As for the party…I’d never possess Marcella’s careless confidence, but a noble dress might help. Not for me the pale pastels selected for my friends by their mothers or the bright maroons and oranges flaunted by my cousins, Julia and Druscilla. I wanted to look like me. Now, turning this way and that before the mirror, I wasn’t sure who me was. My gown was the subtle white of an eggshell shot with threads of gold, but the way it clung…
“That material came all the way from India,” Mother reminded me. “Marcus paid a fortune for it.”
Dear Tata, how good he was…my fingers played absently with the small gold sistrum I wore about my throat, recalling my initiation and our talk that followed it. Egypt seemed far away now. Had it been only two years? Though neither of us had referred to the exchange, it had brought us closer. Tata had, I suspected, dismissed the whole thing as a youthful indiscretion. Perhaps he was right. I meditated daily before a small shrine to Isis, but had yet to visit Antioch’s Iseneum.
Once we reached the powerful city-state, Mother had kept me busy. There was a new metropolis to learn. Then a home to furnish and maintain, for Tiberius had decreed early on that we were to remain indefinitely in Antioch. Mother saw to it that I learned every detail of running a house. It was time consuming when combined with lessons: dancing, singing, lyre. The end result stood reflected in the mirror, a young woman admirably trained for marriage yet so unready.
Rome must be served, but that duty was nothing compared to the obligation I felt to my parents. If only it were Marcella preparing for the party. My sister would have adored every minute. She had looked forward to marriage, would have made a dazzling match, too, even without a dowry.
Marcella had loved to flirt, had done it instinctively, impulsively with any male of any age. I wasn’t good at it, didn’t care to be. Such a waste of time, encouraging people into my life who didn’t belong there. So I didn’t flirt, I talked. Would-be suitors seemed satisfied with that—anyway they came back often to see me. I liked them all well enough, yet the thought of spending a life with any—worse yet, sharing a couch…
“Who is coming tonight?” I asked Mother, barely suppressing a sigh.
She smiled, obviously pleased by the question. “I imagine that means what young men will be present at the party.” Not waiting, she began to list them. “Horacius will be there, of course, and Flavius. Hardly a day goes by that they don’t drop by to see you. Tell me, which do you favor?”
I thought of Horacius, an aedile, so young he had pimples; and Tata’s aid, Flavius, a bit older but still callow. My pleasure at the new gown ebbed. “They are both quite nice, Mother,” I said, trying to sound polite. “I could not possibly choose between them…Is there no one else?”
“I’ve asked Drusus and Nero to bring their friends. Perhaps one of them will suit you.” She smoothed the folds of my gown. “Somebody had better, Claudia, and soon.”
Slightly ill with apprehension, I hesitated outside the atrium where guests gathered. Glints of gold sparkled in my gown…all the way from India. Chin up, I entered the room smiling and was rewarded by a muted gasp of appreciation. From then on, it was easy to move from group to group, couch to couch. I felt tiny tingles of envy and admiration radiate around me and loved it.
Drusus and Nero were home at last—and Caligula away hunting. The party was already wonderful. Why had I worried?
As I hugged Drusus, my glance wandered over his shoulder to an alcove where my parents talked with a man I’d not seen before. He was possibly twenty-seven, a good ten years older than I. Slim, yet broad-shouldered, he carried himself with an easy grace. Sleek and handsome like a young leopard. He was looking at me now, smiling, so confident.
“Who’s that?” I asked Drusus.
“Don’t even think about it.”
I drew back, looking up at my cousin in surprise.
“He is said to be a fortune hunter and much too fond of women.”
“Really?” I turned away from Drusus and approached the newcomer slowly, pulling in my breath, arching my back. Julia and Druscilla walked that way all the time, I’d only begun to practice.
“Pontius Pilate, a centurion just returned from Parthia,” my father introduced him.
The centurion nodded, smiling at me. “I came with a message. Your father was kind enough to invite me to stay for your party.”
His words floated by. Lost in his eyes, I thought of a blue pool, deep and dangerous. Pilate stepped closer. “Some women are not meant to be Vestals.”
