by Tessa Afshar
“Of course. But it’s not the same as having a companion, is it? A true friend? One with equal interests. Now that your husband is gone, I mean.”
“True. True. I do miss Lucius. Though he was never one to converse a great deal.”
“Not like Antonia.”
“Oh, well. That is different, my dear. She is patrician through and through. Good manners and speech are in her blood.”
“She has recently experienced a painful tragedy, sadly, and cannot return to Rome.”
Berenice’s eyes widened. “How terrible! What happened?”
“It is not for me to speak of. But her ill fortune might be regarded as a blessing when seen in the right light. She could use a friend like you, Berenice.”
“Work?” Antonia stared at Priscilla as if she had shot her with a poisoned arrow.
“Not with your hands,” Priscilla clarified hastily. “Something suitable to your talents.”
Antonia crossed her arms. “Such as what, for example?”
“Berenice is willing to welcome you as a companion. She is aging and has no children. She grows lonely. She has servants to take care of her needs. What she desires is a friend. A friend who can speak to her of Rome. Of life in the palace.”
Antonia made a face. “That old woman?”
Priscilla said nothing. Antonia flushed, the weight of Priscilla’s unspoken censure making her squirm. “Does she know I have been exiled by Claudius?”
“Not from me. I thought you might wish to tell her yourself. I believe, in her eyes, your aristocratic lineage will take precedence over any indiscretion you may be guilty of.”
Priscilla leaned forward. “Antonia, it is the perfect position for you. Berenice will adore you. She will practically worship the ground you walk on.”
“That sounds . . . acceptable.”
“She has agreed to furnish you with clothes.”
Antonia’s head whipped up. “What kind of clothes?”
“Better than what you are wearing now.”
“That’s not hard. You have horrible taste in clothing.”
“I have insufficient funds for clothing. And Berenice plans to give you a beautiful chamber of your own. In fact, she is going to refurbish everything from floor to ceiling. She told me it would take her over a month to prepare it to a standard worthy of you.”
“Finally! Someone with some sense.”
“And did I mention Berenice will also pay you a wage? A generous one. She was concerned that you might be offended if she offered. I assured her you would be amenable should the amount prove appropriate. In return, you merely have to offer her companionship. Tell her stories of your life in Rome. Perhaps you might even find it possible to explain how empty that life proved in the end. Help her understand that God alone can offer peace.”
Antonia smirked. “You are hopeless. Everything ends in God with you.”
“Thank you.”
Antonia grew silent. Her head drooped. “I know you are younger than I am,” she whispered, “but in a strange way, you have been like a mother to me.” Her voice grew thin, like a child’s. “I will miss you if I leave here.”
Priscilla wrapped her arm about the young woman’s shoulders. “Antonia, I will miss you! And if that is not proof of God, then I can’t imagine what is.”
The two women dissolved into laughter and could not stop. The sound reverberated around the house, drawing Aquila. “What is so humorous?”
“Priscilla will miss me,” Antonia said, convulsed with gasps between each word.
Aquila grinned. “Now that is funny.”
Thirty-One
PRISCILLA HAD SKIPPED BREAKFAST that morning, and her belly grumbled with hunger as she worked next to Aquila. Lunch would not be ready for hours yet. She was dreaming of warm bread and soft cheese when the door to the workshop slammed open and Theo raced in. “Paul is in trouble,” he said.
Priscilla sprang to her feet at the same moment as Aquila.
“What’s happened?” Aquila asked, already pulling on his cloak and grabbing a bag of coins.
“I left early this morning to meet with a merchant. I was walking down a quiet lane when, ahead of me in the distance, I noticed Paul. He was speaking with Sosthenes. Out of nowhere, four armed men descended upon them.”
Priscilla gasped. “Thieves?”
“That’s what I thought at first,” Theo said. “But they attacked Paul and left Sosthenes alone. The fellow just stood there smirking as they manhandled Paul.” Theo’s eyes narrowed. “I know one of those men. He belongs to the urban cohorts.”
Priscilla’s heart sank. “They arrested Paul?”
“No. This was no official arrest. Those men were not in uniform, and they did not charge Paul with anything.”
“Sosthenes has hired mercenaries!” Aquila said.
“That’s my guess. I hid behind a tree while I considered my options. The place was deserted, with no help to be found. I did not think I could take down all four attackers. They had the look of professional soldiers. But I decided to take a chance and charge them. Just before I revealed myself, they began dragging Paul away, and I realized they did not intend to beat or kill him. At least not in that alley. They intended to hole him up somewhere.”
“Do you know where?”
