Devil's Island (5 page)

4

IN THE THREE WEEKS JACOB HAD BEEN GONE, Elizabeth had aged visibly. Abraham's heart was grieved to the core to see her beautiful face looking lined and haggard.

As soon as he had returned from the harbor the day the
Mercury
had sailed, Abraham told Elizabeth about Damian. She had been devastated, as he expected. Devastated and terrified.

“Damian vowed he would kill you someday.” Elizabeth's voice shook, and she placed an unsteady hand over her mouth.

“We don't know that that's why he's here,” Abraham had said, grasping for a way to soften the news. “This is not necessarily a personal vendetta. Damian is here on the emperor's behalf.”

“Because the emperor wants to persecute Christians—and you don't think Damian will use that to his own advantage? Don't try to placate me, Abraham. You know he'll seek revenge. He's come back to kill you, and when he finds out Jacob is your son, he'll kill him too.”

Abraham could not argue with that—Elizabeth was merely giving voice to his own thoughts—so he had repeated what John had said to him, that God was bigger than all their worries.

“My head knows that's true,” she said, “but try telling it to my heart.” Then she broke down and sobbed until Abraham thought she would be ill. His wife would not let him hold her while she cried—“I cannot be consoled,” she'd said as she brushed his hand away—so he stood at the foot of the bed and watched helplessly as she poured out her anguish. He tried to pray, but no words would come. All he could think was,
I've served You faithfully all these years,
Lord. Surely You will not let this monster destroy my family.

After that Abraham had started carrying a dagger, until Elizabeth had spied it under his cloak when he returned from the harbor one day. The discovery had triggered another outburst.

“What are you going to do—try to kill Damian before he kills you?” Her face was ashen, and her eyes quickly filled with tears and terror.

“No,” he protested. “It's—”

“Don't bring that calamity on my head as well, Abraham. I did not marry a murderer.”

“I'm not going to murder anyone,” he objected. “I would use it only for self-defense.”

“And can you defend yourself against an entire cohort of Roman soldiers with this dagger?”

Abraham touched the faint scar that ran down his jawline. He had faced three soldiers from the Tenth Legion armed with only a dagger once, and he had survived.

Nevertheless, he quit wearing the weapon, for his wife's sake. But he had kept it at his office.
Just in case,
he told himself.

Sitting at his desk now, Abraham opened the drawer and was studying the dagger when Quintus interrupted him.

“This message just arrived.” Quintus handed Abraham a tiny scroll that had been tightly rolled and tied with a string of leather. “It's from one of our ships. The
Mercury
, I imagine.”

Abraham unrolled the scroll and read the short message that had been flown in by one of his numerous pigeons:

Sailing home empty. Cargo confiscated by authorities.
Will explain upon arrival.

— Op. Marius Kaeso, 23 Oct., Miletus

“Noooooo!”

Abraham's roar startled his usually unflappable assistant. Quintus reached out a hand to steady Abraham, who had started to rise and then fallen back in his chair. The scroll fell to the floor, and Quintus retrieved it, glancing at the message as he placed it on the desk.

“I'm very sorry, Abraham.” The expression on Quintus's gaunt face was grim. “Would you like me to send for your friend Publius? Perhaps there is something he can do.”

“Yes . . . No, don't. He can't help me now.” Abraham had seen Publius in the
agora
recently and had started to cross over and speak to him. Publius had avoided him, turning away and hurriedly entering one of the shops. Abraham had been certain Publius had seen him, though; their eyes had met briefly and Publius had been on the verge of speaking. But several soldiers were in the marketplace, and Abraham deduced that Publius had thought it unwise to be seen with him.

The First Cohort had been making its presence known throughout the city. Soldiers appeared in the shops frequently, asking questions. So far no one had questioned Abraham or his family directly, but he knew they had been the subject of inquiry. Several church members had been questioned about the Apostle and his whereabouts; the interrogators had also wanted to know where the Christians met and who their leaders were. Abraham's name was bound to have surfaced by now.

“That will be all, Quintus. Send Kaeso to me the minute the
Mercury
docks.”

