by Angela Hunt
When we reached Barabell’s hut, she asked for water, so I ran to the well. I filled a bucket, grabbed some woolen rags from the laundry shed, and hurried back to the hut. Barabell was pacing, her chest damp with sweat and her tunic sticking to her back.
“Have you had a baby before?” I asked, trying to make conversation.
She released a low, painful groan, then glared at me from beneath hanks of sweat-drenched hair. “Yes.”
I smiled and looked around, then realized too late that I had not seen any young children on the farm. If Barabell had given birth before, the child was no longer with her.
I pressed my lips together and resolved to remain quiet.
Barabell groaned again, and I searched my memory for lessons on childbirth. Father once mentioned the love between a man and woman, but his descriptions had been cloaked in metaphor. The older women at the synagogue might have taught me if I’d been betrothed, but that had never happened. Urbi and I had gossiped and giggled about how babies came to be, but Urbi had abandoned me by the time she prepared for her first child.
In all my reading, if only I had read a manuscript on the art of love and childbearing . . .
“Is there anything,” I asked Barabell, “you would like to talk about while we wait?”
“Ngggggggggad!” Barabell screamed as another pain struck. Then she glared at me and told me to keep quiet.
The labor continued throughout the afternoon, a relentless series of pacing and moaning and gritting of teeth. At midday I went to have a bowl of pottage and brought some to Barabell. She took one look at it and shook her head as though the food were offensive, then went back to pacing.
Finally, as the sun balanced on the western horizon, Barabell sank to her knees and pressed her hands to the earthen floor. “Baby coming,” she said, the tense lines on her face deepening into crevices. “Catch.”
Catch? I looked at her, crouching on all fours, and decided that a human baby must arrive in a similar fashion as a piglet or a lamb.
Trembling with uncertainty, I lifted the back of her tunic and crouched behind her, holding out my hands. Barabell groaned, the space between her legs widened in a rush of blood and fluid, and a blue baby dropped headfirst into the world and landed in my arms.
I gasped, astounded and overjoyed even as I struggled to hold on to the slippery infant. “A boy,” I whispered, finally securing him by cupping his head in my palm. “You have a son!”
Barabell nodded toward a ball of spun wool on the floor. “Tie knot in cord, cut by knot.”
I set the child on a blanket and wrapped the wool around the cord. I struggled to tie the knot, however, because I could not find a blade to cut the string. “How do I cut the—?”
“By Jupiter’s navel, must I do?” Barabell groaned as another mass followed the baby, a cloud of membranes and fluid that seemed to pulse in the dimming light. With a great deal of exasperation, Barabell rose to her knees, grabbed the cord, and cut it with her teeth. Then she picked up her silent child, placed her lips upon his mouth and nose, and sucked fluid from his nostrils, spitting onto the floor between efforts.
Almost immediately, the pale baby pinkened, opened his mouth, and let out a mewling cry. “Shhh,” Barabell said, wrapping the child in the blanket. “You safe. Welcome.”
I hugged my bent knees, caught up in the wonder of childbirth. Only when I tasted the salt of tears on my lips did I realize that I was crying . . . not only because I was awed, but because Urbi had also experienced this miracle and I had not been there to share it with her.
The next afternoon, Berdine ordered me to go to the market with Minos. Eager to travel beyond the farm, I took an extra moment to braid my hair in what I hoped was a current style. I had not been away from the property since my arrival, and I wanted to see more of the surrounding countryside. Not even the thought of riding with sullen, scarred Minos could dampen my anticipation for the journey.
“Take an empty basket,” Berdine said as I came out of my hut. “And watch carefully while Minos bargains. You are more fluent in Aramaic than he is, so speak up if you can get a better price.”
I nodded, then grabbed two supports on the wagon and hoisted myself onto the bench that served as a driver’s seat. The back of the wagon was crowded with jars of olive oil, spools of spun wool, and pots of honey. Two stout oxen, borrowed from a neighboring estate, had been harnessed to pull the load.
