Vibius grunted, and a legionnaire coughed. All heads save Vibius’s were still bowed.
Had he said something wrong?
Big Brutus leaned over and whispered, “In Jesus’s name. Amen.”
Athanasius spoke up and concluded, “In Jesus’s name. Amen.”
The heads came up with smiles, the hands unclasped, and the food was quickly consumed.
Athanasius watched everybody get to work, but there was no sign yet this morning of Gabrielle. He saw Vibius walk up the narrow flight of steps to the second-story offices of the winery. He could go up there and ask what to do, but the wine cave was open before him, and now was a perfect opportunity to look inside and act lost if found.
The wine cave was cool and dry inside, with rows of amphorae lining either side. He loitered by the rows, trying to figure out which labels were bound for Rome. He found a row of six black amphorae with red gladiators, exactly like the ones in the Angel’s Vault, and wondered if these could be the imperial vessels. He crouched down and tried to make heads or tails of the markings. There was the Dovilin insignia, both at the bottom of the amphora and on the cork seal on top. Where were the other markings?
He finally found them, cleverly hidden in the pattern of the Greek key that circled the neck of the amphora. These amphorae were marked for Ostia and then Rome’s city port on the Tiber and finally the Palace of the Flavians, marked with the Seal of Caesar.
All he had to do now was find a counterpart amphora in the Angel’s Vault, an unsealed amphora where he could poison the resin around the cork stoppage and then cap and substitute it for one of these.
“What are you doing?”
Athanasius stood up to see Gabrielle standing before him. He glanced beyond her at the back of the cave and the tunnel from which she had emerged. “I hear Caesar in Rome has a private tunnel like you between the Coliseum and the palace. We should all be so lucky.”
“We all work hard here,” she said. “Biblical principles, you know. There is no slave or free here. No male or female. No Jew or Gentile. We are all equal before Christ.”
“I think the Dovilins believe some Christians are more equal than others.”
“And you, Samuel. You seem to be avoiding work in the field this morning.”
“I told you, Gabrielle, I work with amphorae like these to improve the taste and preservation of wine. This is where I belong. I’m no ordinary field laborer.”
She took his hands and looked at them. “That’s for certain. I doubt you’ve ever done any heavy lifting your entire life.”
“I most certainly have,” he told her. “Every time I take a piss.”
She laughed for the first time with him, truly laughed, and her smile somehow broke his heart. Maybe it was the cut under her animated eyes, so full of life and yet filled with sorrow. She had an effect on him that no woman ever had before, including Helena, and it made him uncomfortable and curious all the same.
“Follow me, Sampson, and we’ll see how strong you are.”
* * *
Much to his disappointment, she took him far away from the winery, past rows and rows of vines to the middle of the vast fields.
“The Dovilins are in the business of celebrations,” she told him. “Communions. Weddings. Banquets. Baptisms. Everything and anything. Those celebrations begin with wine. Jesus turned water into wine. It was his first recorded miracle. It was at a wedding. We can’t turn water into wine. But we can turn grapes into wine. Good wine starts with good grapes. Good grapes start with good vines.”
“Yes,” Athanasius said. “Jesus said, ‘I am the vine. You are the branches. Without me you can do nothing.’”
Unlike Bishop Paul, she took no offense at his display of knowledge. But neither was she impressed. “Without the vine there is no wine, Samuel. My primary job as vineyard manager is to forecast the harvest. The Dovilins don’t like surprises. We must predict how much fruit we’re going to be getting come harvest.”
So that’s why she was the vineyard manager, Athanasius realized. Despite the contempt with which everybody seemed to regard her, her methodology for forecasting grape yields — and improving them — was simply too valuable for the Dovilins to ignore. It was a talent Vibius clearly lacked, as well as everybody else around here. Suddenly Athanasius wondered not how Gabrielle got her job but how the Dovilins’ business could ever thrive without her.
“So how do you do that?” Athanasius asked.
“You are going to count the clusters for me, Samuel.”
