The Blessing Stone (35 page)

As he entered the atrium he wondered where the slaves were. It was the majordomo’s habit to greet him, yet Philo was nowhere to be seen. He was about to call out when he heard voices chanting in unison. He drew nearer to the garden and heard the Latin words: “Father in heaven, blessed is your name. Your kingdom comes. We do your will on earth. We pray, give us daily bread, forgive our sins, and rescue us from evil.”

Cornelius stepped through the open doorway and peered into the garden. A group of people—mostly strangers, but his own slaves among them, Philo included—were standing with their arms held out, their heads back and eyes closed as they chanted. Then he saw Amelia, facing the group, leading them.

When they all crossed themselves and said “Amen,” Amelia opened her eyes and leveled a direct gaze at him.

Both knew they had reached a turning point.

Because Rachel’s house and all her slaves and goods had been confiscated by Nero, this week’s Sabbath meeting was to be held at Phoebe’s house. But Phoebe was elderly and her arthritis was bothering her, and so she needed assistance. Amelia was in the marketplace purchasing food for the feast. Despite what had happened to Rachel and the others, more people than ever were joining the Christian faith, especially when Nero had abandoned his persecution of them, and so a good-size crowd was expected. As she selected moderately priced wine, Amelia’s thoughts were upon those sacrificed in the arena.

Rumors had flown through the city. After the Great Fire, everyone said, Nero had tried to appease heaven. After consulting the sibylline books, prayers were addressed to Vulcan, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was propitiated. But neither human resources, nor imperial munificence, nor appeasement of the gods could eliminate sinister suspicions that the fire had been started on purpose by the emperor himself. To suppress this rumor, Nero needed scapegoats. He chose the Christians.

No one knew why he chose that group in particular, although Amelia had her own dark suspicions. People said it was probably because Christians were mostly rich, and Romans were always jealous of the rich, and suspicious of them, too, asking, how did they get to be so wealthy? Rumors of black magic and child sacrifice circulated. Strangely, after the arena event, the Christian persecution ended. Nero’s plan had backfired as the victims had ultimately been pitied by the people who felt innocents were being sacrificed to one man’s brutality rather than to the national interest. And anyway, no one cared about such an insignificant sect, even Nero had forgotten them because of his own personal problems. And so Christians were safe again.

“You are the Lady Amelia, wife of Cornelius Gaius Vitellius?”

Amelia looked up to see a member of the Prefecture Police standing over her, his face shadowed by the visor of his helmet. He was accompanied by six large guards. “I am,” she said.

“Will you come with us, please, Lady?”

The Roman Prefecture, which housed Rome’s main prison, stood near the Forum as an imposing presence. Outside, an impressive white marble facade with beautiful fluted columns and statuary faced the open square, but inside it was a warren of dark, forbidding corridors and cells.

“Why have I been brought here?” Amelia demanded to know as she was led down into the bowels beneath the main building. Her escort did not respond but marched grim-faced at her side, the jingle and clank of their armor echoing off dank walls.

They came to a halt before a heavy wooden door. The guard dragged it open and then stepped to one side, indicating that Amelia should go in. “Am I a prisoner?” she asked in disbelief. By the light of the guard’s torch, she saw a grim cell inside, small and foul smelling.

“Please, Lady,” he said, gesturing again.

Amelia’s impulse was to protest, to run even. But she knew it would be to no avail. Whatever mistake had been made, it would be soon cleared up. With head held high, she entered the cell as if entering a sunlit temple.

The door clanged shut behind her and she heard the turning of keys in a lock. As the guards tramped away, taking with them the torch, darkness descended over her and Amelia was immediately gripped with panic. She ran to the door and pressed herself against it. There was a small opening just above her head, covered with bars and beyond her reach. Even on tiptoe she could not see out. But a wan light filtered in from sconces in the corridor, and presently her eyes adjusted to the dark.

The cell was dark and smelled of mold and urine, with chains on the walls and rotten straw piled in the corners. She saw old bloodstains on the floor, she could hear the faint cries of other prisoners. Fighting the fear and panic that were threatening to grip her, she tried to think with a level head. Surely this was a mistake! But…the guards had known where to find her in the marketplace; they had identified her on sight and had known her name. That meant someone had told them. But who? And more puzzling, why?

