Pilate's Wife: A Novel of the Roman Empire (22 page)

S
omehow, some way, I had to accept not only that my husband had a mistress but a son by her. What's more, every day Pilate ingratiated himself farther into the graces of the man who had killed my parents, exiled my aunt, and presided at the death of my sister. For a while it was enough to breathe, to merely float the surface. I had my baby and that was all that mattered.

Though propriety--and Pilate--demanded that I hire a wet nurse, it was I who bathed Marcella, I who dressed her and rocked her to sleep. Easy, joyous tasks. Marcella, so tiny, seemed the essence of femininity. The slaves marveled constantly at her sweetness and beauty. Pilate was enchanted by the way she smiled at him from behind her tiny fingers.

"She's flirting," he said. He had come to the nursery to find me. Now he bent over Marcella's tiny bed. "Another family beauty."

She does have Marcella's eyes, I thought, but said nothing.

The baby's small hand encircled Pilate's thumb. "We must keep her very safe," he said.

At least we agreed on something.

As my strength returned, I went each day to the Iseneum, often taking Marcella with me. Life had been so cruel. If only I could win some kind of promise from the goddess--not for myself but for my perfect, innocent child. Isis had an adored baby of her own. Surely she could understand my concern. I prayed often before her great golden statue while Marcella slept sweetly at my side.

"If Isis would just give me a sign," I said to the priestess kneeling beside me. "I have worshipped the goddess since I was a girl, yet one terrible thing after another has happened. All that remains is my baby."

"If you truly, truly believe then everything will be all right."

I turned to see a familiar face--wide, dreamy eyes, dimpled smile. Paulina Tigellius came often to the Iseneum. She was pretty, obviously indulged by a much older husband, but good natured and sociable. I could not help but smile at her spontaneity. I was lonely. Sharing a spiritual path with such an enthusiastic seeker might be pleasant.

It didn't turn out that way. Watching Paulina accept each sacred tenet without a single question, I came to wonder if she understood any of them. One day she confided that Decius Mundus, a high-ranking knight, was overcome with love for her. I knew Decius slightly. He was an intimate of Pilate's, attractive in a young unformed way and very rich. "He offered two hundred thousand sesterces to share my bed for a single night." Paulina tossed her head lightly, setting blond curls in motion. "How dare he! But Decius
is
handsome."

Decius wasn't much brighter than Paulina, I decided, and promptly forgot the matter.

Days passed and my anxiety grew. One morning I entrusted Marcella to a priestess and joined the temple slaves in scrubbing the steps leading to Isis's golden statue. If only the goddess would see my sincerity. "Protect my baby, protect my baby," I prayed silently again and again.

My normally happy baby began to howl. "She wants
you
," the priestess said, handing Marcella back to me.

"I cannot imagine what was the matter with her," I said to Rachel afterward. "She wasn't hungry, she wasn't wet--"

"Maybe the baby takes after her aunt. Would
that
Marcella have spent time in a temple if she had had a choice?"

Your life is waiting. Enjoy it. Enjoy it for me
.

I
WENT LESS OFTEN TO THE
I
SENEUM, RETURNING INSTEAD TO A ONCE
familiar haunt, the Circe Bath, Rome's most fashionable. It was here that the newest tunes were played, the latest poems read, the spiciest scandals whispered. I listened idly to it all while being massaged and manicured; everyone agreed the Circe had the most adept and innovative bath attendants to be found.

One morning I arrived at the bath to feel the air charged with excitement. Mildly piqued, I looked quizzically at the two slaves who had begun to undress me. "Surely you have heard?" the older one asked as she knelt to remove my sandals.

"Suppose you tell me." I stepped out of my gown and turned slightly as the young slave wrapped a linen covering about me.

"The lady Paulina--Paulina Tigellius," the two said almost in unison, then broke into giggles. "Shh," cautioned the older one, with a side glance at me.

I looked from one to the other, puzzled. As the slaves led me to the pool, I joined some twenty of the most prominent women in Rome. At their center, Sejanus's wife, Apicata, held court. Smiling, she made a place for me on the couch beside her. Though her husband had flirted with me from the beginning, it never seemed to bother Apicata. Perhaps, I thought, lying down beside her, such things ceased to matter after a while.

