Bread of Angels

by Tessa Afshar

  She squirmed where she sat on the floor, her body and mind afire with discomfort.

  “Come now. Nothing can be so bad. Tell me your troubles. Did Jason spurn you? Tell me the word and I will beat him to a pulp.”

  Lydia gave a pale smile. Her father’s head reached no higher than Jason’s chin, and he was too old to survive a fight with anything bigger than a lamb.

  “No one has spurned me. The opposite, in fact.”

  The air left Eumenes’s chest with a hiss. “He has proposed, then.”

  “Not in so many words.”

  Eumenes threw his hands in the air. “I begged your mother not to die. I told her I could not raise a daughter on my own. And you see, I was right. This whole room is drowning in your gloom. And why, I ask? The young man has proposed. He has not proposed. It is beyond me.”

  Lydia began to laugh. “You will be horrified when I tell you,” she said, sobering.

  TEN

  He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers.

  MALACHI 4:6

  THE ROMANS BELIEVED that the house of the god of sleep, Somnus, was in a deep valley where twilight ruled. The sun never shone there. No roosters crowed, no dogs barked, no branches rustled in the whispering breeze. Silence and shadows wrapped that slumberous realm in their heavy peace.

  Lydia wished with all her strength that she could enter the world of sleep. Enter its forgetful streams and, for a few hours at least, set aside the mighty struggle that divided her heart into two. Instead, she lay on her mattress, agitation making her turn this way and that.

  “You can’t sleep either,” Eumenes whispered from the doorway. In the light of the small lamp burning low in her room, he seemed diminished and fragile.

  Lydia sat up. “Dear Father. You must not disturb yourself on my account. We will go on as we have before. We have always been happy together. We need no more than what we have.”

  Eumenes lowered himself at the end of her bed, stretching his legs before him with a heavy sigh. “We cannot go back. We cannot undo the future by returning to the past.” He tapped her foot over the thin blanket. “I have decided to go and visit Dione.”

  “No, Father!”

  “I didn’t say I will take her offer. But there is no harm in hearing her out, is there? Perhaps I will like her terms.”

  Lydia shook her head. “You won’t like them.” She wanted to say more to dissuade him. To warn him not to turn his life upside down for her sake. She opened her mouth and closed it again without saying a word. Something stopped her tongue, turning her mute. A secret relief that the decision was taken from her. More than that—a fledgling joy at the thought of her life with Jason.

  She told herself her father was too shrewd to enter into an unwise agreement. He would not give away the business he had built with his bare hands without judicious forethought. His decision would be based on prudence. His affection for her would not sway him into irrational indiscretion.

  In any case, Jason’s mother would act with scrupulous generosity for Jason’s sake if nothing else. Everything would work out well, she told herself.

  And she said nothing more.

  Her father still sat at the end of her bed, wakeful and vigilant, when she finally slipped into the realm of sleep she so desperately longed to enter.

  “You mean to accept Dione’s offer after only one visit? Father, that sounds rash.” Lydia drew her sweat-drenched scarf from her head and fanned her hot face. They were in the workshop, where her father, true to his promise, had demonstrated the undisclosed mysteries of one of his dyes.

  Eumenes sat on a wobbly stool. “Not rash. Decisive. It will be a relief, to tell you the truth. Having someone else take charge of the accounts without needing to scramble to pay exorbitant taxes to Rome will be a vast improvement to my lot in life. You will have your handsome hero, and I will have my dyes to play with. What more is there to concern ourselves about?”

  In spite of her father’s confident words, Lydia felt uneasy. Beneath Eumenes’s cheerful countenance and assuring manner, she sensed a furtive hesitation, as if he were plagued by a reservation he did not wish her to see.

  “Why rush into such an important decision?” she asked, her brow furrowed. “Take a month. Take two. I can wait. There is no need to rush into a precipitous concession.”

  Eumenes scratched his cheek. “There you go using big words again. I don’t know what you just said. But you are wrong and I am right.”

  “Dear Father,” she said, and winding her arms about his neck, she kissed him on his lined forehead. “I am so grateful for your love. Grateful that you would wish to make this sacrifice for me. And perhaps in time we will find that it is a good decision after all and partner with Dione. But for now, please tell me you will wait.”

  Eumenes smiled and ruffled her hair. “You are the best daughter a man could wish for. How happy I am that you belong to me.”

  As he left the workshop, his feet silent on the chipped mosaic, Lydia realized that though he had warmed her heart with his words, he had not calmed her fears with a promise.

  The next four days passed in a flurry of activity as Eumenes continued to teach Lydia the aspects of each individual dye that he had hitherto kept to himself. He made her practice every step repeatedly until he was certain she had memorized it correctly. Exhaustion became a constant companion. Lydia barely felt its grip as she grew engrossed in Eumenes’s teaching, finding his revelations fascinating. She grasped the new concepts quickly, having been exposed to so much of the process already, and with every new instruction, her awe at her father’s ability grew. So engrossing did she find their pastime that she hardly noticed Jason’s unusual absence four days in a row.

