Valley of Decision (35 page)

“I am but a new believer. I have no holy purpose—”

Cyprian glanced at the soiled tapestry. He could not allow the life-changing story of a Savior who'd come to redeem man die with him. “Someday, in a land far beyond my reach and time, there will be a little girl born. How will she hear of the story of salvation if it dies with me? I want someone to tell her the same story Caecilianus told me those many days ago in the back of a small dye shop. You are the man who will see it done.”

“You want
me
to take your place?”

Cyprian shook his head. “Barek will take my place.”

“The bishop's son? He's so . . .” Titus let his concern for Barek's trustworthiness remain unsaid.

“You were thinking ‘young, but up to the challenge.' Were you not?”

He sighed. “Something like that.”

“He'll need good counsel. And I know I can count on you.” Warm memories of sitting at the feet of Caecilianus wrapped around the cold truth of what lay before Cyprian had thawed him into awareness.
The dye shop.
Why hadn't he thought of it earlier? He jumped to his feet. “I know where Barek took them.”

“Where?”

“Where he felt the most comfortable: home.”

“They are hiding in Caecilianus's dye shop?”

“I'm almost sure of it.”

“I'll send Tappo and Pontius to fetch them immediately.”

“Wait. If you inadvertently lead the soldiers to them, they could be trapped.” Cyprian raked his hands through his hair. “Returning Magdalena to the hospital to aid in Lisbeth's recovery is the church's best hope.”

“The healer is ill. She may not be much help.”

“I know Magdalena. If she has breath, she'll rally to help her daughter.”

“How do you propose we secure the services of the healer?”

“Station Pontius at the docks. Then spread word that the grain stores aboard the ships of Titus Cicero have been opened. All who are hungry can eat for free. Sooner or later, hunger will drive my family from their hiding place.”

“There will be chaos.”

“Exactly.” Cyprian ignored Titus's obvious disapproval. “When you spot my family in the crowd, snatch them and take them and Lisbeth to Bella Rugia.”

“Then you will come and join your family?”

Cyprian's slight shake of the head was an obvious disappointment to Titus. “I will endanger them no more.”

“Then what?”

“I think the best way to avoid having my estate escheated to the crown is to liquidate my foreign holdings, land and estates neither Aspasius nor Valerian know anything about.”

“If Valerian could figure a way to tax the nightly tossing of the chamber pots, I believe he'd do it.”

“That's why I want you to handle the money, keep the transactions a secret. Use all the proceeds to help Barek continue the good works his father started in this place.”

Titus's posture stiffened. “Don't ask this of me.”

“It is not I who asks, but the Lord.”

“And you?” Titus could not conceal his frustration. “What is to become of you?”

Cyprian clasped the hand of the man who'd been his enemy, grateful the Lord had blessed him with such a faithful friend. “Whatever the one God wills.”

R
UTH'S LOOM WAS EVERY
bit as heavy as it was sturdy. By the time Maggie and Barek had dragged it to barricade the door, both were sweating.

“Maybe it won't keep the soldiers out, but it should at least slow them down.” Maggie's attempts to patch up the hole in her relationship with Barek had been met with cold silence. She picked up a ball of fabric scraps she'd found in a trunk. “Let me have a look at your arm.”

Barek waved her off. “You better get some sleep.”

“I've had time to rest today. You haven't.” She moved the stool over by the fire. “Sit.”

His gaze swept the room. He'd already locked both doors and checked the shutters. Twice. The night air had become strangely cool so he'd stoked the brazier with wood chips and filled the lamp. Barek had gathered blankets and made her grandparents and their friends so comfortable they were already asleep. The look of resignation in his eyes told her he was out of excuses and could avoid the elephant in the room no longer. He would have to talk to her whether he wanted to or not. “My mother kept a jar of ointment in that cupboard.”

Maggie went to the cupboard and found a little crock with a wooden cork. She popped it open. “Whew! This stuff stinks.”