Quintus simply nodded and left his employer alone to fret over the disturbing message. Enough time had passed since the arrival of the First Cohort that Abraham had begun to think perhaps his family would escape the crisis. But it had been a false hope, and deep down he'd known that all along.

He was familiar with the tactics the Roman government used against their targets. The soldiers who had been freely questioning the populace were trying to recruit paid informers, who stood to gain a portion of the estate of a person accused of a crime. The temptation of Abraham's vast wealth would eventually prove to be overwhelming for someone of humble circumstance, perhaps a disgruntled employee or even one of his fellow believers.

Many people in Ephesus knew the Christians met in Abraham's home. They didn't advertise the fact, and since the arrival of the First Cohort the church had split into smaller groups for worship so as not to attract undue attention. But others outside their circle had inevitably become aware of their meeting place. And Abraham's son had even preached publicly alongside the Apostle.

Now the soldiers had arrested Jacob and John—“confiscated the cargo,” as Kaeso had discreetly worded his message.

Abraham picked up the scroll and reread it. Kaeso had sent it from Miletus, not Smyrna. He must have dropped his passengers off in Smyrna, where they would have hired a carriage and traveled inland, and from Smyrna Kaeso had probably sailed south to wait for them at Miletus. Abraham mentally calculated the distance from Miletus to Ephesus: a homing pigeon could cover the distance in under two hours; the
Mercury
, although built for speed and not heavy cargo, would take four to five times that long, depending on the prevailing winds.

Even so, if Kaeso had sailed at dawn, he should arrive by late afternoon. Abraham decided to wait at the harbor for the
Mercury'
s arrival. He did not want to go home and tell Elizabeth what had happened until he'd had a chance to find out what Kaeso knew.

Later, as twilight deepened the shadows over the sheltered harbor, Abraham was still waiting anxiously. Although the official workday ended at noon, Quintus often worked until midafternoon with Abraham, and he came out to the dock now. Abraham had remained there all afternoon, searching the horizon for any sign of the ship.

“Kaeso should have been here by now,” he said.

“He's probably sailing into a headwind,” Quintus said. “That could delay him several hours.”

Abraham appreciated the fact that his assistant had stayed so late. He knew it was simply to keep him company; Quintus had finished his work hours ago. “You should go home now,” Abraham told him. “I'll wait a while longer.”

“If you need anything else—”

“No, I'm fine,” Abraham said. “Just light a few torches for me before you leave.”

Quintus spent several minutes lighting torches and placing them in iron brackets mounted to the outside wall of the warehouse. The black smoke from the burning oil irritated his eyes, and he was blinking rapidly when he returned to bid Abraham good night.

“If you want me to stay . . . ,” he offered.

Abraham shook his head no.

“I wish there were something I could do,” Quintus said.

“If there were, I'd ask it of you.” Abraham extended his hand. “Thanks, my friend.”

Abraham feared there was nothing anyone could do. For days he had racked his brain trying to think how to end this nightmare. Elizabeth was right: he couldn't fight his way out of this, not against an entire cohort of Roman military might. He'd considered bribery but didn't know whom to approach. Damian was out for revenge, so attempting to bribe him would be futile. And no one except the emperor had the authority to overrule Damian's orders. Abraham's carefully cultivated contacts with the influential powers of Ephesus were now useless, and he smiled ruefully at the irony: the richest man in Asia had no one to offer the fruits of his fortune in return for a political favor.

Darkness fell as Abraham maintained his solitary watch. When he could no longer see into the distant sea, he knew it was time to end his vigil. The family would have already had their dinner without him, and Elizabeth would be worried.

He had turned toward the warehouse to remove one of the torches for his walk home when he heard heavy footsteps on the pier. Abraham froze. Only one type of shoe made such a ponderous sound: the hobnailed boot of a soldier.

There were five of them marching swiftly toward him, all wearing segmented leather armor that hung in cumbersome pleats over their knee-length red tunics. One of them wore the plumed helmet of a centurion.

