Avenger of Blood

by John Hagee

  “John wrote that you have a plan to try and get the believers released from Devil’s Island,” Polycarp said. “Quite a few of our church members wound up there as a result of the persecution.”

  “I know.” Jacob explained his intentions briefly, then gradually steered the conversation to the purpose of his visit. He told Polycarp about Rebecca and Victor, told him of John’s prophecy over the child, and then he told how Damian had absconded with the baby.

  Polycarp was uncharacteristically vehement in his reaction. “No snake ever crawled as low to the ground as Lucius Mallus Damianus.”

  “I take it you’ve encountered the man,” Jacob said dryly.

  “Not personally, thank the Lord, although he made several trips here last year, right after you and John were arrested. After he persecuted the believers here for a while, he went on to Pergamum and throughout the region. It’s only by the grace of God that I avoided being caught in his snare.”

  “I have no idea where to look,” Jacob said, “but I have a hunch that he may have brought Victor here to Smyrna.” Jacob described the carriage in which Damian had been riding, the two black stallions that had pulled it, and the fact that a young woman had been traveling with him and the child. “Perhaps someone in your church has seen him or knows where he might be likely to hide in this area.”

  “I’ll get the word out, and I assure you we’ll do whatever we can to help. Above all, we will pray for God’s will. Even a vile monster like Damian is not beyond God’s reach; he cannot hold the child captive one minute longer than God allows.”

  Polycarp rose, saying, “I’ll contact the deacons right away, and I’ll ask them to spread the information.”

  Jacob nodded. “I appreciate your help.”

  Polycarp left to find a messenger, but Jacob suddenly called him back. Bits and pieces of the conversation he’d tried not to overhear that morning had been floating around in his mind, and now they seemed to come together all at once. The innkeeper’s wife had referred to a bully who had paid attention to her uppity sister-in-law the previous year, a bully who had just returned. “He’s a bad sort, even if he is an officer,” Tarquinius had said.

  An officer. Could it possibly have been Damian the innkeeper’s wife had turned away at the inn?

  “Polycarp, do you know a woman by the name of Tullia, a pagan priestess?” It was unlikely, Jacob told himself, unless Polycarp knew her by reputation. “She’s a practitioner of the magical arts,” he added.

  Jacob knew it wasn’t much to go on. If Smyrna were like Ephesus, that would describe four out of five people. Most of the population practiced some form of magic, whether it was wearing an amulet to ward off evil, or offering an incantation to beseech the spirits for assistance in some endeavor.

  “Tullia? You think she has something to do with Damian bringing the baby here to Smyrna?”

  “You know her?”

  Polycarp sat back down, a most somber look on his face. “Tullia is a witch,” he said. “The most wicked woman in this city.”

  8

  AGATHA FOUGHT THE URGE to go back to sleep. Her head was throbbing but at least she had quit vomiting and she’d been able to nurse Aurora. That was the important thing, Agatha told herself. Nothing had happened to Aurora.

  When the cook brought a bowl of thin gruel to her room, Agatha managed to sit up in bed. “What day is it?” she asked.

  “Friday,” the pudgy woman replied. She wore the proof of her skill in the kitchen around her waistline. “Steward has assigned another housemaid to your duties until you’re up and about.”

  Agatha nodded and took another bite of the steaming hot gruel. It was bland but satisfying. “This is good,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “Plain food is what you need when you’re ailing. I’ll bring you some more later.”

  When the cook left, Agatha slowly finished the meager but nourishing meal. The rumbling in her stomach settled down.

  Friday, she thought. She’d been attacked two days ago, and most of the time since then was a complete blur. Marcellus had told her about the kidnapping when she first regained consciousness, but she’d been so sick and in so much pain that she had slept for long stretches of time. Now and then someone would wake her up to try and get her to eat a bite of food, or take care of her when she threw it back up. And during the night someone had brought Aurora to her to nurse. But Agatha couldn’t straighten out the sequence of events in her mind.

  After a few minutes, when she was sure the gruel was going to stay in her stomach, Agatha set the bowl aside and stood up. At first the room spun wildly, then she got a little steadier on her feet. She did not have to report for work, but she desperately needed to speak to her employer. If she hurried to the dining room, Peter might still be there.

  She dressed as quickly as she could and started making her way to the main part of the house. Trembling and unsteady, Agatha had to stop and lean against the wall for support a few times. She closed her eyes and prayed silently. Lord, please let me find favor in his eyes. He was kind to me before; please let him be kind again.

  Peter was the one who had found her that bitter, wintry day when she’d been huddled against the pier, her body wrapped protectively around Aurora, so tiny and frail and too weak to cry. They would have starved to death if Peter hadn’t had mercy on them. He had taken Agatha in, given her a job, and allowed her and Aurora to live in this magnificent mansion. And he’d brought Agatha into the family of believers as well. She couldn’t lose all that now; she just couldn’t.

  When she found Peter, he had finished breakfast and was preparing to leave for the harbor.

  “Agatha! What are you doing out of bed?” Peter was startled by her sudden appearance in the dining room.

