The calm resignation on her face stirred him—and suddenly an image filled his mind: Caleb on his knees, head tipped back slightly, exposing his neck as the mob screamed, “Jugula!”
The Jewish gladiator’s words echoed in Atretes’ mind once again: “Free me, my friend.” As Caleb had placed his hands on Atretes’ thighs and tipped his head back, the German had been overwhelmed by his friend’s courage . . . and by the strange peace that had seemed to settle over Caleb as he prepared for death. Atretes had given his friend his wish. He had set him free. And as he did so, he had been filled with a deep hunger for whatever it was that made a man so strong, so courageous.
What gave you such peace, my friend? he wondered now as he had wondered many times before. And he was met with the same silence. The same emptiness deep within.
Atretes took a step closer to Rizpah, seeing how she shivered in response to his nearness. “Caleb is a strong name, a warrior’s name,” he said, his voice low with an emotion she did not understand. “Keep it.”
With that he picked up the blanket that lay by the mat, dropped it beside her, and went out.
* * *
Rizpah obeyed Atretes and stayed within the walls of the villa. She offered to help the servants, but they said the master wouldn’t like it. It seemed she was relegated to some position between slave and free, a nebulous, undefined place within the household. Atretes avoided her and the others had resolved to be safe and do the same.
She found herself wandering around the huge villa in much the same way Atretes wandered about at night. When Caleb wasn’t sleeping or nursing, she’d find a place in the sunlight and place him on her shawl. Smiling, she would watch him kick, play, and make noises.
One afternoon, she entered a room on the second floor. It appealed to her, for sunlight streamed in from its balcony. It was empty of furnishings except for a big brass urn with a palm in it. She put Caleb on her shawl in a beam of sunlight. He rocked back and forth on his stomach, kicking his strong chubby legs. She sat down to watch him.
“You’re a little frog,” she laughed.
He gave a gurgling squeal and kicked faster. She saw what interested him and took hold of the edges of the blanket, pulling it across the smooth marble surface. “You always want what you can’t reach,” she said, patting his bottom.
Caleb stretched out his hand toward the shiny curve of the large brass urn. His legs kicked again, toes catching in the shawl and pushing him an inch closer. His tiny fingers brushed the brass; he kicked harder, rocking and reaching. Her smile softening, Rizpah took hold of her shawl again and turned it so that Caleb was alongside the big urn. He turned his head, staring curiously at the other baby in the brass.
“That’s you, Caleb.”
He left fingerprints on the shiny golden surface.
Loneliness engulfed her unexpectedly as she watched him reaching out to his own reflection. Were they always to be alone like this, cut off from the rest of the household? She stood and went out onto the balcony, looking down into the barren yard. Two guards passed the time near a gate, talking and laughing together. Other servants were tending the vegetable garden inside the walls.
“Lord,” Rizpah whispered, “you know how much I love Caleb. I thank you with all my heart for him. Don’t think I’m ungrateful, Father, but I miss Shimei and John and all the rest. I know I didn’t talk to them very much when I had the opportunity, but I miss being among them. I miss standing beside the river and singing and hearing your Word.”
The road that led back to Ephesus was just beyond the gate. As it dipped down and turned west, there was an old terebinth tree. She could see men and women beneath it, some sleeping, some talking, others looking toward the villa. Were they weary travelers resting in the shade? Or were they the amoratae Atretes so despised, waiting for a glimpse of their idol?
The hills, green from a recent rain, were a more welcome sight. What pleasure it would be to walk up there, to sit on a hillside and let Caleb feel the grass between his toes.
She glanced back at him and saw he had fallen asleep beside the urn. Smiling, she went and knelt beside him. She gazed down at him for a long time, thinking how beautiful and perfect he was. She touched his palm. He grasped hold of her finger, his mouth working as though he nursed even in his dreams.
“What a miracle you are,” she said and lifted him tenderly. She laid him softly against her shoulder and lightly kissed his cheek. Closing her eyes, she breathed in deeply the scent of him. Sweet innocence. New beginnings.