  On the fifth day, her father told her to practice on her own while he saw to a few errands in town. They had filled their last order and were in a lull. So Lydia spent the morning and early afternoon working on the most complex of her father’s formulas. Already it had become second nature to her.

  She had finished making a small batch, admiring its perfect shade and consistency in the sun, when the garden door opened and her father walked in, followed by a reed-thin stranger. Lydia wiped her hands on a rag and stood.

  “Lydia, this is Eryx. He is our new dye master.”

  Lydia stared at the man’s thin, sallow face and then back at her father without comprehension. “Our new dye master?”

  “Mistress Dione sent him with her compliments.”

  “Mistress Dione?” Lydia’s voice had grown as thin as Master Eryx’s arms.

  “Is this a new game?” her father asked. “I speak and you repeat my words?”

  Lydia expelled the breath she had been holding. “You have signed the contract.”

  Eumenes looked away. “I told you I would. Now, let me show Eryx our workshop and supplies before introducing him to our treasured well. Then we can all sit to supper.” He hesitated for a moment, his voice growing less confident as he asked, “Is there supper?”

  She crossed her arms. “You should have asked this morning.” Before you strutted home with a new dye master and a signed contract.

  ELEVEN

  Fret not yourself because of evildoers.

  PSALM 37:1

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, Jason arrived full of good-natured charm and the indisputable attraction that always left Lydia a little breathless. It was as if he were lit from within, bright and glorious like new gold.

  “How do you like Eryx? My mother says he is superb.”

  Lydia shrugged. “He seems to know his dyes.”

  “And he will soon learn your father’s formulas and take over all the hard work for you, leaving you free for me.” His mouth tipped up at one corner, making him look less like Apollo and more like his mother.

  Lydia made a noncommittal sound. Her father had proclaimed that under no circumstances would Eryx be given the crucial secrets of their dyes. Eumenes was slowly showing him some of the basic procedures for mak
ing his purple. These were common among most purple makers. If Eryx learned anything new from her father, it was nothing any other purple dye seller could not teach him.

  “As long as we remain partners, Dione can have half our income, and with my good wishes. But my dyes are my own,” Eumenes had said. “You may think me hasty in my decision to welcome her into this workshop. Don’t think me naive, as well.”

  “How long will it be before Eryx is fully trained by your father, do you think?” Jason said, distracting her from her thoughts by reaching for her hand.

  “Three months. Less, if he is quick of mind and has some experience.” She did not tell him that even after three months, Eryx would not know the full formula to a single dye. Why she kept this decision a secret from Jason she could not explain. It is my father’s decision and his to reveal, she told herself. But she knew this was only part of the truth.

  Her father had once told her that he had never kept a secret from her mother. Their trust in one another was so complete that he could not fathom anything so dire or dark that it might not be shared with his wife. And yet here she was, already refusing to disclose matters pertaining to their business with the man she loved.

  It’s not that I don’t trust Jason, she reasoned with herself. I will tell him when the time is right.

  Dione might take offense at Eumenes’s decision so soon in their partnership. Though there was nothing in their contract that required Lydia’s father to share his knowledge with Dione, she might consider his decision objectionable. Lydia tried to convince herself that she had good reason to keep Jason in the dark. Still, the decision to hold the full truth back from him pricked at her like a sharp splinter caught under the skin.

  “He is nosy!” Lydia told her father a few weeks later. “No sooner have I started a batch of dye than Eryx leaves his work and stands at my elbow, full of questions.”

  “I have noticed the same.” The creases in Eumenes’s forehead deepened. “Yesterday, he asked me if I would allow him to sleep here, in the workshop.”

  Lydia’s head snapped up. “You did not agree, Father? It is bad enough to have him underfoot all day long.”

  “I did not. He told me a sad story about a sick daughter who needs money for physicians. If he pays no rent for his house and sends her the money, she might find a cure. That is why he wishes to move into the workshop, he claims. I do not believe a word.”

  “We should tell Dione our suspicions. I think Eryx wants to steal your formulas. She will find you another dye master.”

  Eumenes’s expression grew shuttered. He shook his head. “Not yet. We have no proof.”

  “Are we to wait until he robs you before we make a complaint? It would be too late then.”

  Eumenes grinned. “He won’t rob my secrets. I have a plot of my own.”

  As promised, Dione’s patronage drew new customers, most of them sufficiently wealthy to place large orders. Eumenes put several pieces of exquisite purple wool and linen at Dione’s disposal, which she wore often during the many banquets and official functions she attended. Inevitably many asked where she had acquired her new garments and came rushing to Eumenes’s workshop as fast as their chariots and horses could carry them.

  “Who knew it would be so easy? Give a wealthy woman an armful of purple, and you have a long line outside your door, wanting your wares,” her father said.

  “All this new business is very well.” Lydia measured vermilion powder with careful precision before continuing her train of thought. “But how are we going to keep Eryx distracted while we work on the dyes? He is not a stupid man. There is something very crafty about him that makes me uneasy. Let us ask Dione to find us another helper.”

  “I told you I have a plan.” Eumenes pulled a piece of crumbling parchment tucked into his belt. “He will be busy making this while we work on the real dye.”

