The Lost Catacomb (15 page)
Mariamne stood alone in the inner vestibule, as she had
been instructed.
The synagogue
elders who had escorted her on horseback from Ostia had been summarily dismissed
by a cleric and told to wait for her outside the forbidding walls of the papal
palace, in the merciless heat of the midday sun.
Even her maidservant had been prohibited
from accompanying her as chaperone to this audience with the new Pope.
Young as she was
—
unused, as she was, moreover, to the deceits and subtle
stratagems of royal or papal courts
—
Mariamne understood that this was a calculated attempt to
cow her spirit, to render her uneasy and vulnerable.
She was a young woman, alone and
unprotected, about to face a heartless array of hostile bishops who were
dedicated to one goal and one goal only
—
wealth, and the limitless power that it brought.
To be here on her own was unheard
of.
It was immodest, and perhaps,
she thought, as she shivered in her light woolen cloak, she would not live to
tell the tale.
She glanced once more around the cold antechamber, a musty
room illuminated by a single burning torch, a windowless room that had
apparently never seen the cheerful warmth of daylight.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness,
she saw that large wooden crosses hung everywhere.
Primitive figures, carved from ancient
pine
—
pierced by nails and crowned with thorns, their hollow eyes
oozing large wooden tears
—
gazed mournfully at her.
“
Guilty,
”
they
seemed to cry out, loudly and incessantly, from all sides of the room, in a
torment of everlasting pain.
“
You are
guilty of killing us.
You must
pay.
You and all your brethren must
pay. You can never atone for our death.
Never.
”
She blocked her ears and closed her eyes, trying to focus
her thoughts.
This is not real, she
said to herself.
This is not
happening.
She shivered in her
light cloak and opened her eyes slowly.
This is but an unreal mockery, and these but wooden figures, lifeless
and cold, not the living godhead.
I
’
m tired,
that
’
s all. I
’
m tired and in despair.
They're doing this to me
deliberately.
They're trying to
break my spirit before I
’
ve even begun.
A barely perceptible scent of stale incense and unwashed
bodies suffused the dank room, contending with the stronger smell of mildew
that pervaded it, making her feel faint and sick at heart.
She had not eaten nor drunk in many
hours.
How am I to do this? she
asked herself yet again.
How?
She thought of her father and wondered
what he would have done in her place.
She prayed for strength.
Please, God, she begged once more.
Please defend me and my people, as our cause is just.
How young she is, Domitius thought to himself as Mariamne
entered the audience chamber, flanked on either side by a forbidding phalanx of
guards.
How young and how
exceedingly beautiful.
It cannot
end well for her, he speculated as he readied his quills and vellum. Nor for
the Jews of Rome either.
Mariamne approached the dais on which the Pope sat, throned
in glory on the chair of St. Peter and surrounded by a protective semicircle of
clerics.
She curtsied deeply, her
face pale and solemn, as she met his gaze unflinchingly and waited for him to
speak, as custom demanded.
He
stretched out his hand for her to approach and kiss the fisherman
’
s ring
that graced his finger and was shocked to see that she refused to acknowledge
the gesture.
“
Please, my
daughter, you may speak freely,
”
he
said finally, choosing to ignore the rebuff.
But still she remained silent.
“
You may speak,
”
he
repeated, a look of mild irritation on his face as he glanced momentarily at
the scribe.
“
Is that
not why you've come?
”
She glanced pointedly in the direction of the guards and
the bishops, and as she shifted her eyes back towards the Pope, her expression
hardened, her eyes reflecting the lit tapers in the room, like orbs of polished
ebony.
A few crude remarks
were heard from among the guards, and the bishops regarded her with mute, but
undisguised enmity.
Sensing that
she would continue to remain stubbornly silent in their presence, the Pope
raised his hand to dismiss them, gesturing to Domitius to remain.
A clever young woman, the scribe thought
to himself. She has outwitted them, at least for now.
She watched the bishops file reluctantly out of the
chamber.
Several of them glared
menacingly in her direction, but she ignored them, not unlike a slender reed
along the margin of a marshy pond, swaying in the breeze, buffeted by unruly
winds, yet rooted firmly in the soil.
Yea though I walk, she thought to herself, her eyes shifting upwards,
towards the heavens, yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.
“
Yes, I
will speak now,
”
she
began, facing the Pope bravely, her voice gathering strength and resonance.
“
I will
speak now, with a full heart and a ready tongue, though it may cost me
dearly.
Though it may cost my
people dearly,
”
she
added under her breath.
“
I could
begin, my lord, with an appeal to your emotions, to your heart.
