Chapter 1 The cloth seller from Philippi
Melissa selected a shady corner of the courtyard. Her former nursemaid Adah sat on a stone bench beside her.
‘Where’s my daughter?’ Ada fussed. ‘Come, Keziah, we have much mending to do.’
Keziah brought out a basket full of clothes to be mended and sat down beside her mother. Adah selected a torn tunic and held it up so that Keziah could see where she should sew. Behind the fine woollen cloth, Adah whispered in their own Aramaic language, ‘The Master just had another of his rages. Things are bad here, very bad. The mistress doesn’t tell her daughter how bad. She’s afraid the family’s money troubles will drive any hopeful bridegroom away.’
Adah put her finger to her lips, lowered the tunic and spoke to Melissa, ‘It’s a good thing you brought your jar of ointment, Melissa dear. Your skin looks sore today.’
‘It’s always sore.’ Melissa sighed. ‘I’m fed up with these ointments. They don’t help at all.’
‘You must apply them just the same.’ Adah’s Latin was fluent, but foreign. ‘Your lady mother say she must find you a bridegroom, so we need to get your skin right.’
Melissa opened a jar of ointment. She sniffed it and pulled a face but dipped her finger in and looked at the thick cream on her forefinger and sighed again. ‘My skin will never be right. I’m fifteen, already past the marrying age. No one will wed me with a rash like this.’
A long strand of dark hair had escaped from its clasp. She pushed it back with her non-oily hand. ‘Sing to me, darling Adah. Sing about the reeds in the storm. I love that song, it makes me feel hopeful.’
Adah smiled. ‘I love it too. It reminds me of home, oh so far away, but so close here.’ She pressed her hand to her breast. ‘Join in, Keziah,’ she said.
And so in a courtyard of a Roman officer’s farmhouse, a two hour journey from the bustling city of Philippi, mother and daughter sang in their own language:
My love went out to the desert
after the storm.
Rough winds had died away;
the sun shone warm.
And lo the reeds that lay
flattened by storm,
rose up again, ah rose,
like love reborn.
‘Like love reborn,’ Melissa whispered. ‘Will there ever be love for me?’
‘Or for me?’ Keziah said, half under her breath.
Melissa looked up, shocked. Love? For Keziah, the nursemaid’s daughter?
And then they all jumped because Leo the guard dog had started barking like crazy and jumping about on his chain. From the other side of the wall an unseen donkey brayed, harsh, strident. Melissa was so startled that she dropped her pot of ointment. Keziah put her hands over her ears. Melissa jumped to her feet. ‘Someone’s coming. We never have visitors so who could it be?’
‘It might be a cloth merchant,’ Adah said. ‘Your father sent an order to Philippi for the finest linen. He wants the very best, not for himself, but for your brother, against the day when young Flavius will become an adult.’
‘Oh yes, nothing but the best for kid brother Flavi,’ Melissa began. ‘Even though Father can’t afford it.’
The dog’s deep-throated baying drowned out her words. Keziah pressed closer to her mother. Most tradespeople were so scared of the dog that they waited at the gate until the steward Justus or one of the farm slaves had been summoned to take hold of Leo’s chain, but the cloth seller clearly wasn’t scared of the big dog. He had just walked right in. Just the same, Melissa rushed forward to calm the dog. ‘It’s all right, Leo. Calm down. That’s it! Good boy.’ She plunged her fingers into the dog’s thick hair and rubbed his powerful neck.
‘Good day, my lady,’ the merchant said.
Melissa stared and the young man grinned. ‘Don’t worry. People in the city are used to me but out in the country they always look twice.’
Melissa’s face flushed red. ‘I – I’m sorry, it’s just -.’
I’ve never see anyone with such dark skin, she wanted to explain but that sounded stupid. She gave Leo a hug instead. The cloth seller came even closer. ‘I love big dogs. Leo the lion, come here, boy.’ The great hound leapt to his hind legs and put his huge forepaws on the merchant’s shoulders. The young man fondled Leo’s muscular neck.
‘Oh well done!’ The words jumped out before Melissa had time to think.
The cloth seller laughed. His broad brimmed hat had slipped back and the sun shone full on his face. A huge thrill of emotion overwhelmed Melissa. She smiled at the young merchant. But then her mother appeared.
‘Whatever are you doing?’ Claudia grabbed Melissa’s shoulders. ‘You’re dragging our family’s good name into the dust with this audacious behaviour. It’s hard enough finding a husband for you, even a toothless old widower would think twice about marrying you. Get back inside at once.’
Claudia pushed her daughter hard. Hot tears of hurt and humiliation filled Melissa’s eyes. She blinked them away and ran back into the house. Bitter feelings choked her. She hated her mother, hated her. She would just say that a Roman citizen’s daughter should never talk to strange men and Melissa knew that already. Her mother didn’t need to put her down like that, especially not in front of that handsome cloth seller. Melissa blushed from the roots of her hair to the soles of her feet and couldn’t think any more. ‘I don’t even know his name,’ she whispered.
However later that evening she wrung two pieces of information out of Adah. The young man had looked sad at the way Claudia had treated Melissa, Adah had said, shaking her head at the very idea that a visiting tradesman had witnessed such mother and daughter issues in the house of a retired Roman army officer. Sad - so that meant he had been on her side. Melissa hugged that knowledge to her like a ray of sunshine in her mind.
