Red-Robed Priestess

by Elizabeth Cunningham

  He could not bring himself to say the word mother and whore in the same sentence. I caught a glimpse of the boy who had no doubt endured the taunts of senators’ brats who ran in packs and had nothing better to do than torment other people. No wonder he had joined the army. The only way to restore his family’s honor and fortune, as I—or whoever she was—had said to him last night.

  “I meant no disrespect to your mother,” I spoke to the boy. “Not that there is any shame in being a whore.”

  But the boy had vanished again. The man looked away from me, glowering at the fog, which still had not lifted.

  “I have to get back,” he said almost angrily, as if he held me responsible for the fog and everything else that had gone wrong in his life.

  “Not a problem,” I said.

  I knew I could do it. I had spent seven years of my life as a wind whistler bartering passage on ships for fair weather. But I wasn’t thinking now of all those bustling Mediterranean ports. Maybe it was being so near to the Holy Isles, my mothers’ island Tir na mBan, the holiest one of all. I closed my eyes and was back inside my earliest memory: my womb mother, Grainne of the golden hair, standing by the sea in the midst of one of my other mother’s miasmic fogs, waiting till the light filled the chalice she made with her arms, till warmth spilled over the world again.

  When I opened my eyes, I was standing with my own arms catching the sun, and the last of the mist melting into light. The soldier stood perfectly still, looking at me, not with awe or amazement but with something else, I still can’t quite name. Knowledge comes closest.

  “Who are you?” he asked again, but it didn’t sound like a question.

  My arms lowered themselves into a gesture of bewilderment.

  “Never mind,” he said. “Someday, I will find out.”

  “And someday I will find out who you are,” I answered, just for effect.

  Then, with a sudden chill the spring sun could not touch, I knew I had spoken the truth.

  “Ma!”

  It was my daughter Sarah calling from somewhere down the hill, her voice more frantic than I had ever heard it. “Where are you! Ma!”

  “Coming!” I called.

  I gave my opponent, my lover, one more look, and then I turned and ran.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ON GUARD

  LET ME PAUSE for a moment before I run pell-mell into Sarah. Let me give myself the time I did not have then to take in what has just happened. the time I did not have then to take in what has just happened.

  For all its ups and downs, my life has at least had a coherent plotline. One of the simplest there is: the great love, the one love that transcends time and death. Granted I have lived as a widow much longer than I would have chosen (a condition resurrection complicates) but there’s a kind of poetry in that, too. As lovers, Jesus and I will never grow old. We are still standing together under the tree in the resurrection garden, the tree with the golden leaves that shed their own light.

  That’s in eternal time, of course.

  In ordinary time I have been with two other men since Jesus. My encounter with the first man was the most disastrous mistake (to date) of my life, though you could say it worked out in the end. My affair with the second man was a deep comfort, a healing balm I thought was meant to last me the rest of my life. (If you are itching with curiosity, I am talking about Paul of Tarsus and John the beloved disciple in that order, but that is another of the stories I’ve already told.)

  If you are disconcerted or even affronted that I have had a night of soul-shaking love-making with a man who is not Jesus, so am I. It was not supposed to happen, never mind what I said last night about the terrible, beautiful choice I had to make. Do I regret that choice? I don’t know yet. Right now I only know two things for sure:

  My body feels incredibly young and happy.

  I am not going to tell Sarah a thing.

  We collided midway down (or in her case up) the hill, having sighted and lost sight of each other on the zigzag paths. She was out of breath from climbing, and I was out of breath for other reasons. She hugged me hard, then held me away from her, her hair so dark the sunlight made rainbows in it, her eyes gold and at the moment, fierce.

  “Where were you?” she demanded. “We were worried sick.”

  I tried not to laugh. I suppose I really had behaved irresponsibly, but here was my daughter who had run away from home when she was twelve now in a tizzy because her old mother had spent the night out. There was a sweet irony to this reversal of roles I couldn’t help but savor.

