Phyllis Ann Karr may be better known for her fantasy novels, which include an Arthurian murder mystery, The Idylls of the King (1982), but her first professional sales were historical mysteries to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 1974. In the following story she tackles something quite different, and considers how the early Christian religion appeared to the superstitious Romans. Strange though this story may seem, it is based on firm facts cited in The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (1984) by Robert L. Wilken.
by Atramentacio
translated & adapted by Phyllis Ann Karr
Translator’s Foreword Very few of Atramentacio’s plays have survived, and most of those were discovered less than two decades ago, eighteen hundred years after being written and first produced. Little is known of the author’s life. Nevertheless, obscure though he – or, possibly, she – is today, Atramentacio’s plays seem to have enjoyed considerable popularity in their own time: the last quarter of the second century CE and some decades following. It has been plausibly argued, largely from internal evidence in the plays themselves, that the pseudonym conceals a woman’s hand. A few scholars have suggested some connection between Camolindium, the setting of at least three Atramentacian plays (the other two have reached us only in fragments), and King Arthur’s Camelot.
Working against deadline to adapt this play for the modern reader, I confess to having followed the path of least resistance. Rather than choosing one or two viewpoint characters through whose eyes to look (there is no one character who appears in every single scene), refashioning blocks of dialogue into descriptive passages, and multiplying the variety of scenes by turning offstage action into narrative or vice versa, I have simply tried to imagine myself in a front-row seat watching a good production. In Crato and Chloe we see the remnants of the classical Chorus (and also, one might almost be tempted to guess, the seeds of the archetypal old couple of later ballads); their Prologue and Epilogue were probably delivered on the equivalent of bare stage in front of the closed curtain, but the lines themselves indicate that they are to be understood as taking place in Crato’s own garden. The one other scene change is indeed in the original play; this may have been an innovation for the times. I have shortened numerous speeches (believe it or not!) and occasionally imagined some tone of voice, bit of stage business, or piece of costuming; but more of such touches than one might expect were suggested by certain lines of dialogue, usually among the ones I omitted. For example, in one such line, Bodicca – surely the playwright had Boudicca (Boadicea) in mind as a model – says: ‘Is my left breast not bared for suckling my [own] child by Kynon, even while my right arm remains unencumbered to wield my spear?’ This reference could simply echo one ancient belief about the Amazons; but it could also suggest the actual stage costume, which is how I decided to interpret it. In such elements as the portrayal of native Britons, I have attempted to reconstruct, not historical reality as we now know it, but popular contemporary conception as it might have been represented on the theatrical stage in farflung parts of the Roman Empire. In some cases, e.g., the floor plan of Flavian’s house, Atramentacio seems more or less reliably informed; in other cases, he (or she) does not. I have tried to reproduce this play ‘warts and all.’
Cassius Marcellus Flavian, legate of Camolindium in Britain
Gnaius Metellus Lucian, his favorite centurion
Marcus Gordius Octavio, a young decurion, newly transferred from Gaul
Kynon (Roman name: Horatius Marcellus Kynus), a British chieftain, formerly Flavian’s son-in-law
Crato, an old philosopher, adoptive uncle to the town
Bucco, a young slave of Flavian’s
Dossemus, a tinker
Rufus Sinistris, a traveler
Marcella, Flavian’s daughter, formerly married to Kynon
Bodicca, a British warrior-woman, Kynon’s present wife
Chloe, Crato’s wife, adoptive aunt to the town
Marcellina (also called Kyna), daughter of Marcella and Kynon, formally adopted by her grandfather Flavian, between two and three years of age
Myrtilia, a slave of Flavian, Bucco’s mother, formerly Marcella’s and presently Marcellina’s nurse.
Flavian’s adjutant, slaves of Flavian’s household, legionaries, British shield-bearers and warriors, townspeople, etc.
The old woman was pacing her courtyard, plucking worms and dropping them to the ground whenever she noticed them menacing her tender green buds. At last the old man rose from his seat in the peristyle and strolled over to join her, still absent-mindedly munching his honey cake. He wore the simple pallium of antique Greek philosophers but, in deference to the harsher climate of Britain, under it he had on a soft, well-patched woolen tunic with long sleeves.
‘Xanthippe, Xanthippe,’ he admonished her, gently shaking his head. ‘How is a philosopher to contemplate God’s nature in the universe, with his wife stamping about like Flavian’s whole legion on the march?’
‘Crato, Crato,’ she returned, shaking her head back at him wearily but affectionately. ‘You may fancy yourself Socrates, but you are not, and no more am I that ancient philosopher’s wife. We live in the world’s last age, and at earth’s farthest end – where you are as good as uncle to all Camolindium and teacher to almost nobody – and your best little scholar should have been here long ago!’
He blinked. ‘What? Is it Pytho’s day again so soon?’*
‘Pytho? You would call Pytho your best scholar? No, no, old man. This is our morning for Flavian’s granddaughter, little Marcellina.’
‘Little Marcellina. You would call her my scholar?’ But Crato’s voice, never truly angry, grew milder yet. ‘Little, golden-haired Marcellina, whose baby tongue still sometimes slips and calls herself Kyna, after her British father. Why, she has not yet seen her third summer –’
‘But this is her third spring,’ his wife reminded him.
‘The very turning of the seasons is still a strange wonder to her, and, moreover, she is a girl. How should we call her my scholar?’
‘I call her your scholar, husband, for the attention she gives your words – more than they deserve, Pallas Athena knows! – when she climbs into your lap and twines her tiny fingers in your beard.’
‘Well, then, call her your scholar as much as mine. If I am Camolindium’s uncle, you are Camolindium’s aunt, and our small visitor gives you as much attention as me. And yet,’ he added dreamily, ‘for all that, I am well content that it is she I will see today, and not Pytho.’
‘If we see her today. Crato, have you not noticed how high Apollo’s chariot is already?’
He glanced up, blinked, and looked down at the half-eaten cake in his hand. ‘By all gods and goddesses, heroes and daimons! Only a glutton is still breaking his fast at this hour. Here, great Demeter, accept my offering.’ Carefully he crumbled his remaining cake upon a plot of spaded ground. ‘To you, and to your fair daughter whose yearly return brings us this fair season of spring – even here at earth’s farthest end – and to your birds of the air, I give back this portion of your good gifts to humankind. Now, my Chloe,’ he added, calling his wife by her right name as, brushing off his hands, he turned back to her, ‘surely no one but a madman would dare molest the granddaughter of our glorious legate Cassius Marcellus Flavian, so let us wait yet a little while longer before scurrying off to him like frightened mice to learn what may have happened to detain her.’
The house of Cassius Marcellus Flavian had been adapted to seize as much as possible of the cold northern sun. Instead of a comfortably private atrium, it had one vast open courtyard, enclosed on three sides by his house – one long row housing triclinium, offices, bedrooms, and larder; flanked by two wings, one for kitchen and private baths, the other providing quarters for the family’s slaves. The columns of the peristyle separating rooms from courtyard stood spaced widely to allow as much warmth and light as possible into the residence, and also showing off a finely crafted shrine to the household Lares and Penates. On the fourth side of the courtyard was nothing but front wall with its gated doorway.
In such a courtyard, calm ought to have prevailed. But, today, it did not. An aging woman in simple, unadorned stola bent to bandage the bleeding head of a young man in his twenties, clad in the tunic of workingman or slave, who lay on one of the benches and tried through moans and groans to render a military-style report to the silver-haired officer towering above him.
This officer, clearly the master of the house and more soldier than senator of Rome, heard the youth out and meanwhile from time to time ordered various slaves on their errands with few and simple words, doing much, by his command and stern example, to stem the tide of panic . . . even though his own brows were separated only by a frown so deep an onlooker might have expected blood to drip from it, too – as one of his slaves whispered to another while hurrying off to have wine warmed for the injured man.
The other slave whispered back, ‘Gods! Who can blame our unhappy master?’