Minos emerged from his hut, tightened the strings of his sandals, and glared up at me, his eyes glittering above the F on his cheek. “I do not need help on this trip,” he said, speaking his native Greek.
“Then I apologize for my presence,” I said, folding my hands. “But the vilica asked me to come, and I have to obey her, no?”
He scowled, loosened the rope belt at his waist, and pulled himself up. The hair on his burly arm brushed against my bare skin, and I found myself leaning sideward in an effort to put more space between us. He was so malodorous and male . . .
Minos cracked the whip and lashed the oxen’s hindquarters. The animals lifted their heads and began to move over the rutted path.
I did not look back, but kept my eyes focused ahead. The road we traveled on was not easy to navigate, and we jounced and rattled over it until we finally reached the paving stones of the Via Appia. I sighed in relief when we turned onto the pavement, and Minos gave me a sidelong glance as he guided the oxen northward.
“You’re not from Greece,” he said, settling the whip beneath a meaty thigh. “But not from Gaul, either.”
“No.” I parted my lips, trying to breathe through my mouth. The man had particularly bad breath, probably from a rotting tooth.
“Where you from, then?”
I glanced at him, then decided to give him the truth. “Alexandria,” I said. “In Egypt.”
He frowned, staring at the road ahead. “Egypt? You do not look like a Gyp.”
“Egypt is populated by many different groups,” I said, settling the hem of my tunic so it covered my sandaled feet. “Greeks, Egyptians, Jews, and even Romans. Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great.” I nodded at my companion. “He was one of your people. You should be proud.”
“No,” Minos said. “Alexander was a Macedonian. I am an Athenian.”
I shrugged. “Greece is Greece.”
Minos shook his head. “Would you call yourself Egyptian?”
I tilted my head, considering. “Yes and no. We Alexandrians are nothing like the Egyptians who live along the Nile.”
Minos shrugged. “You see? Macedonian is not Athenian.”
We rode in silence for a while, saying nothing even when we passed a family walking on the road. They stepped off the pavement at our approach, and though most of them watched us with sullen faces, one or two looked at our wagon with frank longing.
I was shocked by their expressions—they envied us? We had a wagon and oxen, but we did not own them, nor did we own ourselves. That family appeared to be free, yet they coveted our wagon.
I shifted my position to study the slope of Minos’s cheek, marred forever by a branding iron. He had once wanted to be free.
“Tell me about your escape,” I said, looking directly at him.
To my surprise, he answered with a smile. “I knew it,” he said, his grin deepening. “You show up, you talk in fancy language, you walk with mincing steps. I tell Triton you will run when you can. He says no, you are too smart, but I told him you will. You will run, yes?”
His expression, so frank and encouraging, elicited a nod of agreement from me. But I had scarcely finished nodding when his face darkened like a thundercloud. “You are a fool!” he roared, startling a flock of roosting birds in an overhanging tree. “Where would you run? You came from a boat, so you have no friends in Rome and no stranger will shelter a runaway slave. You are nothing but property belonging to Domina. If you would suffer as little as possible, work hard and strive to please your mistress. That is all you can do. That is the best you can do. And if
you do this, you may find some unexpected happiness. Domina may reward you, give you a husband, or allow you to keep your child. She may allow you to run a business or sell on your own. But you will deserve none of these things if you try to run. If you are not killed in the attempt, you will be branded forever and never trusted again.”
I leaned away from the flow of angry words. “I-I haven’t done anything—”
“Better to not try. What gods do you worship?”
The question caught me off guard. “What?”
“Venus? Isis? Jupiter? Whatever gods you serve, you should make a sacrifice and swear you will never entertain such foolish thoughts again.”
His hands, I noticed with some surprise, trembled on the reins, as if the passion behind his words had shaken him to the core.
“All right,” I said, not willing to provoke him further. “I will not be foolish . . . though I do not understand why it should matter to you.”
