by Angela Hunt
Atticus looked at Flavius, who nodded in Gaius’s direction. Their centurion was more accustomed to patrician living than they, so they sat when he sat; they ate when he lifted his first bite off a tray.
As the group relaxed, Atticus lifted his goblet and realized that all six centurions and eighteen principales of their cohort had accepted the governor’s invitation. Who wouldn’t? Not often were they treated to pastries, meat, and music in a single night.
After dinner, a trio of dancing girls entertained the men, much to Flavius’s delight. After the dancing, when Pilate should have dismissed his guests, Gaius Cabilenus stood and moved to the center of the room, awaiting the governor’s attention.
Atticus watched his centurion with a mixture of pride and anxiety. What was Gaius doing? The other centurions had toasted the Lady Procula’s health and praised her beauty, but none of them had risked this sort of attention.
Pilate leaned forward, the fold of his toga looped over one arm. “What say you, Gaius?”
“If it please the governor and my Lady Procula,” Gaius bowed low, “may I present the Lady Carina? She has a gift for our governor’s wife.”
Pilate nodded, granting permission, and a pair of doors opened at the back of the room. A lovely woman entered, an exotic beauty whose dark hair spilled from a knot at the top of her head and splashed on her bare shoulders.
Flavius nudged Atticus with his elbow. Most of the men in their century had met the Lady Carina and none of them liked her. The woman whined constantly when she traveled with the army, yet she refused to remain behind.
Tonight, however, Gaius’s mistress radiated gracious elegance. She came into the hall and sank to one knee at Gaius’s side, then pulled a mass of cloth from a white bag at her side.
“In honor of my lady’s birthday,” she said, her mouth twisting in something not quite a smile. “May I present a most remarkable and unique fabric?”
Flavius nudged Atticus again. “I heard about this,” he said, concealing his mouth behind his upraised goblet. “She didn’t want to give that silk away, but Gaius commanded her. He said it wasn’t fitting that she should wear more purple than the governor’s wife.”
Atticus lifted a brow. “That fabric is red.”
Flavius raised a brow, then barked a laugh. “Maybe the vixen pulled a switch.”
Gaius took the folded material from his mistress’s hands, then presented it to the Lady Procula. “To honor you, my lady. This extraordinary fabric changes from crimson to the deepest purple you can imagine.”
Procula smiled at her husband, then accepted Gaius’s gift. She ran her hand over the cloth, then tugged on a corner, spilling its length onto the floor. “It is lovely, centurion. But how does it change?”
“Light, my lady. It changes when exposed to the light.”
Still smiling, Procula held the fabric aloft, angling it toward the nearest lamp, but the fabric remained crimson. Atticus glanced at Flavius, who shrugged and took another sip of wine.
Gaius tried to smile, but the corners of his mouth only wobbled precariously. “Perhaps you have to wear it. Perhaps it takes time.”
Though a frown settled over Pilate’s face, the Lady Procula inclined her head in what looked like sincere gratitude. “Thank you, Gaius and Carina, for thinking of me. This is a lovely silk. I may use some of it to make a cloak for Pilate.” She kissed her husband’s scowling cheek, then dismissed Gaius and his mistress with a wave of her hand. “Everyone, please, eat your fill before departing. Thank you so much for sharing this evening.”
Atticus turned back to the table to see what remained of their feast. He was reaching for the last bite of candied apple when he caught Flavius’s eye. “And that,” his friend said, keeping his voice low, “is why it doesn’t pay to keep a woman or give fancy gifts to your betters. A gift horse is likely to turn and kick you in the rear.”
Atticus popped the apple into his mouth. “I’m not likely to be giving anyone a horse and I don’t have a woman.”
“Oh yes, you do.”
“Cyrilla’s not my woman, she’s Quinn’s nurse.”
“She’ll be your woman soon enough,” Flavius answered, grinning. “And mark my words, women are where trouble always begins.”
