Part 28 (2/2)

”When I give orders for the building of the church here I will ask the architects to save them.” I replied.

No doubt Eusebius would have disapproved of the child's mixed theology, but it seemed to fit that moment, and I realized that in their own way, the rustling trees were also witnesses to the fact that once more the Mother was being wors.h.i.+pped here.

It was growing dark by the time we got on the road once more. The villagers had begged us to stay the night and join their celebration, but I judged that a journey with my own bed at the end of it would be less taxing than a night on a lumpy mattress with fleas. But as we started to descend the last slope I heard a squeal and one of the soldier's horses reared.

Above the centurion's curses as they got the animal calmed I heard a soft whining. ”Wait,” I called.

”There's something out there.”

”A wild beast,” said the commander, loosening his javelin. ”But nothing large enough to hurt us, by the sound of it.” He motioned to a trooper to follow him with the torch.

”It sounds like a dog-” I watched the flickering light move along the side of the road.

”You were right, my lady!” the commander called back. ”It is one of the wild dogs that roam the hills, with a broken leg. I'll put it out of its misery.”

”Don't harm it!” I cried. ”Let one of our men wrap it in a cloak so it can't bite and we'll take it back to the city.”

”Augusta, you can't make a pet of a wild dog!” exclaimed Eusebius.

”Are you presuming to tell the Empress Mother what she cannot do?” Cunoarda asked dangerously.

I ignored them, my attention on the squirming ma.s.s of red wool from which emerged a golden, short-furred head with frantic dark eyes. Gently I spoke to the animal until at last it quieted. Only then did I give the order to resume our journey.

That night I dreamed I was once more a girl on Avalon, bending to drink from the sources of the blood spring, where the water trickled out from a cleft in the side of the hill. In the dream, it was somehow the same as the cave in Bethlehem, but now I realized how much the opening looked like the gateway to a woman's womb.

In my dream, I wept for all that I had lost, until there came a voice that whispered, ”Youare the child of Earth and starry Heaven. Do not forget the soil from which you have sprung ...” and I was comforted.

My foundling proved to be a female dog just past puppyhood. I called her Leviyah, which is ”Lioness' in the Hebrew tongue. She bit two of the troopers before the legion's horse-doctor could splint her leg, but once I had put her into a small dark room she grew calmer. Perhaps she thought it was a den. From then on I allowed no one else to bring her food or water, and gradually the dog's panic became acceptance, and acceptance grew to trust, until she was taking food from my hand.

Leviyah remained shy with others, but from then on she followed at my heels, hiding beneath my skirts when there was too much commotion, and springing forth with bared teeth if she thought me threatened.

She made some of my entourage nervous, but what was the use of being an empress if I could not indulge my whims?

A few weeks later, we made another expedition, to the Mount of Olives which rose to the east of the city. With age, I had come to wake early, though I often needed a nap in the afternoon. When Eusebius suggested that I should arise in time to see the sun rise upon the city, I agreed, although when I emerged into the chill gloom of the hour just before dawn, I wondered why.

But inside my litter I was wrapped warmly, and Leviyah radiated heat against my thigh. We pa.s.sed through the silent streets and down into the valley of Kidron, then started up again through the rubble-strewn slopes and past the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus had wrestled with his mortality and been betrayed.

When we reached the summit the stars were fading, and before us, the dim inchoate ma.s.s of the city was a.s.suming shape and meaning, as if this were the morning of Creation and we were watching the first emergence of the world. Like Rome, Hierosolyma took much of its character from its sacred hills. Now I could make out Mount Moriah, on which the Jews had built their temple; and glimpse Mount Sion, just outside the wall on the southern side. More and more buildings became visible, though they still seemed lifeless against the grey sky.

And then, of a sudden, the air was filled with radiance, and my shadow stretched out before me as if reaching for the luminous city beyond the gulf of shadow that lay below. Buildings which a moment before had been lifeless mud and plaster and stone glowed suddenly in a hundred shades of gold.

”Our Lord stood here,” whispered Eusebius, his voice harsh with unwonted emotion. ”He taught his disciples in the cave beneath our feet, and He prophesied that not one stone of Hierosolyma should be left upon another. And t.i.tus fulfilled His word.”

And yet the city still stands before us, I thought then. I s.h.i.+vered, recognizing the sink and s.h.i.+ft of consciousness that was altering my vision. I still saw Hierosolyma, but now I saw it as a series of layers, its outlines continually s.h.i.+fting while its essence remained the same. Words echoed through my awareness.

”The Romans were not the first to destroy this city, nor will the Jews be the last to lose it. It has fallen many times before, and will go down in blood and fire and be rebuilt in clean stone again and again, as one conqueror replaces another upon this land. The followers of Christ will make it their sacred centre, yet men of a faith yet unborn shall rule it until the children of Abraham return to claim it again.

”And again and again the blood shall flow across those stones, until not only the three faiths of Jahweh, but all the cults whose altars have been cast down shall wors.h.i.+p here once more. For I tell you that Hierosolyma is indeed a place of power, and it is not men who have made it so, but rather they who have been touched by the force that rises up from the depths of its rock to seek union with the sky...”

Blinking, I came to myself once more. The ghostly outlines of the cities past and yet to come were fading, and the city of the here and now lay revealed with brutal clarity by the hard light of day. And yet I knew that those other Hierosolymas were still present, part of the eternal Holy City that would always be.

”Lady, are you unwell?” whispered Cunoarda. I found that I was leaning against her. Eusebius was still gazing at the view, and I realized with relief that I had not spoken aloud.

