Daughter of Rome

by Tessa Afshar

  “She has not told me.”

  “Was she robbed, do you think?”

  “Perhaps. But there is more to this story than mere theft. She has been living on the streets for some time, judging by the state of her body. The niece of Claudius would be able to find assistance in any city in the empire long before this. She never demanded that I send for the proconsul when I found her.”

  Aquila raised a brow. “She has fallen into disfavor with the emperor.”

  “It is the only explanation for her plight. And if that is true, she no longer poses a threat to us. She has no reason to protect her reputation from me. Clearly it has already been sullied.”

  “I do not understand why you brought her here.”

  The blue eyes softened. If Aquila had been present the day Yeshua healed the lepers who came to him for help, he thought he might have caught a similar look in his Savior’s eyes. “She has nowhere to go,” Priscilla whispered.

  Something in him melted, something hard and crusted. He stared at his wife with awe.

  “He is worth this sacrifice, beloved,” she said.

  He pulled her into his arms again, wanting to feel her next to him, to feel this woman who could nurse her enemy with her own hands. He kissed those hands now, rattled by the hurricane of emotion that clogged his throat.

  When he had managed to calm a little, he rubbed the back of his neck. “It is unfair to quote my own words at me. She can stay. But did you have to put her on my side of the bed?”

  Priscilla flashed him another smile. “It was closer, and she had grown heavy. Although I do have a confession.” She fetched his razor and handed it to him. “I am afraid I used this on her head. For the vermin.”

  He winced and ran a hand against his cheek. “I was thinking of growing a beard.”

  “Don’t you dare,” she said. “You are too handsome to cover your face.”

  He felt his cheeks warm. “You think I’m handsome?”

  “Undeniably, unmistakably, exceptionally handsome.”

  “Well,” he muttered under his breath, “we could put Antonia on a pallet in Lollia’s room right now.”

  Priscilla bit her lip. “I will not tell Lollia you made that suggestion.”

  “I suppose she must remain in our bed for the present.”

  He leaned toward her. His body remembered, with sudden vigor, all that it had been missing for weeks. He felt strained, as if awakening from a long dream and realizing he had misplaced something valuable.

  His head bent forward a fraction without a conscious decision from him, and he kissed her. The shock of sensation went through his lips all the way down to his bones. The kiss became deep and heated, filled with longing. She gasped and burrowed closer to him.

  “This is intolerable,” he mumbled. “We have nowhere to go in our own house.”

  She laid her cheek against his shoulder. He could feel her smile against his chest. His shoulders drooped. “In any case, we need to talk.”

  Twenty-Seven

  AQUILA SETTLED ON THE COUCH, drawing Priscilla next to him. He took a few moments to gather his thoughts. Seeing Antonia sleeping in their bed had wrecked his concentration and put his well-prepared speech straight out of his mind. He swallowed through a dry throat and plowed ahead. “I must ask your forgiveness.”

  She shook her head as if to deny this confession. He did not even consider taking the easy way, slithering out of the door of grace she had opened. Leaving things unsaid, though far more painless in the present, would ultimately lead to more misunderstandings.

  “I do need to ask it, Priscilla.” He looked down, his eyes catching the muck that still clung to the shoes he had not removed in his haste. “I know I have been cold and withdrawn. You have been the best of wives, and I have acted like a blind fool.

  “You must understand, Priscilla, this is not your doing. I was starting to feel insufficient as a husband. As a man. Our finances had dwindled alarmingly, and I saw it as a personal failure. I started to think it was up to me to provide for us. I forgot to trust the Lord.”

  She reached for his hand. “I forgive you, Husband. You must forgive me, also. If not for my sin, we would never have had to abandon our home in the first place.”

  He caressed her cheek. “That is a lie. We are not here because of your sin, but because of the will of God. The Lord used Antonia’s scheme to fulfill his own purpose. He has need of us in Corinth. Besides, for all we know, God saved Marcus’s life by removing him from Rome.