Chapter Fifteen
I don’t know how long I sat there, but at some point before daybreak I dozed off amid the bleating of livestock.
A gentle touch woke me. I looked up, expecting to see Dodi or another Hebrew woman, but Marisa, the Egyptian ex-slave, knelt by my side. “You are lost,” she said. “Come with me.”
I might have refused, but stern looks from a pair of herders convinced me they weren’t happy I had crowded their goats at the trough. So I rose and followed the Egyptian girl, wandering through the streets and alleys until we reached her stall in the marketplace. She pulled aside a woven grass mat, then bade me enter her small space. She pointed to an empty spot on a carpet. “Sit.”
Too depleted to argue, I obeyed and sank to the ground behind the dead tree that held the young woman’s wares. Marisa’s stall was clean and well swept, and there I could breathe deeply without inhaling the scents of animals.
She poured a cup of cool water from a stone jug, then broke off a handful of bread and handed both bread and cup to me.
Though my stomach growled, I shook my head. “I can’t take your food.”
“Isis has provided. So take, eat, and restore your strength.”
I hesitated only a moment before obeying. The water tasted like fine wine; the bread had a delicious crust and a soft interior. “This—” I pointed to the bread—“is wonderful.”
She laughed. “Now I know you were hungry.”
Marisa squatted across from me and nibbled on a bit of crust, then stood to help a bare-headed woman who stopped to inquire about her amulets. After the customer had purchased three—one for herself and one for each of her daughters, Marisa returned. “Are you feeling better?”
“Yes. Thank you.” I looked at her through gritty eyes that felt as though they’d shed every tear and all feeling. “I should be going.”
“You will wait here. There’s no need to return to that horrid man at the inn.”
I gaped at her. “How did you know where I—”
“Isis told me. She tells me all kinds of things.”
I blinked while Marisa stood to help another customer. Isis was a foreign god, a man-made bit of stone or wood and anathema to any Israelite … or so I’d been taught.
I had grown up in a village where from age six boys were schooled in the Tanach, our scriptures, and taught to respect the one invisible God above all created things. Though women were forbidden to learn Torah, my father recognized that HaShem had blessed me with a curious and quick mind. Perhaps he’d realized that one day I would need to know the Law in order to teach my own sons, so he never forbade me from listening as he instructed my brothers. With them, I memorized passages of Scripture, but they studied the words of the prophets at my father’s knee while I learned Torah as I swept around them.
After age six, my brothers studied with our rabbi at the synagogue. Because I never went to school, I didn’t learn as much as my brothers, but I knew the stories of the prophets. I knew how our forefathers had fallen into idol worship and heathen practices. HaShem had burned with anger toward us, and we had been exiled from our promised land for seventy years.
Was HaShem still angry with us? For though we lived in the land promised to Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaakov, we worked and worshiped under the ruthless hand of a foreign emperor. We remained at the mercies of his spineless vassals who did nothing to avenge our wrongs or punish those who struck us without just cause …
I lifted my eyes to Marisa’s dead tree and its fingerlike branches. The unblinking eyes of stone faces stared down at me, each of them promising—what? What could these stone idols grant that the God of our fathers could not?
Justice.
Revenge.
Satisfaction.
&n
bsp; The voices brushed by me with the gentleness of a whisper, but the effect was as great as if they’d shouted in my ear. For no reason I could name, those three words raised the hairs at the back of my neck.
Marisa finished with her customer, slipped coins into her purse, then knelt by my side. I gave her a brief, distracted glance and tried to smile. “Did you hear them?”
She tilted her head. “Who?”
“Never mind.”
She studied me, then took my hand with a smile far more warming than the rising sun. “What,” she whispered, “do you want most in the world?”
Speaking in the low voice reserved for secret things, I told her.
She smiled.
And a lifetime of service to the God of Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaakov fell away as I leaned forward to listen.