The first slave halted in her errand long enough to call her friend’s attention to a tall young matron, not many years removed from girlhood but bearing herself with sober maturity, who had appeared between two peristyle columns. ‘Unhappy young mistress! Ah, Dea Matrona, our poor mistress Marcella!’
The two slaves hurried on, pausing momentarily at the household altar to bow their heads in quick prayer. Marcella, unseen by either legate or injured man, listened with lips compressed and one hand clutching the stone pillar ever more tightly.
‘In brief,’ said Cassius Marcellus Flavian, ‘you have betrayed your charge.’
‘Master!’ The woman tending the young man’s head stared up at the legate with fear in her large eyes. ‘You do not . . . blame my son Bucco?’
‘Was I not struck from behind?’ Bucco added with surly respect.
‘For whatever reason, you have lost the child entrusted to your safekeeping. A true servant would have laid down his own life in protection of any helpless one given into his charge.’
Bucco darted one angry glance at his master, but immediately bowed his head again beneath his mother’s hands.
‘Father, no!’ Marcella said, coming down from the peristyle.
Flavian turned and saw her. ‘Marcella! You overheard?’
‘Would you have tried to keep this from me? This knife that cuts into my soul more deeply than into anyone else’s?’
‘Daughter! Your child is doubly mine. By blood, grandchild. By adoption, daughter and namesake.’
‘Father! Man’s love for his children may run deep as Neptune’s waters – I would never deny this – but mother’s love runs deeper still. No man has carried his child within his own bowels, beneath his very heart.’
Bucco’s mother bowed her head over his as though to conceal tears.
‘But I am your daughter, and Roman,’ Marcella went on, visibly holding her emotions in check. ‘How well I came to understand this – what it is to be Roman – those months I spent as wife to that British chieftain. Never think it was the rigors of their wild tribal life that brought me home again to you. Am I not a soldier’s daughter? No, it was their lack of civilization in all things that shape the soul. Not their lack of drains,’ she continued, like one who had turned these thoughts over and over in her mind, ‘but the crudity of their brains. Some rough religion they have, but it is not our pious reverence for God and fellow man; some crude honor and coarse affection, but how far it is from Roman honor and Roman love of family. Even though, granted Roman citizenship, my former husband valued his Roman name less than any casual trinket, something to be worn on rare occasions but more often tossed aside. No, do not blame Bucco for trusting that orderly Camolindium would offer no dangers between our home and that of our philosopher friend. Blame Marcellina’s father by blood! Summon Kynon here to answer for Marcellina. And, if he will not come, send your legion!’
‘Daughter,’ said the legate, ‘had you been my son, what a soldier you would have made!’ Turning to his adjutant, who stood by, he ordered, ‘Take this message to Gnaius Metellus Lucian: that he is to go to the British village and bring their chieftain Horatius Marcellus Kynus, whom they may still call Kynon, back here to me at once.’
‘Lucian?’ Marcella interjected. ‘Not Octavio? Father, why not Marcus Gordius Octavio?’
‘Gnaius Metellus Lucian,’ the legate repeated sternly to his adjutant. ‘At once.’ As the adjutant hurried away, Flavian turned back to his daughter. ‘There are reasons, Marcella, for my wish that you see no more of Marcus Gordius Octavio. Remember my wisdom in opposing your marriage to Kynon, even after making him Horatius Marcellus Kynus, and be content.’
Breathing deeply and rapidly, she stared back unblinking into Flavian’s eyes. ‘Octavio is not Kynon. Father, do you not think I have learned more wisdom than was mine four years ago?’
‘Let us agree that Octavio is not Kynon, nor Kynon’s flaws identical with those of Octavio. Would you see our present business imperiled by some quarrel struck as if from tinder when he who had your love once and he who almost has it now come face to face?’
‘It is because Octavio cares for my child as much as –’ She choked off her own sentence and resumed, dropping her gaze, ‘No, you are right. What does any of all this matter, until we have Marcellina safe with us again?’
‘Marcellina?’ another voice broke in. The old philosopher Crato had arrived, with his wife on his arm.
‘I knew it!’ Chloe exclaimed before her husband’s one-word question could be answered. ‘And then, when your messenger all but ran us over at your gate in his hurry, I knew it again!’
‘Hush, wife.’ Crato stroked her hand soothingly. ‘As yet, we know very little. What of the child?’ he added anxiously, looking at Flavian.
‘All that we ourselves know is soon told,’ the legate replied. ‘It appears that as my slave of questionable worth was bringing Marcellina to your house this morning, honored friend, some villain or villains struck him from behind and knocked him senseless long enough to make off with my daughter’s daughter.’
‘Oh, Marcella!’ Chloe cried, leaving her husband to fold the young mother in her arms. This sudden show of tenderness broke Marcella’s resolve, and her tears flowed freely at last.
The slave Bucco had cast up another fierce look at his master’s latest insult, but only his mother noticed it, and she quickly drew his head down again.
Old Crato was pulling his white beard in his apparent effort to ward agitation off with reason. ‘Was it not at about this same time last year that another child vanished without trace?’
Everyone else stared at him. Horror was especially plain in the faces of the women – Marcella, Chloe, and she who bent over Bucco.
‘They said,’ whispered Chloe, ‘they said that Christians took him – Oh, God! Can we truly have a coven of Christians here in Camolindium?’
‘Hush, wife,’ said Crato. ‘These Christians are mere harmless fools.’
‘I remember that case,’ Flavian mused with creased brow. ‘A younger child, was it not? An infant boy, less than one year of age . . .’
‘Some slave’s baby,’ Bucco supplied in a tone of respect so studied as almost to constitute insolence. ‘Worth only whatever he might have brought on the block. Not to be mentioned in the same sentence with the grandchild of a legate of Rome.’
‘My . . . master!’ gasped the old slave woman. ‘Forgive my son – his wound – he wanders in his wits!’
‘Not so far,’ said Bucco. ‘I remember now. Just before that blow fell, I heard voices. Voices speaking in British. No words that I understood, but one of them might have been “Kyna” or “Kynon.” ’
Flavian studied his young slave for as long as a bird might need to pull a worm from the ground. At last he said, ‘For your sake, Myrtilia, once my daughter’s nurse and now my granddaughter’s, I will forgive your son. I may never again entrust him with any errand involving another person’s safety, but let that be the full extent of his punishment. Now take him to your own quarters, nurse him well, and summon me at once should he find any further details while wandering in his wits.’
Head bandaged, Bucco was able to stagger away with his mother as living crutch. One might have suspected him, indeed, of exaggerating his weakness and giddiness somewhat, no doubt to re-emphasize his blamelessness and prolong his convalescent ease.
Watching them go, Flavian told Marcella, ‘Daughter, let us not forget that we have guests.’ To Crato he added, ‘I have newly received a shipment of books from Rome, among them several that I am sure would interest you. Marcella knows where to find them.’
‘Come,’ Marcella said, drawing herself into the role of hostess. To a pair of the remaining slaves she added, ‘Nathan, Sarah, attend us.’
As the women and slaves started for the house, Flavian muttered in Crato’s ear, ‘Watch over her, old friend. May your philosophy serve us well in this hour.’
‘I have no fear for Marcellina,’ the philosopher replied somberly. ‘Barbarian though he may be, the child’s father can hardly mean her ill. These British love their offspring as much as we love ours. As for Christians, they are mere foolish dabblers in atheism, much maligned, and if they return nothing to the State that nourished them, neither could their contribution greatly enrich society in any case.’
‘Nevertheless,’ the legate muttered to himself after Crato had followed the others into the house, ‘I will leave no stone unturned.’ To the last slave left outdoors with him, he said, ‘Summon the decurion Marcus Gordius Octavio here to me at once.’
The man hurried across the courtyard, and narrowly missed colliding at the gate with a handsome young officer on his way in.
‘Master,’ said the slave, stepping back into the courtyard long enough to flourish an extravagant bow, ‘the decurion Marcus Gordius Octavio has been summoned here to you at once.’
‘I thank you, Dromo,’ Flavian said dryly. ‘Now go and arrange for Juno to have two lambs in sacrifice for Marcellina’s safe return.’
