As Sure as the Dawn

by Francine Rivers

  She knew.

  Lord, help me. Help me.

  “Be still and know,” Theophilus had said so often. “God is with you.”

  “Beloved, what does the Lord your God require of you?” she said softly, eyes filling with tears as she remembered and repeated another Scripture. “Fear the Lord your God, walk in all his ways and love him, serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and keep—”

  “He was murdered!”

  “As was our Lord. Jesus forgave,” she said, desperate to call him back to himself. “Theophilus forgave. You must—”

  “No. Justice will be done,” he said, a muscle moving in his cheek.

  “Justice, Atretes? Your mouth is watering for revenge.”

  “Better the cur die by my hands than be put in the bog!” When she still said nothing, his temper burst the reins he had tried to put on it. “Tell me who it was!” he said, grabbing her by the hair and pulling her head back.

  Gritting her teeth against the pain, she looked up at him. She was afraid, not for herself, but for him. When his hand tightened, she gasped in pain and closed her eyes.

  Seeing her face drain of color, Atretes released her abruptly and stepped away, swearing vilely. He gave a shout of frustrated fury. He wanted to kill whoever had murdered Theophilus. He wanted to hunt the man down and tear him apart with his own bare hands. He wanted the satisfaction of hearing him beg for mercy. He wanted to plunge a dagger into him over and over again as the killer had done to his friend!

  Rizpah wept as she saw the struggle going on within him. He was turning away from God right before her eyes, and she was powerless to stop it. She ached with grief, praying incoherently for God’s help.

  Atretes turned on her, his face contorted with grief and wrath. “Curse you for protecting a murderer!”

  She saw the same pride and wrath she had seen in Anomia’s eyes blazing in Atretes. It shook her. “No, I’m not,” she said, weeping harder. “I’m protecting you.”

  He strode away, leaving her in the glen alone, Theophilus’ body cradled in her arms. She held her friend closer, rocking him in anguish.

  48

  Rizpah prepared Theophilus’ body for burial, but Atretes returned and informed her he was going to cremate him according to Chatti custom. He spent the rest of the day building a funeral house. Freyja came with food and wine, but Rizpah had no appetite, and Atretes wouldn’t stop to eat.

  “I’m sorry,” Freyja said to Rizpah softly, watching her son. “I didn’t agree with your friend, but I wouldn’t have wished such an end upon him.”

  “Could you have prevented it?” Rizpah said softly.

  Freyja looked down at Theophilus’ face and wondered at the peace of it. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Perhaps. I don’t know.” She laid her hand gently on Rizpah’s arm. “I’ll bring Caleb to you later.”

  Hours later, the funeral house burned against the night sky. Rizpah stood watching it, weeping softly, Caleb held close in her arms. Atretes stood beside her, not speaking or touching her. He hadn’t uttered so much as a prayer. She felt the coldness in him and didn’t know what she could do to help him. Glancing up at him, she saw the muscle working in his jaw, his eyes blazing as hotly as the fire consuming Theophilus’ body. She felt the distance widening between them.

  Pressing her face into the curve of Caleb’s neck, she continued to pray even as she had started that morning in the glen. Lord, turn his heart, incline his ear, let his soul respond.

  A violent burst of sparks and flame shot upward as the funeral house caved in. Just for an instant she glimpsed Theophilus’ body lying on the bench before it was consumed in the bright light.

  Caleb let out a joyous cry of delight, raising his hands as the embers rose heavenward. Rizpah looked up as well. Above were the stars and the moon as they had always been, reminding her that God had been there even before them and would be long afterward as well. The knowledge filled her with peace and, strangely enough, joy. Theophilus was home with the Lord. His battle was won. It was only she and Atretes who were still struggling with temporal existence and the forces against them.

  Lord, Lord, my heart longs for you. You know how much we both relied on Theophilus’ sweet spirit. Is that why you took him from us? So that we would have to stand on our own and put all our trust in you?

