by Andrew Crown
“Dismas!” Leah was disappointed, but not surprised by his callousness. For every moment where he seemed to be tender and selfless, he would regress with a rude comment. “I help keep them alive. I give them some of our extra fish, and I give them water. I sometimes go over to see Miriam, wife of Ibrahim, and we work to fashion new robes for them. They’re crude, I admit, but they are better than the rags they normally wear.”
Dismas had no idea Leah helped the destitute so extensively while he was out in the boat with Asher. “You were not very trusting of me at first when we met. Yet you give freely to those that are crippled. Does your father know about how many fish you give away instead of sell to the Romans?”
Leah responded curtly. “First, I was very trusting of you. How often do you get invited inside someone’s home after pulling a knife on them?”
Dismas conceded that she had a fair point.
She continued, “You are an able-bodied man and you have always made it quite clear that you can take care of yourself. It’s different with those who are in need, and so that is where my sympathies lie. As for my father, he knows I help, and he is supportive. Although he may not know the extent to which I give away some fish...still, we are making plenty of money with your help, so I see no harm. My father is an excellent fisherman but a terrible record keeper.”
“But why do all of this?” Dismas asked. “I can understand giving a little on occasion, but if we sold all of those extra fish to the Romans, imagine what that money could give you and your father!”
“It’s not about…”
Dismas interrupted her. “You could hire more hands, more boats even! Then you and your father would not be forced to live so modestly.” He became more animated, gesticulating with his hands. “I don’t understand how you could do that to your father. It’s…selfish really.”
Leah finally snapped, “It’s not about taking from my father. He and I have plenty. It’s because I think that sharing with those that have none is the right thing to do.”
Dismas continued, “I see you and your father pray to God. You could buy animals to sacrifice at the temple. That seems like a better use of your money than giving it to those that are so near death anyway. That is the right thing to do, if you believe in those sorts of religious things.”
“You shouldn’t mock religion. That’s blasphemy, Dismas!” She glanced around nervously, but the road was deserted and they were still a half mile from the village. “The Pharisees in the temple can have you stoned for saying that!”
Dismas stopped walking which made Leah stop as well. He let out a deep breath.
“I see no reason for religion, or God, or giving money to a temple so they can kill an animal. Life is too short to waste doing such things. It doesn’t make sense to me.” He studied Leah’s face and could see that she was uncomfortable with the conversation. “Does it make sense to you?”
Leah began to get emotional. “No,” she whispered as her lips trembled. “But we cannot speak of these things, Dismas. There are consequences.”
“Oh, I realize that,” he said flatly. “I speak freely with you because I trust you and your father above all else. You are the only people that have shown me kindness since I was a little boy.”
Ignoring the compliment, Leah’s face contorted in alarm. “You must not talk this way around my father! Please Dismas, he will cast you out, and I don’t even think I would be spared from his wrath if he knew that we were having this conversation. Religion is very important to him.” Her voice broke.
She felt Dismas’ arms wrap around her.
“You have my promise that I will hold my tongue. You’re the only one I will tell my beliefs about religion.” She nuzzled her head into his chest. Dismas didn’t want to let go but didn’t know what else to say. The only thing that he could muster was, “Are you going to be alright, Leah?”
She merely nodded, making no effort to pull away. She was so warm, and it was an exhilarating feeling that Dismas had never experienced before. He briefly considered it an opportune time to unburden the secret of his past to Leah but decided he didn’t want to risk spoiling the moment. They stood there in the fading light in the middle of the deserted road, silently embracing and uncaring about where else they had to be.
*
Meanwhile at home, Asher lounged on his pillow at the table, waiting. He rapped his fingers on the rough wood and stared in silence. He had decided to spend the day doing minor repairs on his boat, given that Dismas had gone with his daughter to the castrum. The work didn’t take nearly as long as he anticipated and so he spent a couple hours sitting in the house recuperating. The growling of his stomach reflected the appetite that the carpentry work had created. A vague sense of unease gnawed at him too. Leah and Dismas should be home by now. Where were they? His apprehension was growing with each passing minute, and soon he had become quite worried. Had something happened to them? Had Leah’s fears about the Romans manifested? The love he had for his daughter intensified these painful thoughts as his mind ran wild.
