A Voice in the Wind (67 page)

She stepped out on a narrow terrace and looked back toward the center of the city. She wanted to fill her lungs with clean air. She could see the temple in the distance and wondered if Atretes was giving offerings to the goddess for his triumph in the arena. Her eyes smarted. If only everything had stayed as it was. If only Sertes hadn’t entered Atretes in the elimination match.

The servants arrived with her things and Hadassah took charge of the unpacking. “Leave that to Cybil,” Julia ordered. “I want to speak with you.” Hadassah came out to her on the terrace. “I want you to find Atretes and tell him I’ve arranged for a permanent residence where we may be together as often as we want. Don’t tell him anything about Primus. Do you hear me? He might not understand. Not yet. He’s still very uncivilized. It’s best if I explain everything when I see him. Just tell him he
must
come to me now. I need him.”

Hadassah’s heart was heavy. “Will he still be at the ludus, my lady?”

“I don’t know, but go there first. If he isn’t there, Sertes will be able to tell you where he is.” They went back inside, and Julia opened her jewel box. Frowning, she ran her hand lightly over a necklace of pearls. She passed over it to a gold brooch set with rubies. Weighing the piece in her hand, her mouth tightened. She liked the brooch. Why should she have to part with it? Atretes was free now. She shouldn’t have to pay to have him brought to her. A word from her should be enough to make him come of his own free will.

She dropped the brooch back into the box and closed the lid firmly. “Tell Sertes I’ve sent you with a message for Atretes. He’ll either tell you where Atretes is or live to regret it.” She walked with Hadassah to the door, speaking softly so the other servants wouldn’t hear. “Deliver the message exactly as I’ve given it to you. Nothing about Primus. Do you understand? I’ll tell Atretes about Primus later.”

As Hadassah turned to do her mistress’s bidding, she wondered how Julia, who had spent so much time with Atretes, could not know the man at all.

Even while Atretes lay on the table having his wounds stitched and salted, offers were brought to him from high Roman officials inviting him to be a guest at their villas. “Get them out of here,” Atretes growled at Sertes.

“As you wish,” Sertes said. It hadn’t been his decision to have Atretes fight in the elimination match. The proconsul had demanded it after receiving word from the emperor that the barbarian was to be included. Sertes had been unable to refuse, and although the proconsul had paid him enough to reimburse him for Atretes’ purchase price, housing, and care, Sertes saw future profits go down the sewers. Either way, dead or free, Atretes would be out from under his control.

But Sertes was no fool. There were other ways to make money off of Atretes if the goddess but smiled on him.

Atretes returned to the ludus, where he intended to stay until he decided what he was going to do with his freedom. Sertes gave him a large chamber connected to his own and shrewdly treated him with the respect of ah honored guest.

As Sertes expected, a crowd gathered outside the main gate of the ludus the next morning. Most were amoratae waiting for a glimpse of Atretes, but many others were businessmen who had come with money-making ventures for Atretes to consider. Sertes had the latter brought into a large meeting room, then informed Atretes that he had esteemed guests. The men clamored around the German as he entered, growing louder and louder as they tried to out shout one another with their propositions. Sertes stood aside and watched.

One man wanted to paint Atretes’ image on vases, trays, and cameos. Several wanted to sell him villas. Another wanted him to become half owner of an inn. Still another wanted him to endorse his chariots. Sertes let the confusion mount.

“I will give you the most elaborate chariot I build, as well as two matched horses from Arabia to go with it!” the chariot builder offered.

Atretes had the look of a cornered lion about to pounce. He glanced at Sertes as though silently demanding that he do something. Sertes made a vow to place a large offering before Artemis, then pressed through the crowd. He took his place beside Atretes.

“Your offer is ridiculous,” he said to the chariot builder. “You know what profit you’ll make with Atretes’ name, and yet you make such a paltry offer?”

“I’ll add a thousand sesterces to my offer,” the man said quickly.

“Ten thousand and he might consider it,” Sertes said contemptuously. “You will excuse us.” He turned Atretes away and leaned close, speaking softly. “I can handle these negotiations for you if you wish. There’s no reason for you to be here. I’m experienced in business dealings and know how to make them raise their offers. My fee will be a meager 35 percent of what you make. Everything will be presented to you for final decision, of course. I’ll make you a very rich man.”

