by Tessa Afshar
Aquila ground his teeth. “I cannot imagine. We are not in the habit of keeping secrets from each other.”
“Precisely. So why this time? Has something changed between you?”
“Not on my part.”
“Are you certain of that?”
Aquila reddened. “I have been busy putting bread on our table. Perhaps I have not been as attentive as I should.”
Paul nodded. “That is understandable. No woman can expect her husband to dance attendance upon her every whim.”
“Priscilla is not that kind of woman. She is not selfish or demanding.” Aquila frowned.
“No.”
Aquila’s stomach turned a somersault inside him. His wife had been drowning for months. Drowning in guilt. Yet she had not dared come to him because she thought he blamed her.
She had interpreted his distance as an indictment. In the void he had created with his silence, his continuous absence in heart, if not in body, she had sought and found her own explanation. The wrong one, as it happened.
Just as he, fool that he was, had interpreted her lingering sadness a result of her disappointment with him. He, too, had arrived at the wrong conclusions.
Glad for the support of the couch beneath his legs, he dropped his head in his hands. “I should never have allowed such a wall to spring up between us,” he said. “In my weariness, I felt I had little to give. But I ought not to have drawn away from her as I did.”
Paul placed a strong hand on Aquila’s shoulder. Something passed through the press of those warm fingers into Aquila’s flesh, like a tiny bolt of lightning, making him snap out of his painful speculations.
“Do you remember the story of Elijah?” Paul said. “In the famine, when exhausted and hungry, the prophet asked the widow in Zarephath to make him some bread.”
Aquila gave a weak nod. “Though she had barely enough flour and oil left to cook one final meal for herself and her son, she baked bread for Elijah.”
“She did! And that jug of oil never ran dry, nor did the jar of flour empty. Day after day, those few drops stretched and proved enough to feed the prophet as well as the widow and her family.
“I have learned that we can be like that bottle. Almost empty, but always enough. Because, my young friend, it does not matter how empty the vessel is. What matters is who wields it.
“Your problem, Aquila, was that you set your gaze on the emptiness in your bottle. On how little you had to offer your wife. You forgot to keep your eyes on the God who provides. The one who can stretch the few drops and make them sufficient. So you felt insufficient.”
Aquila looked up. “I abandoned her, even though I remained by her side.”
Paul heaved a sigh. “Nothing you have done is irreversible. This breach can be repaired because you love Priscilla, and because, God help her, she loves you.”
Aquila smiled weakly. “I do love her.”
“So listen well.” Paul lifted a finger as if in warning. “You must guard your heart. Guard it harder in the arduous seasons when the lies of the evil one ring loudest.”
Aquila’s throat became dry. He had, by virtue of neglect and pride, invited a twisted deceit to take root in his mind and allowed his marriage to be weakened.
He thought of Priscilla and all that she was to him as his wife: His trusty comrade, friend, shipmate, fellow soldier. His lover, but at the same time all that any male friend had ever been to him.
He remembered the soaring and iridescent joy of being with her in every sense. How could he have pushed aside the very best part of his life? He had become a mere fragment of himself as a result.
He would be more vigilant henceforth. He would shield the precious gift God had bestowed upon him.
Twenty-Six
PRISCILLA HURRIED DOWN the warren-like narrow street, jostling against the press of bodies, trying to sidestep the unpleasant detritus of an overgrown metropolis. She had sent Lollia back home to start preparing lunch but had lingered to purchase bread from her favorite bakery, which was a fair distance from their house.
She could have bought the loaves from shops more conveniently located. But none of them rivaled the quality of Otho’s creations. He used a light mix of different flours that made the quadratus crusty on the outside and springy-soft on the inside. Rivaling the best in Rome, Otho’s bakery merited the longer trip.
But she had to hurry. Priscilla had promised Marcus that if he learned a particularly difficult list of Greek vocabulary, she would make him fresh libum with honey. Since Proclus had placed his substantial order, their finances had become less strained. Better yet, Pudens had forwarded money from the rental of their home, so they could once again afford small luxuries like honey and libum.
