Daughter of Rome

by Tessa Afshar

  He had raised himself up on an elbow, ignoring the fever-induced weakness that kept him bed-bound. “You can enter into his pen too, Priscilla. He can be your door of hope.”

  Now, blinded by the salt of her tears and a longing that could never find fulfillment, she considered that invitation. One that would change her life. One that would turn every valley into a door. She might never have Aquila. But perhaps she could have Yeshua. Perhaps he was all she needed.

  “Shepherd God, if you have room in your heart for wayward sheep, will you fetch me out of this wilderness and bring me into your pen?” she whispered, her voice cracking. “Help me to draw closer to you, in step with your step. Filled with your hope. Shaped by your love. Help me be yours.”

  Sabinella’s health was slipping. She could no longer hide the severe tremors in the right side of her body or the unsteady gait that often threatened to topple her. Nor could she downplay the fatigue and tingling pain that sometimes reduced her to groaning as she moved. Senator Pudens tried to disguise his escalating anxiety with no success. He watched his wife with a concentration that made Priscilla wonder if he was counting her breaths.

  “What do the physicians say?” she asked Pudentiana.

  “There has been a parade of them for five years now. None has an answer. She has good months. Then, for no reason, she relapses. With every relapse, she grows weaker. This is the worst she has ever been.” Pudentiana bit her lip. “She will come out of it. My mother has the fighting heart of a gladiator.”

  Priscilla nodded. But she could sense Sabinella’s exhaustion. Fighting needed strength, and Sabinella had none left.

  The senator’s wife often invited Priscilla to their home. Though they had stopped entertaining most of their other acquaintances, she welcomed the young woman’s company. “You don’t wear me out like others,” she admitted. “With you, I don’t have to pretend I am well. And your presence is restful. Besides, the girls adore you. It’s good to see Pudentiana smile as soon as you enter through the gate.”

  One afternoon, as they sat in her favorite spot in the garden under the shade of Aquila’s awning, she asked without preamble, “Do you still pray to your God?”

  “I do, lady.”

  “And does he answer?”

  Priscilla considered her response. “Not always in discernible ways.” She thought of Aquila, how it had taken him years to decipher God’s goodness at work in the unraveling threads of his life. “Sometimes his answers only become apparent in the long view of things.” She cleared her throat, trying to shore up courage. “I have some friends who would pray for you, if you wish.”

  “By all means. Ask them.”

  “I mean in person. They would be willing to come here, I am sure.”

  Sabinella raised a brow. “Here? I am in no state to receive strangers.”

  Not wishing to offend, Priscilla said no more on the matter. But she grew uneasy with her own silence. She felt certain, though she could not explain why, that Rufus and the other followers of Yeshua were supposed to pray for her ailing friend.

  Rufus sucked in a quick breath. “You’ve never studied the Scriptures before?”

  The upper room in Mary’s house where they had once again gathered to study and pray had sunk into silence. For weeks now, it had become their regular practice to come together in the cozy upper room in Trastevere and, after the meal, to study and pray. Priscilla’s insatiable appetite for learning had found a welcome here.

  Every eye trained on her. She felt heat rise up her neck and spread over her face. “Only what I heard at the synagogue over the past year.”

  Rufus tapped his lips. “I ask because I have known many men who have studied the Law for years and still do not have your grasp.”

  Benyamin nodded. “Your natural facility for understanding the metaphors of our faith is astounding.”

  Priscilla felt the flush deepen. “What is so hard to understand? The High Priest is also the sacrifice. The Good Shepherd is also the Lamb of God. The Lamb of God is also the door. The one who provides is himself the offering.”

  Everyone laughed. Elizabeth, who had started joining them when her son was saved from the jaws of death thanks to Mary’s devoted care, scratched her head. “I confess I find it confusing.”

