Daughter of Jerusalem (15 page)

Julia shifted so she was facing me. “His father will ask Tiberius. Marcus’ father and the emperor were old campaigning partners in the Gallic wars. Tiberius, unfortunately, has deteriorated into a licentious drunk, but I think he’ll do it—if not to please Marcus’ father, then to infuriate all the old men in the Senate who despise him.”

I stared at the picture of the goddess Diana on the wall, her hunting bow in hand, a stag by her side. A chasm of doubt had opened in my mind. If I married Marcus, I would have to live with his family. What if they looked down on me?

If only Marcus were a Jew and not a Roman. I immediately realized how absurd an idea that was. Marcus was the epitome of a Roman. Take that away from him, and he would be someone else entirely.

I bit my lip and asked Julia, “What about Aaron?”

“How many times, Mary, have I told you not to bite your lip!”

“Sorry.” I immediately closed my mouth over my teeth.

Julia picked up a deep blue silk scarf from the end of the lounge and began to refold it. “Aaron isn’t important, my love.”

I watched her clever hands as she handled the vivid material. “Don’t underestimate him, Julia. He’ll go to the Sanhedrin if he has to. The Zealots have made attacks upon tax collectors all over Galilee. So far the Sanhedrin has condemned them, but all that may change if a Roman interferes with the Law of Moses, and that’s how Aaron will present his appeal. I don’t want to see Marcus risk his career by stirring up a rebellion.”

Julia listened to what I was saying, and when I finished, she laid down the scarf and nodded thoughtfully. “I see what you’re saying.” Then she smiled. “Let Marcus deal with it, Mary. He will get your divorce without stirring up a revolution, I’m sure of it. You will be free to marry the father of your child.”

The father of my child
. A great surge of happiness swept through me at those words, and I smiled back at Julia. “You’re right.”

I took Julia’s advice and didn’t ask Marcus any more questions about the divorce. I put my trust in him and did my best to avoid Aaron. The longer I kept Aaron ignorant of my condition, I thought, the better things would go.

One afternoon several weeks after I’d told Marcus about the baby,
I was sitting in my own garden happily reading a new collection of poetry that Julia had ordered from her book agent in Alexandria. The garden was the one place in the house I had made my own. Since I couldn’t have replicas of any human form in Aaron’s house, I had installed a fish-shaped fountain, with the water coming out of the fish’s mouth. The gardener and I had grown roses. Ever since I was a child, I had loved roses, and now I had hundreds of them.

I was just thinking how very peaceful it was here when one of Aaron’s assistants, Jonah, burst through the door that opened into the house. I stared in astonishment as he strode across the mosaic floor toward me; Aaron’s assistants never came into the garden. Jonah’s face was red, and he was breathing heavily. Clearly he had been running hard.

“What is it, Jonah?” I asked, rolling up my papyrus. I wasn’t alarmed, just surprised. “What has happened?”

“My lady, I don’t know how to tell you this, but . . . my master has fallen down the steps by the colonnade, and he . . . he . . .”

I looked at the young man’s sweating face—and I knew. “Is he hurt?”

“Oh my lady, he is dead! The fall broke his neck. I came to tell you that they’ll be bringing his body home shortly.”

“Aaron is
dead?
” I repeated.

“Yes, my lady. I’m terribly sorry.” Then he repeated himself, to make things clear, “The fall broke his neck.”

My first emotion was shock. Aaron was an old man, but he was still quite healthy. I had always been certain he would live for many more years. I found it difficult to grasp that he no longer existed, that he had actually died.

Elisabeth, one of the house servants, came into the garden carrying
a tray with a cup of water. She brought it to me and said, “Drink this, my lady.”

I raised my eyes to her face. “Have you heard?”

She nodded. “My husband was at the market, and he saw it happen. Drink.”

My hand shook as I raised the cup to my lips, and she put hers over mine to steady it. I drank.

“Thank you, Elisabeth,” I said.

She took the empty cup and stepped away, out of hearing but within my call. I turned to Jonah, who was still panting from his run. “How did he come to fall? My husband is . . . was always steady on his feet.”

“I didn’t see how it happened, my lady. Jonathan and I had gone ahead of the master, to make sure his litter was ready. He didn’t like it if we hovered over him. So we didn’t turn to look back until we heard people shouting. Then we saw him lying at the bottom of the stairs. He was dead when we got to him, my lady. We could tell by the way he lay that his neck had been broken.”

I wished Jonah would stop saying that. The picture his words conjured up, of Aaron lying at the bottom of the stairs with his neck twisted, made me feel physically sick. My voice trembled as I asked, “They’re bringing him home, you said?”

“Yes, my lady.”

I struggled to think clearly. What must I do when the body got here? “I’ll have to prepare him for burial.”

“Yes, my lady,” he said again.

I wanted desperately to send for Julia, but of course I couldn’t do that. Aaron might not have been the most observant of Jews, but he had never doubted his own identity. He must be buried properly, according to our tradition.