  “I went for a walk on the cliffs. I suppose I should have let you know.”

  “You could have fallen!” she protested.

  You could argue I had fallen, but let’s leave that metaphor alone.

  “It was bright moonlight,” I pointed out. “Anyway, I guess I must have dozed off.”

  “You guess?” she eyed me balefully.

  “And when I woke it was foggy, so of course I waited—”

  “Waited,” she repeated skeptically.

  “All right. So I cleared the fog when I saw it wouldn’t lift. You could have done it yourself, if you were so worried.”

  “I’m not as practiced at weather-witching as you are. And I couldn’t concentrate. I was too upset.”

  She looked away. This was a huge admission for Sarah. I touched her cheek lightly and turned her face back to me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She looked at me for a long moment. I wondered what she saw and if her fear had been for more than my footing on the cliffs.

  “Come on, let’s go,” she said, turning to lead the way. “Alyssa and Bele are breaking camp.”

  “Is there breakfast?” I called after her, suddenly aware of how hungry I was.

  “The usual.”

  Oatcakes. Celtic comfort food. The taste of home. I had to admit that the food of my long exile had been a lot tastier. And I felt a hunger pang of homesickness for ripe olives and figs, dark red wine from the vineyards of Temple Magdalen.

  Alyssa and Bele (short for Cybele)—two of the sometime pirates who had kidnapped and/or rescued my daughter, depending on who was telling the story—had the horses saddled up and ready to go by the time we got back. After I had sprung the pirate cohort from prison in Ephesus, the whole crew had retired from terrorizing the seas and taken up horse breeding and trading in the Camargue, a suitable occupation for neo-amazons and a profitable one in any horse-crazed Celtic territory. All three of them were determined to take the horses with us across the Channel.

  On horseback—or off, come to that—we were quite a sight. The three younger women wore bricae (the derivation of the word britches) and short tunics. Alyssa, tall and slim, had long blond braids and might have had a lot of trouble with men pursuing her, except for the formidable scar on her cheek and her lightning speed with a sword. Bele was short and round, built like a Hittite fertility goddess with dreadlocks piled high like a beehive. Sarah’s black hair always came unbraided to make a dark halo around her head. I have already mentioned her eyes, golden as the leaves on that dawn tree in the garden. Then, there was me, the grey one (once called Red) a game old woman (of sixty something, if you must know) doing her best to keep up. We were all armed with short swords and daggers, though Alyssa insisted we keep our weapons concealed under our cloaks to give us the advantage of surprise should any fools think us easy targets.

  “Let’s go by the beach,” said Alyssa, already mounted on her mare Seafairy, dainty and silvery white, who did indeed look as if she had risen from the surf. “The tide’s on its way out. It’ll be quicker than going inland to pick up the road again.”

  “And maybe we’ll avoid being interrogated at the city gate,” Bele added. Her horse, a Celtic pony, was small, brown and extremely sturdy. She was named Hippolyta for the legendary Amazon queen, but we called her Hippo for short.

  “What are the odds?” shrugged Alyssa. “The port is controlled by Romans.”

  �
��What port isn’t?” Sarah put in, as she gave me a leg up onto Macha, yes, an older grey mare indigenous to the Camargue, well-matched with my age and speed. I was fond of her, and she tolerated me.

  “And of course we have your lovely many-tongued mother to smooth our way,” added Bele. “You’ve been awfully subdued this morning, Mother of Sarah.” That had been their title for me ever since I came to their rescue in Ephesus. “I hope you didn’t get a chill, out all night on the heath.”

  I could feel myself blush from the roots of my hair to my toes, but no one noticed. Sarah was busy mounting her own horse, Blackfire, a young mare of Arabian stock bred with wild pony that only Sarah could handle, a lethal weapon on legs.

  (Note: It’s true we all did resemble our mounts and, yes, it was a deliberate choice on the part of my companions, centaur wannabees to a woman.)

  “I’m fine,” I assured her. “Just a little tired.”

