Free Daughter of Jerusalem by Joan Wolf Page A

came near me. How could a child of his find a home within my body?
    During that solitary week I thought long and hard about my life. Daniel wasn’t going to save me after all. The hope I’d clung to during the last year had been smashed.
    The more I thought, the more I realized what an unrealistic hope it had been. The dream of going out into the world hand in hand with Daniel was a child’s dream. Daniel had known that. And he was paying for his father’s evil too, hiding himself in the Judean wilderness with a sect of strange, celibate men.
    Meanwhile I was left here in Sepphoris, married to an old man. But Aaron was very proud of me, and for most of the time I was perfectly free to do whatever I wished. I had no more bread to bake or laundry to wash or goats to feed. No more children to watch.
    I tried not to think about how much I missed the children.
    It was time for me to look ahead, not behind, time for me to make a meaningful life for myself in this foreign place. It was the only way I could show that Lord Benjamin hadn’t defeated me.
    On the seventh day I came out of my room and prepared to begin again.

Part 2

    Marcus Novius Claudius

Chapter Ten

    My new life began one afternoon six months later, when I met Julia Tiberia. I was wandering among the array of stalls in the Upper Market, trying to pass some time until I’d have to go home, when I stopped at the sandalmaker’s stall. Another woman stopped as well, and as if at a signal we both pointed to the same pair of jeweled sandals. We looked at each other and burst out laughing. I insisted that she should have them, and she insisted that I should, and we fell into talk. As it turned out, neither of us bought the sandals; instead we continued to talk as we made our way down the hill from the Upper Market. Before we parted, Julia invited me to visit her.
    The invitation shocked me. Jews didn’t move in the rarefied atmosphere of Julia Tiberia’s circle. I knew of her from the gossip spouted by my husband’s friends’ wives. She was the wealthy widow of Sepphoris’ last Roman governor and had chosen to remain in the city after her husband’s death. The gossipers said she wielded enormous social power among the Roman elite, a situation that very much annoyed the wife of the present governor.
    Aaron was ecstatic when I told him about the invitation. He kept repeating her name as if he were reciting some holy text. He made meso nervous that by the time I left our house two afternoons later, I was wishing she’d never invited me.
    I took a litter to Julia Tiberia’s house in the Roman part of town. In Magdala we walked everywhere, but here women of the upper classes rode in litters. It was a rule I often flouted, but on this particular day I thought it was probably wise to do the correct thing.
    The Romans, like King Herod, had copied Greek architecture, but the houses in this part of town were set farther back from the street than in ours. When I descended from the litter, I had to walk up a stone pathway, which was set in a courtyard filled with shrubs, flowers, and statues. The large bronze front door swung open just before I reached it, so I knew the house porter had been waiting for me. He greeted me in Latin.
    I smiled apologetically and replied in Greek, “I’m sorry, I don’t know your language. I’m Mary, the wife of Aaron bar David. Julia Tiberia is expecting me.”
    “Lady Julia is in the garden,” he answered, switching easily to Greek. “I will take you to her.”
    The house was no larger than Aaron’s, but it was much brighter. I realized, as we walked from the vestibule into the first room, that sunlight was pouring through an opening in the roof. A marble pool lay under the opening, which I later discovered was used to collect rainwater. Marble pillars supported the roof, the floors were made of marble tiles with contrasting colors, and the ceiling was covered with ivory and gold. As in Jewish homes, doors were placed along the