Vitas tried to spit. But his lips were so big that they had almost cracked under the pressure of the blood throbbing through them. He couldn’t work up the moisture.
“Ah,” Helius said, “I sense anger. I am correct, aren’t I? It’s very difficult to read your emotions when your face looks like a melon.” He flicked Vitas in the face several times with his forefinger. “Fascinating, absolutely fascinating. I’ll have to have more criminals beaten like this.”
Vitas tried to swing a punch, but from the ground it was impossible.
“Behave,” Helius said. “You are going to die, so do it with dignity. And do it in such a way that you spare Sophia from the same fate as yours.”
Vitas became very still.
“Ah, I do have your attention.” Helius knelt closer. “If you draw up the will as I request, she will live. I promise.”
“Guarantee . . . ?” That simple word took several seconds for Vitas to speak.
“What guarantee do you have that I will deliver on that promise? Perhaps none. But you do know she won’t be spared if you cross me.” Helius seemed to ponder it further. “Actually, request for your lawyer to send her to a safe place before the will is executed.” Helius laughed. “Executed. Such a fitting word, don’t you think?”
He prodded Vitas. “Really, you should keep a sense of humor about this. It’s all you have left.”
“Send . . . my . . . lawyer. Will . . . do . . . it.”
“Excellent.” Helius rose. “Don’t you feel much better now?”
“Send . . . Sophia . . .”
“I think not. Nero wouldn’t approve. Most definitely not approve. He’s quite upset, you know. At both of you. He looks forward to watching you die in the most horrible way.”
The feet of the guards returned into Vitas’s narrow range of vision. Rough hands lifted him to his feet. They began to drag him back into the cell.
“The lawyer will be here first thing in the morning,” Helius said. “Do get a good night’s sleep.”
Chayim found himself alone against five men holding knives in outstretched arms. He backed away from them until the outer wall of a warehouse stopped his retreat.
“What’s the only thing better than a fool alone near the wharves?” the largest of the five asked his companions.
Since the question was not directed at Chayim, he didn’t answer.
“A rich fool!” the same voice laughed.
Chayim was in a district of Rome unfamiliar to him. Down by the Tiber, where the ships were unloaded during the day.
“Let’s strip him and fillet him like a fish!” one voice said from the darkness.
Chayim edged along the wall, feeling behind him with his hands.
“Ho, ho!” the leader said. “There’ll be no escape for you. The rings on your fingers are worth a year’s wages, no doubt. You’ll have no need for them anyway, as we’ll be chopping your fingers off to get them.”
“My advice to you is to leave,” Chayim said. “I’m not here looking for trouble.”
“We have a jester!” The leader had a scarred face and wore an eyepatch. “A jester come down to the slums for entertainment. What is it you seek? A girl? A boy?” The man waved his knife closer to Chayim’s face. His voice turned nasty. “Whatever it is, rich fool, it has cost you your life.”
“Enough,” Chayim said. “I offer you one last chance to leave.”
“Otherwise, what?”
Chayim kept silent.
“Boys, let’s gut him.”
The small thud was barely audible. But the groan of surprise was louder.
The leader fell to his knees, and his knife dropped to the cobblestone. He twisted in agony, revealing the thrown military sword that had pierced the center of his belly. He held the sword with both hands, looking down with his mouth gaping in disbelief.
Before any of the others could react, six guards of the prefect rushed forward. All were in full armor, including head plates. The others formed a line behind their shields and brandished their short swords.
Shouts of dismay greeted that action, then the thumping of feet against cobblestone as the street gang fled.
Chayim stepped around the man on the ground. The soldier who owned the sword pulled it out. Blood streamed from the blade.
“I’ll see that your pay for services is doubled for each of you,” Chayim said to the soldiers. He pointed at the first soldier’s sword. “Please wipe that clean. We don’t need to terrify our prey with all that fresh blood.”
Hora Duodecima
“Lengthways,” the soldier said. He’d been sent up by the centurion to supervise Sophia’s death.
“I’m not sure I understand.” Sophia wore a robe and stood just inside the chamber where a hot bath had been prepared for her.
The soldier stood at the entrance. She followed his eyes as he scanned the room, making sure there was no possible way for her to escape. A knife and a jug of wine had been set beside the bath. There was a pile of towels too. Otherwise, the room was empty, except for the vapors rising from the hot water.
“If you cut your wrists lengthways,” he said, not unkindly, “the bleeding is much more efficient.” He motioned on his own wrist, tracing a path along the tendons. “Trust me,” he said. “I’ve been sent on more than one of these assignments. From all I can tell, it is a painless way to die. You’ll faint and then—”
“Thank you,” Sophia said curtly.
He moved his eyes to her face. “You can’t take this personally, you know. These days, Nero looks for any excuse to confiscate an estate.”
Sophia bit back another curt remark, telling herself that this young soldier truly was trying to help. “You’re a good man,” she said slowly. “And one I trust will allow me the modesty I require.”
“Of course.” His young face colored with embarrassment. “I’ll wait outside.” He took a step.
