by Angela Hunt
Cassius nodded. He crossed his arms and looked around the circle of men. “Each of you take a smaller weapon and conceal it on your person—that is in case you are disarmed. Then take a sword and hide it within the folds of your cloak.”
He waited until every man had armed himself, then lifted his chin. “Yes, we are ready. It is time.”
As one, the men followed Cassius through the crowded inn and out into the night.
Cassius lifted his hand, stopping the men a block from Nero’s prison. “All right,” he whispered, turning to face them. “Do we need to go over the plan again?”
Proteus grunted. “You and I wait until the guard comes out to meet his replacement, then we take him before the prison door closes.”
“You cannot let the door close,” Cassius said. “It opens from the inside only, so the plan is ruined if we do not catch that door.”
“And after that?” Nuncio asked.
“The three of you keep watch outside the main entry while we get Paul and Luke,” Cassius answered. “Once we have them, we will come out the same door to meet you. Then we split up. Nuncio and Alban will give Paul and Luke their cloaks in case someone recognizes them.”
“What if there is trouble at the city gate?” Proteus asked. “Some of the Praetorians might know Paul on sight, especially if they were at the trial.”
“We can handle them.” Cassius rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. “We will do whatever we have to in order to escort Paul and Luke out of the city. Once they are safe, we’ll come back and give Aquila and the others the good news. They won’t be in such a hurry to leave Rome once they have seen what we can accomplish.” He paused to scan the group of men. “Any questions?” When no one spoke, he lifted his fist and nodded.
The five men spread out, creating a circle around the prison building. Alban, Nuncio, and Lichas took up positions near the main entry while Cassius and Proteus waited near the vine-covered doorway Eubulus had described to Aquila.
Cassius ran his hand over his tunic, comforted by the weight of the steel dagger he had hidden beneath the short sleeve. A thrill of fear shot through him at the thought of using it. That fear would quickly turn to exaltation if they accomplished their goal.
“There.” Proteus inclined his head toward the hidden entrance. The overhanging vines moved as the door opened. A Praetorian emerged and kicked a rock between the door and its threshold.
Time to act.
Cassius drew a breath and stepped out of the shadows. “You there,” he called, smiling as he hurried forward.
The Praetorian stiffened and reached for his sword. “Halt! Come no closer.”
“I’m afraid I have lost my way,” Cassius said, feigning an expression of helplessness. “If you could point me toward the Forum—”
At that instant Proteus stepped out from behind a column, startling the guard. When the Praetorian whirled to confront Proteus, Cassius pulled the dagger from his sleeve and thrust it between the guard’s ribs and twisted it.
Proteus clapped his hand over the wounded man’s mouth to smother his cry, then supported the man as he collapsed to the ground.
“Where’s his replacement?” Cassius said, glancing around.
“No time to worry about him.” Proteus grabbed hold of the man’s arms, and together he and Cassius dragged the guard into the prison and closed the door.
“Balbus?” a voice called from around a corner. “I can’t believe you’re on time for once.”
Proteus held his finger over his lips, hiding himself in a nearby shadow.
“Balbus?”
Cassius pressed himself against the wall as the second guard approached. The Praetorian drew his sword when he spied Proteus. “Who are you, and how did you get in here?”
Proteus grinned as Cassius attacked from behind and cut the man’s throat.
With both guards lying motionless on the floor, Cassius and Proteus hurried forward to rescue Luke and Paul.
Luke had just entered a shallow doze when noise from above startled him back to wakefulness. He glanced over at Paul, who had begun to snore. “Paul! Did you hear something?”
Paul’s eyes flew open just as two silhouetted figures appeared in the round opening above their heads. “Luke! Are you down there?”
Luke recognized the voice. Cassius.
“Quickly,” Cassius called. “We’ll throw down the rope and pull you up.”
Paul looked at Luke, his brows lifting. “Did you know about this?”
“Of course not.”
The thick rope fell through the opening, its knotted length landing between Paul and Luke.