“You do not understand?”
“I do not.”
“You do not understand because you are new and have not been in the city. The slaves are so many, we are so strong, the Romans are afraid of us. We outnumber them, see? We could rise up and kill our masters in their beds, so they quake in terror while they sleep. They have made laws—if any slave kills his master or a member of his family, all the slaves in the household will die as well as the guilty man. And if any slave escapes, all slaves are punished. If you are foolish, all of us pay the price.”
Somehow I found the courage to ask: “What price?”
Again he glared at me, and for a moment I feared he would kill me for asking a stupid question. Better that I should be dead than the entire slave population.
“Whatever the dominus wills. Maybe we do not eat for three days. Maybe we are all flogged. Maybe we find our children sold. And you? You who run? You cannot escape. If you try, you must live on the run while slave hunters search for you. Your master will offer a reward for your return, and when you are found, you are not only branded and collared, but you are tortured as an example to others. You are pretty now, but you would be pretty no more. Trust me.”
I shriveled before his scalding anger, and when he had turned his gaze back to the oxen, tears sprang to my eyes. I did not weep out of fear or anxiety, but out of despair. If I could not run, how could I cope? I could not live this life.
“Do not cry,” Minos said after a while, his voice softer than it had been. “You are not happy, I can see. Everyone sees. But if you cannot be happy, there are other ways to escape.”
I sniffed. “What ways?”
He shrugged. “Some die by their own hands, especially warriors who will not serve those who defeated them. They jump from cliffs or open a vein. Some have eaten burning coals. These are the ones who say death is better than slavery.”
I recoiled from the thought of suicide. “My God would not approve of self-murder. I could never do that.”
Minos slapped the reins. “You are not the only highborn person to be enslaved. Many brave warriors have walked the path you walk. You are not the only one to suffer hardship on account of the Romans.”
“The Romans did not make me a slave, it was—” I bit my tongue.
“Who?”
“My best friend.”
Minos barked a laugh, then snorted. “Does not matter. You should not despair. Sacrifice to your god, pray that you can make yourself valuable to Domina. If you bring in money, you can buy your freedom. You do not have to remain in slavery forever.”
A sprig of hope sprouted someplace deep in my chest. “A slave can earn money?”
Minos gave me the look he would have given a child who asked silly questions. “You perform a service. You are paid. You have money.”
“What sort of slave is paid for his labor?”
The man shrugged. “Artist, painter, sculptor, doctor, midwife, tutor—”
“Midwife?” I clutched at his sleeve. “They pay midwives?”
He nodded. “Yes, sometimes more than doctor, especially if woman and baby both live.”
I pressed my fist to my chest. A good reason to learn the art of midwifery. I may not have known much when I helped Barabell, but any trade could be learned.
If I could become skilled and deliver many babies, I could earn enough money to buy my freedom and return to Alexandria. I could walk into the great hall and stand before Cleopatra with my head held high. She’d have to look at me and realize I was strong enough to succeed without her.
And HaShem was a God who kept His promises.
Chapter Eighteen
I do not know how I managed to doze in that wagon, but I did. As Minos cursed at the oxen and navigated broken paving stones, I dreamt of Egypt, the royal palace, and Cleopatra’s chamber. Urbi and I were playing with clay dolls when I heard the mewling of a newborn. I cocked my head, searching for the source of the sound. “Is that your baby brother?”
Urbi tipped her head back and laughed, then a rough voice spoke from her lips: “Shut up your squallin’!”
Startled, my eyes flew open. I was not in the palace; I was riding in a wagon, my head resting against a support post. The crude command had come from Minos, who remained next to me in a cloud of stink, but the crying came from behind me, amid the baskets and honeypots.
I turned, rose up on one knee, and peered into the back of the wagon. “Is that a baby?”
“Sit,” Minos barked. “We’re nearing the city.”
“But it is a baby!”
“Sit down, will you?”