  “We cannot understand the twists and turns of God’s plans. But we can trust them. Remain in them. No more blame and condemnation, beloved. Not for you. Not for me.

  “I know you have been lonely, and that is my fault. I am here now. Tell me. What is this sorrow that haunts you?”

  Priscilla dropped her head. He wondered if she might be unable to trust him now, after his neglect. That possibility shook him—the thought that he might have bruised that precious, fragile trust which she had bestowed upon him.

  Her throat worked, but no sound emerged. O God! Please! He prayed. “What is it, beloved? Won’t you tell me?”

  So low he almost missed the words, she whispered, “I fear I may be barren, Aquila.” A tear slid down her chin, followed by another.

  Aquila smoothed away the soft tendrils of hair that clung to her damp skin. “I think it too soon to jump to such conclusions. Couples sometimes have to wait for years before a child comes along. Think of Zechariah and Elizabeth. They were old when they had John.”

  “That necessitated a miracle, Aquila!”

  He smiled. “God hasn’t run out of those.”

  “But what if I never conceive?”

  “Then we will grieve together and love one another through the pain. We have Marcus. To me, he is like a son. I cannot adopt him—”

  “Why not?” a small voice said from the doorway.

  “Marcus!” Aquila took in the boy’s pale visage and bid him come into the room.

  “I wasn’t eavesdropping. I overheard what you said.”

  “I know, Son. Come here.”

  Marcus came closer, until he stood in front of them, knee to knee. His lips had turned into a rigid line. “Why can’t you adopt me? If you want me?”

  Aquila looked from the boy to his wife, who was practically sitting on her hands to keep herself from smothering him in an embrace. “If I adopt you, you will lose your right to Roman citizenship. Lose your inheritance. Lose the name of Laurentinus. You will become the son of a Jew.”

  “What if I don’t care about any of that?” Marcus said, back stiff.

  “If you want us to adopt you, Priscilla and I will. With all our hearts. We feel that you belong to us already. But we cannot do it yet, Marcus. Not until you are old enough to understand what you are losing. I never want you to regret anything because of us.”

  Marcus stood very still. “You want me to belong to you?”

  “More than anything,” Priscilla said softly. She pulled him against her chest. He had grown too tall to fit in her lap properly. She did not seem to care. She kept pulling until his body lost its stiffness, and he let go, yielded right into her, and she cradled him against her.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, they were welled up with a lifetime of tears, making spikes of his long eyelashes.

  Staring at Priscilla, he said, “I love you.” His voice broke.

  It was the first time he had ever said those words in their hearing.

  Priscilla started to laugh and cry at the same time, as if she could not quite decide which direction her body should take and tipped both ways. She caressed Marcus’s hair with shaking fingers, repeating the words to him, her voice hoarse.

  Aquila watched, mouth dry. He had always known the boy adored Priscilla. He felt a burst of joy for her sake, knowing how deeply she had longed for this tender moment.

  At the same time, he could not help feeling left out. Marcus had never had a mother, but he remembered his father well.
Aquila could never fill those shoes.

  Then to his astonishment, Marcus reached a strong hand, fisted it about Aquila’s neckline and pulled him until he collapsed against his wife and half flattened Marcus. The boy giggled through tears. “I love you, too,” he said to Aquila, looking straight into his eyes.

  Aquila felt his heart melt. “Son. My son,” he croaked, though he meant to say so much more. To give assurances, blessings, praises. To make commitments. But all he could manage were those two words: My son.

  And even those two miserly words dried up when the boy sat up and said to Priscilla, “Can I call you Mother?”

  Before she could assure him that she would like nothing better, Marcus turned to face Aquila with unblinking eyes. “Can I call you Father? Even if you don’t adopt me?”

  Priscilla made up a pallet for Antonia in a small alcove off the dining room, and hanging a sheet as a makeshift curtain in front of the tiny nook, she managed to create a modest place which their guest could call her own. “It is not much,” she told Antonia. “But it is yours, if you want it.”

