by John Hagee
Damian erupted in rage. “Seize her!” he screamed. “Get her out of my sight!”
Everything spun out of control for Abraham. Instantly two soldiers grabbed Rebecca and clamped circles of iron around her hands and her delicate ankles. Before he could form a word of protest, before his brain could tell his feet to move, Abraham saw his wife react. Exploding with the fury of a mother whose young was being devoured by a wild beast, Elizabeth ran toward the soldiers restraining her daughter.
One of the centurions intercepted Elizabeth and blocked her way.
“Get your hands off her, you animals!” Elizabeth cried as she tried to sidestep the centurion. “She’s a child, not a criminal!”
Elizabeth’s fists pounded frantically against the centurion’s armor, but he did not budge.
Abraham’s heart lurched in terror. It was a crime to attack a Roman centurion; Elizabeth could be put to death for it. He screamed, “Stop, Elizabeth! No!” and then began running toward her. He had taken only a few steps when one of the numerous soldiers patrolling the temple area knocked Abraham in the head with the blunt end of his spear.
The blow sent him reeling, but he stayed on his feet, still yelling for Elizabeth to stop. Another legionnaire rushed to strike Abraham with a club, and he sank to the ground.
Abraham’s vision blurred and dimmed. He continued to hear the voices around him, but they were distorted, as if the speakers were in a well. As he faded in and out of consciousness, chaotic scenes from the past merged with the present in his jumbled mind . . .
“Stop it, Elizabeth!” Abraham sounded stern as he grabbed his bride’s arm. Elizabeth shrieked in delight and tried to twist away from him. The little minx had tormented him ever since she had discovered he was ticklish.
She slipped out of his grasp and stood at a safe distance, leaning forward with her hands resting on her knees. They were both out of breath from climbing the hillside and from their silly games. With her joyous laughter ringing in the wildflower-scented air, there was no way Abraham could stay peeved at her. As far as he was concerned, Elizabeth could tickle him whenever she wanted; the sheer pleasure of her touch far outweighed the irritation.
When she had caught her breath, Elizabeth removed a light woolen blanket from the large basket and spread it in the clearing at the top of the hill. They had chosen the scenic spot, which overlooked the harbor, for their first picnic.
“What a glorious day,” she said as she sat down. “Spring is my favorite season. Emerging beauty. The promise of new life. A season filled with hope.” She smiled and patted the blanket beside her, inviting Abraham to join her. “What’s your favorite time of year?”
“Any time I’m with you,” Abraham quipped. He sat down behind Elizabeth and put his arms around her. She leaned back against him, and for a minute they silently watched the clouds billow across the sky like moving mountains of cotton.
“Remember the first time you came to my house?” Elizabeth asked.
He grunted, and she took that for a yes. “I don’t know what you said to my father that day,” she continued, “but I’m awfully glad you persuaded him to let me marry you. These last six months have been the happiest of my life.”
She turned around to face him. “Are you happy too, Abraham?”
“I didn’t know it was possible to be this happy.” He brushed a loose curl away from her forehead and traced the curve of her cheek with a finger.
Abraham certainly recalled the conversations he had had with her father that day, and for several days afterward. Rufus had not been receptive when he first approached him.
“I suspect you have an ulterior motive for telling me Elizabeth shouldn’t marry young Mallus,” Rufus had said.
“It’s true. I admit I want to marry Elizabeth myself,” Abraham had replied. “But please hear me out. I have some information about this man you should know—information that will change your mind about the suitability of this marriage.”
Abraham had told Rufus then about seeing Damian murder another tribune in Jerusalem. Rufus, who was nervous by nature, wrung his hands in despair at the startling revelation. “Elizabeth is my only child. I can’t let her marry a murderer, but what can I do? The Mallus family is very powerful—the senator could make life miserable for me.”
“And his son could make life miserable for Elizabeth,” Abraham responded.
