As Sure as the Dawn (43 page)

The roar abruptly stopped, and they could hear the pounding of heavy, running footsteps. “They’re coming,” Atretes said.

Theophilus listened, grim faced.

German warriors surged into the road ahead and behind. Arrows and spears flew. Dodging a framea, Atretes sliced through the first man to reach him. Bellowing his war cry, he charged over the fallen man. Caleb was screaming. Atretes plowed into two warriors, not even feeling the point of a sword graze his side as he cut them down.

Theophilus blocked blows and used the hilt of his gladius to down one of his attackers. Ducking sharply, he narrowly missed being decapitated as a sword swished over his head. He brought his fist up into the solar plexus of the younger warrior.

Atretes snatched up a framea from the ground and threw it. It went through a warrior who was coming at Theophilus from behind. The man let out a harsh cry and went down.

As quickly as the attack came, it ended. The Germans melted into the forest and silence fell again.

Atretes was breathing hard, his blood on fire. He gave a jeering shout.

One of the young warriors Theophilus had dropped moaned as he regained consciousness. Atretes strode toward him, face flushed and sweating from exertion, his intent clear. Theophilus stepped in his path. “There’s been enough killing.”

“Get out of my way!”

Theophilus blocked Atretes’ gladius with his own. “I said
no!”
he shouted into Atretes’ face.

“They’re Mattiaci.” Swearing, he rammed Theophilus with his shoulder and made another swing. Theophilus blocked him again and hit him in the side of the head with his iron fist.

“I cracked your skull once,” he said as Atretes staggered. “God help me, I’ll do it again.” He clamped an iron hand on Atretes’ throat. “I didn’t come to Germania to kill.” He shoved him back. “Or stand by and watch you do so!”

The hot blood pounding in Atretes’ head slowed and cooled. Breathing heavily from the battle, his lungs still burning, he faced the Roman. “I should’ve killed you when I saw the Rhine,” he said through his teeth. He stepped forward. “I should kill you
now!”

Theophilus slammed him hard in the chest, knocking him back. He took a fighting stance. “Go ahead and try if you think you have to.
Go ahead!”

Caleb’s screaming penetrated Atretes’ haze of rage. Frowning, he stepped back, lowering his gladius. “Where’s Rizpah?”

“You told her to get down behind that log.”

When Atretes couldn’t see her, he strode toward it, wondering why she wasn’t seeing to his son. Was she cowering behind that log in fear? Had she run off into the forest, forgetting the boy and leaving him behind?

“Rizpah!”

Putting his hand on the log, he swung himself over. He landed with perfect balance.

Caleb sat in Rizpah’s lap. He was covered with blood and screaming. Atretes’ heart gave a sharp flip. “How bad is it?” he said hoarsely as he saw Rizpah touch the child’s face in an effort to calm him. “Where’s he wounded?” He stepped over and lifted his son from her lap.

It was then he saw the arrow protruding from her chest and realized it was her blood covering Caleb. The child was unharmed.

Theophilus heard Atretes’ guttural cry and left the two Mattiaci where they lay. He sprinted across the small clearing and came around the log where he saw Atretes on his knees, face ashen, touching Rizpah’s cheek tenderly. He was speaking to her in German. Stepping closer, Theophilus saw the wound. It was a mortal one.

“Oh, Jesus,” he said softly.

Atretes put his left hand against Rizpah’s chest, bracing her as he extracted the arrow with his right. In shock, she made little sound. Blood poured from the wound as he tossed the arrow aside. He pressed the heel of his hand against it to stop the flow, but it did little good. Gripping Rizpah’s white face with his bloodied hand, he pleaded with her. “Don’t die. Do you hear me?
Don’t die.”

She rasped for breath, blood bubbling from her parted lips and trickling from the corner of her mouth.

“Jesus, O Jesus,” Theophilus said, going down on his knees.

“Rizpah,” Atretes said, stroking her cheek.
“Liebchen,
don’t . . .” Her eyes changed subtly. Atretes saw and knew what it meant.
“No!”
Fear such as he had never known filled him.

