Daughter of Jerusalem (11 page)

I went shopping with the women, and we also went to the baths. Julia and I went to see plays at the theatre, and on the days when there were chariot races, we attended those too. I dined out at least three times a week.

And I did all this without the company of my husband. Aaron encouraged me. My Roman connections were generous in passing business his way, and he didn’t want to do anything that might halt the flow of gold into his coffers.

This was heady stuff for a girl from a small Jewish market town. I was impressed by the fact that many of these Roman women were educated. They could read and write, and they passed papyrus scrolls of new poems among themselves with a careless ease that amazed and humbled me. From what I could gather, women even participated in some of the Romans’ religious rites, as priestesses. And if a woman didn’t like her husband, she could simply give him a writ of divorce, and he had no choice but to separate from her.

This was dramatically different from the status of women among my people, and I liked it. I was in awe of the accomplished women I met at Julia Tiberia’s house, but most of all, I was in awe of Julia. Every Thursday she held a late afternoon reception, after the men had finished work and returned from the baths. Invited guests would
gather in her atrium, where wine and plates of sliced eggs, snails, oysters, olives, and apples reposed upon a collection of beautiful small round tables made of expensive wood. Slaves walked around with silver wine cups as groups of people throughout the room engaged in vibrant conversation.

This was a pre-dinner gathering, deliberately simple, but it was also the most important regular social event in Sepphoris. If you weren’t invited to one of Julia Tiberia’s receptions, you were nobody, and everyone knew it.

Julia was able to wield this kind of power in part because her husband had been governor, but mainly because her father was an important senator. In addition, she was still a beautiful woman and smarter than most of the men who surrounded her.

I was incredibly fortunate to have met and interested such a woman. She took me in hand and did everything she could to turn me into a younger version of herself. She hired a tutor to teach me to read and write Greek, and she herself took on the task of teaching me Latin. After six months of relentless instruction, the people who came to her house didn’t have to address me in Greek. I was almost as fluent in Latin as they were.

But it was learning to read that meant the most to me. All upper class Roman homes had libraries. Julia had inherited hers from her husband, and it was expansive. The library room, which opened off the atrium, was lined with cabinets holding the rolls upon which the books were written. Once I was literate, Julia allowed me access to all of them. It was she who opened my mind to the world beyond Galilee and Jerusalem.

It was also Julia who explained to me that when Aaron died, it was I who would inherit his money. Aaron had never said anything about
this, so the revelation was a shock. Among my people, a woman never had her own money.

“Your position is well known throughout the city,” Julia told me. We were sitting by the pool in her peristylum, drinking wine. By now I was so accustomed to the naked gods and goddesses, nymphs and satyrs that comprised her statues and floor mosaic that I hardly noticed them. She said, “Aaron bar David has no male heirs—no sons, no brothers, no cousins, no one. Under the law, Jewish as well as Roman, if there is no male heir, the money goes to the wife. You will be very rich one day, my dear Mary. Very rich indeed.”

I stared at her. “Why hasn’t Aaron said anything to me about this?”

Julia rolled her eyes. “Men,” she said. “They never give up hope that their virility will magically return. He’s probably still hoping for a son.”

I shuddered at the thought. Aaron hadn’t come to my bed for many months. He had tried very hard to remain capable, but it was no longer possible. For which I thanked the Lord devoutly every night.

Julia must have read my mind because she reached across and laid a comforting hand on mine. “Don’t worry, darling. It won’t come back. You’re safe.”

My mind was in chaos. “What would I do with all that money?”

She laughed. “Don’t worry, my love. You’ll find plenty to do with it.” Her eyes glinted, blue as the sky. “Perhaps we might travel together. Would you like to see Alexandria?”

I nodded, speechless, as a vision of the outside world opened before my mind’s eye. “Could we do that? Just two women?”

Julia gave me an amused look. “We would hire men, of course, to protect us from bandits, but a woman doesn’t need a husband to do what she wants to do, Mary. That is, she doesn’t if she has money. I have money for the same reason you will; my husband left it to me.”

I asked a question I had often wondered about. “Did you never wish to remarry?”

Julia smiled serenely. “I have no need for a husband. If a woman has money, I think she is better off without one.” She gave me an odd, glinting look that I didn’t understand. “One can always enjoy the company of men without marrying them.”

I thought she was talking about all of the men who frequented her receptions and lavished such attention on her, and I smiled back and agreed.

My intimacy with the powerful Romans was a topic of profound interest in the Jewish community. The synagogue Aaron and I attended catered to wealthy merchants, and they all wanted Roman patronage and hoped I could get it for them. Aaron was very generous with his donations, so we were in excellent standing with our money-loving rabbi.