Suddenly she was filled with a terrifying presentiment: could they possibly keep her locked in here forever? She sank to the stone floor, her ear pressed to the thick door, and sat with her knees drawn up. The darkness closed in around her, and the myriad foul odors filled her head. She felt something run past her foot and she cried out. Surely her family would miss her and come inquiring! But she had heard of people being locked up in this prison forever, forgotten…

She clasped her hands and began to pray.

Cornelius Vitellius arrived at the prison wearing his purple-edged toga, a garment allowed to only a privileged few, and he wore it now on purpose, not so much to impress the prefecture guards but to remind Amelia of his position and power. “Is she here?” he demanded of the man on duty.

“Been here since the first watch, your Lordship,” the watch commander said, giving Cornelius the kind of brief salute career army soldiers offered to civilians of importance. “That’s ten hours.”

“No food and water?”

“Not a drop or a bite, as you ordered. We did give her a bucket to piss in, though. How long you want us to keep her?”

“I’ll let you know. For now, say nothing to her.”

The watch commander had learned over the years that a silent mouth was a profitable one. The popular lawyer—the guard himself had consumed more than one of Cornelius Vitellius’s free beers—wasn’t the first man to have a pesky relative held under arrest as a way of curbing unwanted behavior. He winked and turned back to his game of dice.

Cornelius followed the jailer down the stench-filled corridor and paused outside the metal door to get into the right frame of mind, as he often did before a trial. Then he gave the signal to the jailer.

“By the gods, Amelia!” he said as he rushed in, the door clanging shut behind him.

“Cornelius!” She flew into his arms.

“I couldn’t believe it when they told me you were being held here!”

“Why am I here? Am I under arrest? No one will tell me anything.”

“Now sit down. Be calm. Apparently someone named you as a Christian.”

She stared up at him. “But Cornelius, my being a Christian is no secret. And it is not a crime to be one.”

“I’m afraid Nero is still waging his revenge against the Christians, but he is doing it secretly, due to public antipathy.” When he saw that she believed him, for she had gone very white and looked frightened, he added, “Nero has allowed me to talk to you before the real interrogation begins.”

“You mean…torture?” she said with a mouth so dry she could hardly speak.

“Renounce this new faith, Amelia. Give me the names of the members, and you will go free.”

“And if I do not tell?”

“Then it is out of my hands.” He spread them for emphasis.

She thought of the people who had become dear to her—Gaspar and Japheth, Chloe, Phoebe…. She began to tremble violently. Would she be able to withhold their names under torture?

“How far—” she began. “How far will Nero pursue this?”

He let his shoulders slump, the way she had seen them slump during a court trial. A gesture more expressive than words.

“Cornelius, help me! I want to live! I want to see our grandchildren grow up. I want to see Gaius receive his toga of manhood.” In that moment, life had never looked so sweet. And never had she felt so desperate. “Please, Cornelius! I beg you on our children’s names. Help me!”

He took her by the shoulders. “I want to, Amelia. By the gods, for all that has been between us, I would never wish
this
upon you. But Nero has his mind set. Tell them what they want to know and you will walk out of here with me this day.”

She looked at him with eyes filled with terror. “I…can’t.”

“Then tell me, and I shall tell the guards. They will allow that. When and where do the Christians next meet? And who are they?”

Amelia had no way of knowing that Cornelius would do nothing with the names. He would not tell the guards, her friends would go unharmed. She believed they would come to harm and so she remained silent. He tried another tack: “Give up this new faith, Amelia, and we can go back to the way we were, years ago, when we were happy. I’ll take you to Egypt. Would you like that?”

She searched her husband’s face in the torchlight that flickered through the small grate in the door. He looked genuinely upset. Finally she said, “Nero can kill my body, Cornelius, as he did my friends. But they are not dead. So he has no power over death. In the end, what does he really have?”

He eyed her sharply. Was she referring to Nero, or was it a veiled reference to himself? No, he saw no guile in her eyes. “If you allow this to happen, you cannot love me or your family. You are not thinking of our children!”

