Bread of Angels

by Tessa Afshar

  “Has it occurred to you that perhaps God has sent Aemilia to help us?” Rebekah asked when the general and his mother had left.

  “I think Aemilia is under the impression that she is a god.”

  Rebekah smiled. “But God knows better. And he can use her in ways we cannot imagine. King Solomon said, ‘The Lord works out everything to its proper end.’ Aemilia thinks her plans rule the world. In the meantime, God is using those plans for his own ends in your life, Lydia.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  For every beast of the forest is mine,

  the cattle on a thousand hills.

  I know all the birds of the hills,

  and all that moves in the field is mine.

  PSALM 50:10-11

  LYDIA STOOD NEXT TO AEMILIA, her palms perspiring, her scalp tender from the ministrations of the servant Aemilia had sent to tend to her hair.

  “Smile, my girl,” the old lady said. “People are going to think I am torturing you.”

  “You are torturing me. Why did you make me come to this feast? I feel like a buzzard in the midst of a flock of swans.”

  “Idiot child. You are the swan. Prettier than all the women here and more talented than the men. If they stare at you, it is because they are dazzled.”

  “They are dazzled by the size of this blue jewel you fastened to my shoulder. A pigeon’s egg would blush in shame next to it.”

  Aemilia laughed. “My husband’s taste. He had as much understanding of elegance as a turtle. But he did have a fair understanding of expense.”

  Antiochus, who had arrived in the company of his father, Rufus, approached them. “I hear your new shop is an improvement.”

  “Thank you,” Lydia said, her voice stiff. Antiochus had a talent for making pleasant compliments sound like insults.

  “Of course you could fit ten of them in my father’s workshop. I told you to set aside your foolish pride and join us. You will never grow to be of any consequence if you remain on your own. A woman,” he sniffed.

  “That’s precisely what I said.” Aemilia slapped Antiochus on the arm harder than the young man expected, judging by the astonished look on his face and the way his body lurched to one side. “Here is a young man of some sense, Lydia. You ought to listen to his advice.”

  She gave the young man another jovial slap on the arm. This time her aim improved and when he lurched, he spilled half his wine on his toes. “On the other hand, Antiochus, perhaps Lydia might find many new patrons this evening. Who can predict such things? Perhaps she may even be able to move to more substantial accommodations in time. I myself shall support her in that endeavor. After all, look at my beautiful tunic. Where else could I find such perfection? Not in your father’s shop. As spacious and stately as it may be.”

  Antiochus gave a cold smile. “Support her all you want. If you live that long.”

  Lydia clamped down on a gasp. She had always known Antiochus had an acidic tongue. But foisting it on a respected woman like Aemilia took some nerve.

  The old lady did not seem shocked. “I intend to make a point of it,” she said with a sweet smile. “Now, you may wish to find a slave to help you clean your feet. You really ought to be more careful with your wine.”

  Lydia and Rebekah had made a habit of sneaking out of the shop whenever they could for a walk to clear their heads. If they had time, they would leave the city for a longer stroll, enjoying the ravishing countryside around Philippi.

  Their overnight explosion of business after Aemilia’s feast had prevented any such outings for far too long. Lydia, noticing her friend’s pale features, put a stop to their demanding pace one afternoon and insisted they leave work for a few hours.

  “I am glad you suggested we come away for the afternoon,” Rebekah said, surveying the gently sloping field that sat in the shadow of Mount Orbelos.

  “I have been working you too hard.” Lydia gave her friend’s hand a squeeze. Rebekah looked wan. Her beautiful skin had grown sallow and thin.

  Rebekah shook her head in negation. “It’s only for a season. Life won’t always be this overwhelming.” She picked up a round stone from the ground and twirled it between red fingers. “We’ve never come this way before. What a peaceful spot.”

  “It looks that way now, but ninety years ago, a savage battle was fought right here. Roman turned against Roman. Brother against brother. Thousands died on this field. Rufus told me about it.” Lydia took deep breaths of the crisp spring air as they strolled through the wild grass.