Atretes clamped a hard hand on Sertes’ arm. “I want a villa of my own.”

Sertes nodded. “Whatever you want, you’ve only to say. I’ll arrange it.” He would milk Atretes’ fame for as long as it lasted.

A servant entered the room and made his way to Sertes. “That little Jewess is here, my lord. She said she has a message for Atretes.”

“Take me to her,” Atretes ordered, ignoring the protests of the men who had waited hours to see him.

Sertes raised his hands. “Enough! Atretes has more important matters at hand. Prepare your proposals and make your offers to me. I will discuss them with Atretes at his convenience and notify you of his decision. That will be all!” He nodded to one of the burly guards. “Get them out of here. I have a ludus to run.”

Atretes saw Hadassah waiting just inside the closed gate of the ludus. “Leave me,” he said
to the servant and strode across the
sandy compound toward her.

Her face filled with warmth when she saw him. She smiled and bowed low. “Praise God for his bountiful mercy,” she said. “You are alive and well!”

He smiled down at her, remembering the night in the stadium and her promise to pray for him. Her kindness filled him with a warmth he hadn’t felt in years. Had it been prayers to her god that had kept him alive? “Yes, I am alive and well. I am also free,” he said. “You’ve brought word from Julia?”

Her demeanor changed subtly. She lowered her eyes from his immediately and delivered the message. Atretes listened, and each word burned his pride. A muscle locked and then worked in his jaw.

“
Must
?” he said coldly. “Tell your lady it will not be as before.
I
will send for
her
when I am ready.” He turned away and headed back for the barracks.

“Atretes,” Hadassah said hastening after him. “Please. Don’t turn from her now.”

He glared down at her. “Remind your lady that I’m no longer a slave to be summoned at her whim and for her pleasure.”

She looked up at him beseechingly. “She loves you, my lord. She means no offense.”

“Ah, but it’s the Roman way to give offense! And she is Roman, isn’t she? Born and bred upon pride and arrogance.”

Hadassah laid her hand gently on his arm and smiled sadly. “Pride and arrogance are not limited to Romans, Atretes.”

Surprisingly, his fierce anger evaporated. His hard mouth softened into a half smile and he gave a bleak laugh. “Perhaps not,” he said ruefully. She was a strange little woman with fathomless eyes that were so gentle they had the effect of a calm sea.

“Speak with her gently, Atretes, and she will do whatever you ask.” Hadassah knew this was the truth. A gentle, loving word from Atretes, and Julia would even turn away from the terrible path she was now following.

“I vowed never to be summoned by her again,” he said flatly. “And I hold to that vow.” He nodded toward the high walls of the ludus and said, “Nor would I dishonor her by summoning her here.” He looked down at Hadassah. “Tell your mistress I’ll send for her when I have a house and can take her into it as my wife.” So saying, he strode away.

Hadassah turned away sadly, seeing only tragedy ahead for them both.

“Where is he?” Julia demanded when Hadassah returned to Primus’ villa alone. “Didn’t you tell him I wanted to see him? You didn’t, did you? What did you tell him?”

“I gave him your message, my lady, exactly as you said.”

Julia slapped her. “You deceitful little Jew. You told him about Primus, didn’t you?” She slapped her again, harder.

Hadassah drew back from her, afraid. She put a trembling hand to her stinging cheek. “I didn’t, my lady.”

“If you said nothing to him about Primus, he would be here!”

“He said he would send for you when he had a house and could take you into it as his wife.”

Julia went still, her face blanching. She stared at Hadassah, then sank down onto her couch, suddenly unable to stand. She closed her eyes. She’d known what to expect, but somehow hearing he had said it so openly made her weak inside, weak with confusion and longing.

Hadassah knelt before her. “Please, Lady Julia. Return to the house of your father and mother and remain there until Atretes sends for you.”

Julia felt a moment of uncertainty—but then Calabah’s warnings rose in her mind, clear and logical. If she married Atretes, he would take her into his house and never let her out again. He would be worse than Claudius and Caius put together.

“No.”

“Please,” Hadassah pleaded softly. “Don’t stay here.”