“Come!” Cassius said, urgency in his voice. “We do not have much time.”
Luke squinted up at the opening. “Did Aquila send you?”
“We come in the name of Christ,” Cassius answered.
“Have you hurt anyone?” Paul asked.
“Two dead.” Cassius’s voice vibrated with thinly veiled pride. “We handled them easily.”
Paul frowned as he pushed himself into a standing position. “You would bring violence against the emperor’s guards in the name of Christ? You would commit murder in His holy name?”
“Have they not murdered us?” Cassius knelt at the edge of the opening and peered into the dungeon. “The moment we have been waiting for has come. It is time to overthrow this cursed power and return Rome to the people.”
“By whose authority do you think Rome has power?” Paul asked. “All powers are ordained of God.”
Cassius gaped at him a moment, then laughed. “The foul air down there has addled your brain. Nero’s evil has nothing to do with God.”
Paul glanced at Luke and shook his head. “God is more powerful than Nero. If He wanted Nero out of the way, He would do so.”
“He is, don’t you see? We are going to remove him!”
Luke moved to Paul’s side. “I understand the anger you feel, Cassius, but you must trust us—this is not the way. God will bring good even out of Nero’s evil. Light will shine even in this darkness.”
The young man’s voice rose in anger. “If you do not come with us, you will die here and your cause will die with you.”
“No, Cassius,” Paul said. “Christ has already triumphed over every enemy. You say you come in His name, but it is clear you do not know Him.”
In the glow of the torchlight above, Cassius’s face flushed. The ambitious young man would not forgive this . . . and he would never understand.
The older man with Cassius tugged at his sleeve. “We have to go, now. We are out of time.” He pulled Cassius away.
Then Luke heard a distant door slam. “Two guards dead,” he murmured, turning to Paul. “I am sorry for it.”
“Hmm.” Paul sighed and sank back to the floor. “And we will pay the price for it, no doubt. I would willingly bear the blame if I thought it might bring that man to a place of understanding.”
Luke lay back down, resting his head on his hands, but he could not sleep. His thoughts followed Cassius and his companion out into the night. Where would they go? Did they have another plan to incite violence, or would this be the end of their destructive foolishness?
“By the way,” Paul said.
“Yes?”
“That part about the light shining in darkness—that was very good.”
Luke smiled. “Perhaps I will write it down.”
Mauritius walked on, his cloak blowing in the wind, the hood pressing against his face, but he did not lift his hand to move it. He walked through the bustling market, past the Temple of Jupiter, through the old gate at the Servian Wall. He walked because he could not remain in his home with an angry wife, a dying daughter, and unresponsive gods. He walked because, as long as he was not home to receive news to the contrary, Caelia still lived.
He did not intend to walk to the prison, but his feet obeyed his regular habit and took him to the place he knew best. He found himself approaching the front door, but rather than advertise tha
t he could not go home, he went around to the side entrance . . . and his pulse quickened when he spotted blood on the paving stones. Immediately he pulled his dagger and moved to the door. It was closed and locked from the inside, as it should have been.
He turned at the sound of footsteps. Euphorbus, the guard scheduled to take the midnight shift, slowed when he saw Mauritius. “Where is—?” he began, but Mauritius silenced him with a swift motion.
Together they went to the front entrance and entered the building. Mauritius looked around, confused by the chamber’s ordinary appearance. He gestured to Euphorbus, sending him to check the side door while Mauritius moved to the circular opening and stared into the dungeon below. In the dim circle of light he beheld two figures—sleeping men, by the look of it, though someone might have arranged blankets to look like two bodies—
“Prefect! Over here!”
Mauritius ran forward. There, beside the side door, two Praetorians lay in puddles of blood. He swallowed the lump that had risen in his throat and reached for a torch to survey the scene. He saw nothing out of place, nothing the murderers might have left behind.
