by Tessa Afshar
The captain seemed to appear out of thin air. “Leave them alone,” he roared. “And tell the others the same.” His dark brows drew together like a thundercloud. The sailor strutted off. After that, no one bothered them.
“I told you the Lord would provide,” Rebekah chirped with glee.
As predicted, the trade winds remained calm, and by nightfall, they were anchored off the mountainous island of Samothrace, where they had their dinner and slept for a few hours. In the morning, they pulled up anchor and returned to the Aegean.
The wind carried with it the taste of brine and the smell of fish and kelp. Lydia’s skin grew damp with sea spray and turned golden in the autumn sunlight. By early afternoon they arrived in Neapolis.
Their feet were finally touching Macedonian soil. Now that the threat of drowning and molestation by sailors had passed, Lydia had to face the fact that she had arrived at a strange city with barely any money in her pockets.
She and Rebekah, alongside a few other passengers from their ship, strolled past the cisterns of Neapolis and made their way to Philippi. They traveled on the wide, paved road called the Egnatian Way, which took them directly to their destination. The road into Philippi was uphill all the way, and Lydia found herself panting after an hour. Before nightfall, they could see the walls of the city twinkling like gold in the fading light. A large gate stood in the middle; it hung wide open.
Philippi was larger than Thyatira and far more sophisticated. Lydia and Rebekah, gaping with wonder, found an affordable inn where they could stay, thanks to their ship captain’s recommendation.
They spent several days making themselves familiar with Philippi, walking through the open market—which the Philippians called the agora in the manner of Rome—gazing at the magnificent buildings of the forum, and asking local merchants about life in the affluent city. It was a privileged world, exempt from Roman taxes because the town residents had been given Roman citizenship as well as rights. They clung to Latin as their official language, though most spoke enough Greek to accommodate visitors.
“Latin!” Lydia said with a moan. She had a tolerable grasp of the language, though nothing like Rebekah’s pure, scholarly knowledge. Greek was the language she felt at home with, the one she had learned from birth. She would have to improve her Latin if she wanted to find acceptance in Philippi.
The city was governed by two men, both of whom hailed from the hallowed courts of Rome itself. They bore the dignified title of praetor, the common address of magistrate not being good enough for the refined Philippians. If you could not reside in Rome, then you might as well live in Philippi.
For almost a hundred years, the city had retained its military heritage, situated as it was strategically on a great highway. But it had other unique qualities.
“Money should have its own temple here,” Rebekah said. “The people seem to worship it most diligently.”
Lydia agreed. Merchants sold every imaginable commodity, as well as what seemed beyond the realm of ordinary human ingenuity. Gold, pearls, silk, fresh fruits, spices from the farthest corners of the world, slaves. There was little you could not obtain in Philippi if you had the means. And the people liked their purple, Lydia noted with satisfaction.
Rebekah said, wide-eyed, “Have you noticed, some buildings have glass in their windows? Glass! The one thing that seems scarce in this part of the empire is people of Jewish heritage. And you can forget about a synagogue.”
Her tone was lighthearted as she said the words, but Lydia noticed the drooping shoulders. She was not the only one struggling with loss. Rebekah had her own share of grief to contend with. One day at a time, they would help each other persevere, Lydia determined.
For all its grandeur, the city had its limitations. Once, when ambling through the agora, examining the impressive merchandise, they came across a public latrine. It was large and well maintained. But when the girls tried to step over the threshold, a woman barred their way with an outstretched forearm. “Men only,” she said with a sneer.
When they had walked a little way, Rebekah whispered, “What are women supposed to do?”
“Hold it until they get home.” The girls looked at one another and quickened their steps.
On the morning of their fourth day in the city, the young women went to the enormous public baths, washed themselves until their skin shone red from vigorous scrubbing, put fragrant oil on their hair, donned their best clothes, and, thus groomed and prepared, presented themselves before the old Roman general.