“It works.” He sat with a wary sigh, watching her with naked suspicion. “But don't think applying a little salve heals our friendship.”

“Nothing is ever that easy with you.”

He grabbed her wrist. “Or you.”

Maggie set the jar on the table and began to roll up his bloody sleeve. The fabric was stuck to a gash in his muscular arm. “This is going to hurt.”

“I'll do it.”

She batted his hand away. “Why is it always so hard for you to accept help?”

“Last time I accepted your help, I believe we ended up losing my mother's ashes and being pursued by soldiers.” He'd done it again, managed to skewer her heart. “Forgive me if I'm not anxious to enlist your kind of ‘help.' ”

For two people who hadn't known each other long, they knew each other's tender places and the easiest ways to inflict pain. “Point taken.” In the firelight Barek's face seemed older and very weary. “Look, I'm sorry. For everything. You're right. Sometimes I don't think ahead. But this time I did. I should have told you about Eggie, but I chose not to.”

“Why would you think I wouldn't want to know we had an enemy living under our roof?”

“I was afraid.”

“Of him?”

Maggie shook her head.

“Then that just leaves me!” Indignation had raised his voice. “I don't believe that.”

She put a finger to her lips to remind him to keep it down. “I've never been afraid of you. But I
was
afraid you'd send Eggie home and frankly, I was willing to keep his secret because I know how it feels to be forced to go home when you don't want to.”

“Why would I have sent him home?” he asked in a forced whisper.

“You're so determined to make it up to my father. To prove your loyalties to him and the church. How could you not send the grandson of the emperor packing?”

“Packing?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don't.”

“Kick him out.”

“What I did to Cyprian after all he'd done for my family was wrong.” Barek flinched as she freed his sleeve from his oozing wound. “Sending Eggie home would do little to remove the stain of betrayal from my record.”

“I understand guilt.” The word hung in her throat. “Raging oxen stampede through my dreams almost every night.”

For an instant, the same softness she'd seen in Barek's eyes the night he thought she was dying reappeared. “You were just a child.” He reached for her hand. “I can't make the same excuse.”

Electric silence surged between them. Her reflection shimmered in his dark eyes. In that brief instant, Maggie realized she wanted a place in his heart. Forever. Not as friends, but something far more serious.

Self-conscious about the heat flushing her cheeks and the possibility Barek might see the power his touch had upon her, Maggie slowly withdrew her hand. What was she thinking? She had no business falling in love with him. She was going home. If she had any hope of escaping with a smidgen of her heart, she couldn't let herself imagine what it would be like to stay here forever.

Maggie took a step back, smoothing the front of her tunic while her mind searched for a neutral topic, one that didn't involve undercurrents of attraction. “Mom never told me how your family met my father and came to live in his house.”

“Your face is flushed.”

“It's warm in here with everything locked up and the fire going.”

He studied her with a disarming intensity. “You've never asked about my old life. Why do you want to know now?”

“You knew me as a child.” Her hand fluttered toward the yarns dangling from the rafters. “Only fair I know you,” Maggie said. “If you don't tell me, then I'll be forced to imagine you chasing your father's dogs around the dye vat and refusing to do your chores.”

To her surprise, Barek didn't immediately pull the curtain that usually shut her out. Instead, his face took on a sadness she longed to kiss away. “I regret being so difficult, especially when my mother was pregnant with Cyprian's . . .” His voice trailed off.

Maggie held her breath, considering how many different ways she would have to say she was sorry before she finally felt as if he forgave her, when he suddenly let her off the hook and continued, “My parents were artists. Two of the best in the empire. Buyers of purple came from all over the world to purchase my father's yarns. My mother's tapestries hang in the halls of dignitaries and foreign kings. Cyprian started buying my mother's work shortly after my parents married. I remember his unannounced visits: he claimed he was in the neighborhood. My parents would smile as if they had no idea he had journeyed clear across town to see what new inventory they had created. But more than the tapestries, Cyprian wanted my father's stories.”