The second piece of information was his name. Merekl. What an exotic name!
That night Melissa tossed and turned on her couch. She tried to keep quiet so as not to disturb Keziah who slept on a mattress beside her, but her skin seemed to be on fire and nothing brought relief.
Next morning Keziah brought breakfast into Melissa’s room and the two girls shared white goat’s cheese and bread that kitchen slaves had baked during the night.
‘Listen, Keziah, I’ve got something to tell you. I must speak to my father,’ Melissa said.
Keziah, who had been Melissa’s servant since her earliest days and never contradicted her, choked on her cheese. ‘You can’t do that.’
‘I can and I will,’ Melissa declared. ‘Mother says he’s too busy to bother with anyone in the family, except for stupid young Flavi. Well, he’s got a daughter too and for once he’s going to have to be bothered with me.’
Keziah’s face had gone red. ‘Your father is very sick. That’s why he never sees anyone in the family.’
‘He sees your mother,’ Melissa said.
‘My mother knows how to calm him down.’ Keziah took a long, hard look at Melissa. ‘It’s that cloth merchant, isn’t it?’
Melissa jumped up. She lifted her hand. Keziah flinched and drew back. Melissa had never struck her before.
Melissa let her hand drop back to her side and clenched her fingers tightly so that the nails dug into the palms of her hands. She turned her back on Keziah and walked away.
How dare she? How DARE she?
Deeper than her anger was a voice that said, If only she could help her father get better! If only she could tell him about the things that mattered to her, have a really close father and daughter talk. Well, just for once, she was going to.
Melissa hurried along the corridor faster than a young lady should. She slowed down as she entered her father’s room – and drew back in dismay.
Ex-centurion Flavius Senior was stretched out on his couch. The light that filtered through an air vent barely touched his yellow face and haunted eyes. Parchments and clay tablets were piled around him. Jugs and overturned goblets joined the general mess. Melissa smelt alcohol.
No, it couldn’t be alcohol, she told herself. Flavius Varus wasn’t a drunkard. It was some kind of medicine. Her father must be so sick.
Her heart lurched with pity. She dropped to her knees beside the couch. A nauseating smell almost choked her. Was it from the bed linen - or could it be from her father’s body? She hardly knew this man, hardly ever saw him.
‘He’s too busy,’ her mother always said. ‘And you’re only a girl. He doesn’t bother with women.’
He bothered with Adah though and she was only a servant. Melissa was his own daughter and she wanted so much to help him.
‘Father, lord -,’ she faltered.
‘What do you want?’ Flavius growled.
Melissa couldn’t find the words she wanted to say - and it wasn’t just because of those obnoxious smells. This man had the power of life and death over her. A scene she knew from Adah’s telling and re-telling danced in front of her eyes.
A room, a birthing room. Teenage Claudia had reclined on the birthing chair. Adah was present too, along with a midwife who held the new-born baby, but did not give her to Claudia, didn’t let the young mother look at her first born child, her little daughter.
‘Not till your father was called,’ Adah always said so Melissa had grown up knowing of the moment when her father had decided her fate.
So now she found her voice. ‘Father, lord, when I was born you could have rejected me. You just had to shake your head and the midwife would have put me outside to die – or be sold as a slave.’
Her voice shook. Sold as a slave – nothing could be worse, better by far to die.
Her father turned his haggard face towards her. His eyes barely seemed to focus but Melissa carried on, ‘You didn’t shake your head, Father. You didn’t cast me aside.’
She heard Adah’s voice in her head. ‘He didn’t smile, didn’t speak, didn’t hold you, just gave a nod and so the midwife knew that she could let you live.’
So now Melissa said, ‘I want to help you, Father, even though I’m only a girl. I can be your right hand person in the farm until Flavi’s older.’
Flavius Varus, Roman citizen and ex-army officer rose on his elbow. ‘Get out! Never come here again! Out! Out! Out!’
He struggled up, clenched his fist, ready to strike, gave a weird snorting noise, dropped his arm and fell to the tiled floor with a thud. Melissa backed away in horror and bumped into two house slaves who ran into the room, summoned at the sound of the master’s shouts.
Melissa ran sobbing back to her own room and flung herself on her couch.
Moments later Adah rushed in, ‘What have you done? What have you done?’ Her voice was harsher than Melissa had ever heard it.
Melissa sat up. Fear gripped her throat. She stared at Adah.
‘Your father, he take a stroke. The physician is sent for. It is not good.’
Melissa was too scared even to cry. ‘Father’s going to die – and it’s my fault,’ she whispered.
Adah slipped her arms round Melissa’s shoulders. ‘Hush now, Melissa. Your father, he very sick, before this. Only never ever let your lady mother know that you spoke to him, whatever it was you said.’
‘I wanted to help him.’ Melissa’s voice was choked with tears.
Adah laid her finger on Melissa’s lips. ‘Not a word, nothing. No one knows. No one saw. I tell the slaves to say nothing. Your father, he is in the land of shadows now, pray that it will not be long.’
A short time afterwards Flavius Varus passed away.