As the sky began to darken over the Sea of Galilee, Asher surmised that he had no choice but to go out on the road and find them. His anxious thoughts gave his tired body a surge of energy. He put his sandals back on his sore feet, grabbed a tall wooden walking stick, and opened the door. Beyond the edge of the village, Asher arrived at the road going westward towards the castrum.
He squinted in the fading light as two dark shapes appeared on the horizon. He took a few steps before he realized it was his daughter walking so closely to Dismas that they were practically touching. They were talking and their eyes hardly left one another as they continued at their leisurely pace. They were so enamored of each other and engrossed in their conversation that they didn’t notice him standing in the road a couple hundred yards away.
Amazed, Asher wondered—was Leah actually fond of this man? Initially, he had viewed Dismas as nothing more than a suspicious wayward traveler, a view that had morphed into thinking of him as a reliable helping hand. Gradually he grew to trust the young man, even becoming affectionate towards him. But his daughter? He never considered the effect that Dismas must have on her. A strong, handsome man only a few years older than her. It all seemed too obvious to him now.
Asher had been looking for a suitor for Leah. Most men in the village were already spoken for and those that were available, Asher found unsuitable in one way or another—he disapproved of their family or he found the man to be inadequately prepared to support his daughter. He had even turned down money for her hand. He would not let her part from him unless the man was right for her. Was the right man…Dismas? Asher began to consider the possibility.
“Father?” Leah’s voice called out to him.
The two had come upon him at last. Leah seemed perplexed as to why her father was standing in the middle of the darkening road.
“You’re late,” he said as sternly as he could muster. Leah and Dismas both uttered apologies as they shuffled past him.
As they walked back towards the house, his mind weighted heavily with this new matrimonial possibility. Dismas and Leah…it just might work. In spite of his attempt to portray a gruff exterior, Asher found he was smiling in spite of himself.
Chapter VII
Sparks danced off the edge of the blade as the Roman centurion rubbed a rock across its glittering point. Again and again the man’s arm flashed in a steady motion as the sword gradually became sharper, bits of dull metal shedding from the tip. The sun beat down on the clearing within the Roman castrum, causing sweat to run profusely down the bald man’s head, stinging his eyes. Irritated, he looked up at the blazing disk in the sky and squinted his disapproval. A broad, paddle-like hand swiped the perspiration from his brow, which he then casually wiped on the bottom of his tunic. With a sigh, he got up from his small wooden stool and adjusted its position beneath an awning, its shadow slowly moving to match the sun’s arc across the sky.
His brown spotted teeth ground together as he re
newed focus on his work. Almost done, he thought, and then he could move to the next duty that the Roman military required of him.
“Centurion Bricius,” the voice of a Roman soldier drew the man’s attention away from his task. The soldier saluted, which Bricius acknowledged with only a dismissive wave of his hand, and continued, “The Tribune would like your men on the parade ground in an hour for drilling. The Tribune expressed his desire that the sloppiness demonstrated in the maneuvers yesterday be corrected.”
Yes, Bricius was well aware of Tribune Magnus’ views on the matter. He’d received a full dressing down yesterday in front of his men after they deviated from the crisp precision required during the exercise. Bricius had been too preoccupied with his hangover from the night before to correct them. The Tribune, upon seeing Bricius’ condition, was quick to intervene. The men responsible for the mistake received a stern but comparatively mild rebuke. The real furor was reserved for their centurion. The Tribune might be a popular leader with most of the men of the garrison, but Bricius’ obedience to his young superior was grudging. He suspected that Magnus didn’t like him personally which prompted the public embarrassment of yesterday.
