Devil's Island (20 page)

Rebecca seemed to perk up at his enthusiastic announcement. “This can be our bedroom,” she said. “The soil is soft, and if we can find another blanket or a piece of fabric, we can curtain off the passage for warmth. It's not home, but it's bearable.”

“Correction, Rebecca. This
is
home,” John said softly. “You are not who you used to be, the privileged daughter of a wealthy and powerful man. Now you are a criminal for confessing Christ, an enemy of the State.”

“And all three of us will die on this island for our confession of faith,” Jacob added soberly. That thought had been nagging him since they arrived: they would never get off Devil's Island.

“Apostle, do you think God will let us die here?” Rebecca asked in a small voice.

John did not answer right away. “I don't know,” he finally said. “It's possible. But we shouldn't worry about that. Our lives are in His hands, and only He knows the number of our days.” He smiled broadly. “I never thought I'd live this long to begin with.

“I don't know about you,” John continued, “but I'm starving. Let's go back to the mouth of the cave and have our evening meal as we watch the sunset.” He held up his round loaf of bread. “Looks like Rome has spared no expense for a delicious dinner for its newest prisoners.”

The elderly Apostle's infectious laughter echoed in the cavern and Jacob found himself smiling in spite of his worried exhaustion. “It occurs to me, John, that I have given my life—perhaps quite literally— to Someone I've never seen.” His voice caught with a sudden emotion. “If I'm condemned to spend the rest of my life working as a slave for the Empire, at least I'm blessed to share the experience with the last eyewitness to His life.”

“I've always loved hearing you talk about Jesus,” Rebecca added. “And now I want to hear the stories all over again.”

“After you,” John said, indicating he would follow Jacob and Rebecca down the narrow passage back to the entrance. “I want to see the sea . . . that's where I met the Master, you know.”

16

“YOU POOR THING,” Julia cooed when Naomi met her at the entrance to the stadium. “I wasn't sure you'd be here . . . I mean, after what happened this morning.”

Naomi wondered about the sincerity of Julia's sympathy. Although they were friends, Julia might not want to be seen with someone whose family had just been hauled before the authorities for being traitors to the Empire.
Perhaps I shouldn't have come,
Naomi thought briefly. It was coldhearted to leave her father and Peter alone with their grief, but she had been paralyzed with fear that the stigma of her fanatical family would attach itself to her, and attending a popular cultural event such as the games would prevent that from happening.

“What have you heard?” Naomi asked cautiously.

“That you and your father proved your loyalty to the emperor but that the rest of your family was sent to Devil's Island.” Julia lowered her voice, and her thin, pinched face assumed a pained expression. “And that your mother was killed for attacking a soldier.”

Naomi acknowledged the accuracy of Julia's brief report. “That's true.”

“How perfectly awful for you.”

“Yes, it was.” Naomi's eyes were busy sizing up the crowd as she spoke, looking for friends and admirers and, as always, potential conquests. As several people nodded or waved in greeting, she began to relax. “I wasn't that close to my mother, you know. But it was unfortunate that she lost control of herself like that. What else could the commander do?”

“I suppose nothing. An attack like that could not go unpunished.”

“Let's go inside,” Naomi said. She did not want to talk about the morning's events, and now that she was here and had decided no one was going to ostracize her for her family's bizarre behavior, she wanted to find her seat and enjoy the program.

Naomi and Julia joined the throng of holiday enthusiasts jamming the arched entrances on either end of the elliptical stadium. They handed over their bronze tokens at the gate, and as they inched their way inside the arena, Naomi read the poster painted on the wall. It listed the occasion; the name of the editor, or manager, of the games; the program of events; and the pairs of gladiators in order of their appearance.

“He's not fighting today,” Julia said, leaning close to Naomi's ear so she could be heard.

“What?” Naomi was startled by the comment.

“Gordius. That's whose name you were looking for, isn't it?” Julia smiled slyly.

Naomi nodded. She hated it when Julia read her mind—not that she cared if Julia knew about her attraction to the powerfully built, enormously popular gladiator. Naomi simply preferred to reveal her thoughts in her own words, when
she
chose to do so.

