by John Hagee
“Besides, I wouldn’t want to leave until I’ve harvested all my herbs and dried them for the winter.”
Livia dropped to the ground with a sigh and leaned back against the bench where her uncle sat. The thought of traveling excited her, yet the thought of leaving home scared her, and she couldn’t exactly put into words why. She’d never lived anywhere except Caesarea or its outskirts. And while she loved the house she and Gregory had carved out of the tufa, it was just a house, as he’d said; she refused to think of it as a “piece of rock,” however.
There was also her workshop, which she loved; but tools and equipment could be picked up and moved. Jacob had promised to build her another workshop, with more windows and more light, in Ephesus. If Gregory went with them, there truly would be nothing to keep her here. Her parents had been dead for eight years now, and Livia had no other relatives. Perhaps that’s what made her reluctant to consider cutting all ties to her place of birth.
She spoke her thought aloud. “It would be like leaving them behind.”
“Who?”
“My mother and father.”
Gregory reached over and stroked her hair. “But that’s just it, Livia. They’re gone. Now you have a new family, Jacob’s family, and they’re in Ephesus.”
“But I don’t even know them.” She couldn’t help sounding petulant.
“You won’t ever know them if you don’t go to meet them. And if we travel all that distance, we might as well stay.” He reached down and turned her face up toward his. “It’s where Jacob’s roots are, child. Where you can put down roots with him.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said grudgingly.
Someone handed Antony a blanket and he went to work with the others, beating out the flying sparks the moment they touched the ground. He looked up briefly, watching helplessly as brilliant flames danced across the roof of the blacksmith shop and leaped into the night, then he resumed the watch for falling embers.
The building was engulfed now; all they could do was try to keep the fire from spreading. More volunteers kept arriving to combat the blaze. They soaked the ground around the building with as much water as they could haul, and they beat the ground with their blankets. Fortunately, the shop was detached from the brothers’ two houses, which were set back a good sixty paces, and there was no wind to drive the flames. The homes where Plautius and Sergius lived would probably be spared. That was Antony’s prayer, anyway.
The older of the two brothers, ordinarily so placid, was distraught. “It’s gone! We’ve lost it all,” Plautius cried. Two horses, a new wagon, all their tools and equipment—their entire livelihood.
Twin flames of fatigue and fury ignited the acid in Antony’s stomach until he thought he would be sick. He had solved the brothers’ legal problems, but he couldn’t save their business. His anger stoking his energy, Antony stomped sparks and flailed his blanket against the flying embers.
The volunteers, a few neighbors and a good number of fellow Christians, toiled through the night. At dawn, plumes of black smoke still poured from the building, but the fire had been contained. When he finally deemed it safe to stop working, exhaustion melted Antony’s bones and he sank to the ground. The smoke had burned his eyes so bad, they kept tearing up. Rivulets of sweat streaked down his face, and he wiped them away with a grimy hand.
Sergius, his face black with soot, walked over to where Antony was sitting and dropped down beside him. “This one wasn’t an accident,” the blacksmith said.
In spite of the intense heat that still radiated from the smoldering structure, Antony felt a chill at Sergius’s pronouncement. But the lawyer was too tired to question the statement; besides, he was as skeptical as Sergius. Antony had had the same suspicion.
Sergius was the second client to lose his business to a fire this month, and Antony didn’t think it was a coincidence. And if it wasn’t a coincidence, then somehow Tullia was behind this. Tullia, and perhaps Damian.
In a moment Sergius began to elaborate on his allegation of arson. “The bakery fire might have been an accident, although I doubt it. But I know for a fact this fire was deliberately started.”
The owner of the bakery was another church member for whom Antony had gotten a business permit reinstated. Speculation was that a cooking fire had not been extinguished properly and something had fallen into the oven, causing a blaze. The owner vehemently denied it, but he had no other explanation for the fire.
“How do you know it was deliberate?” Antony asked.
“Because I saw someone throw a torch into the building.”
Antony snapped his head around to look at Sergius. “Did you see who it was?”