His men had certainly made some errors. A few legionnaires’ shields were held too low, exposing the formation to a hypothetical attack, and a few of his men were slow to move when ordered to charge the invisible enemies they were drilling against. Still, reasoned Bricius, the earful he got from Magnus should have been expressed privately. The Tribune even uncharacteristically unsheathed his sword and swung it wildly past their faces to emphasize his point about exposing the row of soldiers to danger. It was wholly unprofessional conduct for a Roman officer, in Bricius’ opinion. But the soldiers still loved Magnus, and Bricius realized that his contrarian views were in the minority.
He dismissed the messenger who delivered the order and got up from his stool to walk towards the barracks on the other side of the fort. It wouldn’t take his men an hour to get ready into formation on the parade field. This meant that Bricius had time to pass word to his subordinate officers, walk by the marketplace, and see what the local merchants were selling. The awful stew that the mess staff served outside the barracks was growing stale, and the fresh produce brought in by the merchants was a welcome supplement to his diet. Granted, it cost him some money, but Bricius found that if he growled enough, the terrified Jews would part with their goods for much less than their asking price. The spoils of war—the advantages of being a conqueror, he justified to himself. This practice was expressly condemned by Magnus, who ordered haggling be kept professional as to maintain the peace among the Jews, but this was one of the many policies where Bricius and his commander did not see eye to eye.
Bricius had served Caesar at many different duty stations across the empire, most recently in Gaul. That had been pleasant. There was more greenery and cooler weather. Here in Galilee, it was dry and dusty. The Jews, so meek and timid, fleeing from the Romans like little mice, made Bricius lose all respect for them. It was no wonder that they were a defeated people. Of course, his interactions were limited to those Jews that came into the castrum or those he encountered on patrols—a far cry from the bolder rabble-rousers his counterparts garrisoned in Jerusalem dealt with regularly.
As Bricius strode across the fort, he looked among the mass of men for his optio, Cassian, who was his second in command. Together they led five-hundred of the five-thousand-man legion that was stationed at the castrum. Where Bricius was dour and resentful, Cassian was filled with optimism and enthusiasm in furthering the glory of Rome. It was a small miracle that the two functioned together as leaders, but they somehow made it work.
“Good morning, Centurion!” Bricius spun around to see young Cassian’s face. The men exchanged salutes, bringing their right fists to their left breasts.
Besides age and temperament, Cassian was starkly different from his superior with his full head of dark brown curly hair. The difference was more pronounced because of dark splotches dotting Bricius’ bald head. For Bricius, looking at his optio was like looking back in time ten years. To a casual observer, however, the age discrepancy appeared to be at least twice that, given how sun-weathered the older centurion was.
“There you are,” said Bricius. “Walk with me.”
Cassian dutifully obeyed and matched his quick stride. The centurion continued, “The Tribune wants the men on the parade ground for drilling. Same maneuvers as yesterday. Make sure that the men in Ovidius’ century do not repeat their mistakes.”
The centurion paused for a moment and stared into his optio’s face for emphasis. “If Ovidius commits any errors today, I am done yelling at him—I am going to break his nose with the front of my helmet.” He mimicked a headbutt to illustrate his point. “Will you communicate that to him?”
“Perhaps not in those exact words,” Cassian countered, “but I will make sure to convey your extreme displeasure with the performance yesterday and desire for rapid improvement.”
Always the diplomat, thought Bricius. But Cassian thinks I’m not serious about my threat. If he did have to physically assault Ovidius, he’d make sure Cassian was present to remove any doubt.
The two men reached the merchant area where the Jews from the surrounding countryside waited in line to speak with the quartermaster. The loud shouts of haggling and the clinking of coins made Cassian raise his voice to be heard as he said, “I will see to it that the men are ready to drill for Tribune Magnus.” The young man turned sharply to go about fulfilling the orders.