"It is the most shocking scandal," she explained, her round blue eyes sparkling with excitement. "Paulina Tegellius was seduced at the Iseneum."

Oh, Isis! My heart began to thump. This was more than gossip...I knew something terrible had happened.

Apicata went blithely on. "A priest from the Iseneum went to Paulina's home. He said the god Anubis had fallen in love with her and wanted her to come to him that very night. I am surprised you have not heard about it. Paulina was so flattered she went about telling everyone."

"Including her husband?"

"Saturnius was the first to know."

"And he let her go?"

"He was as proud as she and did some bragging of his own. Imagine having a wife so beautiful that even a god desired her. It's like Jupiter and Leda."

"Oh no!" I shook my head. "Anubis is an Egyptian deity who serves Isis. He is nothing like the Roman gods. Anubis is far too busy weighing souls, deciding who will have immortality and who will not, to waste time on silly women. Paulina is a devotee. She should have known that."

Apicata shrugged. "All I know is that when she went to the temple a feast had been prepared for her in a private room. Paulina was bathed and made ready for bed, the lamps were removed and the door closed. The god appeared to her in darkness."

I raised myself on my elbows. "Did she refuse him?"

"Hardly. She performed a night-long service for him again and again."

"What about in the morning?"

"He departed before dawn," Apicata explained. "Really, I can not imagine how you missed hearing all this. Paulina told everyone. She spared no details, his ardor must have been insatiable."

I shook my head. "It was a hoax, a cruel hoax."

"If you guessed that, you are ahead of everyone," Apicata said. "What do the rest of us know of Egyptian gods? Until yesterday most of us envied Paulina's good fortune. Then, it seems, a young knight, Decius Mundus--do you know him? Yes? Well, this Decius accosted her on the street and laughed at her--can you imagine,
laughed
at her! 'Paulina, you've saved me 150,000 sesterces,' he said. When poor Paulina just looked at him, he explained, 'Call me Decius or Anubis, it makes no difference--the pleasure was all the same.'"

My stomach tightened at the outrage against Isis and her temple. "Surely the priests had nothing to do with it."

"Twenty-five thousand sesterces before and after the fact was a powerful argument for two of them. Too bad they will not have the opportunity to spend it."

A sick sense of finality swept over me. This was the very excuse for which Tiberius and his government had been looking. The cult of Isis was wealthy and threateningly female. I forced myself to ask: "What do you mean, they won't have an opportunity to spend it?"

"Saturnius took the matter of his wife's honor to Tiberius. Sejanus told me everything this morning. Decius has already been exiled, the priests will be crucified, the temple razed, and the great statue of Isis cast into the Tiber."

The temple razed! It was as though I had been brutally struck. I turned away, lest anyone see the tears. With the Iseneum gone, what solace remained for me? Where could I turn now for sanctuary?

I
RARELY WENT ANYWHERE WITH
P
ILATE AND MET HIS LAVISH GIFTS
and other attempts at reconciliation with polite disdain. We did not discuss Titania. What was there to say? I was a wife to him in name only, arranging his entertainments, appearing in public with him when necessary, but otherwise avoiding his presence whenever possible. Instinct told me that as long as I did nothing publicly to anger him he would not divorce me.

Then one day Pilate asked me to accompany him to the circus, where we would join Sejanus and Apicata. I surprised us both by agreeing. Delighted, he honored my request that we go late to avoid the wild animal slaughter.

As we settled ourselves beside Sejanus and Apicata in their elaborate box, mid-afternoon sun shimmered richly on crimson robes, bright plumes, jeweled earrings and tiaras. Every seat in the great amphitheater was taken. Hundreds of commoners stood shoulder to shoulder in the gallery above. Tiberius, resplendent in a diamond collar and a gold crown fashioned like a laurel wreath, sat close by in a raised, gilded box. I felt Pilate's pressure on my elbow. I would have to bow. My legs trembled as I did so. Slowly I forced myself to meet the emperor's gaze. Livia, at his side, watched me, mockery in her green cat's eyes. My stomach knotted as I bowed again. Oh, how I detested them both.