What was he talking about? Oh! Not me at all. He was looking at a bust of Marcella that rested on a nearby pedestal. But now Pilate’s eyes shifted, an appraising glance that wandered the length of me. “It would not suit you either.”
“It would not?” My voice quavered. I took a deep breath, paused a moment and raised my head. It was my turn to study him.
Pilate had even features, a finely defined jaw, a well-chiseled nose; he had full lips bracketed by barely perceptible lines. Was there a touch of weakness? Surely not. A shade of cynicism, perhaps. Was that not to be expected in a soldier?
“No, it would not,” he repeated, a slow smile lighting his face.
Pilate turned to Tata. “You are a fortunate man to have two such beautiful daughters, but then,” he nodded toward Selene, “to have daughters like that, you must look to their mother. Fortuna has been good to you.”
“Fortuna, yes,” my father agreed, signaling Rachel to refill Pilate’s glass, “but I believe we should lighten the goddess’s task whenever possible and make our own luck. Don’t you agree?”
“I do indeed, sir.”
“I thought you would,” Father commented dryly.
Mother smiled brightly. “It was a great honor for our eldest daughter to be made a Vestal—the empress herself intervened for Marcella—but we still miss her dearly. It has been nearly five years since her induction.”
My heart ached for Mother. “We saved a number of sketches that street artists made of Marcella,” I explained to Pilate. “Mother took them to Marius here in Antioch. The bust he made is a composite of those impressions. We think it a fine likeness.”
“You made an excellent choice,” Pilate assured me. “Marius is the best. Last year my father had a full form of himself sculpted as Apollo.”
Having met the elder Pilate, I tried to imagine his heavy jowls, broad nose, and protruding eyes above the god’s slender form. I couldn’t. “I am sure it’s quite—quite arresting,” I said.
“Oh, it is,” he agreed. That smile again. I wondered what it would be like to be alone with him. New guests had arrived; Mother drew me away to greet them.
The comic actors she had engaged were a great success, but my eyes strayed often from the improvised stage to the couch where Pilate reclined. Once I caught him watching me. I smiled slowly, then turned my attention back to the actors.
The comedians’ repertoire seemed endless. Then at last, the final applause. As it faded, Germanicus and Agrippina rose to make their farewells. The other guests took their cue from the royal couple. Standing beside my parents, bidding each good night, I was surprised by the weariness in Germanicus’s face. When Pilate’s turn came his manners were impeccable—deference to Tata, gallantry to Mother. He said nothing of consequence to me, yet paused, I thought, possibly a moment longer than necessary, lingering in the archway, his knight’s toga falling in beautifully ordered folds from left shoulder to ankles.
I could scarcely sleep for thoughts of him and was ready with questions the following morning. “Forget Pilate,” Father advised. “Only a bride with a handsome dowry will do for him.”
“But, Tata—” I began.
He silenced me with a headshake. “Pilate’s star is rising. I have seen his kind before. Those eyes miss nothing.”
“Eyes like ice, clear, so very blue, and that charming smile! No wonder you are drawn to him,” Mother sympathized. “Pilate is considered the most eligible of all the young knights. Everyone talks of him.�
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“The mothers as well as the daughters.” Tata smiled at her. “Pilate’s adopted father only recently attained equestrian rank. He is said to have made his money peddling chariots, a fortune; but mark my word, that young man will more than double it. Only the most lucrative alliance will satisfy him.”
I cursed the Fates. At last, here was a man I could imagine sharing a couch with…imagine it very well. I turned away to conceal my blush.
In the ensuing weeks my path crossed Pilate’s many times. Often I felt him watching me, yet his manner when we spoke was merely polite. He divided his time among many women, all of them wealthy.