“Wait,” shouted Bricius quickly. There, standing in the line behind a portly farmer, he spotted her. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her head was tilted back as she laughed, standing in line next to a taller man who carried a basket of fish upon his back. The laughter lit up her complexion, illuminating her tan skin, dazzling white teeth, and long dark hair in a way that he had never seen. Most of the women that Bricius had dealt with were in seedy frontier brothels. They lacked this woman’s elegance and figure, not to mention her teeth and her youthful, taut skin. She looked so…pure. The aching in his loins reinforced his belief that he had never wanted a woman so much as the one that stood merely forty feet in front of him.
“Sir?” Cassian inquired. He was not accustomed to a lack in decisiveness from his commander so soon after issuing an order.
Bricius stayed silent for a moment, seemingly unaware of his subordinate was at his side. His eyes were fixed on the woman and his tongue instinctively licked the outside of his upper lip. Finally, he snapped back to himself. “Come with me, Cassian.”
“Are we no longer assembling the men?”
“Yes, we are. I won’t need you for long. Then you may continue your duties.” Bricius marched purposefully towards the line of merchants. “Follow my lead.”
Dismas and Leah were still in a jovial mood after yet another flirtatious stroll to the castrum. Their playfulness dissipated as they noticed two Roman officers in their armor and their red plumed helmets moving towards them. Their smiles were replaced with frowns of concern. The only word Leah could get out before they arrived was a hushed, “Dismas!” She felt his arm around her waist pulling her back protectively.
“Do I see you have fish there?” Bricius demanded.
Dismas stepped in front of Leah, shielding her from the Romans. “Yes, some of the finest from the Sea of Galilee.” He took the basket off his back and removed the wicker top to reveal two dozen tilapia fish, freshly caught less than a day earlier.
“Very good,” Bricius said as he turned toward Cassian. “Please bring this man to Ovidius and present him with these fish. Tell him these are a reward that will be granted to his men in exchange for flawless execution on the parade ground today.”
“Yes, Centurion.” Cassian beckoned to the two Jews. “This way.” They turned to follow him.
“Just this man, Cassian. The woman will come with me,” Bricius ordered.
Leah glanced nervously at Disma
s, who caught her look before responding, “Respectfully, sir, I would prefer she stay with me.”
“You want to be fully compensated for the fish, don’t you?” Bricius asked with uncharacteristic graciousness. “I will pay this woman above market price and send you both on your way. No need to wait in the hot sun for the quartermaster.”
Cassian had never heard his commander speak with such gentleness. There was honey in his voice today when there was usually vinegar. He didn’t know what had come over him.
“We shall both go with you,” Dismas countered. “Then we will make sure your men get their fish.”
Bricius shook his head. The smile vanished from his face as he partially unsheathed his sword from his side. The sunlight gleamed off the hilt of the sword into Dismas’ eyes, causing him to shield his face.
The centurion said darkly, “I will not say it again. The woman will come with me and you will go with my junior officer.” The honey had become vinegar.
Leah’s eyes silently pleaded with Dismas, but he did not see any alternative.
“It shouldn’t take long, Leah,” he reassured her. “I’ll be back for you in a few moments.” With a firm hand laid on his shoulder by Cassian, Dismas gave her a weak smile and turned to be led towards the barracks with his basket of fish secured on his back.
Leah looked after Dismas as she shrank away from the imposing Roman officer.
“I keep denarii in my room at the officers’ quarters. It isn’t far.” Bricius gestured for Leah to walk ahead of him. While there were no ropes or chains binding her, Leah felt very much like his prisoner.
Chapter VIII
After a couple minutes of darting through crowds of soldiers, servants, and slaves, Leah and Bricius arrived at a squat one-story mud brick building with a door bearing two large red banners, a golden eagle displayed on each one. There were curtained windows every few feet, designating a small room for each centurion. While it was far from a villa, it was a luxurious upgrade over the communal tents used by the men ranked below them.