Just below were the Vestals, flanked on either side by senators with broad purple stripes bordering their togas, and senior military commanders in gleaming armor. Boys and girls in short red tunics made their way through the crowd, hawking cool drinks, roast meats, fruit, and wine. Four oxlike slaves dragged out the corpses, animal and human, while young boys raked the bloody sand and sprinkled it with heavy perfume. Drums pounded. Thousands of feet stamped, their impatient hammering like thunder. A more serious contest was about to begin, one that excited not merely the rabble but discerning connoisseurs. Wax tablets were passed from hand to hand as spectators scribbled the names of their champions and the sums they staked.

Sejanus shook his head. "What's the point? Holtan always wins."

"Holtan?" I had been idly chatting with Apicata; now I turned. "Long ago there was a gladiator--quite extraordinary. It isn't--"

"There is only one Holtan," Pilate said. "If you went to the circus more often you would know that."

"But Holtan has been in retirement," Apicata reminded him. "He only came today because Shabu challenged him--called him a coward in public. That slur, and perhaps the enormous purse that Tiberius is offering, brought him out. We will see if the great gladiator still has his edge. I may bet on Shabu."

"The Holtan I recall was a Dacian captive."

"That's the one," Sejanus assured me, "but he's come a long way since those days."

"Doesn't he own a gladiatorial school?" Pilate asked.

Sejanus nodded. "The best, and now he has opened a dining house in the Sabura. All it takes is the chance of running into the famous gladiator to send people flocking there. He has land holdings as well, vineyards, I believe."

Trumpets sounded, shrill, blood-chilling. Thousands of eyes fixed on a man dressed as Charon, the underworld's gatekeeper, as he raised his mallet. One. Two. Three times the great gong struck. The Gate of Life swung open, the massive gladiators strode in. Applause, an impatient storm, swept the amphitheater as the men, marching in proud military step, circled the arena, halting at last before Tiberius's box. There were twelve, most of them tall, all imposing. One had lost an ear. Another's nose was slit. They all bore scars, some still livid. A horn blew for silence as they raised their clenched right fists and chanted as one, voices slow, measured: "Hail, Caesar! We who are about to die salute you!"

I thought them splendid. Most particularly Holtan, whom I recognized immediately. Despite the scar that ran from one eye to his jaw, despite the flattened nose, I recognized his easy, leonine grace, his thick, shaggy hair the color of honey, the amber eyes that missed nothing.

Six of the twelve men carried short swords, the others held nets and tridents. Each pair would fight the other, the winner moving on to the next until only one pair remained. It began quietly. At first all were careful, deliberate, testing and then drawing back like a dance, a feint here, a parry there, the movements stylized. Then, gradually, it became something more. Strike and counterstrike, they ignited like fire in wild, random rhythms. I watched only Holtan, who confined his parries to narrow, shallow strokes.

"Not much of a show there," Apicata commented, following my eyes. "I knew I should have bet on Shabu."

"Don't give up on Holtan," Sejanus advised. "He's conserving his strength--he will need it. I wager this will be his last match."

I gasped. "What do you mean?"

"He's a great fighter--no doubt about it--the best I have ever seen, but look at the other men. No question he could take one, two, even three of them--but all? At the very least he will be badly wounded, maimed."

Apicata shuddered. "Would he want to live in that condition?"

"Oh, stop!" I cried. "The match has hardly begun. He will win, of course, he will. The odds were equally bad when I first saw him as girl."

"Not quite," Sejanus said. "I saw that fight too. No one will ever forget it. But this one is different. These are the top gladiators in the world--Dionysus from Ephesus, Rameses from Alexandria, Hercules from Athens. That Ethiopian down there, Shabu, is a legend. Holtan can't beat them all."

But he must!

Every time Holtan changed position, his opponent, Hercules, followed. They moved together as if attached by a cord. It didn't take long. So much for Greece's finest. Holtan studied his next challenger, a hairy Scythian giant nearly twice his size. He stood quietly in place while his opponent charged him. At the last minute he stepped aside; the man, unable to stop his momentum, stumbled. In that instant, Holtan plunged his sword into the gladiator's side. Two down. All around Holtan other pairs struggled, bodies strained and grappled, breastplates clanged together, swords slashed into chests and bellies, dark streaks stained the sand. A slave dressed as Mercury walked discreetly among the fallen, testing each with a red-hot poker to make certain he was dead. Slaves dragged six lifeless bodies through the Gate of Death. The frieze of demons over its arch seemed less gruesome than the carnage below. Six gladiators now remained in the arena.