Avenger of Blood (23 page)

Rebecca stopped and turned to face him. She started to put a hand on his arm, then dropped it awkwardly to her side. She continued to be nervous around him, and he'd been hoping it was because she felt attracted to him but didn't know what to do about it—which was the other thing he wanted to talk to her about. It was time to tell Rebecca how he felt.

“Is it really that bad?” Rebecca asked. “Did the doctors offer no hope for her recovery?”

Antony chided himself for selfish thoughts of marriage when his mother might be dying. He recounted for Rebecca his dealings with the two doctors he had brought in for consultations. “They made contradictory recommendations,” he said. “Special diets, one of which included disgusting animal parts and strange roots. Mother turned up her nose at that. The other doctor said to eat nothing but fresh fruits and vegetables. Hard to get at this time of year, though.

“One doctor said fresh air and moderate exercise; the other called for bed rest in a dim room. She's had two weeks of that and has only gotten worse, so I don't put much stock in that opinion. I'd encourage her to try the other treatment, but how can she get any exercise when it's all she can do to get out of bed and walk a few paces?”

He frowned as he recalled his lengthy conversations with the two men. “For all their words,” he said, “neither doctor could tell me exactly what is wrong with Mother, and their hemming and hawing suggested that neither one was entirely convinced of the treatment he recommended. ‘Let the sickness run its course' seemed to be the crux of their advice—‘she'll either get better, or she won't.'

“So much for highly esteemed medical experts.” He laughed ruefully, then sobered. “I even thought of sending for a doctor from Alexandria. I've always heard the Egyptian physicians are the best. But sailing is impossible now, and besides, Mother simply refuses to see any more doctors.”

“I'm so sorry,” Rebecca said. A worried look creased her fine forehead, and Antony regretted burdening her with all this. But whom else could he talk to about it?

“Helena has never expressed any fears that she was dying before,” Rebecca said. “Most of the time she won't even acknowledge how bad the pain is. I only know she's suffering because she gets very quiet.” She paused for a moment, as if hesitating to say what was on her mind. Then she said, “I pray every day with her, and I have to believe she'll get better, Antony. I believe God will heal her.”

Antony knew Rebecca was sincere in her belief, and he sincerely hoped she was right. “I told myself she was exaggerating,” he said, “that she isn't really going to die from this illness, whatever it is. But who knows?” Antony sighed his frustration. “And now she wants to go home. But you know what Mother's like—she needs to be around people. Would you talk to her, Rebecca? Ask her to stay a while longer?”

“I don't think . . .” Rebecca's voice trailed off. She definitely looked embarrassed this time, Antony thought as a faint blush colored her cheeks. She took a quick breath and continued, “I'm not sure she'll listen to me. We had quite a disagreement yesterday.”

A disagreement?
Antony wondered what the two of them could have possibly found to disagree about. Neither woman was prone to contrariness, although his mother could be a meddler at times. She was usually so obvious and cheerful about it, though, that people rarely found it annoying.

The pair walked in silence for a moment. They had almost reached the harbor, and Antony could see Quintus up ahead. He was standing on the street side of the wooden pier, watching two men unload a wagon. As Rebecca and Antony approached the steps to the pier, he stopped. “If you'd rather I took Mother home . . .” he said.

“It's not that,” she said quickly, returning a wave to Quintus. “Let's talk about it later, all right?”

Antony brooded about Rebecca's disagreement with his mother while they inspected the new warehouse, but he couldn't stay sullen long in the presence of Rebecca's enthusiasm.

“Quintus, that's ingenious,” she said when he explained the new procedure he and Peter had implemented for redirecting lost or damaged shipments to the relief effort.

“Usually we don't have too much left at the end of a season,” Quintus said, “but it still takes up valuable space. Your father was the kind to cut his losses and clear the warehouse to make room for new inventory. Now that we've rented the additional space, we can salvage more items and store them for distribution to the needy. And we hired a man—one who lost his job and hasn't been able to find work because he's a Christian—to repair goods that were damaged but can be made serviceable.”

