Avenger of Blood (19 page)

Aurora was still asleep on her pallet when Agatha returned to her room with Priscilla.

“I'll sit and watch her while you take a nap,” Priscilla said.

“That's sweet of you to offer,” Agatha replied as she stretched out on her bed, thankful to be off her feet. She was feeling better today, but being up still tired her quickly.

Priscilla smoothed the bed covers around Agatha, then got down on the pallet with the baby. Tending the sick seemed to come naturally to the young girl, Agatha thought. She hoped Aurora would one day be that kind and compassionate.

As Agatha closed her eyes, Priscilla softly said, “Do you think they'll find Victor? I've been praying for him.”

Agatha looked at her sleeping daughter lying beside Priscilla, and her faith stirred. “God can find missing children. That's something I know for sure.”

14

FOR THE THIRD TIME IN AS MANY DAYS, Rebecca rode in the bouncing carriage. This time, however, she barely felt the bumps. Polycarp had given her a plump pillow to sit on, but that was not what cushioned the ride. Rebecca's comfort came from holding her son in her arms and knowing that they were going home.

Antony had been terribly concerned that they leave Smyrna before Damian discovered where they were. So after a night of little sleep, they had departed before the sun had completely risen. It had been well after dark the night before when Antony and the others had returned with Victor, and they had all talked for several hours afterward.

Only one other passenger traveled with Antony and Rebecca in the newly repaired coach: the nurse Damian had mistreated so badly. The woman, whose name was Clara, had tried to take good care of Victor in spite of the difficult situation, and Rebecca was relieved that her son seemed to be fine. Victor dozed contentedly in her arms, unaware of the trauma he'd been through.

Marcellus had stayed in Smyrna with John. From there they would leave to deliver the copies of John's revelation to five other churches: Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. They planned to visit each congregation on the Lord's Day, so making the circuit would take them six weeks, counting the time they spent with Polycarp and his church.

Jacob had also stayed in Smyrna, too weak to travel yet, but strong enough to complain that the rest of them hadn't killed Damian when they'd rescued Victor.

“But Damian wasn't even there when we found Victor,” Antony had protested.

“And thank God for that,” Sergius said. One of his eyes was swollen almost shut, and he had a scratch down the side of his face. “Tullia was enough to handle.”

A look from John had silenced Jacob—for the moment, anyway. “You don't need his blood on your hands,” the Apostle had said.

Rebecca still couldn't believe her brother had been buried alive and survived. If Marcellus hadn't found Jacob when he did . . . well, she didn't want to think about that.

And if Antony hadn't found Victor . . . but he had. Praise God, he had. How thankful she was that Antony had been there to help. What would they have done without him?

She looked over at him now, and he smiled back at her. “Antony, thank you . . .” she said, wishing she could find words adequate to express her gratitude. Tears filled her eyes yet again. Rebecca had run the emotional gamut the last few days, having gone from profound fear to overwhelming relief, and her feelings were still fragile.

Antony shook his head. “You don't have to keep saying that,” he said. “All the reward I need is seeing you and Victor together again.”

Rebecca couldn't help remembering the reaction she'd had when Antony had returned with her son. Beyond her obvious relief, she'd been struck with the thought that Antony had looked completely natural when he walked carrying the baby.

“I've had lots of practice,” he'd told her later when she commented on it. “Mother was sick off and on after Priscilla was born, and I helped take care of the new baby sometimes.”

Now Rebecca turned away from Antony's gaze. She didn't know why she found his presence both reassuring and a bit unsettling at the same time. “Aren't we taking a different route out of the city?” she asked.

Antony confirmed the change in plan. “I asked Polycarp to direct us away from our original route. This will take us a bit out of the way, but we'll avoid the road that leads to Tullia's.”

“I'm glad for that,” Clara said. “I was scared when we passed that inn last night and saw Damian's horse.” Her shoulders quivered in a slight shudder, then she added, “I don't ever want to see that man again.”

“Tullia's brother owns the inn,” Antony explained to Rebecca, “and Damian was probably there getting food for his horses. He had stabled them at the old mill where we found Victor.”

“Either that or he was there getting drunk,” Clara said. “He would start drinking around sunset every night. He was mean enough when he was sober, but when he was drunk . . .”

How like Damian, Rebecca thought. He'd been more concerned about indulging his appetites than feeding his horse—let alone caring for his son.

“Whatever the reason,” Antony said, “it was our good fortune that he stayed gone long enough for us to make it out of there unseen.”

Rebecca looked up at him for a moment. Antony often said things that reminded her that as nice as he was, he was not a believer. “It wasn't good fortune,” she said. “It was divine providence.”

“Perhaps so,” he replied. “I suppose I wouldn't know anything about that.”

He sounded a bit defensive and Rebecca was sorry that her words had implied disapproval. She hadn't intended to correct him; she spoke without thinking because she was firmly convinced that God— not some impersonal force or mere good fortune—had helped them rescue Victor.

Rebecca had been surrounded by believers for so long, she didn't really know how to interact with a man like Antony. How could she feel free to speak her mind and share her faith without sounding condescending? In the future she would have to be more considerate, she decided. She didn't want to offend him, for Helena's sake.

That was the only reason for being more friendly, Rebecca told herself. It had nothing to do with the way she felt inside when she caught Antony looking at her.

And the bumps in the road—that must explain why her pulse had quickened. That's all it was.