  “Are you going to tell me who murdered him?” Atretes said without looking at her.

  She lowered her head and closed her eyes. “No,” she said very softly, praying he would relent.

  Turning, he yanked Caleb from her arms. “You’re not welcome at the longhouse.”

  She stared at him, lips parted. “What do you mean?”

  Caleb started to cry in his father’s arms. He reached for Rizpah, she took a step forward. Atretes stepped back from her. “He’s my son, remember? Not yours.”

  The coldness of his voice froze her. “And you’re my husband,” she said shakily, striving for calm and reason in the face of what she saw in his blue eyes.

  “Then remember your vows to obey. Tell me who killed him!”

  O God, does it have to come to this? “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” she quoted. “I can’t tell you knowing what is in your heart. I can’t.”

  “Do you think the Lord wanted Theophilus murdered? Do you think he ordained it? Do you think Jesus sent someone to do it?” He cursed again, his voice rising. “If he did, then where’s the difference between Christ and Tiwaz?”

  She didn’t want to argue. God was sovereign. God knew. Her mind worked desperately for reasons. “God permits evil so that he can demonstrate his mercy and grace through the redemption—”

  “Is the killer here, begging forgiveness?” Atretes sneered. He shifted Caleb, jarring him. Frightened, the child screamed, but in his wrath, Atretes didn’t notice or care. “Do you see the murderer repenting?” he said, glaring at her as though she had done the deed herself. “Do you think he’s afraid of God? Do you think any of my people will have respect when they see nothing happens after a man’s been murdered in cold blood?”

  “Is yours any warmer?”

  A red haze seemed to overshadow his vision. “You betray Theophilus with your silence. You betray me!”

  “Theophilus told me not to tell you!”

  “You’re standing between me and justice!”

  “I’m standing between you and revenge!”

  He slapped her before he could stop himself, and the blow was so hard she reeled and fell to the ground. Shock and regret made him take a step toward her, and then the black fury within him held him back. A war raged within him. He groaned with the intensity of the battle. He watched her push herself up, saw how she shook violently from shock, her dark eyes wide with pain and disbelief, her lip bleeding.

  A part of him was appalled at what he had done and wanted to beg her forgiveness, but he hardened himself against it. If he gave in, Theophilus’ murder would go unanswered. He couldn’t let that happen. His very blood cried out against it.

  “I don’t want to see your face until you’re ready to tell me who it was. When you do, I’ll allow you back in the longhouse. Not until.”

  “Atretes—”

  “Shut up! Don’t come back unless you’ve had a change of heart, Rizpah, or by God, you’ll live to regret it. If you live at all.” His mouth twisted in bitterness, even as his heart twisted inside him. “You’re no better than a faithless wife, and I’ll treat you as such.”

  With those words, he turned his back on her and strode away, Caleb screaming in his arms.

  Drawing her knees up against her chest, Rizpah covered her head with her hands and wept.

  Not far away, hidden in darkness among the trees, Anomia watched. She had heard every word Atretes uttered. Her heart had swelled with malicious joy when he had struck the Ionian down. Now she listened with heinous relish to the woman’s sobs drifting softly in the still night air.

  Eyes glowing, she smiled, triumphant.

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bsp; 49

  Rizpah moved into Theophilus’ grubenhaus. She covered herself with his blanket, breathing in the scent of his body, grieving over him as she would an earthly father.

  Fears attacked her from all sides; nightmares assailed when she slept. Caleb was screaming, and she couldn’t find him. Though she searched frantically, she found herself deeper and deeper in the forest, darkness closing in around her. She came upon Atretes entangled in the arms of the young priestess and cried out. He didn’t hear her, but Anomia did and exulted.

  Rizpah awakened weeping, Anomia’s laughter still ringing in her ears. Her heart was racing, her whole body trembling. She covered her face.

  “O Lord, you are a shield about me. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. Make your way straight before me.”