If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have attended the synagogue at all. I felt like a hypocrite, sitting on the women’s side of the aisle, my elegant Roman hairdo covered by a veil, listening to the reading of scripture by men I couldn’t bear.

For most of my life the two pillars of my existence had been Daniel and the Lord. Both had deserted me, so I had resolved to put them out of my mind. I had no temptation to adopt the religion of my new friends—all those gods seemed too absurd to be taken seriously. I still believed in the God of Israel; I just wanted nothing to do with Him. Like my father and Lord Benjamin, He had thrown me away.

I was twenty-one when Marcus Novius Claudius arrived in Sepphoris to take over command of the Roman troops based in Galilee. His coming caused great excitement among the Roman population. He was a
legatus
, a senatorial officer, and he was also a member of the Claudian family, to which the emperor himself belonged. He was one of the most well-connected men ever to grace Galilee. Aaron told me the word was he had been appointed because the emperor feared a Jewish insurrection. Apparently, our new commander had shown himself an effective leader in other delicate political situations.

The idea of an insurrection seemed ludicrous if you lived in Sepphoris. But I hadn’t forgotten the talk of a Messiah when I lived in Magdala, and I thought perhaps it was not impossible after all.

The women of Julia’s circle were excited about the newcomer because he was young, handsome, and not yet married. My friend Cornelia Flavia, who was married to one of the officers stationed in the city, told me that the Sepphoris girls were fools to hope for anything from the legatus. “A man like that may not be married, but he is surely promised to the daughter of some wealthy senator in Rome.
The rich and powerful families always marry among themselves; they don’t like to share with outsiders.”

Julia, of course, intended to be the first one to entertain him, and as usual she got her way. Two days after the new commander rode into Sepphoris from Caesarea, he attended Julia’s afternoon reception. He came in late, standing alone in the wide doorway between the vestibule and the atrium, looking at the group in front of him with all the unconscious arrogance of one in whose veins ran the blood of Caesar.

Gradually, without his seeming to do anything to attract it, the attention of the room focused on him. I stared along with everyone else.

He was a splendid-looking man, tall and broad shouldered, with hair as black as mine. He wore the white knee-length linen tunic that was standard garb for Roman men, but his was distinguished by a wide purple stripe to signify his senatorial rank.

The woman standing next to me said out loud, “Now
that
is a man.”

Julia walked up to him, and he bent his head to receive her greeting. They spoke for a moment, and then she laid a light hand on his bare arm and began to take him around the room.

All of Julia’s receptions were important, but for this occasion she had gathered together the highest of the city’s Roman administrators. The bright silk colors of the women’s stolas contrasted harmoniously with the white worn by the men. Julia had laughingly told me that Roman men would rather die than be caught wearing colors or silk. They wore white linen, whether it was a tunic or a toga, and that was that.

Sometimes, when I looked at those immaculate white garments, I imagined how hard it must be for the servants to launder them. I was wise enough, however, never to mention such a thought to my new
friends. They would’ve been dumbfounded that I should even think of such a plebeian thing.

Magdala was very far away these days. I glanced down at my own dress, a stola that was a blue as clear as the flax on the Galilean hillside in spring. I loved the feel of silk against my skin, so much kinder than the rougher linen and wool I had worn at home.

As the guest of honor made the rounds, I continued my conversation with Cornelia. Her cousin in Rome had sent her a new poem, and she was telling me about it and promising to lend it to me. We were talking comfortably, when suddenly I felt Flavia close her hand around my wrist and whisper, “He’s coming this way!”

I had no doubt whom she meant.

A moment later I heard Julia’s voice. “And here are the two lovely young women you wished to meet, Legatus.”

Flavia’s hand fell away from my wrist, and we both turned to look at him.

His eyes were light green. Lion’s eyes, I thought, as I looked up into them. Other than the eyes, it was a quintessentially Roman face, with a hawk nose, high hard cheekbones, and arrogant mouth.

As if from a distance, I heard Julia say, “Marcus Novius, I would like you to meet my dear young friend Mary.”

He didn’t look surprised by the Hebrew name, so I knew Julia must have told him about me. “Mary,” he said slowly, as if savoring the sound on his tongue. “A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”

I stared at him. I couldn’t help myself. He positively radiated masculine strength and power.

Everyone was looking at me, and I realized I hadn’t spoken. I answered as coolly as I could in crisp Latin, “How do you do, Legatus?”

He smiled. It changed his whole face, making him look boyish and
eager and delighted. It was a devastatingly attractive look. I had never met a man like this. Among my people there weren’t any men like this. Because of the short haircut and shaved jaw, I could see how powerful his neck was; because of the short sleeves of his tunic I could see how muscular his arms were, how hard his forearms. Just looking at him as he stood there smiling at me made me lose my breath.

And that is how I met Marcus Novius Claudius.