A Voice in the Wind (73 page)

A sickening stench hit Atretes as the door opened. The cell was on the second level, and the only vents into the chamber were from another level above it, rather than from the outside. The air was so close, Atretes wondered how anyone could survive in it. The foul smell was so overpowering, his gorge rose and he stepped back.

“Bad, isn’t it?” the guard said. “After five or six days, they begin dying off like flies. It’s no wonder some prisoners run into the arena. They crave one last breath of fresh air before they die.” He handed Atretes the torch.

Breathing through his mouth, Atretes stood on the threshold and looked from face to face. A single torch flickered in the mount on the side wall, but those in back were cast in shadows. Most of the prisoners were women and children. There were less than half a dozen old bearded men. Atretes wasn’t surprised. The younger men would have been saved for the fighting, pitted against men like Capito and Secundus… men like himself.

Someone said his name and he saw a thin woman in rags rise from the mass of filthy captives.

Hadassah.

“Is that the one?” the guard said.

“Yes.”

“The singer,” he said. “You there! Come out!”

Atretes watched her as she picked her way across the room. People reached up to touch her. Some took her hand, and she smiled and whispered a word of encouragement before she passed by. When she reached the open doorway, she peered up at him with luminous eyes. “What are you doing here, Atretes?”

Unwilling to say anything before the Roman guard, he took her arm and drew her out into the corridor. The guard closed the door and set the bolt. He opened another door across the corridor and lit the torch.

“Leave us,” Atretes said when the guard remained just outside the door.

“I have my orders, Atretes. No prisoner leaves this level without written authorization from the proconsul himself.”

Atretes sneered. “Do you think you could stop me?”

Hadassah put her hand on his arm and turned to look at the guard. “You have my word that I will not leave.” The guard looked from Atretes’ murderous anger to her gentle eyes. A frown flickered across his face. He nodded once and left them alone.

Atretes listened to the sound of the hobnailed sandals on stone and clenched his fist. He had vowed never to enter a place like this again, and here he was, by his own choice.

Hadassah saw his distraction. “Did Julia send you?”

“Julia sent word you were dead.”

“Oh,” she said quietly. “I had hoped—”

“Hoped what? That I’d been sent to free you?”

“No, I hoped Julia would have a change of heart.” She smiled sadly and then looked up at him with a faint frown. “But why would she send you word about me?”

“Because I sent for you. After the first message, a boy came to me. He said his name was Prometheus and that you were his friend. He told me Julia had sold you to Elymas. I went to Sertes and he made inquiries and found out you were being held here.”

Hadassah came closer and placed her hand gently on his arm. “What troubles you so much that you would go to such lengths to find a mere slave?”

“Many things,” he said without hesitating or asking himself why it was easy to trust her. “Not the least is the fact that I can’t get you out of here.”

“That doesn’t matter, Atretes.”

He turned away, anger filling him. “Julia should be the one in this place,” he said harshly, looking around at the cold, stone walls of the dank chamber. “She’s the one who should suffer.” How many hundreds had waited within these walls to die? And for what? The pleasure of the Roman mob. When he had come to the gates of this place, he had almost turned back from the black memories. “She should be the one waiting to die. Not you.”

He hated Julia so much he could taste the bile of it in his mouth, feel the rush of it heating his blood. He would enjoy killing her with his own hands if it wouldn’t mean he’d end up back in this place, waiting to fight in the arena again. And he would take his own life before that ever happened.

Hadassah touched his arm, pulling him out of his murderous thoughts. “Don’t hate Julia for what she’s done, Atretes. She’s lost. She’s frantically searching for happiness, but she’s drowning. Instead of grabbing hold of the one thing that will save her, she grasps at flotsam. I pray God will yet be merciful to her.”

“Merciful?” Atretes said, looking at her in stunned amazement. “How can you pray for mercy on the one who sent you here to die?”

“Because what Julia did has given me the sweetest joy of all.”

Atretes searched her face. Had confinement driven her mad? She had always had a strange look of peace about her, but now there was something more. Something that surprised him. In this dark place, with a horrifying death facing her, she looked changed. Her eyes were clear and luminous—and filled with joy.

