Redemption at the Eleventh Hour

by Andrew Crown

  A jolt of fear shook Dismas’ stomach and he almost heaved his food back up. The fear he felt during his initial flight from Thella returned to him. Did Asher really just suggest that he walk into a Roman fort? For all he knew, they were looking for him on behalf of his former master. He would be beaten or worse! No, this was not good at all.

  He glanced over at Leah and could see moisture swelling in the corners of her eyes. The sorrowful sight moved Dismas’ heart enough for him to hold his tongue. It also presented an opportunity. Going with Leah would allow him to spend more time with her and be source of comfort in her distress, though he was still undecided about what he should do.

  Interpreting his silence for acquiescence, Asher embraced his daughter. “Leah, wipe away your tears. Dismas is a man of courage and integrity. He will not allow any harm to befall you.”

  The fear dissipated as a warm sensation radiated throughout Dismas. Had Asher really said that? He had never been given such a compliment. The warmth that passed through him gradually manifested into courage. He would go to the castrum, he decided. He would risk facing the Romans for the sake of Leah. He glanced over at her, and through her tears, she smiled at him. His heart started beating rapidly and he knew it was the right decision.

  *

  The next morning when the sun’s rays were but a flicker on the eastern horizon, two figures set out on the western road to the Roman fortification. The only sound outside of the occasional chirp of a bird was the crunching of loose gravel. Leah set the pace in front, wrapped in a light blue shawl with a small basket under her arm. Dismas, behind her, had a large basket affixed to his back, which caused him to sag under the weight on his miserable trudge up the road. The smell of freshly caught fish was overwhelming to his nostrils. Leah, positioned in front and upwind, paid no attention.

  “Hurry!” she urged. “The fish will spoil if we do not move quickly. The faster we get there the sooner we can be home—and away from the Romans.”

  The rope straps of the basket dug unmercifully into Dismas’ back, leaving deep grooves in his flesh.

  “A woman is always in a position to nag but never to help,” he growled.

  Leah stopped and stared at him, blinking rapidly as he slowly made his way towards her. She set her small basket on the ground and said simply, “Very well.”

  With a swift motion of her arms, she began to tear at the straps of Dismas’ basket. “I’ll carry it if you cannot.”

  “I’m joking...I’m joking,” Dismas said, contorting his body in a way to keep the straps out of reach from the short girl. “I will carry it. It is far too heavy for you anyway,” he insisted.

  Leah was undeterred. “I do not intend to carry any fish. I am going to throw these on the side of the road and leave them for the vultures.”

  “Your father won’t care for that, I can promise you that much.”

  Leah slowed her lunge for the basket. “I would rather listen to his scolding than your complaining!” She finally backed off and picked up her own smaller basket.

  “I said I was only joking.”

  “Jokes are supposed to be funny, Dismas. Once again, you didn’t think before speaking.”

  “I thought it was a little funny,” he said quietly.

  He paused to readjust the load before starting his march again. The pair moved in silence for half an hour, this time with only the buzzing of small insects followed by a slap of the hand as the only sounds. The road was dusty and mostly deserted.

  It was Dismas who broke the long silence. “So, Leah…what is it like at the castrum?”

  “You heard me before,” she said dropping her eyes. “It’s filled with rude men—yes, even ruder than you—who cannot draw any distinction between a fisherman’s daughter and a prostitute. They view all their conquered people as their property.” Her chin slowly rose, and her eyes met his. “Now tell me, what did the Romans do to you to make you so fearful?”

  Dismas felt a pit in his stomach and his mind swam as he debated what to tell her. Finally he said, “I feel like you do. The tribes of Israel deserve to liberate themselves from the yoke of Rome.”

  Leah burst into laughter. “So formal! You have a vein that pulsates on the side of your head when you lie, did you know that?” Dismas said nothing. He dared not open his mouth for it would betray his embarrassment.

