The Patrician

by Joan Kayse

  The Patrician

  By Joan Kayse

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  For my parents who gave me the gifts of creativity, patience, passion and Irish stubborness to pursue my dreams. I love you Mom and Daddy!

  Acknowledgements

  There have been so many people who have supported me as writers and friends. To Renee Halverson, my first mentor. She was the first to read my work. Her knowledge and wisdom made me a better writer and gave me a strong foundation to build a career. T. L. Gray. Wow. How lucky was I to have met you at RWA Denver? No, really. How lucky? You've not only taught me about good storytelling but been an awesome example of what a professional writer should be. You've supported me not only as a critique partner but as a friend and as a sister of my heart. When you say it's good I believe it. Love you. (Your aversion to cats can be overlooked). To Lisa Tapp aka "Plot Goddess". The day you were rescued was the day I gained a friend who encourages me in all my efforts, has talked me down off the ledge many times and who knows the value of a good doughnut. Karen Ender. Enthusiasm is your middle name. Thanks for being such a great cheerleader. At the risk of making this the longest acknowledgement in publishing history, a thousand thank you's to a group of ladies known as the Romance Bandits. Sister friends, you rock and have taught me so much my head spins. A special shout out to Suz Ferrell and Susan Sey whose encouragement and guidance with this publishing venture kept me sane. Em--dash, Em--dash love you! To Louisville Romance Writers. Gals, your talent and professionalism make this chapter rock! Thanks for your support. And of course, to all the family and friends who are finally getting the answer to the question "When is your book is coming out?

  Prologue

  “Search every fucking house!”

  Jared burrowed deeper into his pallet. By the gods, who was screeching at this time of night?

  “Find them!”

  With a groan, he flung the woolen cover off and sat up. He’d made his bed on his grandfather’s roof in the hopes of finding some peace and quiet—not an easy task with scores of younger cousins vying for his attention on this rare visit to his extended family.

  Jared’s yawn ended in a smile. He didn’t mind really. He enjoyed the companionship no matter how fleeting, but being an only child he was used to solitude.

  The noise grew louder, adult voices shouting and cursing. He scratched his head. His older cousins must have indulged in too much wine again. A handful of unruly bullies, they were a constant source of aggravation to the younger relations. Jared’s mouth stretched into a grin. He might be used to solitude, but as a thirteen year old boy, it would be worth every minute of lost sleep just to watch his grandfather’s scolding.

  “Mercy, I beg, mercy!”

  Jared frowned at the female voice laced with fear. Trying to ignore the knot forming in his stomach and failing miserably, he jumped to his feet and ran to the edge of the rooftop. His mouth went dust dry.

  Roman soldiers swarmed the village center below. Orange light from their torches cast distorted shadows across their segmented armor. A cold chill shot through him as they marched house to house, breaking down doors and dragging bewildered residents from their beds. The sound of furniture splintering and pottery smashing against mud brick walls filled the darkness. Deaf to the pleas of the villagers on their knees, the soldiers continued to set fire to each dwelling.

  Gods, his grandfather’s house was next!

  This could not be happening. It had to be a dream, a nightmare. Any moment now he’d waken to his grandmother cajoling him from sleep with promises of fresh honey cakes. A loud crash from below stairs extinguished that hope. The deep rumble of his grandfather’s voice trying to reason with the intruders was lost beneath the loud crack of the door being hammered down by the soldiers.

  Frantic, Jared tossed aside baskets filled with dates and nuts, searching for a weapon. A large jar of olive oil toppled over anointing his bare feet. He spewed out a foul word. His mother would have admonished him for such vulgarity.

  His mother. Jared’s chest clenched, his heart stopped. His mother was below stairs.

  Gods.

  From the corner of his eye, Jared caught sight of an object jutting out from a pile of raw wool waiting to be spun. His grandmother’s spindle.

  He cursed again when his feet slipped in the oil as he scurried to pull the rod free from the greasy fleece. He tested the weight in his hand. It wasn’t very long, but was made of solid bone, heavy enough to do some damage. He started for the stairway.

