by T. L. Higley
The key was tiny, and the click of release soft, but as the collar fell away in his hands, Ariella's relief was palpable. She studied his eyes, too close to be safe. "Thank you."
He backed away. "Perhaps Pompeii cannot feel like home, but what about the old man? Jeremiah, was it? He is one of your own. Like family?"
The name elicited a small smile. "I should like to see him again, to see if he is well."
Cato poked a finger into the dough, which had begun to toughen with the excessive kneading. "And I should like to see those people again, to inquire about my sister. So we shall go together."
The closest thing to happiness he had yet seen crossed her face. "I would like that."
"You do know what they are, do you not?" She had not seemed to understand the symbol of the fish when they had seen it together that night.
She lifted the board that held the dough and slid the loaf into the domed oven in the corner of the kitchen. "They are Christians. Gentiles who claim that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, but that he came for all people."
Cato inclined his head, surprised at the concise explanation. "Is this something you also believe?"
She turned back from the oven and dusted the flour from her hands. "I do not believe in anything."
Cato chose not to argue, but there was something there. Some flicker of doubt, of curiosity. He recognized it because it had started that way in his heart. But he would not yet speak of his own nearness to accepting this radical faith.
He waited until it grew dark that evening, several hours after the evening meal had been served and cleared, before he sought out Ariella. He found her bent over a pot of thyme in the atrium, clipping its fragrant leaves.
"Ready, Ari?"
She straightened and placed the snipped herbs and the knife in a small basket, then set it on the paving stone in front of the plant.
Cato accepted this as her silent way of agreeing without having to speak. He extended an arm to allow her to walk ahead of him, and did not miss the look of surprise as she passed.
They were both silent in the dark street. He had been so determined to avoid this girl. How did he keep finding himself alone with her?
The night air was warm and the city was quiet, save the activity that spilled its noise from the occasional tavern or brothel. Moonlight poured down on the stones and lit up the white cat's eyes like silvery pearls. Occasional footfalls sounded behind them, as though their own passage through the city echoed from the stone homes that lined the streets.
They crossed half the city toward Seneca's house before he spoke. "It is the first time I have left the house today."
She did not answer at once. "No need to leave when the city comes to you."
"Not so willingly as I would like."
They turned into the street where Seneca and his wife Europa had their home, and reached their door. Again Cato heard the echo of footsteps behind them. He turned, curious if they had been followed.
Two dark figures shot from a doorway.
Cato raised an arm and stepped between Ariella and the two men.
They lumbered toward him, snarling like rabid dogs. They were two ugly beasts, both with more fat than muscle and matching rotted teeth.
Robberies in the street were uncommon, but perhaps this attack was not about money. He squared his body against them, unsure how he could take them both. "Stay back, Ariella."
But she was beside him a moment later, then in front of him, flying like a barbarian warrior at the thug closest to her. Cato started forward to intervene. The other attacker blocked him and Cato turned on him.
It seemed only an instant later that Ariella was behind her man with a choke hold around his neck. She dropped him, unconscious, to the ground. Cato had taken more punches than he had landed.
Ariella leaped onto the back of the second man and pulled him backward. Cato aimed a kick at his exposed belly.
Somewhere behind them, Cato heard a door open and the shouts of women.
Ariella swung off the attacker's back and landed flat-footed on the pavement, crouched and ready. But others tumbled from the house now. The man's massive head swung to Ariella, then to Cato and the growing crowd behind him. He glanced at his partner, still on the street, then turned and disappeared into the night.
"Portius Cato!" Europa's velvety voice was unmistakable. "Were you robbed?"
Cato straightened and went to Ariella, grasping her arm and studying her eyes. But she shook him off and stepped away.
"No, mistress. Thank you. That was not a robbery, I fear."
Seneca strode into the street. "They were Nigidius Maius's men, I've no doubt." He spoke to the assembled group, fifteen or twenty of the followers who met in his home. "He's resorted to this now, to intimidation of not only the common people, but his rival as well."
Ariella joined Cato. "They came to kill, not to intimidate."
Europa clucked her tongue. "Well, we thank the Lord that you two are like a matched pair of fighters!"
Ariella cleared her throat and shifted her feet, and Cato tried to mask his amusement.
But Seneca was not finished. "Do not fear, Portius Cato. Word of this attack will make its way through the city. Maius cannot assassinate his rival, the very attempt of which he has accused your sister, and remain untouched by it! The people will know."
Cato crossed the space between them and gripped Seneca's arm. "Thank you. I appreciate your support."
And yet as the crowd returned indoors, and he and Ariella were pulled once again into the home of these strange and secretive people, Cato could not help but wonder if their support was more of a danger than an advantage.
CHAPTER 32
Cato's battle was coming to an end. Not the war he waged against Nigidius Maius, but the conflict in his own heart between the truth so evident in Jeremiah's words and the lies he had believed all his life.
To yield was dangerous beyond anything he had yet done in Rome or even in Pompeii. And yielding did not come easily for Cato. Yet the repeated visits in the generous home of Seneca and Europa, the teaching of Jeremiah and the other Christians, and more than anything the revolutionary community that bound them all together, became too much to dismiss.
