‘What?’ Pliny stared. ‘My little lodge? Why, you could buy an estate twice as big as mine with your new-found riches.’
Hephzibah shook her head. ‘If you sell me the Lodge, I will give it to Miriam and Gaius.’ Hephzibah lowered her head. ‘All I want is to live with Miriam and help her raise her children.’ She began to weep softly.
‘Don’t cry,’ said Pliny. ‘I’ll sell you the Lodge. I’ll give you a good price, too.’
‘She’s just tired,’ said Flavia, slipping an arm around Hephzibah’s shoulder. ‘She’s been through so much.’
‘Where is Miriam, anyway?’ asked Pliny, looking around. ‘I expected she’d be celebrating with you.’
‘Miriam’s resting at our house, in her old bedroom,’ said Jonathan.
Mordecai smiled. ‘I think, Hephzibah, that we should take you next door. You could probably use a nap, too. And then we will welcome in the Sabbath together.’
Lynceus appeared in the tablinum doorway; he was holding Flaccus’s satchel. As they all rose from couch and chair, there was a soft but urgent knock on the door. The dogs ran barking towards the atrium. A moment later Delilah appeared in the wide doorway of the dining room, with Caudex close behind her.
‘Master,’ she said to Mordecai. ‘It is your daughter, Miriam. Her time has come!’
Pliny turned to the doctor. ‘Do you want us to take her home, to the Laurentum Lodge?’ he asked. ‘I have a well-sprung carruca outside.’
‘No,’ said Mordecai. ‘It’s better if she has the baby here, under my supervision. But if you and Flaccus are going back now, will you stop by the Lodge and tell Gaius to come at once?’
Flavia’s uncle Gaius arrived at Jonathan’s house within the hour. He joined Nubia and Flavia and the others in Mordecai’s tablinum. Presently Marcus arrived, too, back from Cordius’s house. The two brothers went next door to make an offering at the Geminus family lararium, then returned to join the vigil.
At around midnight, Nubia and Flavia went up to Miriam’s room to see if they could help. Miriam sat on the birthing chair, with her mother and Hephzibah offering encouragement.
Not once did Miriam cry out but Nubia could see the pain on her lovely face. Her glossy curls were damp with sweat and she was trembling with exhaustion. Presently they had to help her from the birthing stool to the bed. Nubia and Flavia sponged Miriam’s forehead. Susannah held her daughter’s hand and whispered words of love and encouragement. Hephzibah rocked gently and prayed in her own language. Delilah came in and out, bringing spiced wine or posca or snacks. But nothing tempted Miriam.
Finally, at first cockcrow Susannah looked up at the girls. ‘Bring my husband. There is something wrong.’
Mordecai came at once, and bent over his daughter.
‘No, father, you should not see me like this,’ whispered Miriam. Her hair was damp and her eyes were dark with pain.
‘Shhh, my daughter. It does not displease the Lord. This is my calling from him, to heal and bring new life.’
But Nubia saw his face darken as he examined his daughter’s distended belly. And she saw the anguished look he gave his wife.
‘Twins,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘What could you have done?’ Susannah replied.
‘Miriam,’ said Mordecai. ‘I may not be able to save them. If you are to live . . .’
‘No, father,’ whispered Miriam fiercely. ‘My sons must live. The Lord told me. They must live!’
‘My daughter, listen to me. Their position is wrong. You can have others. And how would these survive without a mother? Who will feed them?’
‘No!’ cried Miriam. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and Nubia saw the beads of sweat on her forehead and upper lip. ‘My babies must live! Swear you will save them, at any cost.’
‘Our Lord tells us not to make vows: “Let your yes be yes and your no”—’
‘Swear it!’ cried Miriam fiercely. ‘Swear it!’
In a heartbeat of silence Nubia heard a cock crow in the night. Dawn was not far off.
‘I swear it,’ said Mordecai at last, and handed a cylindrical leather case to Nubia. ‘Reach into my capsa,’ he said, ‘and find the poppy tears. I do not want her to suffer any more than she has to.’
*
Jonathan sat in the cinnamon-scented tablinum and stared at a flickering oil-lamp. Beside him Lupus was asleep. On the divan next to him Gaius and Marcus sat in silence, absorbed in their fears and memories. Jonathan remembered that Flavia’s mother had died in childbirth and he closed his eyes.