“Me?”
“Look,” she said, and lifted a branch on the nearest vine. “See these flowery little buds? These are the ovaries. They develop into grapes. Now count them.”
Athanasius got down on his knees in the dirt and with his hands lifted several branches on the vine and counted. “This one has 14 clusters.”
“You missed some, Samuel.” She lifted another branch. “This one has sixteen, see?”
He saw. He looked under the last branch she had lifted and accidentally broke it off. “Oops.”
“You might as well be dropping gold so far as the Dovilins are concerned,” she cautioned him. “You don’t want to cost them money in your counting.”
He sighed. Counting grape clusters was not what he had in mind in traveling all this way to Cappadocia. This morning he was further away from the wine cave than he was upon his arrival, doing mindless work for this maddening girl who was barely a woman and who in her Christian charity defended these Dovilins who beat her down along with everybody else in this forsaken valley.
Perhaps she was a dead end, a waste of time, and he would have to pursue a less direct yet faster route to the Angel’s Vault.
“So how long do I do this?” he asked her, already thinking that Dovilin’s daughter-in-law Cota might be his better bet inside the winery.
“Until you reach the end of the row,” she said, pointing down the long line of vines. “Then you go down all the other rows and count how many clusters there are and write them down.”
She handed him a leather strip with a lead puncher to mark numbers and walked away.
“There are going to be grapes on the vines by the time I finish counting,” he called out after her. “No, there won’t be any grapes, because they will have already been picked!”
He watched her disappear into the distance between the endless rows of grapes. He was already sweaty, and the day had barely begun.
“I saw that,” said a gruff voice, and he turned to see Vibius on his horse looking down at him. He was pointing to the ground, where the broken cluster lay. “I’m taking it out of her pay, Ben-Deker. Now get to work.”
Athanasius got down on his knees and started on the next vine, carefully lifting one branch to count a cluster, and then another, as Vibius and his horse breathed heavily over his shoulder.
* * *
The assassin known as Orion had been on quite a death run lately since Corinth thanks to Athanasius of Athens, and he looked forward to its finish as his horse took its water in Caesarea and then galloped on his final leg toward the Dovilin Vineyard.
First came his orders in Corinth, which were to assassinate the Greek and his entire family. But the local legions botched the job by moving in too soon on the estate. All they managed to do was burn the family alive and let Athanasius escape. But Orion did manage to catch a glimpse of this Athanasius, which made him indispensible to the operation in Ephesus after Athanasius killed the garrison commander on Patmos.
Now Athanasius had not only escaped the trap set in Ephesus, he had also slaughtered the Dei’s key man there, Croesus, who was cousin to Senator Celsus in Rome. The shipowner’s swollen and almost unrecognizable corpse had bobbed up in the silted harbor after coming loose from its anchor. He had allegedly taken off the day before on a ship to Rome. Orion was already following reports of a man jumping caravans on the way out of Ephesus toward Laodicea, and he had followed the trail to Iconium when he crossed paths with a messenger from the Dei’
s man in Cappadocia. They knew each other, exchanged information and figured things out quickly.
This Samuel Ben-Deker was in fact Athanasius of Athens. The Greek had brazenly decided to move up the chain of the Dei by killing Celsus. Now he had set his sights even higher, targeting Dovilin.
All of which made Orion wonder.
After Ephesus Orion had to consider the possibility that Athanasius was more than what he appeared to be. No man was that favored by the gods. To escape the Tullianum, slay a tribune and Senator Maximus, escape Rome, escape Corinth, break into the prison on Patmos and kill its commander? He had to be getting help from somewhere.
But where? Orion wondered as he flicked the ear of his horse with his whip and they picked up speed. Certainly not from this Lord Jesus Christ that the Christians worshipped. From Rome? The Dei? The Church?
It didn’t matter now. Athanasius was a dead man. But it always helped to know who ultimately wanted the target dead. That was because it often tipped him off earlier if the orders included his own death as well.
