Shades of Surrender (5 page)

The corner of her mother’s lip lifted slightly. “Yes.” Her answer came out rusty and low, but it had come out just the same.

“Mother, have you come back to me?” Ruth put her hands on her mother’s shoulders and watched her nod hesitatingly. “Praise God, you
are
back!” She wrapped her mother in her arms. “Thank you, Lord.” Though she had continued to hold out hope, if she was honest, Ruth had begun to wonder if she’d lost her mother forever. She stared hungrily into the lucid depths of her eyes; then they held each other and sobbed. “Oh, Mother. I’ve made such a mess of everything.”

Voices and the shuffle of many feet outside the window put far too quick an end to their reunion. “Stay here,” Ruth whispered.

She tiptoed to the shutters and peered out.

Across the street people were gathering at the burned-out ruins of the rug shop. Were they waiting to see who the soldiers arrested? Ruth’s stomach lurched. From every direction, others were trudging toward them, brooms and shovels resting on their shoulders, rocks in their hands.

She craned her neck for a better view. “I think they’re going to stone us.”

A loud rumble drew her attention. Had the proconsul dispatched an entire legion to bring her in? She held her breath, unable to move.

Ruth worked to sort the crowd for any clues. In the middle of the hive of activity stood the tall, lanky dyer and her landlord. Metras was pointing his cane here and there, and Caecilianus was nodding.

What had he done?

“Come on, Mother. And bring the cat. I smell a rat.”

•   •   •

CAECILIANUS DECIDED
to let Metras direct the effort, since it was his property and his idea to offer the proconsul the full restoration of the burned-out building without incurring any of the cost. That left Caecilianus to manage the needed materials, which made sense since he was secretly paying for everything and had rallied the church to help. “Stack the bricks here and the lumber there.”

He aimed his broom handle at the only vacant space on the sidewalk.

“Wouldn’t it be more efficient to position the lumber where it could be used first?”

Caecilianus turned to find Ruth and her mother watching the cleanup. “Ruth, I—”

“Couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” The struggles of the past year showed in her expression, and it was all he could do not to scoop her up to protect her from ever getting hurt again.

“If you insist on paying your own debts, then why do you need God?” He hadn’t meant his frustration to come out in the form of a rebuke. “Listen, I know you don’t want to see me, and once I get you settled in a decent place to live, you won’t have to, but—” He started for her and tripped over a charred beam, falling headlong into the ashes. He used the broom handle and scrambled to his feet, coughing and sputtering like the fool she surely thought he was.

Ruth’s stern expression had dissolved into uncontrollable giggles. “You look like that kitten you found in your potash pile.”

“Well,
you
look like you haven’t slept in a week.” Caecilianus reached down and grabbed a handful of ash and released it atop her head.

Sputtering, Ruth bent and snatched up her own handful and tossed it on him. The crowd watched with open mouths as they tossed ash back and forth, laughing uncontrollably.

Finally, as the moment passed, Ruth swiped her mouth and gazed steadily at him. “Is it duty that compels you to relieve me of this debt, Caecilianus?”

“No.” He swallowed and found his courage. “It is love.”

She scrutinized him for a long moment, as if testing the truth in his words, then stepped forward and gently dusted ash from the hair around his lip. “I would say it is more than I deserve.” As a shudder rippled through his body, she rose on her tiptoes and lightly brushed her lips against his.

She pulled back with a pleased smile. “And what would you say if I surrendered everything?”

“That I shall be forever in your debt.”

Epilogue

“M
OTHER, CAN YOU HOLD
little Barek while I conduct business?” Ruth handed her infant son off to the woman who had not stopped talking since they moved into their new shop.

Ruth glanced around, her eyes taking in the new loom, two real beds, a cradle, and an assortment of shiny weaving tools on one side of the expanded space. On the other side of the room were Caecilianus’s vats, snail buckets, and drying racks. From the rafters every skein of yarn had been hung in the precise order they’d worked out in his old shop.

Ruth took the dog by the collar and placed him in the corner where the orange cat nursed a litter of orange and gray kittens. She went to stand beside Caecilianus at the loom and slipped her hand into his. He gave her raw and weary fingers a gentle squeeze as they waited to hear the decision of the young noble circling the finished tapestry.

