by John Hagee
He spotted them a dozen yards into the thicket. Elizabeth’s tunic was torn at the shoulders and hanging down to her waist. Her back pinned against a tree, she was struggling against her attacker, who held one hand over her mouth and groped her roughly with the other. She shoved and kicked but could not break loose from his grasp.
It was Damian, no doubt about it. Abraham closed the distance between them in an instant. He reacted in blind rage, yanking Damian by the hair with such force that his feet dangled in the air. Abraham slung him to the ground and kicked him in the stomach. Damian’s face turned ashen and he had no breath, but Abraham snatched him to his feet again, then drove a massive fist like a sledgehammer into Damian’s face. The bones in his nose popped like dry twigs, and blood gushed down his face. As Damian staggered backward, Abraham grabbed him by the throat and slammed his head into the trunk of a tree.
Damian slid to the ground, but Abraham kept pummeling him until he felt restraining hands pulling him back.
“Abraham, stop! You’re going to kill him.” Quintus was half-apologetic. “You’ve stopped him. It’s over. You can’t just murder the man.”
Abraham froze in position over Damian, his elbow drawn back and his fist ready to deliver another blow. “Why not?” For a moment Abraham looked at Quintus in confusion, then he came to his senses. Damian was a murderer; he wasn’t. But he likely would have been if Quintus hadn’t stopped him.
He looked around for Elizabeth and saw her clutching her torn dress to cover herself. Rufus stood beside her, his arm around her protectively.
“Let him go,” Rufus said. “I don’t think he’ll be back after the beating you’ve given him.”
Abraham slowly stood up and looked down at Damian. Blood still poured from his nose and his face was purple and puffy from Abraham’s fury.
In spite of his injuries, Damian spoke with defiance. “You’re wrong, old man. I will be back—you can count on it. And next time, I’ll take what is rightfully mine,” he said with a despicable look at Elizabeth.
Abraham took a step toward Damian, his fist automatically clenching, but Quintus held him back.
Damian stared at Abraham unflinchingly. “And then I’ll kill you,” Damian said slowly. Finally he turned and limped down the hill.
Abraham unclenched his fists and walked over to Elizabeth, who fell against him, sobbing. For a few minutes he held her against his pounding heart, then he picked her up and carried her back to the clearing. The others followed.
“Quintus, you take the basket for me,” he ordered. “But leave the blanket. I’ll meet you at the house.”
Quintus and Rufus started down the hill while Abraham carefully wrapped the blanket around Elizabeth. She was white-faced and trembling. Abraham picked her up again and began to slowly travel down the path back to the city.
In a minute, he stopped. Elizabeth was whispering and he leaned close to hear what she was saying.
“I’m going to have a baby,” she murmured in a small voice, tears streaming down her face. “That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
13
REBECCA HEARD BLOODCURDLING SCREAMS as her father collapsed and, simultaneously, Damian unsheathed his sword and ran toward her mother, who was pounding furiously but futilely against the chest of a Roman centurion. The soldier shoved her away just as Damian reached her, and with a violent lunge, he impaled Elizabeth on his drawn weapon. Damian’s sword pierced her chest and protruded from her back as she slumped to the ground.
The screaming grew louder and Rebecca thought it would deafen her. Even when she realized the screams were her own, she was helpless to stop them.
Jacob shuffled over to Rebecca and tried to calm her. “Stop screaming. Shhhhhh.”
As Jacob kept speaking soothingly to her, she was finally able to still her screams. “It’s all right,” he told her. “Mother is in heaven already. Jesus is standing at the right hand of the Father, and He is welcoming her home even now.”
For a long time Damian stared down at Elizabeth, then he knelt beside her. One of his men came to assist him, but Damian waved him off.
“It wasn’t supposed to end this way, Elizabeth, but you chose to break the law.” Damian’s voice was cold and merciless. “You’ve always made stupid choices. You chose to marry Abraham when you could have had me.” With a sneer, he pulled his bloodstained sword from the corpse. “Stupid choices,” he repeated.