“A wonderful idea,” Rebecca said. She surveyed the new addition to the warehouse with obvious delight, commenting occasionally as Quintus pointed out various items in the process of being rescued and repaired. Practical items such as iron implements, wooden utensils, copper and tin pots. Cracked and chipped pottery, and terra-cotta containers that were still usable. And even a few pieces of damaged-but-functional furniture and several water-damaged carpets.

“Isn't it perfect?” she asked Antony when Quintus finished showing them around and went back to work. “Things destined for the scrap heap will take on new life here—and bring new hope to families who have so little.”

Antony couldn't help smiling at the faraway gleam in her eyes. Rebecca had walked into a nondescript warehouse, looked around her at an odd assortment of discards waiting to be repaired, and had seen lives being reclaimed. This charitable work was important to her, he realized, and it was something she would want to continue even after they were married. That was perfectly acceptable to Antony. It would occupy much of her days, but she would find it fulfilling, and there was no reason it had to interfere with their private time together.

He was doing it again—letting his mind run ahead to the future. And a pleasant future it would be, he thought. But first he had to talk to Rebecca. They were alone again, but this wasn't the right place for the conversation; he did not want to declare his feelings for her here, in the middle of a warehouse. And besides, he needed to settle the matter of moving his mother first.

“Rebecca, what we talked about earlier . . .” He watched her excitement fade and a wary look return. He hated to make her uncomfortable, but he needed to know what to do. “About Mother.”

“Our disagreement is not important,” Rebecca said. “I'll talk to her and ask her to stay. I just hope she'll listen.”

“I don't mean to pry, but is the disagreement something I could help with? Maybe smooth things over?”

Rebecca shook her head emphatically. “No.” She dropped her gaze, then squared her shoulders and looked him directly in the eyes. “But it's something you should know about.”

Her demeanor was so determined, it put Antony on his guard. He thought she might be trying to intimidate him, for a change. He never intentionally tried to intimidate Rebecca, of course; he just seemed to have that effect on her.

“We should have a clear understanding,” she added, “since you'll continue to spend a lot of time at the villa with Helena.”

Not “with us,” but “with Helena.”
There was something odd in the way Rebecca phrased that, as if he would be seeing only his mother when he visited. Just where would Rebecca be?

“By all means,” he said. “We shouldn't have any misunderstandings.” Antony looked around for a chair or stool, but there were no such amenities in the warehouse. It was a workspace, not an office. And it certainly wasn't home. Not a comfortable place for conversation, but if they were going to have a talk now in order to reach whatever “understanding” Rebecca had in mind, then they might as well make themselves comfortable. He patted the top of an unopened barrel and started to help her up.

She brushed aside the offer to sit. “This won't take long.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“Your mother thinks I'm wrong about a decision I've made, but I'm very firm about it.” Rebecca appeared to choose her words carefully. “Helena took it personally because she had, I believe, some aspirations in that regard.”

“And what is this decision that upset her?”

“I've decided that I will never marry.” Her chin gave a slight lift as she made the announcement. “
Never
,” she emphasized when his startled movement tipped over a broken table that had been propped against the wall. “It's God's will for me.” She offered the statement with great finality, as if she had clarified the matter once and for all and decreed it off limits for discussion.

Antony was so stunned, he didn't know how to respond.
What kind of idiotic deity requires a young woman to remain single?
he wanted to ask. Especially a beautiful young woman who loved children and already had one of her own. He'd pictured Rebecca with a house full of children—his children. And Victor, of course. That was taken for granted. Surely she didn't intend to raise the boy by herself. It didn't make sense.

His mind was still reeling with unanswered questions when Quintus poked his head back into the room. “Good, you two are still here. Peter wants to see you before you leave. He said it's important.”

“Tell him we'll be right there,” Rebecca said.