“How long?” Sophia asked, stopping him.
He understood immediately. “If you have the courage to make the cut deep, five minutes, perhaps. The hot water helps you bleed faster.”
“Good-bye then,” she said.
“I’m sorry for you,” he answered. “And I’m impressed that you are behaving like a Roman.”
Instead of a Jew, she thought silently.
He nodded once and left her alone.
Sophia winced at the scalding heat of the water but forced herself in as quickly as she could. Once totally submerged, she took the jug of wine and poured half of it into the water. Then she took the knife and placed the blade against the softness of the underside of her wrist, testing its sharpness.
A small cut opened immediately. She was amazed at how easily the cut deepened and widened. She placed her wrist in the water and watched the blood swirl and fade, a tiny tendril that disappeared like a fleeing snake.
She wasn’t ready, however, to finish slitting her wrist.
Not for the first time since Vitas had been taken away did she silently ask herself a question she wished she could ignore. Was this the consequence of her marriage to an unbeliever? When he’d proposed, she’d convinced herself she could help all Christians by marrying someone with influence with Nero, but now she wondered if it had only been a rationalization brought on by her selfishness and passion for Vitas.
And this was the result. The reputation and estate and household of Vitas in ruin. Vitas captive somewhere. And these orders for her own suicide.
Yet she knew God loved her. She clamped her other hand over the small wound, closed her eyes, and prayed. She prayed for Vitas. She prayed for her unborn child. And she prayed for courage.
Finally, she was at peace.
Ready for what was ahead of her.
“Everything is set?” Cornelius asked as he stepped forward toward Damian. Cornelius had hidden himself for as long as possible by walking just behind a group of peasants who were driving goats toward the center of the city.
Damian swallowed his distaste. A distaste for the slave, who
was willing to sell another human being into captivity. And a distaste for himself, because as Damian could not deny to himself, he was willing to broker the sale.
“How I conduct my business is of no concern to you,” Damian said. “You should worry more whether John, son of Zebedee, will take his customary route as you promised.”
The bleats of the goats faded, but the approaching sound of soldiers’ sandals slapping the cobblestone replaced it.
“I don’t want John to see me,” Cornelius repeated. The approaching soldiers—a dozen of them—obviously bothered him. His eyes shifted from one direction to another, alert for any threat.
“What difference does it make?” Damian asked. “He won’t live long enough to return and punish you.”
The soldiers passed by without any incident.
“I don’t want him to see me,” Cornelius repeated. He rubbed the triangular brand on his forehead nervously.
“Don’t waste my time,” Damian warned. He didn’t want this slave to have a sudden attack of conscience. Damian pointed at the mouth of the alley, barely wider than two men with their arms spread. “We need to be ready for you to identify him.”
Cornelius looked at the ground. As if he had just realized the consequences of his actions. Still keeping his eyes downcast, he spoke. “He cannot know it was I who betrayed him.”
“You will do what is necessary to identify him for me as he passes by.”
“No,” Cornelius said with resolve that surprised Damian. He lifted his head again and stared directly at Damian. “Otherwise I will walk away right now.”
“I have already purchased your freedom from Barbatus.”
“I will return to him and become his slave again. I do not want John to see me.”
Damian sighed. “Then we will do it your way. As long as it gets done.”
Cornelius gritted his teeth briefly. A muscle along the side of his jaw twitched. “It will be done,” he said. “I will deliver him to you as promised.”
Chayim rapped on a door hidden in the recess of an alley. He wondered if he’d heard movement inside.
He rapped again.
And a third time.
“‘I am the way, the truth, and the life,’” Chayim said. This, the slave Rikka had told him in the morning, was the code. Three times a knock at the door. Then the phrases that all inside would recognize. “‘No one can come to the Father except through Me.’”
The door opened, and Chayim saw the light of dozens of candles.
“Hurry.” A man’s arm reached out and pulled him inside.
Chayim stumbled through the entrance. As he blinked and tried to make sense of the room, another person shut the door behind him. “Welcome, brother,” said the man who had pulled him in. “Welcome in the name of Christ.”
It was a small room and smelled of fish. The small windows had been covered completely with dark blankets for privacy. The candles were perched on tables and ledges, revealing about a dozen men and women. A meal had been prepared and filled the top of the biggest table, centered among them.
“Thank you,” Chayim said.
He saw with satisfaction that on another table several scrolls had been set aside. If the letter he needed was among them, his troubles were over tonight!
Movement from the corner of his eye.
A woman had stepped forward. She took both his hands in greeting. “Rikka cannot be here tonight, as she is too badly injured. But she told me of you and how you saved her. I, in turn, have told the others. We all rejoice to have you among us.”
The gentleness in her voice hit him with the impact of a falling mountain, and because of it, the woman’s words of greeting barely registered in Chayim’s conscious thoughts. For the first time he could remember, he was at a loss for a reply of any kind.
It wasn’t that the woman was exceptionally beautiful, although there was no doubt that any man would have given her a second and third look as she moved through a marketplace. No, Chayim had never feared a woman’s beauty and knew how to use it against her, for he believed that all women had insecurities that could be leveraged by a man with the insight to find them.