She knew Marcus would have returned home from the palaestra by now, hungry from exercise. He would be waiting for her, impatient to show off new accomplishments and more impatient to devour a plate of her sweet cheese pastries.
A rickety cart barreled down the road on the opposite side, forcing a pedestrian to take a hasty sidestep, plowing into Priscilla. She stumbled, her foot kicking something soft, before she regained her balance. A truncated groan rose from the vicinity of her ankle and Priscilla looked down. A body lay curled at her feet, arms tucked about its middle as if in pain, toes peeking from under the ragged cloth of her tunic.
“Pardon!” Priscilla gasped and bent down to help the pathetic coil of humanity that lay helpless on the ground.
Oily, dark hair tangled into a nest of knots around the woman’s face. The liberal dirt on her cheeks could not hide the pustulating sore that disfigured her visage. More sores ran along the naked arms.
Vague recognition tugged at Priscilla. She knew this poor creature from somewhere. Then it came to her, at once, in a rush of shocked realization. The eyes, the distinctive nose. “Antonia!” she gasped.
The world became silent and distant as Priscilla stared, stupefaction rendering her speechless. Antonia seemed no more inclined to words. A flash of defiance sparked to life in the brown orbs and died quickly, giving in to despair.
Rage plowed into Priscilla with the force of a concrete wall, and she staggered back. Here lay the woman who had usurped her home and friends, the woman responsible for robbing her of the life she loved. Priscilla straightened and, turning her back, began to walk away. One step, two, three. Twenty. The rage began to dissipate, pushed out by plain curiosity.
She felt the press of questions rattling her resolve to leave. What in heaven was Antonia doing in Corinth? And what circumstance had reduced her to such a state? She saw the dirty face again, disfigured by that weeping sore, and the lesions that marred her arms like mold blooming on a damp wall. Priscilla stopped abruptly.
People cursed and pushed past her where she blocked the way. She remained oblivious to their exasperation. Instead, she waged a quiet war within, trying to reconcile the pathetic creature lying in her own filth with the silk-clad woman she had once known. Anger battled against pity, rioted its displeasure at the very thought of offering this woman any measure of compassion. Reluctantly Priscilla turned around and trudged back the way she had come. A few steps away from the huddled bundle on the ground, she hesitated.
Years ago, while living under the callous rule of her brother, she had learned to look beyond his cruelty into the wound that had shaped him and made him stone hard. Knowing his pain had helped her to forgive him time and again, when her heart had cried for revenge. That old lesson rose up to aid her now.
She remembered the haughty woman in the physician’s house, proud as a queen. The niece of an emperor whose veins flowed with the blood of heroes and conquerors must have been rejected by somebody to have found her way into that particular den. And every day after that, she had had to live with the fear of discovery.
Priscilla knew the burden of such a secret. And though that burden had shaped her differently, had driven her to generosity and grace instead of the venom of savagery, she found in herself the morsel of compassion she
needed to act as Yeshua willed.
She knelt by the woman and placed a gentle hand under her arm. “Come. My home is not far. We will care for you there.”
If Antonia had any fight left in her, she did not show it. She gave in soundlessly to Priscilla’s ministrations and hobbled barefoot alongside her without demur.
As Priscilla walked, her pace slow to accommodate her ailing companion, she wondered again at the calamity that had reduced the elegant aristocrat to such a state. For the length of a heartbeat, temptation sat at her door and called. Temptation to feel pleased by the woman’s condition. To savor the justice of it. Antonia had sought to end her life more than once. She had been the cause of her expulsion from Rome. Everything they’d lost had been because of her.
And now she suffered.
Priscilla stood at the precipice of that realization and the allure it held. To revel in the bleakness of Antonia’s circumstances. To find satisfaction in her undeniable pain.
She pushed the thought aside, refusing to give in to its enticement. She had received too much mercy from God to choose to be judge today.