Sergius gave a quick, despondent shrug. “No, I was too far away. I’d just stepped outside to go next door and ask Plautius something. It was a man, though, I could tell that.” Sergius paused to cough violently. Inhaling so much smoke had obviously irritated his lungs. “I ran straight for the shop,” he said when the coughing spell passed, “but the torch thrower must have soaked the perimeter in oil first. It was blazing out of control by the time I got there.”
Antony thought back to his arrival. He hadn’t noticed anyone leaving the scene; he must have arrived just moments after the arsonist had left. “If only I’d gotten here earlier,” he mumbled.
“You got here awfully fast as it was,” Sergius said. “Were you coming to see us for something?”
“No, I was on my way back to Polycarp’s when I passed by and saw the blaze. Young Linus was with me, so I sent him to get help. I just wish we could have done something else.”
“We saved the houses; that’s the most important thing. No one was injured. Praise God, we’re alive and we still have a roof over our heads. After a few hours’ sleep, I imagine my brother and I will begin figuring out how to start over.”
For a few moments, the two men sat in silence as they watched the crowd disperse one by one. Antony saw Polycarp place an arm around Plautius and walk him back to the house.
“One question keeps haunting me,” Sergius finally said, “and I wish I had an answer for it.”
When he didn’t go on to state his question, Antony prompted him. “An answer to what?”
“Who’s going to be next?”
Sergius rose and walked wearily home, leaving Antony to ponder the question.
In the days following the fire, the question continued to nag at him. First the bakery, then the blacksmith shop. Who’s next? More than a month would pass before Antony had an answer.
Antony’s weekly letters to Rebecca became shorter and sketchier. He told her about the fire, saying that it had been intentionally started, but he did not share his suspicions regarding who was behind it. Part of his hesitation was a well-honed lawyerly caution against jumping to conclusions not supported by the evidence, and part of it was due to a protective instinct.
When he stopped long enough to think about it, doubt and fear assailed him. Should he warn Rebecca, or at least Peter, that Damian had returned? Yet, it would only add to their worries that Jacob had met a horrible fate and renew fears for Victor’s safety. Antony rationalized that no one had actually seen Damian yet; Sergius and Plautius had merely heard that he was back in town. Was their cousin, Tarquinius, a reliable witness? Antony didn’t know.
Should he go to Ephesus for a while, just to make sure Rebecca and the baby were safe? The thought that Damian might do something to harm them preyed on Antony’s mind, and several times he dreamed of the abandoned mill where they had found Victor. In a letter to Peter, Antony urged him to retain the bodyguards.
At times Antony was tempted to leave Smyrna, marry Rebecca, and get on with his life. He had even tried to talk to Polycarp about it, but when he had finally managed a few minutes alone with the bishop, Polycarp embraced Antony and thanked him yet again for his “invaluable service to the kingdom of God.” Antony couldn’t bring himself to disappoint Polycarp by reneging on his pledge to help, and Antony certainly didn’t want to disa
ppoint God. So he kept rising at dawn and working until he fell asleep at his desk late at night.
Antony was pulled in every direction at once—working with city officials to secure business permits, defending two men who had been falsely accused of crimes, resolving a boundary dispute in order to forestall a lawsuit, and drafting wills for worried church members who wanted to protect their families in the event of a catastrophe.
The summer heat was oppressive, and the disciples who gathered daily at Polycarp’s to study the Scriptures began praying earnestly for rain. Most of the congregation was also fasting two days a week for relief from the legal harassment and for the protection of their property.
For several weeks after the bakery and the blacksmith shop burned there were no additional fires, but other disturbances gave cause for alarm. Several local businesses were burglarized, some of them belonging to Christians, and a man who was not a member of the congregation was robbed and severely beaten. It was possible, Antony supposed, that the latest crimes were unrelated to the arson of the church members’ property, but he had a hunch they were connected in some way. And when slaughtered animals began appearing on the doorsteps of those who had been targets of legal persecution, Antony knew there was a connection. There had to be. The perpetrator might have switched from arson to butchery, but the intent was the same: intimidation and wanton destruction.
