Avenger of Blood (14 page)

When they reached the stone house, they tied their horses in front. Antony hadn't known what to expect of the witch's house. It was small but neat, he noted, and would have appeared inviting in other circumstances. As they walked up to the door, Antony felt for the dagger under his cloak, satisfying himself that his weapon was still in place. He hoped he would not have to use it, but he had decided he would not leave this place without Victor, whatever it took.

Plautius rapped forcefully on the door, but there was no response. He knocked again; still no answer.

Sergius pushed on the door, but it didn't budge. Antony was sure it had been bolted from the inside.
So much for Plautius's idea,
he thought.

“Tullia,” Sergius called in a loud voice. “Open up. We're not leaving until you do.”

Antony looked around, wondering how else they could get inside. If there were windows along the side of the house, they would probably be shuttered; however, they would be easier to break down than the solid door. Before he could suggest it to the others, Antony heard footsteps approaching the entrance from the inside.

An attractive but disheveled woman opened the door. Her light-brown hair was unpinned and windblown, her clothes dirt-stained and in disarray. Oddly, though, her face and hands were clean and still damp, as if she had just washed. Her complexion was lighter than most of the local women, Antony noted, and her skin had a pinkish glow from the fresh scrubbing.

“Good day, Tullia.” Plautius nodded politely.

“I'm not receiving visitors,” she announced. “Especially not you two.” Tullia did not invite them in, and she did not step over the threshold toward the unexpected guests. Keeping one hand on the open door, she glanced uneasily at her cousins, as if wary of their motives.

“We won't stay long,” Plautius said. “We just came for the child.”

“What are you talking about?” Tullia asked.

“You know exactly what we're talking about.” Sergius was not as patient or as even-tempered as his brother. “We want the child Damian brought you for safekeeping.”

Tullia's eyes widened, and she hesitated slightly before denying the accusation. “There's no child here,” she said, “and I think you should leave now.” She started to close the door, but Antony anticipated her movement and quickly wedged his foot inside.

“Where is Damian?” Antony asked, pushing the door open wide and forcing Tullia to take a step backward. “Is he here?”

“And just who are you?” Tullia demanded.

Antony stepped inside the atrium, and Plautius and Sergius quickly entered after him. “I'm the child's legal guardian,” Antony said. He watched a flicker of alarm cross Tullia's face, and he took advantage of it to challenge her. “If you don't want to get in trouble with the authorities,” he said, “I suggest you hand him over now.”

He wasn't exactly Victor's guardian; that was stretching the truth. But Antony could legitimately be called the child's legal representative, and he was more than willing to use whatever leverage he might have to get Tullia to turn Victor over to them.

“You should be the ones worried about the authorities,” she said. “You're trespassing.”

Antony ignored the implied threat. Her defiance was a bluff, an attempt to distract them from the issue. “We know Damian is in Smyrna,” he said, “and that he brought the baby he kidnapped here.”

“Kidnapped? But—”

Antony watched Tullia's mouth clamp shut almost as quickly as the question escaped her lips. She had known about Victor, all right, but she hadn't known he'd been kidnapped. Even if she was telling the truth and Victor wasn't here at the moment, odds were that he had been. Antony's instincts told him that Tullia knew where the child was, and he pressed her for more information.

“If Damian is here,” Antony said, a menacing tone in his voice, “you're harboring a criminal.”

“Damian is not here,” she said. “And he's not a criminal. He's a Roman tribune.”

“He's a kidnapper,” Antony countered.

“Taking your son away from an unfit mother is not the same as kidnapping,” Tullia insisted. “That baby is Damian's own flesh and blood.”

“I thought you didn't know anything about a child,” Sergius said. “You never could tell the truth, could you, Tullia?”

“I never could abide
you
,” Tullia snapped. “And I can't abide your presence in my house now.”

Antony stepped between Sergius and Tullia. He didn't want their personal animosity to overshadow the attempt to find Victor. “So Damian did bring the child to you,” Antony said to her. “Where is he now?”

