by John Hagee
As he stood with Livia in front of the congregation, his heart swelled with love and pride. She had never looked more beautiful. The elaborately embroidered tunic she wore fell just below her knees. “It was my mother’s,” she had told him, “and she was a lot shorter than I am.” For the sake of modesty, Livia wore a pair of thin, flowing trousers under the tunic. The ensemble would probably have looked ridiculous on another woman, but on Livia it was somehow appropriate and elegant.
She had swept her ink-black hair away from her high forehead with a gleaming braid of copper and gold strands—something she had designed herself, no doubt—and it emphasized her large, expressive eyes. She had fashioned the earrings as well. The long dangles of amber swung whenever she turned her head. Standing close to her now, Jacob could see the delicate fuzz along the soft lobes of her ears. She smelled of sandalwood and cassia, a spicy-sweet blend, and he found the familiar fragrance suddenly intoxicating. Afterward Jacob would not be able to recall any details about the short ceremony, but he would long remember that his senses were so overwhelmed, he had trouble catching his breath.
That afternoon Gregory left to visit a cousin of sorts who lived on the other side of Caesarea. Jacob was grateful for the opportunity to enjoy a few days of privacy with his bride, yet relieved when Gregory returned on Thursday, before the newlyweds could starve to death. Livia’s cooking skills were rudimentary, to put it charitably.
Life quickly settled into a comfortable routine. Jacob left for work early each morning and returned by midafternoon. He had finished paying off the horse several weeks earlier, and now that he had completed the shed, he rode the chestnut to and from Pomponius’s.
Gregory tended to the house and worked in his garden, while Livia occupied herself with her designs. On market days they took some of Livia’s work into Caesarea and sold it. Jacob was happy and content and surprised at how much pleasure he took in this simple, quiet life. He enjoyed being married to this outspoken, unconventional beauty who had declared her love when he’d been unable to sort out his own feelings.
Jacob also enjoyed not worrying about where Damian was or what he was doing. It occurred to Jacob that he finally felt liberated, as if his imprisonment had at long last come to an end, even though he had officially been set free eighteen months ago. For most of that time, however, Jacob knew he had locked himself in a prison of his own making.
In spite of his happiness now, something lurked in the back of Jacob’s mind. He felt guilty that his family didn’t know where he was. They would be worried about him, and angry with him, and Jacob certainly couldn’t blame them. But he had no way to get a letter to his family without hiring a private carrier, and he no longer had the resources for luxuries like that.
If it had been mere homesickness or worry about his family, Jacob would have put it out of his mind. But what truly nagged at him was the thought that he was not providing for Livia. He brought a modest amount of income into the family from his tutoring, but her designs brought in much more money. He was comfortable in the cave house, and she was too—Livia had never once said a word about wanting anything more than what she had. Yet it was within Jacob’s power to give her more—much, much more—and he longed to do so.
That would mean going back to Ephesus. How could he uproot Livia from the only home she had ever known? And he certainly couldn’t take her away from Gregory, her only living relative. Jacob could ask Livia’s uncle to go with them, of course, but would Gregory leave everything he owned and move halfway across the Empire?
For several weeks Jacob prayed about this without saying anything to his wife or her uncle. Before Jacob could decide which one of them he should approach first, the idea of moving to Ephesus came up without his mentioning it.
It happened one mild spring afternoon when Jacob escaped the confines of the cave house to spend some time outdoors. He would not have admitted it if questioned, but his primary motivation was to escape the daily cooking lesson. Livia had decided she lacked the requisite domestic skills to be a suitable wife and had been badgering Gregory to teach her to cook. So far the results had been abysmal. Livia, for all her innate intelligence and artistic talent, had no natural ability in the kitchen, and Gregory, who cooked by instinct and inspiration, evidently lacked the patience to impart his years of experience.
