The Protector

  Adiona laughed politely at the jest, but there was no real humor in her eyes. Sapphira left, pulled along by the needs of her other customers. Adiona busied herself cutting the tender fish. He suspected he’d shocked her with his honesty. “Did I offend you, my lady?”

  “Offend me?” She set down the knife. “How? By telling me the truth?” He nodded.

  “No,” she said. “I always prefer the truth, but it’s rare to hear and often more difficult to address than lies.”

  The music shifted tempo to become a whisper in the background. Using her fingers, Adiona raised a bite of the fish to her lips. She closed her eyes, savoring the earthy flavors of herbs and citrus.

  Watching her, Quintus stopped breathing. With every moment and action, she became somehow more fascinating. She opened her eyes and smiled at him, her amber gaze bright with satisfaction. “The fish is delicious. No wonder it’s your favorite.”

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat and drank deeply from his chalice. “Joseph’s men went to find Otho and the others,” he said, hungry for a change of topic. “God willing, we’ll all leave at first sail tomorrow. You’ll arrive in Neopolis by noon.”

  “Just as you planned,” she said woodenly. “I still think it’s a good idea for you to see me to the ship tomorrow and then return to Rome.”

  “No. I won’t discuss that nonsense again.” He almost laughed at her reaction to his decree. If she were a child, she would have stuck her tongue out at him. As it was, she took another bite of fish and glanced away, her nose stuck in the air.

  He studied her. She wasn’t the Roman matron he’d first seen at the ludus. Gone was the gilded peacock. Travel-worn, she looked embattled and exhausted, but still beautiful enough to make him ache for her.

  She reached for her mug of water. “Who is Lucius?”

  “My younger twin brother.” He reached for his own bite of fish.

  “I overheard you discussing him with Joseph.”

  “Yes, I’m pleased to learn he passed by here on his way down the coast.”

  “Do you plan to look for him?”

  “I’d like to.”

  “What are we going to do if the men don’t return or can’t be found tonight?”

  “Joseph’s two older sons will guard your door upstairs. I’ll stay down here beneath your window.”

  “When will you sleep?”

  He shrugged. “Tomorrow. We’re going to hire a private boat. There’s no way your enemies will be on board. I’ll nap on deck.”

  “I don’t like it,” she said, meeting his eyes. “I’m going to stay awake tonight down here with you.”

  “No, that’s ridiculous.”

  She frowned. “I see.”

  “What?”

  “You want privacy with Josephina.”

  He laughed. “She’s just a child.”

  “How old is she?”

  Still chuckling, he shrugged. “Fifteen.”

  “I was twelve when my father married me off to a man twice your age.”

  The news sobered him instantly. Wedding a child to a man in his fifties wasn’t unheard of, but that didn’t make the practice any less repellant. “It’s not like that between Josephina and me.”

  “Then how is it? Even her mother says you belong to the girl. Don’t think I didn’t notice how you avoided my question when I asked about the child earlier.”

  He released a deep breath. “I’m a merchant by trade, Adiona. A successful one…at least I was until my arrest. My business brought me to the port here in Ostia at least four times a year. Seven years ago, when I was twenty, I found this tabernae. Joseph and Sapphira’s kindness drew me back again and again. They shared their faith in Christ with me and led me to the Lord.”

  “I thought Joseph was a Jew,” she said.

  “He is. He believes Jesus is the Messiah foretold by the Hebrew Prophets.”

  She picked at her bread, thoughtful. “You were arrested for your religion, were you not? Did you know what it would cost you to believe in your Jesus?”

  “At the time…I suppose not.”

  “And now that you’re a condemned man?”

  He combed his fingers through his hair. “I’d do it all the same.”

  “I don’t understand, Quintus. Why can’t you believe in a god that won’t see you thrown into the arena?”

  He tried not to smile. “I believe my God is the one true and living God. He isn’t interchangeable.”

