John Masters (13 page)

Yakov's widow had vanished with the twins. Rachel picked up Isa, grabbed her short knife in the other hand, and went back to the door. More barbarians were coming down through the olive groves, and the women who had fled that way ran straight into them. She saw a sword rise. Yakov's widow fell, cut almost in two. Peter's mother and sister went down under clubs, and a man with a wolf's-head hood picked up the baby twins and swung them by the heels against an old olive tree.

Now they were coming from the big house toward the bam, the Lover of God in the van. Her father and the young men were trying to hold them. Her father drew back his spear arm, and a tall barbarian stepped in under the throw and rammed a knife under his ribs, so that he jerked, coughed, and fell. Peter killed one barbarian and stepped back quickly, his sword flickering out again. At his side his brother Young James died, felled by a spear thrust in the knee and then clubbed on the ground. Akiba the Jew and Peter the Christian fell back slowly, side by side. Rachel waited, her knife ready.

Now, with no apparent reason, the blocks of barbarians began to eddy and break up. Some ran this way and some that, until the actual attackers here were reduced to eight men, led by one as tall as Peter but older and stronger, with reddish hair. His face was wide, square, and flat, his eyes pale gray. This man rested his heavy sword and called in a guttural Latin, "Hold, Romans! No need to die. We want slaves."

Rachel saw Peter's back muscles tighten up and called out quickly, "No, Peter!" And then, in the tongue of Hispania, she added, "Tomorrow is another day. Put up your swords." To the barbarian leader she said, "We have nothing. We are in flight here ourselves from Carteia. The outlaws took all that we had a week ago."

"All? Priest say all man's rich here," the leader spoke, glowering.

"He is wrong. There was plenty in the big house, nowhere else."

The barbarian followed her eye. A group was dragging Vitellius' body out of the front door of the great villa. Another half dozen ran by, hurling the head of young Gaius from hand to hand in a boisterous game.

The barbarian slipped his sword back into its hanger and pushed past Akiba and Peter as though they did not exist. To his men he threw a dozen words over his shoulder, and they hurried off toward the big house. He said, "I am Wildigern, Visigoth. You are surprised I talk Latin?" He glowered down at her, "I live near Romans all my life. Romans ...
poof."
He blew into the air. "I kill many. Come." He laughed and led the way to the barn. Rachel went with him, little Isa holding tight to her hand, and Akiba and Peter followed doubtfully behind. The barbarians were strange, she thought: all the killing seemed no more than a passing storm, and now the sun was out and all was forgotten. This Wildigern was quite without fear, going alone now into the darkened empty barn with Peter and Akiba, armed, at his heels, their kin lying slaughtered under the olives.

Wildigern looked about. "Rich. Rich land. Farmers?" She nodded. "Your land, where?"

She pointed over the arm of the cork woods that separated the Villa Flaviana from Carteia. Wildigern gazed. "H'm ... by the white mountain. What call?"

"Calpe," she said. "The Rock."

Wildigern made up his mind. "This place here"—he waved to the great estate—"this for our leader Wallia. For me—your house, land, all. You cook, make babies for me. You"—he jerked his chin at the two young men—"you work fields, teach me. Together we fight Vandals, kill outlaws. Together—eat, drink! ... Come."

He strode out of the door and raised his voice in a great bellow. His eight men tumbled out of the villa, staggering under loot. Four Roman servant girls and a couple of wounded men-at-arms followed, also heavily loaded.

Peter muttered, "If he touches you, Rachel, I shall kill him. I love you. I learned that while you were away from us in the big house."

She said, "See that plenty of wine and brandy are brought to Carteia from the cellars."

"But..."

"I can't talk now. Or think. Later."

Theophilus, the Lover of God, was seated cross-legged outside the gate of the villa, his eyes closed, his hair and beard splashed with blood. His begging bowl lay beside him, and as they passed, the Visigoths threw rings and coins and gold ornaments into it with a curious defensive gesture, as though they feared the fanatic might turn them to stone. She thought, they might call themselves Christians, but it was the gods of their forests and magic and madness that they really feared. She made sure her knife was in her waistband and followed the others into the cork forest.

Two hours after dark the Visigoths lay dead drunk all over the house—upstairs, on the roof, and sprawled in the goats' droppings below. The captive Roman men-at-arms, all Spanish-born, had fallen into the service of the new masters as easily as the old. After the first flagon of wine the servant girls had abandoned themselves to the barbarians' lust with no shame or hesitation, so that there had been a singing and coupling and grunting all evening. Once Wildigern dragged Rachel to him, but she held him off, smiling, fearful for Peter's life, for he was close by, white and shaking. Later another Visigoth tried to rape her, and Wildigern cracked his skull with such a blow from the butt of his sword that the man lay unconscious for an hour.

Now it was quiet save for the snores and drunken mumbles of the sleepers. She went to a dark corner of the first floor, near the head of the ladder to the street, and Peter and Akiba came to her. Peter said, "We must go—now. But where? To the outlaws?"

"No," she said automatically. If they went to the outlaws, Peter would not live long; for Julius the Pagan wanted her, and he would not tolerate a rival. But more important than that, the outlaws promised no home, no children, no peace, only the opposite—a return to the way of the hunter, a descent from house to cave, from tilling fields to gathering nuts ... and surely, soon, back to holes in the ground.

"Where, then?" Peter said. "Hispalis? Corduba? But the barbarians must have taken and ruined those cities on their way here."

Akiba said, "I know! ... We will go to Africa. I know where there is a boat hidden in a sea cave of the Rock. It belonged to Simon the merchant, and he used it to smuggle salt. No one else knows. I... I helped him sometimes."

