A Voice in the Wind

Marcus and Phoebe are appalled at Julia’s plans to marry Primus, but she assures them that it will be a mutually beneficial arrangement. As she loads a few belongings into a cart, she tells them she is merely asserting her independence, like Phoebe has never done.

At Primus’s villa, she meets Prometheus, Primus’s catamite (teenage lover). Disturbed at the sight, she retreats to her room, vowing to carve out a life for herself once she has access to her money. She orders Hadassah to bring Atretes to her immediately but not to mention Primus or her new marital arrangement.

The day after his elimination match, Atretes is besieged with offers from wealthy merchants to use his image on merchandise, to sell products, and to partner in various business ventures. Sertes offers to act as his representative for a 35 percent fee. Atretes has one request: his own villa. Just then, Hadassah arrives bearing Julia’s message, but Atretes chafes at the demand: “Remind your lady that I’m no longer a slave to be summoned at her whim and for her pleasure” (444). He tells her that he will send for Julia when he owns his own house and can bring her into it as his wife.

Stunned at Atretes’s words, Julia holds fast to Calabah’s advice, that as Atretes’s wife, she will have even less freedom than with Caius. She vows to persuade that they would both enjoy their mutual freedom if they remained lovers without the constraints of marriage. If all else fails, she will confront him with the fact that she is bearing his child.

Hadassah visits John for advice. He counsels her to remain steadfast in her faith; her inability to change her mistress’s path may simply be God’s will. God, he tells her, will always be with her.

Primus dislikes Hadassah—her presence agitates Prometheus—and, like Calabah, suggests Julia sell her; but Julia will not part with the one person who pleases her. Just then, Marcus arrives, and he and Julia discuss her new arrangement. Marcus opposes it, but Julia claims she is finally free, and that Primus “is no threat to me” (449). Primus’s reputation as a rumor monger may be a threat, Marcus warns her. He also informs her that Atretes sent a guard to call for her at Decimus’s villa, unaware she is now living with Primus. They argue over her choices; Marcus claims that she is being unfaithful to Atretes, while Julia asserts her independence. She is only mimicking Marcus’s behavior after all.

At the news of Julia’s marriage and pregnancy, Atretes erupts in rage, storming back to his villa alone, smashing plates and goblets, ripping tapestries, and setting Julia’s bed on fire. He splashes water on his face and looks with shock at his reflection: With short hair and gold around his neck, he looks more Roman than German. Atretes lets loose a savage war cry which echoes into the nearby hills. 

Marcus and Julia are called to their parents’ villa; Decimus is near death. Upon seeing her emaciated father, Julia runs out of the room. Marcus tries to comfort her, but she cannot bear being in her father’s presence. He calls for Hadassah instead, asking to be baptized. With no time for a formal ritual, Hadassah responds, “If you but believe and accept his grace, you will be with the Lord in paradise” (457). Just before he dies, Decimus takes both Hadassah and Marcus’s hands in his, acknowledging their love.

Julia, grieving over her father’s death and having heard no word from Atretes in months, is bereft. She believes that once Atretes understands the child is his, he will forgive her. Calabah and Primus mock her hope as foolish, and they try to sow doubt in her trust in Hadassah, claiming she will try to steal Atretes from her.

Atretes’s villa has burned down, and he has retreated to the hills outside the city, looking like his “barbarian” self once again, with long hair, loincloth, and a spear. Hadassah sits with him in silence, feeling his anger and bitterness. He is legally free but still enslaved to his rage. She offers him true freedom in God, a chance to experience love and forgiveness rather than hatred and vengeance, but he is still too angry to accept God into his heart. Hadassah assures him that Julia bears his child, but he does not care.

Marcus visits Julia and asks to speak with Hadassah about a “personal” matter. Julia, poisoned by Primus’s accusations, accuses Hadassah of coming between her and Marcus, and even of poisoning her relationships with Atretes and Claudius as well. Marcus finally tells Julia the harsh truth: She, not Hadassah, is to blame for Atretes’s leaving. “’Because you thought you could have him on your own terms,’ Marcus said, ‘And you can’t’” (465). Hadassah, he argues, serves Julia out of love, not coercion. He requests that Julia free her.