This day, this ordinary moment in the garden atrium of the wealthy home, would change the future.
He knelt at Jeremiah's feet and prepared to die to himself.
The fledgling church that spread its message of love throughout the Roman Empire and its provinces was not without fault. From the letters of Paul he had learned of years of divisions, of heresies that threatened, of cowardice and corrupt behavior. And yet what he had witnessed here in Pompeii was radical. The breakdown of all barriers between slave and free, man and woman, even Jew and Roman. The great preacher Paul said that the sacrificial blood of the Messiah, the Christ, had destroyed the dividing walls of hostility, bringing near those who were once far and without hope.
And while Rome grew more threatened by and more dangerous to the new sect that undermined its rituals and pulled people from the temples and the gods, the Christians themselves became a shelter within chaos for the poor and broken, a community of belonging that had opened its arms to Portius Cato.
It was this community, this unnatural and wonderful belonging, that became the final proof that their message—and their Messiah—had the power to change lives, to heal brokenness. To save him from himself.
Jeremiah laid a hand on his bowed head. An anointing. He spoke softly. "All your life you have followed the customs of Rome in your worship, Quintus. You have made offerings to the gods and in return expected their favor. At best, a transactional religion. More often, empty ritual."
This was truth. It had been empty, all of it. All based on a presumption that he could obligate the gods into blessing him, based on his own actions.
"There is a transaction that the One God offers, however. You give Him your sin, your brokenness, your weakness. And in return He gives you righteousness, healing, strength. Fr
eedom."
"You ask me to give what is broken? That which has no worth? Why would a god honor such a gift?"
"Ah, but you are wrong. All that you offer is wrapped up in the greatest thing that the Holy One desires. You."
He longed to believe it. No . . . he did believe it.
"The sacrifice He desires most is a broken and contrite heart. The gift He desires most is a relationship with His children." Jeremiah lifted Cato's head and smiled down on him. "Quintus, He is waiting to fill you with power as you have never known. To work through you, against evil, with a mighty and glorious strength. But you must first make that exchange. His righteousness for your transgression. Only through the Messiah, only through His sacrificial blood."
Cato let the truth flood through him. There was only One God, who offered salvation to Jew and Roman alike, slave and free, and with it, His love and His strength.
He sagged against the flagstones, felt the release of all the effort to be a good man, to be worthy. He was accepted by the only true God. Loved and accepted because of what that God had done for him, not because of what he had done for God.
The beginnings of a prayer came to his lips, awkward and unfamiliar, yet true. Jeremiah gripped his shoulder as he poured out his gratitude to the One who had been waiting for him, and received the new life he had been promised.
When the words were spent, he lifted blurred eyes to Jeremiah. "What now?"
The old man's lips twitched. "Oh, this is only the beginning, young man." He patted Cato's cheek. "Only the beginning."
CHAPTER 33
Ariella came back to life in the home of Quintus Portius Cato—though she would not have admitted it to the man for anything.
In truth, it was primarily the two lovely women of the house whose presence and affection began to heal her shattered heart. The young Isabella mirrored her mother in compassion and humor, if not yet in sophistication. As the days passed, the façade of gladiator shed like a false skin, and Ariella's truer self emerged. Even her hair had taken on a more feminine appearance, short as it still was. The sadness, though, had burrowed deep, and this did not abate no matter how her body thrived.
She ignored Cato as much as possible, though their paths often crossed in the house. He always called her "Ari," as though he preferred to think of her as a boy. As though she were not woman enough. For this she did not fault him. She saw how his eyes followed the pretty girls who served and cleaned in his household. How he watched them move about, then dropped his eyes as though ashamed when he saw her. Her early fears of being used in the way all Roman men used their female slaves turned out to be unfounded.
He had others to pursue, it would appear.
And so she turned her attention to whatever tasks Octavia had for her, and became a favorite of the matron of the estate. This morning, Octavia tended one of the brothel women in a small room off the atrium. The girl had been beaten in the night by one of her patrons and had run to Octavia, whose reputation was well-known through the city.
Ariella knelt at the girl's side where she lay on a low couch, and blotted the dried blood from her swollen lip. The girl stared at the ceiling above her, as though oblivious to all.
Octavia paced behind her, directing Ariella's ministration, but clearly angry. "Every week one of them comes to me like this." She paused to huff out her frustration, hands on her hips. "I clean them up, give them a few denarii, names of friends with whom they could seek honorable work." She began her pacing again. "And yet, where do they go?"
Ariella brushed the girl's hair away from her bruised eyes. Did she comprehend Octavia's words?
"Back to the brothel, that is where." Octavia knelt beside Ariella and gripped the girl's hand. "Why?"
Ariella glanced sideways at Octavia, awed by her compassion.
"Why can I not make a difference for them?"
She seemed to wait for an answer. Ariella inhaled and shook her head. "It is very hard to make a change. Sometimes the familiar, no matter how terrible, feels safer than the unknown."