Rebecca bit her lip to keep from screaming again when Damian touched her mother’s body as he removed the sword. She wanted to fall into her brother’s arms, wanted him to hold her and comfort her, but they were both bound by chains. Jacob reached out and squeezed her hand, their metal cuffs clanging against each other. They silently watched as Damian used their mother’s tunic to wipe her blood off his sword while the soldiers regained control of the crowd.
So much had happened so fast, Rebecca could scarcely comprehend it. She looked over at John. Tears streamed down the Apostle’s face as he watched the gruesome scene.
After a moment Damian regained his composure and rose to his feet. The man is insane, Rebecca realized. And my mother and father knew this madman. How? Why?
Rebecca’s whole world had turned upside down in one hour. Her mother had been brutally murdered; her father was injured, if not dead. And her father had done the unthinkable: he had denied the Lord Jesus. In her confusion, Rebecca had almost denied Him too, but at the last minute she had suddenly been compelled to speak the one bedrock truth she believed with all her heart: Jesus is Lord.
Her mind swirling, Rebecca watched as Damian marched the other Christians one by one to the altar of Domitian. Those who made the sacrifice were sent home; those who refused were put in chains and joined the group bound for Devil’s Island.
Some of them, like old Servius, were household servants who had cared for her all her life. The soldiers treated him roughly when he refused to bow to Caesar, and as they manhandled him into the iron cuffs, Servius was knocked against the corner of the carved stone altar. His gray hair was matted with blood but his back was straight as he took his place beside Rebecca.
“Be strong,” he whispered to her. She thought of their all-night vigil the night before and knew she would not have had the courage to endure if Servius had not called them all to prayer.
When the sacrifices were finally concluded, the soldiers lined up the prisoners, some two dozen who had been faithful to Christ, to begin a forced march to the harbor. “You’ll board the ship for Patmos there,” Damian barked. “Say good-bye to Ephesus,” he said. “You’ll never see home again.”
If he’s not insane, Rebecca thought, he’s the vilest man who ever lived.
As they began to march, Rebecca looked at her mother’s lifeless form for the last time and wondered what would happen to her body. She tried to get a final glimpse of her father but could not; the crowd was moving in the opposite direction, and she stumbled along with them to keep from being knocked down. As best she could tell, Abraham was still lying motionless on the ground. Rebecca fervently hoped he was alive and that she would see him again someday.
The midmorning march to the harbor was the longest mile Rebecca had ever walked. The leg irons bit into her flesh, and the cuts on her ankles seemed to deepen with each movement. The blood dripping over her sandals mingled with the dust of the street until her feet were a sticky mess. With every step she winced from pain.
Some of the spectators who had watched the mandatory sacrifices lined the street to jeer at the Christians marching in chains. Rebecca closed her ears to their shouts. As they filed past the columns marking the entrance to the temple pavilion and into the street, Rebecca spied her father’s assistant in the crowd. Why hadn’t Quintus been with those required to sacrifice? she wondered. Not all the members of their church had been arrested, she realized, but Quintus worked for her father and was close to her family. Surely the officials would have rounded him up with the others. Could he have been an informer? What an appalling thought.
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Slowly the group made its way down the sloping Marble Street and then turned into the broad avenue that led to the harbor. Vendors left their stalls to watch the procession, and Rebecca searched for Galen as she passed his shop. She was relieved that he had been spared this nightmare, and at the same time wished he were with her. But he had left the day before to deliver a major order he’d just finished—a complete set of silver serving pieces—to a wealthy customer in Magnesia. He had been proud of his work and thrilled for the increase in business now that he was about to be a married man.
Abraham had finally spoken to Galen, and her father had given his consent to the union. Overjoyed, the couple had immediately started making plans for their wedding. Now their joy had been turned to mourning, and Rebecca didn’t know if she would ever see Galen again.