  Priscilla pressed the young mother’s hand. “The more we study, the more I realize it’s not so much about understanding or knowledge. Faith is trust. Trusting our future and our past into Yeshua’s keeping. Learning that the Christ is the beginning and end of all our needs.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “When my son was close to death, one evening I thought I might collapse with fear. Mary prayed for me, and as she spoke, I felt his comfort, like a hand resting on my shoulder.”

  “I too have felt that hand,” Priscilla said. “Not a physical touch. But the consolation of knowing that the Christ gives us life and he is life. He leads the way, and he is the way.”

  Aquila studied her with an odd intensity. For a brief moment Priscilla thought she caught a hint of approval in the softening cast of his features.

  “Do you remember Senator Pudens?” she asked him.

  “He is the only Roman senator I have met in person. I remember him well. A good man.”

  “His wife, Sabinella, has been ill for some years. She seems to be growing worse. I have a strange feeling that we are supposed to pray for her. But she refused the offer when I asked.”

  “God can change her inclination,” Aquila said.

  When they had finished praying and the guests were preparing to return home, Priscilla approached Rufus. She had stayed up half the night, struggling to find the courage to make this request, dreading that he might refuse her. Her mouth turned dry.

  “Rufus.” The entreaty caught in her throat and would not be pushed out. She grabbed hold of her cup and took a gulping swallow. “Rufus,” she repeated.

  “Yes, my dear?” He regarded her with warm patience.

  She cleared her throat. “Rufus?”

  “It is good you know my name. Now, why don’t you just ask your question?”

  She adjusted a corner of her faded tunic that needed no adjustment. “I would like to become a follower of Yeshua. That is . . . May I be baptized?”

  Rufus threw his hands in the air and shouted, “Hallelujah!”

  The others turned curiously toward them. “Wait,” Priscilla said hastily. “I . . . I mean, I have sinned.”

  “As have the rest of us. That’s the point. Remember? The lamb, the sacrifice, the priest? Are you willing to repent?”

  “With all my heart.”

  “Then as I said—” he threw his hands into the air and shouted louder than before—“hallelujah!”

  “What are we praising God for?” Aquila asked.

  “This little lamb was lost and has been found. We are going to baptize Priscilla!”

  Eleven

  HIS WORLD HAD TURNED on its head and it was God’s fault.

  In a way, every follower of Yeshua could say that. Aquila thought of Simon Peter, the most famous apostle of the Lord. Once, he would not have contemplated breaking a single religious rule. God had certainly shaken Peter by sending him off to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile centurion in Caesarea. Peter was not in the habit of visiting Gentiles, not even God-fearing ones like Cornelius. Watching the Holy Spirit poured out on those men and women that day, Peter had realized that Yeshua had unlocked the door he had once thought open only to those who belonged to the lineage of Abraham.

  That day, God had upended everything Peter and the followers of Yeshua had believed. With Cornelius’s baptism, the door had been opened to outsiders like Priscilla. Aquila had, in time, come to accept this remarkable development in the church. Had come even to harbor a deep joy at the measure of God’s mercy that shattered every boundary.

  It was one thing to believe that Yeshua welcomed Gentiles. Welcomed them with extraordinary tenderness and grace. Aquila remembered Priscilla rising up out of the waters of the Tiber, made new,
made clean. Her face had been transformed in that moment, wet and glowing, going from earthly loveliness to an ethereal beauty he had never seen. She had emerged from those waters luminous with heaven’s touch. To his consternation, he had found tears on his face. He had not been the only one.

  He could live with that. Give God glory for adding one more to his household of believers.

  What he could not live with was the way Priscilla had wormed her way into his thoughts. Esther, whom he had cared for through the comfort of long years, had never consumed him like this. She had cut him, shamed him, with her defection. She had pierced his pride.

  Priscilla had ravished his heart.

  He had a strong sense that she felt the same. Modest and well-mannered, she never spoke openly of her feelings, of course. But in a dozen small ways—a look that lingered too long, blushes she could not control in his presence, a slightly dazed smile when he spoke to her—she had been unable to hide her attraction for him.

  He blamed God.