He was going to lose her. What would he do when he did? “Call upon your god!” he said raggedly, tears pouring down his cheeks. His fingers bit into her pale face.
“Call upon your god now!”
He had seen death too many times not to recognize it had come to take her.

Her breathing changed. The harsh and rapid rasping for air slowed and eased.

“I need you,” he said hoarsely.

Her hand fluttered as though she wanted to touch him and hadn’t the strength. She gave a long, soft sigh and was silent. Her body relaxed, and she was completely still.

“No,” Atretes groaned and put his hand to her throat. There was no pulse.
“No!”
he said in an agony of grief. German words poured like a flood from him, feelings he had kept hidden, feelings he had fought against. He cupped her face with both hands. Her eyes were open, dilated and fixed, unseeing, her lips softly parted. The blood that had been trickling from her mouth ceased. The wound in her chest stopped bleeding.

Rising, Atretes spread his hands palms up, covered in her blood, and bellowed out his anguish. Over and over, he cried out while his son screamed, untended and forgotten.

Theophilus moved to Rizpah’s side and laid his hands upon her. While Atretes poured out his grief and hopelessness, Theophilus poured out his faith in prayer to Christ.

Nothing is impossible for God. Nothing.

No words came from his lips, no clear thoughts filled his head, but his soul cried out to God that Rizpah be returned to them. For the child. For the man still lost in the darkness.

Atretes stumbled away. He couldn’t get his breath. He felt as though someone was choking him. He couldn’t breathe. His mind filled with visions of every life he had ever taken, every loved one ever lost. He sat down hard, his forearms resting on his knees. Head down, he wept.

Theophilus continued to pray.

Caleb pushed himself up and toddled toward his dead mother. Flopping down, he put his head in her lap and began to suck his thumb.

When Caleb’s crying stopped, Atretes raised his head and looked for him. When he saw where he lay, he shut his eyes. How was he going to raise him alone? Theophilus was on his knees, hands firmly covering Rizpah’s wound. What did the centurion think he could do now? What good were his prayers?

“Leave her alone. She’s dead.” Theophilus remained as he was. “She’s
dead,
I tell you,” he said, shooting to his feet. “Do you think I don’t know it when I see it come?”

His angry words hung on the cold air as a sudden stillness fell over the forest. For a heartbeat it was as though all of creation had stilled, then came a soft whisper of wind. Atretes looked around apprehensively, his skin prickling as the wind whispered around him . . . and he began to shake, afraid of whatever forces moved around them.

A gasp drew his attention sharply, and his eyes widened in disbelief as Rizpah drew in a deep breath, her eyes opening wide as she looked beyond Theophilus. “Jesus,” she said softly in wonder, and Atretes was knocked from his feet. Clutching the earth, he lay flat, face down, trembling violently.

Theophilus lifted his hands from Rizpah and brushed her cheek lightly with trembling hands. “Praise be to God,” he said in a choked voice, overcome. He touched her again, amazed.

“He was with me,” Rizpah said, eyes shining. “I felt him touch me.”

Whatever force held Atretes down lifted as quickly as it had come, and he clambered to his feet. Heart pounding, he came closer, awestruck. “She was dead!” he whispered.

With a victorious cry, Theophilus stood and moved aside, excitement pouring through him. Laughing and crying, he gripped Atretes’ arms. “Tell me now Christ has no power! Tell me he doesn’t live! He was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Our God
reigns!”
He released the German and raised his hands in jubilant thanksgiving. “Lord Roi!” His voice rose, carrying through the dark forest, reclaiming it.
“El Elyon,
God Most High!”

Shaking, Atretes knelt down in front of Rizpah, unable to believe what his eyes saw. Swallowing hard, he reached out to touch her and then drew his hand back. The hair on the back of his neck rose, for her face was aglow as he had never seen it before and her eyes were shining. She was alive, more alive than he had ever seen her. A radiance shimmered around her.

Her eyes met his. “He was here with us.”