The problem with being the man who tied up loose ends for Rome, Orion thought, was that it made him one too.
II
Gabrielle was a dead end, Athanasius concluded after several hours of counting clusters. He was no nearer to poisoning Domitian’s imperial amphorae in the winery nor to the identity of his alleged contact Cerberus in John’s so-called “eighth church” at Cappadocia. But between the fields and caves and some bartering, he had been able to scrounge up the various ingredients required to make his poison for Domitian. He also had come up with a plan to break into the Angel’s Vault that night without the help of Gabrielle, who was marching toward him along an irrigation ditch between the vines with a furious brow on her dirty face.
She hasn’t even seen my progress yet, he thought, and already she is angry with me.
“Congratulations, Samuel Ben-Deker,” she informed him. “You’ve been promoted.”
“To the winery?” he asked quickly.
“Oh, even better: the Dovilin estate itself. You’re joining the First Fruits.”
“First Fruits?”
“The elite household staff chosen to support the Dovilins and the ministry of the Lord’s Vineyard.”
He couldn’t hide his disappointment, and this seemed to surprise her.
“Your prayer is answered, Samuel. No more hellholes like the rest of us. You get to live at the estate, serve the visiting dignitaries and drink the same wine as the Dovilins.”
“Why me?” he asked her.
“Well, you’re not a woman, Samuel, and you’re certainly no follower of Christ,” she explained. “So why shouldn’t the Dovilins judge you worthy enough to join them? Now get yourself to the stables behind the villa. Leave your counting scroll. I’ll be your relief for the rest of the day.”
He watched her sink her knees into the wet soil by the ditch and start counting to herself. She looked like a little girl, so small and frail and yet made of iron. He stood there a while, wanting her to say something else, anything. But she didn’t, wouldn’t even acknowledge he was still lurking. Finally he walked away across the vineyard toward the villa.
When he reached the stables behind the Dovilin villa, his pack from the caves was already waiting for him in a large bunk room built to house a dozen or so of the “First Fruits,” who were all muscular, clean-shaven and well-scrubbed young men in crisp staff tunics. The head of staff was big Brutus himself from the house. Athanasius wondered if he had gone through his pack again, but when he opened it he found his small lead vial of poison still in its hidden pocket.
“We have everything you need here,” said a lilting voice, and Athanasius closed his sack and turned to see Cota, Dovilin’s daughter-in-law and Vibius’s wife, looking at him with an arch smile and holding out a folded tunic for him. “Even a bathhouse. Let me show you.”
Aware of the stares of Brutus and the other First Fruits, he followed her out back to indeed find a bathhouse and beyond it the outdoor kitchen where the young women of the estate prepared and cooked food.
“You’ll need a good bath before dinner, Samuel. It’s time to get the dust of the field off that body of yours. Some Roman officials have arrived, and you’ll help with the service.”
Athanasius nodded, although the mention of Roman officials worried him. “I appreciate the honor of working at the villa, but I am afraid I am depriving you of my greatest gift.”
“Now what might that be, Samuel?” she asked with exaggerated interest.
“If we could meet privately in the Angel’s Vault tonight, perhaps I could show you.”
She frowned. “What could you show me in the Angel’s Vault that you couldn’t show me out here?”
“What I can do with your amphorae,” he told her innocently. “I know a way to create an amphora with walls half as thin and twice as strong. Smaller amphorae on the outside allow as much or more wine on the inside, and enable Dovilin Vineyards to transport almost a third as many amphorae for the same weight and price as yours do now.”
“That is interesting,” she said, absent of any interest in the subject at all, but moving closer to him and putting a finger on his chest. “What else could you show me?”
“If you would be amenable to opening just one amphora, I could see if you are coating the insides with the proper quality and quantity of resin. I have a formula that not only preserves the wine during transport but can help in aging it properly during its travels.”
“I do think taste is paramount,” she said, licking her painted lips. “You’ll let me taste this resin of yours?”