“What are you doing in here?”
The hard deep voice startled her. Glancing back, she rose, facing Atretes in the doorway. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed in this chamber.”
Atretes entered the room and looked at her shawl still lying on the floor beside the shiny urn. “Do as you like.”
She retrieved her shawl and shook it, draping it over her other shoulder, out of the way of Caleb. She smiled at him in appeal. “What I would like is to take Caleb for a walk in the hills.”
“No,” he said, angry that he was struck again by her beauty.
“Under guard?”
“No.” He came toward her and stopped a few feet away. His eyes narrowed. “And you will not stand out on the balcony where you can be seen again either.”
She glanced toward the balcony with a frown. “Where were you that you could see me?”
Atretes stepped by her and went out into the sunlight. “You can be sure Sertes’ spy saw you.”
“Spy? Where?”
He leaned against the balcony wall and nodded toward the road. “He’s sitting under that tree down there.”
“They look like travelers.”
“I recognized him from the ludus.”
“Oh.” She let out her breath softly. “Perhaps he’ll assume I’m a servant cleaning the upstairs chambers.”
“Standing idle and gazing out into the hills?”
She blushed. “Are you sure he’s the one spying on me?”
Atretes pushed away from the wall and walked back inside. “Yes, I have you watched. I know exactly where you are and what you’re doing every minute of the day.” He stopped in front of her. “And night.”
She forced a smile, her heart drumming. “I’m thankful to know Caleb is so well guarded.”
A muscle jerked in Atretes’ cheek. His gaze flickered over her. He stepped past her again. She felt as though she was being circled by a hungry lion.
“This was once my room,” he said without inflection.
“Pilia told me.”
He came around the other side of her, his eyes hard. “Did Pilia tell you anything else?”
“She said you don’t like to come in here.” She glanced around, admiring the marble walls and muraled floor. “It’s a lovely room, full of sunlight.”
“The largest and best in the house,” he said, his tone acrid.
Troubled, she glanced up at him. Questions flooded her mind, but she held her silence.
He cast a cursory glance around the empty room, his face hard. “A bedchamber fit for a queen.”
“I apologize for intruding where I shouldn’t have. I won’t come in here again.” Excusing herself, she left the chamber, breathing a sigh of relief when she was in the outer corridor and out from under that cold, blue stare.
Rizpah spent the rest of the afternoon in the atrium. She held Caleb on the edge of the pond and let him kick his feet in the water. When he became hungry, she adjourned to an alcove and nursed him.
When Caleb was replete, she went to the kitchen and asked for something to eat. The cook put bread, fruit, and thin slices of meat on a platter. He carried it, along with a small pitcher of wine, into a room with a long table where the slaves ate. Setting the meal down, he left her. Sitting at the bench, Rizpah gave thanks to God and ate alone. The silence was oppressive.
Pilia came in with baskets of bread. Rizpah smiled and greeted her, but the girl plunked a basket down and walked quickly away fro
m the table. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, and when she glanced back at Rizpah, her expression was one of unveiled resentment. Frowning in confusion, Rizpah watched her set the remaining baskets of bread on the table and leave.
Sighing, Rizpah rose. When she went out into the corridor, she saw the girl coming back with a tray of fruit. Pilia marched past her, pointedly ignoring her. Annoyed, Rizpah followed her into the small hall. “What’s wrong, Pilia?”
“Nothing.”
“You appear very upset about something.”
“Upset?” She banged the tray down. “What right have I to be upset?” She marched out of the room again.
Rizpah shifted Caleb and waited. Pilia entered again with a stack of wooden plates. Rizpah watched her slam them one by one into place along the opposite side of the table. “Have I offended you in some way?”
Pilia stopped at the end of the table, clutching the remaining wooden plates against her. Her angry eyes filled with tears. “It would seem I’m no longer to be called to Atretes’ bed.”