Manius Antonius Varus received them after he had read the letter from Eumenes. He was a balding man of late middle age who had maintained the physical fitness of his early training in spite of many years of retirement.
“So your father is dead. I am sorry to hear it. He was an exceptional craftsman, and more importantly, a good man.”
“Thank you, master.” Lydia felt the threat of tears at the mention of her father and stared at the marble floor for a moment. Taking a grip on the brewing emotional storm, she forced herself to go on in an even tone. “In his last hours, he thought of you and asked me to deliver this gift into your hands.” Lydia gave him the stunning length of purple linen her father had chosen for the general.
“Ah. Like a poem.” Varus unfolded the fabric and caressed it with appreciative fingers. “Your father’s letter mentions that you are his equal in every way when it comes to creating purple.”
“He taught me everything he knew.”
“And yet you are a mere girl, not even married.” Varus threw up both his hands. “Your guardian a world away in Thyatira. Bring me what you have, and I will find you generous buyers for the sake of Eumenes. But it would be madness to set you up in a shop. I cannot do it.”
Lydia blinked. It took her a moment to realize she had been dismissed. “But, General Varus—”
The general held up a finger, forestalling her words. “It is impossible. You would only fail. Whoever heard of an unmarried girl in trade, on her own?” He pulled open a purse and extracted a few denarii. “In appreciation for your gift. And there will be more if you can bring me purple like this. Just none for a workshop. Put that idea out of your head, my girl. It is foolhardy. I blame your father for encouraging you in this reckless venture. No one in Philippi would accept you.”
Lydia clutched the coins, trying to quiet the clamor in her heart. With her small nest egg poured into travel expenses, she had counted on the general’s help for the workshop. She did not know how to proceed now. No workshop meant she could not produce purple. What was she supposed to sell him if she had no dye?
The young women walked out of Varus’s sprawling villa in silence, each struggling with her own dark thoughts. They had walked almost a full league when a running youth hailed them, panting in his effort to catch up. “Mistress! Mistress!”
The young women stopped, puzzled.
“Lady Aemilia bids that you return to the villa. She wishes to have a word with you.”
“Lady Aemilia?” Lydia asked, confused. The general, as far as she knew, had no wife.
“The general’s mother. She lives with him.”
Lydia nodded, and they followed the young man back to the house. Likely the old lady had seen the linen she had brought Varus and wanted a length for herself. Too bad Lydia could not provide her any. She had sold most of her stores of purple to pay for their passage to Philippi and had no means of creating more.
If Varus was approaching old age, his mother, Aemilia, had crossed that bridge long before and entered an ancient realm few lived to see. She had more wrinkles on her face than hair on her head. Yet she looked at Lydia with a sharp, birdlike intelligence. Leaning to pick up a round, white fruit from the gold plate before her, she gestured for the women to sit.
As she bit into her fruit, Lydia realized with some astonishment that the old woman was biting a peeled onion as if it were an apple. Aemilia lifted the onion, juices dripping down her hand. “Always loved them. Garlic, too. When I was young
er, my husband forbade me from eating them. They made me stink, he said. Now I am old and rich, and a widow, and I can do whatever I wish. I still have my own teeth, which is a fair accomplishment at my age. So I eat what I please.”
Lydia nodded, unsure how to respond.
The lady crooked a finger, signaling Lydia to bend closer. She fingered Lydia’s tunic with hands drenched in onion juice.
“Is this your work?” she said.
“Yes, my lady.”
“Your own? Not your father’s?”
“My own.”
She nodded. “It is excellent.” She turned to look out her window into the courtyard. “My spies told me of your visit to my son. I went to see him after you left. He showed me your father’s letter and the linen you brought him. Exquisite work, that piece.”
Lydia bowed her head in thanks.
“My son is a fool.”
“Mistress?”
“He is a good man. But his vision is limited. When he looks at you, all he sees is a young woman. And that’s the end. Do you know what I see?”