Julia gives birth to a healthy son, but she does not want him. She tells Hadassah to leave him on the temple steps or on a rock to die. Calabah, standing in the shadows during Julia’s labor, orders Hadassah to obey her mistress’s orders, so she wraps up the infant and, with nowhere else to turn, brings him to John. As it happens, John is meeting with a couple whose child has recently died. Hadassah leaves the baby with the grateful couple.

When Marcus visits Julia a few days later, Primus informs him the baby is dead—“The will of the gods” (469), he claims—and tells Marcus not to broach the subject with his sister. Julia is in good spirits, laughing and joking but never once mentioning the child. Despite her gaiety, however, Marcus notices a “hardness” in her eyes. On his next visit, Julia and Primus recline on couches sharing bawdy stories. At Calabah’s suggestion, Julia has been eating lotus flowers which keep her drugged and passive. Marcus reminds her that she has agreed to free Hadassah so he can marry her; eventually, she consents.

Hadassah, aware that Decimus has betrothed her to Marcus, is torn. She can only be with him if he will turn to God. When it seems clear that he will never acknowledge God, she refuses his proposal. Despite his vow to “tolerate” her faith, Hadassah knows that is not good enough. Unless they are both of the same belief system, she fears he will pull her away from God. When he realizes she will not compromise, he leaves, “hope gone, pride shattered” (475). Julia watches him go, hating Hadassah for hurting her brother. At home, Marcus vows to forget about Hadassah as quickly as possible.

That evening, Julia attends a birthday celebration with Hadassah in attendance. As a strategy, Julia has Hadassah wear a sash clearly marking her as Judean. Julia knows their host, Vitellius, bears a hatred of Jews since his son was killed by one, and his offense is unmistakable. He orders Hadassah to light a flame signifying her loyalty to Rome and its emperor, but she proclaims her faith in God before all the guests. In a rage, Julia beats Hadassah into unconsciousness. Vitellius orders her fed to the lions. Atretes, meanwhile, wakes from a recurring dream. In the dream, the temple of Artemis in flames, he is drowning in a bog until a man with bleeding hands reaches out to save him, and a baby left on the rocks is in danger of being washed out to sea. He decides Hadassah is the only one who can decipher the dream’s true meaning.

Atretes visits Hadassah in her cell, furious that it is her and not Julia who must suffer. Hadassah, however, is not spiteful but rather prays that Julia will find her way. Atretes sees a serenity in her, and she tells him she is finally free of fear. When her faith was tested, she did not turn from God, and that joy has set her free. Atretes tells her about his dream. The burning temple is a symbol of the fallacy of believing in a stone idol; the man is Jesus; and the baby, Atretes already knows, is his son whom he believes to be dead. When Hadassah tells him his son is alive, Atretes sinks to the floor in relief and gratitude. He offers to face the lions in her place as her champion, but she refuses: “Whatever happens is to his good purpose for his glory” (488).

That night, Hadassah prays that Julia, Marcus, and even Calabah and Primus will find their way to the truth. She comforts other prisoners in their fear. The next morning, a guard instructs the prisoners how to act in the face of the lions so that the end will come quickly. Once in the arena, the mob taunts the Christians. Hadassah prays as she strolls calmly to the center of the ring and moves her arms slowly, as per the guards advice. A lioness charges “with astonishing speed and leapt, claws spread, jaws open” (491).

Marcus and Julia attend a gladiatorial contest. Marcus hopes the games will distract him from his memories of Hadassah. Julia is desperate for things to return to the way they used to be, before “others got in the way and made things change” (493). She tells him she has a surprise for him, and as the Christians are led into the arena, she points to Hadassah, proudly admitting she arranged for her execution. Marcus watches in horror as Hadassah dies in the jaws of a lion. He curses Julia for what she has done, disavowing her and storming out of the arena. Calabah, sitting beside Julia, is finally satisfied. Marcus flees the bloodthirsty crowd, tormented by grief and guilt, suddenly aware of his role in Hadassah’s death and the deaths of so many others.