“You really should have an affair with him,” Julia said as they finally broke through the arched stone passage and into the main part of the stadium. The sun was high overhead, but the temperature was mild—a lovely fall day, perfect weather for the games.

“I've thought about it,” Naomi admitted. “But I wouldn't want it to distract me from my long-range plans.”

“I know—Rome, a husband, untold wealth, influence.” Julia wagged her carefully coifed head from side to side as she enumerated Naomi's well-known plans. “But it doesn't have to interfere. An affair is just a temporary way to satisfy an urge. It might do you a world of good—get your mind off . . .
things
,” she said pointedly.

Naomi shrugged in reply. She knew Julia was referring to her family. That topic was closed, as far as she was concerned.

They passed the raised podium where the editor and dignitaries would sit and headed for the steps. “It makes me mad,” Naomi said, “that the women's section is way up in the top tier.”

“I know, but look at it this way,” Julia said cheerfully. “As we ascend the heights, it's an opportunity to parade in front of an entire stadium of appreciative men . . . Just flirt your way to the top.”

Naomi lifted the skirt of her tunic higher than necessary to climb the steep steps. Heads turned in her direction and she smiled coyly in acknowledgment. She thought about Julia's advice as they leisurely made their way to the top section of the stadium. Did she want to have an affair with Gordius? He was an
auctoratus
, one of the voluntary gladiators, and therefore not under strict supervision like the prisoners of war and condemned criminals consigned to the gladiatorial schools. Naomi had not met Gordius personally yet, but she knew she could arrange it if she really wanted to. All she had to do was say the word, and Julia would invite him to one of her dinner parties and make sure Naomi was seated next to him.

Recently, Naomi had seen him outside the arena and gotten a good look at him up close. Gordius had been entering the baths as she was leaving with Julia. Naomi had been so smitten with the professional fighter, she had almost suggested to Julia that they bathe again, just so she could get another glimpse of his rugged face and muscular body. Some of the women in their circles had had affairs with actors and gladiators. Perhaps Julia was one of them, the way she talked. Naomi had observed that Julia and Terentius, her husband, tended to go their separate ways.

The
hydraulis,
the stadium's large water-organ, had started the music for the opening procession by the time they reached their seats. Naomi loved the pomp and pageantry that began the games. The toga-draped sponsors, the public officials who financed the games, entered the arena preceded by attendants bearing symbols of their political office. Next were musicians playing fanfares on long straight trumpets, followed by four men carrying a platform on which a statue of Victoria, the goddess of victory, rode. The editor of the games entered next, with his assistants and referees trailing behind him. More trumpeters followed, these playing short, curved horns, and finally the afternoon's combatants marched into the arena in pairs, carrying their helmets under their arms. This was the only time the audience would see the gladiators' faces; later, the heavy bronze and tin-plated helmets with grated visors would cover them completely.

The spectators were noisy, as usual, and sitting so high in the stadium, Naomi sometimes had trouble hearing the music over the roar of the crowd. Special music—brass and reed instruments as well as the water-organ—announced the beginning of each fight and was also used to heighten the drama during the gladiatorial contests.

Today's program featured several novelty matches: two pairs of dwarf gladiators and a pair of female gladiators from Greece. It was the first time Naomi had seen women fight in the arena, and she applauded the idea, although she couldn't imagine why they would want to take up such an unusual, not to mention risky, occupation.

Naomi was bored by the other novelty event, the
taurocentae.
Several riders on horseback chased an equal number of bulls around the arena. When a
taurocenta
got close enough to his prey, he grabbed the horns of the bull from behind and swung off his mount onto the bull's back. The idea was to throw the bull to the ground, and the audience screamed its approval each time a rider felled one of the giant animals. Some of the unarmed sportsmen, however, could not maintain their holds. When they fell off, the powerful beasts charged the fallen riders, goring them and then tossing their bodies into the air until their blood splashed in the sand.