Rizpah hadn’t known of their relationship and was dismayed by the pang she felt upon hearing of it. “What has that to do with me?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” Pilia said and began laying out the rest of the plates.
“I don’t know,” she said uneasily.
Finishing her task, Pilia swept out of the room again.
Troubled, Rizpah lifted Caleb, secured him to her with her shawl, and went to her room. When she opened the door, she found the room bare. The blood drained from her face. She went in search of Lagos and found him in the bibliotheca, the large library, going over household accounts.
“Where are my things?”
“The master ordered them moved to the bedchamber on the second floor.”
She thought of Pilia and her face went hot. “Why?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Where is he?”
He glanced up in clear warning. “If I were you, I wouldn’t—”
“Where is he?”
“In the gymnasium, but—”
She swung around and left.
When she entered the gymnasium, she found Atretes, stripped down to a loincloth, his arms draped across a beam on his shoulders as he did knee bends. His eyes were fixed on her as though he had heard her coming along the outer corridor and had been expecting her.
Drawing a calming breath, she walked over to him. He didn’t pause from his exercises, though his powerful body streamed sweat. “Please have my things moved back downstairs.”
“You said the room was lovely.”
“It is, but that doesn’t mean I want to live in it.”
He shrugged off the beam. It banged loudly on the marble floor, the sound echoing around the walls. Startled from his sleep, Caleb made a soft mewling cry. Rizpah drew the shawl more securely around him as the beam bounced noisily and rolled against the wall. She rubbed Caleb’s back to comfort him.
“I prefer to be downstairs where I was,” she said with more calm than she felt.
“I don’t care what you prefer.” Atretes took a towel and wiped the sweat from his face. “You’ll be upstairs in the room next to mine.”
Her stomach tightened in alarm. “If I’m in such close proximity to you, the servants will assume—”
Atretes tossed the towel angrily onto the floor. “I don’t care what anyone assumes!”
“I care! It’s my reputation that’s being bandied about.”
“As it has been from the first day you arrived.”
“For reasons other than the situation you’re creating!”
“Do you think anyone really cares what goes on between us?”
She almost blurted out that Pilia obviously did, but stopped herself. She didn’t want to get the girl in additional difficulty. She wanted to get herself out of it. “It is not proper.”
“But it is convenient,” he said with a decided gleam in his eyes.
Her face went hot. “Anytime you wish to see your son, you’ve only to snap your fingers and I’ll bring him to you,” she said, pretending to misunderstand.
Smiling faintly, he approached her. He put his hand over hers on his son’s back. She withdrew hers, heart thudding. He rubbed Caleb’s back slowly, staring into her eyes. She felt the baby relax against her. Atretes lifted his hand and put it lightly around her throat, forcing her chin up with his thumb. “And if it’s you I want, have I also only to snap my fingers and you’ll come to me as well?”
She stepped back and swallowed convulsively, her heart racing. She could still feel the heat where he had touched her. “No!” she said firmly.
His mouth curved. “You think not?” He had felt the pulse hammering in her throat. It matched his own. A few nights with her and the fire in him would burn itself out. “It would be easy to convince you otherwise.”
She stiffened, ashamed of her own response to him. “I’m not one of your amoratae, my lord.”
He walked back and picked up another towel. “I’m not looking for someone to love me,” he said. Grinning wryly, he rubbed the perspiration from his chest.
“I asked you not to play with me, Atretes, and this is the sort of playing I meant.”
“You said the other day I needed to play.”
“With your son. Not with me.”
“I think you’d be more fun.”
She would take care of moving her things herself. Turning, she started for the doorway with that intention.
Atretes caught her arm and yanked her around to face him again. “Don’t turn your back on me.”
Caleb awakened and started to cry.
Atretes gritted his teeth. “I didn’t call you in here,” he said. “I didn’t summon you.”
“My apologies. If you let go of me, I’ll leave.”