  “But I don’t want you to die,” she whispered.

  Something deep inside him shifted, like a broken bone set back into place. For months he’d been too despondent to care if he was alive or dead, but Adiona’s concern breathed new life into his veins. “Don’t worry. I don’t plan to die anytime soon.”

  Adiona’s attention turned to Sapphira who was laughing with a patron at a table nearby. “She and Joseph are lovely. Sapphira reminds me of Octavia. She’s open and kind. It’s plain to see why you love them—even Josephina,” she added grudgingly.

  “Yes, I consider them as much a part of my family as my blood kin, perhaps more so. Josephina came along to them late in life, the only daughter after half a dozen sons. She’s young and well-loved. I’ll even concede she may be a little bit spoiled.”

  Adiona snorted. “More than a little.”

  He grinned. “When she was eight years old, I stopped here on the way to my villa farther down the coast. She crawled in my lap and proclaimed I was hers. The family finds it amusing and it’s a running joke. But believe me, regardless of how she feels, I think of her as a little sister, nothing else.”

  “Then why can’t I stay with you?”

  “You need to sleep.”

  “Shall I remind you, that you are my protector? I don’t like being surrounded by strange men.”

  “I’ll be right here. If you need me just call out your window.” He didn’t consider Joseph’s sons “strange men.” Obviously, Adiona did. Then again, she was known for her hatred of the opposite sex. When had that loathing begun? “After all your questions of me tonight, do you mind if I ask you one of my own?”

  She shifted on her chair uncomfortably. “That depends.”

  “How long were you married?”

  Her mouth tightened. “Six years.”

  “Were you content?”

  “That’s two questions, Quintus.”

  He waited. The hour was growing late and the throng of diners began to thin. She pushed a piece of bread around her plate with the tip of her index finger. “No, I was far from content.”

  Just as he’d thought. How much of her fears stemmed from her marriage? When she finally met his gaze, he knew he should seek a different topic, but when his mouth opened he found himself asking, “Was your husband the brute who hurt you?”

  She gasped as though he’d stabbed her. Her color high, she closed her eyes, then nodded once. Her chair scraped on the cement floor as she stood and fled.

  Taken aback by her sudden flight, he followed her outside, past the few empty tables left to be stored away for the night. Her swift steps carried her across the street and the short distance to the seawall.

  He stopped a few paces behind her and scraped his hand through his hair. He should change the subject, he realized, but a rampant need to know every facet of her being drove him on. “Adiona, what happened? I have an idea, but I’d like you to tell me for certain.”

  “Why are you doing this?” She swung around to face him. Bitterness flowed off her in waves. The shadows hid all but her strained eyes, the tip of her nose and the curve of her stubborn chin. “You’ve no great affection for me. No reason to care.”

  She couldn’t be more wrong. He’d spent months fighting her hold on him, desperately trying to convince himself his attraction was no more than a carnal reaction to a beautiful woman. But every day, every hour he spent in her company wore away his resistance until his mind was forced to accept what his heart already knew.

  He loved her.

  Restive t
ension sparked between them. He had no more fight in him where his feelings for her were concerned. She burned like a fever in his blood—a fever that his prayers, his reason and the lessons of his past had all failed to cure.

  Pulse racing, he stepped closer until they almost touched. Every nerve in his body begged him to take her in his arms, to kiss and hold her until he’d convinced her she loved him, too.

  Instead, he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. She trembled. The pad of his thumb brushed the soft silken skin below her ear, the one concession he made to his craving to touch her. “I care, Adiona. I want to help you.”

  “I don’t need help,” she said with stony insistence.

  “Then you’re the only soul in Creation who doesn’t.”

  Between the starlight and the faint lamplight from the tabernae behind them, he saw her eyes close. “What’s to tell?” she whispered. “I was married to a beast who tortured me almost every day for six years.”

  Even worse than he’d suspected.

  “He kept you in a small room.”

