The Centurion's Wife (32 page)

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FOUR

Antonia Fortress

AS HE WALKED THE LANE leading to the Antonia Fortress, Alban knew the first lancings of fear. But it was not for himself. Not even with the prospect of the marriage hanging in the balance could the peace he carried be disturbed. What he feared was the fate of Leah—and of Jacob.

Alban now wound his way up the stairs to his lodgings above the stables. As he expected, he found the boy huddled in the corner. “Come out, lad.”

There was no answer.

“Come here, Jacob. Please.”

When the lad finally approached, head hanging low, Alban did what he had wanted to do a thousand times. He gripped Jacob and hugged him hard.

The boy wrapped his arms around Alban’s neck and cried out, “I’ve never disobeyed you before. But I won’t. I will not leave you.”

Alban drew him over to a bench by the window. He pointed out the guards pacing in front of the fortress gates. “You see them? For all I know they have orders to arrest me on sight.”

“Then I’ll wait for you here, sire.”

Alban shook the lad but not hard. Just enough to get his attention. “What I’m trying to say is, my days of soldiering could well be over. Pilate is contemplating my fate.”

“But you will always be a centurion,” stated Jacob with childlike confidence.

“Perhaps not, lad. If so, I will serve to the best of my ability. If not—then God has other plans. And the same is true for you. I want you to promise me you will try to discover what plan God has for your life, and then follow it.”

The boy dropped his head. “I have always done as you commanded, sire, except when you ordered me away.”

“Listen to me.” Alban lifted Jacob’s chin. “There may come a time when the teachings of Jesus are violently opposed by the Roman guard. What then?”

Jacob gave no answer.

“I want you to be part of Simon’s household. I want you to have someone to care for you, and his wife already does so. I have made a promise that you will be trained in the faith of your people. I want that to happen. I plan to . . .”

Jacob was shaking his head.

“Let me finish.”

“No, sire—”

“You would be much safer there than with me.”

“I want only to be with you!”

Alban rubbed a hand roughly over his brow.

“Let me stay. Please, sire. The lady Leah says I can. Even after you are joined.”

“She told you that?”

“Yes. When you sent me to Simon’s family, instead I went to the courtyard before I came back here. Leah said if I wanted, she was happy to have me be a part of your house.”

Alban leaned against the wall. “She has not told me this.”

“She said you were already overburdened, sire. She told me to come back here and wait for you. She said if you agreed to this, she would send for me in time for the marriage celebration.”

“You young rascal, you. You two have it all planned.” Alban wiped his face a second time. “All right, then. Let’s be off.”

There was something else that needed doing. Alban approached the barracks through the main fortress courtyard. A group of perhaps thirty legionnaires were clustered about the dice pit. Alban found his friend Atticus standing apart. The older centurion leaned against the far wall and watched birds who pecked at bread tossed by two soldiers. Only when the senior of the pair glanced over did Alban recognize Crasius, the soldier he had last seen in front of the tomb. Alban showed the sergeant an empty palm. “All is well.”

Alban moved toward Atticus. He searched for a way to ease into the conversation. “I owe you a great debt, old friend,” he finally said.

Atticus blinked slowly. “You saved me from severe punishment, maybe death, over my abrogation of duties during the festival season. That is enough.”

“It is not even the beginning. I will soon take my bride, Leah.”

“The servant from Pilate’s household? The prelate’s niece?”

“The same. What is more, I love her. And none of this would have come about had you not approached Pilate on my behalf.”

A glimmer of the old fire shifted in the Roman’s gaze. “I should say congratulations, I suppose. Though how a woman such as she would ever be happy with a soldier’s lot is beyond me.”

“She assures me she will be just that. Whatever my future.”

“Then I am glad for you.” The fire in Atticus’s eyes dimmed as quickly as it had appeared. “But you owe me nothing.”

“I owe you a debt of life itself.” Alban stepped in closer so his words would carry to the two men by the side wall. “I also bring news. The one I asked you about, Jesus of Nazareth. He did die upon the cross.”

“Just as I have always said.”

Alban saw the man’s bone-deep pain. “How you must have suffered.”

Atticus stared at the stones by his feet and did not respond.

“But that is not my only news.” He beckoned to the other two, who cautiously moved closer. “The tomb was empty—just as the disciples declared. Empty. Because Jesus rose from the dead, just as it was reported.”

This time, all three studied him. It was Crasius who whispered, “How can this be true?”

“It is true because he is the Messiah, come from God himself,” Alban said. “It is not a fable. Not an illusion. It is real. Just as God has promised over the many years of Judaean history, his Anointed One has finally come.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FIVE

The Believers’ Courtyard

ALBAN SPENT THE SABBATH NIGHT in his quarters above the stables. When he rose at dawn, he found Jacob soundly asleep on his pallet in the front room. Alban hated to wake the boy. Still, it was important they be on their way. He nudged Jacob, and the lad rolled over with a yawn.

They didn’t stop for breakfast but took a piece of bread to eat as they walked. When they arrived, they found the courtyard to be already full.

They slipped to the alcove in the far corner, where they had spent much of the previous day. Jacob curled up in his cloak and went back to sleep. Alban must have dozed off too, for the next thing he knew, sunlight was tickling his face. He sat up and quickly looked around. It didn’t look like they had missed anything.

Two men who sat nearby nodded an acknowledgment, and Alban dared to enter their conversation.

