Bread of Angels

by Tessa Afshar

  Epaphroditus turned to Lydia. “I have seen the power of your God.” He pointed to the vat of indigo. “Seen his care for your welfare. I do not wish to insult him. He is mightier by far than Antiochus. Let my cousin do what he will. I will take my punishment. Before your God, I repent. I am sorry that my conduct caused you so great an anxiety.

  “Mistress, you have always shown me charity. I ask for no mercy, for I do not deserve it.” He turned to leave.

  Paul stepped forward. “It is too soon to speak of forgiveness. But I ask a favor of you, Lydia. Allow Epaphroditus to remain here until you have had time to think the matter through. You can always cast him out at your leisure. The man has confessed. Everything is in the light now. And I think he will not easily be persuaded to betray you again.”

  Lydia bit her lip. Before Antiochus had arrived like an outbreak of pestilence, before Epaphroditus had confessed to his perfidy, she had been basking in the sheer goodness of God. Basking in the realization that he had been moved by her plight. The ordinary troubles of a merchant’s life had not seemed too mundane to him. He had wrought a miracle for Lydia’s sake, as if her heart mattered more than the laws that governed heaven and earth.

  This was the same God who had declared words of forgiveness while nailed wrist and ankle to a wooden beam. No one had confessed their wrong to him. Repented for their betrayal. Still, he had offered mercy where none was deserved.

  She was no Jesus! She could not offer her forgiveness. Epaphroditus had shattered her trust. She could offer a grain of tolerance, perhaps. “Epaphroditus!”

  The man stopped. Turned. Waited.

  “You may remain while I take time to consider. None here will divulge your secret, though your cousin’s tongue is worse than an adder’s bite, and will likely not be still.”

  “Thank you, mistress.”

  “Epaphroditus!” This time it was Paul’s voice that called out.

  “Yes, master?”

  Paul pulled out a purse of money. “Will you look after this for us? We are about to go to the agora before we head to the river. I would not wish to lose it to a pickpocket in the crowds. I know it will be safe in your hands. It is all the money we have for our journey.”

  At this mark of absolute trust, Epaphroditus’s face crumpled. He took the purse and grabbed Paul’s hand. Bending his head low, he kissed the sun-browned fingers, his tears drenching Paul’s skin. “Will your God accept me, master? In spite of my sin?”

  Paul clapped him on the back. “With a smile of welcome.”

  Lydia covered her mouth with a hand. “Can you imagine being branded the son of a thief?” he had asked. As she grappled with bitterness, it occurred to her that if anyone ought to understand his heartache, it was she.

  FIFTY-TWO

  For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

  MATTHEW 6:14, NIV

  “MY COMPANIONS AND I are bound for the agora to preach the gospel and then to the river,” Paul announced. “We will return this evening to instruct the new believers. Invite more people if you wish, Lydia.”

  “I will send for a few friends,” she said. “Dinner will be waiting for you.”

  He patted his belly. “My thanks. Your cook is a gift from God.”

  Chloris, who had sneaked back into the courtyard after Antiochus’s departure, sidled close to Lydia. She clasped the child to her side in a comforting gesture.

  “You will be in our prayers,” Paul said as he wrapped his cloak more closely about his shoulders.

  “Perhaps I should remain here,” Marcus said. “In the event Antiochus decides to return.” Lydia felt a flare of heat in her cheeks.

  Paul looked from one to the other. “Good thought,” was all he said.

  It was late morning when the men left for the agora. Lydia, now in possession of miraculously perfect indigo paste, set to catching up on a job too long delayed. Before she could be truly galvanized into action, however, Marcus pointed to her head, where earlier in the morning she had run her indigo-stained fingers. “You might want to wash that out before it settles permanently. I am not certain the world is prepared for blue hair.”

  Lydia clapped her hand to the side of her head with a gasp before running above stairs to try to undo the damage. It took her half an hour, and what with Rebekah and Chloris dissolving into gales of laughter, they proved of no assistance. She had to get rid of the dye by herself. Why did the man have to see her like that? She looked old and wilted with sleeplessness, and now, her hair was blue.

  Finally she returned to the workshop, pretending a dignity she did not feel. Marcus gave her a welcoming smile. He proved his wisdom by making no comment, and she proved hers by diving into work.

  These days, Lydia limited herself to overseeing the process, allowing others to do the manual labor. She still personally prepared the secret additions to the dye in order to prevent outsiders from duplicating her father’s formula. Other than Rebekah, no one knew certain steps in the making of her purple. The common parts shared by most sellers of purple, she left to her well-trained dye master and servants.

  Marcus listened with rapt attention as she spoke to the dye master. She liked his quiet demeanor. He was not a man who needed to draw attention to himself.

  “Where do you live when you do not travel with Paul?” she asked him. Something about the Roman made her want to know everything about him. She felt disconcerted by her own curiosity but could not seem to stem the tide of it.

  “This is my first time accompanying Paul and his companions. Not an experience I shall soon forget. I keep a house in Ephesus. Nothing so grand as your residence here, but it is my own design, and comfortable, though I am seldom there. My work draws me to different parts of the empire. If not for a faithful servant, the house would by now be filled with dust and rodents.”