  His mother met him at the door wearing her favorite burgundy tunica, her midnight hair unveiled and rumpled. Her mouth was set in a grim line, and her dark eyes, usually bright with laughter, were clouded with worry. “Hurry, Jared, there is no time.”

  “Mother,” he replied in a calm voice, though his stomach felt like a writhing eel. “I’ll tell them who I am, who my father is.” Jared’s throat tightened at the anguish that filled her brown eyes.

  She reached out a hand, and gently brushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead. “No love, they are soldiers of Rome bent on a mission. They would not care if your father were the Emperor himself.”

  “Shifra,” called his grandmother from the lower level. Jared shivered at the quivering fear he heard in her voice.

  Shifra took a steadying breath. “Now, you must listen to me, I have a very important task for you. Your cousins are waiting behind the house. I need you to take them to the caves. You’ll be safe there. Do not come out until I send for you.”

  “You must come, too,” he insisted, catching her hand and tugging her toward the edge of the roof. He refused to release his hold even as he straddled the edge where a palm tree grew, curved against the side of the house. “This way,” he urged.

  But Shifra slipped free and cupped his face in her hands. “Son, look at me.”

  Jared didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see the truth in her eyes. A gentle shake brought his gaze to hers and the pain in his chest took his breath away.

  “I must stay and help your grandparents.” Her voice caught. She kissed him on both cheeks and hugged him close. Jared closed his eyes and buried his face against her breast. Her jasmine scent filled his senses. He couldn’t stop trembling.

  Shifra hushed him. “Do you know how much I love you?”

  She had asked him that question every day of his life—the answer was inscribed on his heart. “More than the stars in the heavens,” he whispered his voice thick with tears he couldn’t stop from coursing down his cheeks.

  Shifra gave him a tremulous smile. She took the pendant she always wore from around her neck and slipped it over his head. He stared at her, fingered the silver medallion. Given to her by his grandfather on the day she had married his father, it was inscribed with Hebrew letters spelling faith. His apprehension exploded into full blown terror.

  A loud crash followed by the terrified screams of his grandmother caused them both to jump. Before he could protest his mother swept his other leg over the ledge. He made a wild grab for the trunk of the tree.

  “Go, Jared! God will protect you.” Finding a handhold, he glanced back over his shoulder just in time to catch a blur of burgundy gown and black hair disappearing down the stairs.

  The husk of the trunk scraped his thighs as he shimmied to the ground. Six of his cousins huddled around the base of the tree, their expressions a reflection of his own shock. Behind them, a neighbor’s roof timbers gave way to flames sending a shower of sparks into the air. Jared swallowed hard against a fresh rush of tears. It was just the smoke.

  His mother would be fine. Shifra would reason with the soldiers, stop the madness. She would be waiting for him when he returned. U
ntil then, she’d given him a task. Snatching the smallest child, a girl of two, into his arms, Jared silently motioned the others to follow.

  Moonlight filtered through scattered clouds, lighting the path to where brown earth rolled up into sharp edged ridges and steeper cliffs. Without a word, he led the children to the base of the highest peak. Behind a patch of dry scrub brush he found the entrance to the caves that days before he had explored with these same cousins looking for King Solomon’s treasure. He settled them into the biggest one, admonishing them to be quiet.

  “Will your father stop them, Jared?” whispered his cousin Abraham.

  Jared tensed. “My father’s not here.” He should be here. He should have come with them to celebrate his only son’s coming of age. He closed his eyes at the memory of the bitter argument he’d overheard his parents having over Shifra’s desire to see Jared accepted into her faith. Flavian tolerated his wife’s religion to a point but his only son, he proclaimed, would not dishonor the family deities.

  “But he is a Roman. He can make them stop!” insisted Elizabeth. Younger than Jared by a year, she was convinced of her superior maturity. She crossed her arms and pinned him with a hard stare. “You are Roman. Make them stop, Jared.”