One afternoon, seated two rows behind Pilate at a chariot race, I watched him with Sabina Maximus, arguably the richest of the city’s young, unmarried women. The narrow seating spaces compelled them to sit quite close. I saw Pilate solicitously pick up the hem of Sabina’s gown from where it dragged on the rough stone floor. It afforded him an excellent view of her ankles—thick ones, I noted with satisfaction. Oblivious to the thunderous crowd around me, I speculated. Perhaps a man with many women friends isn’t too fond of any one. A wooden chariot had overturned, spilling the driver. The four horses continued to gallop. People all around me were shouting advice and imprecations. The unguided horses crashed their chariot into two others, smashing both. Beside me, my father, who backed an underdog, was on his feet cheering.
My fingers played absently with the small gold sistrum at my throat. “The sistrum is sacred,” the priestess had said. “Isis, the eternal woman, has but one weapon.” Whether my father liked it or not, Cleopatra had captured Antonius and Caesar, subduing them as completely as any army. Cleopatra’s only weapon had been her femininity.
I pulled a mirror from the small leather pouch I carried. It was an exquisite piece, the ivory handle carved in the likeness of a sea nymph. Agrippina had given it to me the previous Saturnalia, predicting that I’d soon spend much of my time looking in mirrors.
Now I turned the polished surface this way and that. The reflection for which I longed eluded me. My eyes weren’t blue like Agrippina’s, but smoky gray, large and tilted slightly at the corners. My face wasn’t oval like Mother’s but heart-shaped. My nose, short for a Roman, was at least well formed. My lips, not as lush as Marcella’s, were full enough. I wished I was allowed to color them as Julia and Druscilla did. I wished too that my hair was burnished gold like Agrippina’s instead of black, but at least it was thick and curly, an impressive mane when released from the fillet that usually bound it.
My fingers rested again on the sistrum, an instrument to play upon when one wants to challenge the status quo. I sighed; it was hopeless. Everyone knew the laws of destiny were written in the stars…To attempt to override their cosmic imperatives was unheard of…yet Isis had helped Cleopatra…If I must have a husband, why not the one I want?
Just then Pilate glanced over his shoulder and saw me sitting behind him. A long look passed between us, warming my body, filling me with excitement and strengthening my resolve.
ANTIOCH IS A CITY OF LUXURY AND DECADENCE. CONSTRUCTED OF marble and lighted by thousands of torches, its streets and shopping arcades shine throughout the night with the luster of day. Each arcade is lined with elegant shops packed with treasures brought by caravan from the East: silk, amber, amethysts, ivory, ebony, sandalwood, carpets, spices, and herbs. Mother and I often frequented these pavilions accompanied by Rachel, who had rapidly developed a network of shopping informants that my father claimed was more accurate than his political ones. He was only half joking.
One day Mother chose to enjoy an afternoon at home with Tata. It was the opportunity for which I had been waiting. Rachel and I set forth to shop for a birthday gift for Agrippina, selected a strand of large amber beads, then quickly embarked on a different mission.
Antioch’s Iseneum, though smaller than the one in Alexandria, reminded me of a delicate jewel. I hurried past the exquisite mosaics, promising myself to examine them in detail another time. Pausing to kneel before a statue of Isis, I whispered a few words of entreaty, then rose to face the elderly priestess who greeted me in the atrium.
“I must speak with your mystagogue,” I explained.
The priestess shook her head, smiling apologetically. “This is his time for meditation. Come back later, perhaps this evening.”
“I can’t come later. It must be now. This is a very important matter.”
“Everyone always thinks theirs is a ‘very important matter.’ I don’t believe I have seen you here before.”
“This is my first visit,” I admitted, adding, “I was initiated in Alexandria.”
“Ah, an initiate,” the priestess regarded me with more interest. “I see you wear the sistrum.”
“The high priestess of Alexandria gave it to me. Do you have a crypt here?”
“Indeed we do, and it is filled with sacred Nile water. Would you care to see it?”
“No, once was enough, but I would like to see the mystagogue. Would you ask him for me?” My eyes pleaded with the older woman.
She paused for a moment, then beckoned for me to follow. “The decision will be his.”
My heart raced as I left Rachel in the foyer and followed the priestess down a marble corridor. If only the mystagogue had been a woman. Could I possibly explain my problem to a man? As much as I wanted help, it would almost be a relief if he refused to see me.