  Trying not to sway, she reached out a hand and touched the sloping head of one of the dining sofas. “I needed to see you,” she said, her voice fragile and breathy.

  “Please, sit down.” He walked over to Agatha and helped her sit down on the triclinium she was holding on to for support. “Now, what is it?”

  After a few deep breaths, she looked up at him and said, “Are you going to send us away?”

  He blinked and looked surprised. “No, of course not. Whatever gave you that idea?”

  She covered her face in her hands as relief swept over her weakened body. Relief mixed with remorse. “I’ve brought such trouble on your house, and now Victor is gone. I should have stopped that man.

  Like I told Marcellus, I didn’t know who he was, but I should have done something.”

  Peter sat down beside her on the couch. “We know who took Victor. He’s a very evil man, Agatha. You couldn’t have done anything. I’m just glad you’re alive. We thought he’d killed you at first.”

  “You know who did this?” Agatha asked. Her mind struggled to comprehend the implications of that.

  “We think we do. This man . . . he hates our family and would stop at nothing to hurt us.”

  As Peter told her about the others leaving the previous day to find the kidnapper, Agatha felt guilty for being so relieved that they knew who had done this terrible thing. She’d been frantic with worry that the kidnapper had been after Aurora, although that didn’t quite make sense. No one had wanted her to begin with, so why would they want her after all these months?

  Aurora was her baby now, Agatha reminded herself, and no one was going to take her baby away. Not again.

  By the time they neared Smyrna, Rebecca was miserable. Throughout the morning, she had barely spoken. The others probably thought it was because she was worried about Victor, and Rebecca did not bother to correct their assumption; it would be too embarrassing. She was worried about her son, of course, but that was not the cause of her silence.

  The truth was that Rebecca was physically suffering. She had not nursed in almost two days. Now she was swollen, painfully tender, and growing increasingly upset about it. She didn’t know how long she could go without nursing before her milk would dry up and she wo
uldn’t be able to nurse Victor at all. Somehow that thought was almost as depressing as the fact that he’d been kidnapped.

  The simple act of feeding her baby was one of the most precious things in her life. She’d been so traumatized by Victor’s conception that she’d been afraid she wouldn’t love him enough, and so isolated on Devil’s Island at his birth that she feared she wouldn’t know how to take care of him. How would she manage without her mother’s guidance? she’d wondered. Or the guidance of any other woman, for that matter? But the first time Victor had latched on and started to suckle, Rebecca had felt not only a deep bond of love but a fiercely protective maternal instinct, and that instinct had kept her and her baby alive through the nightmare of exile on Patmos.

  Even now she often thought about her own mother while nursing Victor. There were a thousand questions she’d love to ask about raising children, a thousand precious moments with Victor she’d love to share. She had always been close to her mother, and now that Rebecca was a mother herself, she missed Elizabeth more than ever. Rebecca knew she could always ask Helena whatever she needed to know, but it wasn’t the same as having her mother nearby.

  Rebecca also wished her father could have known Victor. She believed he would have been proud of his first grandchild, regardless of the circumstances of Victor’s birth. It was only after she had returned to Ephesus that Rebecca learned her baby had been born on the day her father was executed in the Colosseum at Rome. She drew comfort from the convergence of the two events, realizing that at the very moment death had claimed her father, God was giving her a new life to cherish—giving her a new beginning, in a sense.

  Two days ago that new life had been snatched from her, and now she was riding in a crowded coach with three men who were intent on helping her get Victor back. Rebecca tried to focus on their kindness now, but thinking about the loss of both her parents had compounded her physical misery, and her eyes began to fill with tears.

  Antony noticed her distress. They were sitting so close that it would have been hard for him not to notice. He leaned over and reassured her. “We’ll find Victor,” he said. “And we’ll get him back.”

  The carriage began to slow and Rebecca realized they must be entering the city. When they had stopped earlier, John had given the driver directions to Polycarp’s house. Rebecca wondered now how much longer it would take them; she was more than ready to climb out of the coach and sit on a real chair, one that was cushioned and, above all, stationary.

  She felt Antony’s eyes on her and glanced to the side. He smiled, and it softened the hard lines of his sometimes-stern face. He wasn’t really stern, she had learned; he was simply a man with many responsibilities, and he tended to carry the weight of those burdens in the lines of his face. She knew from what Helena had said that Antony’s father had died seven years ago, when he was seventeen, and that he had taken quite seriously his new role as the head of the family, which also included a younger brother and sister. Helena’s husband had not been a good money manager, and while far from destitute, the family had had to be careful with their finances. Helena was proud not only of the way Antony had assumed his new responsibilities, but of the fact that, over the next few years, Antony had worked hard to put them in a much better financial position.

  Without reflecting on the reason for her thoughts, Rebecca began to compare Antony to Galen. The two men shared somewhat similar circumstances and ideals: each had lost his father at a relatively young age, each was a man of principle. However, they were very different in temperament and appearance. Antony was as quick thinking as Galen was deliberative; Antony was also as transparent and open as Galen was silent and private. Rebecca surmised that she would never have to wonder what was on Antony’s mind; he would speak it directly and clearly, without any emotional upheaval.