Tullia glared at Sergius without responding to Antony's question.

“Tell me,” the lawyer insisted. “I won't leave until I know where Victor is.”

The witch turned to face Antony, fire flashing in her eyes. “The child is not here.” She spoke slowly and with finality. “And you won't ever find him.”

Antony moved his hand toward the dagger stashed in his belt. Something about the sound of her voice unsettled him, not to mention the eerie light in her eyes. He had the feeling he was looking into the beautiful face of evil, and it frightened him.

“I've cast a spell on the child's family,” Tullia continued. “All of them will die or meet with grave injury.” Her mouth twisted into a malevolent smile and the facade of beauty vanished in the blink of an eye.

“And it's working,” she informed them. “One man is already dead, and you could be next.” She pointed at Antony, and he felt a wave of pure malice radiating from her.

Antony did not pause to consider the implications of Tullia's spell on Rebecca and her family; he responded instinctively to the personal threat. In a flash he removed his weapon, and at the same time Sergius grabbed Tullia, pinning her arms behind her.

“Search the house,” Sergius shouted. “Quickly!”

Plautius moved to help Sergius subdue the thrashing Tullia, who alternately screamed curses and invoked strange spirits.

Dagger in hand, Antony went looking for Victor. It took only a few minutes to go from room to room in the small house. There was no sign of the child, no sign of Damian.

He returned to the atrium and found the brothers holding Tullia. She was quieter now, but still furious.

“Did you find him?” Sergius asked. He had a mark beside his right eye, where Tullia had evidently managed to land a blow before Plautius had come to his assistance.

Antony shook his head. “No. Nothing,” he said.

“I told you he wasn't here,” Tullia said. “Now let me go.”

Plautius stepped to one side, and Sergius reluctantly released his hold on Tullia. “You'll not prosper in this wickedness,” he told her.

Tullia smiled again, and the sight sickened Antony. “You think not?” she asked. “Remember what happened to Cornelia, dear cousin. For your own sake, I suggest you leave me alone.”

Antony heard a note of triumph in her voice, and it angered him. “We'll leave now,” he said before Sergius could reply. “But we won't go back to Ephesus without Victor.”

“We'll be watching you,” Plautius said. “Watching and praying, Tullia.”

The reference to prayer annoyed the witch. “Get out of my house this instant,” she yelled. “In the name of Artemis, I command you to leave!”

Plautius responded, “In the name of Jesus Christ, and by His authority, I command you to leave this child and his family alone. The boy belongs to God, and you'll not harm him.” He fixed an unflinching gaze on the nefarious woman as he spoke a word of prophecy: “Renounce your evil deeds,” he said, “or all your curses will come back on you.”

Tullia laughed, but it was a hollow sound. She appeared shaken as the three men left her house.

Outside, Antony sheathed his dagger and mounted his horse. He was relieved to be out of the place, but more concerned about Victor's whereabouts than ever. Where had Damian taken him? Tullia had said they would never find the baby. She knew where he was, Antony was certain; but how were they supposed to find the hiding place?

And what had happened to Marcellus and Verus? Antony suddenly realized they had never made it to Tullia's. He and Plautius and Sergius hadn't been inside the house for very long, yet it worried Antony that the others had not joined them. Were they still searching the woods?

Antony thought of the riderless horse at the edge of the thicket, and a new apprehension welled up in him. Not only had they not found Victor, they also had not run into Jacob—and Antony knew Jacob had left for Tullia's house a couple of hours before they had. Now Marcellus and Verus were unaccounted for as well. It was more than a little worrisome.

They rode about a quarter-mile, to the point where the cutoff to Tullia's house met the road they'd taken from the inn. Antony started to turn right and retrace their route, but Plautius called out for him to stop.

Antony pulled on the reins to turn his horse around. “What is it?”

Plautius looked thoughtful but didn't speak.

“Well?” Sergius prompted.

“Follow me,” Plautius finally said. “I think I know where to find Victor.”

Marcellus had taken only a few steps into the forest when he began to have the same eerie feeling Antony had tried to express—a feeling that some evil force lurked just ahead.