“We'll finish this discussion later,” Antony told her. He didn't know where she'd come up with this idea, but he was already thinking of ways to talk her out of it.

“There's nothing to discuss,” she insisted. “I simply wanted you to know my decision so you'll . . . so we'll have a clear understanding.” Rebecca turned and started toward Peter's office next door, and Antony followed. If she thought the topic was closed, she was sadly mistaken. Here he'd gone and fallen in love with her, and now she was vowing to never get married? There would be
plenty
of discussion about that, Antony decided.

They found Peter sitting at one of the harbor office's twin desks, his expression somber. He dispensed with the formalities and got right to the point. “I received a letter,” he said, “from Marcellus.”

“Is it John?” Rebecca asked. “Is he all right?”

“John is fine. Overdoing it but enjoying himself thoroughly, according to Marcellus.”

“Then what is it?” Rebecca took the chair across from Peter and Antony leaned against the floor-to-ceiling cabinet that housed the company's financial records in its myriad of pigeonholes.

Peter picked up the letter and scanned it. He found the passage he was looking for and began to read:

“I thought you should know that we haven't seen Jacob since the day after Rebecca and the others left for home. I talked to him briefly that day, as he was leaving to find Damian. It's something he feels he has to do, and I realized it was futile to try and stop him.

“I waited several days before writing you, thinking Jacob might return to Polycarp's house at any time, but now we're ready to leave for Pergamum so I'm sending this on to you. I don't know if Jacob is still in Smyrna, or if perhaps Damian has left and Jacob has gone after him. I've asked around, with little success. Tullia's brother said the two of them scuffled outside his inn that same night. Then they rode off, and he hasn't seen either one of them since.

“John is very concerned, of course, and we pray for Jacob's safety daily. If Jacob has returned to Ephesus, perhaps you could get word to us through one of the churches.”

Peter let the letter roll closed and placed it to one side. For a moment, no one spoke.

“When Jacob didn't come back right away,” Antony finally said, “I thought he must have decided to travel with John and Marcellus. They wanted him to go with them.”

“We all thought that,” Peter said.

“We all
wanted
to think that.” Rebecca looked crestfallen, and she twisted her hands in her lap. “But from the moment we left Devil's Island, I knew he might do something like this.”

Antony instinctively moved toward Rebecca and put a hand on her shoulder. She sent him a frosty look, which he ignored. But he settled for a quick squeeze of her shoulder, then let his hand rest at the back of her chair.

After all his family had been through, why would Jacob do this? Antony wondered. “Something he feels he has to do,” Marcellus had said in his letter. Antony knew that Jacob carried a heavy load of guilt for not protecting his sister from Damian.

Looking down at Rebecca now, Antony thought about someone trying to hurt her and suddenly wondered if he would be tempted to take the law into his own hands to get justice? Probably. He would certainly want to.

He silently vowed that no one would ever hurt the woman he was going to marry—and he
would
marry her, no matter what she said.

19

JACOB SCRATCHED HIS SCRAGGLY CHIN as the horse plodded along the mountain road toward Caesarea Mazaca, the capital of Cappadocia. The fact that he might have lost Damian's trail nagged at him even more than the itching stubble of his beard.

When Jacob had chased him out of Smyrna two weeks ago, Damian had headed east, into the interior of Anatolia. They traveled toward Cappadocia, with Jacob following Damian closely, playing a cat-and-mouse game, periodically closing the distance between them and then falling back. Jacob could tell the game irritated Damian, and that had made it even more satisfying.

He stopped only when Damian did. In Sardis Damian had bought supplies; Jacob did likewise, selecting dried fruits and nuts, a leather wine flagon, which he filled with water, and two extra blankets to use as a bedroll and cover. At sunset each evening, when Damian had made camp, so did Jacob. He tried to keep a bit of distance between them yet remain within eyesight. And, knowing his voice would carry in the still night air, Jacob sang. He lay on his bedroll and serenaded Damian with improvised songs about an avenger of blood pursuing and killing his enemy.