“Absolutely, Mistress Cota. I want you to be satisfied with my labor above all else.”
“Well, then, let me see what I can do, Samuel. And if this new formula works, and I am satisfied, then perhaps we can discuss it further with my husband and father-in-law.”
Athanasius put on a big, earnest smile. “God bless you.”
“Now let Cassiopia help bathe you, and Brutus can massage those hard, tired muscles.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary, Mistress Cota,” he said shyly. “But a bath would be nice.”
And it was, regardless of the limited affections of Cassiopia, clearly under orders from Cota. The heated water and oils soaked into his skin that had been caked with dust and dirt over the weeks, and he realized how much hot water was the very definition of civilization. Then he thought of Gabrielle working his relief in the fields, answering to Vibius at the winery and Bishop Paul in the caves. When he stepped out and into his new wardrobe and sandals, he felt so clean on the outside and yet still so filthy inside. In short, he felt very Roman, and thus, he supposed, better prepared to meet Dovilin’s guests.
* * *
They worked in threes, these First Fruits, so that night Athanasius set the triclinium while Brutus and a young man named Claudius poured the wine for Dovilin and his two guests, the well-connected legates from the XII Fulminate and XVI Flavia legions in Cappadocia. A third guest, who apparently accompanied one of the legates, stood at attention in a corner, staring at Athanasius.
It was the Roman assassin from Ephesus, the one with the gash down his face from forehead to chin. The one who earlier in Corinth killed his mother and his niece.
From the moment their eyes first locked, Athanasius thought he was dead. But the man said nothing, simply stood at attention in the opposite corner of the room, staring at Athanasius and making it clear that he knew exactly who he was staring at.
“You have to learn to rule the world,” Dovilin was telling his guests.
The two Romans looked at each other, mystified.
“We already do, Dovilin,” said the legate from XVI Flavia. “The Roman empire and its influence stretch across the entire earth.”
Athanasius caught a glance from Dovilin, and now had to assume that the old man knew everything: that Croesus, Samuel Ben-Deker’s sponsor, was dead, that Samuel Ben-Deker wasn’t who he claimed to be but somebody else
entirely, and that this assassin standing in the corner had already informed him that he was Athanasius of Athens.
“Your fortresses, roads, ships and government, yes, of course,” Dovilin went on with the Romans. “But it’s the hearts of men I’m talking about.”
“I think I know what you mean, Dovilin,” Legate XII theorized as Brutus and Claudius poured rivers of endless Dovilin wine into their bottomless cups. “Vesapsian’s genius was in improving the provincial infrastructure here in Asia Minor and thus facilitating our defense of the eastern frontier, all without firing an arrow.”
Legate XVI echoed his agreement. “We must always be ready for war with the Parthians over Armenia. But Domitian is too preoccupied with the Christians.”
“Maybe,” said Dovilin with a worldly, patrician air that promised the perspective of the bigger picture. “But he has carried on his father’s plans for the construction of road networks in Asia Minor for troop movements, and the increased settlements associated with your expanded military bases have done more to open up commerce than anything else, enriching us all.”
That was the magic word, Athanasius thought. Commerce. This was the true work of the Lord’s Vineyard.
“All of you are more than military men. Your families are wealthy, beyond the equestrian ranks. Like General Trajan, your wealth and power here can grow far beyond your service to Rome.”
Now the two legates were extremely interested, hanging on every parsed and patiently strung word coming from Dovilin’s lips.
“Your families have olives, oil and grains. Mine has wine.”
“I see how you can sell much Dovilin wine through us to our legions and the local governors of Asia Minor,” said Legate XVI. “But I fail to see how much you and your household staff could purchase from us.”
“You forget the Christians in the caves all over Cappadocia, gentlemen. Hundreds of thousands. Individually, they have little in possessions or money. But as a whole they are a market bigger than any single capital in Asia Minor. Who best to serve them than your family businesses? We all benefit, and Caesar will reward you like he has others who do business with me.”
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