  She continued, “You’re too selfish to be political. I can tell that there is something deeply personal about your aversion to Rome. Whether you tell me or not is your business. I will not continue to press you and you can tell me when you are ready.” She smiled at him.

  He mustered a smile back at her. “I’m not selfish and it hurts to hear you say that.”

  “Oh my goodness Dismas, you’re the most selfish person I’ve ever met! Although I don’t think you’re a lost cause just yet. You’re here because my father told you to come with me. He’s using you to protect me and you’re using him to make some money to get back on your feet.”

  “So who are you using then?” Dismas asked coyly.

  “Oh, no one. I’m above all of that.”

  “Says the woman who has a man carrying a heavy basket of fish for her.”

  Leah grinned at Dismas. “Now that is funny.” She drifted a little closer to him as they walked.

  The conversation trailed off as the neighing of a horse and a spray of kicked-up dirt signaled an approaching rider. Both heads turned and squinted in the sunlight to see a figure rapidly approaching from up the road. A Roman soldier in full battle attire sat astride a magnificent galloping dark horse. With his red tunic, silver breastplate, and helmet adorned with a red plume, he was an intimidating sight. As mesmerized as the two travelers were, the Roman paid them no heed and kept his horse’s muzzle pointed straight ahead.

  “I don’t think he intends to stop,” said Dismas when the rider was about fifty yards away still at a full gallop. The horse was so close that they could see its nostrils flare and the blank expression of its rider.

  “Move, Leah!” Dismas shouted as the horse came upon them. He and Leah quickly and awkwardly jumped into the bushes on opposite sides of the road to prevent from being plowed over.

  “Madness!” yelled Dismas as the rider galloped away. “He didn’t even bother to break stride for us. We could have been trampled!” He rose to his feet, his eyes trailing the dust moving into the distance.

  Leah was more nonchalant as she brushed herself off. “I actually prefer diving into a bush to avoid Romans than conversing with them.”

  Dismas was still fuming as he gathered the large basket back up. He adjusted his straps and let out an angry snort. He cursed after the rider again even though he was long out of earshot.

  “Look at it this way, Dismas. The very presence of the rider means that we are getting close to the castrum.” Dismas shrugged his shoulders and pressed on after Leah.

  After another twenty minutes of walking, the Roman fort came into view in the distance. Although a small fortification, it was still impressive. Built primarily of wood atop a mound of earthen reinforcement, the castrum commanded a view of the entire area so that neither friend nor foe could come upon it unexpectedly. The area outside of the wooden walls was completely devoid of trees as they had been felled several years earlier to build the castrum, creating a stark contrast between the fort and the rest of the horizon.

  The road led to a large wooden gate flanked on either side by two watch towers, each manned by an archer. With the exception of the area in front of the gate, the castrum was surrounded by a ditch about six feet deep. At the bottom of the ditch were several three-foot-long wooden timbers sharpened to a point and covered with felled branches to camouflage their exact placement. Despite his sense of despair, Dismas conceded it was a thoughtfully constructed fortress. He only wondered what a larger castrum might look like on the frontier of the empire where attacks by marauding barbarians were common. He wasn’t eager to see such a stronghold.

  The two archers, clothed in the
same impressive armor as the rider, chatted casually from their respective towers about the lack of rain over the past week, paying little attention to the two figures walking through the gate beneath them. Unless Romans were practicing military drills, merchants were welcome to pass into and out of the fort during times of peace.

  The interior of the fort was a hive of activity. A collection of wooden buildings stood in the center within the exterior walls. The clang of a blacksmith’s hammer on an anvil mixed with the neighing of horses. Soldiers and servants busied themselves, creating a marketplace-like atmosphere within the castrum. Shouts of orders mixed in with the grumblings of men out of earshot of their superiors. In an open space in front of the buildings, there were legionnaires lined up in rows on the parade ground awaiting instructions. Their red plumed helmets, full bodied rectangular shields, and shimmering armor filled Dismas and Leah with trepidation. Leah tugged at his arm, motioning him to a row of tent pavilions where Roman officials were buying and inspecting goods brought in by civilians.