The slave disappeared. The decurion, moving with the disciplined stride of a Roman legionary, approached his superior, halted at a respectful distance, and saluted. One could see the tension in his soul, and the self-mastery with which he held it in check.
‘Well, Octavio,’ said the legate. ‘What god gave you word that I would send for you? Was it Juno, or Venus?’
‘Your daughter’s daughter has vanished and her attendant been left stunned and witless,’ Octavio replied. ‘This is no secret in our barracks. Moreover, I was with Metellus Lucian when your order came for him to bring the British chieftain to you. If you would thank any gods for hastening my steps, thank your own household guardians.’
‘It remains to be seen whether I will owe thanks to any god for your presence.’ Flavian took several paces back and forth, as if in thought, before speaking again. ‘Marcus Gordius Octavio, have you seen any Christians here in Camolindium?’
The young man stiffened. ‘As you know, sir, I determined to leave that godless sect upon first learning that they would require me to forswear all warfare. The gods fashioned me to serve my country as soldier, and soldier I knew I must remain. It was only on direct order from my commander in Gaul that I pretended still to be one of them long enough for us to catch them at those foul rites by which they would have initiated me fully into their membership.’
Flavian nodded. ‘And I alone, in all Camolindium, am aware of all this. It was for obeying Quintus Severan and helping to exterminate that nest of them in Gaul, as well as for your early report to him, accompanied with your own confession and recantation, that you were allowed this second chance, with clean slate, here in Britain.’
‘With clean slate, sir,’ the decurion repeated, allowing some faint bitterness to tinge his voice. ‘Thinking their founder to have been the son of one Panthera, himself a soldier, I had at first supposed their cult akin to that of Mithras. Otherwise, I would never have become their “catechumen,” as they call them.’
‘I sent for you,’ Flavian went on, somewhat impatiently, ‘not to rake through old matters, but to learn if you, with your experience of them, have noticed any sign of Christians among us here.’
‘I have not looked for them, sir. Nor, until Marcellina’s disappearance today, had I seen anything during my half-year in Britain to suggest their presence in or near Camolindium.’
‘True. You were still in Gaul last year at this time, when the infant slave disappeared.’
‘Mars and Minerva!’ the decurion exclaimed. ‘Two young children vanished at this season in subsequent years! Sir, that chills my soul.’
‘Let us assume the worst. From what you know of them, is my granddaughter likely still to be alive?’
Octavio nodded gravely. ‘Until tonight, at least. Possibly longer. They would no more sacrifice a child already dead than we would a calf or piglet.’
‘And, if they are among us, would any of them know you? Could this explain why they have kept themselves so well concealed from your initiated eyes?’
‘No initiate, sir,’ Octavio reminded the legate. ‘It stopped just short of that. But, if any Christian here had known me for one of their “apostates” – as they call those of us who awaken to their errors and leave their cult voluntarily – I think they would more likely have sought to assassinate than merely avoid me.’
‘Good, good.’ The legate paced again, staring at the courtyard beneath his sandals while Octavio stared at him. Neither of them noticed Crato approaching from the house. ‘Well,’ Flavian resumed at last, ‘my chief suspicion still rests on Marcellina’s British father. But, if you were to look, would you be able to scent out any local Christians for us?’
‘They are cunning, sir. They have learned secrecy well. But, yes, I could find and contact them, if commanded to do so.’
‘Then do so at once. I command it.’
‘What is this?’ the philosopher asked, stepping eagerly forward.
‘Crato!’ said the legate. ‘Old friend, we thought you with my daughter.’
‘She has Chloe to comfort her,’ Crato explained. ‘Nor is Marcella’s Sarah any mean help at that skill. And where women comfort one another, men may only be in their way. But have I blundered into some delicate conference?’
‘That depends,’ Flavian answered carefully, ‘on how much you may have overheard.’
‘Enough to know that you, like my dear wife, suspect some infestation of Christians in our area, and that this good decurion has some talent for finding those maligned misanthropes.’
‘Some talent, yes,’ Octavio echoed with noncommital irony.
‘Talent born of knowledge,’ his commander added slowly and deliberately, frowning at the younger man in a way that went over Crato’s head. ‘Marcus Gordius Octavio’s former legion had experience with a band of them in Gaul.’
‘Indeed?’ The philosopher turned again to Octavio. ‘Is it true that they believe their founder, Jesus ben Panthera, to have had the head of an ass, or is that merely another slander put about by their enemies?’
‘Whether they believe it was actually so,’ the young soldier replied stiffly, ‘I cannot say. It is true, however, that they frequently represent him with an ass’s head, mounted on a miniature cross.’
‘Ah! This would seem to echo those beast-headed Egyptian gods, in whose land the sorcerer ben Panthera is supposed to have learned his magical arts.’
‘Old friend,’ the legate remarked with a tolerant smile, ‘I see that you know something of these people, yourself.’
‘Not enough, not enough.’ Crato shook his bald head. ‘I would learn more, much more. Few in numbers they may be, but no manner of worshipping any god lacks interest for me, no matter how novel. Indeed, in every novelty I seek that kernel of tradition – that leaven remaining to us from the earliest ages, when God and man were closer – without which no worship can please its deity.’
‘If it were not for the danger,’ said Flavian, ‘I would have sent you to sniff out our local Christians.’
‘Danger? What danger? It is their reputation alone that makes such people dangerous. Well, well,’ the philosopher concluded regretfully, ‘far be it from me to offer myself in place of your soldier going about his duty. But should he find any Christians for you, might I beg the special privilege of meeting them myself?’
Flavian looked at Octavio, who returned his gaze steadily.
‘It would increase my stature in their eyes,’ Octavio told his commander, ‘if I were to bring them another catechumen – as he would seem – and one of Crato’s standing in the community. I think, however, that I should begin by reconnoitering alone.’
‘Go, then. Our friend can await your report here with me.’
Octavio saluted and took his departure. The legate summoned slaves and had them arrange chairs and a midday repast for him and his guest just within the peristyle, where the spring sun could warm them as they ate.
Crato, arguing that philosophy demanded maintaining one’s strength, nibbled away more conscientiously than the legate; but neither man showed much appetite for the plovers’ eggs, mussels, and barley bread brought out to them. Flavian emptied a full goblet of the local honey-wine he had set (saving his better vintages for Marcellina’s safe return), but he drank it well watered. In truth, their prandium consisted less of food than of conversation, and even that was desultory at best, and soon cut short by the arrival of Gnaius Metellus Lucian with Marcellina’s father by blood.
Striding in on the heels of his Roman escort, the young British chieftain made a striking – even magnificent – spectacle. He came only in leather breeches and a short bearskin cloak thrown over one shoulder and held together, by its own paws, beneath his other arm, leaving his chest open to display his widest expanse of woad tattooing. Blue whorls covered his arms as well; indeed, every inch of visible skin, even his cheeks and forehead. A rich golden torque, its twin ends tipped with lions’ heads of fine if barbaric workmanship, adorned his neck, while rough fur buskins covered his feet to the calf. Beside him walked a tall British woman, as sun-brown and woad-blue as himself, and similarly costumed, except that a band from waist to right shoulder, while leaving her left breast bare, modestly covered her right. The British couple carried nothing, but young tribesmen, still only partially tattooed, followed them bearing their spears and shields.
‘Rome!’ the chieftain cried, with neither preamble nor salute. ‘What is this? You have let my daughter be stolen?’
Flavian, who had risen to his feet at the chieftain’s entrance, shot back, ‘Horatius Marcellus Kynus of the British people! Or Kynon, if you so prefer to be called! If you have taken her yourself, do not attempt to hide your guilt from the eye of Roman Jupiter.’
‘We?’ exclaimed the woman at Kynon’s side. ‘Why should we take the child? We foolishly believed her safe beneath the eagle wings of your vaunted Rome!’
‘Who is this woman?’ the legate demanded to know.
‘Did you think I would keep Marcella’s place empty in my bed forever?’ Kynon queried back by way of reply. ‘Bodicca is my wife now.’