I shot him a scornful look, then climbed into the wagon bed where I found a lidded basket. I lifted the lid. There, like Moshe in the bulrushes, lay a baby. Barabell’s little boy.
“Hush now.” I lifted the baby out of the basket and held him against my chest, fumbling with the wet wrappings in the bottom of the basket. “What is the meaning of this?” I called to Minos. “Have you stolen this child?”
He hesitated before growling his reply. “The baby is broken. Berdine says to get rid of it.”
“What do you mean, ‘broken’? I caught this baby myself. He’s perfect.”
Minos shook his head. “Look at the boy’s back.”
Confused, I held the child against my shoulder and pulled the swaddling cloths away from the baby’s skin. The dimpled pink buttocks appeared perfectly normal, but in the center of the child’s back I saw a red spot not much bigger than my thumbnail. “Oh . . . what is that, little one?”
I crossed my legs and turned the baby over, resting his chest against my thigh. I examined his ruched flesh and saw that the pale skin had not completely covered his backbone—as if HaShem had run out of flesh when forming the child.
“He has a wound, so what of it?” I lifted my voice so Minos would hear. “Can’t we cover it with a dressing until it heals?”
Minos hunched forward and did not answer.
“Minos! Surely this child can get well.”
“Berdine has seen this before. She says the child will sicken and die, so best to be rid of it now.”
“But the wound isn’t very big. Perhaps I could sew the edges of the skin together—”
“Berdine says no!”
I turned the baby over and stared in horror at the little boy’s perfect face. He squinted against the hot sun and sucked two of his fingers, desperately seeking nourishment . . .
Guilt assaulted me—had I done something wrong when I delivered the baby? Had his skin caught on my hands, on a fingernail, on something nearby? If I had injured Barabell’s son, she might never forgive me. I might never forgive myself.
“Sometimes a baby is born like this, sometimes even worse,” Minos went on, tossing the words over his shoulder.
“Are you sure? That babies can be born like this?”
He shrugged. “Berdine says so.”
“And did she tell Barabell she was sending the baby away?”
Minos tossed a sour look over his shoulder. “Would you tell?”
With a groan I held the baby close to my body. He began to cry again, lustily this time, and the longer I patted his back, the louder he screamed.
“He thinks you are going to feed him,” Minos said, apparently understanding more about babies than I did. “Put him back, let him sleep.”
I obeyed, wrapping the baby in his swaddling cloths and settling him in the basket. I did not cover him with the lid, but draped a linen square over the top to block the sun.
“Have you done this before?” I asked while climbing back onto the bench. “Taken babies away?”
He gave me a guilty glance. “Only broken ones. Most of the time, women keep babies until they are weaned. Then they are taken to house of the Dominus or sold at the slave market.”
I nodded, slowly comprehending why there were no young children on the farm. “And if they are sick? Or . . . broken?”
He cracked his whip, startling the plodding oxen. “Some leave them out in the woods for the wolves. Some leave them by a cistern, hoping a poor farmer will pick the child up. And some take them to a Temple of Juno or Venus, where a priestess might raise the child . . . or consecrate it to the god’s service. Those live in the temple.”
I did not know which option horrified me more. Abandoning a child to the woods or to a pagan priest? Giving it to a poor family seemed merciful by comparison.
“What do you intend to do with this child?”
He looked away. “I have not decided.”
“And what of Barabell? What will she do when she comes home and finds her baby missing?”
“She will keep her mouth shut,” he snapped, glaring at me. “Which is what you should be doing. This is not your business.”
I stiffened. “I will not keep silent. I want to find the child a proper home.”
“A proper home?” He held out his hand, indicating the woods around us. “Tell me where that is.”
“I do not know, but I will not allow you to leave it where it might be in danger, killed, or offered as a sacrifice to some pagan god.”
We rode on, and the baby in the basket grew more fitful. The little boy was probably starving, but I had no milk or water to give him.