Cyprianus Thascius stroked his clean-shaven chin. “The colors are stunning.” He stepped back and cocked his head. “Shades that change with your position. How ever did you manage such magic in such a short period of time?”

“My wife is a brilliant weaver,” Caecilianus said with a smile. “Her knots rival anything her father used to do.”

“My husband is the best dyer in all of Carthage,” Ruth added proudly.

Cyprian gave a slight nod. “Everyone knows the purple of Caecilianus saved your shop.” He smoothed the grape-trimmed creases of his white toga. “Had he not convinced me to seek an extension on your behalf, the house of Thascius would have missed its opportunity to acquire this exquisite piece of art.”

Ruth gave Caecilianus a sideways glance. His involvement in the senator’s unexpected patience should not have been a surprise. “My husband’s generosity knows no bounds.”

“Usually I can read the story of a tapestry.” Cyprian fingered the red knots she’d sprinkled like drops of blood across the different shades of garden. “I don’t know this one.”

“It is the story of a debt forgiven.”

“Whose debt?”

“The world’s”— Ruth could barely speak around the lump that had formed in her throat—“and mine.”

Cyprian’s fine brow scrunched. “Who could afford such generosity?”

“The one God who watched his son pray in that garden.” She could see the broad shoulders of the nobleman’s son stiffen.

He glanced around the shop. “Show me this wealthy god.”

“He’s everywhere.” She wiped her hands on her tunic so as not to stain the wefted strands of yarn that alternated between crossing over and under the vertical warps. “In the yellow of light. The black of darkness. The brilliant blues of the sky and waters.”

“And the red?” Cyprian asked.

“Especially in the red.” Tears stung her eyes. “It is the love that flowed out with his blood.”

“Your god bleeds?”

“And died.”

“Can a god die?”

“Only if he wants to.”

His face revealed his doubt. “And the green?”

“My favorite.” She smiled. “New life.”

“I don’t understand.”

“My God rose to live again. He offers forgiveness to everyone willing to surrender their debts.”

“I have studied at the feet of Rome’s best scholars. These are not the teachings of the temple gods.”

“No.” She could feel Caecilianus’s eyes upon her, begging her to proceed with caution. She took a deep breath. “They are the teachings of Christ.”

Cyprian backed away from the tapestry. “I owe no man. And never will.”

“Everyone has some kind of debt: to their friends, a teacher, their parents, a power greater than themselves.”

“I am a Thascius. Son of the wealthiest man in Carthage. Even the proconsul of this province fears our power.” He spun on his heel. “Keep your advance and your rug. We have no need of your Christian message.”

As Cyprian’s litter bearers hoisted the golden rig to their shoulders, Ruth turned to Caecilianus. “Don’t worry. He’ll be back.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Forgiveness is hard to resist.” She tapped his chest. “I know.” She rose, smiling, on her tiptoes and kissed the lanky dyer who had helped to set her free.

Keep reading for an excerpt from
Return to Exile
, book 2 in The Carthage Chronicles!

1

Curubis

T
HE SALTY BREEZE TASTED
of chum left to rot in the African sun.

Cyprian tugged at his damp tunic. The coarse wool sanded his sun-burned flesh. Chapped skin was only one of many indignities he’d suffered since a Roman freighter dumped him in this dank little fishing village. Twelve long months of exile had given him ample time to consider how far removed he was from Carthage and his former life.

While his friend and fellow exile Pontius penned angry protests to Rome in the shade of the crude lean-to they’d constructed from scavenged dead-fall and fishing nets, Cyprian paced the endless stretch of sand. To think, only a year ago Aspasius, the ruler of Carthage, had reclined at Cyprian’s wedding table. The heavy-jawed proconsul had sipped imported wines, debated the merits of slum renewal, and plotted treachery behind Cyprian’s back.

How smug the foul proconsul would be if he could see the solicitor of Carthage now. A flea-bitten pleb. Forced to live in conditions far worse than the city’s poorest tenement dweller. Disgraced. Banished from friends. Separated from his new bride.

Jade swells tumbled ashore, gobbling up large chunks of beach the way Aspasius devoured anyone who got in his way. Cyprian waded in and scooped water into his cupped hands. His eyes and face stung with the splash of salt. What had become of his wife? The worry was eating him alive.

