As Sure as the Dawn (60 page)

“I brought my wife.”

A wife. That narrowed the possibilities of who the man of shadows was. His late-night visitor couldn’t be Rud as he had begun to suspect. Rud was a bachelor. Nor could he be Holt, who was a widower. Nor could the night visitor be any one of a dozen younger warriors who had not yet taken wives.

“You are both welcome,” Theophilus said. “Bring your children next time.” He knew he had erred with the remark, for a tense silence followed his words.

He heard the woman whisper something, and the man responded in a sharp whisper, “Do not speak of it. Not a word about it.” His whisper dropped again. “He’s a friend of Atretes’. . . .” The words became indistinct as the trees rustled from a breeze.

It was cold tonight. Theophilus knew he was far more comfortable in the warmth of his grubenhaus than the man and woman crouching outside in the late autumn night air. His remark had caused them needless alarm. He regretted trying to satisfy his curiosity.

These are your children, Lord. Let them settle long enough to hear your good news. Let love cast out their fear.

“I want you to tell my wife about Jesus.”

Theophilus could hear the woman’s teeth chattering. “Your wife is cold.”

“Then tell her quickly.”

“The Word of the Lord isn’t something to be rushed. If I put on a blindfold, will you both come inside where it’s warmer?”

He heard the woman whispering.

“Yes,” the man said.

Taking his dagger from the shelf, Theophilus cut the edge of his blanket and ripped off a strip. He tossed the dagger beside the lamp he had placed in the center of the room to allay other possible concerns. Closing his eyes, he tied the blindfold securely.

He heard them enter and close the door he had finished yesterday. The woman’s teeth continued to chatter, perhaps less from cold than tension.

“Be at ease, my lady,” Theophilus said, feeling to the left of him until he found the fold of his extra blanket. “Take this and put it around you.” He heard movement, and then the blanket was taken cautiously from his hand.

“Go back to the beginning,” the man said, no longer whispering. “Tell her about the star in the heavens that proclaimed the birth of the Savior.”

A party of Bructeri came with goods for trade. They displayed Celtic brooches, pins, shears, and pottery items, as well as silver and gold vessels from Rome. The Chatti bartered with furs and animal skins as well as amber, the fossilized resin much in demand in the Empire’s capital markets.

“The merchants who brought this north will hurt from the loss,” one Bructeri was heard to say, but few Chatti believed these traders had come by their goods through the honorable means of attack and plunder. Pride pinched less with no questions asked.

Roman traders were infiltrating Germania, seducing tribes with gifts and bribes in order to open commerce. Boats sailed north on the Rhine, carrying goods to Asciburgium and Trier. A brave few brought caravans, tempting death as they followed the Lippe, Ruhr, and Main, entering the valleys of the north by way of the streams of Weser and the Elbe, knowing their lives would be avenged if they failed.

When several Romans had come to the Chatti two years before, they had met with a quick and violent end, and their goods were confiscated. Roman retribution had followed swiftly, leaving the village burned and eighteen warriors, three women, and a child dead. The others would all have been taken as slaves had not they fled to the woods and remained hidden there until the legion had departed.

They only returned once to the old village site, to honor their dead in quickly constructed funeral houses. In the months that followed, the Chatti rebuilt the village on land northeast of the sacred wood.

And now, Rome came again, encroaching ever northward, this time through the representation of the Bructeri, supposed allies to the Chatti cause against Rome. Chatti warriors talked of war when they left.

“We should’ve killed them while they were here!”

“And have another legion breathing down our necks?” Atretes said.

“We’ll take the war south this time.”

Despite Atretes’ counsel, a band of warriors set off to make their ire known. Atretes remained behind, watching them leave with mixed feelings. He knew enough now of God’s way that his conscience forbade him accompanying them. Yet another part of himself longed to ride with them. How long since he had felt that hot rush of excitement in his blood? The closest thing to it was when he held Rizpah in his arms, yet it wasn’t the same.

“You miss the thrill of battle,” Theophilus said, seeing his restlessness, recognizing it.

Thrill
was too feeble a word to describe what he had felt. “Sometimes,” Atretes said grimly, “but it’s far more than that.” As mad as it sounded, he missed the feeling he had had in the arena, staring death in the face and overcoming it by the sheer instinct to survive. His blood had hummed, hot and fast. Sometimes, in a rage, he had a feeling close to it. Exhilaration, a wildness that made him feel
alive.
It was only afterward that the deception was revealed and the cost made known.

Theophilus understood all too well. “You’re in battle now, Atretes. We both are, and we’re standing against a foe more dangerous and cunning than any we’ve ever faced before.” He could feel the forces of darkness at work around them, closing in.

When the Chatti warriors returned with plunder and good cheer, Atretes’ mood grew even more grim. He drank with his friends and listened hungrily to every detail of the battle, part of him coveting their memories of personal exploits during the valorous enterprise.

Theophilus reminded him that what had been done was anything but valorous.

“And Rome’s thievery is right?” Atretes snarled, defensive.

“Sin is sin, Atretes. Where’s the difference between what Rome did to the Chatti and what the Chatti now do to the Bructeri?”

It was a mark of how much Atretes’ heart had changed that he even listened. Theophilus’ words made sense to him. But no one else was listening.

Drunk on beer and triumphant, Holt, Rud, and the others were intoxicated with bloodlust and eager for another battle. Peace had no appeal to them, not with victory still racing in their veins and plunder piled up around them. This time, they attacked the Cherusci. Six warriors returned on their shields.

The funeral fires that burned long into the night had a sobering effect on those watching, more so for the mothers who bore those who had died than the fathers who brought them home. Death made the men crave blood even more.