‘Dear Lord,’ he prayed silently. ‘Please let Miriam live. And her baby, too. Let them both live and I promise I will serve you and obey you and never abandon you again. Just let them live.’
The roosters began to crow again, this time with more conviction, for the square of sky above the garden was no longer black, but charcoal grey. Dawn was not far off.
Then he heard another sound. A sound that made him stifle a sob of joy. It was the stuttering cry of a newborn baby: indignant, demanding and full of strength.
Gaius and Marcus exchanged a look and for the first time that night Jonathan saw them smile.
But their smiles faded when the cry of a second newborn joined the cries of the first.
‘Twins!’ whispered Marcus, and he pronounced the words like a death-sentence. ‘May the gods be merciful. It’s twins.’
They were all three on their feet now, moving to the wide doorway of the tablinum, looking up towards Miriam’s room.
It seemed like an aeon, but the sky was still grey, so it could only have been a few minutes when they heard the sound of brass curtain rings sliding along a wooden rod. A moment later, Flavia and Nubia appeared on the balcony. Each held a small, pale bundle: a twin wrapped in swaddling clothes. They came slowly down the polished wooden stairs, infinitely careful of their precious burdens. In the flickering torchlight, Jonathan saw that although their faces were pale with fatigue, their eyes were shining.
Flavia and Nubia shyly went into the tablinum and each put a baby carefully down on the floor at Gaius’s feet. With a low cry, he bent and took both twins onto his knees.
A creak on the stairs made Jonathan turn. Hephzibah was coming furtively down, her face blank with grief.
Jonathan looked at Gaius, and at the girls cooing over the twins. They didn’t know. But Hephzibah did.
‘No!’ cried a voice, and when they all looked at Jonathan he realised the voice had been his.
Hephzibah covered her head with her palla and ran weeping through the courtyard and into the atrium. A moment later Jonathan heard the front door open and then close behind her.
Then another dark figure appeared on the balcony above them. It was Mordecai. His face, lit from below by the torchlight, was full of anguish, too.
‘She wants to see you, Gaius. Quickly. There isn’t much time.’
At dawn on the second Sabbath of December the residents of Green Fountain Street heard the unmistakable sounds of mourning coming from the house where the Jewish family lived. Women going to the fountain, men eating a hasty chunk of bread, children packing their satchels for school all stopped as they heard the wails of grief mingled with the cries of hungry newborns. Women hugged their daughters, and mothers clutched their babies, and all made the sign against evil. For every one of them knew what the cries meant.
In the house of the Jews, a young woman had died in childbirth.
Last will and judgement of Miriam bat Mordecai.
Dearest Gaius, I make you the heir of all I have. I am so sorry that I have left you. And I am sorry that I have left my sons. How I wish I could see them grow up. But I am full of hope. For the Lord told me they would do great things. He sent his messenger to me: an angel, Gaius, an angel!
The messenger came to me last month. A giant with wings, in white garments so bright I could hardly gaze upon them. I was terrified. How I trembled. But he told me not to be afraid. And when he spoke, the babies stirred in
my womb. ‘Will you come?’ said the angel, and his voice sounded like the rushing waters of a river when it floods in the winter. I tried to answer, but my tongue was too dry. ‘Will you come?’ he repeated. Again I tried to answer and again I could not. ‘Will you come?’ he said for a third time. This time I nodded. He smiled and held out his hand. I took it. Then – and I can hardly believe it myself – he lifted me up into the sky.
Gaius, dear Gaius, as he lifted me up I saw Ostia from above, the way a bird must see it. I saw the Tiber, winding like a silver ribbon to the sea as blue as sapphires. I saw my father’s house with its tiny garden courtyard. I saw the theatre and the forum and the lighthouse with its plume of dark smoke. And people like ants, so colourful, so busy, so dear to their Creator. And then I was too high to see them anymore. For I was above the clouds and I thought I should faint but he spoke a word which strengthened me.
And then, Gaius, then the angel lifted me up to paradise. And oh, Gaius! If I could only tell you how wonderful it was! But even were it permitted, words cannot describe its beauty.
‘Why are you showing me this?’ I asked the angel.