Jacob spent some time grooming the chestnut, and when he came out of the shed, he heard voices drifting out of the window above him. The first voice belonged to Gregory, who was shouting, “How can you cook a proper stew if you don’t even know the difference between cumin and coriander!”
Livia shouted back, “How am I supposed to know the difference if no one ever told me?”
“I told you yesterday!”
“Well, tell me again. I’m new at this . . .”
Listening to the yelling, Jacob winced. He wondered how long the two of them would keep at it before they realized this experiment was doomed to failure. Perhaps he should encourage Livia to get back to her work and leave the kitchen to Gregory.
In a few minutes, Gregory scuttled down the ladder and stalked off to his garden. Jacob let the older man work some of his frustration off, then he went over to him.
“I’d offer to help, but I’m not sure I can tell the herbs from the weeds,” he said.
“And I’m not of a mind to show you,” Gregory replied curtly. Then he rocked back on his heels, still holding a fistful of weeds, and looked up at Jacob. “Sorry,” he said, “I’m just dismayed to discover that I’m not much of a teacher.”
“Perhaps your pupil simply doesn’t have an aptitude for the subject.”
“My niece has drive and determination, I’ll give her that. But when it comes to the kitchen, she’s as lost as a goose in a snowstorm.” Gregory shook the clumps of soil from his hands, then stood to his feet. “I should have taught her to cook years ago. I failed her in that.”
“You taught her other things,” Jacob said. “And you gave her the freedom to develop her true talent. I wouldn’t call that failure.” Jacob shaded his eyes against the late-afternoon sun and looked up at the house. “Perhaps I should have a talk with her, let her know she doesn’t have to learn to cook just to please me—if that’s what she’s doing. I don’t expect that—it’s not like I married Livia for her cooking.”
“It’s a good thing, too.” Gregory sat down on the rough wooden bench at the edge of the garden and motioned for Jacob to join him. “You’d waste away to nothing if you had to live on what she’s able to cook.”
Gregory quickly turned his head to cough. He’d been doing more of that lately, Jacob realized. During the winter Gregory had been sick with a cough and fever; he had recovered after a few days, but the cough had lingered for a while longer. Gregory had finally cured it with some kind of aromatic brew of dried herbs. He was known as a healer, and some of the townspeople sought his advice about herbal medicines for various ailments.
The last few nights, though, after they had gone to bed, Jacob had heard Gregory wheezing in the other room. Jacob had even asked Livia if they should go check on him.
“He’ll be fine,” Livia had said. “He gets spells like this at night sometimes, but they always pass. And he’ll just get angry if you make a fuss over him.”
Jacob looked at Gregory now and wondered if it was time to make a fuss anyway. “Your cough is back,” Jacob said.
“We had a late spring.” Gregory tilted his head toward the garden. “In a few weeks, I’ll have a fresh supply of medicine.” He talked for a while about the various herbs he’d planted and their uses. “Fennel and sage are good for failing eyesight. Anise or mint will get rid of indigestion. And I’m sure you’re familiar with the benefits of a mustard plaster.”
Jacob laughed. “I’m familiar with the smell and the awful heat; I never was convinced of the benefits.”
Gregory laughed too, and it caused him to cough again. As the spasm subsided, he drew out a handkerchief to wipe his mouth, and Jacob was shocked to see a
spot of bright red on the cloth.
“I want to talk to you about something,” Gregory said.
Jacob did not reply. He was still too stunned by the realization that Gregory was coughing up blood.
“Jacob?” Gregory asked.
Jacob forced himself to quit staring at the handkerchief and answer. “Sorry. What did you want to tell me?”
As casually as if he’d been talking about the weather, Gregory said, “I’ve been thinking that you should take Livia to Ephesus. To live, I mean.”
“You do?” Jacob could not have been more surprised. He had never expected that Gregory or Livia would suggest moving to Ephesus. But he’d never suspected that Gregory could be seriously ill, either.
“Now that you’re married, her place is with you.”
“Are you saying we’re not welcome here any longer?”