Chapter Sixteen
The stone amulet was a small thing, no bigger than my thumbnail. It dangled from a thin leather strip and tucked between my breasts. My secret. My hope.
My Yaakov, he of blessed memory, would be furious to know I had put on an amulet. But my husband could no longer forbid me anything. The man who had failed to teach his son how to hold his tongue had been gathered to his fathers, a group of devout Hebrews who had gone to their graves awaiting deliverance from on high.
After accepting the amulet from Marisa, I tried to explain my previous reticence. “I was raised as a daughter of Avraham,” I told her. “I obeyed my father, listened to my mother, observed the Shabbat and the Law of Moses. But I never understood why women were not allowed to learn like men. I once heard the rabbi tell my brothers that it would be better for the words of the Law to be burned than be delivered to a woman.”
Marisa said nothing, but from the look in her eye I knew she understood. We had much in common, this ex-slave and I. We had both been born female; we had both come to maturity in a type of bondage, though mine had been a gentler servitude. Now Marisa had shown me a path to freedom.
The hopelessness I’d felt after my audience with Herod evolved into renewed determination. My desire for justice had not dimmed, and since neither my king nor my prayers to my father’s God had had any effect, I felt no guilt in seeking another source of help. So I slipped an amulet around my neck, and each morning I followed Marisa’s example and spilled grain onto the small stone altar outside her stall.
For several days I remained in Tiberias, working in Marisa’s booth and listening to her tales of the spirit world. In many ways I felt like a child again, but this time I was free to learn at my instructor’s knee. The gods were just like people, Marisa said; they suffered from jealousies and rivalries and anger. If we pleased them, they might be persuaded to help us; if we angered them, they would work mischief in our lives. Though we could not see their faces, they were always near. Sometimes, if we focused and listened carefully, we could hear them speak.
One night, as the stars hid their faces behind a dark cloud, I lay in Marisa’s stall and again promised an entire pantheon of deities that I would give anything, be anything, if they would help me avenge my family’s murders.
A muffled cry cut into my thoughts. I rose on one elbow and checked Marisa, who often cried out in her sleep, but she remained still, long strands of her beaded hair draped over her dreaming face.
Again, a noise—an unmistakable bleat of pain and terror, followed by a rumbling growl. I sat upright and peered over the edge of the grass mat that separated us from the road and saw nothing alarming. Night lights burned in the houses across the way; a lone watchman paced at the end of the street. I was about to lie back down when I heard the familiar sound of hobnails grinding against pavement.
A Roman soldier in a red tunic stepped out from the alley and looked toward the roving night watchman. His sharp and surly profile, outlined against the night shadows, gave him the appearance of a bird of prey. He placed his hands on his hips, glanced left and right, then strode down the street with the unconscious arrogance of a conquering warrior.
That’s when I knew what he’d done.
With my heart in my throat, I slipped beneath the mat and crept toward the alley. Somewhere a family was missing a daughter; one day a husband would refuse his promised bride. Because unless I was mistaken, that Roman pig had found an unescorted girl on the street and dragged her to this place.
I peered into the shadows. “Hello?”
No answer.
“I won’t hurt you. I am Miryam, and I can help.”
I leaned forward, straining to see through the darkness, then I heard a meowing wail.
I stepped into utter blackness and swung my arms wide until my feet encountered something. I knelt and opened my arms to the injured innocent I sought.
“Dear one.” I smoothed her hair from her wet face; the brute had torn her veil away. “Come, let me help you.”
She shuddered in my embrace. She would not speak or cling to me, so I supported her as best I could and pulled her into the light.
Marisa had awakened by the time I reached the booth. Without a word she reached out to the girl within my arms, then bade her lie down.
While Marisa murmured incantations and tended to the girl’s pain, I stared down the empty street and felt a cold knot form in my stomach. The girl at my feet was no young woman—she was yet a child, probably only eleven or twelve years old. Her clothing told me she was Hebrew; her bruised face told me she’d suffered violence as well as humiliation.
