The Passion of Mary Magdalen. Elizabeth Cunningham

father’s child. But it hadn’t mattered. When we made love on that grey, cold day under the yew trees, summer came in midwinter, and the air turned warm and golden all around us. But when the memory rose, as I went through my tedious day with Paulina, I pushed it down. I didn’t want to expose it to the dead Roman air of the insularium, stale with perfume and the stinking breath of too many wretched people.

      On the longest night, with Paulina away at the imperial festivities on the Palatine, I decided to go for a ramble through the insularium, despite Boca’s hand wringing and head shaking. She considered it dangerous for a woman to walk the corridors and courtyards alone, but warrior witches had raised me, and I’d picked up a few more pointers from the whores at the Vine and Fig Tree.

      The sky was extraordinarily clear, the stars so distinct that they appeared to dangle at different depths, this one nearer than that one, like fruit on a tree. I wanted to pluck one from the night, feel it burn on my hand, burst on my tongue. When I came to an atrium that appeared to be deserted, I lay down in the center of the courtyard, trying to see only sky, no walls, only the stars making their silent journey from east to west. Had he seen the same stars lying out on that hard, dry ground I had glimpsed in my vision? Did he ever think of me?

      He thought I was dead. Joseph had said so. And no one knew where he was or if he was alive. Why had I dreamed of the coffin sealed in a tree? Don’t let him be dead, I prayed to something. Or if he is dead, let me die, too.

      The stars blurred, and I closed my eyes. It was so cold I could feel the tears stop and freeze on my cheeks. I knew I should get up, but it would be so easy not to. I could just slip away, out of this body that Paulina thought she owned. I could go, to the cold, to the stars, to the night. And not come back. Sometimes temptation is like that, so distant and dreamy, you don’t recognize it until it’s too late.

      I don’t know what forces intervened, but just as the potentially deadly drowsiness overcame me, someone stumbled into the atrium, gave a loud belch followed by a long fart and the unmistakable sputtering hiss of piss on cold ground. I raised my head and saw the archetypal arc gleaming in the torchlight. Most people would not interpret a stream of urine as sign of divine intervention, but the sight recalled my first vision of my beloved. Before I ever shared the same ground with him, I beheld him across the worlds in the well of wisdom on Tir na mBan taking a leak in an alley. God has spoken. Selah.

      The owner of this appendage gave it a shake and dropped his tunic. Only then did I look higher and recognize the handsome profile of Decius Mundus.

      “Holy Isis!” I said out loud without meaning to.

      He turned and saw me, a slave woman supine on the ground. Not a good position for self-defense, I realized. For a moment he scowled becomingly (he did pretty much everything becomingly). Who wants a witness when he’s farting and pissing? Then he brightened. After all, I was only a slave. Unlike the male slave holding his torch for him, I presented certain possibilities.

      “I think,” he said, grinning, “that you would be more comfortable lying on my couch. Come along.”

      He snapped his fingers and began to walk away. Then he surprised me by turning back and helping me up. Pressing his hand on the small of my back, just above the swell of my buttocks, he guided me down a corridor in the direction of a raucous sounding party. I was still a bit dazed and had not determined what to do. Decius Mundus was a guest of Appius Claudius and a famous equestrian. I might have to think of a more subtle method of extrication than knee in the groin. Right now, frankly, welcoming the warmth of his body and cloak, I was putting up no resistance.

      I could smell the fumes of wine, sweat, and musk before we even stepped into his room. Decius was giving a party for his buddies, all male, all drunkenly shooting craps. Though the game was clearly hot, my entrance caused a stir.

      “Hey, Dec! I thought you were just taking a whiz? Where’d you find this?”

      “She have any friends?”

      “You gonna share, right? I haven’t had any since—”

      I sighed. I had entertained parties of drunken soldiers before but not without a lot of help from my sister whores. I glanced at the door. Decius’s torchbearer or bodyguard, a hulk I didn’t recognize, blocked the way effectively. Shit. Seven to one. Seven guys too drunk to come in a hurry. This would not be pretty.

      “In your dreams,” Decius laughed. “This one is mine. I found her.”

      “Hey, what happened to that oath we swore? Remember, share and share alike.”

      “Yeah,” said Decius. “What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is mine.”

      I was practically drunk on the fumes. I could imagine how muzzy-headed the men must be. Decius, playing host, handed me a glass of wine.

      “That’s right!” someone shouted. “What’s mine is mine and—”

      “Naw, naw, that ain’t it.”

      “I know, I know!” Another drunk lurched unsteadily to his feet. “Let’s shoot for her.”

      “Yeah. Fair’s fair.” A chorus of assent.

      “All right, boys.” Decius threw up his hands. “Have it your way.”

      Then he caught my eye and winked, a gesture I interpreted to mean: Don’t worry, whoever wins, I’m still in control. Was I reassured? Not hardly.

      “Wait just a minute,” I interrupted. The wine had hit my bloodstream like a spring flood when the snows melt. I could feel myself growing larger, bolder. “If y’all are gonna roll,” (Don’t ask me where the y’all comes from; in Latin, of course, I said vos.) “I’m gonna play, too.”

      This concept was apparently too complex for the soldiers to wrap their tiny sodden minds around. In a collective stupor they sat and scratched their heads, that is, the ones who weren’t already scratching their balls.

      “But I don’t get it,” one of them finally blurted out. “If you won, what would you win?”

      “Myself,” I said quietly; then louder, “myself, myself!”

      There was a silence; I sensed they were all a little uneasy.

      “Never heard of no woman playing craps,” someone grumbled.

      At the Vine and Fig Tree, the whores rolled the die whenever business was slow. But I did not think now was the time to mention my erstwhile profession.

      “Well, fair’s fair,” Decius Mundus settled it.

      So in Decius Mundus’s small but elegant guest apartment, we crouched on the floor in a circle as if we were in an army barracks or camp and took turns casting the die. We each had three rolls, and a one in eight chance of winning. Better odds than I’d had in a while. Better odds than the soldiers knew. While I waited my turn, I could feel my hands growing hot. I held the smile that wanted to spread across my face inside.

      When the die came to me, I acted cool, unconcerned, ignoring the breath of the men hovering too close and the laughter of the man who was winning—so far. I rolled once. Surprised grunts. I rolled twice. Shock followed by held breaths. I rolled a third time.

      “Shit!” exploded the man who had just lost to me. “That’s fucking unbelievable.”

      “Believe it!” laughed Decius Mundus. “All right, everybody. Party’s over. Clear out and you’ll still have time to hit the brothels on the way home—those of you who have any money left.”

      It took awhile, but the room finally emptied of soldiers like the last glug, glug, glug of a flask of cheap wine. I waited, not wanting to leave in their company. When his guests had all gone, Decius draped himself alluringly on his couch. If my luck held, he would be out for the count in a minute. I glanced at the doorkeeper, a perfect slave, feigning indifference. Thanks to Reginus’s tutelage, I knew better. My presence in Decius Mundus’s apartment and everything that happened would be