Avenger of Blood (24 page)

For the first time in ages, Jacob had felt free and unhindered.
He
was in control; there was no one to tell him what to do. No family members with conflicting opinions. No prison guards with whips and chains. No warship captains or oarsmasters. He was his own man, and he was a man with a mission.

Now that mission was in jeopardy, and he had no one to blame but himself. Yesterday afternoon Jacob had let Damian get too far ahead of him, and before he could catch up, a flock of sheep had crossed the road, delaying him even further. Jacob had yelled at the shepherd in frustration, but to no avail. The herd of woolly animals bleated as they slowly ambled across the road under the watchful eye of the shepherd, who was either unwilling or unable to hurry the process along. When the path was finally clear, Jacob had lost sight of Damian. By nightfall Jacob still hadn't found him.

Jacob had been riding all morning and hadn't caught up with his enemy yet, and it worried him. He'd come to no major crossroads; however, Damian must still be traveling toward Caesarea. There was a large military outpost there, which was probably why Damian had headed in that direction in the first place.

A light snow had fallen overnight and fresh powder dusted the road. It wasn't enough to seriously hinder travel, but a few heavy snowfalls would render these mountain roads impassable. Jacob realized he would be spending the winter somewhere besides home, and that thought made him still angrier with himself.

Why hadn't he killed Damian when he'd had the opportunity? Jacob repeadedly asked himself that question as he meandered through the surreal scenery of Cappadocia. Everywhere he looked, huge cone-shaped formations of multicolored tufa, a soft volcanic rock, jutted from the ground—towering obelisks of terra-cotta pink, mustard yellow, sandy beige, and eggshell white. Some of the unusual formations were topped with heavy basalt pillows that appeared ready to tumble from their lofty heights but had perched there for centuries as the wind and water had sculpted the rocky wonderland.

Some of the larger towers and cones had a series of windowlike openings, and from a distance they looked like giant pigeon cotes. It finally dawned on Jacob that these were troglodyte homes: many of the people here were cave dwellers. For centuries they had carved their living spaces out of the soft volcanic rock.

The more Jacob looked at the strange shapes, the more it appeared as if an audience had lined either side of the road. Some of the smaller tufa structures looked like animals or people. One outcropping looked like a man with his arms raised to the sky. Jacob had the strange sensation that the rocks were mocking him, deriding him for his failure: “Avenger of blood? Hah haaaaah!”

As he topped a hill Jacob realized that the sound he thought he'd imagined from the rocks was actually a camel braying. There were three camels, in fact, and the heavily laden animals, along with a couple of donkeys and a handful of men, were completely blocking the road ahead of Jacob.

He wasn't surprised to encounter a trade caravan. Asia and Anatolia formed a land bridge between the Roman Empire and the East, and there was active trade along the so-called Silk Route. The emperors had long imported exquisite fabrics and jewels from the farthest reaches of the world, and caravans from India and China crossed through this region on their way to the Mediterranean.

But he was surprised to encounter a trade caravan stopped in the middle of the road. Usually they set up shop on the side of a road just outside a large town. Why had they stopped in the road itself? And why here, in the middle of nowhere?

Not exactly nowhere,
Jacob realized as he glanced up. A decent-sized city loomed in the background. Could it be Caesarea already? It must be. The region was sparsely populated, and a city of that size had to be the capital. Jacob had traveled farther than he'd thought, and he rejoiced to be so close to his destination—his enemy's destination.

So close . . . and yet he couldn't move.

Jacob studied the scene. One of the humpbacked beasts had sat down, squarely in the middle of the road, and did not appear to be interested in moving anytime soon. A wiry man in a striped broadcloth coat leaned leisurely against the seated camel while three other traders kept a wary eye on the other camels and the pair of donkeys.

The caravan itself blocked the road, but the main event was transpiring off to the side. Apparently a couple of locals had flagged the traders down en route. Two men appeared to be arguing with one of the sellers. The shorter of the two locals was an older man with a shock of silvery-gray hair that fell below his cap. The other was younger, perhaps an apprentice. Tall and slender, the lad kept his hands tucked inside the sleeves of his coat.