And I trust that beneath that formal
exterior
—
robed in wisdom, garbed in judgment and majesty
—
that
you must, in fact, have one.
A
heart that feels, a heart endowed with compassion for others, a heart that
cries out for the downtrodden and destitute.
“
On our Day
of Atonement, as members of our faith stand in judgment before the One living
God, the God of our ancestors Who has sustained us throughout centuries of
persecution, we ask Him to judge us, not based on our merits, which cold logic
would dictate are few indeed.
Instead, we plead for His divine mercy
—
to embrace
our souls, to warm our hearts, and bring us back to him.
“
But today,
at this time and in this place of earthly endeavor, it seems that only logic
will do.
Proof mathematical, as it
were
—
hard facts, incontrovertible, seasoned with good sense and
carefully honed.
”
And as her eyes flashed indignantly, her soft cheeks began
to brighten with the warmth of her argument and her red lips moved seductively,
caught up, as she was, in the intricate thrall of her own rhetoric.
And Benedictus I
—
Supreme
Pontiff, Holy Father, Bishop of Rome, and heir to St. Peter himself
—
Benedictus
I
—
a
mortal man, when all was said and done
—
Benedictus I knew that he was lost.
There are times in a man
’
s life, or
in that of a woman, when the realization that something is amiss, that
something is not quite as it can or should be, shakes him
—
or
her, as we have said
—
inexplicably, in moments of supreme and quiet
contemplation, to the very foundations of the soul.
Be he a humble fisherman waiting
patiently for his daily catch along the pebbled banks of the Sea of Galilee, or
be he a mighty Emperor disillusioned with the false idols of his youth, or be
she, perhaps, a modest and upright maiden, gathering sheaves of grain amid the
alien fields of another
’
s homeland
—
there are events that will change the course of his or her
life and determine not only a single destiny, but the fate of nations as well.
Such was the unexpected impulse to self-evaluation and
journey to self-knowledge that Benedictus I had embarked upon, however
unconsciously, as the fair Mariamne spoke.
At thirty-five, with patrician good looks, a regal bearing, and an
intellect sharper than the blade of any imperial soldier
’
s sword,
he had fought hard to win election to the throne of St. Peter, wading his way
through the mire of internecine jealousies and intrigues that characterized the
papal court and its coterie of corrupt deacons and power-hungry bishops.
He had listened closely to the arguments presented by
Mariamne Rufina, as she defended her people and pleaded for an annulment of his
decree
—
listened closely and carefully enough to sense an intellect
equal to his, a brilliant mind that one meets perhaps once in a lifetime, if at
all.
When she was done, his scribe left the great reception hall
to rouse the guards, who escorted Mariamne to the outskirts of the palace,
where the Jewish delegation had waited for so long, torn between fear and
desperate hope.
He had given her no
answer yet, but told her that a decision would be forthcoming, probably within
a matter of weeks.
Now, as he knelt on the polished limestone floor before the
great wooden crucifix in his bedchamber that night, Benedictus prayed for
understanding and guidance.
A
feeling of unease pervaded his soul, making it difficult, if not impossible,
for him to consider the escape from disquietude and turmoil that sleep might
provide.
He called for his scribe
—
a
childhood friend and confidant, whose lifetime loyalty had been requited by a
position of trust in the papal court
—
and asked him to read aloud from the gospels.
He hoped that its wisdom would somehow
allay the misgivings he felt, that it would somehow restore tranquility to his
soul and renewed trust in his ability to deal with a troubling situation he had
neither sought nor indeed had ever anticipated.
By the time his friend had finished reading, Benedictus had
come to a decision.
“
Domitius,
”
he said,
“
I want you
to send a message to Ostia.
My
spirit is perturbed; I am restless.
I need to speak to the young woman again.
I must hear more before I can judge
properly what is to be done in the matter of the new Jewish taxes. Will you
transcribe this request for her presence at the papal court and have it
conveyed to her?
”
“
Of course,
”
Domitius
replied.
“
I
’
ll see to
it at once,
”
and
he left the room.
Benedictus lay restlessly on his bed, thinking of the
passages that Domitius had chosen to read.
But as he drifted off, at long last, into the uncertain embrace of a fitful
sleep, the remembered words of the gospels gave him no comfort, no solace that
could possibly mitigate the dark hour of the soul.
Instead, the vibrant countenance of the
young Mariamne
—
her glowing cheeks and her bright eyes
—
and
the strangely seductive spell of her voice haunted his dreams, like a tireless
revenant, throughout the long and lonely night.