After several days of strategizing, Rufus had written a letter to Mallus, breaking the marriage contract. He had sought legal counsel, he told the senator—not telling him, of course, that his lawyer would be the man Elizabeth was going to marry instead of the senator’s son. Rufus also said that his lawyer was holding a signed affidavit from an eyewitness who had seen Damian murder a fellow officer. “Should it be necessary,” Rufus wrote, “we will turn this information over to the authorities. But because of your status in the Empire, and in regard for our longtime association, I would rather keep this matter private and let you handle it with military officials in Rome as you see fit.”
It was blackmail, pure and simple: “Cancel the marriage contract, and I won’t brand your son as a murderer.”
Abraham—who was both the legal counsel and the eyewitness— knew that proving a case against Damian would be difficult, if not impossible. But he had assured Rufus that the senator would want to avoid any hint of a scandal. It was a calculated risk, but one worth taking. And one that had paid off.
Senator Mallus had responded with a short but gracious letter, thanking Rufus for his discretion. By the time his letter had arrived, Elizabeth and Abraham were newlyweds.
Sitting here now, with Elizabeth in his arms, enjoying the sunshine and the solitude and the spectacular view of the mountains and the harbor, he was indeed a happy man.
“Abraham, are you listening to me?” Elizabeth interrupted his train of thought.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was distracted by thoughts of marital bliss.” He smiled broadly at his lovely wife. “What were you saying?”
“I said, I have something important to tell you. You’ve been so busy, we haven’t had much time together, and I’ve been waiting for just the right time.”
“I apologize, sweetheart. I know I’ve neglected my beautiful bride, but there’s so much to do with getting a new enterprise off the ground.” Rufus had made a wedding present of a small shipping business that had been unable to navigate some choppy financial waters. The inexperienced owners had not repaid their loans and had walked away from the business, leaving Rufus’s bank holding the notes. With good management, he’d told Abraham, it could be a very profitable venture. Abraham was determined to turn the business around and expand the fledgling company’s trade route.
“So what is this important matter you’ve been waiting to tell me?” It must be good news, he thought. She had never looked happier.
“Abraham!” The reedy voice was followed a moment later by a view of Quintus’s head. He cleared his throat as he crested the top of the hill. “Abraham, I’m sorry to interrupt you . . .” The gangly teenager reddened and looked embarrassed.
Abraham sighed. “What is it, Quintus?”
Elizabeth shifted her position and looked away, her mouth set in a tight line.
“There’s a man at the office who wants to see you—”
“Can’t Decimus handle it?” Abraham’s voice betrayed his impatience. He’d left explicit instructions with his foreman, who by now should have been capable of handling anything that came up this afternoon. It was the first time in months Abraham had managed to steal a few daylight hours with his wife.
“Decimus assured the man we could handle his business, but he insists on talking to the owner personally.” Quintus paused. “Decimus said to tell you the man is a wealthy merchant from Troas. Says he has a thousand barrels of wine sitting in his warehouse, and he just found out the shipper he’s been using has cheated him for years. He needs to start moving the wine right away, he said, and with that much inventory, well . . .”
A thousand barrels of wine. A regular customer with that kind of volume could be the linchpin for a shipping company, especially a new and expanding one. Abraham looked at Elizabeth guiltily. For days he’d been promising to take a few hours off to have a picnic with her. And she had wanted to tell him something important. He didn’t want to disappoint his wife, but he couldn’t afford to pass up an opportunity to land an account that could make or break his new business.
“Elizabeth,” he said, “I’d better see about this.”
She stood and brushed off the skirt of her tunic. “We haven’t even eaten our lunch yet,” she said, her lip twitching.
Abraham rose and tried to put his arm around her, but she wouldn’t let him. “Honey, I’m sorry,” he said.
Without saying a word, Elizabeth bent down, opened the lid of the basket, then reached for the blanket.
“No, leave it.” Abraham grasped her hand to stop her from folding the blanket and putting it away. “Wait for me here. I’ll see the man for just a few minutes, as a courtesy, and then tell him we’ll have to finish our business later. I can be back in less than an hour. And then we can have our picnic—and talk.”