The momentary confusion on Julia’s face cleared. “If I go back now, I’ll look like a fool. And nothing would change. Marcus wouldn’t approve of my relationship with Atretes any more than he approves of this one with Primus.” She gave a weak laugh. “Atretes might be proclaimed a Roman citizen, but he’s still a barbarian at heart. Marcus might not even allow me to see him.”

“Marcus wants you to be safe and happy.”

Julia raised her brow at the familiar way Hadassah said her brother’s name. She glared down at her for a long, still moment as the deep seed of jealousy, planted by Marcus himself, began to grow. “You only want to be close to my brother, don’t you?” she said coldly. “You’re just like Bithia and all the rest.” She rose and moved away. “No, I won’t listen to you. I’m staying right here. Once I’ve spoken with Atretes, he’ll understand. I’ll make him understand.”

She would remind him of how he had hated his slavery and demand if that was what he expected of her now. A wife was a slave, someone at the mercy of her husband. This way, they were both free. Nothing had to change between them. They would continue to be lovers just as before. It would be even better. She wouldn’t have to pay Sertes. Atretes could come whenever she sent him a message. But even if all her reasoning didn’t work, she knew one thing that would make him listen.

She would tell him about the child she was carrying.

Hadassah went to John and wept over Julia.

The apostle listened and then took her hands between his own. “Perhaps God has given Julia over to the lusts of her heart so that she may receive in her own person the due penalty of her errors.”

Hadassah looked at him, her cheeks streaked with tears. “I’ve spent hours singing psalms to her and telling her stories of David and Gideon, Jonah, and Elijah. So many stories, but never once the greatest story of all. When I’m with Julia, the name of Jesus freezes in my throat.” She took her hands from him and covered her face.

John understood. “We all know fear at some time, Hadassah.”

“You’re not afraid anymore, though. And my father was never afraid.” She remembered her father being carried into the upper room by Benaiah, his beloved face beaten almost beyond recognition. And still he had gone out again and again and again, until the last day of his life.
They’re throwing bodies over the wall into the Valley of Hinnom
, Mark had said the day he was killed, and in Hadassah’s mind, she could see her father lying there among the thousands of dead cast over the temple wall and left rotting in the Judean sun.

“As I have told you, I have known fear well,” John said. “When they came and took the Lord away from the Garden of Gethsemane, a Roman soldier grabbed for me, and I ran. He was left holding a linen sheet, which was the only thing covering my body, while I escaped, naked.” His kind eyes were shadowed with remembered shame. “But fear is not of the Lord, Hadassah.”

“I know that in my mind, but still my heart trembles.”

“Lay your burden before Jesus.”

“But what if your burden is not only fear, but love? I have a love for Julia as though she were my own sister.”

His eyes filled with compassion. “We sow in tears that we might harvest in joy. Be obedient to the Lord’s will. Love Julia despite what she does, that through you she might come to know Christ’s surpassing grace and mercy. Be faithful, that she and the others might be sanctified.“

“But will they be sanctified if they refuse to believe? And what do I do about Calabah?”

“Nothing.”

“But John, she exerts greater and greater control over Julia. It’s as though Julia is being transformed into her likeness. I have to do something.”

John shook his head. “No, Hadassah. Our struggle isn’t against flesh and blood, but against the powers of darkness.”

“I can’t fight Satan, John. My faith isn’t strong enough.”

“You don’t fight him.
Resist
evil and be strong in the Lord, Hadassah, and in the strength of
God’s
might. He’s given you armor for the battle. Truth, his righteousness, the gospel of peace. Faith is your shield, the Word your sword. Pray with perseverance in the Spirit of the Lord. Then stand firm, that the Lord might go out before you.”

“I’ll try,” she said softly.

John took her hands and held them firmly, his warmth and strength surrounding her. “God doesn’t fail in his good purpose. Trust in him, and in his time he’ll open your mouth and give you the words to speak.” He smiled. “You are not alone!”

Reclined on one of the couches in the triclinium, Julia selected a delicacy prepared by her new cook. Primus was telling her another of his ribald stories, this one about a Roman official and his unfaithful wife. She’d learned very quickly that she had an insatiable appetite for his stories, an appetite Primus was only too willing to satisfy.