  As they snaked their way through the buildings and past various Roman soldiers, Dismas locked eyes with a young archer in a white tunic who was seated on a crate restringing his bow. For a moment, Dismas thought he saw a flicker of recognition in the man’s eyes, and his heart began to pound. His fate was sealed! His muscles tightened and he was just about to flee when the archer turned away, bored, looking for some other visual stimuli to take his mind off his tedious task.

  Dismas was equally surprised and relieved that the Romans paid him no attention. Then he thought about it. Why would they? After all, he had never been here before. He never had a quarrel with these particular Romans. His former employer probably assumed he was dead in the desert, food for the buzzards after succumbing to thirst or heat. He almost chuckled as he thought about his foolishness. He had nothing to fear. His nerves and imagination had gotten the better of him.

  “Dismas, the basket please.” Leah’s voice wavered slightly as they approached the Roman quartermaster standing behind a wooden counter underneath the shade of the pavilion. Dismas dutifully swung the heavy basket from his shoulders.

  “Is this the man that grabbed you before?” he asked in a hushed tone. Leah shook her head no. The quartermaster was a big burly man, clean-shaven with closely shorn brown hair. His white tunic stretched between his massive shoulders.

  After a Jewish man sold some pottery to the Roman quartermaster, Dismas and Leah moved forward to the front of the line. Leah began to lay out the fish on a cloth as Dismas absentmindedly rubbed the raw portions of his shoulders and back where the strap dug in.

  The quartermaster gestured with a wooden rod, indicating to a young slave in front of the counter which fish to grab and which to leave. Satisfied with roughly three-fourths of the catch, he growled “Twenty denarii for these; the rest are starting to spoil. Take them back with you. Final price. Yes or no?”

  “Yes,” Leah said meekly. The quartermaster thrust his large hand into a wooden bowl behind him and counted out the coins. Leah collected the money and put it in a small pouch she had tied around her waist.

  “Next!” the quartermaster bellowed as a woman with homespun wool jostled in between Leah and Dismas, flanked by a couple of servants. Just like that, the transaction was concluded.

  Leah and Dismas made their way back towards the gate. “That was easy enough,” he said. “You made it sound like such an ordeal.”

  “That’s because you are here, but I won’t rest easy until we are back home,” she said briskly.

  Dismas beamed, feeling like a great hero. Just his presence protecting Leah from the Romans was a tremendous boost to his ego. He found himself walking a little taller as they continued back through the fort. Each time he puffed out his chest, however, Leah hissed at him to stop acting foolish.

  Taking great care to stay out of the way of the hurrying Romans, Leah and Dismas soon passed beneath the two archers in their watchtowers, who were still arguing about the likelihood of rain that evening. Soon, the pair with their fishing baskets were back on the road, over a ridge, and the castrum disappeared behind them.

  Dismas was relieved that the trip had been uneventful. He watched Leah out of the corner of his eye as they walked along the hilly road back to the village. His heart fluttered when he briefly made eye contact with her. He knew that he liked her, but there was gnawing in his gut about his past. She didn’t know about his thievery.

  He caught her eye again, and she grinned a relieved smile and made a comment about the small trees that littered the brown, hilly landscape. Maybe I should tell her and be done with it, Dismas thought. That way I’ll know that everything she may feel for me from this point forward will be genuine. He started to confess in a barely audible tone.

  “I’m sorry, Dismas. What did you say?” Leah looked at him anxiously.

  Immediately he lost his courage. “Nothing. I agree with you that it is striking how much smaller the trees are further from the water.” The two continued talking about the landscape while the guilt continued to gnaw at Dismas.

  Chapter VI

  During the next few fishing outings, Dismas improved his skills with both the net and the boat, which resulted in Asher catching more fish than he ever had before. With a strong back and an improving work ethic, Dismas was becoming an invaluable asset. The abundance of fish created a surplus beyond what could sold in the village, which necessitated more trips to the dreaded Roman castrum.