At the end of August, there was another fire, but the victim this time came as a surprise. Plautius and Sergius delivered the news early one morning.
Polycarp was at prayer with his students and Antony was in the dining room when the brothers arrived, covered in soot, their soggy clothes smelling of smoke. Immediately Antony shoved aside his breakfast and rose, fearing the worst.
“There’s been another arson—” Sergius began.
“But not one of the church members,” Plautius interjected. He waved Antony back to his seat.
“Whose property?” Antony asked.
“Our cousin, Tarquinius.” Plautius started to sit, then noticed his filthy clothes and remained standing.
“The one who runs the inn?” Antony asked.
Sergius nodded. “His wife died in the fire.” He paused to wipe a grimy hand across his forehead. “She was a shrew, and I never liked her. But to die like that . . .”
Antony set down his spoon, sobered by the news. No one had died in the previous two fires; now a woman had perished. “It was arson?” he asked.
“Just like our place,” Plautius said. “The stable and lodging rooms are gone. The fire would have spread to the tavern too, except for the sudden downpour. The rain put out the fire.”
“Downpour?” Antony hadn’t heard it rain, and he slept with the window open. Certainly, if it had rained, he would have noticed water in his room when he got up.
“Came out of nowhere,” Plautius said, “and left as suddenly as it came. Looks like it didn’t even reach this part of town.”
“It rained just long enough to put the fire out,” Sergius added. “I sure wish it would have done that the night our place burned.”
“The Bible says it rains on the just and the unjust,” Plautius said. “Maybe God had a purpose in sending the rain to spare Tarquinius’s tavern. It doesn’t make sense to me, but I guess it doesn’t have to.”
Finished with his meal, Antony wiped the crumbs from his mouth. He thought of all the prayers for rain that had been offered; perhaps God had answered them in a way no one could have foreseen.
He rose from the table and walked outside with the two brothers, who looked as if they could drop from exhaustion.
“Something else doesn’t make sense,” Sergius said. “All along we’ve figured that Tullia was behind all the legal problems we’ve had, and that she had probably paid or persuaded someone to start the fires. But burning her own brother’s place? She and Tarquinius always had a good relationship.”
“Maybe they had a falling out,” Plautius said.
“We would have heard about it.” Sergius shook his head doubtfully. “I just don’t see the connection. The previous fires were intended to destroy the property of Christians.”
Antony saw a possible connection, and it disturbed him greatly. “What about Damian?” he asked. “A few weeks ago you said that Tarquinius had banned him from the tavern for brawling. Perhaps Damian acted on a grudge against your cousin.”
Plautius considered the statement while Sergius coughed and spat on the ground. His lungs cleared, Sergius said, “He’s kept a low profile since his return. But you’re right—he did have a run-in with Tarquinius.”
“I would have thought Damian would have gone back to Rome by now,” Plautius said. “I wonder what’s keeping him here.”
“He has no reason to go back to Rome, and may not have the resources,” Antony said. And that, he thought, could explain the recent rash of burglaries. Damian was the type who would easily resort to robbery to finance a long journey, or simply to purchase enough alcohol to fuel his drinking binges.
Antony told the brothers about Senator Mallus’s illness and bankruptcy. “Damian’s father died not long after I arrived in Smyrna. I read the account in the Acta Diurna.”
“So if Damian has amassed no independent wealth of his own . . .” Plautius trailed off, thinking of the implications.
“I doubt that he has,” Antony said. “Damian strikes me as a man content to live off someone else’s hard work.”
After the two brothers left, Antony continued to think about the fire, and early the next morning, he decided to do something. He visited Tarquinius at the inn—or what was left of it.
Antony found the innkeeper raking through the rubble of his establishment. If the stocky hulk of a man had been a gracious host at one time, there was no sign of it now.
“Who might you be?” Tarquinius demanded.