Cold sweat broke out on his forehead as he moved toward the dungeon. His pulse quickened when he saw that the rope had been lowered; even now it dangled from the iron hasp in the floor. So his prisoners had escaped, and the decoys below were intended to fool a casual observer. A sense of dread shot through him.
If Paul and Luke had escaped, he might as well fall on his own sword, for Nero did not forgive Praetorians who allowed condemned prisoners to vanish, especially those who were as well known as Paul of Tarsus.
He brought the torch closer to the round opening and again peered down at the evidence of his failure, then blinked when he saw movement in the pit. One of the decoys moved, but how could it?
“Euphorbus!”
“Prefect?”
“Descend at once and tell me what you find down there.”
Euphorbus’s brows wrinkled, but within a moment he was on the rope, carefully sliding his body over the knots, his face twisting in disgust as he lowered himself to the chamber below.
When he reached the bottom, one of the figures sat up and spoke. “Anything wrong, Euphorbus?”
Mauritius felt his stomach sway when he recognized the voice. It was the prisoner, Paul of Tarsus.
Mauritius sat behind his desk and stared at the prisoners. When he first heard Paul speak, he had been convinced he was seeing an apparition. Yet the men before him were undoubtedly flesh and blood. He did not understand how or why Paul and Luke remained in his prison, but here they were, reeking of filth and as unkempt as they had been when he last saw them.
“So this,” Mauritius said, not willing for them to see how the events of the last hour had shaken him, “is how my kindness is repaid. Nero’s prison is attacked, and two of my guards killed. If I had not come along when I did, you might have been killed, as well.”
“Or we might have escaped,” the physician pointed out. “But we did not.”
“Some people are tempted to take justice into their own hands,” Paul said, tugging casually at his beard. “But we had nothing to do with what happened here.”
Luke cleared this throat. “It might interest you to know that this is at least the second time Paul has not escaped when given the opportunity. Once, he and his companion Silas were singing hymns to God in prison—”
“In Philippi,” Paul interrupted. “You probably know of it, since it is a Roman colony.”
“I know it and I care nothing about it!” Mauritius snapped.
Luke shot Paul an irritated glance and continued, “After they had been singing, an earthquake shook the prison doors open. Everyone’s fetters fell off.”
Mauritius blinked. “Impossible.”
“No, no, it happened,” Luke said. “The jailer—a lowly man, not an exalted prefect like yourself—was about to kill himself, supposing that all the prisoners had fled. But Paul shouted to him, ‘Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!’ and prevented a tragedy.”
Mauritius looked from the Greek to Paul of Tarsus. “I have never heard of an earthquake that could remove a prisoner’s chains.”
Luke gave him a beatific smile. “Amazing, isn’t it? The jailer was so impressed that he called for lights and went down into the dungeon to make sure his prisoners were all present. When he saw they were, he fell on his knees before Paul and Silas and asked, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ And Paul answered, ‘Put your trust in the Lord Yeshua and you will be saved—you and your household.’”
Mauritius held up a hand. “That is enough. I can assure you that I am not about to fall to my knees in front of either of you. Neither am I going to call on your Lord Yashiva—”
“Yeshua,” Paul corrected. “The Messiah.”
“—and neither am I going to let you change the subject. No earthquake occurred here tonight, but two men broke into the prison and murdered two of my Praetorians. Now.” Mauritius lifted a brow. “You take no responsibility for this?”
“As I said, we had nothing to do—”
“If we were responsible,” Luke added, “would we be standing in front of you now? Would you not be under guard in Nero’s palace, facing his wrath for allowing us to escape?”
Mauritius pressed his lips together. For foreigners, these men knew entirely too much about how the Roman Empire operated. “You seem to know a great deal about our emperor, but you have displayed remarkable ignorance. Your crime against Rome had nothing to do with violence or murder or theft. Yours was a crime of words—words meant to defy Nero and the empire. Yet here you stand, still spouting arrogant words.”
“Is that how you see it?” Paul said. He looked up, and their eyes met. “I seem to recall being sentenced to die for arson and murder.”