“Abraham of Ephesus,” the centurion announced officiously, “you are commanded to appear before Captain Lucius Mallus Damianus to answer charges for the crime of treason.”

Elizabeth was frantic. She alternated between pacing and kneeling on the cold marble floor. Over the last three weeks she had spent so much time in prayer, she had worn her knees raw. Tonight she couldn't manage to concentrate long enough to pray for more than a minute or two, so she quickly resumed pacing. When that seemed futile, she knelt to pray again.

She had been worried when Abraham did not come home for dinner. It was so unlike him—he never stayed at the harbor after dark without sending a message. When several hours had passed, she knew something was terribly wrong, and now she was plain frightened.

“No word from Father yet?” Rebecca asked, yawning as she entered the
triclinium
.

Elizabeth shook her head.

The remains of dinner were still on the table, waiting for Abraham. Rebecca poured wine from a beautiful silver pitcher— Galen's handiwork—into a cup and handed it to her mother. “Drink some of this. Perhaps you can relax enough to sleep. According to Father's water clock, it's almost midnight.”

Elizabeth took one sip of the wine and immediately started pacing again. Nothing would ease her mind enough to sleep, she thought. Only Abraham's return.

Rebecca walked over to the brazier and stoked the few embers still burning. “It's too chilly in here. I'll ask Servius to—”

“He's not here,” Elizabeth said. “I sent him to the harbor to look for your father.”

“Then I'll get one of the other servants to tend the fire. You're shivering.”

“No, don't wake them. Just fetch my cloak.”

Elizabeth circled the room restlessly as Rebecca ran upstairs and quickly returned with the cloak. She draped it around her mother's shoulders and then hugged her tightly.

“I'm scared,” Rebecca confessed. “Do you suppose something horrible has happened to Father?”

Elizabeth held her daughter and stroked her hair. She longed to comfort Rebecca, to tell her that everything would be all right, but that would be a lie. Everything was not all right, and it might never be right again.

They both jumped when they heard the massive front door open, and they ran toward the atrium.
Servius must be back,
Elizabeth thought.
And perhaps Abraham is with him.

Servius was alone. “I couldn't find him, ma'am.” He picked up a clay lamp and shepherded the women out of the frigid open-air center of the atrium into the main part of the house.

“Servius, please—” Elizabeth implored as they entered the fading warmth of the dining room.

The old man held up a hand and motioned her silent. “Give me a moment to catch my breath and I'll tell you all about it.” Had it been any other servant, Elizabeth would have scolded him for impertinence. But he had been with her family since she was a child. Her father, Rufus, had given Servius his freedom decades ago, but he had stayed to serve the family. And when Rufus had died a few years after Elizabeth had married Abraham, Servius became an important part of their household.

He sat down on the edge of the couch closest to the brazier. “When I got to the warehouse, no one was there. Torches were lit along the dock, but I could find no sign of Abraham—or anyone else. On my way back, I stopped at the house of Quintus. I had to pound on the door to rouse him from sleep.”

Servius paused and drew his cloak around him. “I need to rekindle the fire,” he said, looking at the brazier. He started to rise but stopped when Elizabeth put a hand on his shoulder in an unspoken request to continue.

“Quintus didn't know where Abraham was,” Servius said. “He told me he lit the torches for Abraham and then left him out on the pier. He was waiting for the
Mercury
.”

“The
Mercury
?” Elizabeth exclaimed. “He was expecting Jacob!” She had a momentary glimmer of hope, which faded when Servius picked up her hand and looked at her compassionately.

“The
Mercury
was returning home without passengers,” Servius said. “That's all I found out. Quintus would not have told me that much if he hadn't still been half-asleep; you know how tight-lipped he is about Abraham's business . . . Anyway, he didn't know Jacob's whereabouts either, ma'am. I asked him that too. Quintus told me to return home and said he would go looking for Abraham himself.”

Elizabeth swallowed her disappointment. “Thank you, Servius. You did what you could.”

“I'm going to do something about heating this room now,” Servius said as he stood. “Then I'm going to wake the others and gather them here for prayer. I don't think any of us will be getting much sleep tonight.”