”A momentary distraction,” I replied, pulling myself upright.

Eusebius gestured towards the hilltop, where an outcrop of bare stone was encircled by olive trees.

”And from this point Christ ascended into heaven. Christians have wors.h.i.+pped here ever since that day.”

I bowed my head in reverence, but I knew that when I instructed the architects to build the church here, it would not crown the summit, but rise above the cave in the earth where Jesus had revealed to his followers the deepest mysteries.

That night I dreamed I was climbing a mountain. At first I thought I was ascending the Mount of Olives with a company of Christian pilgrims, but this was a smaller hill, and as the light grew I saw that it was the Tor. Below I could see the cl.u.s.ter of beehive huts and the round church that had been built by Joseph of Arimathea, and I realized that this was Inis Witrin of the monks, not Avalon. And yet, as I climbed, my vision altered, and I knew that I was seeing both at once. And still my sight sharpened, until I could look beneath the surface of the Tor to the crystalline structure of caves within.

With December, winter came to the Judaean hills, with violent storms and a perpetual damp chill that bit to the bone. Storms on the Mediterranean made a return to Rome inadvisable, work on the Sepulchre had become almost impossible, and when I developed a racking cough that worsened my usual winter breathing problems, Bishop Eusebius suggested that I move down to Jericho, where it was warmer, while he stayed to watch over the excavation.

As we made our way along the Jericho road, I could see that the terrain was changing, the trees that had clothed the hills around Hierosolyma giving way to scrub, which diminished until it seemed to disappear into the stony hills. At the slow pace my aching joints required it took us three days to reach the palm-girt oasis whose mud buildings huddled below the ancient mound. The palace of Herod was in ruins, but once more, a local merchant was happy to give up his house to an empress.

Eventually I began to feel well enough to explore the surrounding countryside and give Leviyah a chance to run. Compared to the great rivers of Europe I found the Jordan a modest stream, even when swollen by the winter rains, but the greenery that edged it made it pleasant. Venturing farther, we followed the river down to the sh.o.r.es of the Dead Sea.

To the west, the clouds which were no doubt still drenching Hierosolyma hung above the hills, but here, the sky was an intense blue. At this season the folds of the hills sheltered some vegetation, but it seemed impossible that men should live here, until our guide pointed out a brushwood shelter or a hole in the cliffs where one of the Perfect! had come to escape the temptations of the world. We made camp below the ruins of a place called Sekakah, where a community of Jewish holy men had lived in earlier days.

In this bare land I found a curious peace. A messenger was sent to bring back the supplies we would need for a more permanent encampment, and we settled in. I bathed in the saline waters, warm as blood and so thick with minerals that I floated upon the surface like a child in its mother's womb. And I took long walks along the sun-baked sh.o.r.e with Leviyah frisking by my side.

It was during one of these walks, in the middle of the day when the rocks-water-worn or sculpted into fantastic mushroom-shapes-blazed white in the sun, that I encountered the old man. Like me, he had come out to greet the noon, standing with uplifted arms at the edge of the sea.

Surprisingly, Leviyah remained still until he had finished his devotions. As she danced up to him, he turned with a smile. But I held back until he gestured a welcome. Life in this arid land had fined him down to bone and whipcord, his skin too leathery for me even to guess his age, beyond the evidence of his grizzled hair and beard. Save for a bit of goatskin tied around his skinny hips he was unclad.

”I thought you might be one of those who is not permitted to speak to a woman,” I said when we had turned to look out over the water again. Its lead-coloured waters s.h.i.+mmered in the sunlight, and I blinked, trying to pin down the sense that I had lived this moment before.

”What is male or female when we stand as spirits before G.o.d? In the desert, true opposites are obvious-light opposes darkness, heat battles the cold,” he answered. ”Truth is easier to see. Men come here now to live as anchorites because they can no longer hope for the martyrdom of blood to wash away their sins. But they are not the first to seek enlightenment in this wilderness. The men of Sekakah lived a life of purity in their caves, and our Lord Himself spent forty days and forty nights wrestling with illusions not so far from here.”

”And are you one of those who seek wisdom?” I said, watching Leviyah hunt among the stones and sticks cast up upon the sh.o.r.e.

”Since before His day there has always been a small community here, pa.s.sing on certain teachings that the established religions have forgotten. In times past, persecution was likely to interrupt traditions. In these days, I fear that certain aspects of the ancient wisdom will become unacceptable to a church that is learning how to live with wealth and power.”

”Why do you say such things to me?” I asked, focusing on his face at last. Suddenly I was certain that I had seen him before. ”I am the mother of the Emperor.”

”Even in this life that is not all you are-” he reached out and touched the spot where once the crescent of Avalon had blessed my brow. How had he known? My forehead was deeply lined and my skin browned by the sun; the old tattoo was no more than a discoloration now.

”By this I recognize you as a sister in a tradition kindred to my own, an initiate of the Mysteries.”

I gazed at him in astonishment. From time to time I had met priests of the Mediterranean G.o.ds who recognized that behind all their cults lay a greater truth, but I had never expected to hear a Christian speak this way.

”And there is something more. I have had a vision,” he said then. ”For a time the holy Joseph-he in whose tomb Christ was laid -dwelt among us, before he sailed away across the sea. In my vision, he appeared and told me that you would come. When I saw you, I was to speak these words: ” 'Follow the setting sun to your journey's beginning, and through the mists of morning you shall pa.s.s between the worlds...' ”

”Does this mean something to you?”

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