  She sat in the darkness, praying and waiting for dawn, all the while beseeching God. Surely Atretes would have had time to think and relent and take her back with him to the longhouse. He had loved Theophilus. Surely he would honor his friend’s last request. And Caleb would need her. He hadn’t been weaned and would cry in the morning, and Atretes would have no patience with him. Varus would be angry.

  “He’s my son, remember? Not yours.”

  She held herself and rocked. His eyes, O God . . . open his eyes.

  Atretes’ words cut her heart every time she thought about them, resurrecting other hurtful things from the first time she’d met him. How could she have thought there was any gentleness in him? How could she have thought he ever really loved her? She was still Julia to him, still like a hundred others he had been given in his cell.

  “Let all bitterness and anger be put away from you, beloved, and be kind to one another,” John the apostle had said so long ago in Ephesus. Was it really only two years since she had left everything she knew to come to this place of desolation? “Be kind and tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”

  She knew she had to forgive Atretes for abandoning her. She had to lay the hurtful words aside or bitterness would take root in her and grow. Atretes treated her as though she had killed Theophilus, but she couldn’t think of that. She couldn’t allow his anger and actions to keep her from obeying the Lord.

  “Stand firm.”

  She thought of Rolf fleeing into the woods with blood on his hands. She wanted to tell Atretes and see justice done, but she knew it wouldn’t be justice that was served if she gave in to her feelings. Theophilus had spoken plainly. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t understand. She couldn’t convince herself it was all right.

  Why did life have to be so hard? Shouldn’t believing in a living God make it easier? Did the Lord really expect her to stand against her husband and lose her son in the process? And for what? To protect a murderer?

  “Forgive them for they know not what they do.”

  Dawn came. Atretes didn’t.

  As the first day passed and then the second, Rizpah despaired, her mind and heart in torment. How had things disintegrated so quickly? Was it possible that one act of violence could obliterate faith? She felt as though her own was crumbling. Was she doing the right thing? She wanted to be with Caleb, not alone in this quiet, cold earthen house. She wanted to talk with Atretes, reason with him, make him understand. But could she? Would any amount of reason reach a man who had given himself over to the desire for vengeance?

  She knew him so well. He wouldn’t relent, and if she did, he was lost. Rolf would die, and she would have the young warrior’s blood on her hands. She would have to live with the guilt of knowing her weakness had opened the way to Atretes committing a murder no less abominable than what Rolf had done.

  And so she set her mind on Christ.

  She weakened when she found the dagger. It lay half-hidden in Theophilus’ garden, the blade glinting in the spring sunlight. She picked it up before she realized what it was. The blade was stained by a streak of dried blood. Theophilus’ blood. She dropped it in horror, tears flooding her eyes. Dark, marauding thoughts stole into her mind, making her blood go hot and her muscles tense. What mercy had Rolf shown Theophilus when he plunged the dagger into him? Why should any mercy be shown him? She wished she could plunge the dagger into Rolf herself and give the wretch to the god he worshiped.

  But her conscience recoiled at such thinking, and she responded in repentance. Rolf was unredeemed and incapable of understanding the truth. He was incapable of believing in God, incapable of pleasing the Lord or even seeking him. But she was. She knew. And still she had found herself indulging in thoughts of violent retribution.

  God knew her heart. God knew her every thought. How was she any different from Atretes? The realization humbled her even more.

  “Don’t tell him,” Theophilus had said. “He’s weak. He’ll want revenge.”

  Hadn’t Theophilus’ words proven true? And now she found herself as weak as her husband, hungering for retribution, craving a man’s death. Atretes had turned away from everything Theophilus had taught him. Theophilus’ last words had been a commission, and Atretes had ignored it, too intent on vengeance. Was she going to turn away from the Lord as well?

  “God, forgive me. Cleanse me, Lord. Make a right spirit within me,” she prayed, filled with compassion for her husband. There was no room for anger and hurt. How much worse must it be for Atretes, having been trained in violence for so many years. He had only just begun to know the Lord. What excuse had she who had followed the Lord for seven years? “God, help him. Turn him back.”