  Had they not been trying to teach her the Way, he would not have been thrown into her company with such regularity. He had hoped that with time the sharpness of his longing would wane. Instead, he found his admiration growing. The sword edge of her intellect combined with a faith as rare as it was passionate, and both fascinated him. He could not seem to get enough of her company. Had he really thought her beauty ordinary once? Now he found her so alluring that sometimes, dry-mouthed and stammering, he stood in her presence like a man struck on the head with a fat length of timber.

  He could not go on like this. She burned in his blood, a fever he could not cure.

  He tried avoiding her with no success. They were thrown into each other’s company at the synagogue and at Rufus’s house. As if that were not enough, Benyamin made him accept Priscilla’s offer to show him the rows of shops that nestled near the Forum and to acquaint him with the owners who had served the Priscus household for years.

  “The personal introduction can lead to new orders,” his uncle insisted. “We need her help.”

  There were many leatherworkers in Rome, and most shopkeepers preferred to work with someone who had an established reputation in the city. Being new arrivals placed Aquila and Benyamin at a disadvantage. Though they had a license to trade in leather, they lacked the long-standing roots of others who had traded in Rome for decades. By vouching for them on behalf of the respected Priscus family, Priscilla could open doors of opportunity they would lack otherwise.

  “You go with her,” he said to Benyamin.

  “You have always been better at landing new customers.” Benyamin shrugged. “What’s the fuss? Just go for a morning and be done.”

  What could Aquila have said without sounding ungrateful?

  He arranged to meet Priscilla and Lollia one morning by the steps of the Temple of Mars in the Forum. Priscilla led him through a parade of shops, as well as market traders, street sellers, and hawkers, most of whom needed leather awnings for their trade.

  Bakers, sausage makers, fruit and vegetable sellers, garland weavers, and a hundred other small merchants had set up stalls with their portable tables, their awnings strung up between trees, elegant columns, or poles staked in the ground, depending on what convenient support they could find. As Priscilla introduced him, Aquila passed out small rectangles of papyrus bearing the name and location of his own shop, listing tantalizing prices for popular leather goods.

  After three hours of weaving through the chaotic disorder of street sellers and speaking to dozens of merchants, Aquila decided they needed a rest. He purchased three containers of steaming chickpeas and several pastries, added a bag of sweetened almond paste, and the three of them sat on the steps of some public building and ate together.

  “These chickpeas are good,” Lollia said. “Not as good as Priscilla’s. But tasty.”

  Aquila’s brows rose in surprise. “You can cook?”

  Priscilla shrugged. “Chickpeas are not difficult.”

  It continually astounded him to discover fresh evidence of Volero’s demeaning treatment of her. Esther’s father was not near so wealthy as the Roman, yet he doubted Esther had ever undertaken to lift a pot, let alone use one.

  He noticed that Priscilla saved half of everything he had purchased for her and carefully hid it away in the basket she had brought. He wondered if she was saving them for later. Then another thought occurred to him. “What are you doing with those?”

  “I am going to visit Sara after this. She will enjoy a treat.”

  “Surely her ankle is better by now.”

  She shrugged. “She is having difficulty finding work.”

  “I’m not surprised,” he mumbled under his breath. Louder, he said, “You eat that! Just eat it.”

  Without waiting to see if she would comply, he walked to the chickpea seller and bought another bag, added a sweet pastry, and gave them to Priscilla. “You can take those to Sara. Finish your own food.”

  His gut twisted in an odd way when she flashed a happy smile at him. He watched as she tucked into her pastry with relish, and had the satisfaction of knowing that, for once, she wouldn’t go half-hungry.

  A skinny boy with filthy cheeks seemed to appear out of nowhere and stood staring at them. Priscilla’s eyes widened. “I know you! You carried my basket.”

  The boy nodded. “I will carry it again. Same price.”

  Priscilla appeared to consider his offer. “I don’t need help with my basket today.”

  The child’s face fell, though he tried to hide his disappointment with a careless shrug.