“Is this the day, then?”

“We do not know. But it seems an auspicious time to us,” said the older of the men. “The day when Jesus was lifted into the sky, one disciple asked if he was now going to restore the kingdom of Israel. Jesus said it was not for them to know the day or the hour. Some wonder if this means the festival of Pentecost will come and go without his return. Others say we must watch and wait and hope.”

They fell into a comfortable silence. After a time, Alban slipped through the doorway into the disciples’ courtyard. He stepped into the kitchen area and found Leah helping to prepare a meal. Two other women he had seen before glanced over, nodded their greetings, and returned to work. When Leah walked over, he said, “I understand you and Jacob have been talking.”

“Was I wrong to do so?”

He fought down a powerful urge to reach out and touch her. Though none of the women looked his way, he was certain all were watching. “It is a wonderful gift. To both of us.” Her smile lit his heart.

“I can take a moment from my chores. Sit here on the bench. Would you care for anything?”

“Water, please.”

She brought him a mug damp and chilled from the cistern. Leah settled on the bench a discreet distance from him and adjusted the shawl so it covered the lower portion of her face. Her eyes were like polished emeralds, brilliant and totally engaged. She said, “I have been thinking of what it might mean, to build a home with you.”

“I can scarcely imagine such a thing,” he confessed. “Since boyhood I have had no home except where I am.”

“What do you miss about your homeland?”

Alban started to give his normal terse response to all such questions about his former life. But he found himself reveling in a newfound ability to look beyond old pain and anger.

“Winter,” he said quietly. “I miss winter and the change of seasons.”

Her eyes smiled, and in that simple act he felt as though they were joined together. Leah said, “Winter was rainy in the lowlands around Verona. But sometimes, when the air was very clear, I could see the mountains far to the north. Floating like clouds of stone and ice.”

“I miss hunting stags through a frozen forest,” Alban said softly. “I miss how a crow cuts shadows from a pale winter sky. I miss the company of a dear friend seated by a fire, surrounded by an empty glade. I miss the smell of horses in a warm corral.”

Her eyes had gone soft. “You are very poetic. I could almost see it myself. You miss a life that was snatched from you.”

Alban did not speak.

“You miss friends. You miss feeling as though you belonged to a place, and it to you.” She took a long breath. “I have heard the women here speak of forgiveness. Do you think it would ever be possible to forgive those who stole your life away?”

He answered slowly, not because he needed to think things through, but because he was coming to terms with an answer he knew could not come from himself. “I think perhaps I am already beginning to do just that. But only because the strength is given to me from somewhere beyond myself.”

Leah’s eyes turned to focus on him. “How would it be, I wonder, to spend a lifetime searching out such answers—”

“Together.” They whispered the final word as one voice.

Alban returned to find the plaza more crowded than when he had left. When Jacob came over, he asked, “What is happening?”

“No one knows. But more and more people keep coming.”

Alban found them as secluded a corner as the overcrowded area had to offer, a shaded spot behind some empty water barrels. They watched as the last of the disciples returned from prayer.

Abruptly the entire plaza went silent.

Jacob whispered, “What is it?”

Alban pressed his hand onto the lad’s back and whispered, “Wait.”

A wind seemed to build from beyond where they sat. Alban felt it rushing from every corner, up and down and right and left, before him and behind. An
impossible
wind. He circled his arm around Jacob’s shoulders and held tightly to him.

Across the mass of people, Alban saw Leah emerge through the portal. He lifted Jacob into his arms and started forward, but the crowd was so closely packed his progress was slow.

Then he saw lightning.

But there was no thunder. Nor did the power spark and vanish. Instead the light separated into individual blades, like pieces of flame hanging in the air. And each came to rest upon people throughout the courtyard.

Leah’s head was bowed. Alban was filled with the conviction that she was immersed in prayer. He then witnessed a most amazing sight. One of the flames came to rest upon her.

Alban knew the sign for what it was: God accepted her, claimed her as his own.

Maybe she felt his gaze, because her head lifted and she looked straight at him. As he closed the remaining distance, he heard her say, “God loves you, and he has given to you the gift of his son, through whom you may have eternal life, eternal peace. His flame rests upon you.”

With a shock, Alban realized Leah was speaking to him in Gallic. And not just any dialect of Gallic, but the language of his tiny province. For the first time in four years, he heard his native tongue. Spoken to him by the woman he loved.

His heart swelled with what was happening. He could not understand how she could know these words, but he didn’t need to. He answered in Gallic, “Yes, yes, I believe this.”

She looked upward, and he could see the flame above his head reflected in her eyes.

The wind stilled. The lights died away. He no longer saw the flames or felt the currents of air. But his heart burned with the truth he had seen, heard, experienced.

In the breathless silence, a voice called out from above, and the crowd turned to look up at a window in the upper room. A bearded man with the strength of a warrior stood in the opening and called to all below, “People of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourself know.”

And Alban did know.

“That is Peter, the leader of the disciples,” Leah whispered at his side.

“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”

A man’s voice carried over the vast audience, his anguish a piercing force, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

Alban bowed his head in contrition, then in deep gratitude. He, a Roman, a Gaul, was accepted. The promise was for him also. “Thank you. Thank you, Jesus my Lord, for forgiving me, for including me, for giving to me also the gift of the Holy Spirit.”