Read Online According to Mary Magdalene by Marianne Fredriksson - Free Book Online

ever since she had come to the house, she had liked the cook. He had been given the handsome name of Octavianus, but he was actually a cheerful Gaul who loved food, Euphrosyne, and life in this house of pleasure.
    He called her his assistant, taught her how to trim and brown a roast, gut a fish and fry it golden brown, render vegetable stock into bouillon, and how to make sauces, as well as teaching her the thousand secrets of herbs and spices. He encouraged her, occasionally praising her, but he often shook his head.
    “You lack what is most important,” he said. “And that's the actual joy in it.”
    She was very tired by the evenings, her body from all the hard work, her head from all that was new. But before she fell asleep, she wondered about what Octavianus had said about her lacking joy.
    She lacked love, too, Euphrosyne had said, but she had plenty of shame. Dear Lord, how ashamed she was.
    A day or so later, she was summoned to Euphrosyne's office. She went as she was, in her coarse tunic, stained with blood and spots of fat, and stood stiffly in the doorway, thinking that she must somehow say it.
    “Can you forgive me?”
    “I have to apologize myself,” said Euphrosyne, flushing. “I used hard words. And unjust.”
    “No,” said the girl calmly. “I think you were right.”
    Euphrosyne looked at Mary. She was quite tall now, but was still painfully thin, her face hollowed like a sculpture that had stood out in fierce winds and lashing rain for far too long.
    “Listen, Mary. We must have a talk at another time, but at the moment I have something to tell you. Sit down, will you.”
    Mary brushed down her tunic and sat on the very edge of the stool.
    “When I heard from the tribune to say that Leonidas…was missing, I made a decision. I decided I would regard you as my daughter. In a few years, I am going to sell this house and go back with you to Corinth.”
    Mary's eyes narrowed with the effort to understand. “Your daughter?” she said finally. “Do you want me as your child?”
    “Yes.”
    “You want me to be your child?”
    “Yes.”
    Mary got up, her legs weak. “Why?” she whispered.
    “Because I'm fond of you, of course.” Euphrosyne's answer was brief, her voice gruff.
    “I hurt so.”
    Mary was hugging her stomach with both hands and Euphrosyne told her to go straight to her room and lie down. “I'll get the doctor and you can be properly examined. And get better.”
    Mary lay very still in bed as the doctor squeezed her and said to Euphrosyne, “I don't think she's ill, but she's undernourished and dehydrated.”
    I should have noticed, Euphrosyne thought. Then she was angry and found an outlet by summoning the cook and shouting and him. “How can you cook food with a child who is starving to death!”
    Octavianus looked at the girl on the bed. “She finds no joy in food.”
    “Then you must make sure she does,” cried Euphrosyne in fury, though aware she was being unjust.
    But the doctor stopped her, turned to the cook and said: “You must now take the responsibility of making sure the girl eats so that she becomes nice and plump. You're a master of good food. Make delicious little dishes and sit at table with her while she eats. I rely on you.”
    Mary was made to drink a whole goblet of honey-milk, and when she tasted the bitterness through the sweetness, she knew she would be able to sleep, and for a long time.
    Euphrosyne tucked her in and sat beside her for a while. As she rose to go, Mary said, “You see, I've never had anyone to be like.”

M ary Magdalene decided to spend the day working in her garden in Antioch. She went up the narrow steps that wound their way between the terraces, and when she came to her herb garden, she saw to her satisfaction that her plants were shooting as they should in early spring.
    The garden was high up, so high that on a clear day like this, she could see right over the town wall and make out the sea in the west.
    She stood there with