  “A cage.”

  Pain knifed him through the heart. Taking him by surprise, she folded into him, unaware she inflicted her own brand of torture when she pressed innocently against him. His heart hammering, his breathing constricted, he wrapped his arms around her, not from a selfish desire to hold her, but because she needed his comfort. “I hated him,” she murmured against his chest. A tremor rippled through her slender body.

  “Understandable.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Did you poison him?”

  “What?” she gasped, leaning back.

  “That is the rumor, the reason Falco used to justify his plan to ransom you.”

  “I didn’t poison Crassus.” She pulled away. Arms wrapped protectively about her waist, she leaned back against the seawall, her tall, slender body as taut as an oar. Wrapped in the darkness, it was as if they were the only two people on some long-deserted island. “By the gods, I wish I had had the mettle to murder him. Believe me, I’d have chosen something more painful than poison. And I wouldn’t have waited six long years to finish him off.”

  Unable to blame her for wanting freedom from an abuser, he wished there was some way to erase the anguish from her memory. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry you endured such grief. But not all men are fiends. Perhaps someday you’ll remarry—”

  “No!” she spat vehemently. “I will never marry again. I will never risk my freedom or give a man control over me.”

  “What if you loved him?”

  She shook her head, pale and rife with denial. “Not even then.”

  Loud voices and a commotion in front of the tabernae filtered across the street. Quintus paid no attention. In that moment, nothing mattered more than Adiona or the long-buried secrets she was finally willing to share.

  “Quintus!” Joseph called. “Quintus, hurry! We found your men. They’re hurt.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Oh, no!” Adiona cried, her eyes widening with alarm. She lifted the hem of her tunic and darted off ahead of him, leaving Quintus to follow her mad dash back to the now-closed tabernae.

  Joseph waited with several members of his family around the first of two horse carts. The raeda was nowhere in sight. A handful of servants held torches, allowing Quintus an unhindered view of Otho and Rufus. The two gladiators were laid flat on their backs in the cart. Bloodied and bruised, they were as still as death.

  “These two should be fine by morning,” Joseph said. “They were awake when we found them. Their injuries are minor.”

  Relieved, Quintus scrubbed a hand across his eyes. “There were three of them.”

  “Yes,” Joseph indicated the second wagon. “The third one is hurt the worst. He might not make it.”

  Adiona hung her head. “This is all my fault.”

  “No,” Quintus denied, heading to check on Onesimus. “Don’t even think it.”

  Sickened by the needless violence that left Onesimus with a gaping chest wound and deep cuts on his arms, Quintus returned to Adiona.

  “Where were they found?” Adiona asked thickly. Stress lined her delicate features.

  “On the side of the road about three miles out of town,” Joseph said. “The coach you mentioned was gone. I’ve sent for a physician and the women are preparing beds upstairs.”

  Rufus’s eyes fluttered open. Disoriented, he groaned and fought to sit up.

  Calling for a cup of water, Quintus stayed the young gladiator with a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t move, my friend. We’ll have you comfortable in moments.”

  “Is Onesimus dead?” Rufus’s voice was as thin as air.

  “No, he lives,” Quintus assured him.

  “It…was Falco,” Rufus fought to add. “We killed him.”

  “How many men were with him?”

  “Too many.” The gladiator’s eyes slipped closed.

  “We found six on the ground,” Joseph added. “I’ve sent men back to bury them.”

  Quintus thanked him and moved out of the way when servants arrived to carry the three wounded gladiators upstairs. Fury and a wild need for vengeance raged through him. He wasn’t sorry Falco was dead. Falco had duped both him and Caros, not an easy task. Worse and unforgivably, Quintus had allowed the savage near Adiona.

  He watched Sapphira place an arm around Adiona’s bowed shoulders and whisk her through the tavernae’s arched front door. Framed by the dining-room window, Adiona was a picture of unhappiness. The lamps’ golden glow highlighted her air of misery.