Before they had reached the door of the house, Marcus ran out to meet them and came to an abrupt stop when he saw her companion. “Who is that?” he asked.
“Her name is Antonia. She is not well. We need to help her. Can you fetch her some food?”
The boy nodded. “I will bring a plate of stew with bread.”
“Good. And some well-watered wine with honey, please, Marcus.”
Priscilla wondered if those shuffling feet could manage to climb the stairs to their private quarters above. She did her best to support the weight, which had folded against her. Whatever strength had held Antonia together in the past had broken. She leaned into Priscilla, frail, helpless.
They made it to the upper floor, and Priscilla helped the woman to a couch. She lay down on her side, knees pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped about her legs, and shivered. Fetching a blanket, Priscilla covered her as softly as she could, avoiding the bleeding sores. She placed a pillow under the tangled hair.
Lollia barreled in, chest heaving from running up the stairs. “Marcus said you brought . . .” Her words drifted. “Good heavens above, Priscilla. Is that—?”
“Antonia. Yes. She will need a bath,” she said. “And a physician. Can you prepare the one and send for the other?”
“For her?”
“For her.”
Lollia sucked her lips as if tasting an unripe persimmon. “You certain you want to nurse that viper?”
A fair question. Did she want to commit to this path? Priscilla stood motionless for a beat. She studied the pitiful rags and bones huddled on the narrow couch, knowing she could not welcome Antonia to this house without first settling their accounts in some measure. This required more than passing pity. It required an act of heaven. It required a move of will that might well prove beyond her.
She thought of her own offense, then, which had driven her to the physician’s door, and her desperate quest for forgiveness since. Taking a deep breath, she made a decision. She chose to extend to Antonia the compassion she had learned from Yeshua. As if the mere choice had shifted something, she felt a peculiar sense of freedom, a chain she had not known she bore loosening and breaking. No sooner had she allowed this narrow crack in her armor, than she sensed the light of Christ thrust in, widening the gap until it shattered, and with the wonder of a child speaking its first words, Priscilla realized that she could forgive Antonia, and indeed had already begun the process.
“I am certain,” she said.
Lollia jerked her head down once and headed for the stairs. Marcus arrived shortly afterward, bearing a full platter in a two-handed grip. “I’ll bring the cup next. Didn’t want to slosh it all over the stairs.”
“Good idea,” Priscilla murmured, relieving him of the clay plate. She sat on her haunches before their unexpected guest. “Antonia. You need to eat.”
“Leave me be,” the woman snarled.
Priscilla stared helplessly, not knowing what to do. Marcus approached their guest, his steps sure, unafraid. He lifted a hand and patted her vermin-infested head. “You don’t need to be angry. You’re safe here. We’ll take care of you.”
He broke off a small piece of bread and held it against the woman’s closed lips. “I know you are tired. Just open your mouth and chew.”
To Priscilla’s amazement, the woman obeyed.
Marcus dipped the bread into the stew next. Priscilla watched with awe as, bit by bit, Marcus fed Antonia until the bread was gone.
“Thirsty,” Antonia whispered.
“I will fetch you a drink,” Marcus said, and left.
Priscilla set the plate aside and readjusted the blanket around the inert form. Marcus arrived, having run all the way.
“She fell asleep,” Priscilla said.
The boy set the cup on the floor next to the couch and studied Antonia’s face.
“Marcus, where did you learn to take care of someone like that?” Priscilla asked.
Marcus turned to her. “Don’t you know? I learned from you.”
Priscilla felt the air knocked out of her. “I never did for you what you did for her.”
He shrugged. “I lived on the streets. I know what it’s like to be too tired to eat. To move. But I learned from you how to be kind.”
Priscilla’s throat clogged. She had not realized how closely Marcus had watched her over the months, how her simple actions had left an impression on him. She had been teaching him more than Greek verbs and she had not known it.