“What kinds of stories?”

“Stories of the one God. Of how the one God made the world. How he raised a mighty nation out of a scrappy little group of misfits. But the stories Cyprian wanted to hear the most often were about the one God's Son. The Christ who came down from the heavens, walked the earth as a man, and rose again after Romans crucified him.” Barek's eyes were locked upon the large dye vat, but he didn't
seem to see his reflection in the pounded copper. He had the look of someone seeing the intricate details of bygone days with great fondness.

“Before long Cyprian was bringing others to hear my father's stories.” A pleased grin lifted the corners of Barek's lips. “Sometimes the shop would be so crowded my father couldn't have stirred the people with his dye paddle.” He paused and worked the lump from his throat. “But little did my parents know the days of happiness in this place were coming to an end.”

The historical accounts Maggie had read mentioned Caecilianus and his involvement in her father's conversion, but she had no idea how their vastly different lives intersected beyond that. She had to know more. “What happened?”

The joy had drained from Barek's face. “Aspasius Paternus.”

“The proconsul who sentenced my father to exile and executed yours?”

Barek nodded. “Aspasius declared Christianity illegal in this province, and anyone who traded with a Christian was subject to prosecution as well. Before long, no one but Cyprian would dare purchase work from the rebel maker of purple and his weaver wife. My father refused to worry, saying the one God would provide. Once their meager savings were gone, he gave in to my mother's pleadings and agreed to sell the shop. But no one would buy the business of a Christian. We had nothing left to eat and were on the verge of being evicted when Cyprian appeared at our door one day and said we were coming with him.”

Chill bumps of pride prickled her spine. Maggie traced the tattoo on her wrist. “He said that?”

Barek nodded and lowered his chin. “We left everything behind, just walked out. On that day, a family of freedmen merchants became heirs of one of the wealthiest patricians in Carthage. Father was right: the one God had provided.”

Neither of them spoke for fear even their breath could burst the bubble around this treasured memory. Maggie imagined her father sitting where she was, listening to the beautiful words of Caecilianus, and she pictured him happy, not stressed like he was now. She took a careful breath. “There's one more question I've never had the courage to ask.”

Barek's eyes burned into hers. “Did your father love my mother when he married her?”

“I know he loved her. I mean, who couldn't help but love Ruth? She was wonderful. It's just that . . . I thought he loved
my
mother.”

“Cyprian didn't think your mother was ever coming back.”

“But he could have waited.”

“For how long?”

“Forever.”

Barek shook his head. “My mother and your father were two desperate people who thought it would be best for them and the church if they combined forces.” He swallowed. “Your father was good to my mother, but he never stopped loving Lisbeth.” Coals shifted in the brazier and a spark popped into the air and disappeared in a puff of smoke. “Your father was good to me. Protecting you is the only way I can ever make up for the pain my betrayal has caused him.”

“Oh, Barek, I'm sure—”

He held up his palm, silencing her immediately. “Soldiers,” he whispered, his body tensed. “Coming this way.” He made it to his feet, doused the brazier fire with the lid, and spun both of them against the wall. “Don't move,” he said into her ear and pulled her tight against his chest. Maggie fit so perfectly into the crook of his arm, she couldn't have moved if she'd wanted to. Which she didn't.

She could hear the muffled struggle of several pairs of metal-
studded boots working to conquer the paved incline that led to the shop. The growing sounds indicated the soldiers were making steady progress. Maggie's heart thumped against her chest. She blinked back tears of terror and willed her eyes to speed their adjustment to the darkness.

G-Pa and Jaddah were still sleeping soundly, and thankfully her grandmother was not coughing. The rhythmic march of soldiers stopped outside the door. Muffled voices slipped through the cracks in the shutters. Someone shook the latch. When it remained locked, a discussion ensued as to whether they needed to fetch the battering ram to check the boarded-up businesses in the deserted dye district.