Antony introduced himself as a lawyer from Ephesus and a friend of Plautius and Sergius.
“A lawyer, huh?” Tarquinius propped his shovel against the remains of a burned-out wall, then looked down at his feet as he spoke. “Might be needing one of them myself.”
“You have some legal problems?” Antony’s interest was piqued. Perhaps that could be a way to gain the innkeeper’s cooperation.
“The authorities say the fire was deliberately started . . .”
“Arson,” Antony prompted when Tarquinius hesitated.
“Right. And because my wife was killed in the fire . . . well, they’re saying that I might be charged with murder.” He looked up, becoming agitated. “But I didn’t set the fire, I didn’t!”
“Do you know who did?”
Tarquinius studied Antony for a moment, as if sizing up his trustworthiness before speaking. “I got a suspicion.”
“So do I, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
For the first time since Antony’s arrival, Tarquinius visibly relaxed. “Would you like to come inside?”
They entered the tavern, which was heavily smoke damaged, but still standing. It wouldn’t take much work to get this part of the business reopened, Antony noted. But if Tarquinius ever hosted overnight guests again, it would mean completely rebuilding the rest of the inn.
Tarquinius ushered Antony to a seat on one of the long wooden benches and even offered his guest something to drink. Antony declined.
The innkeeper seemed reluctant to speak, so Antony asked a leading question. “You said you have an idea who might have wanted to burn down your place. Who?”
“You go first,” Tarquinius said. “Who do you suspect?”
“I think it was a man named Damian.”
Tarquinius’s eyes widened slightly but he showed no other expression. “And I think you’re right.”
“Tell me how it happened,” Antony said, “and why you suspect Damian.”
“I’m not sure where to start.” Tarquinius splayed his wide fingers on the table and looked down while he gathered his thoughts. “I guess you know he’s been living with my sister,
Tullia.” The innkeeper looked across the table for confirmation.
Antony said, “I know who she is.” He wondered if Tarquinius knew of Tullia’s involvement in hiding Rebecca’s baby. Thinking about his fiancée now needled Antony’s conscience, so he put Rebecca out of his mind and nodded for Tarquinius to continue.
“Tullia recently gave birth to Damian’s son. Severa, that’s my wife, wouldn’t have anything to do with Tullia, but I paid my sister a visit to make sure she was all right after the baby was born. A sickly looking child, but Tullia seemed not to notice. All she could talk about was how proud she was of her baby’s noble heritage.” Tarquinius gave a disgusted snort. “Noble, my eye. Damian may have a wealthy father, but he’s a common drunk—and a mean drunk, at that.”
“I understand you barred him from coming into your tavern.”
“Arrogant little rooster was always picking a fight with the customers. I finally had my fill of it. Told him not to set foot on my property again. As you can imagine, Damian didn’t like it one bit. But I didn’t give him any choice; just picked him up and tossed him outside. ‘Good riddance,’ I told myself.”
Antony could clearly picture the innkeeper’s broad shoulders and beefy arms physically ejecting Damian from the tavern. “Only he came back,” Antony said.
“Not for a long time. But then a few nights ago he returned.
Damian was all charm, said he was sorry about the misunderstanding we had had. Misunderstanding . . .” Tarquinius rolled his eyes and swore. “He asked very nicely if he could have a room for the night. Said he couldn’t get any sleep at home with the baby crying all the time. I don’t know why, but I relented and let him stay.
“He drank quite a bit that night, but he was on his best behavior. Didn’t cause any trouble. Finally, he went to his room to sleep it off. When Damian woke up the next morning, he had a roaring hangover. He was surly and rude to Severa, and when I asked him to settle his bill, he was angry.
“‘I don’t have any money with me,’ he said, ‘but you know I’m good for it.’ And that made me angry. I didn’t bother to argue with him, I just threw him out, shouting a few choice words after him.” Tarquinius paused, then said with a sad sigh, “That night my inn went up in flames . . . and my wife too.” He looked around the large room, as if half expecting to see Severa there.
