style="font-size:15px;"> But it wasn’t Bone’s unspoken assertion of Domitia Tertia’s ownership that silenced me.
“No one belongs to himself or herself,” my beloved had once insisted, angry with me for my arrogance. I knew what he meant: he belonged to his god, Yahweh. A god I resented and mistrusted, whom I had nonetheless invoked in the end to save Esus’s life.
“Yeshua ben Miriam,” I had said. “In the name of the unnameable one, the god of your forefathers, the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I command you to go.”
He didn’t want to, but when I called his god’s name, he had no choice. And so he left me on the shore with no god or goddess to protect me; or so it seemed then.
Now here I was, stepping out of some fusty little temple back into the streets of Rome, not sure of what had just happened. Who was Isis? What did she want with me? And what did she have to do with my dream of the river and the floating coffin?
The Circus Maximus took up the entire valley of Murcia between the Palatine and Aventine Hills. It could seat a crowd of fifty thousand. By the time Bone and I arrived on foot—he had sent the litters ahead—the huge stadium was almost full. The sound of the crowd was like nothing I had ever heard; the closest comparison is surf, storm surf in a high wind, but without the rhythmic ebb and flow. I had seen plenty of Romans up close; held them as they panted and heaved. They were just flesh, as vulnerable and absurd as anyone else. But to see so many all at once, more people than I had ever seen in my life, was overwhelming—and they were all Romans, of all classes. Slaves and freed slaves were not allowed to buy seats—another rule Domitia Tertia was flouting.
As Bone and I made our way to the top row, I found myself wondering, who are they all, how can there be so many, each one conceived in some heated moment, born of some woman’s wracked body, each one with secrets and passions, each one with a story that might break your heart, if she knew how to tell it, if he knew. Looking into a star-crammed sky was no less awesome, though perhaps more aesthetic. And of course stars do not sweat or reek of garlic, so far as we know.
Only Dido was sitting in our row, looking bored and above it all. I glanced at Bone, but he did not appear concerned about the absence of the others. He gestured for me to sit down, while he stood at the end of the row. I was surprised that he hadn’t berated me when we left the Temple, though I’d caught him casting uneasy glances at me. Something about what happened at the Temple had unnerved him.
“Where were you?” Dido demanded. “I know you’re green, but I didn’t think you were stupid—running down a dead end street your first day out of the house.”
Before I could answer or decide if I wanted to, Berta returned, puffing and sweating, and plopped herself down next to me.
“Three is enough for me!” she mopped her brow with her sleeve. “Succula’s already done five. Where were you, liebling? We were so worried about you. You have to stay with us. You don’t know your way around the streets yet. Dido, did you tell her? Anything we make at the Circus, we keep.”
“I think she better stay put for now.” Dido cut her eyes in Bone’s direction. “Besides, Berta, you know what I think about doing just anybody. It’s not worth it.”
“When I am free, Dido, and you’re still on your back, we’ll talk—or maybe not. I’ll be far away eating roast pig and drinking beer. Oh, here come the mimes!” Berta clapped her hands and laughed at their antics.
Dido had her eyes on other things. “Look across the arena, Red. No, down,” Dido gestured. “That’s the Emperor’s box. The purple is arriving. There! I think that’s the Emperor.” Dido gripped my arm.
Her excitement surprised me. I would have thought she’d scorn imperial Rome on principle. As for me, I had grown up believing I was of divine descent; I was the foster daughter of Bran, a valiant, if fallen, king. A balding dissolute emperor, who had banished his first wife for orgies in the Forum, Tiberius did not impress me. My standard for husbands was King Ailill, a generous man who counted Queen Maeve’s chief lover as his comrade.
“There’s the Emperor’s mother,” Dido continued. I looked at the spare, elegant older woman with more interest. Livia was the first lady of Rome. Widow of the Divine Augustus (as he was called) as well as mother of his stepson, now Emperor, whom the late Augustus had disliked, Livia had masterminded and micro-managed her son’s ascendancy. “And here comes Anecius. He’s sitting in the Imperial box. What a coup. Well, he is spending fortunes on this election.”
“Election?”
“Get with it, Red. You didn’t think this circus is really for his son’s putting on the toga, did you? That’s just the occasion. The man is running for praetor. By all the gods, Red, look, do you see? That’s Domitia Tertia. Sitting in the second row, behind Livia with some of the Vestal Virgins. That whore has testicles any man would die for!”
“Why do people always think of testicles when they admire someone’s nerve?” I complained. But I had to admit, if only to myself, that Domitia Tertia had a certain style. She’d thumbed her nose at the conventions of the ruling class; she ripped them off on a regular basis; she broke laws like fingernails, and they fawned on her for it.
“For the love of Isis!” Dido exclaimed.
Isis, Isis. People called on her an awful lot. Now the name meant something to me. But what?
“Red, see way up there?” She took my head between her hands and positioned it.
“Is that our Helen?” I marveled. “In the box with Aetius? Doesn’t he have a wife who’s some sort of relation to the Divine Augustus? Where is she?”
“Childbed,” said Dido. “When did having a wife ever stop a man from having or flaunting a mistress? Hell, a box is nothing. He’s setting her up in her own house. Maybe you didn’t hear about it yet. He just bought Helen.”
“Bought her! I thought Domitia Tertia never sold her whores.”
“Oh, she does. If the price is right.”
But Joseph hadn’t bought me. He’d refused. Now he’d gone off somewhere. Where? Where I wanted to go. Where I would give anything to go.
“That’s one way out of the Vine and Fig Tree, but not the one I want,” said Dido.
“Why not?” I asked.
“When I leave there, honey, I am going to belong to no one but me.”
No one belongs to himself, I remembered my beloved’s words again, but I did not speak them to Dido. I just nodded. I knew exactly what she meant.
Succula finally clambered into the row, stepping over Berta and squeezing in next to me, “Red, sweetie, you’re here. I was afraid Bone would send you home.”
“How