  “Do you enjoy traveling?”

  Marcus looked away. “I used to enjoy it more. As I grow older, I long for home.” He shrugged. “A more settled life. In truth, I do not need to travel so much. I can find enough work close to home to provide a comfortable existence. The jobs abroad once seemed more interesting. That is all.” He rubbed his jaw.

  Epaphroditus walked through the far side of the courtyard, going into the shop to help with customers, a job he handled with reliable expertise. She caught Marcus staring after him.

  “You think I should forgive him,” she said.

  “What I think is of little importance. It is what God thinks that matters.”

  “I already know what he thinks.”

  “Forgiveness is not a matter of how we feel. But a continued relationship is. There, you must choose.”

  He pulled a hand through his short hair. “Have you ever studied a great oak? One branch will bend to the east while another bends to the west. They grow in opposite directions, never touching. Never uniting. And yet they are warmed by the same sun. Fed by the same roots.

  “Sometimes God’s people are like those branches. They are separated from one another for reasons only the heart comprehends. And yet the light of the Son illuminates both; his presence feeds both.

  “God asks you to forgive Epaphroditus. That is not a matter of choice. Only a matter of time and obedience. He leaves it up to you, once you forgive him, whether you trust him to remain here and work for you. It would do neither of you any good if you keep him and yet continuously judge him a deceiver. No man can last under such a bitter weight. Best you let him go if his actions have shattered your trust beyond repair.

  “I ask you one question, however, before you make your decision. Is it Epaphroditus’s betrayal you feel so keenly, or has he pressed upon a wound already there? Is he paying one price for his sin and a second for an earlier betrayal in your life?”

  Lydia’s head jerked back. Turning red, she remembered Jason—Jason, who, in the guise of love and affection, had torn the heart out of her with his duplicity. Was Epaphroditus paying for Jason and Dione’s wrongs?
She had determined that no one would ever play false with her again.

  Epaphroditus was no Jason; nor did he bear any resemblance to Dione’s artful cunning. Even she had to admit as much. His hand had been forced by Antiochus’s manipulation. Still, she tasted bitter bile at the mere thought of forgiving him. Was her response too harsh? Did he merit a mercy she could not find in herself to give?

  Marcus did not press his point, another quality Lydia liked about him. He knew when to let a matter lie.

  When the dye was at a stage that no longer needed Lydia’s oversight, Marcus suggested that they take a short walk outside. Unused to the dyeing process, he probably was in dire need of fresh air, she realized.

  “Luke says you are a gifted architect and engineer,” she said as they left the atrium. “If one wants to build a palace or a grand villa, you are the man of the hour, according to him.”

  Marcus gave a noncommittal smile. “I designed several public buildings in Rome and Ephesus, which are still standing.” They were just outside her house now, and he came to a stop. “Speaking of buildings, there was something I noticed about yours. Do you mind if I have a closer look?”

  Lydia shrugged. “By all means.”

  They walked near the western wall of her shop. Unlike the facade, which was made of valuable marble, the side walls had been constructed from cheaper brick. Lydia saw the cracks in the brick before Marcus pointed them out. He ran his fingers over them and examined the base of the building with experienced eyes.

  Lydia blanched. “I had not noticed that. Is there a problem with the foundation? That would be a tremendous expense, I suppose.”

  Marcus shook his head. “You need not be concerned with your foundation. That is why I wished to examine it more closely. Fortunately, this is a superficial problem. The cracks would have started some time ago. Over the years, water from rainfall and dew has crept inside the bricks. They have expanded due to the moisture. Do you notice how long this wall is? Because of its length, as the bricks expand, they have nowhere to go. So they crack.”

  “That is a relief! What can be done about the bricks?”

  Marcus placed his thumb into an especially wide crack. “You need a good mason. He can fill in the cracks with ease.”

  “But won’t new cracks develop over time?”

  “Indeed they will.”

  “Is there a permanent solution? It seems futile to keep paying a mason to repair a wall that will simply break down again.”

  Marcus nodded. “Send me your mason, and I will instruct him. If he is an experienced man, he will need no more than three days to complete the job. For my part, I will charge you nothing. Consider it a gift for your hospitality.”

  Lydia was taken aback not by his generosity so much as by her own response to it. It astounded her to find how much she enjoyed the care of a capable man in the ordinary things of day-to-day living.

  FIFTY-THREE

  So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

  2 CORINTHIANS 4:16-17

  DURING THE DAY, her guests would make their way into the agora to share the Good News with any who might listen. They always had entertaining stories upon their return.

  “Damalis followed us again,” Luke said one evening, sounding frustrated. “She makes such a ruckus, that girl, no one can hear a word we are trying to say.”

  “Damalis?” Lydia frowned. “Is she not Trachalio and Gaius’s slave? The girl famed for her ability to tell the future?”

  “The very one,” Paul said, pulling on his beard. “She has a spirit. Of divination, I think. Poor soul.”

