The Last Sacrifice (31 page)

The eyehole slid shut.

Pavo began kicking the door. Methodically, loudly.

The eyehole slid open again. “Stop or I send for soldiers.”

“Just let me speak to Issachar.”

“He doesn’t live here.”

“But I was told this was where to find him.”

“Not anymore,” the voice said firmly. “Now go away.”

“Wait. He lived here once?”

“Until a few weeks ago.”

Pavo relaxed somewhat. “Where do I find him now?” Pavo dug into a pouch and offered a coin through the eyehole.

Fingers snatched it away. “More,” the voice said.

“Sure.” Pavo sounded in good humor.

He held out another coin, teasing the man to stick his fingers out to grab it. This time, however, Pavo grabbed the fingers that darted through the eyehole opening.

A howl of pain came from the other side as Pavo bent back the man’s fingers.

“Where do I find him?” Pavo had to yell to be heard above the other man.

He eased off enough for the howling to stop.

“Go to the main market of the Jewish Quarter and ask,” the man said. “Just like I told the last man who came spouting the same nonsense.”

“What man?” Pavo increased the pressure on the man’s fingers.

More howling.

Pavo eased the pressure again, and the howl stopped. “Answer quickly before I break every bone.”

“Some man. A half hour ago. That’s all I know.”

“Fine then,” Pavo said. “Throw my other coin back over the gate.”

“What?”

Pavo bent the man’s fingers. The howling resumed. Pavo took the pressure off again. “I told you to throw my first coin back to me.”

Seconds later, the coin landed with a clink on the stone of the road.

Pavo let go of the hidden man’s fingers. “Thanks,” he said cheerfully. He stepped aside and dodged a spray of spit from the eyehole.

It slammed shut.

“Well,” Pavo told Vitas, ignoring the curses from the other side of the gate, “it looks like I’m stuck with you for just a while longer.”

Hora Nonana

“This must be wrong,” Pavo told Vitas. “Absolutely wrong. I’ve been given the wrong directions.”

Five of them stood in an alley—Pavo, Vitas, and the three crew members who had escorted Vitas as if he were a captive slave.

The alley was barely more than a passageway. It was so narrow that the two apartment-building walls seemed to lean into each other above them. No sunlight reached the alley. Vitas had expected the smell of garbage to be especially poignant. Strangely, however, the length of this alley—all the way back to the crowded market behind them— had been cleared of garbage. A few small boxes hung from nails inserted into cracks in the walls of the four-story building; flowers and vines spilled out from the boxes and added welcome color to the bleak scene.

“How could anyone here know anybody in Rome?” Pavo continued, muttering. “This is so wrong.”

Vitas remained silent. Pavo had said nothing about their destination, nor the reason he’d taken Vitas off the ship as a captive. They’d walked for nearly an hour already, moving upward and eastward from the Great Harbor to the sprawling Jewish Quarter of Alexandria, walking wide streets past opulent mansions with private oasis gardens behind thick courtyard walls, then seeing smaller but still luxurious homes, then apartment blocks; and as they moved deeper into the Jewish Quarter, a mixture of homes and slums, until reaching a market bazaar with warrens of alleys branching out from it like cracks in parched soil.

“Well,” Pavo demanded. “Tell me. Who here would know someone in Rome?”

“I assumed it was a rhetorical question,” Vitas said mildly. He wasn’t upset. He was certain that Pavo intended no bodily harm and equally certain that he was not being delivered into danger. If someone in Rome had wanted him dead, that person or persons would have left him to face the animals in the arena instead of going to all this complicated and secretive effort to send him out of Nero’s reach. Out of curiosity, Vitas had decided to passively go where Pavo led, then at the best opportunity, escape and return to Alexandria’s Great Harbor to find a ship going to Rome, where he would give a passenger a letter to deliver to his brother, Damian.

“Rhetorical?” Pavo said. “Don’t play Greek logic word games with me.”

“My only involvement so far has been to walk where prodded.”

“As if you don’t know where I’m taking you.”

Vitas shrugged.

“Your friends in Rome,” Pavo said, “made my task very clear. Deliver you to a man named Issachar in Alexandria. Since they are your friends, why wouldn’t you know Issachar?”

Because,
Vitas thought,
I have no idea who put me on this ship. Nor why.