“I believe you.”

“Don’t be afraid,” she said and reached out to him. “There’s nothing to fear.” She placed her hand tenderly against his cheek. “God loves you.”

His throat closed with emotion, and he couldn’t speak. He grasped her hand and kissed the palm, tears coming. He touched her face in wonder. He noticed then how her tunic was drenched with blood. He wanted to see to the wound lest the bleeding continue. Taking his dagger from its sheath with shaking hands, he cut the wool carefully. When he peeled the cloth back, he found her skin smooth beneath. Frowning, he searched for the injury.

Awestruck, he touched her skin, feeling gooseflesh rise over his entire body as he did so. The only evidence there had ever been a wound was a small circular scar just above her right breast, close to her heart. No one could have survived such a wound.

Rizpah
had
been dead. He knew it as well as he knew she was now alive. And as well as he knew that Theophilus had not worked this miracle. Nor had Tiwaz. Only one god had done this. Hadassah’s God. Rizpah’s God. The God he had so confidantly dismissed as being weak and ineffective had done the impossible.

Atretes took his hands from her and drew back. He did not understand the way this God worked, but he could not deny the power he had felt and seen. His voice was filled with certainty when he spoke. “Your God is a God of gods and a Lord of kings!”

Theophilus turned. “The only God, Atretes. The
only
God.”

Atretes looked up at Theophilus. All his animosity toward the Roman was forgotten in his wonder at what he had just witnessed. “I give him my sword!”

Theophilus knew such a vow to a German meant his honor and life. “As I gave him mine when I came into his kingdom.” He held out his hand.

Atretes grasped it. “Baptize me,” he said. It wasn’t a request, but a demand. “Baptize me so I can belong to him.”

Theophilus clasped his shoulder. “And so we begin.”

“I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” Theophilus said, baptizing Atretes in the first spring they found. Atretes knelt. Giving the German support, The~ophilus leaned him back. “Buried in Christ,” he said, submerging him, “and raised up in the newness of life.” He drew him up again.

Dripping wet, Atretes stood. Turning, he saw Rizpah standing ankle-deep in the water, holding his son, and made another decision that would affect the rest of his life. “I claim Rizpah as my wife.”

Rizpah’s gaze lost its dreamy haze.
“What?”

“You said you love me!”

The look in his eyes as he slogged through the water toward her sent her pulse racing and made her want to run. She retreated from the spring onto the bank. “I love Theophilus, too, as I loved Timon and Porcia, Bartimaeus, Camella, Tibullus, and Mnason and—”

“You said you’d never lie to me,” Atretes said, his eyes pinning her where she stood.

“I’m not lying!”

He came out of the water and stopped in front of her, putting his hands out. “Give me the boy.”

“Why?”

“Give me my son.”

She did so with trepidation. Atretes took him, kissed his cheek, and set him on his feet. As he straightened, he smiled slightly. Her stomach dropped and she took a step back. Retreat gained nothing for he caught hold of her. When he drew her into his arms, she had only enough time to utter a soft gasp before he kissed her. It was a long time before he loosened his embrace, and by then she couldn’t think clearly.

“You love those others,” he conceded, equally affected, “but not the way you love me.”

“I’m not sure marrying you is a good idea,” she said shakily, alarmed by the power of the sensations he aroused in her. “For you or for me.”

Theophilus stood in the spring, laughing. “It will be a blessed relief!” He strode toward them, grinning. “Or have you forgotten God himself put the two of you together in Ephesus?”

“Not as husband and wife!” Rizpah said, trying to put some distance between her and Atretes. She needed time to think, and she couldn’t with him holding her the way he was. Was it proper to want a man so much? Was it
Christian?
She looked at Theophilus for help, but he seemed pleased.

Atretes had no intention of letting her go until she capitulated. “We’re mother and father to the same child. It makes sense we be man and wife as well. Say yes.” When she stammered, he cupped the back of her head. “Say yes. One word.
Yes.”
He kissed her again, as soundly as the last time.