  “Which battle?”

  “The one that changed the course of Rome’s history.” Lydia bent down to run her fingers over a clump of lamb’s ear. “These fields once glistened red with the blood of young men. You couldn’t run without tripping over their bodies, mangled with wounds received from swords and arrows.”

  “The battle Mark Antony and Octavian’s forces fought against Brutus and Cassius after the senators murdered Julius Caesar?”

  Lydia nodded. “History was forged here, right on this unremarkable spot. Mark Antony and Octavian were Caesar’s men; they wanted to preserve what he had built and to maintain his values. Of course, they also wanted his power. The two senators wanted a republic instead. Their armies met here; Mark Antony and Octavian won the war, which is why Rome now has emperors.”

  “If these fields could only speak.”

  “There is an amusing anecdote about the poet Horace from that battle.” Lydia shielded her eyes from the sun. “Wasn’t he the one who said, ‘Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity’?”

  “Did he fight here?”

  “On the losing side. When Brutus killed himself, Horace realized he could not escape defeat. He threw away his shield and ran for his life. No poems. No brave front. Just ran as fast as his skinny, poetic legs allowed.”

  Rebekah laughed. “Sometimes courage means running away from a fight.” She settled herself on a lumpy gray rock and adjusted her sandal. “Do you smell something strange?”

  “Something burning. Yes.” Lydia scanned the field. From the corner of her eye, she saw a streak of light in the distance. “There!” She pointed before it disappeared behind a clump of bushes. A shiver of apprehension ran through Lydia. The women grew quiet.

  In the silence, they heard a terrible sound, like the shrieking of a tormented child. “What is that?” Rebekah asked in dread.

  They saw the strange streak of light again. This time it was closer, and they could make out its source. A rabbit, on fire as it ran, screaming with anguish. Lydia gasped with horror. The animal was too far away. They could not reach it. They could not help. It would die, eventually. But it would suffer the torments of hell until it did.

  Quietly, Rebekah bent over and retched.

  Lydia stood frozen, unable to get the animal’s unearthly shrieks out of her mind. “How could such a thing happen? Do you think it walked too close to a camper’s fire?”

  Rebekah shook her head. “There was an arrow protruding from its side. Did you not see it?”

  “An arrow? Perhaps someone tried to kill it. Put it out of its misery. I would do the same myself, if I could.”

  “Perhaps.” Rebekah pointed east. “It came from that direction. From behind that crop of bushes. Let’s go and see.”

  “Rebekah, I think that area is covered with marshes. It might be dangerous.”

  “We’ll be careful.” Rebekah started to run without waiting to see if Lydia would follow.

  Lydia set off in pursuit, barely able to keep up. Her stomach turned into a large knot. “I don’t have a good feeling about this,” she said, panting.

  “Hush,” Rebekah whispered. “We are close.”

  “Close to what?”

  Rebekah came to a halt before a long wall of tall bushes. Turning, she motioned Lydia to follow in silence.

  Carefully, they picked their way around the outcropping of stones and thick bushes that prevented them from seeing farther. The ground was growing more marshy with every step. Lydia
feared they would go too far and find themselves sucked to the bottom of a pit. But something drove her friend onward. They looked for stones and dry patches to step on, avoiding the mud when possible.

  Mark Antony brought a whole army through here, Lydia reminded herself. He found stretches of land wide and dry enough to safely bring thousands of soldiers through the marsh without losing any men to its deep pits. She and Rebekah could manage.

  She had barely finished that thought when her foot sank ankle-deep into mud.

  THIRTY-THREE

  The blessing of the LORD makes rich,

  and he adds no sorrow with it.

  PROVERBS 10:22

  THE THICK, OOZING SOIL sucked her sandal right off her foot, swallowed the leather whole, and to her consternation she realized that the shoe could not be retrieved. This was ridiculous! She opened her mouth to demand Rebekah stop her mad pursuit of shadows when her friend came to a dead stop. Lydia stretched around her friend’s shoulders and saw that just beyond the bushes stood a man. He had a pile of arrows next to his foot and held a bow in his hand.