“But I am!” she cried. “Oh Cornelius, it is for my children that I do this!”

“If you will not listen to me, Amelia, then there is nothing I can do.” He turned to walk out.

“No!” she cried. “Don’t leave me here!”

“It is a simple thing to obtain your freedom, Amelia. Any child could see it.”

She regarded him in horror. “Are you truly going to leave me here in this horrible place?”

“As I said, it is out of my hands.”

Cornelius made sure he looked as powerless and abject as possible when the door to her cell was closed and locked, but as he followed the jailer down the corridor he felt slightly annoyed at her refusal to cooperate. He had hoped for last minute begging and crying and then his victory. So he told the watch commander to keep her for the night, no food, no water. He thought for a moment. “Can you arrange for her to hear sounds of torture?”

“I can do better, your Lordship,” said the soldier who often relieved the boredom of his job with sadistic diversions. “I can go into her cell with blood on my hands. Works every time.”

Amelia awoke to the sound of the key in the massive iron lock. She slowly sat up, feeling aches in all her joints for having slept on a stone floor. There were bites on her skin; some itched, some were painful. She had never known such thirst. “Cornelius?” she whispered.

But it was her daughter. Amelia was surprised at how terrible Cornelia looked.

“Mother,” the nineteen-year-old said as she gathered Amelia into a tearful embrace. “What a terrible thing!”

“Have you—” Amelia began. She was shocked at her own physical weakness. “May I have some water?”

Cornelia banged on the door and shouted her demand. A minute later the jailer—not the same guard as the night before—was back with a jug of water, a lighted torch, and two stools for sitting. He had the look of a man not at all pleased with his job.

“I heard from Cornelius,” Cornelia said, referring to her brother, not her father. “He was here at the prison visiting a client and heard about your arrest. Oh Mother, I could not believe it! Why are you here?”

Amelia first had to quench her thirst, gulping directly from the pitcher and relishing the feel of water running down her hands and arms and neck. She thought that a hundred baths would never get her clean. Finally she related the conversation she had had with Cornelius, wondering why
he
wasn’t there.

“But,” Cornelia said with a frown, “I have heard of no new persecution. Nero is too worried about his own neck these days to contemplate those of others.”

And so Amelia knew. What she had really known, deep in her heart—what had visited her in dreams and whispered to her in cadence with the rustling of rats and the endless cries of other prisoners—that this was all Cornelius’s doing. By forcing her to renounce her new faith, he would be triumphant over her again.

And in the next instant, Cornelia also knew. “It’s Papa, isn’t it?” she whispered. “Why? Why does he hate you?”

“It’s all because of wounded vanity. I was the cause of a great blow to your father’s pride. I did not do it on purpose. The crowd in the arena—”

“I remember that! Everyone talked of it for weeks. Papa thought the mob was honoring him, when it was you. Is that why—?”

“Why what, Cornelia?”

The young woman bent her head. “I saw the baby. She was perfect. There was no crooked foot. But Papa ordered her to be taken away. I was so horrified. I didn’t know what to think of him.”

“Your father was your hero and he turned out to be only a man.”

“And he continues to punish you. Don’t let him, Mother. Give him what he wants and you can be free.”

Amelia shook her head. “If I give Cornelius what he wants, then I shall never be free.”

“Yes you will. I’ll help you! He can’t persecute us both. Mother”— Cornelia’s tone grew frantic—“it isn’t as though it’s Nero! It’s only Papa who’s doing this to you.”

“Daughter, listen to me. It doesn’t matter if it is Nero and a stadium full of people, or just one man. I cannot renounce my faith.”

Cornelia dropped to her knees and, laying her head in her mother’s lap, sobbed. As Amelia stroked her daughter’s hair, she marveled that a mere two years ago, the day Cornelia gave birth to her first child, Amelia had been a woman without faith. But now she had faith in abundance and wished she could share it with her daughter, handing it to her like a goblet of sparkling hope.

“Go now, child,” she murmured. “Take care of the family for me. See that they are well. And little Lucius, treat him as your brother, Cornelia, for he is indeed that.”