Rizpah prayed for winter snows to cool Chatti tempers and silence the talk of war. And the storms came, one upon the other, until the Chatti had no choice but to remain within the confines of their own borders. Rizpah thanked God, but learned another kind of hardship.

Feeding the cattle was more difficult during the winter months, and, despite Atretes’ help, Varus invariably returned exhausted, his bad leg aching past quiet endurance, and in a foul temper. Only Anomia could soothe him. She came to visit often, bringing with her a salve made of arnica, which she massaged into Varus’ leg.

Rizpah wondered at her acts of kindness, for when Anomia finished her ministrations, Varus was less in pain, but more restless and short-tempered than before.

“He needs a wife,” Atretes said, having watched Anomia. She had looked at him while working her magic on Varus’ scarred thigh, and he had felt as though she was stroking his flesh instead of that of his brother with those bold, skillful fingers of hers. The knowledge had sunk deep and hot, rousing him in a way he hadn’t felt since Julia.

He unleashed the beast upon his wife, shocking and frightening her with his passion. It wasn’t until she uttered a soft cry that he even realized what was happening to him and broke off his mindless race to his own satisfaction.

Atretes was appalled and awash with shame. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, burying his face in her hair. He had never hurt her before, and the feel of her body trembling scared him as much as her.
God, forgive me,
his mind cried out. “I’m sorry,” he whispered hoarsely and caressed Rizpah tenderly, afraid of the dark forces that had so easily gripped him again.

While lying with his wife, his mind had conjured the image of another. Even now, while comforting Rizpah, memories of lustful encounters came back. They rose like rotting corpses from unclean graves. In an instant, unbidden, those other women were with him, polluting his marriage bed.

Once, long ago in Ephesus, he had seen a man stumbling along the road outside the gates of his villa, the body of a dead man tied to his back. The rotting corpse was strapped to him in a way that he could never be free of it, not until the decay began eating into his own flesh as well. “Why’s he doing it?” he had said, and Gallus had answered. “It’s the law. He carries the body of the man he murdered.”

Put aside the old self.

Atretes had taken him up again. He could feel the weight of sin on his back, the filth of it soaking into him through his pores.

Rizpah uttered a startled gasp as Atretes released her abruptly and sat up. “What is it?” she said with a rush of frightened concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Give me a minute,” he said, his voice ragged. When she sat up and reached for him, he was harsh. “Don’t get close to me!”

That’s what he felt, and Anomia had roused it. He couldn’t be near her and not see what she wanted, not feel the desire mount in him as well. The realization stunned him. What was worse, he knew it would happen again.

Was it only because she looked so much like Ania?

Raking his fingers into his hair, he held his head. Already, he hurt with what he had started and not finished. And he wouldn’t finish, not with what was going on in his mind.

He
loved
Rizpah. He cherished her. He’d die for her. How could he be holding her in his arms and making love to her while thinking of another. It was the worst kind of betrayal. It stank of adultery.

“God, forgive me.”

Rizpah heard him mumble something, but not what it was.

“God, deliver me.”

She heard that and went to him, putting her arms around him. He shook her off and shoved her back from him.

Hear my cry, Lord,
Atretes prayed fervently.
Wipe that witch from my mind. Wipe every woman I’ve ever touched from my mind. Make me clean for Rizpah. Make me clean.

Calmer, his mind clearing, he turned to reassure his wife. But the damage was already done.

Winter agreed with Anomia’s cold blood. She chose her time and listeners carefully. Those who were among her chosen carried grudges and unfulfilled desires, discontent and disappointment. She invited them to her dwelling place of shadows and poured honeyed wine into their drinking horns and bittersweet vitriol into their hearts. They went away parched and came back over and over again, thinking she could slake their thirst.

“Atretes speaks of
guilt.
The guilt of
sin,
whatever sin may be,” she said, her beauty sharpened by derision. “Why should we feel guilty? The Bructeri betray us by fornicating with Rome, do they not? The Hermunduri stole our sacred salt flats, did they not? He is deceived.”

The men readily agreed, their eyes moving over her in ardent fascination.

She smiled, feeling the power she had over them, the power they gave her of their own free will.

“We are the greatest among the German tribes. Chatti led the forces against Rome. We were first into the field and last to leave. And now, this
Roman
and this Ionian woman have worked upon Atretes, the greatest of all our warriors, and turned his heart away from Tiwaz. What would they have us believe about ourselves? That we are nothing. Nothing?”

A growl came from the men, their pride burning.

She fanned the flames of their discontent and added the fuel of ungodly desires.

“They claim we’ve
sinned.”
She gave a derisive laugh and a wave of her hand. “How can I or any of you be held responsible for what one man or one woman did thousands of years ago in a garden none of us have ever known existed? It’s ludicrous. It’s laughable! Is Herigast responsible for his son dropping his shield in battle? No. Is Holt accountable for the men who died to defend our land? No. None of us are responsible for what someone
else
has done. And we are not responsible for the sin of this nonexistent Adam and Eve.”

She moved around the circle, serving them, staying close enough to see the look in their eyes, to encourage their passions. “It’s a fable they tell us, a repulsive little tale with a dark purpose. And I’ll tell you what it is.”

She saw she held them in her hand and relished their rapt attention to her every word. They soaked each one in like dry earth drinks in rain.

“They want us to believe we carry the sin of this Adam and Eve because by believing it, we become
weak.
They want us to feel like worms before this god of theirs. They want to conquer us without even having to send a legion.”

She gave a soft, disquieting laugh. “Are we worms in the eyes of Tiwaz? No. But if we listen to them, we will be worms. Worms in
Roman
eyes.”