After they had sung a hymn, Polycarp stood and addressed the believers who had gathered for worship early on Sunday morning. The young bishop introduced the elderly apostle and explained the purpose of John's visit. Then John began to tell the group about being a prisoner on Patmos, and how he had been “in the spirit on the Lord's Day” when he had received a vision.

Jacob listened halfheartedly. His head still throbbed from the blow he had received two days earlier. But his vision had cleared and he wasn't dizzy; he was grateful for that—grateful to be alive, actually.

He looked around at the people crammed into the dining room. Word had spread that the Apostle had returned with a special message for the church, and even though they met in one of the larger homes in the city, the place could not hold the crowd that had assembled for the occasion. The women and children sat on the floor, while the men lined up against the walls. Some stood in the doorway, and a few listened from the next room. Even the youngsters seemed to be spellbound as the Apostle recounted the story of his vision.

Having heard the account several times, Jacob let his mind wander. He felt oddly detached from his surroundings, as if he didn't belong. It wasn't just that he didn't know most of the people in the Smyrna church. Ever since he'd returned from exile he'd had a similar feeling whenever the church in Ephesus gathered at his family's villa for worship. Jacob knew the songs and knew the sermons—he had even preached some of them—yet he felt like an outsider now, and he wasn't sure why.

After a few minutes, John began to read from the lengthy scroll Rebecca had copied on Devil's Island. “To the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again. I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich! I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer.
Jacob had heard the words before; they sounded hollow to him now. He wanted to stand up and contradict John.
Go ahead and be afraid,
Jacob imagined himself saying to the congregation,
because you can't even conceive just how bad things could turn out.

He had been through the persecution, been imprisoned—and for a lot longer than ten days. Jacob knew that was a figurative number, but he could no longer suppress his resentment that things had turned out so horrendously and gone on for so long. For weeks he had been avoiding the thought, but now he admitted it to himself: Jacob felt as if God had turned His back on Abraham and Elizabeth and their entire family.

When they had arrived on Devil's Island, John had encouraged Jacob to be patient in suffering.
Patience
had never been a word in Jacob's vocabulary, but he had made a valiant attempt. Recently, John had even said that Jacob's patient endurance of life aboard the
Jupiter
was the reason God had sent someone to rescue him. Jacob didn't see it that way. He had saved the life of the highest-ranking admiral in the imperial navy;
that
was why Jacob had been given his freedom.

It wasn't that he wanted to reverse time and bring his parents back. That was impossible, and Jacob accepted it. And it wasn't that he expected God to undo all the damage that had been done. He
did
expect the suffering to come to an end, however, and it hadn't. Damian was still persecuting them.

Jacob was not convinced that it was God's will for Damian to torment them endlessly, and now more than ever, Jacob believed it was up to him to make the terror stop. If he killed Damian, there would be an end to his family's torment.

In Jacob's mind, it was that simple: no Damian, no terror.

Only one man was the source of their tribulation. The official persecution had ended, and politically things were settling down to the previous state of affairs—a sort of grudging toleration of those who denied the gods of Rome and worshiped only Christ. There was still hostility from certain quarters; in Smyrna it came especially from the Jewish population. “The synagogue of Satan,” John had called them.

John was no racist. He was Jewish himself, and he loved the people through whom God had chosen to reveal Himself. John's accusation against them stemmed from their instigation of the persecution, in many cases. Jacob knew from Polycarp that even before Damian's troops had arrived in Smyrna, some of the Jews had been bringing charges against Christians to harass them. When the Tenth Legion had arrived, the harassers readily cooperated, helping the imperial troops target believers for the mandatory sacrifice.

John cleared his throat and Jacob looked up. The Apostle's voice— a voice Jacob had heard all his life—was not as strong as it once had been, but it was still as authoritative. John continued reading: “Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?'”

Polycarp, who was seated to John's right on one of the few chairs in the room, leaned forward, a rapt expression on his face as the Apostle spoke. Jacob thought back to the time, just a year earlier, when he had sat at the front of the congregation with John and Polycarp. How proud he had been to be included in the inner circle, the young protégé of the last surviving member of the Twelve, the disciples who had left all to follow Jesus of Nazareth. The white-haired, wizened man with the raspy voice who now enthralled the listening throng with his revelation had been an eyewitness to the pivotal point of history: the crucifixion and resurrection. And not long ago Jacob had been an important part of John's ministry, with aspirations for a ministry of his own.

How could it be, Jacob wondered, that he now felt so alienated from it all? And why did that alienation not bother him more than it did?

John had confronted him about it the previous night. “You've left your first love,” John had accused. “You've lost your zeal.”

No, what I've lost,
Jacob thought now,
is my family
. And all of it had happened at Damian's hand.

There was one other thing Jacob had lost, or was in danger of losing: his self-respect. He keenly felt that he was responsible for taking care of the family now, and part of that responsibility included stopping Damian from harming them further. Once Jacob had made sure of that, he could turn his attention back to the ministry, or whatever else he decided to do. Jacob wasn't sure now exactly what that would be; he simply knew that whatever it was, it couldn't start until Damian was out of the picture.

Jacob also knew John would be even more upset with him. The Apostle wanted Jacob to accompany him as he delivered the letters to the other churches. “We can finish the ministry tour we started last year,” John had said. “You'll have more opportunities to preach.”

But Marcellus would be traveling with John, so the Apostle would be in good hands. And Jacob could not see himself preaching again anytime soon. He had nothing to say to a congregation and didn't know if he ever would.

Jacob rubbed his throbbing temples, then turned his attention back to John. “When he opened the fifth seal,” the Apostle read, “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, ‘How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?'”