I would have to do this by myself.

I called Elisabeth’s name, and she came quickly to my side. “Will you look to see if we have the proper oils for anointing the dead? If there are none in the house, you’ll have to send someone to buy them.”

“Yes, my lady.”

I had never anointed a dead body. I looked up into my maid’s calm brown eyes. “Do you know how this should be done, Elisabeth?”

“Yes, my lady, I do. I will help you, if you like.”

“Thank you,” I said gratefully. “I would appreciate that very much.”

“Shall I send for the rabbi?” she asked.

“I suppose we should.”

“It would be the proper thing to do, my lady,” she said.

“Then send for him.”

She gave me a quick, encouraging smile. “I’ll help you. You’ll be all right.”

My eyes blurred with tears, and I nodded. I had always liked Elisabeth and her husband. They didn’t live in the house but came to work every morning from one of the outlying villages to the north. She reminded me a little of my Aunt Leah.

Elisabeth left, and I turned once more to Aaron’s assistant. “Thank you, Jonah. I think I’d like to be alone for a while.”

“Yes, my lady.” He backed away, then turned and made a hasty exit. Alone in the quiet garden, I put my hands over my face and wished with all my heart that Julia would put her arms around me and call me her dearest girl and tell me what I should do. Marcus’ words,
I’ll have to arrange it some other way
, crept into my mind, and I pushed them down. I wouldn’t think that way. I wouldn’t! I had to concentrate on burying my husband.

We put aaron in the tomb he had previously purchased in a cemetery garden outside Sepphoris. Then I endured three days of visits from the Jewish wives of Aaron’s friends and business associates, the very women whom I had spurned for years in favor of Julia and her circle. I listened without comment to the malicious words these women directed at me, all under the guise of sorrow for poor Aaron, who had been forced to put up with such a sinful wife.

I hadn’t seen either Marcus or Julia since the day Aaron was carried home. I wrote to tell them what had happened, of course, but I also asked them to give me time to bury my husband among his own people.

The day after the visiting was finally over, the weather turned chilly, but that didn’t keep me indoors. I sat in my beloved garden, wrapped in a light wool cloak, breathing in the cold, clean air. With trembling hands, I rang the small bell on the table. When a servant appeared, I asked to speak to Elisabeth’s husband, Jeremiah.

He arrived almost immediately crossing the cold tiles to stand before me. “You wished to see me, my lady?”

“Yes, Jeremiah. I understand from Elisabeth that you were present when the master fell down the colonnade steps.”

“Yes, my lady, I was.”

“Did you—” I paused, drawing a deep breath. Did I really want to ask this question? Did I really want to know the answer?

“Did you see anything out of the ordinary?”

Jeremiah looked surprised. “How do you mean, my lady?”

“You have no suspicions that the master might have been . . . pushed?”

“Ah.” Jeremiah’s long thin face was very grave. “There was a crowd of people on the steps, my lady. It’s possible someone might have bumped into the master, but I cannot say that I saw anything like that happen.”

“And no one has come forward to suggest that it might not have been an accident?”

“No, my lady. No one has come forward.”

I forced a smile. “Thank you, Jeremiah. That will be all.”

I watched my servant walk away.

It was terrible of me to have such suspicions of Marcus. He was an honorable man, the father of my child. Of course I trusted him. I had to trust him.

I’ll have to arrange it
, Marcus had said. And now I was a widow, free to marry whomever I wished.

I got up from my chair and went into the house, shivering uncontrollably.

I didn’t think I would sleep at all that night, but I slept for twelve hours without stirring. When I finally arose, my body felt rested, and I forced myself to think only of what I would do today. I ate the morning meal and then went out into the garden. Aaron had often scolded me for getting my hands dirty, but I loved to work in the garden. I toiled hard all morning and was just finishing up when Elisabeth came to tell me that Julia was here.

I went in all my dirt to meet her in the courtyard, and as soon as her arms came around me, I began to cry.

Julia patted my back. “There, there my darling. Everything is going to be all right.”

It was cold in the garden, and Julia wasn’t dressed for the cold, so I took her upstairs to my chambers. These rooms and the garden were the only parts of the house where I had ever felt comfortable.

Roman bedchambers were small, with just the bed and perhaps a couch, but I had the wall between two of the upstairs rooms removed to create a large and comfortable space.

Julia looked around with interest. A number of years ago I had commissioned an artist to paint pictures of the Sea of Galilee on all
the walls. She regarded the scenes: glistening blue water with little fishing boats bobbing on the surface, a magnificent sunrise, and a view of the hills from Magdala.

“Very lovely,” she remarked when she had looked carefully at everything.

Looking at the paintings myself, I suddenly had a fierce yearning to be back at the lake, to be young and carefree, playing with the children in the garden and waiting for Daniel to come home.

Stop this
, I commanded myself. If I kept thinking like this, I would start crying again.

We sat on my green couch, and Julia pushed her scarf away from her perfectly dressed blond hair. “How are you bearing up, my love?”