Elizabeth appeared slightly mollified and offered her cheek for a brief kiss before he left with Quintus.
When they had walked down the hillside a ways, Quintus said, “I hope Elizabeth will forgive me for dragging you away. She looked angry.”
“She’ll forgive you,” Abraham said quickly. “I’m the one she’s upset with right now, but I’ll make it up to her. I wouldn’t have let you interrupt me if it hadn’t been something important.” Already he was mentally calculating cargo space for a thousand barrels of wine, and speculating on the destination ports.
“When Decimus asked if I knew where you were, I couldn’t lie. I said I knew, but that I had promised not to tell anyone. He kept badgering me until I finally said I’d deliver a message to you. I think he was mad that I wouldn’t tell him.”
“Decimus is probably just mad because you don’t answer to him anymore; you work for me now.” When Abraham had taken over the shipping business, he’d discovered that Quintus, who had worked for the previous owner, had a good head for numbers. Quintus was not only bright, he was industrious and loyal. So Abraham had moved him off the docks and into the office, where he had no official title or job duties. He simply did whatever Abraham asked him to, and Quintus had quickly proven himself invaluable.
It took about ten minutes to wind their way down the hill into the city, but when they reached Harbor Street, the two of them quickly picked up the pace. Abraham was eager to find out how he could help the wine merchant, and eager to conclude his meeting with the man so he could get back to Elizabeth. He was excited as they walked down the broad avenue, ignoring the vendors who vied for business along the colonnade. Except for the time it took him away from his bride, Abraham didn’t mind the long hours he was putting into the business. He loved the challenge, and he loved the noise and the bustle and even the smells of the harbor.
Seagulls scavenging for crumbs scattered when the two men walked up the four steps from the street to the wooden pier. With the long stride of tall men, they walked the length of the pier— Someday I’ll move to larger quarters in the very center of the harbor, Abraham thought smugly—and entered the cramped office of his shipping company.
The wine merchant was not there.
Quintus went in search of Decimus, who returned to report sheepishly that he didn’t know where the man had gone. “I got called out on the dock just after Quintus left. I excused myself, said I’d be right back, and I left him here in the office. Couldn’t have been gone more than a couple of minutes, but when I got back, the merchant was nowhere to be found.”
Abraham was both disappointed and aggravated. “He just left without saying anything? I thought he had insisted on seeing me.”
“Oh, he did,” Decimus said. “He was adamant about it. I wouldn’t have sent Quintus to get you otherwise.”
“Did he leave his name or say how I could get in contact with him?” In his mind Abraham saw all those barrels of wine sitting in a warehouse in Troas, just waiting to be loaded on his ships— the account was his!
Flustered, Decimus scratched his head. “Surely he told me his name. Let me think . . .” He paused and then shrugged. “Sorry,” he finally said, “I can’t remember now if he even said who he was. He wanted to see our operation, and I showed him around. Asked question after question about the business and its owner. Then I heard about all that wine sitting in his warehouse waiting to be shipped, and everything else left my head.
“I know he said Troas,” Decimus added. “That I remember, because I have an uncle in Troas—”
“It’s all right, Decimus.” Abraham couldn’t be too angry with his foreman; he had done the same thing. He had thought of what his net profit would be for shipping a thousand barrels of wine, and nothing else had seemed important after that.
“I’d better check on the loading crew,” Decimus mumbled as he turned and left.
Quintus seemed as let down and as puzzled as Abraham. “But why would he leave if he really wanted to talk to you? It’s not only rude, it just doesn’t make sense.”
“I guess the lesson to be learned is that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Abraham chided himself for neglecting the most important person in his life—Elizabeth—to chase down something that had seemed urgent but turned out to be a waste of time. If I’m lucky, he thought, she won’t be too mad at me. Maybe we can recapture our earlier mood.