  “And maybe you’re just a tad nervous now you’re almost back,” said Alyssa. “You never told us, what will the druids do if they figure out you’re that traitorous wench they thought they were rid of?”

  She led the way at a leisurely pace down a slope toward a shingled beach.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “There aren’t any stories that I ever heard about anyone returning from beyond the ninth wave.”

  “I guess we’ll find out, then,” called Bele cheerfully. “They could always ship you off again. Or maybe execute you in some grisly way. I never did understand why they didn’t sacrifice you before.”

  “These matters are very delicate, Bele,” I said, trying to sound serious but feeling giddy. “You have to get the timing right. I threw it off.”

  “And besides,” put in Sarah, “a sacrificial victim has to be without fault. That’s why they wanted my father. It’s an honor to be sacrificed, not a punishment, and my mother had a bad attitude.”

  Sarah had certainly grasped the theological subtleties. Somehow she managed to sound equally proud of her father’s suitability as a candidate for sacrifice and her mother’s lack of it. I decided to be pleased.

  “I hate to disappoint you all,” I called out; as always I was falling a bit behind. “But we’re going to be landing on the other side of the country in a Roman-controlled port. I doubt the druids of Mona will trouble themselves to meet me. It’s unlikely we’ll see any druids at all.”

  “Mother of Sarah,” said Alyssa over the clatter of hooves. “Don’t be so modest. It doesn’t become you.”

  When we all arrived on the beach, we stopped and looked out over the channel. The land on the other side was nowhere to be seen. It was not just haze obscuring the view; it was a bank of fog. We stood in full sunlight under a blue sky with blue water sparkling before us until everything suddenly disappeared.

  “I thought you dispersed the fog,” Sarah said. “It’s only moved out to sea.”

  “I thought I had, too.” I agreed, trying to remember that moment.

  When I’d opened my eyes that morning, I had only looked at the soldier, not out over the water, and then I had run to meet Sarah.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Bele. “It’s still early. It’ll be gone by the time we get to Portus Itius.”

  “We’ve got a clear stretch of beach here,” Alyssa gestured. “Let’s race.”

  Alyssa and Bele took off, but Sarah waited for a moment, still staring out at the strange fog bank. At last she turned and looked at me. I nodded, a wordless acknowledgment.

  Something is wrong.

  Then Sarah took off after the others, easily making up the distance, and then passing them both.

  “Come on, old lady,” I said to Macha. “Let’s show them what we can do.”

  And we managed a respectable gallop under the cliffs where only last night my hair had gleamed red in the moonlight.

  We arrived at Portus Itius in good spirits after our race. But no sooner had we dismounted and entered the gates than we were surrounded by soldiers.

  “That must be one,” said the chief guard, pointing to me.

  I don’t know if they actually intended to seize me without further ado or if there might have been some niceties that were cut short when my companions drew their swords.

  “On guard already, Mother of Sarah,” barked Bele.

  A little clumsily, I drew mine, too, and the next thing I knew I was in the midst of my first sword fight.

  Not my first practice fight, by any means. In my early youth, I had been trained in all the warrior arts by my mothers, and in my old age, my daughter had been giving me a refresher course. But this was for real. I had an armored, helmeted, shield-bearing man thrusting at me with a gladius. And though Sarah had drilled me in Roman parrying techniques, I remembered very little and clanged away with no finesse and with one object only—to keep that sharp piece of metal away from me.

  “Ma, don’t look at the sword. Wide-angle vision,” Sarah called out calmly, as if this were just another drill.

  As soon as my vision widened, I noticed blood spurting from somewhere, heard a few groans and curses, distinctly male.

  “Hey!” I shouted. “Easy does it, girls.” I am sorry, but I still thought of them as girls. “Someone could get hurt.”

  “That’s the idea!” said Alyssa.

  “But we can’t win!” I shouted, as much to my astonishment, I twirled and kicked my opponent’s wrist, knocking his sword from his hand.