An experienced hunter, Verus took the lead. He could tell which direction the unknown man had taken by spotting broken twigs and trampled grass, and the trail was definitely leading toward the back of Tullia's house.

They had made it almost to the edge of the woods—Marcellus could see a house beyond the trees—when Verus suddenly stopped. “Look at that,” he said.

Marcellus strained to see what Verus was talking about.

“Right here. The two ruts.” Verus followed the closely spaced ruts for a few paces. “Looks like something—or somebody—has been dragged through here.”

“Maybe somebody killed a deer . . .” Marcellus said tentatively.

Verus's voice was grim. “The ruts are too big for hooves. A bear, maybe. But the hunters have killed them all off. Haven't seen a bear in these woods since I was a kid.”

If it wasn't an animal that had been hauled through the woods, Marcellus thought, then it must have been a man. He could picture a man's feet making the ruts as his body was dragged, and that image gave Marcellus a chill as he followed close behind Verus.

The trail led them into the clearing behind the house, and when the trail stopped, Marcellus's sense of foreboding mushroomed. A fresh mound of dirt lay in front of them. Any idea that someone had been dragging an animal through the forest vanished from Marcellus's mind. They wouldn't have buried an animal, and this looked exactly like a hastily prepared grave.

Verus reached the same conclusion. “The good news,” he said, “is that it's much too big to be a child.”

No, Marcellus agreed silently, the dirt mound was about the size of a six-foot man. A man the size of Jacob.

Marcellus squatted on his haunches and touched the damp earth. He wondered if his friend had been killed in the woods, then dragged back here and buried. Antony had had a strong feeling that the abandoned horse had belonged to Jacob. Was the lawyer right? Was it Jacob's body covered up here?

Verus touched Marcellus's shoulder. “Whoever it is,” he said, “there's nothing we can do for him now.”

Feeling helpless, Marcellus couldn't resist scooping a few handfuls of dirt off the top of the grave. He and Verus could dig out the body . . .

No, it would probably grow dark before they could finish the job, and what good would it do, anyway? It wouldn't bring Jacob back if he were indeed dead.

Marcellus thought about Rebecca and how she would take the news if Jacob had been killed trying to rescue Victor. It would be yet another staggering blow, and Marcellus couldn't bear the thought of having to tell her.

Maybe it's not even him,
Marcellus reminded himself. But his gut told him it was.

He silently vowed to come back the next day and dig up the body; he had to know for sure.
If it's you, Jacob, I'll take you back to Ephesus. I promise.
Marcellus would make sure Jacob was buried in the family tomb with his parents. It was the least he could do for Rebecca.

Verus was right: There was nothing they could do here now; they'd better join the others. And they'd better do whatever it took to get Victor back. That was the one thing that would soften the blow to Rebecca if something terrible had happened to Jacob.

Marcellus was about to stand to his feet when the ground shifted slightly in front of him. It distracted him enough to look down. His first thought was that perhaps he had still been holding a handful of dirt and had dropped it without paying attention to what he was doing.

He abandoned that thought when five fingers suddenly burst through the ground and a man's hand reached for him.

Antony and Sergius followed Plautius, who shielded his eyes against the late afternoon sun as he turned his horse to the left, heading away from the road they'd taken from town.

Sergius immediately hazarded a guess as to their destination. “You figure they're hiding the baby at the old mill.”

“Makes sense, if you think about it,” Plautius said. “It's close by, yet can't be seen from Tullia's if someone comes snooping around. And it's isolated. Few people travel this road, and they wouldn't stop at an abandoned mill if they did venture out this way.”

It was isolated, all right, Antony thought. They hadn't ridden far when the road narrowed. Actually,
road
was an optimistic term for what was now an unpaved, overgrown path. But someone had been here recently: Antony could see the tracks of a wheeled vehicle in the hard-packed ground.

Sergius shook his head dismally. “Not a fit place for a child. The granary had all but crumbled to the ground last time I saw it, and that was several years ago.”