It had been several hundred years since the Persians had ruled here; then the region had come under the dominion of Greece and finally Rome. But the local people had yet to adopt modern dress or customs, and the two men now arguing with the traders wore the traditional Persian costume: trousers under their tunics, coats with long sleeves, and felt hats.

And it did appear to be more than typical haggling. From the yelling and gesturing going on, a deal had gone sour and the two customers were very unhappy. More than once Jacob heard the word
worthless
emanating from the heated discussion as the men shouted in a mixture of heavily accented Greek and Latin.

So far no one had noticed him. He was afraid to get off the road and try to go around the caravan. With the fresh snowfall it was not easy to see where the ground slipped away, and Jacob was afraid his horse might stumble.

Jacob watched the dispute progress for a minute, then dismounted. He intended to ask one of the men to move the camels enough to allow him to pass through. Jacob figured he might have to buy something, but perhaps the traders had some inexpensive trinket that would catch Rebecca's eye.

The wiry man in the striped coat noticed Jacob approaching and straightened up, then he moved to stand between Jacob and the merchandise. The trader looked as if he had slept with the camels, with bits of straw still clinging to his clothes. Jacob started to speak when, just to his right, the quarrel erupted again between the locals and the chief trader. The two men had started to walk away, then the younger man whirled around, evidently demanding the last word.

Jacob was suddenly worried that the men were about to come to blows, and he did not want to get in the middle of a full-fledged fight. The older man put out a hand to restrain the younger, who was gesturing wildly and shouting, “You're a thief! It was everything I had in the world, and you robbed me!”

The voice and gestures were a bit effeminate, and Jacob felt sorry for the gangly lad, who had been fleeced out of what little he had by an unscrupulous trader. Jacob knew what it was like to feel helpless and cheated out of something precious, and perhaps that empathy with the unknown young man was what determined his next move.

With a final cry of “Thief!” the apprentice flung a small pouch to the ground. The older man had tried to stop him, so the toss went astray. The pouch landed between the chief trader and Jacob, and without really thinking, Jacob moved to reach down for it. So did the chief trader, and the two of them collided; but when he righted himself, Jacob had the pouch in his hand.

He intended to hand it back to the apprentice; perhaps it was not as worthless as the boy had implied with the gesture of defiance. The traders had not refunded his money, so the distraught young man was walking away with nothing. But before he could move, Jacob suddenly realized that while he had been distracted, he had dropped the reins. Jacob looked up to see the unkempt trader in the striped coat mount Jacob's horse and ride off.

“Stop!” Jacob yelled. “That's my horse!” He started to run after the wiry man who'd stolen his horse, but the chief trader was coming after Jacob with a furious gleam in his eye.

“You won't get away with this!” the man shouted as he tried to grab Jacob.

Get away with what? What had he done? Jacob was thoroughly confused with no time to figure it out. One trader had stolen his horse, the man who was apparently their chief was fighting him, and the three remaining traders were running toward the disturbance.
They must intend to rob me,
Jacob thought.
These men aren't just unscrupulous traders but outright thieves.

Jacob still had a considerable amount of money stashed on him, and he wasn't about to lose it. With a swift movement he deposited the apprentice's pouch in his belt and drew out his dagger. The threat of a weapon made the new attackers hesitate just long enough for Jacob to move. He used the opportunity to sidestep the chief trader and flee.

He ran hard, quickly catching up with the two locals, who had headed back toward town. When they saw the chief trader chasing Jacob, they began running too, their long coats billowing around them. The three of them sprinted down the road, their arms pumping as fast as their legs. Fortunately, the old trader was overweight and out of shape, and they were able to outpace their pursuer.

After a couple of minutes, the apprentice veered off the road. The older man followed, and not knowing what else to do, Jacob did as well. Straight ahead he could see one of the huge tufa towers, a ladder propped against its side. The apprentice scrambled up the ladder and disappeared into an opening in the mountain.

Jacob did not wait for an invitation. As soon as the second man was halfway up the ladder, Jacob started to climb. When he reached the top, the two locals yanked him inside.