“Look at this,” Pavo snapped, gesturing at their surroundings. “Is this where the rich and powerful live?”

His question did not need an answer. That they were at the rear of the Roman-style buildings, facing steps to take them to the top floor, suggested that the only residents ever traveling this path were the poorest of poor, forced to live on the top floor in cramped rooms.

Creaking of the steps above them alerted Vitas and Pavo that someone was climbing down to the alley.

“Good,” Pavo said. “Saves me the effort of going up myself to ask for the man.”

Moments later, a tall, thin man stepped onto the dirt of the alley. He was stooped and had a gnarled old face. His most distinctive feature was his left hand, where all that remained were his thumb and index finger.

His eyes met Pavo’s, and the man flinched as if a cold wind had blown over him.

“By the gods,” Pavo roared. “What are you doing here?”

“Hello? Hello?”

It was a soft voice calling from the entrance of the cave.

Sophia, curled on her side and staring at nothing, lifted her head from the pillow she had made from her filthy coat. The cave was on the eastern slope of the island hills, already in the shadow of late-afternoon sun. Yet there was enough light in the sky that a bulging outline of a woman was clearly visible at the entrance.

“Hello?” the woman repeated. “Hello? I’ve brought food and drink.”

The woman moved inside slowly. Her right arm seemed pinned in a peculiar manner to her right side. Her left arm was bent at the elbow to hold the handle of a basket.

“Hello?”

For Sophia, finding the strength to sit upright was like pulling herself out of mud. “I’m here,” she said in a dull voice.

The woman shuffled slowly deeper into the cave. She was breathing hard. She groaned as she settled heavily beside Sophia.

“Forgive me,” she said, her right side facing away from Sophia. She released the basket handle from the crook of her left arm, letting it slide down to her hand. She set the basket down gently. “I’m in my final month, and it feels like I’ve been pregnant forever.”

Pregnant. Sophia was in her third month. Once, the thought had filled her with joy. Now it was merely a burden that made it difficult to keep down food that was tasteless in the first place.

“Strabo and Ben-Aryeh are at the cottage,” the woman said. She removed a veil from her head with her left hand. The indirect light from the mouth of the cave was enough to highlight the left side of her face. She was young too, perhaps Sophia’s age, with a classic beauty and skin that looked unworn by time or sorrow. “They are discussing goats as if they have been friends for years. They told me you prefer to remain here.”

Sophia shrugged. What difference did it make? Strabo and Ben-Aryeh had already decided that she and Ben-Aryeh would spend the night in the cave. Why go through the effort of leaving it? Besides, there was something comforting to Sophia about staying in a cave. Perhaps she would never leave.

“The soldiers didn’t stay long,” the woman said. “Zeno—he’s our son—and I sat in the vineyard and sang songs to each other while we waited for them to tire of looking for us. If it hadn’t been for the heat and my pregnancy, it would have been enjoyable. As it was, it wasn’t too much of a hardship.”

“We’re sorry to bring trouble on you,” Sophia mumbled. Then, without warning, she found herself weeping.

The woman put her left hand on Sophia’s shoulder, but Sophia shook it off. Nothing would help. Nothing mattered.

The woman pretended it had not happened. “My name is Chara,” she said. She turned slightly. “I’m Strabo’s wife.”

Sophia didn’t bother to wipe the tears from her face. Perhaps if she refused to talk, the woman would go away.

“You saw Strabo giving a lesson to our new goat,” Chara said. “Ben-Aryeh tells me it’s the funniest thing he’s seen in years.”

Sophia didn’t care.

“If you’re curious,” Chara continued, “Strabo does that because whenever he buys a new male goat, he wants to teach the goat to be afraid of him. Out on the hillside, when Strabo is tending to some of the nannies, he doesn’t want to worry about the goat attacking him.”

Sophia wasn’t even a bit curious. She only wanted to lie down again and sleep and never wake.

“A full-sized man doesn’t have to worry about such things,” Chara said lightly. “But Strabo is a brave man and he accepts his size without complaining.” Chara paused. Smiled. “At least, without complaining much.” Chara’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You lost your husband, I’m told. I am so sorry for you.”

Sophia barely shrugged. “Terrible things happen. Everywhere. All the time. Sorrow is so common in this world it is hardly worth a thought.”