Lydia shook her head. “No, mistress.”
“I see potential. You want a workshop?”
“It’s my most cherished dream.”
“They say young Caligula has promised to appoint his favorite horse, Incitatus, as a consul when he becomes emperor. I have met the Roman consuls; believe me when I say the horse would be an improvement. I think if a horse can be a consul in Rome, then a young girl should be able to own a shop in Philippi.”
Lydia would have laughed out loud, except she suspected it would be an act of treason.
“What are your terms? I do not have a lot of time to waste, in case you failed to observe the significance of these wrinkles. I am not looking for long-term investments, you understand?”
Lydia’s mouth hung open for a moment. “What are you looking for, mistress?”
The general’s mother laughed. It was a surprisingly youthful sound. “I am looking for a little diversion, and I suspect you shall provide it. I will enjoy proving my son wrong. He is too puffed up with his own importance, as are most of the successful men in this city. In this whole empire, from what I have seen. I find it annoying. It will do Varus good to recognize his fallibility upon occasion, particularly in regard to women. Here is our bargain, then: you will succeed. Understand? Failure is not part of my plans.”
Lydia would have gulped, except her throat had grown too parched to produce any spittle. “I will not fail you.”
“Mind, I want my money back within the year.” Aemilia bit into her onion again with strong, healthy teeth, splattering onion juice everywhere, including on Lydia. “And a lifetime of purple goods at half the price in your store.” She shrugged. “But then, look at me. How long am I likely to live? So that should hardly be a deterrent to our bargain.”
Lydia straightened the corner of her shawl. “Two pieces per annum at half price. The gods have given you the gift of long life, my lady. You will likely outlive me and Zeus himself. I will be bankrupt within six months if I set no limit on this bargain.”
Aemilia slapped her knee and laughed. “I accept your terms. You may call me patroness.”
TWENTY-SIX
Better a small serving of vegetables with love
than a fattened calf with hatred.
PROVERBS 15:17, NIV
THE SHOP WAS NOT MUCH larger than a vegetable cart. No tidy shelves, no smooth counters, no colorful mosaics brightened its stark outlines. But it belonged to Lydia. And for the past seven months it had been gaining more attention and drawing new customers every day. At night, she and Rebekah would bar the door with the fat crack running down the middle, roll out their beds, and sleep on the floor. They ate bread and water, with wild herbs when they could find them, for the first three months after starting their venture so that they could afford the materials they needed for making Eumenes’s purple dye. After that, the shop paid enough to allow for a few eggs, olives, beans, and upon occasion even a fish.
They sold only wool, dyed in purple, mostly in the form of yarn that women could weave at home. Between them, Rebekah and Lydia had started weaving lengths of fabric, which disappeared from the shop almost as soon as they produced them.
They could not afford other merchandise yet. But with careful management, Lydia hoped to expand to linen fabrics by the following year, when she had finished paying off her debt to Aemilia.
The workshop consumed all of her hours and most of her thoughts. Days would go by when Lydia would not once think of Jason. When she did, the familiar shame and bitterness rose to the surface, choking her. Time could hide the scars. It did nothing to heal them, however. They remained caustic and bleeding, hidden under mountains of work and the passing of hours, still wielding power.
Lydia ground her teeth, banishing Jason from her mind. Brushing a length of dark purple until it shone, she hung it from the wall, arranging its folds artfully. Rebekah had left early in the morning to purchase more bushels of wool. Soon they would have to stay up all night to weave in order to keep up with the demand for their goods.
A man strolled into the shop. He was in his middle years, with a generous belly covered by the folds of a plain toga. Lydia noted the creamy quality of the wool, its uniform weft and warp, which lent the garment a delicate sheen. His short-sleeved tunic was made of soft, rich linen. Running a hand over the fabric she had just hung on the wall, he examined it with the expert movements of one familiar with textiles. Lydia noticed that the skin of his fingers was smooth and white, with a faint trace of blue near the tips.