  When she opened her eyes, her gaze fell on the dagger again. What forces had worked on Rolf to drive him to kill Theophilus? Hadn’t Theophilus spared his life in the sacred forest? Theophilus said the young warrior hadn’t wanted to do the deed. Why had he? She picked up the dagger. The handle of bone was carved in the shape of a goat’s foot, runes etched the length of it. It was no ordinary weapon. She turned it over and saw the carving of a man with horns, holding a scythe in one hand and a framea in the other. Tiwaz.

  Had Gundrid sent Rolf? Surely Freyja would not be a participant in such an abominable act. She couldn’t believe it of Atretes’ mother. Anomia, yes, but not Freyja. Never Freyja.

  She thought of the young priestess who had no fear of God, even of the one she worshiped. Rizpah had seen the darkness behind her eyes. She had felt it every time the young woman looked at her. The day before Theophilus had died, she had revealed her true feelings. Anomia was a child of wrath, hostile, inflamed by hatred of the Lord.

  Rizpah wondered if she should give the dagger to Atretes. She felt sick at the thought, knowing that more than Rolf would die if she did so. And what if his own mother had taken part in Theophilus’ death? What then?

  She hid the weapon in the hollow of a tree near the stream.

  Theophilus had given a commission to Atretes. “Feed the sheep.” But he had given her a commission as well. “Stand firm,” he had said. But could she?

  “Stand firm.”

  * * *

  Again and again over the next days, his words came back to her, especially during the hours of darkness when she weakened and wanted to run back to the longhouse and beg Atretes to let her come home, when she wanted to give him the dagger and not think about the possible repercussions.

  “Stand firm.”

  Had Theophilus known she would be left alone? Would it have made a difference if he had?

  “Stand firm, beloved.”

  How many times had he said those words to her over the months of traveling from Ephesus to Rome and from Rome north across the Alps into the forests of Germania? “Stand firm. Stand firm.”

  She lay down upon Theophilus’ pallet each night and prayed. Lord, I am weary with sighing. Every night I make my bed swim and dissolve this pallet with my tears. I am wasting away with grief.

  She could almost hear Theophilus speaking to her. Closing her eyes, she took comfort from the memories of him. She thought of him sitting across the fire from her, smiling that tender smile of his.

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sp; Hadn’t he stood firm all these months, alone in this grubenhaus?

  Other things he had said came to her: “Remember the Lord, beloved. Jesus delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son. Put your armor on. Gird your loins with the truth. Put on the breastplate of righteousness. Shod your feet with the gospel of peace. Take up the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit. And pray.

  “You must be a doer of the Word, Rizpah. Remember the Scriptures. Let God’s Word enter your heart and bear fruit.

  “Be steadfast. Set your mind on the things above. The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace. Guard your heart, for from it flow springs of living water. Imitate the Lord. Walk in love.”

  Scriptures came, flooding her mind.

  “Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.”

  “I love my husband, Lord. I love my son.”

  “I am the Lord your God, and there is no other.”

  God’s Word came like a clap of thunder and then followed with a gentler rain.

  “I am sufficient. I am sufficient. I am sufficient.”

  And she wept, knowing what God asked of her.

  “O Lord, you are my Rock and my Redeemer. You hear my supplication. You receive my prayer. You have heard the sound of my weeping. Help me to stand firm in you. Give me strength, Abba, for I have none of my own. Fill me with the knowledge of your will and keep me in the way everlasting. O Lord, my God, I live to worship you.”

  And as Rizpah poured her heart out in surrender to the Lord, the God of the universe poured back into her love and assurance. She wept, and his Word comforted her. She was weak, and he strengthened her. Scripture upon Scripture came back to her, vital and alive, driving away fear and loneliness, obliterating all doubt. As the days wore on, dark forces closed in around her, but Rizpah clung stubbornly to Christ and her passion deepened.