‘Now and for all our years to come,’ the woman added, laying one hand proudly on Kynon’s shoulder. ‘This time he has a wife forever, now that Bodicca has finally found a man worthy of her.’
‘So you have taken a second wife,’ Flavian answered icily. ‘What better reason to steal back your child, for this second wife to rear?’
‘Roman,’ Bodicca demanded with cold fire, ‘do you suppose me incapable of bearing Kynon sons and daughters finer than any your own pallid offshoot could give him?’
‘Questions heaped on questions,’ Crato interposed, stepping forward and spreading his hands pacifically. ‘With all respect to my own gods, might this old philosopher suggest that there is a time and place for direct and simple answers?’
‘Well said, honored friend,’ Flavian approved.
‘Here, then, is my direct and simple answer,’ Kynon told them. ‘Neither I nor any of my people have taken or laid hand on my daughter Kyna, whom you call Marcellina, even though it would have been no more than my right to reclaim her. I left our dear child with Marcella, in memory of the love we once shared, for however brief a season. Now give me direct and simple answers to my questions: How did you, with your boasts of Roman might and Roman peace and Roman laws, allow this thing to happen? Did you not love your granddaughter enough to see to her protection? And how, after allowing it to happen, did you dare summon me here to accuse me of the outrage, rather than to beg a father’s help in saving his stolen child?’
‘I make allowance for your natural feelings,’ the legate replied. ‘From no other man alive would I permit any suggestion that this thing happened through failure of love on my part or my daughter’s. As for your other questions, when a child is seized with violence from her guardian within our very city walls, who else should we suspect of violating Roman peace, if not those who hold Roman laws in open contempt?’
‘We have accepted your standards among us,’ Kynon returned angrily. ‘We have lived in peace with you for generations. On what grounds do you charge us with contempt? Simply because we do not grovel?’
‘Husband,’ said Bodicca, sounding less like wife than co-commander, ‘this helps no one recover your child.’
Crato sighed. ‘Your lady shows wisdom. Let us lay aside all arguments of larger rights and wrongs until little Marcellina is safely home again.’
‘I am willing,’ Flavian agreed.
‘Well!’ said Kynon. ‘So am I, for the present. Let us begin by looking at how it happened. You said that she had a guardian, from whom she was seized within your very walls?’
‘One of Marcellus Flavian’s slaves was bringing her to my home for such lessons as her small and feminine mind is ready to digest,’ Crato explained.
‘One . . . of . . . your . . . slaves?’ Kynon repeated disbelievingly, staring at the legate. ‘This comes of your Roman habit of entrusting the work befitting free men and women to slaves instead!’
Flavian met the Briton’s gaze without blinking. ‘The man was struck senseless, and that from behind. Before he lost consciousness, he heard British voices speaking your name, or that of Kyna, and other words in your British tongue – another reason for my initial suspicion of you.’
‘But not the first reason, was it?’ Kynon said shrewdly, adding, ‘A true guardian would have given his life in defense of his charge, not merely lent the gods his poor wits for a few moments and then come back to them babbling nonsense. Where is this slave who made such poor work of protecting a helpless child?’
‘His head was broken and bloodied,’ said Flavian. ‘His mother is nursing him in his own quarters.’
‘His mother is nursing him!’ cried Kynon. ‘While the gods know who is nursing the child entrusted to him, and with what sort of care? Bring him out and let us question him!’
‘He is my slave, and I have questioned him to my satisfaction.’
‘I do not trust the questioning of a man who coddles incompetence at sight of a little blood.’
‘I tell you,’ said the legate, ‘we know where and when it happened. I coddle no one. I demand as much of my slaves, according to their capacities, as of my soldiers. But I am satisfied there is nothing more to be learned from . . . Well? Let me hear your report!’ he interrupted himself, looking across his courtyard.
Octavio had returned, and was standing at attention waiting his chance to be recognized. On his commander’s order he stepped forward and saluted. ‘Hail, legate of Caesar. There are indeed Christians here in Camolindium, as I have proved by making contact with certain members of their sect.’ He stopped speaking, as if done with his report.
After a few heartbeats, Flavian said, ‘Particulars?’
Octavio glanced at the pair of Britons with their legionary escort. ‘Particulars, sir, you might prefer to hear alone.’
‘Does this touch on the disappearance of my child by your commander’s daughter?’ Kynon demanded.
The legate looked at Octavio, who replied.
‘I cannot yet be sure, but I think that it may concern Marcellina.’
‘Then it touches me as well,’ said Kynon, ‘and I will hear it.’
‘And I with my husband,’ said Bodicca.
The Britons stood as if rooted in the ground as immovably as the trees they worshipped. After studying them for a moment, Flavian said in no uncertain terms, ‘Then let my centurion Lucian show your shieldbearers the hospitality of our barracks.’
‘We will allow him to buy them one cup apiece, well watered, in Bibulo’s wineshop, that stands hard by your house,’ Kynon answered with resolve to match Flavian’s. ‘Let them leave our weapons here.’
The two commanders stared at each other. Without dropping his gaze, Flavian ordered, ‘Be it so!’
Gnaius Metellus Lucian saluted, the young Britons laid their leaders’ spears and shields neatly upon the ground, and all of them departed together.
When they were gone, Flavian told his decurion, ‘Whatever you have to say, it can be spoken for their ears as well as mine. Being Marcellina’s father by blood, Kynon has the right to hear it, as has she who now shares his bed.’ Nobody mentioned old Crato, who also stood by listening with interest. Had he not already volunteered to play Octavio’s catechumen?
‘I lingered in the marketplace,’ Octavio continued his report, ‘furtively using my toe to draw their fish sigil in the dust. At length someone noticed it and replied by scratching her sigil beside mine. That woman . . .’ Again he hesitated, but, filling his lungs deeply, resumed unprompted, ‘That woman, sir, was your own slave, Myrtilia.’
Flavian’s shock was audible by his sharp intake of breath. Crato exclaimed softly, ‘So close to home!’
‘I had thought Myrtilia in her own part of my house, nursing her son,’ said the legate.
‘She left him long enough to buy some few ingredients for her nursing – salve, herbs to season broth . . .’ Octavio shrugged. ‘Learning my own pretended membership in their cult, she delivered me to their chief flamen, who proves to be none other than Dossemus, the one-eyed hunchback and mender of pots.’
‘Dossemus?’ said Crato. ‘I would have pointed to him in example of how little is actually needed to remain alive.’
‘I would have pointed to him,’ said Flavian, ‘as living example of filth, squalor, and idleness. Next thing to a beggar, that creature mends two or three pots only when he can no longer dodge the absolute necessity for some few small coins to rub together, briefly. Well? What did you learn from Dossemus?’
‘They meet this evening at nightfall,’ Octavio replied. ‘I won enough trust to learn when, but not where. When I seal the proof of my faith by returning with my new catechumen, they will take us both there.’
‘I will set spies to follow you and bring word back to me and our legion,’ said Flavian.
Octavio’s answer was filled with doubt. ‘Dossemus and his fellows have had reason and opportunity to learn every one of our faces by sight – regular legionaries, auxiliaries, and scouts, and all your slaves as well. Give them any suspicion whatever that they are being followed, and Marcellina is lost. Nor would I guarantee our honored Crato’s safety in such case.’
‘Is she still alive even now?’ Kynon cut in. ‘Cernunnos! How long you Romans take getting to the heart of a matter!’
‘She will be safe until deep into their ceremony,’ Octavio assured him. ‘They will not even bring her forth until after they have sent their catechumens away.’
‘What?’ Crato blinked. ‘Ah! Of course. This alleged abominable sacrament of theirs is for full initiates only. Well, then, we have no problem. As soon as sent away, I will return and lead you back.’
Octavio objected, ‘These Christians are slow to trust even one another. Had demonstrating the orthodoxy of my supposed beliefs and ritualistic knowledge as learned in Gaul been enough to satisfy Dossemus in full, he would have named the place and left me to find my own path there. Since he did not, no doubt they will blindfold both me and my catechumen before leading us to the site.’