Also interspersed between the gladiatorial contests were the executions of several criminals condemned
ad bestias
, the severest form of death penalty that could be imposed by a judge. With no weapons, and naked except for a loincloth, the prisoners never had a chance against the beasts thrown into the arena to devour them.

Ordinarily Naomi enjoyed the games immensely and often made a small wager with Julia as a pair of gladiators entered the arena. Her enthusiasm waned as the day wore on, however. As the blood continued to spill on the sand of the arena floor, she kept seeing her mother's face and the blood that had gushed from her chest and saturated her tunic. Every time a stretcher left the arena carrying a dead or severely wounded combatant, Naomi thought of the carriage driving away and leaving her mother's dead body on the ground at the pavilion. The scene outside the Temple of Domitian had affected her more deeply than she cared to admit. The bloodshed she saw in the stadium was sheer entertainment, but her mother's blood had been personal, and she grew dizzy with the effort of trying to block it out of her mind.

The final match dragged on and on, both gladiators demonstrating their exceptional skill as swordsmen, and Naomi's attention wandered. When the crowd suddenly began to roar, she again focused her gaze on the fight. One of the gladiators dropped his shield and wearily raised a hand with his forefinger extended, indicating his capitulation. The referee stepped between the opponents to make sure the fighting stopped.

Instantly Julia was on her feet, waving the hem of her cloak and shouting for
missio
, the release of the vanquished gladiator. One aspect of the games that made them so popular was the opportunity for the audience to participate in the outcome. Whether a defeated gladiator lived or died at the point of surrender was technically the decision of the editor, who generally acceded to the wishes of the spectators. If a fighter had conducted himself with valor and skill, only giving up when the outcome was hopeless, the audience was usually sympathetic. In that case, the editor signaled the referee to release the loser, who left the arena alive, hopefully to fight again if his wounds were not too severe.

“Pugnax has been virtually invincible up until now,” Julia said afterward, “and that is definitely the toughest opponent he's ever faced. He deserved to walk away, don't you think?” Julia had grown up attending the games and could identify each of the different categories of fighters as well as their weapons, and she knew the name and win-loss statistics of every popular gladiator.

Naomi agreed with a vague murmur, and Julia kept chattering. “Let's buy something,” she said as they exited the stadium and passed one of the souvenir stands just outside the entrance.

The vendor's display held an array of sports-related merchandise. Naomi passed over the helmet-shaped terra-cotta lamps and the small stone figurines with removable helmets and swords—the kind of plaything Peter and Jacob would have loved as children but their mother would never have allowed in the house—and selected a small bronze mirror. She automatically checked her reflection in the highly polished oval; the other side featured an engraving of a gladiator in his battle regalia.

“You're coming for dinner tonight, aren't you?” Julia asked when they had made their purchases.

It was unlike Naomi to pass up such an occasion, and she didn't really want to go home to her family—what was left of it—but she did not think she could keep a smile pasted on her face throughout a lengthy dinner at Julia's. “Forgive me, no. It's been a very long day, and suddenly I'm exhausted—”

“Of course you are, dear friend,” Julia said in her typically effusive manner. “Don't worry about it.”

They said good-bye, and as Julia stooped to enter the litter waiting for her, she called out, “I'll see you at the baths tomorrow.” Eight slaves lifted the two long poles extending from the enclosed sedan and balanced them on sturdy shoulders before merging with the traffic flowing back to the city.

Watching them depart, Naomi realized she had forgotten to ask Julia about the next slave auction.
I'll do that tomorrow,
she told herself as she began the walk home. In addition to buying slaves or at least hiring more household help, she was going to make other changes immediately—one of them being the purchase of a litter.

Imagine someone of my social status not even having a vehicle,
she thought, her indignation growing with every step. In spite of her father's considerable wealth, her family had lived quite unpretentiously. Abraham walked almost everywhere he went, but he resorted to a horse and carriage in inclement weather, or if traveling out of town. Her father thought a litter was a ridiculous affectation. “Don't give yourself airs, girl. Why do you think God gave you two strong legs?” he had said.