  Every few days, Leah and Dismas would walk several miles to the fort, with Dismas trailing a few paces behind, burdened by the heavy basket. With each journey, his stamina improved, and his gripes grew less frequent. These errands provided him an opportunity to spend time with Leah, which was becoming the highlight of his week. He was also beginning to see signs that his eagerness for their walks was reciprocated.

  The transformation was gradual. The first change Dismas noticed was that Leah began to ignore his complaints about the basket as opposed to scolding him for his whining. She would instead simply change the subject. As his outbursts began to subside, she began to walk closer to him. At first, Dismas thought that this was all in his imagination and he only wished this was true. To test whether she was truly drawing physically closer to him, he would slowly coast to the other side of the road to see if Leah would follow. He secretly delighted in the fact that she seemed to subconsciously shadow his movements and drifted towards him as he pulled away, his heart beating faster in excitement.

  She began to laugh more frequently, too. Dismas didn’t think he said anything particularly funny, but her eyes would radiate with joy and her smile beamed when he made lighthearted observations.

  “Whenever we eat, why does it take so long for your father to figure out he has food stuck in his beard?” he remarked on one such occasion.

  Leah burst out laughing for half a minute before responding that she had always wondered the same thing.

  “I think he just gets really focused on his food and doesn’t feel it,” she giggled.

  Soon their journey was full of playful flirtation and the dread that had previously filled their hearts upon entering the Roman gates was replaced with desire to begin their walk home and resume their banter.

  On one such return trip, once liberated from the shadow of the fort and the bickering archers in the towers, Leah absentmindedly scanned the sky as she walked next to Dismas. The late afternoon sun cast their long shadows across the road. A hawk circled overhead, its keen eyes searching for the movement of some small mammal below. Its wings were outstretched as it glided with minimal effort, riding the warm thermals that rose from the ground. It was both serene and beautiful. Leah was completely content with life with Dismas at her side and denarii from the Romans in her money sack.

  Dismas’ voice punctuated the silence, snapping her attention away from the majestic bird.

  “Does it really take you all day to cook while your father and I are out fishing?” He rubbed his chin—a nervous tic he
developed whenever he spoke to her.

  Leah chuckled. Several weeks ago, she would have interpreted the brusque inquiry as an affront, but now she realized that Dismas was sometimes clumsy when it came to social graces.

  “No, I start in the afternoon, so everything is prepared when you come in off the water.” She looked into his brown eyes and her brow furrowed. “That’s a strange thing to ask unprompted.”

  She chuckled again as she saw Dismas register how odd the question sounded. She found him particularly handsome in the fading light. His shaggy brown hair and unshaven stubble gave him the appearance of a rugged, worldly traveler.

  “Oh…I see,” he said. “Well, what do you do on days when you don’t go to the market?”

  Leah looked at him, bemused. “Dismas, I’ve known you for several months now. You’ve never thought to ask before now? I think I’ve talked about it several times.”

  “I must not have heard you.” He looked away. “I’ve been too preoccupied with avoiding your father’s tirades for casting the net incorrectly. He doesn’t seem to like me very much sometimes.”

  Leah smiled at him encouragingly. “Don’t be silly. My father loves you as I lov…”

  She stopped short, mortified. Dismas stared at her with no change in expression. Leah quickly began to speak to prevent him from saying something in reply.

  “Errrr, I mean, um...to answer your question, I keep the house in order. I usually either clean or mend clothing or help bring water from the sea to the blind and the lame in town.”

  Dismas didn’t pick up on her slip and went along with the new topic of conversation. “Oh, I’ve always wondered about them,” he said, referring to half dozen people who would often congregate in the center of the village. “They call out to me with outstretched hands as I walk past. I’ve always just ignored them as I’ve got my own business to attend to. Come to think of it, I guess someone must have been giving them some sort of sustenance, otherwise they would have starved long ago.” He paused as he began to fully comprehend their situation for the first time.