“Just as love is unique to each of us,” Chara said softly, “so is the sorrow that comes when something loved is lost.”

“Don’t waste pity on me. I don’t.”

Which was true. Hour by hour, day by day, Sophia felt nothing. Only emptiness, filling a black chasm of apathy. She followed Ben-Aryeh because there was nothing else to be done.

“It’s not pity but shared sorrow.”

“What do you know about sorrow?” Sophia said. “You have a boy, a baby on the way, a husband, and a home.”

“My heart knows that no sorrow is too great for our Father to overcome,” Chara answered. “I’ve been given hope beyond understanding because of this faith.”

Sophia didn’t bother to answer.

“In Ephesus, there was a man named John,” Chara said. “Through his teachings, I heard about this great hope through a Nazarene sent from God.”

“Yes, yes,” Sophia said, sinking deeper into herself. “The Christos. I’m familiar with the teachings.”

“But do you
know
the Christos? No matter how heavy your burden, He will take it from you and—”

“I want to sleep,” Sophia said.

“I understand,” Chara said.

No, you don’t
, Sophia thought.
You don’t understand the distance between me and God. You don’t understand that the teachings of the Christos no longer seem to give solace. You don’t understand that sleep has become an escape, yet no amount of sleep removes the exhaustion.

Chara used her left arm to push herself forward, then, as if a thought hit her, settled back. After long moments, perhaps gathering her words, she spoke. “Lucullus, the commander of the barracks, brings prostitutes to the island from Ephesus on the supply ship. Most women leave on the next ship. Some stay longer, because the money is good and the soldiers have no other place to spend it.”

What of it?
Sophia thought.
Prostitutes are common.

“I was one of them,” Chara said, as if accurately reading her silence. “And I was one of them who didn’t return to Ephesus on the next supply ship.”

Chara sighed. “For me, the money was so good that I sent for my son, Zeno. I lived in a small cottage near the sea. My time with Zeno was all that mattered. My time with the soldiers . . .”

Chara stopped, gathering her words again. “My time with soldiers was no different than my time with men in Ephesus. The more money I made, the less value I felt. When John arrived on the island, I felt a hunger to hear more of what he’d been teaching in Ephesus. Day after day, I returned to John to ask about the Christos, until one morning I finally fell on my knees and prayed to the Christos. All my shame and worthlessness was taken away. John baptized me, as he had once seen the Christos baptized. I had worth again. I was healed in a way that no doctor could ever heal me.”

“I am familiar with the teachings,” Sophia said. “Thank you for your effort to share them with me.”

“No matter what tribulation we face, because of the Christos and His sacrifice, Gentile or Jew, through faith in the Christos, we all become part of the true Israel and heirs of God’s promises to Abraham.”

“I am tired,” Sophia said.

Chara did not seem to take insult at Sophia’s bluntness. Not that Sophia cared what Chara thought.

“I will leave you in peace,” Chara said. Chara kept the left side of her face toward Sophia as she struggled to her feet. “Ben-Aryeh will have blankets to keep you warm while you stay in the cave.” She leaned over and pushed the basket toward Sophia. “There is plenty. Strabo is a good man and provides well for his family.”

“You are a blessed woman,” Sophia said with a trace of bitterness, the only emotion that ever came when she found the strength for any feelings.

Chara must have understood the tone in her voice. “Please forgive me. I did not mean to point out that I have what you don’t.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” Sophia said. “My husband is dead. There is nothing I care about. Truly.”

Two of Vitas’s escorts had the man with the missing fingers pressed against the wall.

Like Pavo, Vitas had recognized the man immediately. One of the crew members on Pavo’s ship.

“Grab his left hand,” Pavo told the remaining crewman. “Cut off his thumb.”

“Not the finger?”

“It will be useless without a thumb. Let him live with that.”

“No,” the man against the wall wailed.

“How did you find out this is where we were going?”

“I . . . I didn’t.”

“You’re here. Ahead of us. You didn’t follow.” Pavo’s eyes seemed small, cold, like stones. A predator focused on prey. “I want to know how you knew I would be here.”

“I didn’t know! I swear by the gods.”

“Try some fingers from his other hand,” Pavo told his men.

“Stop.” The quietness of Vitas’s command spoke far more forcefully than any other inflection could have.