  “Not so poor,” Lydia said. “She earns her masters a tidy sum by divining the fortune of her many patrons. They say she is never wrong.”

  Paul’s lip curled. “She may not be wrong. She is certainly wronged. Twice enslaved—once by the laws of Rome and again by the cosmic powers over this present darkness.”

  “How is she a nuisance to you?”

  “The girl has taken to following us,” Luke explained. “She creates havoc with her screaming and shouting, disrupting any chance we might have at holding a meaningful discussion. ‘Servants of the Most High God,’ she yells, and that is the end of our day.”

  “At least she is not lying,” Lydia said.

  “She’s not helping, either,” Paul interjected.

  For two weeks, Lydia’s life took on a new routine. In the evenings, the household would gather together to eat supper and listen to Paul and Silas as they taught them the mysteries of God’s Word. Slowly, their fledgling faith grew deeper roots and became strong, thanks to the instruction they received.

  In the mornings, everyone in the household returned to their regular duties. Marcus elected to remain with Lydia and Rebekah more and more often. He offered his help where needed, though at times he would find a quiet spot and work on drawings and plans, his mind occupied with the challenges of some aqueduct he was designing.

  He seemed unflappable to Lydia. A deep, calm sea whose mystery she could not solve. After three years of being under the whip of slave traders, he had come away without any bitterness.

  When she knew him better, she asked him about his time on that ship. “Why do you seem so healed?”

  He laughed. “It started with the lesson of the tree, I suppose.”

  “What tree?”

  “Upon occasion, when the wind picked up and the sails carried us forward unaided, our masters allowed us on deck for an hour or two of fresh sea air. The Illyrian captain owned a strange table, which he kept there for his charts and tools. The top of that table was made from one solid piece of wood, the round cross-section of a massive tree.

  “Jacob showed me the table once. Each ring signified a year in the tree’s life, he told me. I found this astounding, for there must have been hundreds of rings. That tree had lived in a faraway forest for centuries before a woodsman’s ax had cut it down to make furniture for an illiterate pirate.

  “Some rings were thinner, darker; others were fat and light. Those rings, Jacob said, spoke of harsh years and easy ones. The years of desperate struggle that stunted the tree and the years where it grew without obstacle. Flaws and blemishes pointed to the brutal years the tree had endured. But this tree survived. Survived those years, though it recorded every one within itself. It became what the struggle and the ease made of it.

  “Jacob told me that I was like that tree. My mind had absorbed every struggle, every agony, every harsh word spoken against me; every fear, every indignity I had ever suffered had left its mark on me.

  “But in another way, I was also different from the tree. Unlike the tree, I did not have to become the sum total of my history. I could learn to become the opposite of what failure and terror would make of my life.

  “Jacob taught me that I need not become bitter and raging. I could choose to be a kind man. A man who brings good into the world. I could become like the pirates who treated me like an animal. I could become heartless, empty of compassion, bent on my personal ambitions and greed. Or I could let God teach me how to be human.

  “Jacob, whom I had once considered beneath me because of his lineage—Jacob the slave, the Jew, the not-Roman—Jacob taught me how to be a man.

  “In the merciless brutality of that Illyrian galley, I began to learn the lesson of the tree.”

  Marcus helped Lydia fold a length of new fabric. “Now may I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you pray? Before we came? Did you pray for God’s help?”

  Lydia nodded slowly. “We started praying on the first day of the Jewish week. It was the day Antiochus began to threaten me. That same day, I told Appollonia to hire Demetrius.”

  “That was when Paul had his vision. We set sail for Philippi hours later.”

  “What vision?”

  “We were stuck i
n Troas. Twice the Spirit had turned us away from where we had intended to go. We had no plan to come to Philippi, or anywhere near Macedonia. We sat in Troas, wondering where to go next and why God seemed to block our path.

  “That evening, Paul had a vision while the rest of us slept. A strange man stood in the middle of our chamber. Paul thought at first that perhaps he had eaten some bad cheese, and this might be a momentary hallucination. But the man remained, unmoving as a Greek statue and just as pale. He was tall and broad in the shoulders, Paul said, with cropped golden hair and a clean-shaven chin.

  “‘Come,’ he cried. ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us!’

  “A few hours later, we boarded ship, and God led our steps here. To you. I think we were sent to Philippi, at least in part, because of your prayers.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

  EPHESIANS 6:12

  LYDIA HAD TO MEET a business associate at the agora and accompanied the men there. As soon as they arrived, Damalis, who had been engaged in an intense conversation with a young man, left her client abruptly and began to follow the men. Paul and Silas exchanged an exasperated look. Damalis began to shout. She had a deep voice, loud enough to be heard from the stage at the theater. “These men are servants of the Most High God!” she bellowed.

  “We know,” Silas said, gritting his teeth.

  Everyone turned to stare their way, making Lydia squirm. Paul motioned his companions along.

  The girl followed, undeterred by the quickness of their steps. “They have come to tell you how to be saved!”

  “I am worn out by her noise,” Paul said. Throwing his cloak at Timothy, he turned to face the slave girl.