  Antiochus! Rebekah lifted her arm to hail the man. Just in time, Lydia clapped a hand over her friend’s mouth to prevent her from speaking and pulled her to her knees so they could not be seen.

  Antiochus grabbed an arrow. Lydia saw that it was very slim and delicate, not sturdy enough to kill even a rabbit. The short tip was black with pitch. He dipped the arrow into the fire he had burning nearby until it flared into flame. “Come now,” he whispered. “Don’t play coy. Show yourself.”

  A moment later, a fat gray rabbit came into view, its whiskers shivering. In a flash, Antiochus released the fiery arrow. It landed in the rabbit’s leg. The fire sparked against the gray fur and caught. The creature sat for a moment, dizzy with pain from the wound in its leg. It wasn’t deep enough to kill it. But it must have hurt. Then the flame caught and grew, spreading against the long fur. The rabbit began to emit the same tormented scream they had heard before.

  Antiochus laughed. He laughed with delight as if he had heard a good joke.

  Rebekah struggled against Lydia’s hand, which had never released its hold over her mouth. Lydia tightened her hold and dragged Rebekah farther back so they could not be detected.

  “Why didn’t you let me stop him?” Rebekah wailed when Lydia finally let her go. “I need to go back. He’s not hunting for food. He is just tormenting them. He will keep on doing that if someone doesn’t interfere.”

  “He’s not safe; can’t you see that?” Lydia hissed. “He would have harmed us if he saw us there, Rebekah.”

  “But we need to help those poor creatures!”

  “No! We must keep this to ourselves. He can never know we witnessed it. He would destroy us if he knew that we saw this. That we saw this part of him.”

  “We will tell his father, then.”

  “Antiochus would deny it. Whom do you think Rufus would believe? My word, or the testimony of his own son?”

  “He must know Antiochus is no angel.”

  “But that is a far cry from knowing that his son is a monster. He will not believe me because he will not wish to believe me. Do not think that because he likes me, he will place me above his only son! I am too insignificant to make an enemy of Antiochus.”

  “We could tell Demetrius, Rufus’s manager. He is a good man, and clever. He would believe us.”

  “What can he do? A mere slave? We cannot be impetuous in our response. Think it through, Rebekah. We will not win if we choose to wage this battle. This is one of those times when, like Horace, we have to run the other way.”

  Lydia took a deep breath and held it. They had worked so hard to make a place for themselves in Philippi. To lose all they had achieved and once again face unjust accusations, to clash wills against another powerful enemy, was more than she could bear. Antiochus would loose all the dark forces of his nature against her. That was not a battle she wanted to fight.

  Rebekah’s legs folded up as if her strength had left her, and she sat down hard. “I fear he will grow worse if he is not stopped now. Grow more monstrous with the passing of the years. I will abide by what you say, Lydia. But I pray we will not regret this decision one day.”

  “My mother is dying.” The general slumped against his chair, his sagging cheeks glistening with tears.

  “I have faced men wielding spears taller than I am. Faced soldiers coming at me with death in their war cries. Faced defeat in battle when all seemed lost. But never have I felt so bereft of hope as at this moment. I always knew she would die, even though she seemed immortal. Still, I cannot imagine my life without her. She is a vexing woman. A stubborn pain of a woman. And the greatest joy I ever had.”

  “Oh, General! This world will be a darker place without the spark that lights Mistress Aemilia’s eyes.” Lydia, who had been summoned to the general’s villa in the middle of the night, sank on the stool facing him.

  His jowls shook as he wept, whimpering like a boy instead of a seasoned soldier of middle years. “Half the people in this city think her demented. The other half judge her too old to mourn. They are mistaken. When she is gone, it will be as you said. My light will dim.”