  “Tell you what,” Priscilla said before he could walk away. “Fetch me a cup of water from the fountain, and you can have a pastry.”

  In a flash, the boy returned carrying Priscilla’s cup. She gave him a sweet pastry, which he gulped down in two giant bites before vanishing with feline grace.

  Aquila came to his feet again, intent on buying more pastries for Priscilla, hoping one might actually find its way into her own belly. He had taken a few steps away from the women when in his peripheral vision he saw Priscilla rise to her feet, dusting lingering crumbs from her tunic.

  Without warning, a barrel-chested man with greasy dark hair charged toward her. Almost too late, Aquila noticed the glint of metal in his hand. His heart sank as he realized the man was bearing a knife, aimed at Priscilla.

  Christ, help me! Aquila prayed and lunged, taking three steps in one. He arrived beside the man just as the point of his knife reached Priscilla’s back. Without thinking, he struck a hard blow against the man’s wrist. Not expecting resistance, the man’s hold loosened, and the knife clattered to the ground without drawing blood.

  Aquila shoved Priscilla out of the way and grabbed the neckline of the man’s tunic, preventing him from diving for the knife. The assailant was no stranger to street fights, judging by his missing teeth and broken nose. He fought dirty, and he fought rough. Aquila gave thanks for his father, who had given him a full Greek education in his younger years, including wrestling at the local palaestra. He was hopelessly out of practice, however, unlike the ruffian, who clearly knew how to use his fists.

  Aquila realized that if he was thrown on his back, the fight would be over. His only advantage was speed. The man secured a shoulder hold on him, but Aquila twisted his upper body and rolled, slithering out of the bruising grip. He ducked, missing an iron-hard fist headed for his nose. The man’s body was carried by the momentum of the punch, and Aquila shoved his elbow into the assailant’s back, causing him to stumble to one knee.

  Before Aquila could try wrestling him to the ground, the man sprang to his feet and took off. Within moments, the serpentine alleyways intersecting the Forum swallowed him, and he disappeared from sight.

  Aquila rubbed his sore shoulder. Everything had happened so quickly that no one had had time to help or even raise the alarm. Rome was known for violence, and to some degree, its residents had grown numb to public scuffles. But this daytime attack upon a woman sur
passed the normal degree of lawlessness seen even in Rome.

  “Are you hurt?” Priscilla ran to him, her voice strained.

  “Am I hurt?”

  “What did he want?”

  Aquila straightened his tunic, trying to steady the thunderous beat in his chest. “To kill you.” He tilted his head toward the knife that still lay on the ground. Fisting his shaking fingers, he stood, his back as rigid as a slab of granite, trying to resist the desperate desire to drag Priscilla into his arms. To feel her warmth against him. Feel the reassuring thrumming of her heart.

  Priscilla gasped and bent to pick up the deadly object, offering it to him for examination. It was a military-issue weapon, no different from thousands like it, well-sharpened and clean. Perhaps the owner had once served in the army or bought it from a former soldier. It was too common a weapon to provide any clues.

  “He was trying to rob me in broad daylight!” Priscilla cried. “The depravity of Rome shames us all.”

  Aquila had gone from heart-pounding fear to icy-cold calm. Something did not add up. If the man had wanted to rob Priscilla, why had he not demanded her purse? Why attack her when they were surrounded by more prosperous-looking shoppers? The ruffian had waited for Aquila to step away, then pounced when the women were alone. As if murder was his intent from the start.

  Aquila had a sudden recollection of the cart that had plowed into her, almost crushing her. At the time, he had put it down to an odd accident. A drunken driver. Now he questioned his former conclusion.

  “Priscilla, that man was no ordinary thief. He tried to kill you.”

  She snorted. “Few people care if I am alive. But no one wants me dead.”

  “Do you remember the cart that nearly ran you over on the way to your house?”

  Her brow wrinkled. “When Ferox saved me? Of course. But that was an accident.”