‘To help you,’ he replied, ‘when the time comes for the sacrifice.’
‘We do not sacrifice any more,’ I told him. ‘Our Lord was the final sacrifice, once and for all people.’
The angel smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said, and then he added. ‘Your sons will do great things. Trust in the Lord always.’
Gaius, if it is acceptable to you, will you give the twins the names ‘Soter’ and ‘Philadelphus’? I believe they will save many. This is my last will and wish.
Dear Gaius, I have not regretted one moment of our time together. To you and to my family and to my friends and to my sons I give my love. It is all I have to give. My legacy is love.
Witnessed by Hephzibah bat David on this the Nones of November, in the second year of the Emperor Titus.
Gaius slammed the wax tablet onto the octagonal table. ‘She wrote this over a month ago!’ he said to Mordecai, his voice hoarse from crying out to the gods. ‘She knew! And so did Hephzibah!’
‘Where is Hephzibah?’ whispered Flavia. She was holding a crying twin and trying to comfort him. ‘Hephzibah said she would help with the children and now she’s needed more than ever.’
‘She ran away,’ said Jonathan flatly. ‘I don’t think she could face it.’
Flavia saw that his eyes were red-rimmed with weeping. She was exhausted, too, with grief and fatigue. She rocked the wailing baby, and shushed him, but he was hungry and would not be comforted.
‘Here, Nubia,’ Flavia handed over the tiny squalling bundle. ‘You try for a while.’
Nubia began singing to the baby in her own language, and his cries lessened a little so that Flavia was able to hear a knock at the front door. Tigris heard it, too. He silently rose to his feet and padded out of the room. Flavia followed him into the brightening atrium. When she reached the front door, she slid open the peephole.
It was Hephzibah, standing in the porch with two young women. All three were wrapped in their pallas and shivering in the cool of dawn. Flavia opened the door and stood back. Without a word, Hephzibah led the two women through the atrium and Flavia followed. They went straight to the tablinum, where Nubia and Susannah were still trying to calm the twins.
‘I have brought Lydia and Priscilla,’ said Hephzibah. ‘Miriam made arrangements for them to be wet-nurses.’
‘What?’ said Gaius. ‘She what?’
Everyone stared as the smaller, fair-haired girl snatched one of the crying twins from Susannah’s startled arms. As they watched, the girl sat on the divan and urgently hid the crying baby behind her palla. A moment later the baby was silent and the girl closed her eyes in something like ecstasy.
The other girl, who was taller and darker, handed Flavia a bundle and took the other twin from Nubia’s arms. She sat beside the first girl and opened her palla and presently the second twin was silent, too.
‘Lydia and Priscilla will be wet-nurses for the twins,’ explained Hephzibah. ‘Lydia lost her own baby a few days ago and Priscilla has just had a little girl.’
Flavia looked down at the bundle in her arms. It was a tiny baby with crumpled face and a mop of dark hair, tightly swaddled.
‘Praise the Lord!’ whispered Susannah, and she began to weep.
‘But how?’ said Gaius. ‘When?’
‘Miriam bought Lydia last week,’ said Hephzibah. ‘She used some of her dowry money. And Priscilla’s new owner Staphylus would not accept even one sestertius in payment. He says that without us he wouldn’t be the owner of the richest estate in Laurentum. He says that Priscilla and her baby are his gift to us.’ Hephzibah sat between the girls and put an arm around each.
The fair-haired girl – Lydia – looked at Hephzibah, her face was wet with tears but her eyes shone with joy. ‘He’s feeding,’ said Lydia. ‘He’s feeding.’
‘Yes,’ said Hephzibah. ‘These twins will live. They have a destiny.’
On the morning of the funeral, Jonathan watched them carry his sister’s body on a bier through the streets of Ostia. He had been to the Jewish quarter to tell his father’s relatives the news, and now he was about to rejoin the procession. It was a foggy day, and the red-brick walls of the town were damp and dripping.
It was not a long procession, for she had not been famous or rich. She was just another young mother claimed by childbirth, as so many were. But on the painted statues of the town, the moisture condensed and dripped so that the gods seemed to weep along with the mourners.
Jonathan watched the scene from his dream in anguish. She was dead. His lovely sister was dead.