Octavia's eyes were on Ariella then, peering into her secrets. But Ariella dropped her gaze.
"Mother?" Isabella's voice at the door brought Octavia to her feet immediately. She hurried to the door, blocking the girl's entrance.
"This is no place for you, daughter."
"I was looking for Ariella. I was hoping she would brush my hair. It always shines after she is finished."
Octavia turned to her and nodded once. "You may go." She took the rag from Ariella's hand. "I will see to the girl."
Ariella followed Isabella through the atrium.
Octavia's work with the brothel women often brought the girls to the house, and the lady had explained to Ariella that she was always careful about their interaction with the family. She did not desire their influence to taint Isabella. And Quintus—well, her Quintus needed to find himself a suitable wife, and did not need the distraction of the wrong type of woman.
Octavia's words stung, but Ariella could not deny their truth.
In Isabella's small bedchamber she took the bone comb from the girl's bedside table and sat her down at the large bronze mirror. Isabella loosened her hair from its gold ribbons and let it fall.
Like a waterfall of black silk. The image took Ariella back to the hills that surrounded Jerusalem, to the Mount of Olives, where once, during the rainy season, she had seen water cascading in a sheet from rocks above. The memory brought other images with it—smoke rising from the Temple beside the Mount of Olives. She pulled the comb through Isabella's hair and forced away the memory.
Isabella's eyes were focused on Ariella's reflection in the bronze. "Your hair will be wavy when it grows, will it not?"
She smiled. "Yes. I could never train it to behave the way yours does." Isabella shook her head, and Ariella laughed. "Hold still."
"Your hair will be beautiful, Ariella, I know it. I wish that mine were not so boring." She sighed and Ariella hid another smile.
"Was it very terrible when you had to cut it?" She started to turn her head, but Ariella directed her toward the mirror. "I would not want to join the gladiators if it meant cutting my hair. Tell me, Ariella, why did you become a gladiator?"
Ariella ran the comb through the length of her mistress's hair several times before answering, and when she did, it was with only half the truth. "My last master in Rome was not as kind as your—as your mother. Valerius was very rich and had a great many important visitors. Even your Nigidius Maius here in Pompeii had been in his house several times. But he treated me badly, and when I fought back, he decided he could fetch a good price for me as a fighter, so he sold me to the troupe." End your questions there.
But Isabella was too bright. She turned on Ariella and grasped her arm with all the curiosity of a younger sister. "But he knew you were a woman, of course. How did you end up disguised as a boy?"
And so the lies must multiply. "I—I did not stay long with that troupe. It did not work out. But to appear stronger I cut my hair and dressed as a man. When the lanista sold a group of us together, he did not mention my gender, and neither did I. Eventually, I was sold to another troupe where no one knew. It was easier to be a man among all those men."
Isabella giggled. "But living among all those men. The things you must have seen . . ." The girl blushed scarlet.
Ariella tried to smile, but the truth was not amusing, even now. "It was a dark time, Isabella. Do not think anything else."
The girl nodded, serious again. But Ariella could see the notion still intrigued her. In this room of soft colors and even softer fabrics, Isabella could have no idea of the barracks life.
Later, when Ariella worked alone in the kitchen, chopping parsnips, the conversation came back to her, this time with the truth of those days with Valerius. Now that she found herself once again a household slave, could she not run again?
But even the thought of it wearied her. To whom would she run? Would it not be better to remain here, in a house of kindness, whe
re she would be safe and healthy, even if she were not free? There were worse things, as Octavia's work with the women of the brothels had made clear.
And here, in this house, at least she would be near him.
She evened out the sections of parsnips with her fingertips, sliced through them quickly, and indulged in a few moments of rare honesty with herself.
Yes, she would rather grow old as a slave in this house, watch him take a wife and build a family, stand by as the house filled with the laughter of children that were not her own, than escape into a world that had only been cruel. He was pompous and arrogant and juvenile, and Roman—and still she did not want to be anywhere but in his house.
Ariella scooped the parsnips and tossed them into a bowl with a force that bounced some onto the table. She swiped at a foolish tear with the back of her hand and cleaned up the parsnips, and when she looked up from the bowl, he was in the doorway, watching her.
Her knife clattered to the table. "Do not do that!"
He smiled, that amused half-smile he so often wore. "Walk about my own house?"
"Watch me in silence. It unnerves me."
Again the smile. She wiped her hands on her tunic. "Was there something you wanted?"
He was silent for too long, his amusement fading a bit as he studied her. What serious thoughts ran through him at her question? "I am going back to the Christians again tonight. Do you want to join me?"
"Did you need my protection?" She couldn't resist.
He rewarded her with a full grin. "Perhaps."
She straightened the utensils on the table. "I will come."
ALONG THE WAY TO Europa's house, Cato was at first silent, then cleared his throat as though nervous to begin. "Isabella told me of your time before the gladiators. Was it Clovius Valerius who—owned you?"
Ariella cursed her transparency with the girl. "He is a wretched man."
"It is strange to me, to think that we were both in Rome at the same time and yet I did not know you. I wish—I wish I could have saved you from that unpleasantness."