‘I should recognize it once they unbandage my eyes,’ Crato said with quiet confidence.
Octavio looked at him admiringly. ‘Honored philosopher, it is fortunate I had you to name as my neophyte. All my own supposed orthodoxy might not have been enough, but they are eager indeed to number such citizens as you among them. May God, Who sent you to play this role, enable you to slip away from all other catechumens who may be present, and return here in time.’
‘But you yourself will remain for their most secret ceremonies?’ said Flavian. ‘How did you persuade them that you were fully initiate, and yet remaining a soldier of Rome?’
‘By pointing out the excellency of it as cover, for now, and explaining my supposed determination to remain soldier only in time of peace, and desert before obeying any order to go to war.’
The British chieftainess spoke. ‘With all these great suspicions of theirs, will they not have set someone to watch you, decurion? What will they have concluded upon seeing you come into the legate’s courtyard?’
‘Nothing, I hope. They know that a soldier must sometimes go about his commander’s business, and I took care to explain that another matter entirely – some little trouble in the barracks – was bringing me here today. They also know that Crato visits our legate not infrequently, nor did I see any reason to hide his present concern for Marcella’s daughter.’ He turned to the old philosopher. ‘Nevertheless, it will be best to avoid any chance of being seen leaving this house together. We are to meet Dossemus in the shop of Marcus the butcher. They will begin your instruction as soon as you arrive, even without me. But let me warn you, sir, to put your mind on guard. They will not let you see any sign that they have the child, nor hear any hint of what is to come after you are sent away. Their words to their catechumens are entirely fair, sweet, and in some specious way even noble.’
‘I will go at once,’ Crato said eagerly, ‘before my wife happens to come out. It would only worry her. Be sure to give her my fondest regards and tell her . . . tell her . . .’
‘That you have returned home to search out some scroll of philosophy most appropriate to comfort us in this hour,’ Flavian finished for him, laying one hand on his shoulder. ‘Go, old friend, with my thanks and those my daughter would add if she knew anything of this.’
It was only after Crato’s departure that Flavian sat, for the first time seeming to let his years weigh upon him. ‘Myrtilia!’ he mourned. ‘My late wife grew up beside her, almost more like sister and sister than mistress and slave. She nursed our daughter from the cradle. Of all women in Camolindium, Myrtilia was the one, after Marcella herself and Crato’s good wife, with whom I would most have trusted Marcellina.’
Bodicca, who had never ceased eyeing Octavio, stepped forward and seized the young soldier by one wrist. ‘Show me,’ she demanded, ‘how to make this fish sigil!’
Pulling his arm free of her grip, Octavio looked to his commander. At Flavian’s nod, the decurion knelt and with his finger traced two curves in the earth, their tips meeting at one end while parting tail-like at the other.
Bodicca copied it twice, nodded, and said to the legate, ‘Now, direct me to this slave’s quarters.’
Almost wearily, Flavian gestured at the left-hand wing of his house. As Bodicca disappeared into it, he went on as if to himself, ‘And this is my reward for being so lenient a master as to allow my slaves their own outer door, for locking it only at night. Too long have I been gentler with my slaves than with my soldiers!’
Octavio cocked one brow, as if silently questioning Cassius Marcellus Flavian’s leniency toward his soldiers, but kept silent.
‘Will you confront this woman with her accuser?’ Kynon asked, drawing Flavian from his sad reverie.
The commander shook his head. ‘No, I think it is not yet time for that. God! How many of my slaves may be involved? Well, Octavio, return to barracks awhile on whatever errand you invented for the Christian flamen’s ears, and from there seek Dossemus out again when you judge the time ripe.’
‘Should I bid men prepare to march this evening, sir?’
Flavian shook his head. ‘Metellus Lucian will see to that. Do not try to heap his duties upon your own.’
Octavio came to attention, snapped his salute, and departed. Watching him go, Kynon muttered to the legate, ‘Bodicca does not entirely trust that man.’
‘You consulted with your new wife concerning him, did you?’
‘I sensed her feelings. They are mine.’
‘Based upon anything in particular?’ Flavian inquired coldly. ‘Or do you mistrust Octavio simply because he is Roman, and my man?’ Standing up, the legate went on, ‘Let us understand each other, Briton. You have disliked me from the day we first met, and I you from the day you began to seduce my daughter. But for the sake of your people as well as mine, these personal enmities must be ignored.’
‘It is you who have first mentioned them today, Roman. Today, when a common cause requires us to join forces. For the present, I allow your soldier to pass unchallenged, for my suspicion is even sharper on that slave who let the child be taken from his care.’
‘Bucco?’ Flavian spoke slowly, meditatively. ‘He did not lose her without having his own head bloodied. Yet he is also Myrtilia’s son . . .’
As Flavian spoke, Bodicca returned, dragging the old nurse by one arm, two more slaves trailing at a timid distance.
‘She is one of them, indeed!’ the warrioress exclaimed, thrusting Myrtilia to the ground in front of the legate.
The unfortunate slave clawed the ground at Flavian’s sandals and wailed, ‘Mercy! Mercy, master! Mercy!’
‘Ask mercy of the gods!’ Flavian replied, staring down at her in distaste. To Kynon, he said, ‘Summon your shieldbearers, and kindly relay to Gnaius Metellus Lucian that I wish him present.’
‘What of this woman’s son?’ said Kynon.
‘In due time, Bucco shall stand before us as well.’ Keeping one eye upon the as yet uninvolved slaves, who did not move, Flavian added, ‘And that time will be soon. But it is not yet.’
‘I go, Roman, because it is my own free choice to accept your direction in this for now.’ Kynon strode across the courtyard to the gate.
The legate turned his attention back to his moaning slave woman. ‘Myrtilia, Myrtilia! Is it true that you are Christian?’
‘I tell you,’ Bodicca declared, ‘it is true. And, for a moment, she mistook me, also, for one of their breed!’ The warrioress rubbed her forefinger as though it needed rough purification after tracing the unholy sigil.
Flavian said, ‘I cannot do otherwise than believe you. Were it false, she would deny your accusation, not simply grovel at my feet for mercy.’
Kynon returned with Lucian and the British youths. The legionary saluted his legate and awaited orders.
‘Take these lads – with their chieftain’s permission –’ Flavian told his centurion, ‘secure the outer door to my slaves’ quarters, and leave the Britons to guard it until you can bring men from the barracks to relieve them. It must be guarded well. Allow no one to pass in or out. Detail men to find any of my slaves who may already be abroad for any reason, and discreetly bring them back, by way of my gate. Then return to me yourself.’
The British shieldbearers looked at Kynon, who nodded and waved them on. Saluting again, Lucian led them from the courtyard.
Bodicca said, ‘But we must know the place of the Christian meeting! We should post watchers to follow any slave who slips out, not alert them –’
‘Have you not already alerted them, dragging Myrtilia out like this?’ Flavian jerked his head toward the silent slaves. ‘Will anyone who may slip out of this house lead us to their meeting, or will they give them warning not to hold it, and to dispose of their victim before she can be found to incriminate them? Besides,’ he added, in tones equally stern but less angry, ‘Myrtilia will tell us where they meet tonight.’
‘Oh, Holy Spirit!’ the old nurse moaned, ‘now put Your words into my mouth!’
‘I will not ask you to name any of your fellow Christians, Myrtilia,’ the legate continued, almost gently. ‘Not even among my own slaves. Let them prove their own guilt or innocence. I ask you to tell us only where they gather this night.’
Myrtilia rose to her knees, straightened her back, and replied, her voice ringing as if inspired, ‘You will not ask me to betray my brothers and sisters by name, but “only” to betray them to you all together at their most sacred worship! Never! Draw me apart with horses – feed my poor flesh to wild beasts – I will never betray my brothers in Christ Jesus!’
Flavian momentarily allowed his anger free rein. ‘Have you not already betrayed master, family, and your own nurselings – yes, Marcella and Marcellina both – who trusted you like a mother?’
Still appearing transfixed, even ecstatic, Myrtilia cried, ‘Every fleshly bond must be set aside and despised for sake of God’s kingdom.’