  Lydia reached for his hand. “When my father died, I thought I could not go on. He was my home.”

  “How did you carry on?”

  “At first, for his sake only, I went through the motions of living. I could not bear the thought of his disappointment if I gave up. So I put one foot in front of the other. In time life began to taste good again. Not one day passes that I do not miss him. But I live, and I take pleasure in the life I have.”

  The general wiped his face and took a deep breath. “She has asked for you.”

  “She probably wishes to remind me that I owe her another piece of purple cloth at half price and that she will not allow death to cheat her of her rights.”

  The general laughed as she had hoped he would. He brought her to Aemilia’s bedside, where she knelt to say farewell.

  Aemilia, breaths labored, cracked her eyes open. “You took your time.”

  Lydia, who still had a stitch in her side from running all the way to the villa, bowed her head. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Listen, both of you. Lydia, I want Manius to adopt you.”

  “What?” the general and Lydia cried at the same time, their voices cracking on the same note.

  “Dear Mother! You must know how impossible this request is.”

  She waved a weak hand in the air. “Manius already has an heir. The son of his father’s brother. I wish the boy no harm, though he is a bore. For Lydia, I only ask this, Manius. Adopt her so she can become a citizen of Rome.” The labored breathing grew worse, and she became silent and gray. They waited.

  Finding strength from some deep, unconquered cistern, Aemilia went on. “How can she achieve true success while paying exorbitant taxes to Rome? Adopt her, for my sake, my son. Leave her no money or property. She will not need it. She has a good mind and a rare talent, which will serve her better than all the property in the empire. Merely lend her your name, and the strength of Rome.”

  Lydia’s jaw grew slack. Upon occasion, a wealthy man like Varus, who had no natural heir, would adopt a young man to inherit his estate after his death. But no one adopted a woman. It was unheard of. If Varus accepted this unusual responsibility, he would give more than the rights of citizenship to Lydia. He would give her a man’s name and position to back her own.

  Already she had achieved something unthinkable for an unmarried woman. With Aemilia’s help, she had established herself in trade with a modicum of success. More than this, however, would be impossible. She could go no further. Not without a man’s name. She held her breath, wondering what Varus’s decision would be. He must think his mother’s request exceedingly ill-considered. His agreement might earn him the censure of all of Philippi. Even a deathbed wish would not press a man so far against his convictions.

  Varus took Aemilia’s hand. “I prom
ise, Mother. It shall be done as you say.”

  Lydia’s breath caught.

  “I wish he had been this malleable when I was in good health.” The old lady laughed, the sound a thread.

  Lydia reached for her champion’s fragile hand. “You think of me at this hour? In your suffering, you remember me?” Her voice broke.

  “Well, you are certainly more pleasant to think about than dying. And one more thing. I leave you the hideous pin with the great blue stone. I shall laugh in the land of Hades every time I see you wearing it.”

  Rebekah’s words rang in Lydia’s ears. The Lord works out everything to its proper end. “Carissima domina. Dear lady. May God give you safe passage. And thank you from my heart.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  You are my God, and I will praise you;

  you are my God, and I will exalt you.

  PSALM 118:28, NIV

  AEMILIA’S FUNERAL WAS stately enough for an emperor. Lydia was one of the few who wept genuine tears at her loss. She noticed Antiochus’s absence among the many who had come to pay their respects.

  There was a rumor that Antiochus had disgraced himself with a very young girl. Money had been exchanged and the rumor stifled. No official charges were brought against him, but a cloud hung over him nonetheless. Lydia wondered if his absence was due to this disgrace or was a public statement of his dislike for Aemilia, even in death.

  At home, she kicked off her sandals and leaned into the hearth where they cooked their meals. A banked fire lent some warmth to the chilled autumnal air.

  Rebekah sat near her and gently began to undo the tight braids and loops of hair that made Lydia’s scalp itch and ache. Lydia sighed with relief as her friend combed through her loosened hair, her movements gentle.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said.

  “Should I worry?”