Antonia moaned and opened her eyes. “Here,” Marcus said in his matter-of-fact way. “I brought you sweet wine. Lots and lots of honey. You’ll like it.” He pressed the cup to her mouth and she drank obediently. Some of it trickled down her chin. Priscilla wiped the drippling wine with a cloth. A bit of skin showed through the dirt, pale and feminine, a reminder of what this woman had once been. A reminder of her humanity.
Lollia came huffing back in. “Bath is ready. Sent Benyamin for a physician.”
Priscilla nodded her thanks. “Antonia, would you like a warm bath? It’s only a tub, I’m afraid. We don’t own a proper pool.”
The woman shrugged.
“Lollia gives good baths,” Marcus assured her. He tugged on Antonia’s hand, and she rose to follow him. In Priscilla’s chamber, Lollia had set up the wooden tub they used for washing clothes.
Marcus let go of Antonia’s hand at the door. “This is for girls only. I’ll see you after.” He scooted out, not waiting for a response.
Lollia and Priscilla set to removing Antonia’s clothing. Crawling with lice and encrusted with dirt, it would all have to be burned. Lollia gathered the lot, holding the bundle as far away from her as her short arms allowed. Priscilla helped Antonia into the tub. Her legs crowded against her torso in the cramped space. She expelled a deep sigh.
Priscilla let her soak for a long while before she began to rub her skin with scented oil and, using a strigil, scrape the dirt off methodically. They had to keep changing the water, refilling the tub as the contents became too dirty to be of use. Her body cleaned, they turned their attention to her head. Even wet and oiled, her hair remained stubbornly tangled, defeating the comb.
“Just cut it off,” Antonia snapped. “Shave the whole thing. The vermin are driving me insane.”
Priscilla did not argue. It was the sensible choice, though she cringed as she fetched the implements. Using a large pair of leather shears, she cut off Antonia’s hair and then, borrowing Aquila’s razor, shaved the hair close to the scalp, which was red and swollen from countless bites.
By the time Antonia emerged from the bath, she was shuddering with exhaustion. Priscilla and Lollia wrapped her in a sheet and led her to the bed. The physician arrived, made a cursory examination of the near-unconscious woman in the bed, and left them with a large jar of ointment and a larger fee before taking himself off.
Aquila had barely entered th
e house when Marcus told him about their guest, the boy’s story embellished by acidic interjections from Lollia.
“You left my wife alone with her?” Aquila hissed at Lollia. He had gone on a short delivery run while Priscilla was still out shopping for food. All the way on the return trip, he had imagined finally being alone with his wife. Imagined the joy of their reunion.
Instead, he had come home to the news that Antonia had taken shelter under his roof.
“Priscilla told me to leave,” Lollia said. “What could I do? Besides, that lioness is asleep like a lamb.”
Asleep or not, the thought of that particular woman in the same chamber as Priscilla made Aquila’s blood run cold. He dashed along the courtyard, taking the stairs two at a time without bothering to remove his muddy shoes. His forehead was drenched in uneasy sweat by the time he skidded to a stop at the doorway to their bedchamber.
The person responsible for almost unraveling his life lay asleep in his bed, covered in his sheets and blankets, with his wife sitting vigil at her side. Without a word, he grabbed Priscilla about the waist and pulled her into his arms and held her there for a long time, until the beat of his heart slowed and he stopped feeling like his entrails would burst out of his throat.
He took a short step away, keeping his hands on Priscilla’s arms, wanting to assure himself of her continued safety. “What is that woman doing here?” he choked.
Priscilla gave him one of those heart-melting smiles that still managed to hit him in the gut like a gladiator’s fist, stealing his breath.
“You can never tell who Yeshua will lead to your doorstep.” She took his hand and led him out of the chamber and into the dining room, where they could speak alone.
“She could have harmed you, Priscilla! Goodness knows she has tried often enough.”
Priscilla laid a calming palm on his chest. “She is too weak to hurt anyone, Husband, and in desperate need of help.”
Aquila inhaled slowly. “How did she come to be here, in Corinth? And in this condition?”