Numbly, she marched on until they reached the harbor that had always been a vital part of her family’s life. She loved the ocean, and she loved sailing. Rebecca breathed deeply, inhaling the tangy smell of salt water. It reminded her of her father. One of her earliest memories was crawling up in her father’s lap when he came home from the harbor every afternoon. “You smell like the ocean,” she would tell him, wrinkling her nose as she buried her face in his tunic, and he would laugh as he held her close.
She had never sailed without her father, she suddenly realized. Why isn’t he here? she lamented. If he hadn’t made the sacrifice, he would be with me now, and I wouldn’t be so scared. At least Jacob was with her, and she took comfort in that thought.
As they filed up the steep plank to board the ship, she told herself, I’ll pretend we’re boarding the Mercury for a voyage to Rome. But she could not keep up the pretense for more than a minute. No soldiers had ever guarded the passengers on the Mercury. And no one in chains had ever boarded her father’s beautiful ship, which was long, sleek, and elegant in every detail. The dilapidated boat they boarded now was squat and creaky, and it reeked of sweat and urine and rancid fish. Rebecca gagged from the smell as the soldiers herded them belowdecks.
As they got under way, the prisoners sat huddled together in a cramped area of the cargo hold. Some were crying, some were praying, and some, like Rebecca, were silent. This was certainly no holiday cruise on her father’s ship; this old hulk was headed for the hell of Devil’s Island, and fear gripped Rebecca’s mind as she contemplated what awaited her there.
When the carriage deposited Naomi at the villa just before noon, she went straight to the kitchen to find something to eat. She supposed she’d have to prepare it herself, since the entire household had been apprehended and taken to the Temple of Domitian, and most of them were now on their way to Devil’s Island.
As she searched the pantry, she made a mental note to find someone to repair the front door, which had been knocked off its hinges by the brutes who had stormed it early that morning. After all, I’m the mistress of the house now, Naomi thought with a small burst of pride followed by a pang of regret. Watching her mother be stabbed to death was a most unpleasant way to acquire the job, but Naomi knew she was capable of running a large household, and with her mother gone, someone had to do it. She would have to find more help immediately, though. Perhaps she would attend the next slave auction; she would inquire about it after the games this afternoon, she decided.
As she assembled a snack of fruit and cheese and bread, Naomi remembered that Peter had not been with them that morning. He must be here somewhere, she thought. Probably still hiding.
Poor Peter. If she had an ally within the family, he was it. Not that she could count on him in a crisis; he would vanish, as he had that morning. But at least he made an effort to see things from her point of view. And occasionally Peter even agreed with her in family discussions.
Naomi went from room to room looking for him, calling his name. “It’s all right, Peter. You can come out now. It’s only me.”
It had not surprised Naomi that he had managed to hide so well that he avoided discovery. When they were younger, Peter had always been the best of the four at playing hide-and-seek. Rebecca was too eager to be found, too ready to be congratulated for finding such a clever place to hide. Jacob was fast, but too big and awkward to hide easily. What Peter lacked in speed and agility, he made up for in craftiness and patience. Peter always found the place no one thought to look in, and he would stay completely still and quiet even when the others were inches away from him. An hour or more after the others had all given up the game, Peter would still be hiding.
Now she found him in the library, dusting himself off. “Where were you?” she asked.
“In there.” He pointed to a small storage closet under the staircase. “I rolled myself up in an old carpet.”
“It’s a wonder you didn’t suffocate.”
“After a while I crawled out of the carpet. But I stayed in the closet until I heard you just now.” Peter stretched and blinked, his eyes adjusting to the sunlit room. He looked around nervously. “Where is everyone else? What happened?”
Naomi ushered Peter into the dining room and related the tumultuous events while they ate the impromptu meal she had thrown together.
“I can’t believe Father sacrificed to the emperor.” Peter’s forehead wrinkled in astonishment. “It goes against everything he stands for.”
“I know, but he did it.” Naomi was oddly disturbed. On the one hand, she had thought he would be a fool not to make the sacrifice, and had repeatedly said so. On the other hand, she supposed she had harbored the thought that her father’s faith was some kind of an anchor—one she had not held on to, but one she assumed would be there if she ever needed it. But if that anchor didn’t hold even for her father . . .
