first time more than thirty years. He was still large even in

his great old age, dressed simply in a black tunic. His hair was white and he had let his beard

grow to his chest. He walked with a stately pace that contrasted with the impatient hurry of his

youth. But the biggest change was in his eyes. The fading orange light illuminated his ancient,

lined face and I could see that his dark eyes had faded to tan. The skin of his cheeks sagged

towards his neck and the sockets of his eyes were hollow and dark, so that his eyes looked

enormous. But now they burned, not with the old sharp brilliance, but with the glow of some

constant inner flame. Others saw it, too, and they crowded around him, on their feet or their

knees, pleading for his blessing, touching his plain robe, kissing his staff. Slowly and patiently,

he worked his way through the crowd, making the sign of the cross on each forehead.

I stared at him as one might stare at God Himself. It was the setting sun from the windows, of

course, but he seemed to have about him an aura of light. It felt impossible that this was the same

dark, virile young man I had known, and at the same time I knew in my heart that this was what

he had wanted during those restless years: to be a leader and a teacher, someone the great mass

of people could look up to and trust. Finally God was using him as he was meant to be used. I

felt the urge to fall to my knees and bow, and then he was before me.

He made the sign of the cross on my forehead, his large-jointed thumb still firm. “Bless you,

Sister,” he murmured.

“Bishop, don’t you know me?” I asked.

His thumb stopped, still pressing into my forehead, his fingers pressing lightly on the side of

my head. Slowly, he repositioned his hand so that it cupped my chin. His ancient eyes burned

into me, puzzled at first and then fierce. He raised his other hand to the back of my head and

solemnly kissed my forehead. “You still live,” he said, smiling slightly.

“And you.”

He turned to the astonished priest. “Eraclius, this sister is an old friend of mine. Can you

please take her to the bishop’s guest house?”

“I came with a party of eleven more and two wagons of milled grain,” I told him.

“Two wagons of grain,” he repeated. “God bless you. We can make room for your party in the

guest house. Can you please see to it, Eraclius?”

The guest house was already crowded and there was no place for us except the floor of the

kitchen, but it at least held the smells of lemons and rosemary instead of the stench of unwashed

bodies. I took time to wash myself there, with cold water from the well in the small, walled

courtyard.

Bishop Augustine soon sent for me.

His chamber was even plainer than what we had known in our poorest student days in

Carthage. Four plaster walls. Two chairs and a desk holding a popping, flickering candle. For a

bed, a stone shelf covered by a thin pallet. A wooden cross on one wall.

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He sat in one of the chairs, Bible on his lap, and when I entered the room, he smiled and

indicated that I should take the other chair.

“Quintus is safe,” he said first. “He and Marius are staying here in my own house.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” I said.

“I wondered about you many times,” he confessed. “You’ve spent all these years in Thagaste,

then?”

I felt a flash of irritation that Quintus wouldn’t have kept him informed of this, or that he

wouldn’t have asked; and then I recalled that I hadn’t asked about him either, out of a kind of

spiritual pride in considering that door closed. “Since we last parted,” I answered, and the faint

echo of that old agony flickered, the pain of losing our son.

Reading my thoughts, he said, “I think of him every day, and pray for his soul. We loved him