‘Do not blaspheme!’ snapped Flavian. ‘Spare yourself that sin, at least.’ Trembling very slightly, he sat again. ‘To apply torture at once smacks of illegality –’
‘ “Illegality”?’ cried Bodicca. ‘By the Horned God, Roman, what choice is there between your “legality” and your own grandchild?’
The legate frowned at her. ‘I might with equal justice ask why you interest yourself so fiercely in this matter. My daughter’s child is no kin to you.’
No Roman matron, Bodicca continued to speak for herself, while Kynon looked on proudly. ‘There is this tie: her father is my husband. There is also the bond of motherhood, that unites all women, those who have already borne their children, those like myself who have yet to bear, and even those who, through no fault save fate and the will of the gods, may never bear, but only share in spirit with their fellow women. All,’ she added, digging one toe into Myrtilia’s ribs, ‘except such unnatural mothers as this.’
‘Without faith, without truth, without Christ Jesus,’ the slave woman shrilled back, ‘what can such as you know of spiritual bonds?’
Turning scornfully, Bodicca seized each of the onlooking slaves by one arm and marched them back toward their own quarters. So purposeful was her stride that Flavian permitted her boldness without comment, merely returning his attention to her husband, who had begun to speak.
‘I can hardly fault your hesitation to apply torture, Roman,’ said Kynon, ‘knowing as I know how our British children laugh as they try your leaden balls and arm-squeezing cord on one another in sport.’
‘If they laugh,’ Flavian replied, ‘they do not know what they are doing.’
‘It is plain, Roman, that you have never watched our British children at play.’ Kynon seized Myrtilia’s arm, dragging her roughly to her feet. Flavian stood with a sharp exclamation, but Kynon went on over his protest: ‘If you love your daughter’s child as much as you claim, Roman, you will let a British father do what must be done to get her back alive and safe.’
‘May I remind you,’ Flavian answered, his voice low but menacing, ‘that you are in my city and my house? You have until my centurion returns. Not one moment longer.’
‘Enough.’ Throwing his luckless captive half to the ground, so that she hung clamped between his knees unable to regain her balance, the chieftain drew the long knife he wore at his belt and slowly, almost delicately, forced its tip beneath her right thumbnail.
Her shrieks brought Marcella back to the courtyard, with Crato’s wife on her heels and her personal slaves following close behind. At almost the same time, Bodicca and her two forcibly enlisted attendants returned, hauling Bucco out with his head still bandaged.
‘Father! What –’ Marcella began, and broke off as she saw more clearly what was happening. ‘Myrtilia! Oh, Myrtilia, what is this?’
‘She is your old nurse no longer, my daughter,’ the legate replied. ‘She has disowned all such fleshly bonds. She is Christian.’
‘Christian!’ Stifling her scream, Marcella held one fist to her mouth as she stared at the scene before her.
‘Christian!’ Kynon spat out. ‘Marcella, they have our child. Tonight they sacrifice our little Kyna, if we fail to learn their meeting-place.’ Prying up Myrtilia’s first finger, he slid his knife’s tip beneath that nail in turn.
‘No!’ sobbed Myrtilia. ‘Oh, Jesus, Jesus –’
‘Stand firm!’ Bucco bawled at her. ‘Mother, stand firm in our holy faith!’
‘So, then!’ Flavian exclaimed. ‘You are also one of them! Hold him fast!’
‘Don’t worry, Roman,’ Bodicca said grimly.
‘What did I tell you?’ Kynon added, beginning on his victim’s middle finger. ‘That blow to his head was meant only to blind you to the truth.’
‘Truth!’ Myrtilia panted between her shrieks. ‘Truth shall set us free!’
‘Stand firm, mother!’
Flavian looked from Myrtilia to Bucco. ‘You do not despise this particular fleshly bond, I see.’
‘Master,’ Bucco answered, sneering, ‘we are no longer merely mother and son according to the flesh. We have become lovers in that spirit of which flesh is only symbol and seal, in that kingdom where there is neither slave nor master, but all are free and equal in Christ Jesus our crucified lord.’
Myrtilia continued to scream and sob. Tears trembled in Marcella’s eyes. Breast heaving, she bowed her head over her fist, while the philosopher’s wife put one arm around her shoulders and hugged tight.
‘Marcellina . . .’ the young mother gasped out. ‘Myrtilia? Oh, Marcellina, my darling little Marcellina! Oh, Juno, Marcellina!’
The legate turned to her and spoke as if to one of his soldiers. ‘Daughter. We must know how far this contagion has infected our household. Gather the rest of our slaves and see to it that each of them in turn prays and burns incense to our own Lares for Marcellina’s safe return. Test them further by asking each of them to join you in cursing this executed magician or evil god ‘Christ.’ Nathan and Sarah,’ he added, glancing at Marcella’s personal slaves, ‘may follow their ancient custom and sacrifice only to their own god. Jealous as Yahweh is of his own people, he is hardly likely to share them with Christ Jesus.’
Before their eyes, Marcella pulled herself together. ‘I will curse that evil name myself with joy each and every time I administer the test. Have no fear of me, Father.’
With her attendants and Chloe, the young matron took her way to the slaves’ quarters. Soon, the line of Cassius Marcellus Flavian’s slaves could be seen filing solemnly across the courtyard from their wing to the household shrine, there to burn pinches of incense and offer pious prayers for Marcellina’s safe return, even while Myrtilia’s ordeal continued. When the British shieldbearers returned, signaling that they had been relieved by Flavian’s legionaries, Bodicca set them to holding Bucco and shooed her borrowed slaves away to take their turns in proving their devotion to both the gods of their own household and people, and that one high God who sat above all other deities and belonged to all peoples and nations.
Constantly encouraged by her son, the old woman held firm until blood dripped from all ten fingertips. Then Kynon let her fall limply to the earth, and it was Bucco’s turn to shriek.
‘My son! My son!’ Myrtilia screamed with him, more piteously even that under her own torture. ‘Oh! My son in flesh and more than flesh!’
‘Remember – mother – remember . . . the promise and glory!’ Bucco grunted back at her in the midst of his cries of agony. ‘Remember – Maria at her son’s cross! Remember – pray for – body and blood!’
The legate sat and watched with both fists tightly clenched and lips compressed in a hard, thin line. Two slaves carrying market baskets half filled with food came unobtrusively through the gate, accompanied by a legionary. They stared in shock at what was happening to Bucco, and quietly joined their fellows in prayerful procession to Flavian’s household shrine.
‘Speak! Speak, curse you!’ Kynon shouted, growing desperate as he ran out of fingernails to torture. ‘A child! Would you murder an innocent child?’ Half frenzied, he drove his fist into Bucco’s stomach, doubling him over stunned and choking.
‘Bucco! My son, my son!’ wept Myrtilia. ‘Christ Jesus! Oh, Christ, welcome my son Bucco – he dies Your holy martyr!’
‘ “Holy”!’ Kynon panted, recollecting himself and hauling Bucco’s head up to make sure he still breathed, was still conscious. ‘Behold a “holy” man who murders and eats little children! We have a name for such, and it is “ogre.” “Ogre,” do you understand me, Christian slave? “Ogre” – “monster” – “devil”!’ Seizing Bucco’s arm, he twisted ferociously enough to dislocate the shoulder.
Barely in time to forestall the breakage of bones, Gnaius Metellus Lucian returned to report his legate’s orders carried out.
‘Your time is up, Briton,’ Flavian said, rising from his chair. ‘I regret as keenly as you that these child-murderers will not reveal their secret and thus in some measure redeem themselves, but your British ways of questioning appear no more useful than our Roman methods. They gain us nothing.’
‘They gain you nothing,’ Bucco groaned weakly, ‘but they gain us heaven. Come, finish your work!’
Myrtilia only sobbed, exhausted.
With military discipline, Lucian ignored angry Britons and bleeding victims alike. ‘Sir,’ he told his commander, ‘we found none of your slaves abroad save Dromo and Geta, who were at market shopping for food. We delivered them back as you ordered. I have four men still searching.’