  Joseph came to stand beside him. “Your man will be safe here while he recovers.”

  “Thank you, my friend.”

  Joseph nodded toward Adiona. “She reminds me of you when you first came here. Sapphira and I prayed a long time you’d find the Lord and shed that look of emptiness.”

  Quintus remembered how lost and lonely he’d been nine years ago. How his life had changed for the better once he accepted Christ into his heart. “I thank Him often for guiding me here.”

  Joseph thumped him on the shoulder. A huge grin covered half his swarthy face. “We thank Him often He brought you to us, as well.”

  The waves crashed against the seawall. Joseph turned contemplative. “Adiona is special to you, no?”

  “More than special,” he admitted.

  “Would you like us to pray for her with you?”

  Grateful for good friends, he nodded. “We both need all the prayers we can get.”

  The next morning, Adiona woke before sunrise in her own room. She didn’t remember falling asleep. She suspected Quintus had shared her abhorrence of small spaces with Sapphira since the older woman kept her talking late into the night. She’d even helped her wash and braid her hair, a task that had taken hours.

  She dressed with haste and made her way downstairs in search of Quintus. After asking a servant, she found him with Joseph and Sapphira’s family in a private garden behind the tabernae. Seth, Joseph and Sapphira’s oldest son, was reading from a scroll. Too intrigued to leave, but unwilling to disturb the gathering, she found a sheltered spot behind a brightly painted pillar.

  When Seth finished, a younger son, David, sang a song of thanksgiving to the Christian God. Josephina accompanied him on a lyre. The others joined in, their mingled voices confident in Whom they worshiped.

  The atmosphere shifted. A peace like Adiona had never experienced settled over the garden. As the voices faded, the flow of the fountain and a soft melody of birdsong filled the tranquil stillness.

  Quintus stood. He selected a scroll from a basket sitting on a low wooden bench. He unrolled the parchment and scanned the document. Locating the place he sought, he cleared his throat and began to read in a deep, clear voice: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?”

  She listened intently. Reading from the text he lived by, he was opening a window into his soul and she was fascinated by the
view. His commitment to his God had perplexed her. Nothing in her life was important enough to die for, yet when he read about trials and persecution he’d lived them. Just last night he’d told her he would face every hardship again. But why…?

  “For I am persuaded,” he continued, “that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

  When he was finished he looked directly at Adiona. She was still contemplating the text and reeling from shock. Now she knew why Quintus believed as he did. No wonder she’d never really understood. The bond he’d forged with his God wasn’t based on guilt, duty or fear. He loved his God and was convinced his God loved him.

  She wished she had the faith to believe for herself. But how could she? No person had ever loved or wanted her enough to stay in her life. How was she supposed to accept that a God considered her worthy enough to care?

  Trembling, she broke eye contact with Quintus and left. Back inside the tabernae, guests were preparing for the day. Servants scurried by with brooms and buckets. The smell of sausage made her stomach churn.

  Of course a man like Quintus found that text believable. Everywhere he went people cared about him. Pelonia and Caros. Joseph, Sapphira and their family. Even she had loved him from the first moment she’d seen him.

  The admission brought her up short. She stalled in the middle of the corridor. Tears scratched at the back of her eyes. She’d tried so hard not to love him, but it might have been easier to fight her need for air.

  A short time later, when the sunrise was no more than a few pink streaks in the eastern sky, Adiona, Quintus, two of Joseph’s sons as well as a bandaged Otho and Rufus prepared to leave for the wharf. Gripped by an inexplicable sadness, Adiona threw her arms around Sapphira and hugged her tight.

  “You’re welcome to come back here anytime,” Sapphira said. The tiny Greek cupped Adiona’s face with both of her hands. She stood on tiptoes and kissed Adiona’s forehead. “I’ve considered Quintus my son for years. If you don’t mind, from now on I’d like to consider you my daughter.”