  “Why not!” cried Bele, landing a blow on her opponent’s helmet that sent him reeling.

  “Use your wide angle vision,” I said. “They’ve got backup!”

  That’s the last thing I remember before my opponent charged me with his shield, coming up under my chin and knocking me backwards.

  When I came to, I had no idea where I was or what had happened. The fact that I was lying in the dark didn’t help. All I knew was that my jaw hurt, and so did the back of my head, and the small of my back. A lot. I took a deep breath, which also hurt but helped me focus. With my healer’s sense, I took a quick inventory of my injuries. Serious bruises, mild concussion, strained lower back, but no broken bones or internal bleeding.

  I must have been in a hell of a fight. Wait, yes, that was it. Images flooded in. I had been in a fight. We all had. With some Roman soldiers. I couldn’t remember where we had been or why, but that much was clear.

  “Sarah?” I called out, suddenly panicked. “Alyssa? Bele? Are you all right? Are you there?”

  No one answered, but I heard footsteps scurrying away. A moment later, someone came back, a different someone, I thought, my senses heightened even in the midst of my confusion.

  “Can you sit up?”

  Jesus speaking Latin? Odd. But his voice was so comforting, and so were his arms as he lifted me up and supported me.

  “Drink this.”

  Warm wine, laced with some kind of pain drug, skullcap maybe.

  “Why are you here, cariad?” I murmured in Aramaic. “I’m not…I’m not dead, am I? It hurts too much. And where’s Sarah?”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “Aramaic?” he guessed. “I don’t speak that language, although my father knew a little. Only Latin, Greek, a smattering of Carthaginian, the odd Germanic and Celtic dialects, and of course Etruscan.”

  “Shit,” I said in Latin, and then in all languages I knew. “Shit. It’s you.”

  “Who did you think I was?” he answered.

  “None of your business,” I snapped.

  I winced as he opened a shutter and let in a shaft of light, clearing up any doubts about his identity.

  “Does the light hurt your head?”

  Why did he have to be so damn solicitous? It confused me.

  “I’d rather be able to see my enemy,” I told him. “Where’s my daughter?”

  I instantly regretted my words. It is always a mistake to let an enemy know you have children. He could hold Sarah hostage.

  “Which one of the hellcats was she?” he asked.


  Insults were much better. I kept my face expressionless.

  “Never mind,” he said. “I can guess. The dark one with the unusual eyes.”

  “Where are they?” I persisted.

  “They are in comfortable confinement nearby. The horses, too. All of them unharmed, which is more than I can say for my men.”

  I will admit it, I smirked. But only for an instant. It occurred to me that if the girls had killed any soldiers it would go very badly for us.

  “I knew you were an officer,” I turned to look at him. No longer dressed a foot soldier, he wore a cloak of excellent quality with emblems of high rank on the shoulders. With a prickle of alarm, I noticed that the clasp of his cloak was shaped like a hawk in flight. His personal insignia? “In fact, you’re a general. You ordered your men to attack us. Why?”

  “I am a general,” he acknowledged. “But I did not order my men to attack you. I have it on good authority that you and your companions drew your swords first.”

  That was probably true. No, I knew it was true. The girls definitely had itchy hilt fingers.

  “What were your orders then?” I demanded.

  “Simply to have anyone who matched your description brought to me.”

  I wondered how he had described me and decided it was better not to know.

  “I knew you were traveling with at least one younger woman,” he added, answering my thoughts. “And don’t worry that you just now let slip that she is your daughter. I already knew that.”

  I frowned but managed to refrain from asking him how he knew. He told me anyway.

  “The woman searching for you through the fog called for Ma, and you answered. I gather she is not the child you left behind long ago.”

  No, I thought, this one left me behind. But then I found her. And where had it led me? To a brief inglorious career as a swordswoman and interrogation by a Roman general.

  “Listen, I thought we had a perfectly decent one night stand,” I changed tack. “I’m flattered, but I’m not sure it’s such a great idea for us to see each other again.”