I don’t need a supernatural faith as an anchor at all, she reminded herself. She didn’t have faith in the Christian God or any of the Roman gods. She didn’t have faith in the Roman Empire. Naomi had faith in herself, and that was all she needed.
Peter broke down and cried when she told him about Elizabeth being run through with a sword. “And it was the strangest thing,” Naomi said. “That Damian fellow knew Mother—he said she could have married him instead of Father.”
Peter’s hand shook so much that he put his spoon down without taking a bite. “I’m glad I wasn’t there to see it,” he said quietly. “What about Father? Is he dead too?”
“I . . . I don’t know for sure.” Naomi poured herself some wine and avoided looking at Peter. “Some of the soldiers beat him severely, and he was lying on the ground. He could have been unconscious, I suppose. But probably dead.”
“You just went off and left them there?”
“What was I supposed to do, Peter? Jacob and Rebecca had marched off in chains. Hundreds of soldiers were still in the area when Damian ordered two of his men to take me home. Since their commander had just killed my mother for hitting a centurion, and their comrades had beaten my father for trying to interfere, I didn’t think my escorts would take kindly to my stopping to inquire about my parents.”
They finished the meal in silence, and Naomi was still sulking as she went upstairs to get dressed. Peter had touched a sore spot, but she would not admit it. As she had been driven off in the carriage, Naomi had fought a wave of guilt for not seeing about her father. He might have still been alive, and she knew she should have seen if he needed help, but she had wanted to put as much distance as possible between her and the painful public spectacle. And she had not been willing to risk any further embarrassment or jeopardy. So she had simply come home.
It would be much easier, it occurred to her now, if her father were indeed dead. Not only am I capable of running this household, she thought, I can run the entire shipping business. With her father out of the picture, there would be nothing—or no one—to stand in her way, and Naomi liked that idea.
As she meticulously dressed for the games, she put aside any lingering doubts. I don’t have time for guilt, she told herself. I have a life to live.
14
BEFORE HE OPEN
ED HIS EYES, Abraham tasted the dust and grit of the cobblestones where he’d been lying since the soldiers had struck him down. His head was pounding and his ears ringing. His body was trembling so much, he felt as if someone was shaking him.
Someone was shaking him, he finally realized, trying to wake him up. He opened one eye and then the other. His vision was blurred, and the man’s face swam in front of him, becoming two faces and then merging together again.
“Abraham,” the man said. “Abraham, can you hear me?”
He couldn’t recognize the face, but the familiar voice was easily identified. “Quintus,” he mumbled, “is that you?”
“Yes, Abraham.” Quintus put a hand under his shoulder. “Can you sit up? You’ve been hurt.”
With Quintus’s help, Abraham sat up slowly. He spit a pebble out of his mouth and brushed some of the dirt off his face.
“It’s over,” Quintus said. “The soldiers have cleared out.”
Abraham gradually became aware of his surroundings, and then it hit him. “Elizabeth! Oh, God, please . . .” He crawled on his hands and knees toward his wife, trying to piece together the blurred images he recalled—Damian, the sword, Elizabeth falling. He’d seen it all in a haze and had thought—had desperately hoped—he was dreaming. Surely it was a nightmare, a delusion caused by his throbbing head.
But when he reached Elizabeth, he knew it was true: Damian had killed her. Abraham fell across his wife’s body, sobbing.
“Pull yourself together.” Quintus’s voice was unusually stern. “We need to get out of here.”
Abraham shook off the hand on his shoulder. “Leave me alone!” he cried.
Quintus persisted. “Come on, Abraham. We need to get Elizabeth home. We can’t leave her body lying in the street.”
That truth pierced through his grief and shock. Abraham summoned his strength to stand and pick up his wife’s body. When he stooped over to lift her, a pain shot through his head and he felt as if the top of his skull would explode.