Marisa caught my eye, not daring to speak what we both knew: the life this girl had dreamed of would never come to pass.
Silence loomed between us like a heavy mist, then I turned and strode out of the stall. My fear had vanished, replaced by a glorious rage. What did I care if I met a Roman soldier in the street? Let one of the vile dogs assault me, I would die cursing him.
I strode toward the city gates, determined to be done with this wretched place. Hatred, and a desire for justice, boiled in my soul. When I reached the barrier of the tall wooden doors, I lifted my fist and begged any god that would answer to take my hate and use it to avenge my family. I screamed at the sky, tore at my tunic, allowed my anger and hatred to pour out in a flood of vituperation.
The tower guards called out warnings, but I ignored them. I might have cursed Herod and the Romans until the guards arrested me, but an unexpected gust of wind whirled around my feet and sent an anticipatory shiver rippling through my limbs. The wind ruffled the hem of my tunic and then moved upward, caressing my knees, my hips, my shoulders. I opened my mouth and breathed it in, inhaling a scent like the freshness of a spring morning. And in that instant, I felt satisfied. Empowered. Filled with hope.
I had not won my battle, but I no longer felt alone. Enchanted and elated, I walked back to the marketplace and stopped in front of Marisa’s amulet-laden tree.
I was standing there, lost in a pleasant daze, when I heard a woman’s laughter. I turned, expecting to see Marisa and the girl, but they were neither in the street nor in the booth. I stood alone, accompanied only by my determination and the flickering watch lights from a half-dozen houses.
As light and lovely as rainwater, the sound rippled again in my ears, before warming my shoulders and tingling the length of my arms. Then laughter floated up from my throat, warm and rich, yet I had not consciously produced the sound. I was not drunk, I felt a long way from any kind of humor, yet something … or someone … laughed within me.
A sense of unease crept into my consciousness like a plume of smoke. My heart nearly stopped when I heard a voice: Poor woman, do you want your family avenged? Call on me and I will help you.
I stumbled backward, astonished by the whisper echoing in my head. I could see no one in the street shadows, not even a night watchman. The voice did not belong to Marisa or one of the other merchants; it seemed to come from inside my head …
Hot as it was, I felt as though a trickle of mountain water had slid down my spine. I gathered my tattered courage and whispered into the shadows: “Who are you?”
&nb
sp; Again, laughter spilled in my head, accompanied this time by a musical female voice: I am Natar, friend of Isis, a friend to you. Do you truly want justice for your family?
Though my heart raged like a wild thing trapped in a cage, I nodded. “I do.”
Then I will help you.
I had heard promises of help before; I would not be easily won. I jerked my chin at my unseen ally. “Prove it.”
In the rising wind, the voice commanded: Go to Tirza's inn.
* * *
I made my way along the silent street and halted when one of the night watchmen appeared in the moonlight. He stopped, observing me, and spoke in a low voice so as not to wake those who slept just beyond the open windows. “What are you doing here, woman?”
I pointed up the road. “I’m on my way to Tirza’s house.”
The watchman stepped closer and held his lamp aloft. I squinted under his scrutiny, half afraid he would look through my eyes and see Natar, but he appeared satisfied and lowered his lamp. “Be off with you. But do not wander the streets after dark in Herod’s city.”
I bowed, then walked to the innkeeper’s dwelling. I hesitated at the threshold, listening for some last-minute instruction from the voice that had sent me, yet I heard nothing but the wind.
I rapped on the door. Sounds of movement came from the latticed window, then Dodi peered at me through a crack in the doorway. Her eyes widened when she recognized me. “Miryam?”
“May I come in?”
She opened the door wider. “Do you need a place to sleep?”
I shook my head. “In truth, I’m not sure why I’ve come.”
I looked around the dimly lit surroundings. Two men slept near the windows, their shoulders covered with woolen blankets. A rough grumble seeped from beneath the curtain separating the front room from the cooking area.