Lisbeth had proven his equal. Smart as he in every way and far brighter when it came to healing. But did she have the cunning required to free herself from Aspasius? The thought of Aspasius dragging her into his lair haunted his dreams and drove his plans to escape.

Come spring a ship would sail into the harbor, and when it did, he intended to slip aboard, return to Carthage, and rescue his wife from the clutches of Aspasius Paternus.

“That’s enough for today, Pontius.” Cyprian rolled the papyrus his resourceful secretary had woven from reedy dune grasses. “We’d better work on catching our supper.”

“I’m determined to finish your petition, along with your response to the note from Felicissimus, before the next freighter comes.” Pontius dragged a whittled stick through the soot of last night’s cooking fire, a poor substitute for the expensive octopus ink turning rancid in the gold-trimmed ram’s horn in Cyprian’s old office. “Rome will not survive if it continues to allow injustice in its provinces.”

“We haven’t seen a ship port in this rat’s hole for months.”

“Today could be the day of our salvation.”

“I pray you are right.” Cyprian scanned the empty horizon. “Last night, my dreams once again revisited Carthage. Lisbeth stood on the proconsul’s balcony, crying my name, but before I could get to her . . . I awoke to the truth that Aspasius now rapes my wife.”

“A wrong your appeal will right.” Pontius took the scroll.

Cyprian clasped Pontius’s bronzed and sturdy shoulder. “Friend, even if I am released, I’ll need help to rescue my wife, and there is only one way to squelch the ugly rumor floating around Carthage that I hide in Curubis out of fear. Find the man who told Aspasius where my wife would be that day the soldiers took her and Ruth. Find him, and expose what he’s done, why we’re stuck on this godforsaken beach.”

His thoughts returned to his argument with Lisbeth, a moment in time he remembered with absolute clarity.

“I’m not about to let Aspasius keep me from doing my job. I need those supplies,”
she had argued.

“Let me or Barek run your errand.”

“You’re still convalescing. And Barek wouldn’t know a eucalyptus leaf from a mustard seed.”

“At least take Barek with you.”

“If it will help you sleep better.”

“No heroics. Promise.”

“Straight to the herbalist and back. I promise.”

Cyprian rubbed the throbbing scar on his upper arm. He’d let a little injury hinder his judgment that day. And his weakness had changed all of their lives.

Could he have stopped her? Doubtful.

They’d been married only a few weeks, but the one thing he knew for certain about his wife: nothing altered her path. Once Lisbeth set her jaw she would not be deterred. Perhaps women from her time counted bullheaded determination as admirable, but failing to heed wise counsel was a dangerous gamble in the world of Roman Carthage.

Her time?

Would the ludicrous idea that his wife came from another time and place always leave him so unsettled? Months of having nothing to do but contemplate the impossibility of falling in love with a woman from the future had brought him no closer to understanding his destiny. No closer to how or why their different paths had crossed. Or why he’d failed to make the most of such a miraculous blessing.

Although his regrets included the years he’d wasted serving pagan gods, failing to keep his wife from harm topped his shame. She hadn’t fully understood his sacrifice. He’d seen in her eyes the possibility that she’d even hated him for the choice he’d made that day to stand firm rather than deny his faith, to give up the power and standing that would have kept him from exile and her from Aspasius’s grip.

“Who could have tipped the proconsul to Lisbeth’s plans?” Pontius’s question tugged him from the horrors of that day.

“I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

“I would be no friend to you or our dearly departed bishop if I didn’t remind you that vengeance belongs to the Lord and—” Pontius abandoned his preaching in midsentence and charged past him. “Look! A scarlet topsail.” He directed Cyprian’s gaze seaward. In the distance a tiny blood spot smudged the cerulean horizon. “Who would dare travel the seas this time of year?”

“Someone with no choice.”

Without another word, Cyprian and Pontius snatched up their letters and raced toward the imperial frigate drifting into the lagoon. Water lapped the dock’s warped planks beneath Cyprian’s bare feet. Word of an approaching ship spread quickly among the villagers. Soon a host of neglected savages pushed them toward the water. Every man rank with the odors of outdoor living and desperate for a crock of wine and a few handfuls of grain.