Part 27 (2/2)
”I know that you are still grieving, and perhaps you blame the Emperor for what happened, but if Christ could forgive His murderers as He hung on the Cross, can we do less?”
I might have found it easier, I thought grimly, if my son had sinned againstme . I had spent the eight months since the death of Fausta in Rome, but neither in the new chapel that had been made from one of the rooms of my palace nor in the church of Marcellinus and Petrus, had I attended any service of the Christian faith. Nor had I entered any temple of the old religion. I was bereft of both G.o.ddess and G.o.d.
Indeed, since returning, I had hardly stirred beyond my own doors.
They say that the old dwell much on the past, as if reliving their lives backwards towards the beginning.
Certainly I preferred to remember the days when Constantius and I had been young together, and more and more often, the dreams that filled my nights were of Avalon. I knew that my servants feared I was dying, and with good reason, for I was now in my seventy-seventh year, and life held nothing that I still desired.
I suspected, also, that while I was away the Syrian girl, Martha, had said more about the manner of her healing than I would have liked. When I did go abroad, people bowed even more deeply than my rank required, and offerings of flowers were often left at my gates.
In the same period, Constantine had relieved his feelings by directly attacking pagan religion for the first time. He had the prophets of Apollo at Didyma and Antioch killed, and destroyed the shrine of Aesclepius at Aigai. But the greater part of his wrath was directed towards what he called immorality.
Increasingly strict laws against seduction, even when it was a willing elopement, were prescribed, and the temples where priestesses served Aphrodite pulled down.
I heard Sylvester clear his throat and realized that he was still waiting.
”The Emperor is in the audience chamber, Augusta. It is not good for mother and son to live in estrangement. If you do not feel well enough to rise, may he come to you here?”
I have no son, I thought bitterly, but I nodded. Constantine was still the Emperor.
Cunoarda rearranged the folds of my woollen mantle more becomingly. Spring had come to Rome, but I still felt cold. These days I spent most of my time in the small chamber with its British hangings-Constantine had never been here before. The dogs, sensing my tension, got up as he entered, and I motioned them back to their accustomed place at my feet.
”Are you not happy with your palace, Mother?” he asked, looking around him. ”Surely you have somewhere to sit that is more... appropriate...”
Bishop Sylvester, whose own private chambers were even less luxurious, winced a little, but kept still.
”The room is comfortable and easy to keep warm. You must forgive an old woman her eccentricities, my lord,” I replied.
”But your health is good-” He looked at me in sudden concern. ”You can travel.”
I frowned. ”Where would you send me?” Was I about to be exiled?
Constantine straightened, his expression brightening. ”To the Holy Land, mother, to Palestine!”
I blinked up at him, confused. I knew that Jesus had lived in Palestine, but after all, his own country had rejected him. These days it was one of the poorest of our provinces. Antiochia and Alexandria were the great Christian centres of the Empire.
”Our Lord once walked that sacred earth! Every stone He touched is holy. But except for Caesarea, there are only a few house-churches in the entire province. The sites of His miracles, which should be thronged with pilgrims, have no shrines!” Constantine's face flushed with excitement.
”That is unfortunate, but I do not understand-”
”I will build them! Work at the site of the Holy Sepulchre is progressing. Bishop Macarius has sent me some pieces of the True Cross already-I will give you one for your chapel here. To beautify the places where G.o.d manifested Himself will be my penance and my offering. Surely then He will forgive me my great sin!”
An offering, I thought cynically, but hardly a penance, except perhaps for those whose taxes would support this ambitious programme of construction. I nodded, still wondering why my blessing was required.
”I want to do it now, but the Visigoths are restless and the Persians will have to be dealt with soon. I cannot take the time to visit Palestine, but you could go as my representative. You would know how to find the sacred places and how to bless them,” he drew breath and added ingenuously, ”and show the East that the family of the Emperor is still strong!”
”That would be a difficult journey for a woman of my years,” I said, trying to conceal my astonishment.
”Eusebius of Caesarea will take good care of you. Palestine is a land flowing with milk and honey, and the sun is warm Constantine's voice was cajoling, but his eyes were full of dreams.
”I will have to pray over this...” That was something to which he could not object.
”I must go now, but Bishop Sylvester is still here. He will explain.” Constantine started to embrace me, his sanguine smile faltering a little as his eyes met mine, and compromised by kissing my outstretched hand.
”You are still angry,” said Sylvester when the Emperor had left us, ”and you have good cause. But nonetheless I ask you to make this journey.”