  A chill swept through him at the accusation in her voice. He glanced around the circle of expectant faces. Treated as a dark family secret, Jared’s Roman heritage was never discussed, never spoken of out of love for Shifra. But the underlying friction was always there. Why must he always be a Roman or a Jew? Why couldn’t he just be Jared?

  He squared his shoulders. “I will go back. I’m certain by now that grandfather has made them see reason.”

  They nodded as a group, the strength and wisdom of their common elder relieving some of their worry. He returned Elizabeth’s scrutiny. “Do not leave the caves.”

  In a matter of minutes, he’d made his way back to the small village, approaching from behind his grandfather’s house, now a charred shell. Pockets of flames snapped and crackled as they devoured what little remained. Thick smoke wrapped around the decimated community like a shroud, causing Jared’s eyes to water and his lungs to fill with ash. Suppressing the cough that clawed at his throat, he crept up to an outside wall and peered around the corner.

  Soldiers milled around the central area of the settlement. A few surveyed the carnage from horseback. One he recognized as a centurion by the crested plume of his helmet. His father had taken him many times to watch the Empire’s proud army parade through the streets of Rome, cheering their latest conquests. This, his father had told him, was the pride and honor of Rome. This was his heritage. Jared swallowed the bile rising in his throat.

  A grizzled sergeant directed the collection of treasure, scarce as it was, into a central pile. A group burst into laughter, shouting encouragement as one of their number cornered a goat against the well. The hapless creature tumbled to the ground, his bleat of protest silenced by the single swipe of a sword. The soldier wiped the blood from his blade on the cloak of a body with a thick, gray beard.

  Hot tears scalded his eyes and he began to shake. His grandfather.

  “Ho, Titus! Was she as sweet as the other flowers of Judah?”

  He followed the speaker’s gaze to a stand of palm trees, where a soldier was rising from his knees, adjusting the bottom of his tunic.

  “Too much fight for my liking,” the rutting man called back. Two girls cowered at his feet. One was sobbing and rocking, trying in vain to hold together the tattered remnants of her dress against her bared breasts. The other—a pretty girl with olive skin, thick sable braids and incredible hazel eyes who, only hours before, had smiled shyly at Jared during his celebration, stared vacantly into space. Another soldier kicked aside a leg from his path. It was draped in burgundy cloth.

  His chest constricted, his vision blurred.

  “No!” He sprinted across the square as if in a tunnel, neither hearing nor seeing anything except his mother. Sobbing, he fell beside her, his knees sinking into the sand.

  Her dress was twisted around her waist, her legs spread wide apart. Ugly, red marks circled her wrists. Blood trickled from a gash that ran across her throat. Her face, still so beautiful beneath the swelling and bruises was tilted toward him, her eyes open and unseeing. Jasmine mingled with the sharp copper scent of blood. Jared’s fingers trembled as he tried to cover her with her tattered clothing. “Mother, wake up.” The words came out in a choked sob. “Don’t leave me. Oh, don’t leave me.” He kept stroking her, as if his touch alone could bring her back to life.

  “Makes your heart bleed, doesn’t it?”

  The mocking voice pierced the haze of his grief. Jared raised his head, the sorrow in his chest twisting into something hard and cold. The soldier sneering down at him was holding his cock in one hand, his mother’s veil in the other.

  Rage and grief fueled the animal sound that erupted from him. Jared surged to his feet and attacked the soldier, pummeled the man with his fists, kicked him, bit any piece of exposed flesh he could find.

  Pain, white and hot, shot across his left temple, but it was nothing compared to the agony of losing his mother. His legs crumpled beneath him. Through black spots dancing across his vision, saw a second soldier standing next to the first, his hand fisted around the hilt of a sword.

  The soldier he had attacked spat on the ground. “Kill the brat and be done with it.”

  Jared crawled to lie against Shifra. If he had stayed, had confronted the Romans, told them who he was, who his father was, then his mother would still be alive.