“I’m free,” she said. “Through Julia, the Lord has set me free.”

“
Free
?” he said bitterly and looked pointedly at the stone walls.

“Yes,” she said. “Fear was my constant companion, from as far back as I can remember. I’d been afraid all my life, Atretes, from the time I was a small child visiting Jerusalem, right up to a few days ago. I never wanted to leave the safety of the little house where I grew up in Galilee or the friends we knew. I was afraid of everything. I was afraid of losing those I loved. I was afraid of persecution and suffering. I was afraid of dying.”

Her eyes glistened with tears. “Most of all, I was afraid that when the time came and I was tested, I wouldn’t have the courage to say the truth. And then the Lord would turn his face from me.”

She spread her hands. “And then it happened, the very thing I feared most… I was stood before people who hated me, people who refused to believe, and I was given a choice: recant or die. And the cry came from within my soul, a cry the Lord gave me through his grace. I chose God.”

Tears ran down her cheeks, but her eyes were shining. “And the most amazing, miraculous thing happened to me in that moment, Atretes. Even as I was speaking the words, proclaiming Jesus is the Christ, my fear fell away. The weight of it was gone as though it had never been.”

“Had you never said the words before?”

“Yes, among those who believed, before those who loved me. Where there was no risk, I spoke them willingly. But in that moment, before Julia, before those others, I surrendered completely. He is God and there is no other. To not tell them the truth would have been impossible.“

“And now you’ll die for it,” he said grimly.

“Unless we have something worth dying for, Atretes, we’ve nothing worth living for.”

He felt an aching sadness that this gentle young woman would die such a foul, degrading death. “You did a foolish thing, Hadassah. You should have done what was expedient and saved your life.” Just as he had done, and countless others before him.

“I gave up what I can’t keep for something I can never lose.”

Looking upon her, Atretes felt an aching hunger for a faith like hers, a faith that could give him peace.

Hadassah saw his torment. “You must hate this place,” she said softly. “What brought you here to me?”

“I’ve had a dream. I don’t know what it means.”

She frowned slightly. “I’m not a seer, Atretes. I have no prophetic abilities.”

“It has to do with you. It started the night you came to me in the hills and it hasn’t stopped since. You
must
know.”

She felt his desperation and prayed God would give her the answers he needed. “Sit with me and tell me,” she said, weak from confinement and days without food. “I may not know the answers, but God does.”

“I’m walking through blackness, a blackness so heavy I can feel it pressing against my body. All I can see are my hands. I walk for a long time, not feeling anything, and then I see the Artemision in the distance. As I come closer to it, the beauty of it amazes me, just as it did the first time I saw it—but this time, the carvings are alive. They’re writhing and uncoiling. The stone faces stare down at me as I enter the inner court. I see Artemis, and the symbol she wears upon her crown glows red.”

“What symbol?”

“The symbol of Tiwaz, the god of the forests. The head of a goat.” He knelt down before her. “And then the image of Artemis begins to burn. The heat is so intense I move back from it. The walls are crumbling, the temple falling in on itself until there’s nothing left but a few stones.”

Hadassah touched his hand. “Go on.”

“Everything is black again. I walk on, searching for what seems forever, and then I see a sculptor. And before him is his work, a statue of me. It’s one like those they sell in the shops around the arena, only this one is so real it seems to breathe. The man takes a hammer and I know what he’s going to do. I cry out for him not to do it, but he strikes the image once and it shatters into a million pieces.“

Shaking, Atretes rose. “I feel pain, pain like I’ve never felt before. I can’t move. Around me I see the forest of my homeland and I’m sinking into the bog. Everyone is standing around me, my father, my mother, my wife, friends long dead. I cry out, but they all just stare at me as I’m being sucked down. The bog presses around me like the blackness. And then a man is there, holding out both hands to me. His palms are bleeding.”

Hadassah watched Atretes sink wearily down against the stone wall on the other side of the cell. “Do you take his hand?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said bleakly. “I can’t remember.”

“You awaken?”