”Why?” I rasped. ”What possible interest should I have in visiting the holy places of a religion whose protector is responsible for such deeds as Constantine has done?”
”G.o.d Himself grieved as you grieve when He saw what men did to His Son, but He did not destroy humankind. When you consider how far we Christians are from perfection, is it not a proof of our religion that it has survived at all? Go to Palestine, Helena, not for the Emperor, but for yourself. In the desert, G.o.d speaks clearly. If there is any purpose to this tragedy, perhaps you will come to understand it there.”
I made him some neutral answer, and presently he left me alone. I was determined to wait until Constantine had left Rome and then send him my refusal, but that night I dreamed that I stood in a sere land of golden sand and white stone, beside a silver sea. It was a place of terrible beauty, a place of power. And I knew, even as I gazed upon that bleached landscape, that I had seen it before.
It was only when I woke, perspiring, that I realized that it was not from this life that I recognized it, but from the vision that had come at my initiation into womanhood on Avalon. I understood then that there might still be something left for me to do, and that this journey to the Holy Land was my destiny.
Constantine, having got his way, spared no expense in transporting me to Caesarea, the port that the infamous Herod had built two centuries before. In the middle of August, I took s.h.i.+p from Ostia with Cunoarda and Martha, for they had sworn not to leave me even though I had freed them both some time before. We made a leisurely progress around the toe of Italia, past the sh.o.r.es of Graecia to Greta, where we took on fresh food, and then straight across to the Asian coast.
We came in with the setting sun behind us, illuminating the flat strip of tilled land, so rich in orchards and vineyards, and the rising ground beyond it with a rich, golden glow. The fortress loomed over one horn of the little harbour, with the walled town behind it, but more whitewashed buildings showed among the trees to the south, and as we drew closer I could see the smooth crescent of the amphitheatre, its tiered seats facing the sea.
Since the second Jewish rebellion had left Hierosolyma in ruins Caesarea had been the capital of Palestine. Here the Procurator had his palace, and it was here that Eusebius, the senior bishop for the province, had his church and see. I could see why the Romans liked it-in climate and atmosphere it reminded me strongly of the area around Baiae.
On the third day after my arrival, when I was sufficiently rested, my bearers carried me from the Procurator's palace to dine with Eusebius at a little house he had among the olive groves above the town.
It was now the end of summer, and our couches had been arranged on a terrace where we could watch the sunset and wait for the relief the sudden drop in temperature brought at the end of the day.
”It is a beautiful country,” I said, sipping some of the local wine.
”The coastal strip is fertile, if it is cared for,” anwered Eusebius, ”and some of the valley of the Jordan, and around Lake Tiberias in the Galilee. Inland, the country grows arid, fit for grazing, and farther south it is desert, fit only for scorpions.”
Here in his own home he looked more relaxed, but he was the same thin, sallow-skinned intellectual I had met in Nicomedia. It was said that the library he had ama.s.sed here was better, especially in relation to the Church, than anything in Rome, and he was noted as an apologist and historian. I estimated his age at about ten years less than my own.
”My lady is unaccustomed to heat,” said Cunoarda. ”I hope that she will not be required to spend much time in the wilderness.”
Eusebius cleared his throat. ”Augusta, may I speak freely?” I gestured permission, lifting an eyebrow in enquiry, and he went on. ”If the decision were mine, you would not be required to travel at all. To identify the places a.s.sociated with our Lord can be a useful aid to faith, but to make them places of veneration and pilgrimage, as if they were in themselves holy, is to fall into the error of the pagans and the Jews. The religion of Moses was founded upon the Holy City, but even the name of Hierosolyma has been lost.
Without the Temple, their religion must die. No Jews live in Aelia Capitolina now.”
I lifted one eyebrow. There were Jews in every great city in the Empire. The ones I had known in Londinium seemed to be flouris.h.i.+ng. Perhaps Hadrian had reinvented Judaea and turned it into Palestine, but the Jews seemed to have reinvented their religion as well. Still, I knew better than to say so.
”But there are Christians-” I probed gently instead. Sylvester had taken care to brief me on the rivalry between Eusebius and Bishop Macarius of Aelia Capitolina.
He shrugged. ”A small community. And the locations of some of the sites a.s.sociated with the incarnation of the Christos are known. Since the Emperor has ordered it, I will be happy to escort you there.”
”We must all obey the Emperor,” I agreed blandly.
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