Part 21 (1/2)

Ariella swung off the attacker's back and landed flat-footed on the pavement, crouched and ready. But others tumbled from the house now. The man's ma.s.sive head swung to Ariella, then to Cato and the growing crowd behind him. He glanced at his partner, still on the street, then turned and disappeared into the night.

”Portius Cato!” Europa's velvety voice was unmistakable. ”Were you robbed?”

Cato straightened and went to Ariella, grasping her arm and studying her eyes. But she shook him off and stepped away.

”No, mistress. Thank you. That was not a robbery, I fear.”

Seneca strode into the street. ”They were Nigidius Maius's men, I've no doubt.” He spoke to the a.s.sembled group, fifteen or twenty of the followers who met in his home. ”He's resorted to this now, to intimidation of not only the common people, but his rival as well.”

Ariella joined Cato. ”They came to kill, not to intimidate.”

Europa clucked her tongue. ”Well, we thank the Lord that you two are like a matched pair of fighters!”

Ariella cleared her throat and s.h.i.+fted her feet, and Cato tried to mask his amus.e.m.e.nt.

But Seneca was not finished. ”Do not fear, Portius Cato. Word of this attack will make its way through the city. Maius cannot a.s.sa.s.sinate his rival, the very attempt of which he has accused your sister, and remain untouched by it! The people will know.”

Cato crossed the s.p.a.ce between them and gripped Seneca's arm. ”Thank you. I appreciate your support.”

And yet as the crowd returned indoors, and he and Ariella were pulled once again into the home of these strange and secretive people, Cato could not help but wonder if their support was more of a danger than an advantage.

CHAPTER 32.

Cato's battle was coming to an end. Not the war he waged against Nigidius Maius, but the conflict in his own heart between the truth so evident in Jeremiah's words and the lies he had believed all his life.

To yield was dangerous beyond anything he had yet done in Rome or even in Pompeii. And yielding did not come easily for Cato. Yet the repeated visits in the generous home of Seneca and Europa, the teaching of Jeremiah and the other Christians, and more than anything the revolutionary community that bound them all together, became too much to dismiss.

This day, this ordinary moment in the garden atrium of the wealthy home, would change the future.

He knelt at Jeremiah's feet and prepared to die to himself.

The fledgling church that spread its message of love throughout the Roman Empire and its provinces was not without fault. From the letters of Paul he had learned of years of divisions, of heresies that threatened, of cowardice and corrupt behavior. And yet what he had witnessed here in Pompeii was radical. The breakdown of all barriers between slave and free, man and woman, even Jew and Roman. The great preacher Paul said that the sacrificial blood of the Messiah, the Christ, had destroyed the dividing walls of hostility, bringing near those who were once far and without hope.

And while Rome grew more threatened by and more dangerous to the new sect that undermined its rituals and pulled people from the temples and the G.o.ds, the Christians themselves became a shelter within chaos for the poor and broken, a community of belonging that had opened its arms to Portius Cato.

It was this community, this unnatural and wonderful belonging, that became the final proof that their message-and their Messiah-had the power to change lives, to heal brokenness. To save him from himself.

Jeremiah laid a hand on his bowed head. An anointing. He spoke softly. ”All your life you have followed the customs of Rome in your wors.h.i.+p, Quintus. You have made offerings to the G.o.ds and in return expected their favor. At best, a transactional religion. More often, empty ritual.”

This was truth. It had been empty, all of it. All based on a presumption that he could obligate the G.o.ds into blessing him, based on his own actions.

”There is a transaction that the One G.o.d offers, however. You give Him your sin, your brokenness, your weakness. And in return He gives you righteousness, healing, strength. Freedom.”

”You ask me to give what is broken? That which has no worth? Why would a G.o.d honor such a gift?”

”Ah, but you are wrong. All that you offer is wrapped up in the greatest thing that the Holy One desires. You.”

He longed to believe it. No . . . he did believe it.

”The sacrifice He desires most is a broken and contrite heart. The gift He desires most is a relations.h.i.+p with His children.” Jeremiah lifted Cato's head and smiled down on him. ”Quintus, He is waiting to fill you with power as you have never known. To work through you, against evil, with a mighty and glorious strength. But you must first make that exchange. His righteousness for your transgression. Only through the Messiah, only through His sacrificial blood.”

Cato let the truth flood through him. There was only One G.o.d, who offered salvation to Jew and Roman alike, slave and free, and with it, His love and His strength.

He sagged against the flagstones, felt the release of all the effort to be a good man, to be worthy. He was accepted by the only true G.o.d. Loved and accepted because of what that G.o.d had done for him, not because of what he had done for G.o.d.

The beginnings of a prayer came to his lips, awkward and unfamiliar, yet true. Jeremiah gripped his shoulder as he poured out his grat.i.tude to the One who had been waiting for him, and received the new life he had been promised.

When the words were spent, he lifted blurred eyes to Jeremiah. ”What now?”

The old man's lips twitched. ”Oh, this is only the beginning, young man.” He patted Cato's cheek. ”Only the beginning.”

CHAPTER 33.

Ariella came back to life in the home of Quintus Portius Cato-though she would not have admitted it to the man for anything.

In truth, it was primarily the two lovely women of the house whose presence and affection began to heal her shattered heart. The young Isabella mirrored her mother in compa.s.sion and humor, if not yet in sophistication. As the days pa.s.sed, the facade of gladiator shed like a false skin, and Ariella's truer self emerged. Even her hair had taken on a more feminine appearance, short as it still was. The sadness, though, had burrowed deep, and this did not abate no matter how her body thrived.

She ignored Cato as much as possible, though their paths often crossed in the house. He always called her ”Ari,” as though he preferred to think of her as a boy. As though she were not woman enough. For this she did not fault him. She saw how his eyes followed the pretty girls who served and cleaned in his household. How he watched them move about, then dropped his eyes as though ashamed when he saw her. Her early fears of being used in the way all Roman men used their female slaves turned out to be unfounded.

He had others to pursue, it would appear.

And so she turned her attention to whatever tasks Octavia had for her, and became a favorite of the matron of the estate. This morning, Octavia tended one of the brothel women in a small room off the atrium. The girl had been beaten in the night by one of her patrons and had run to Octavia, whose reputation was well-known through the city.

Ariella knelt at the girl's side where she lay on a low couch, and blotted the dried blood from her swollen lip. The girl stared at the ceiling above her, as though oblivious to all.

Octavia paced behind her, directing Ariella's ministration, but clearly angry. ”Every week one of them comes to me like this.” She paused to huff out her frustration, hands on her hips. ”I clean them up, give them a few denarii, names of friends with whom they could seek honorable work.” She began her pacing again. ”And yet, where do they go?”

Ariella brushed the girl's hair away from her bruised eyes. Did she comprehend Octavia's words?

”Back to the brothel, that is where.” Octavia knelt beside Ariella and gripped the girl's hand. ”Why?”

Ariella glanced sideways at Octavia, awed by her compa.s.sion.

”Why can I not make a difference for them?”

She seemed to wait for an answer. Ariella inhaled and shook her head. ”It is very hard to make a change. Sometimes the familiar, no matter how terrible, feels safer than the unknown.”

Octavia's eyes were on Ariella then, peering into her secrets. But Ariella dropped her gaze.

”Mother?” Isabella's voice at the door brought Octavia to her feet immediately. She hurried to the door, blocking the girl's entrance.

”This is no place for you, daughter.”