“No.” He breathed in slowly, struggling to keep his voice steady. “Not yet.” He shut his eyes and swallowed convulsively. “I hear a baby crying. He’s lying naked on the rocks by the sea. I see a wave coming in from the sea and know it’ll sweep him away. I try to get to him, but the wave goes over him. Then I awaken.”

Hadassah closed her eyes.

Atretes leaned his head back. “So tell me. What does it all mean?”

Hadassah prayed the Lord would give her wisdom. She sat for a long time, her head bowed. Then she raised her head again. “I’m not a seer,” she said again. “Only God can interpret dreams. But I do know certain things to be true, Atretes.”

“What things?”

“Artemis is a stone idol and nothing more. She has no power over you but what you give her. Your soul knows that. Perhaps that’s why her image burns and her temple crumbles.” She frowned slightly. “Perhaps it means more. I don’t know.”

“And the man?”

“That’s very clear to me. The man is Jesus. I told you how he died, nailed to a cross, and how he arose again. He’s reaching out to you with both hands. Take hold and hang on. Your salvation is at hand.” She hesitated. “And the child…”

“I know about the child.” Atretes’ face tautened with barely controlled emotion. “He’s my son. I thought about what you said to me that night you came to the hills. I sent word I wanted the child when it was born.“

Seeing Hadassah’s startled look, Atretes stood abruptly and paced restlessly. “At first, it was to hurt Julia, to take her child from her. Then I truly wanted him. I decided I’d take the child and return to Germania. I waited, and then word came. The child was stillborn.”

Atretes gave a broken laugh filled with bitterness. “But she lied. The child wasn’t stillborn. She ordered it left on the rocks to die.” His voice choked with tears, and he raked his fingers through his hair. “I told you if Julia laid him at my feet, I’d turn and walk away. And that’s exactly what she did, isn’t it? Placed him on the rocks and walked away. I hated her. I hated myself. God have mercy on me, you said. God have mercy.”

Hadassah rose and went to him. “Your son is alive.”

He stiffened and looked down at her.

She put her hand on his arm. “I didn’t know you’d sent word you wanted him, Atretes. Had I known, I would have brought him directly to you. Please forgive me for the pain I’ve caused you.” Her hand fell limply to her side.

He took her arm. “You said he’s alive? Where is he?”

She prayed God would make right what she had done. “I took your son to the apostle John and he placed him in the arms of Rizpah, a young widow who’d lost her child. She loved him the moment she looked upon his face.”

His hand loosened and fell away from her. “My son is alive,” he said in wonder, and the burden of pain and guilt fell away from him. He closed his eyes in relief. “My son is alive.” His back against the stone wall, he slid down it, his knees weakened by what she told him. “My son is alive,” he said in a choked voice.

“God is merciful,” she said softly and lightly touched his hair.

The light caress reminded Atretes of his mother. He took Hadassah’s hand and held it against his cheek. Looking up at her, he saw again the bruises that marked her kind face, the thinness of her body beneath the ragged, dirty tunic. She had saved his son. How could he walk away and let her die?

He stood, filled with purpose. “I’ll go to Sertes,” he said.

“No,” she said.

“Yes,” he countered, determined. Though he’d never fought lions and knew there was little chance he would survive, he had to try. “A word in the right ear, and I’d be in the arena as your champion.”

“I have a champion already, Atretes. The battle is
over
. He’s already won.” She held his hand firmly between her own. “Don’t you see? If you went back into the arena now, you’d die without ever fully knowing the Lord.”

“But what of you?” Tomorrow she would face the lions.

“God’s hand is in this, Atretes. His will be done.”

“You’ll die.”

“‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him,’” she said. She smiled up at him. “Whatever happens is to his good purpose and for his glory. I’m not afraid.”

Atretes searched her face for a long moment and then nodded, struggling against the emotions raging within him. “It will be as you say.”

“It will be as the Lord wills.”

“I will never forget you.”

“Nor I you,” she said. She told him where to find the apostle John, then laid her hand on his arm and looked at him, peace in her eyes. “Now, go from this place of death and don’t look back.”

She went out into the dark corridor and called to the guard.