  Lydia looked at the parchment. “This is not one of yours, is it? I have never seen it.”

  “It was the first dye formula I learned as a boy.”

  “He won’t be fooled by that. If you knew it as a boy, he is sure to recognize it.”

  “I have added enough new steps and ingredients to throw him off.”

  Lydia studied the parchment more closely. Silently she began to laugh. “Petals of fresh violets? Where is he to find those in such quantity? And sheep urine? Father, that is cruel.”

  “One of our customers told me of a field covered with violets. Is it my fault it is a twelve-hour journey from here? That ought to keep him out of the way for a full day. Perhaps two, if the weather proves cooperative. And plenty of dye masters use urine as a mordant.”

  Lydia shook her head. “Not you.” She added the cost of the regular ingredients, which every purple dye required. Indigo, plant ash, lime, madder. “It won’t be cheap, this ruse of yours.”

  “He will not need much. The formula as far as the indigo and lime and ash is concerned is the same as the one we use. When that part of the dye is completed, I will give him a small portion to work on independently. I have told him that he will be dyeing wool for a very special customer. It is a small order, but if we satisfy the patron, he may return for more.” He shrugged. “Eryx will care nothing whether he is working on a large order or a small one so long as he believes he is learning the formula to one of my dyes.”

  “What happens when the wool comes out looking inferior?”

  “I will tell him he committed an error and set him to work again.”

  Lydia bit her lip. “I almost pity him.”

  “I, too.” Eumenes’s belly shook with laughter, ruining the effect of his compassionate pronouncement, and his daughter joined in ruefully.

  He squeezed her shoulder. “One day you will be a great dye master, Lydia. You will run your own workshop. I hope you will be happily married by then, for an unmarried woman in Thyatira will have few opportunities.”

  “Jason’s mother manages many trades with success, and she is a woman.”

  “Just barely.”

  “Father!”

  “The point is, she is a widow with three children, which grants her freedoms that an unmarried woman cannot have according to Roman law and custom. If we lived in Macedonia, you might be able to manage your own business even without three children and a husband. That is one corner of the empire that allows women a little more freedom. But here, as in most of the Roman Empire, a woman, no matter how skilled or knowledgeable, cannot run a trade.”

  “Macedonia!” Lydia was sure she looked like she had sucked on an unripe persimmon. “Why would I want to go there? I belong here in Thyatira, with you. We will be partners always, whether I marry or not.”

  TWELVE

  There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts,

  but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

  PROVERBS 12:18

  “WHY DO YOU STILL have your arms drowned in dye up to your elbows?” Jason asked with a scowl. “Isn’t Eryx supposed to do this now?”

  Lydia wiped her hands with haste. “He needs time to learn.” This would be a good moment to tell him the truth, she thought. She could not keep their predicament a secret from him forever. Jason had a right to know. “He . . . he might not be the right man for this work, Jason. We may need to look for someone new.”

  “What do you mean he is not right?” Lydia had never heard Jason raise his voice before. It was like watching a sunny day turn dark with storms in the span of a breath.

  “My mother handpicked Eryx herself so that you could have the right help. Is this an excuse to keep on doing what you want? Is this your way of clinging to this work in spite of how I feel? If you wish to keep on living as you always have, why don’t you speak plainly so I don’t have to waste my time waiting for you?”

  “No, Jason! I am not trying to cling to my work.” She realized that Jason trusted his mother’s choice implicitly. He would not accept her intuition about Eryx, nor would he listen to her accusation of the man’s dishonesty. She swallowed her d
esire to tell him the truth. “I am still working because Master Eryx has much to learn,” she said. “Whoever is to become our steward must learn my father’s methods. Until then, I need to help as before.”

  The effect of her words was dramatic. In one moment the scowl disappeared and the old, lighthearted Jason reappeared, eyes sparkling, smile peaking with its rakish half tilt. “I see I was unfair. Your father must teach Eryx everything he knows. In the meantime, he still requires your assistance. I cannot find fault with that. It will be impossible to leave your father without good help. As soon as Eryx has been properly trained, you can leave the work to the men.”

  Lydia frowned. “Except that I would still help with the management, as your mother does with her business concerns?”

  “That is what I meant, of course.” He sprang to his feet, his movements full of the vigor and grace of a superb athlete. “I have taken too much of your time. For the next few weeks, I will come in the evening, after your work is done. I do not wish to interrupt you. I can be patient for a few weeks until you are free.”

  He rose, and for a moment as Lydia looked up to him, he seemed like a giant, a leviathan blocking out the light of the sun.

  Certain memories linger in the soul, sharp like the edge of a dagger, aching in spite of the passing of months. The first and only time Dione deigned to visit Lydia at her home was such a memory. Like a brand, the woman’s words and manner left their mark.

  Dione and Eumenes had been partners for over a month by then. Her man, Eryx, had proved more burden than help. Most of what he did for them was a waste of time, as they kept him busy making fake concoctions, ensuring that he never learned the true process of creating Eumenes’s dyes. As a result, his presence brought very little relief to Lydia. She still had to complete the work she had done before his arrival and remained busier than ever, trying to cope with increasingly large and complex orders.