She smiled.
In spite of the modesty of her shop, she must have made enough impact on the market to rouse the interest of her competition. He had come to appraise her work for himself.
“Did your father make this?” he asked. “Or your husband?”
“I made them. And this?” She pointed to his purple-edged cloak. “Did you make that?”
He smiled, his eyes crinkling. “Was I that obvious?”
Lydia shrugged. “Clearly you know your textiles. Your clothes are elegant; your hands are too soft to have done any labor. Not for years. You don’t do the work yourself. But you still love it.” She pointed at the tips of his fingers with her chin. “You still dally with the dyeing process, enough to get your skin stained.”
He laughed. “Clever. Of course I already knew that. Never seen purple so fine. What is your accent?”
Lydia skirted the question. “You Romans and your Latin. It’s not civilized to make a language so difficult. I will have an accent until the day I die.”
“You must admit it is a beautiful language. Living in Philippi is like living in a little piece of Rome. And you did not answer my question.”
Lydia sat on the corner of a vat. “Next you will be asking me how I make my purple. My name is Lydia.”
“I am Gaius Antiochus Rufus. Everyone knows my shop. You should come and visit me one day. In fact, you should come and work for me. I will pay you an outrageous salary, Mistress Lydia of Nowhere. You won’t have to stay in this hovel. You will wear silks and linens and eat lamb and goose every day.”
Antiochus. The middle name he had inherited from his family sounded Greek, though his cognomen, Rufus, was a common Latin name. The toga he wore marked him as a Roman citizen, like all the residents of Philippi whose roots went back several generations. So he hailed from Greek heritage originally, though he had mixed enough with Rome to earn himself a Latin name. “Thank you, Rufus. I like being my own mistress, even if my dominion is not as vast as yours.”
Rufus did not answer. A strange look passed over his face. Lydia noticed his muscles stiffening, as if an unseen hand had transformed his flesh into wood. He groaned. Without warning, his eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he dropped to the floor, a dead weight. A small twitch shook his arm. Then another.
Lydia gasped. She ran to the door and closed it, taking time to drop the bar down to prevent anyone else from coming in.
She saw a trickle of bloody saliva at the corner of the man’s lip where he had bitten his tongue. Looking around frantically, she noticed a skinny piece of wood on the pile they kept in a corner for burning. She rubbed it with furious haste, using the edge of her tunic until most of the rough bark and dirt came off. Opening his mouth, she carefully grasped his tongue and placed the wood over it to keep it trapped, so he wouldn’t swallow it once the jerking started in earnest.
Less than a moment later, his arms and legs began to spasm. Hips, knees, elbows, even his waist bent and straightened in a mad rush of uncontrolled movement and bizarre angles.
Kneeling by his side, she held the stick steady so that he wouldn’t bite his tongue again. To her relief, the attack did not last long. The jerking slowed down and finally came to a stop. His body relaxed, though he remained unconscious for half the length of an hour. Lydia removed the stick from the man’s mouth and, wetting a rag with water, began to wipe his face.
As she expected, he was confused when he opened his eyes. “Where am I?” he mumbled.
“You are in my shop. I am Lydia. I sell purple. Do you remember coming here?”
He groaned and ran a hand over his eyes. “No. I feel . . . strange.” He looked around. “Did I . . . ?”
“Have a seizure? Yes.”
Even in his state of confusion he seemed horrified at the thought. Romans considered the disease an ill omen. To a Roman citizen, there would be few things more humiliating than falling about, foaming at the mouth before strangers.
“Don’t worry,” she said, her voice gentle. “No one saw you. Only me. I locked the door when you first collapsed.”
His cheeks looked more lined after the attack and had turned paler than his white toga. She fetched a cup of water and helped him sit up, which was no easy task given his girth. He leaned against the wall and drank thirstily.
Lydia allowed him to rest awhile, covering him with an additional cloak. “You look better,” she said when she heard him stirring.