‘They will find no one,’ Marcella said, returning to her father. ‘All our slaves are here, and I have tested each of them. Every one was eager to offer incense and prayer to the Lares and Penates of our house for Marcellina’s return – save only Nathan and Sarah, who prayed with equal fervor to the god of their own people. Most of them, indeed, had prayed and sacrificed already, either to our household gods or to their own personal patrons – for everyone in our house loves Marcellina – but they happily added new prayers to their former ones. Some few there were who hesitated to curse Christ Jesus. I have noted their names, but, for myself, I feel assured that their hesitation was due, not to secret reverence, but to superstitious fear of any deity of such fearful name and reputation.’
‘Cassius Marcellus Flavian!’ Bucco cried, recovering sufficiently from his pain to sound boastful. ‘I and my mother alone of all your household are to be numbered among God’s elect!’
‘Take them away!’ Flavian commanded. ‘See to their injuries, but shackle them well.’
Marcella said softly, ‘First let me speak a little with this woman who was once my nurse.’
Flavian nodded and turned away. As Kynon and Bodicca, for once accepting Lucian’s supervision, dragged Bucco from the courtyard still spewing his mixture of cant and curses, Marcella came down, Chloe still at her shoulder, and knelt beside Myrtilia.
‘Oh, Nurse, Nurse!’ the young woman mourned. ‘Nurse, who was almost more to me than my own dear mother, who died so young! Oh, Myrtilia, how could you, of all our people, betray us?’
Feebly, Myrtilia rolled onto her back, Chloe assisting when she saw the injured woman’s intention. The old nurse groped for Marcella, who, taking only enough notice of bloody fingers to avoid hurting them further, took the slave’s hand into her own and clasped it gently.
‘I have loved my son . . . with love beyond that of parent and child,’ Myrtilia whispered. ‘Was I for that an unnatural mother?’
Chloe whispered, ‘Oh, Hera!’
Horror flashed across Marcella’s face, but she hid it at once and answered only, ‘How, Myrtilia, dearest nurse? How, of all women, could they have so corrupted you?’
‘There,’ Myrtilia protested with what little strength was still within her, ‘there will be no more distinction of rank or wealth, riches or power, slave or master. There, it will be perpetual Juvenalia, and all shall be equal forever in God’s own light!’
‘A pretty state of anarchy,’ Chloe muttered under her breath.
‘But Marcellina! Our darling Marcellina!’ Marcella went on, tears flowing down her face. ‘Did you not love her as you had loved me before her? Did you not love her for her own sweet sake as well as for mine? Oh, Myrtilia, did you never love us at all? Has your whole life been one long lie?’
‘Marcellina,’ the old nurse murmured sorrowfully. ‘Little Marcellina . . . my little, loved one . . . No! I never meant – I would never have agreed – I never knew of this until after . . .’ Her voice rose with some tremble of anger. ‘Christ Jesus, do you demand even this? No! They meet – they meet tonight in the Cave of the Twin Lindens.’
For one moment, as she fell back panting, an expression of blessed peace filled her face. Before Marcella could breathe thanks, however, Myrtilia’s brief respite shattered – her eyes flew open, staring terrified at something beyond Marcella’s shoulder – she cried, ‘No! Lord Jesus, forgive –’ and then, with one long scream ending in the rattle of death, she fell back, eyes already glazing over.
Her final moments had drawn the attention of everyone in the courtyard. Flavian was first to speak. ‘The Twin Lindens,’ he said slowly. ‘Yes, I know that place.’
‘God!’ whispered the philosopher’s wife, closing Myrtilia’s eyes. ‘Who would choose to worship any deity so vengeful and merciless as this Christ Jesus?’
Marcella relinquished her nurse’s hand, carefully crossing it with its companion arm across the dead woman’s chest. ‘Myrtilia, Myrtilia,’ she murmured. ‘May God grant you mercy at last. May I meet you again, cured of this superstitious madness, in Elysian fields.’ Looking up at her father, she added, ‘Let us always remember, if we get Marcellina back safely, it is because this woman recovered her senses at the end, and braved the wrath of her cruel deity.’
‘She will have honorable burial,’ Flavian agreed. ‘Let us hope your would-be suitor plays his part as well.’
Night had fallen – imperceptibly, inside the Cave of the Twin Lindens, lit now by one lamp on a bronze lampstand. Its light no more than partially illuminated an altar, neatly draped in pure white cloth, near the back of which rested a mound the height of a man’s arm, shrouded over with separate cloth. Beside this altar a huge old wolfhound lay chained to the lampstand, his shaggy large head resting on his front paws, quiescent save for occasional little whines.
Some dozen red-robed Christians and three in white, all with faces deeply hooded, were grouped before the altar, where their flamen Dossemus and a tall man with silvering red hair stood facing them. The tall man had just finished reading aloud, in Gaulish accent, from a scroll he bore reverentially in his hands. As he rolled it up, kissed it, and laid it on one end of the altar, Dossemus led the assemblage in chanting.
Their hymn was slow and stately, yet at its words Octavio, who stood cloaked in red as far from the altar as he could stand without raising suspicion, shuddered. Only white-cloaked Crato, standing next to him, noticed. Bending closer, Crato murmured, ‘I find nothing vile in any of this. Silly and unphilosophical, but hardly heinous.’
‘ “His body and his blood,” ’ Octavio muttered back. ‘Did you not hear those words? There! Again! “We will share his body and his blood.” ’
‘I can cite you eight or nine Creation allegories making Earth herself and her fruits some god’s body, with water or wine for blood. Moreover, they sang, “his.” Not “her.” ’
‘To them, it makes no difference. Whoever their victim, he – or she – is thought to become their Christ Jesus of the ass’s head.’
‘And you have seen their sacrifice with your own eyes?’ Crato inquired skeptically.
Octavio either misheard or chose to skirt his companion’s question, for he answered, ‘No, you will not see it. They send their catechumens away while all is still innocent enough. Only the initiates feast and, after feasting, tease their hound into upsetting the lampstand, when they use darkness to couple promiscuously.’
‘So say many who have never actually witnessed such things,’ Crato argued.
‘Shhh!’ Octavio told him. ‘The catechumens’ ritual is ending.’ As if he had simply been answering such questions as the Christians might expect any true catechumen of theirs to ask, the decurion turned from Crato and joined in a chant they would clearly expect him to know:
‘Holy, holy, holy, God one and only!
Thou alone art holy, Thou alone art Lord.
Heaven and earth quake at Thy glory.
All glory forever to God, the sole Lord!’
‘Somewhat presumptuous,’ Crato nodded to himself, ‘yet not, I think, beyond divine forgiveness.’
‘The most sacred mysteries are about to commence,’ droned the dwarfish flamen, and the red-haired giant added in his foreign accent, ‘Let all catechumens depart.’
As Crato turned to obey, his companion caught his sleeve and muttered one thing further in his ear: ‘If anything happens, tell Flavian–that visiting “apostle” is Rufus Sinistris, who may remember me from Gaul.’
Crato and the other two in white filed from the cavern. Once they had disappeared, Rufus Sinistris turned to face the altar, stood several moments with face and arms uplifted in silent prayer, and then, reaching forth his left hand, flicked the white cloth from the arm-high mound.
Revealing an ass’s head, smeared with blood and impaled on a T-shaped cross cut to its size.
Hiding his reluctance, Octavio joined everyone present in prostrating himself before this grisly idol.
The two presiding flamens rose first, passing together behind the altar. Rufus Sinistris returned bearing a silver chalice and a long, thin-bladed dagger. Dossemus brought a brazier filled with glowing coals and a small grill, which he arranged beside the altar, at the end opposite the lamp.
Again Dossemus went behind the altar, and this time returned carrying a large platter on which rested what at first appeared in the weak light to be one huge lump of kneaded dough.
It was the child Marcellina, curled up and heavily dusted with white flour.