He did not.
Slightly built, the mystagogue wore stylishly cut robes of white linen. His skin was light olive, his curly, neatly trimmed hair lightly threaded with gray. I searched the limpid eyes and thought I detected sadness behind the sophistication.
“There is a man,” I began haltingly. “I think I love him.”
“Think?” The mystagogue raised a glossy dark brow.
“I do love him,” I amended. What else could it be? My cousins, Drusus and Nero, dear as they were, had never kept me awake at night, thinking, speculating, longing to touch. What I felt for Pilate was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It had to be love.
“And does he love you?”
“He could. I know he could—I feel it—but money and position are important to him. Everyone speaks of his ambition.”
The mystagogue studied me for what seemed a very long time. “Yes,” he said at last. “You are right. He could care for you, care for you very much. Someday he will come to depend upon you in ways you cannot imagine, but that does not make him right for you. There’s someone else. You would be wise to wait for him.”
“I don’t want to wait. I want this man.”
A wry smile played briefly about the mystogogue lips. “Then pray to Isis.”
“I need more than prayers. My parents have little money for a dowry. They say it is hopeless.”
“You want a love spell.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“You are an exceptional young woman, one who experiences the sight.”
“You know that?”
“I do, and I am surprised that you are not aware of how binding love spells can be.”
“That’s what I want! I want to bind him. Won’t you help me?”
“There is a price.”
I opened the pouch worn around my waist and removed its contents. Two hundred sesterces. “They are all I have, that and this bracelet.” I slipped a gold bangle from my wrist.
The mystagogue took the money and the bracelet, sliding them into a drawer in his desk. “There is a far greater price. You will pay that later.”
Turning from me, he wrote briskly on a piece of parchment. “Read this and say it aloud three times each day. Visualize the man you love. Hear the words you want him to speak. Feel your reaction to those words as though they were being said. And,” he emphasized, “pray to Isis for guidance. You will surely need it.” He handed me the parchment.
I placed it unread in my pouch. “Thank you, thank you so much. You’ve been very kind.”
“I have not been kind at al
l, but that you must learn for yourself.”
I nodded and hurried from the temple. It wasn’t until night when I was finally alone that I removed the parchment and read the words inscribed there:
When he drinks, when he eats, when he has intercourse with someone else, I will bewitch his heart, I will bewitch his breath, I will bewitch his members, I will bewitch his innermost part. Wherever and whenever I desire, until he comes to me and I know what is in his heart, what he does and what he thinks, until he is mine.
“Yes! Mother Isis! Yes!” I whispered, folding the parchment carefully.
CHAPTER 10
Hymen Hymenaeus
It was a quiet party—only a few guests—not Agrippina’s style at all. Why? I wondered, but not for long. Pilate was there. He was all that mattered.
Julia, Druscilla, and I shared a couch, nibbling absently at grapes passed to us on golden plates. My cousins laughed a lot, showing their teeth and profiles. I pretended to listen, savoring my own thoughts. Drusus winked at me from across the room. Ever the protector, he had managed earlier in the evening to block Caligula’s attempt to spill wine on my new silver gown.
Yes, Caligula still clouded my life. Recently he had begun staring at me. He called often at our house, leaving flowers and trinkets; but when I ignored them, he turned ugly once again, seeking ways to hurt or embarrass me.
Looking about the room, so opulent in tones of burnished gold and bronze, deep blue and vibrant purple—Agrippina’s colors—I noted how carefully the bachelor guests had been selected. There were army officers, of course, but also a promising young auger and the son of the puppet prince of Antioch. Julia favored the latter. I knew she had stolen out at least once to meet him. I should have liked to do the same with Pilate but something warned against it.
My glance shifted to his. He was watching me. I shivered with pleasure. When Pilate smiled that slow smile I felt as though melted honey oozed down my back. He nodded to the centurion with whom he had been talking and crossed the large room in a few strides. Settling on a tufted stool beside my couch, he murmured into my ear. “Some say that sooner or later every woman gets the face she deserves.”
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