“Pull the ladder up behind you,” the apprentice ordered Jacob.

The lad's felt cap had skewed to the side during the chase, and now he reached up with a slender hand to remove it. A tumble of thick, chin-length raven hair fell out. All Jacob could do was stare openmouthed. The apprentice was not a young man, as Jacob had assumed from the costume, but a young woman. A woman with deeply bronzed, velvety skin, and lovely black eyes. Eyes that flashed in anger.

“I said, pull up the ladder. Now! Do you want to get us killed?”

Looking below, Jacob saw that the trader had almost reached the ladder. Jacob quickly pulled it inside, then he looked back at the intriguing woman. His frustration at the prospect of spending the winter in Cappadocia instantly vanished.

If I'm lucky,
he thought,
spring will be late this year.

20

WHEN THE MAN HAD CAUGHT HIS BREATH, he propped the ladder against the interior wall of the cave house and unrolled a heavy drapery that had been fastened above the opening. As the curtain fell, Jacob got a final glimpse of the chief trader, hands on his hips, yelling something in a language Jacob didn't recognize. The trader had used a mixture of Greek and Latin to conduct business, but he had evidently slipped back to his native tongue to send a stream of curses their way.

The heavy drapery cast a shadow across the entry chamber, but an overhead ventilation shaft allowed light into the room. Jacob noticed stairs off to the left; straight ahead and to the right were arched passageways leading, Jacob presumed, to the main rooms of the house.

After a moment the trader's voice receded and the local man lifted the edge of the curtain to peek outside. “He's leaving,” the man announced.

The woman was clearly furious. She looked at Jacob with undisguised hostility, then turned on her companion. “What are we going to do with our uninvited guest?” she demanded with a jerk of her arm toward Jacob.

“What we always do with guests,” the man said patiently. “Offer hospitality.” After a reproving glance at the woman, he turned to Jacob to offer an apology. “My niece is still angry about being cheated—”

“I have every right to be!”

“Yes, but what's done is done,” the man told her, “and you can't let it eat away at you.” He extended a hand to Jacob. “My name is Gregory. This is my niece, Livia, who is not usually so ill-mannered.”

After he introduced himself, Jacob said, “I'm sorry to invade your home like this. I followed you by instinct—I didn't know what else to do.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “Why was that trader chasing you?”

Jacob shrugged. “To rob me, I suppose. You said yourself they were thieves. They'd already made off with my horse.”

That set Livia off again. “Thieves of the worst kind,” she grumbled. She couldn't seem to stand still for very long, Jacob noticed. He watched her pace around the room with a long stride. Livia was taller than her uncle; in fact, she almost matched Jacob's height of six feet. He'd never met a woman that tall, and he'd also never met one who wore her hair that short. It wasn't cut so short as to look masculine, but it only fell a couple of inches below her ears. The ends cupped under and swung toward her chin as she walked back and forth, and Jacob found himself mesmerized by the sight. This Livia appeared to be a remarkable woman, and even though she'd shown him nothing but antagonism, he was intrigued.

Gregory ushered them through the long passageway directly across from the entrance. “You'll join us for a bit of refreshment,” he said to Jacob.

The spacious room to which Gregory led them was sparsely but well furnished, and surprisingly light and airy. Two windows had been carved into the far wall, and there was a ventilation shaft overhead. It didn't feel like a cave at all, Jacob thought. Certainly not like the caves on Devil's Island. If he hadn't had to climb up a ladder propped against a rocky surface to enter the home, he would not have believed they were inside one of the tufa cones jutting out from the earth.

They sat on cushions around a low table, and over a cup of something hot and spicy to drink—Jacob thought it best not to inquire as to the contents—Gregory recounted the story of how the traders had swindled his niece. “Livia is a metalworker,” he said, “a very good one, and she also works with enamel. We sell her decorative objects—jewelry, trinket boxes, mirrors, and the like—both locally and to importers. Lately she's done quite a bit of custom work for the Roman soldiers stationed here. The officers want engraving or inlaid work on their swords and armor.”