  It would be so easy to give in to the dark abyss that waited to engulf him. But then that would be too simple. And he did not deserve to die so easily. If not for him, if not for his coming of age, Shifra would not have been in the village, would not be dead. None of them would be.

  He rolled onto his back, his head propped on Shifra’s arm and stared at the short gladius suspended over his chest. The Roman blade would pierce his heart, but that part of him was already dead. He closed his eyes and waited for the blow.

  “Wait a minute. Look at that!”

  Cracking his eyes open, he saw the second man restraining the first and pointing to Jared’s chest.

  The soldier with the sword leaned down and ripped the thin, gold bulla from around his neck. Placed there by his father, eight days after his birth, it was engraved with the symbol of the Antoninus clan and held a charm of protection. The Roman gods had failed as miserably as his mother’s, he thought, bitterness searing his soul.

  “The brat could have stolen it,” reasoned the first man. His eyes darted back and forth from the bulla to the soldiers hustling around them. Slanting the shell shaped piece toward the light, the soldier read the inscription. “Jupiter, protect the son of Flavian Antoninus Septimus from all ill.” The soldier’s eyes narrowed on Jared. “Flavian Antoninus is a scholar and wealthy patrician. A favorite of the Emperor. It is well known he has a Hebrew wife.”

  “The slut spoke the truth!” The second man looked anxiously at Jared. “The brat is Roman!”

  Swallowing convulsively, the soldier flung the bulla down. It landed across Shifra’s outstretched arm. “Even Jupiter won’t be able to save us if the centurion finds out.”

  From beneath his lashes, Jared watched the two murderers hurry away. His headache worsened, drawing him into oblivion. Only one thought formed in his mind, a contrast in clarity as the blackness claimed him.

  “I am not Roman.”

  Chapter One

  Alexandria, 52 AD

  The mud brick walls spun like a whirlwind back into focus.

  Head spinning, heart pounding against her ribs, Bryna struggled to clear the fog in her head. Fear clutched at her throat, terror knotted her stomach. The urgency to get out, get away clawed at her chest.

  One bare foot on the cold, dirt floor and the dazed confusion dissipated into cold reality. Blinking, Bryna looked around the tiny, bare room with the bolted door and the barred window.<
br />
  Her prison.

  Hands trembling, she clutched the ends of the veil that had slipped from her head and wrapped it around her shoulders, the threadbare silk a poor shield against the despair welling in her chest.

  The visions were getting stronger.

  She’d been receiving them daily for the past ten days, though today’s count stood at three. She didn’t get impressions like her mother or her grandmother—a flash of insight, a sense of knowing, a foreshadowing of events to come. No, nothing so simple.

  When her gift manifested itself, she experienced it as if she were there, scenes as real and solid to her as the rough stone ledge biting into her back. Bryna pressed damp palms against her forehead as she replayed the latest one over in her mind. It had been the strongest yet.

  It had begun as always with a glorious spring day, the sun soft and muted like a pearl yet it had warmed her skin, contrasting with the cool breeze that kissed the rich green of the hills of her isle and sent white clouds scuttling across a deep blue sky. Even now she could feel the cool grass beneath her feet as she’d walked along the river, tugging at the willow stems that grew abundantly along the marshy edges. Birds flitted from ground to tree, trilling and chirping, the smile their melodious song brought to her lips fading as storm clouds roiled in the distance. Sick dread had started in her stomach at the certainty of the nightmare to come.

  Shouts and curses, sword striking shield, Bryna spun around to find herself standing in the middle of her kinsmen who were locked in fierce battle with the Ileni who had come to trade. Her cry of warning went unheard before being swallowed by shouts of victory. A black shadow blocked the sun. Stumbling over the bloodied bodies of her clan littering the lush hillside, the stench of death sharp and acrid filled her every breath, choking the tiny spark of hope that she would find her brother.

  Bryna!

  Bryna turned, as she always did, to see Bran standing by the rock strewn beach staring at her, eyes full of disbelief at her betrayal.