‘Why, Lord?’ whispered Jonathan. ‘Why did you show me this? What could I have done?’
He was just about to step forward to join the procession when he felt a man’s presence behind him. He could sense the man’s sorrow and compassion. He did not dare turn around.
‘Why, Lord?’ he repeated.
‘So that you can encourage others,’ said the man’s voice.
‘How?’
‘When you stand before the tomb,’ said the man, ‘the words will be given to you.’
Jonathan could not help himself; he turned around.
But there was no one there.
Jonathan’s father and Gaius were so crippled with grief that they could not carry the bier. Marcus and Caudex took the front, with Senex and Dromo carrying the back. Nubia led the procession – playing her flute – with Flavia on one side and Lupus on the other. Susannah, Delilah, Hephzibah and the two young wet-nurses followed behind, together with most of the relatives who had been at Miriam’s betrothal supper. Jonathan moved forward and fell into step beside Lupus.
As the procession made its way through the streets towards the Marina Gate, some people emerged from their shops to see who had died. But most were busy with their preparations for the Saturnalia and remained indoors. They were unwilling to taint the promise of a joyful festival with the ill-omened sight of a young woman’s funeral.
The procession turned right out of the Marina Gate, and trudged along the sand dunes towards the river, where a hooded ferryman waited to take them across to the tombs of the Isola Sacra. For a time they were floating in grey nothingness, with no sound apart from the plop of the oars, the sobs of mourners and Nubia’s plaintive flute. Then they were across, and at last they placed her before the tomb. Her body had been anointed with myrrh and aloes, then wrapped in strips of linen. Her bandaged hands held her favourite doll.
Flavia and Nubia clung to each other and wept. Lupus stood apart, looking damp and miserable, for he had refused to wear a cloak. Gaius was crying out against the gods. His brother Marcus stood silently beside him, bleak with the memories of his own loss eight years earlier. Hephzibah stood quietly, carefully and methodically cutting her hair with shears, letting it fall to the ground. Nearby, Alma, Lydia and Priscilla each held a sleeping baby.
There were a few other Ost
ians already there. Staphylus and Restituta. Pistor the baker, and his family. Diana Poplicola and her mother Vibia. And between the fog-shrouded tombs to his left Jonathan thought he saw a flicker of red. Aristo?
He realised that Nubia had stopped playing her flute and was looking at him expectantly. The cries of the mourners had ceased, now, too.
Jonathan looked at his father, whom he had expected to give the eulogy. But Mordecai was half-crouched in a patch of damp grass, whimpering like an animal in pain. Susannah knelt beside him, murmuring words of comfort. Nearby, Gaius’s eyes were closed and his face lifted and his mouth open in a silent howl.
Jonathan stepped forward. He knew it was up to him.
‘We have come to bid Miriam farewell,’ he began, but his voice was swallowed by the fog.
He began again, this time speaking from his diaphragm as he had seen Flaccus do.
‘Miriam was a sister, wife, daughter, mother and friend,’ he said. This time his voice carried and they all grew quiet and looked at him. Only Mordecai continued to whimper quietly.
‘Miriam saw paradise,’ said Jonathan. ‘An angel showed her. She was ready to go, for although she loved this world, she also longed for the next one.’ He looked around at them. ‘Can you imagine that? She longed for the next. Already in her heart, she was there.’
Gaius cried out to the sky, but presently his howl subsided into a sob and after a moment he bowed his head and was quiet.
Jonathan looked at Flavia. Her eyes were filled with tears, but she nodded back at him and mouthed the words: ‘Go on.’
He took a deep breath and resumed. ‘Our Messiah once said this: You have seen and so you believed. Miriam saw paradise, and so she believed. But not many people are given a sight of the next world. How can you be assured? Or how can I? Only through faith. For the same Lord said, Blessed are you who have not seen, and yet have believed.
Jonathan gestured towards the slender body in its myrrh-scented wrapping. ‘In a moment we will lay her to rest in that tomb,’ he said. ‘But that is not the end. For Miriam believed in the resurrection of the dead. She died in the faith that one day she will come back out of that tomb and be taken to a wonderful place. She will meet her sons there. And us, too, if we can only grasp the crown as she did.’
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 198