  A few months ago, this woman had enjoyed unimaginable luxuries, including, no doubt, a palatial chamber of her own. In her current circumstances, however, the claustrophobic alcove Priscilla and Aquila offered must seem a veritable haven compared to the horrors of living on the streets.

  Antonia stared at the pallet with its pile of rough blankets. Without comment, she stepped inside and drew the curtain in Priscilla’s face.

  Priscilla ground her teeth. She was hard to love, this woman.

  That afternoon, guests started trickling in, the wealthy who led leisurely lives arriving early. Others came later, as their jobs allowed. In fair weather, they would have gathered in the courtyard with its open rooftop, which allowed a refreshing breeze. But the day had grown cloudy, and spring rains pelted the ground in sudden bursts, driving the guests into the shelter of the dining room instead.

  The guests found seats wherever they could, pressed tight against one another in the confines of the triclinium. They had grown friendly enough over the past few weeks not to mind the cramped arrangement.

  Priscilla had invited Antonia to join them. Not surprisingly, the emperor’s niece declined. However, given the location of her alcove, with nothing but a thin sheet separating her from the gathering company, she could hardly avoid listening to the teaching and prayers. Priscilla tried to suppress a satisfied grin without success. God had provided the only arrangement that would convince Antonia to listen to the gospel.

  Some of the guests had brought their own cushions to sit on. Others brought jugs of wine, platters of bread, cheese, olives, and dried fruits to share. Before they began to eat, Paul celebrated the Lord’s Supper, and their first bite was of spiritual food.

  Afterward, when they served supper, Priscilla saw to it that the poor received generous portions. Some of the people under her roof would not eat another good meal until they visited there again.

  Crispus and his family arrived last, when the sun had set and the heavens wrapped his arrival in a cloak of darkness. Paul’s teaching in the synagogue had stirred many to anger. A man named Sosthenes, who wielded substantial influence among the people, had grown especially adept at stoking the fires of animosity. Crispus found himself caught in a painful vise, between his growing attraction to Yeshua and increasing pressure from members of his congregation to pronounce Paul a heretic.

  For now, he managed to walk a fine line, committing to neither one nor the other. He came to their home in secret lest he be banished from the society of his people. But he came.

  Stephanas’s daughter Chara had learned several psalms from Paul, and they began the evening with a song while she accompanied them on her cithara.

  You are a hiding place for me;

  you preserve me from trouble;

  you surround me with shouts of deliverance.

  After praying, Paul began to teach them, and for a while, Priscilla forgot to worry about Antonia or Crispus or the convoluted problems they faced in the synagogue.

  The moon was high in the night sky when a loud knock sounded at their door. Priscilla jumped, startled by the unexpected noise.

  “I will get it,” Aquila said, motioning her to remain.

  They could hear the murmur of voices belowstairs. When Aquila returned, he was followed by two smiling men. Priscilla did not recognize them. But Paul sprang to his feet and wove his way through the crowd as fast as he could.

  “Silas! Timothy! About time you arrived in Corinth. I have a mountain of work for you to do!”

  The older of the two rolled his eyes. “I missed you, too.”

  The other, a young lion of a man, wrapped muscular arms around Paul’s wiry frame and embraced him with comfortable familiarity. “Macedonia proved boring without you.”

  Paul’s eyes sparkled. “You will find plenty of excitement here, Timothy.”

  The other man, who Priscilla assumed must be Silas, held up a hand. “Has anyone beaten you up yet?”

  Paul shrugged. “It’s early days. Give me time.”

  “Not much time,” Crispus growled. “He stirs the world around him like a cook with a pot.”

  In the morning a new letter arrived from Senator Pudens. The papyrus on which he had written looked crumpled, and one side had torn off completely. Water stains smudged the ink, rendering some paragraphs illegible.

  “Shipwreck,” the man carrying it explained. “I had tucked that in my belt. It’s a miracle either of us survived. But it’s been delayed by a couple of months. Took me a while to make my way here after the ship went down.”

