The Passion of Mary Magdalen. Elizabeth Cunningham

open spaces of the Forum through the crowded squalor of the notorious Subura and then up hill to Mons Esquilinus.

CHAPTER TWO

       CAT HOUSE

      Maybe you are relieved to know that I was forced into prostitution. Sold. No choice. Some people insist there is no evidence that I was a whore at all; they are eager to save my reputation—which implies that they think there is something wrong with being a whore. It is true that his official chroniclers never called me a whore, just a crazy bitch, or in polite language “a woman infested by seven demons.” (We’ll get to that part later.) Everyone seems to agree that I was saved, cleansed by his healing (asexual) touch and that I went on to become an important, if unacknowledged, disciple.

      There is more to the story or I wouldn’t be telling it. And I hope you will discover, if you don’t already know, the difference between a stereotype and an archetype. Stereotypes are flat, one-dimensional, like the donkey you blindly pin the tail on. Archetypes are rich, lush, juicy. Sometimes they go underground, submerge in mist and myth, like the Loch Ness Monster. But I am here to tell you:

      You can’t keep a good archetype down.

      I didn’t know any of that yet. As I said, I didn’t even know what a whore was, but I must have had a premonition. I knew I was fucked.

      “Don’t think you’ll get much out of this one today,” the hulk said, as we turned from a street into an alley where it was a squeeze to walk three abreast. At least here there was some respite from the garishly painted statues and frescoes that assaulted my eyes. You may be accustomed to thinking of the ancient world as full of white columns and torsos missing arms and busts with chipped noses. That’s only because the paint doesn’t last. Think Las Vegas and you’ll be closer to the Rome of my day. “If I was you, I’d clean her up—she stinks of fish—feed her up, and let her sleep for a day.”

      “Well, you’re not me, and I don’t pay you to think.”

      “You don’t pay me at all, O my mistress and O the delight—“

      “Cut the crap, Bone,” she waved away his words with her free hand. “You know I offered you and Bonia manumission years ago, and you wouldn’t take it.”

      “Mistress, you have my balls. I can never leave you.”

      “I didn’t whip you into that sacrificial frenzy. You know how I feel about those hysterical eastern cults. And manumission or no manumission, with your tips and your side rackets, you’re wealthier than I am.”

      “Nevertheless, you are my goddess, my Cybele.”

      “Then don’t question my ways, Attis boy. The girl is strong, healthy. It’s never too soon to start getting a return on an investment.”

      “But my sweetness.” My sweetness? That hard-faced predatory woman? “You don’t want to put a horse in a chariot race before it’s broken to the harness. Sure way to lose the race and disappoint the bettors.”

      “You may have a point, Bone. In any case, I’m turning her over to Bonia. I’m off to the Palatine today. You know where. I’m taking Helen.”

      “Yes, I remember. And I beg permission to accompany you, if you will allow me. I believe a certain cubicularius is ready to be indiscreet.”

      Apparently one of the eunuch’s many functions was to get the goods on as many highly placed officials as possible in case his mistress ever needed a favor. Espionage and blackmail were a way of life in Rome.

      “No, Bone, I need you here today. This one is going to bear watching.”

      “But I’ve been softening him up since—”

      “The goddess speaks.”

      “Oh, all right. Have it your way. You always do,” her devotee sulked.

      “Here we are, Red,” the woman addressed me for the first time since we left the Forum.

      The alley gave onto a street. Across from us was a portico, the entire wall around it brightly painted. A grape vine and a fig tree framed the doorway, illustrating the name of the establishment. Yes, that’s right: the Vine and Fig Tree, straight out of Hebrew scripture. Both the figs and the grapes had enticing suggestive shapes—visual double entendre. If you missed the point, scantily clad nymphs frisked to the right and the left for almost half a block. The most striking feature of the fresco was the cats, more cats than women, of every stripe and color in every conceivable pose.

      The eunuch opened the thick wooden door, and I heard the sound of running water. Among my people, wells and springs were considered sacred, a source of vision and healing, an entry way to the Otherworld. The sound made me homesick, but I couldn’t afford to let down my guard now, so I blinked hard and swallowed my tears. When my eyes focused I saw that I was in a courtyard or atrium. A fruit tree of some kind (not a fig) gave a tiny bit of shade, and the sound of the water came from a fountain—something I had never seen before, because the Celts did not share the Roman obsession with plumbing. All around the rim of the fountain sat cats, sleek, elegant cats—black, striped, calico, orange, grey—watching goldfish dart around the pool. I stared at the small beasts in fascination. Celts had domesticated dogs and of course cattle, but cats—wild cats—I’d only glimpsed at a distance.

      “It’s the novica.”

      The voice came from above my head. I looked up and got my first glimpse of the women I would come to know more intimately than I knew my mothers. Their barely covered breasts spilled over the balcony railing. They had only just woken up; they looked tumbled, tired, blowsy, their eyes a little smudged or puffy. They were as varied as the cats, a full range of hair and skin color, shape and size. They all stared at me, sizing me up, their new comrade and competition.

      “Would you get a load of that hair!”

      “She won’t need a lamp in her room.”

      “I wonder what kind of dye she uses to get that color?”

      “By the tits of Isis, look at her bush. It’s the same color.”

      “Oo, I don’t think I’d want to use dye down there.”

      “No, stulta, I mean she must have been born that way.”

      “That’s enough, ladies,” said the eunuch. His boss had disappeared into the deeper recesses of the house. “Be nice. Sooner she settles in, the better it’ll be for everyone.”

      “She can’t understand us, Bone. She’s a barbarian,” said a big blonde woman.

      “Oh, really, Berta. Like you’re not,” said a small dark one.

      “She speaks Latin like a sailor,” put in Bone, but they ignored him.

      “I did not mean it as an insult, Succula. I am proud to be a barbarian. You hear me, proud. Who would want to be Roman?”

      My sentiments exactly. I looked at the woman more closely, wondering if she were a Celt. Her accent didn’t seem quite right. But maybe she would be an ally. Maybe she wanted to escape.

      The domina, who clearly owned everything and everyone in sight, reentered the atrium followed by a female version of the hulk and two little girls. At the sight of her, all the women turned tail and scurried back to their rooms.

      “Here she is, Bonia,” my captor said. “I leave her to you. Bone doesn’t think she should work today, but we’re going to be one short, so you decide. Don’t give her to anyone who doesn’t like some lip. With training, I think she might