  The two were also very different physically. Galen’s sculpted good looks and finely chiseled features gave the young artist the appearance of being a work of art himself. Antony was not nearly so striking, yet he had a very strong face, framed by a full head of dark hair with a slight natural wave. Unlike Galen, no long, straight shock of hair ever fell over Antony’s forehead; he kept his hair trimmed fashionably short, and his clothes were meticulously groomed as well.

  It’s silly to make such comparisons, she told herself. Galen was part of her past, a past she wanted to forget. And it didn’t matter that Antony was handsome; she wasn’t attracted to him in that way. He was her family’s lawyer, and now a friend. That’s all. She told herself to be careful not to encourage him to think there could be anything more between them, if that’s what was motivating his attention. Helena certainly seemed to be pushing them in that direction; however, Rebecca had no intention of being drawn into another intense relationship.

  She closed her mind to such thoughts and tried to concentrate on enduring the final portion of what had seemed an almost interminable ride. Rebecca had sailed to Rome with her family before, but she had never been on such a long trip by carriage. She wondered what Smyrna was like. It was smaller than Ephesus, but still one of the leading cities in Asia, and another prominent seaport for the region.

  As they exited the highway, the carriage suddenly lurched to one side. The driver reined in the horses and quickly stopped. The passengers were whipped from side to side, but no one was hurt, and Antony jumped out of the coach to see what had happened.

  Moments later he stuck his head back through the door and said, “One of the fellies has worn through and partially slipped off the wheel. We’ll have to find a wainwright to repair the rim before we can go any farther.”

  “What next?” Rebecca wondered aloud.

  Jacob mounted his horse and threaded his way back through the hills toward the southern suburbs of Smyrna. He had been stunned to learn that Tullia, the witch whom he suspected of harboring Damian, lived no more than a half-mile from her brother’s inn, where Jacob had spent the night. It was mind-boggling to think he had possibly been that close to Victor without even knowing it. Jacob was furious with himself for not paying more attention, for somehow not figuring things out sooner.

  But it wasn’t certain, he warned himself. It was just a hunch, based on a few comments by a harping woman; still, the more Jacob thought about it, the more he became convinced it was true. He knew that Damian had spent time in Smyrna the previous year. In fact, when Jacob had been sentenced to serve on a Roman warship, he had been sent from Patmos to Smyrna, where he was transferred to the Jupiter. Damian had been on the same boat from Patmos, and Jacob recalled that the tribune had stayed in Smyrna after disembarking. Damian could easily have met the woman named Tullia then, and while he was in the area persecuting the Christians it would be just like Damian to take up with a woman who was either a prostitute or a pagan priestess, depending on your definition. Jacob was inclined to agree with the innkeeper’s wife when it came to that assessment.

  The horse picked its way carefully down a steep portion of the gravel road. When the road leveled out again, Jacob took a good look around. The inn was not much farther now; he was supposed to turn off on another road just before reaching it. Polycarp had given him the landmarks so he could find the way to Tullia’s house.

  Of course, Polycarp had also asked Jacob to wait until he returned with some of the deacons before going to Tullia’s, and he had seemed quite adamant about it. The bishop had said he wanted to call the church leadership to prayer and to anoint Jacob with oil before he tried to find Damian and the baby.

  But Jacob had grown impatient. If Damian had brought Victor specifically to this witch, then his intent could only be ominous, and the sooner Jacob found out what that intent was, the better. I’ll simply scout out the situation, Jacob told himself, then I’ll go back to Polycarp’s and get help. I just want to know if that’s where Victor is.

  When he approached the inn, Jacob took the road Polycarp had indicated, and before long he spotted the small stone house he was looking for. The road went through a large thicket that lay
between the inn and Tullia’s. While he was still a good distance away, Jacob dismounted and tied his horse to a tree, deciding to approach the house on foot in order not to be so conspicuous. He could not exactly knock on the door and inquire whether the household was sheltering a kidnapper with a young infant. But he could look to see if Damian’s carriage was there, and listen for any signs that a baby was in the house.

  Jacob entered the thicket and crept through the trees until he was at the edge that ran along the side of the house. There was no sign of a carriage there or at the front, which was the only side of the house that opened into a clearing and was accessible from the road. He moved further toward the back of the house; nothing there. Jacob didn’t think a carriage would be on the far side of the house; it didn’t appear there was enough room to maneuver a pair of horses and a coach between the house and the woods. But he couldn’t be sure, so he decided to investigate.

  It took Jacob almost a quarter-hour to move stealthily through the woods until he had passed the back of the house and reached the other side. No carriage. Perhaps Damian had left for a while, or perhaps Jacob had drawn the wrong conclusion and Damian wasn’t here at all. Jacob began to slowly work his way behind the house again, keeping well inside the thicket to lessen the chances of being seen.

  He was about halfway back to his starting point when he heard a door close and then heard footsteps. Jacob stopped suddenly, his senses immediately alert.

  9

  ANTONY HELPED THE OTHER three passengers out of the carriage, now crippled by a bent wheel. He could see only a few buildings up ahead, which meant they were just at the edge of the city.