Rachel did not hesitate. Perhaps they would go to Africa; perhaps they would not; perhaps she could stay here—for Wildigern was no worse then many other men, only less subtle in his cruelties, and as her mother had told her often enough,
"What is born of a Jewish womb is a Jew":
But the plight of the young men tugged at her heart, so she said, "Very well. Think now what we will need. Pots. Water vessel. Tinder. Knife..."

They passed over the isthmus onto the Rock before the middle hour, with Akiba ahead carrying Isa, and Peter behind, and all heavily loaded. By the goat track along the lower western slopes a pack of wolves bayed around and tried to attack Akiba but fled before Peter's sword. From the Lover of God's gully they crossed to the east side, going close by Rachel's Secret, and then turned north, as though to continue the circuit of the Rock. Here Akiba led slowly down the steep slope, Isa asleep on his right hip. After a careful, almost vertical descent, they stood on a tiny sandy beach. Starlight gleamed on wet rocks, and small waves regularly washed their feet. "It's up there," Akiba muttered, "pulled up into the cave."

He gave Isa into her arms and disappeared into the gloom of the overhanging cliff. He was gone a long time, and then suddenly he was back. "It's broken," he said. "Two planks smashed and the oars gone." His voice cracked.

Peter said, "That storm a week ago must have sent the sea up to it. We're lucky it was not swept away altogether, like the oars. Let us see it. Perhaps we can repair it."

She followed them up the sand slope. She thought that the boat, which she could feel but barely see until her eyes became used to the darkness, would be very small for the three of them and Isa. The holes were not large. A pair of smooth short planks, well nailed down over felt or canvas and caulked with pitch, would make the boat watertight again.

They stood some time in the end of the rock cave around the boat, not speaking. Then Peter said, "We must have oars...."

She said quickly, "They might be in this little cove somewhere. We can look by daylight." She knew what Peter was going to say next, and he must be stopped. Two or three hours of the night remained, Isa slept, and Akiba was very tired. Tonight, as soon as Akiba slept, Peter would come to her. There might never be a tomorrow.

Peter said, "Perhaps ... But we must have planks, nails, canvas or, better still, thick wool, pitch...."

"Get it tomorrow night," she began."

She saw the decisive shake of his head. "Now no one knows we have left Carteia. I can find what we need and be back here before dawn. Tomorrow there may be a hunt up for us. Tomorrow they will not be drunk. There will be sentries, guards. No, Rachel, I must go now." He took her quickly in his arms and kissed her. "Stay hidden. Look after them, Akiba."

She did not weep until the same hour the next night, when he had not come. Then she sat by the boat, folded her arms on her knees, and wept. Akiba muttered, "Perhaps he was seen and driven inland...."

She had hoped that, too. That was why she had waited until this later hour to weep. Now she knew he would never come back.

Akiba said, "I'll go tomorrow night if he doesn't come. We only need to mend the hole." She nodded, for they had found both oars as soon as they began to look around the cove by daylight.

They lay down, but Rachel's eyes never closed. In seven days she had lost three men who had wanted to put their seed in her that children might grow in her womb. She had fled from the Rock and returned. Now what? Who could tell her what she must do?

At once she knew; and as soon as Akiba slept she climbed the cliff, went to the thicket, and for half an hour knelt in total darkness in her Secret, holding the ivory figurine between her breasts. Then, her questions answered, she returned and fell asleep.

Next night Akiba left the cave at dusk. Rachel waited till he had gone, then began to gather the collected driftwood close around the fire and cut herbs into the pot with salt and water. She sliced some of the tender lamb they had stolen from Wildigern, and he from the Villa Flaviana. She kept Isa awake running about and playing with some bronze baubles she had found. When his eyelids drooped, she gave him wine from the flagon, laid him down carefully in the high back of the cave, and covered him with Peter's cloak, which he had left behind.

Akiba returned early, put down his burden, and sat by the fire. His face was taut. "I knew where Simon kept his materials," he said. Then, suddenly, "They have flayed Peter and nailed his skin to the house where Theophilus sits." He shuddered and buried his head in his knees.

She stroked his hair. "Think not of it, Akiba. It is all done. All gone. Except us."

Akiba was seventeen and healthy. He sniffed the air. "That is a savory stew, sister. But we must not waste food. It will take me two or three days to make all ready. Then we must await calm weather."

"There is enough," she said gaily. "Tonight we eat well and drink wine."

"How can you smile?" he said. "If you had seen him ... Your eyes glitter like stars, Rachel. Have you taken wine?"

"Not yet. Here. Drink. Again. Forget. But say the blessing, that the Children of Israel may never die from the earth, for surely we are the last."

He spoke and drank. She watched to see that he took enough to wipe what he had seen from his mind, but not too much. Herself, she ate sparingly and kept the fire burning. As Akiba neared the end of his eating, she began to sing love songs, which the young men sang to the girls on summer nights by the sea. Akiba beat time with one hand, holding the wine flagon with the other. "I wish father were here with his lute," he said.

His eyes clouded, and Rachel jumped to her feet. "Remember last year's spring festival?" she cried. She danced now as the wild Turdetani of the Ronda hills did when they came down and danced at the festival. She bent her body back, clapped her hands, thrust out her breasts, and stamped her feet. She saw her brother's eyes on her swelling breasts, on her legs, visible under the thin linen. As she danced she raised her arms, slipped free of the dress, and let it slide down her body to the sand. Akiba licked his lips, and she danced closer to him. He pressed back against the wall of the cave. Little Isa lay asleep above, the firelight playing on his face and his fat, dirt-stained cheeks.

Rachel sank down by Akiba's side, took his arms, and whispered, "Come. Be a man to me!"

"Rachel!" he cried. "It is a sin, an abornination."