Mauritius sputtered, unable to think under the man’s steady scrutiny. “Yes, of course. That was what the indictment said. But you and I both know”—he lowered his voice—“that you have been in and out of prison for years, not because of what you did but because of what you espouse. You urge people to serve your Christ, not the emperor of Rome. You preach, telling them to worship only one God. Yet people are dying because of your insistence on this one God.”
“I tell people the truth,” Paul replied, “and urge them to pray for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may live a peaceful and quiet life in all godliness and respectfulness.”
“How can you not see that even with these words now, you are spitting in the face of the emperor?” Mauritius said. “By such words alone you defy Rome itself. But words cannot destroy empires.”
“If our words seem a threat,” Paul said, “perhaps it is because they are not mere words. They are truth.”
“You keep saying ‘truth,’ but it is only a truth according to you. If it were the only truth, everyone would believe it.”
Luke shook his head. “Not so, Prefect. Christ, who is Truth, rose from the dead and yet many do not believe.”
“Perhaps they recognize a fabrication for what it is.”
Paul smiled. “If Christ has not been raised from the dead, our preaching and our faith are useless.”
“And you would sacrifice your life for a useless fiction?” Mauritius rested his arms on his desk. “You harbor no uncertainties at all?”
Paul’s smile broadened. “You have seen many things in your time of service to Rome. You have witnessed many executions. So consider this, Prefect, and tell me if it is true: do men die for things they doubt?”
Mauritius turned away, his mind burning with the memory of the evocatus, Jove. The man could easily have pretended to sacrifice to Vesta; he could have hidden his infatuation with this new deity. But he did not. Instead, he was confident in his assertion and willing to die for his conviction that Jesus the Christ was the only living God.
Still, this man Paul could not be right. “You claim you serve a God who is above all other gods, and yet all I see before me is an old man in chains,�
�� he said, turning to face the prisoner directly. “The record of your life will be a litany of beatings and filthy prison cells.”
Paul hung his head. “I deserve worse. My hands have been stained with the blood of innocents. My heart has been empty and cold. I once denied Christ every day, and every word on my lips was blasphemy. But Yeshua extends grace to everyone who comes to Him.”
“What is this grace, and why should a man want it?” Mauritius blew out a breath. “Men want to be rich, not poor. To be powerful, not weak. To have slaves and not be one. These are the things man lives for.”
“Do you really believe that?” Luke chuckled. “The next time you walk the streets of Rome, look around, Prefect, and test what you believe. Look at the men with riches and power, then peer behind the façade. Behind the wealth, behind the social standing, you will find men who are miserable, lost, searching for meaning . . . just as you are.”
Euphorbus stepped forward, his fist clenched. “Watch your tongue, Greek.”
Mauritius stared, unable to shake a feeling that the Greek had looked into his soul. How could the man know that his home, which might appear perfect to a casual observer, was filled with strife, anger, and distress? Caelia’s illness and Irenica’s anguish were only symptoms of a family who did not know how to live together in peace . . .
“It does not take an intelligent man,” Paul added, “to look around and know this world is missing something.”
Mauritius stood and narrowed his gaze, determined that these Christians would not examine his soul further. “I am missing nothing,” he said, stepping from behind his desk. “Rome has given me everything.”
The Greek met his gaze boldly. “What about the love a father feels for his sick daughter?” he asked. “What has Rome offered to ease that pain?”
Mauritius’s anger, successfully held back a few minutes before, spurred him to punch the physician in the face. As Luke recovered, Mauritius drew his sword and held the blade to the physician’s throat. “Another word and I will send you to whatever god you name.”
Luke remained perfectly still, not daring to breathe. Mauritius waited until he was certain the Greek would not speak again, then thrust his blade back into its scabbard. “You are right,” he said with a sigh, moving toward the window. “My daughter, Caelia, is dying and no one knows why. And the gods . . . they do not answer me.”