  Priscilla thanked the sailor and fed him a hearty meal before settling down to read the letter to her family. The senator’s greetings and opening remarks had been streaked by seawater. She began to read the first legible sentence.

  “Rome is abuzz with fresh scandal, which involves someone who has had no small bearing on your own lives. Claudius’s niece Antonia has been banished from Rome.”

  “Well!” Aquila smirked. “For once, we are ahead of the senator.”

  Benyamin waved a hand in a dampening motion. “Let us hear the senator’s account. Perhaps he can help us solve this mystery. Carry on, Priscilla.”

  She nodded and began to read once more.

  “Claudius sent Antonia away not long after you yourselves departed for Corinth. But the story is only now reaching public notice.

  “If rumor is to be believed, Antonia has been involved in an affair with a married man. What with the emergence of the New Woman, Antonia’s indiscretion would hardly seem worthy of mention.”

  “What is a New Woman?” Benyamin asked. “I haven’t even begun to understand the old one.”

  A huff of laughter escaped Priscilla. “An increasingly large number of aristocratic Roman wives are balking at the old-fashioned constraints of marriage,” she explained. “They call themselves the New Woman, though there is considerable diversity in how they understand that term. Some merely shed their veils in public as a sign of their growing independence.” She felt her cheeks redden. “Others go much further and consider themselves free of all marital bounds. Their veil-free status becomes a symbol of a myriad of liberties. They cavort with other women’s husbands, live in open infidelity, and consider such behavior their right.”

  “That’s a new woman?” Benyamin whistled. “I think I liked the old kind better.”

  “This is why Paul insists that married women cover their hair during worship,” Aquila pointed out. “He does not wish the freedom of Christ to be confused with immorality.”

  Benyamin nodded. “I see. So Antonia is a New Woman who preferred someone else’s husband. Is that why Claudius banished her?”

  “I suspect there is more to her story.” Priscilla read the next legible section in the letter:

  “Dissatisfied with a mere affair, Antonia pressured her lover to divorce his wife and marry her. But the man refused her demands. Unwilling to let the matter lie, A
ntonia hired some brute to pay the wife a visit and convince her to divorce her husband.”

  “Ah. That sounds more like dear Antonia.” Aquila arched a brow. “What does convince her mean, exactly? Beat her? Blackmail her? Worse?”

  Priscilla sighed. “The senator does not say. He writes that the plot was discovered and the outraged husband himself approached the emperor about the matter. Antonia denied these charges passionately, of course. But Claudius was inclined to believe the husband. Since the debacle with his former wife Messalina two years ago, the emperor’s patience has worn thin when it comes to scheming women.”

  “What happened with Messalina?” Benyamin asked.

  “She cheated on Claudius,” Priscilla explained.

  “With numerous people,” Aquila clarified.

  “And she married another man,” Priscilla added. “While she was still married to Claudius.” She made a face. “Not a wise choice, as it turned out.”

  “No. I can see that would be a problem.”

  Priscilla perused the rest of the letter. “According to Senator Pudens, Claudius renounced his niece in short order once the offended husband approached him. After confiscating her property and wealth, the emperor banished Antonia from Rome, putting her on the first ship bound out of Ostia. She must have arrived in Corinth with the clothes on her back and not much else. Which means she is destitute and friendless. No one with any ambition will raise a hand to help her, lest they displease the emperor.”

  Aquila stretched. “And those are the only people she ever associated with.”

  Benyamin sat upright. “Hold a moment. Does this mean we can return to Rome?”

  Priscilla looked over Pudens’s letter and shook her head. “The senator tried to raise the subject of the banishment of the Jews with the emperor. Claudius did not want to hear of it. With a new wife and the endless political maneuvering that surrounds him, no doubt he finds himself too busy to revisit old decisions.”

  Aquila turned toward her. “What now?”

  She gave him a small smile. “This solves the enigma of how she came to be in Corinth. But it changes nothing. We will take care of her.”