“No, no. Not at all.” Gregory looked off in the distance, watching a bird circle overhead. When it landed at the top of a tufa cone, he spoke again. “It’s just that Livia’s been alone too much of her life. She needs family.”
“She has you. You’re family.”
Gregory turned toward Jacob again. “You’re her family now,” he said softly.
Jacob met his gaze, and if he hadn’t already been sitting, the impact would have brought him to his knees. “Are you that sick, Gregory?”
“Promise me you’ll take her to Ephesus. Promise me.”
“I won’t promise any such thing. Not unless you answer my question.”
Gregory’s look pleaded as eloquently as his voice. “Livia has already lost too many people in her life; I don’t want her to watch me die. Please, Jacob.”
“And because she’s lost so many people, she would never agree to leave here without you—and I wouldn’t either.” Jacob put a hand on Gregory’s shoulder and swallowed hard before continuing. “So if you’re not well enough to make the journey with us, then this discussion is over.”
Gregory blinked and couldn’t seem to find his voice for a moment.
“If you’ll promise to take Livia to your family, then I’ll get well enough to travel.”
Jacob nodded soberly, realizing that his plan to go home to Ephesus would be suspended indefinitely, and accepting it without question. “You have to promise me something, though,” he said.
Gregory hesitated again. “What is that?”
“Promise that you’ll get well enough to do the cooking.”
Antony yawned and rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t go to sleep yet. It was the first chance he’d had all week to write a letter to Rebecca. But every time he looked down at the parchment, his eyes blurred and the words he’d scrawled swam together. Fatigue swept over him, and he fought the urge to lay his head on the writing desk. If he did that, he’d be there come morning.
The lamp flickered and sputtered, and Antony suddenly remembered he had no more oil in his room. He rose, took the lamp to the kitchen, and replenished the oil. He also filled another lamp and brought it back with him, just in case. Polycarp’s house was completely quiet, a testament to the lateness of the hour. During the day, the place was a beehive of activity.
When he returned to his bedroom, Antony opened the window. He had shuttered it earlier to keep out the noise of the revelers. Nature worshipers welcoming the summer solstice, he imagined. Hard to believe he had been in Smyrna almost three months, and in all that time he had only squeezed in one visit home. He had been inundated with work and so gripped by the urgency of some of the cases that it had been impossible to tear himself away again.
He could not have borne the separation from Rebecca if it hadn’t been for their frequent correspondence. Peter had arranged for a courier to travel from Ephesus to Smyrna each week, carrying their letters back and forth. The courier also brought a stipend from Peter to cover all of Antony’s expenses. He had never asked Peter for help, but was grateful for his friend’s generosity. The income allowed Antony to reimburse Polycarp for his room and board and to have the finances necessary to carry out investigations and legal research.
From daybreak until early evening, Antony met with clients, interviewed witnesses, and made court appearances. A few times he’d been able to sit in on a class Polycarp held for his disciples. Antony had been enthralled by the bishop’s teaching and wished he could spend more time in the classroom. But he was learning quite a bit about the faith just from staying in Polycarp’s home.
For a few minutes Antony stood in front of the window, letting the cool summer breeze relieve the worst of his fatigue. The revelers had all gone home; the only noise drifting in now was the monotonous drone of insects. Before the sound could lull him to sleep, Antony went back to his desk and sat down.
He picked up Rebecca’s last letter and reread it. It was an interesting epistle, full of news about Victor, who would be a year old in only six weeks, and reports on Priscilla and Helena, who could read and write reasonably well but was not the kind to sit still long enough to pen a letter of her own. Rebecca, however, was quite articulate, and her long letters more than made up for the lack of communication from his mother.
His fiancée went on to describe the progress of their new house and how thrilled she was with it. Peter had hired someone to oversee the construction and usually sent a short weekly report to Antony as well.