She appeared almost too heavy for small, hunchbacked Dossemus, and Rufus Sinistris soon relieved him, lifting the tray with its dormant burden and placing it on the altar before the crucified parody of a god. Octavio raised his head high enough to watch them closely. In her obviously drugged slumber – how little it would take to drug one so young! a single cup of unwatered wine would more than suffice – Marcellina’s tiny chest moved shallowly up and down.
But for how long? Already Dossemus was turning her upon her back, stretching her small limbs out in miniature cruciform.
Rufus Sinistris lifted his dagger and held it with both hands, high above Marcellina, its blade pointing downward. He chanted, ‘This is the most sacred body of Christ Jesus Our Lord, which will send up fragrant incense to God as it roasts. This is the vessel of Christ Jesus’ most sacred blood, soon to fill our chalice and cement our spiritual fellowship one with another. Let us eat and drink and be glad!’
Octavio could wait no longer. Springing up with all his military training, he lunged across the cave and caught the giant from behind, catching his dagger even as it began its descent, jerking it to one side and immediately striking it across the floor. The hound pricked its ears up and barked once.
Dossemus caught Octavio in turn from behind. Still grappling with Rufus Sinistris, the soldier dislodged Dossemus with one kick. The hound barked again, and this time went on barking.
Rufus Sinistris gave Octavio far more trouble than did Dossemus, nor was it any longer merely two against one. By now the other cultists were on their feet, thronging in upon Octavio, whose only advantage was that his opponents kept getting in one another’s way.
‘You!’ shouted Rufus Sinistris, twisting round to see his attacker’s face in full lamplight. ‘Brothers! Sisters! This is the apostate who betrayed our people in Gaul, that time I escaped only with Our Lord’s help, who wanted me to labor yet awhile in His fields! Behold the betrayer! Let us drink his blood before the child’s!’
Sinistris’ words brought still louder howls of rage from his fellow Christians – but now the old hound was on his feet, too, mingling his barks and howls with theirs, dashing back and forth on his short chain. The lampstand jerked, trembled, wavered, and went crashing over, plunging the cavern into deep darkness.
For several moments, all was black confusion of blows, grunts, shouts, and curses, the hound’s barking, and – suddenly – a child’s high-pitched cry wailing over all. The din of combat had broken even Marcellina’s drugged sleep.
Another sound rose above the turmoil – the sound of soldiers arriving. Soon their torchlight began to penetrate the cavern, casting upon its far wall the shadows of the twin trees which lent it its name.
One by one, the Christians took notice and left off fighting. Some cowered in awe, some tried in vain to crawl away and escape or hide, some seemed to ponder their chances of changing sides. As the army came ever closer, two women bent over Octavio and dabbed at his bloody injuries with their garments, as if preparing to pretend that they had wanted to help him. The hound gradually subsided, but Marcellina continued to wail. Dossemus huddled behind the altar. Rufus Sinistris stood proud, clutched the ass’s head with both hands as if intent on saving a sacred thing from desecration, and began to chant a hymn. First one and then another Christian joined him. No more than those two.
Flavian, Kynon, and Bodicca burst into the cavern, heading their combined force of Roman legionaries and British tribesmen. After one glance around, the warrior woman strode to the altar, stepping lightly over Octavio on her way, and gathered floury little Marcellina into the safety of her arms.
‘Does he live?’ Flavian asked, indicating Octavio.
‘He does,’ the wounded decurion answered for himself, struggling weakly into a sitting position.
‘As does your granddaughter,’ Bodicca added, turning toward Flavian. ‘And she, I think you will find, is whole and uninjured.’
‘Thank God!’ cried Marcella, pushing forward through the ranks of warriors to accept her child from the smiling British woman’s arms. ‘Oh, thank Juno and Vesta and all our Lares! All praise to the Great God of all!’
‘Well, daughter,’ said Flavian, ‘if it proves that Octavio has served us this night as nobly as he appears, by what I see here, to have done, I think I may judge his way clear to your hand.’
‘Never mind that,’ Kynon growled, adding to his tribesmen, ‘Seize these rascals. Let none of them escape!’
‘Bind them over to Roman jailers,’ Flavian amended, motioning for his own men to join Kynon’s in arresting the cultists. ‘They must have Roman justice.’
‘As you will, Roman. They are, after all, your own criminals.’ Smiling grimly, Kynon half knelt and fondled the hound between its ears. ‘But not this fine fellow, whom I claim for my only prisoner and prize. He, I think, is guilty of no more than bad companions, and they not, perhaps, of his own choosing. It should prove easy enough to redeem him, at least, to live out the rest of his nights at my feet.’
The hound craned his neck and licked Kynon’s hand.
‘Perhaps it is as well,’ Crato sighed on learning about Myrtilia and Bucco, the first dead and the second secured with his fellow criminals. ‘Had Flavian depended on my old feet, his legionaries could never have come in time.’ The philosopher sighed again. ‘Ah, Xanthippe, Xanthippe, I sought to believe good of all men. It seems that God has shown me my error.’
‘It was blessed error, born from nobility of mind, like Pallas from the brainpan of Zeus.’ Chloe kissed her husband’s bald head. ‘But, husband, once again I remind you, you are not Socrates, and I am not Xanthippe!’
[Translator’s Afterword: In the original, Crato has a fifty-line Epilogue pointing the moral that there are indeed evil creeds abroad in the world (not merely isolated individuals misinterpreting basically innocent creeds), and that it is a grave mistake to seek excuses for such creeds. From my own vantage point, safe in twentieth-century America and post-Vatican II Catholicism, I draw another moral entirely from Atramentacio’s work: Before we modern Christians succumb to the temptation of portraying any unpopular minority as a criminal cult – whether we are inspired by misinformed zeal or by the seductive charm of a ready-to-hand Evil Conspiracy – it might be wholesome to remember there was a time when we were the tiny, misunderstood, and dreaded minority; when the word ‘Christian’ must have fallen upon ordinary, honest, God-fearing ears very much as the word ‘Satanist’ falls upon ours; when real people suffered real hate crimes thanks to the promotion of such misunderstanding; when everyone who killed us truly and sincerely thought he or she was offering homage to God.
Notice how carefully Atramentacio dissociates the Hebrew characters from any suggestion of guilt. The playwright appears to have been a liberal and fair-minded worshiper of the one high God conceived to be over all nations and people (and Whom Christian apologists were to identify with the Father preached by Jesus), as well as of more localized Roman deities; and to have worked from accounts as speciously reliable as much of the anti-Wiccan, anti-New Age religion, etc., material currently used in our own Sunday schools and law enforcement agencies.
Among the most sobering reflections of all is provided by the evidence, found in the writings of Church Fathers, that the Christians themselves of those first few centuries were perfectly willing to believe such outrages as found in The Ass’s Head – always about other, ‘heretical’ Christian groups, of course. Never about their own.
It will have become obvious why Atramentacio’s work was lost for so long. The wonder is that any copy of The Ass’s Head survived at all for rediscovery in our own day.
One change I made in the action. It is, I hope, a change that might have been made by even the most conscientious director of a staged production. In the original, Myrtilia’s death is accompanied by a rather fearsome divine (or, if you prefer, diabolical) apparition, which all the other characters see with her. This is certainly in keeping with the dramatic conventions of the classical stage, but it strikes me as inconsistent with Octavio’s personal history, with the action in the cave, and with the general tone of the play. It could also make the cave action seem anticlimactic, and I despaired of trying to convey, in a few words, the mindset that would have allowed the ancient Romans to witness such an apparition and continue to call the Christian belief ‘superstitious’ – in their sense of the word, which differed somewhat from our sense of it. For all these reasons, I limited the vision to Myrtilia’s eyes alone, thus moving her death more into line with such examples, drawn from early Christian literature, as the deaths of Ananias, Sapphira, and Nichomachus, and trying at the same time to render it susceptible to medical explanation. I have made no other essential changes in the play.]
* This suggests some ‘in’ joke, perhaps concerning an obscure philosophical school, a character in a now-lost play, or even an actor associated with such a character. In any event, after being mentioned in the Prologue, Pytho vanishes completely from The Ass’s Head.