His fingers tightened painfully. “Now that you’re here, you’ll leave when I dismiss you.” His blue eyes were ablaze. “You’re moved into Julia’s room whether you like it or not.” Seeing her wince, he released her.
“I don’t like it,” she said succinctly, holding Caleb instinctively closer while stepping back from his father.
“You’ll stay where I put you. Willingly or not, your choice. But stay, you will!” His smile turned contemptuous. “And you needn’t look at me like that. I’ve never raped a woman in my life and I don’t intend to start now.” His gaze moved down over her disdainfully. “If you’re as chaste as you claim, you won’t have a problem, will you?”
She clenched her teeth.
He walked back to the beam and hefted it onto to his shoulders. Turning, he saw she was still standing in the middle of the room, her eyes fixed on the distant wall. He sensed her discomfort and the reason for it.
“May I go now, my lord?” she said tautly.
“Not yet.” He began his exercises again, leaving her to stand for several minutes in silence.
She stood rigid, waiting. He took pleasure looking at her and even greater pleasure in her vexation. Let her grind her teeth as she made him do. He let the moment stretch to two, three, four. Then he dropped the beam.
“You may go. But remember this: The next time you wish to speak to me, send Lagos first to ask my permission!”
6
Gallus sent word that Sertes had been sighted coming up the road from Ephesus. Atretes swore under his breath, in no mood to deal with him. He almost told Gallus to refuse him entrance to the villa and then thought better of it. Though he cared nothing about giving offense to Roman officials, he knew instinctively that Sertes was one to handle with great caution.
“Admit him and bring him to the triclinium,” he said, and Gallus departed. “Lagos, bring wine and have the cook prepare food for us.”
“Yes, my lord,” Lagos said. “Is there anything else?”
Atretes frowned, his mind working quickly. He remembered all too clearly the interest Sertes had shown toward Rizpah and the baby during his last visit. “Tell the widow to remain in her chambers. Make su
re of it. Lock the door!”
“Yes, my lord.” Lagos hurried off to do his bidding.
“And have Pilia serve us!” Atretes shouted after him. The girl was pretty, perhaps pretty enough to divert Sertes from speculating about Rizpah. He would make sure of it.
Sertes clasped Atretes’ hand in greeting, smiling broadly at the warm welcome, shrewdly aware there was some hidden reason for it. “You are looking well, my friend,” he said, gripping Atretes’ upper arm.
“Sit. Enjoy some wine,” Atretes said, gesturing casually toward one of the comfortable cushioned couches while he reclined on one himself.
“After your last greeting, I expected to be turned away at the gate,” Sertes said, accepting the invitation.
“I thought of it, but you’d only persist.”
“You know me too well.” He smiled. “As I know you, Atretes. After months of seclusion, you must be mad for distraction. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be so amenable.”
Atretes turned a cynical gaze on him. “Perhaps, but I’m not mad enough to return to the arena.”
“A pity,” Sertes sighed, “but I live in hope.” He watched a pretty slave girl enter the room with wine. She served Atretes first. Sertes observed how Atretes’ gaze moved down over the girl’s lush curves in an intimate, almost fond, perusal. What was this? he wondered in annoyance. The girl’s skin took on a rosy hue. She seemed flustered when Atretes smiled at her. “Don’t forget my guest,” he said softly, running his hand down over her hip and patting her bottom lightly.
“I’m sorry, my lord,” she stammered and turned to Sertes.
When she departed, Sertes raised his brow. “A new acquisition?”
“I bought her for Julia.” He grinned roguishly. “She serves me instead.”
Sertes laughed, hiding his displeasure as he sipped his wine. “And what of the pretty widow I saw the last time?”
“Pilia is a better fit,” Atretes said and tried to remember if he’d told Sertes Rizpah was a widow. If he hadn’t, it boded an ill wind that Sertes knew anything about her.
How much more did he know?
Sertes assessed Atretes’ expression. “So you’ve tired of the other already?”