They walked out on the pier, and Abraham was saying good-bye to Quintus when Rufus sprinted up to them. His wiry red hair flapped wildly over his forehead, and he was out of breath.
“Where’s Elizabeth?” he asked. “She’s not home. I went there first.”
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” His father-in-law looked quite disturbed, Abraham thought.
“Where is she?”
“She’s up in the hills, waiting for me. We were having a picnic.”
“Is she all right?”
“Yes, she’s fine.” Abraham motioned for Rufus to enter the office. “Come in and tell me what has you so upset.”
“Maybe I’m just being paranoid,” Rufus said when he had taken a seat. “But something unusual happened while I was in a meeting with a client this morning.”
Abraham smiled. Rufus did tend to exaggerate the dimensions of a problem. Whatever it was, Rufus had probably blown it out of proportion.
“A man came into the bank today,” Rufus said, “and told my assistant, Junius, that he wanted to open an account—mentioned a large sum of money—but he wanted me to handle it personally. He was an acquaintance of mine from Rome, the man said. Junius entertained him while they waited for me to conclude my meeting.”
“That’s not too unusual,” Abraham said. “I imagine personal referrals are a large part of your business.” He was impatient to get back to his beautiful young wife, who was waiting to serve him a meal outdoors and tell him something important. “What does this have to do with Elizabeth?”
“He engaged in small talk with Junius while they waited, and he asked a lot of questions about me and my family. He seemed to know a lot about us, Junius said. Specifically, he remembered I had a young daughter, and that she was very beautiful. He even remembered her name, and he asked if Elizabeth was married yet. Junius said yes and told him about you.”
Rufus stopped to catch his breath, and suddenly Abraham began to wonder if Rufus’s paranoia was catching. He had a queasy feeling in his empty stomach.
“Shortly after that, the man left, saying he would come back tomorrow. Afterward, Junius got to thinking it was curious that he had asked so many personal questions rather than questions about the bank.”
Taken by itself, the inquisitive customer at the bank wouldn’t have amounted to much, but with the mysterious stranger disappearing at the shipping office, it seemed more than a coincidence.
Abraham stood up and started pacing the floor. “He asked specifically about Elizabeth, whether she was married?” There was something disconcerting about that.
Rufus nodded. “I guess what worried me the most is the way Junius described the man—said he was not very tall, had a sharp nose, dark hair and eyes, and walked with a swagger. I couldn’t help remembering—”
“That sounds like the wine merchant,” Quintus interrupted.
“That’s how Elizabeth described Damian. Swaggering.” Rufus looked at Quintus. “Wine merchant?”
“Come on,” Abraham yelled as he bolted out of the office. “We have to hurry!” If the wine merchant and the bank customer bore a resemblance to Damian, he was taking no chances.
Abraham ran down Harbor Street at a breakneck pace, overturning a vendor’s cart in his haste. The tradesman cursed as his vegetables scattered over the pavement, and Rufus called over his shoulder, “I’ll cover your loss later.”
The trio sped across the city but had to slow down when they reached the hills. Abraham clawed his way up the slopes without bothering to follow the winding path he and Elizabeth had taken earlier. He climbed through a patch of thistles, not noticing how they scratched his ankles. All that mattered was getting to Elizabeth.
“I know where she’s supposed to be,” Quintus told Rufus as they followed a short distance behind Abraham. “We’ll catch up with you,” he yelled up the hill.
When Abraham reached the clearing, he saw the picnic basket lying on the blanket, but Elizabeth was nowhere in sight. The sick feeling in his stomach exploded into panic, and he could scarcely breathe.
“Elizzzaaabeth!” he shouted frantically while praying silently, Please, God, let her just be off picking wildflowers or something.
Winded, Abraham stayed where he was for a moment and scanned the area. He could find no clue as to where she had gone. “Elizabeth!” he called again.
He heard a muffled scream and thought it came from a stand of laurel trees behind the clearing.
“Elizabeth!” Abraham’s cry echoed over the hillside as he tore into the woods, his heart pounding.