But in this moment, as her eyes met his, Chayim felt a savage hunger to possess this woman.
Lust.
Later he would reflect again and again on this moment, enjoying and marveling at it as if it were a precious stone throwing exquisite light in different ways from different angles every time he looked at it anew. His hunger for her overwhelmed any other hungers he’d had in his life, and he vowed he would do what it took to satisfy it.
“Come, come! Introductions all around!” This came from Corbulo, the rough-handed fisherman who’d first opened the door for Chayim.
Still, silence.
Had the others understood his immediate reaction of lust? Was his intent to take her and possess her in any and all manners so obvious to all that they shared a silent horror?
Chayim wrenched his own stare away from her and forced composure upon himself. The rest were now looking at him expectantly.
Before arranging to seem like a hero to Rikka by intervening in her beating, he’d decided a false identity was the only way to ensure safety in a group of Christians who might be arrested for treason at any moment. The story he would give them now must be the same story he’d given to Rikka. He almost stammered as he gave all of them what he had so carefully prepared earlier.
“There is not much to say about myself,” Chayim said. “My name is Chayim. I am a Greek from the city of Agrigentum in Sicily. My father has sent me here to pursue contracts for his shipping fleet.”
Chayim pretended a modest shrug. “It is my father’s work and wisdom that built the family fortune. I cannot claim then a true ownership of whatever wealth allows me to stay in Rome, nor should I get undue credit for helping Rikka today.”
“A Greek?” one man asked. “Chayim sounds Jewish.”
Chayim had also prepared himself for this. The alternative, he’d decided, was a false Greek name, but the danger in that was his unfamiliarity with it. If someone addressed him by the Greek name and he didn’t respond, it would raise greater suspicion than the innocent question that had just been asked.
“It is Jewish,” Chayim said with a practiced chuckle. “But please don’t ask for the complicated story behind it. For my family was touched with scandal, and I prefer to let that sleeping dog lie. Especially here in Rome, where those who meet me are not prejudiced by the local gossip on the island.”
By the nods of the people, Chayim believed this falsehood had served its purpose. Cloaked him in mystery and deflected further questions. And it would make him look like a hero to the woman he wanted so badly to possess.
He dared another glance at her. Her eyes were on his face. He wanted to take her right here, hold her, drag her away, and he didn’t care whether or not she shared those feelings.
Chayim set his face into a mask of patience as one by one the others told him their names and their backgrounds. He wasn’t listening. He was counting them down until the woman who had greeted him had a chance to speak.
“Leah,” she said. She was the final person in the group. “My brother was among those who died in the Tribulation that began after the Great Fire in Rome. I am not a believer, but I seek the faith, so I am here tonight.”
Leah.
As she spoke, Chayim memorized her every feature. The long dark hair parted in a way that framed her high cheekbones. Her slender fingers, motionless as her hands rested gracefully on her lap. The unadorned dress. And her lips with a slight pout.
The fire within him grew. In his mind he could already taste her kiss. He tingled, thinking that she might protest, and that added to his sense of hunger.
“Leah,” he repeated aloud. He’d repeated all the other names, giving the illusion that he was attempting to remember each of them. But it was only Leah that mattered.
Chayim was about to move toward her, hoping to sit nearby as the group began the meetin
g. But Corbulo took him by the elbow and sat him opposite Leah. Chayim tried to hide his stare in her direction as the group sang a hymn unfamiliar to him.
They shared a meal, breaking bread and drinking wine in honor of the flesh and blood of Christ, a ritual that made little sense to Chayim. He pretended to match their reverence and joy, but his mind—and eyes—turned to Leah again and again.
Where did she live? How could he meet her again after what he knew would happen tonight?
As he speculated, the group continued with the meal. More hymns.
Chayim tried to plot a way he could have her. He felt as if he were in a pan of water slowly coming to boil. He knew what he had wanted before entering this room. Yet it had all changed from the moment Leah took his hands.
And soon everything would change again, because of events he’d started in motion earlier. Perhaps now was the time to warn them all to flee.
But if he did, they’d know he was responsible. And that knowledge would most certainly drive Leah from him, before he’d taken his chance with her.
Chayim’s heart rate increased with dread and anticipation. How could he protect Leah without her discovering the betrayal he planned? How could—?
The door suddenly burst open.
And six armed Roman soldiers marched into the room.
“You look exhausted, my friend,” John said to Ruso. “Did you have visitors late into the night?”
“I did,” Ruso answered. “Military men consulting with me on Senate matters.” He was lying to his friend. The two visitors were highly ranked in the military, but nothing about the Senate had been discussed. If John knew how little sleep Ruso had had the night before or the reason for the long hours with those men, John would begin to suspect too much.
Ruso wanted them to move to a safer subject. “As you know,” he said, “I, like all the other believers, have taken great comfort in the eyewitness accounts about Jesus written for us by you and Matthew and John Mark and Luke.”
The Last Disciple Page 36