Rebecca had also written about Quintus and Agatha, the shipping business, the church, and the relief work. But one paragraph in particular held Antony’s attention tonight:
In all these months, seven of them now, we have had no word from Jacob. I grieve for him, Antony. What has happened to my brother? Where could he be? Why hasn’t he returned? I cannot believe he would turn his back on his family forever. Some evil has befallen him, I fear, and I have no way of knowing. I’m sure if Polycarp had received any word of Jacob, you would have told me.
Antony was equally worried that some unspeakable evil had befallen Jacob, especially in light of what he had learned just yesterday from Plautius and Sergius.
The brothers had relayed two bits of news when Antony had met with them. The first was the fact Tullia was gleefully announcing to anyone who would listen that she was carrying a child.
“Actually, she doesn’t even have to say anything,” Plautius had said. “It’s quite obvious that she’s expecting.”
Sergius snorted his disapproval. “Doesn’t have the decency to stay at home but parades around in public, proudly patting her swollen belly. I tell you, it’s scandalous.” He paused for a moment and stroked his chin. “Maybe she’s wearing a pillow under her tunic; you suppose she’s delusional?”
“We’ll know in two months,” Plautius had remarked calmly. “That’s when she says she’s due.”
Antony wasn’t sure why Tullia’s being pregnant should worry him, but it did. Perhaps it was just the fact that Tullia worried him in general. He was certain that she had either bribed or blackmailed the public official who had denied business permits for the brothers’ blacksmith shop and several other Christian businesses, but he couldn’t prove it. Corruption was a serious offense, and under the Lex Calpurnia, a magistrate could be heavily fined and prohibited from ever holding public office if the crime were proved. Antony had been able to get the permits reinstated for his clients but had not brought charges against the official in question. Not yet, anyway.
Every time Antony interviewed a witness, he had the feeling that Tullia had been there ahead of him. Some of them refused to talk at all. A couple of them had made veiled references to a witch’s curse if they spoke to him, confirming Antony’s suspicions.
As he listened to the drone of insects outside his window, Antony wondered if Tullia’s pregnancy had any implications for his clients. He doubted it. But the other news Plautius and Sergius had delivered was replete with significance for Antony personally: Damian had returned to Smyrna.
“He’s been back for a couple of months,” Plautius had said. “Long enough, anyway, that our cousin banned him from the tavern se
veral weeks ago.”
“Evidently Damian spends all his time drinking and brawling,” Sergius added. “Guess that’s why we haven’t seen him before now.”
Antony rolled up Rebecca’s letter and set it aside, then picked up his pen. A moment later he put it back down. There was no way he could write a letter to her now, not with all this weighing so heavily on his mind.
Damian was back. Jacob wasn’t. And any inference Antony could draw from the juxtaposition of those two facts was ominous.
31
July, A.D. 97
“WHAT DO WE REALLY HAVE to keep us here?” Gregory asked. “A piece of rock?” He gestured toward the house tucked into the tufa.
Livia drew herself up to her full height and looked down at her uncle, hands defiantly on her hips. “I helped carve this ‘piece of rock,’ I’ll have you know.”
“And you feel pride of ownership. I do too. But when you get right down to it, it’s still just a hunk of rock. Home,” he said, “will be wherever we make it.”
Livia changed tactics. “It’s not fair, you and Jacob ganging up on me like this. It’s all so sudden.” Yesterday was the first time her husband had mentioned the possibility of moving to Ephesus, but she quickly pried out of him the fact that he had already discussed it with Gregory, who had agreed to the plan. But leaving everything she’d ever known did not sound like a good idea to Livia.
“The idea may seem sudden, but the move would not be.” Gregory sat down on the garden bench. “We wouldn’t leave until fall. No one in their right mind would travel in this blasted heat.” He removed the damp towel draped around his neck and wiped his forehead.
He looked tired, Livia thought. At least he’d gotten stronger the last couple of months. The winter had been hard on Gregory, and all during the spring he hadn’t quite been himself. He seemed much better now, in spite of the heat, and she was glad.