Theo gave a narrow smile with more edges than a dagger. It dawned on Priscilla that behind the amiable facade of Theo’s features ran a wide vein of deep-rooted strength. “I know exactly where. They took him to an empty warehouse.”
Aquila exhaled. “You followed them. Well done.” He considered for a moment. “We cannot seek help from the urban cohorts. If one of them is part of this plot, then more may be involved. Going to them might make matters worse. We need to handle this ourselves.”
Theo’s smile widened. “I hoped you would say that.” He cracked his knuckles. “We better hurry before they move him. Or worse.”
Priscilla stared at the men, aghast. Her belly had turned into a turbulent sea. Then the faint glimmer of a plan began to form in her mind.
“I will return as soon as I can,” Aquila told her, striding toward the door.
Priscilla held up a hand. “I am coming with you.”
“No. Absolutely not. This is no place for you.”
She pulled up her palla and donned her shoes. “I have an idea. I will explain as we go. If you don’t like it, I will return home.”
The warehouse, a two-story, dilapidated building on an isolated lane, had no windows on the ground floor. The only gate was closed. When they crept around the back, they saw a smaller door, also closed. They had no way of knowing where Paul was imprisoned within the building. Or whether he still lived.
Aquila pondered his options. The windows were too high up to be of use. They could try the back door. Then again, that might lose them the element of surprise.
Without bothering to discuss his intentions, Theo began to climb the side of the building, finding holds in the old concrete where it had cracked. Aquila’s eyes widened in disbelief. Theo scaled the wall with the easy grace of a man climbing a ladder. In moments, his fingers caught the edge of an upper-story window, and he pulled himself all the way up, resting his knees on the narrow ledge.
The wooden slats on the shutter were closed. But when Theo pulled on them softly, they gave way. Aquila could not see beyond into the chamber where Theo clambered. He could only hope the young man had not landed in the midst of a company of guards.
After a moment, Theo reappeared, signaling all was well, and Aquila expelled a relieved breath. His relief proved short-lived, however, when Theo bent out of the open window, not only at the waist as any normal man might have done, but all the way out, until gasping, Aquila thought the man would tumble out and crash on his head.
Instead, Theo hung upside down, his hands free and swinging in the air. Aquila blinked. Then he realized Theo had wedged his feet against the window, allowing them to bear the full weight of his body. He had known, of course, that Theo was
a celebrated athlete. But this was beyond athletics. It seemed a feat of magic.
Theo clapped his hands and beckoned Aquila forward. Approaching him, he whispered, “What?”
“Grab my hands and climb,” Theo instructed.
“Climb? Climb what?”
“Me.”
“Are you insane? You will fall!”
“No. Trust me. And hurry.”
Aquila shook his head. How had he landed himself in this lunacy? But what alternative did he have? He could not climb the wall as Theo had. And every moment of delay placed Paul in greater peril. Shaking his head at the absurdity of his situation, he leapt into the air and grabbed hold of Theo’s wrists. The man held fast, his body taut and unyielding, bearing the pressure of the new weight now hanging from him. As fast as he could, Aquilla clambered upward, using Theo’s body as a rope, until he reached the window and hauled himself into the dark chamber beyond.
With a limber flexing of supple muscles, Theo bent upward, grasped hold of the ledge, and loosened his feet until his body’s position had reversed, legs dangling down. “Until later,” he whispered. Then, as if unaware of the distance between him and the ground, he leapt. No sooner had his feet reached safety than he began to creep toward the alley, which ran across the front of the warehouse.
Aquila huddled in a corner of the empty chamber and waited for the signal. A few moments later, he heard the voice of his wife rising from the alley. She would now be standing squarely in front of the warehouse, in plain view of the scoundrels inside. Madness, Aquila thought. Madness to bring Priscilla into this dangerous venture. But he had to admit that her idea had merit. It offered a safer alternative to a direct attack. Sweat drenched his body as he thought of her, vulnerable and exposed, standing out there.
Priscilla’s screeching bellow emerged in a nasal Greek, utterly unlike her usual cultured Latin, seasoned with words lewd enough to make a sailor blush. He had not known his wife had such an expansive glossary of colorful words.
“How dare you dally with that tramp Doris?” she screamed. “I forbid it.”
“I can dally with Doris if I want,” Theo screamed back. “I can dally with her sister, Daphne, too. You don’t own me!”
Priscilla swore. “See if I pay for your haircut and fancy tunic again!”
“You call this fancy?” Theo spat. “I can find better wool on the back of a donkey.”
“It is on the back of a donkey, you ass!” This would be where she would try to slap Theo and miss, a choreographed move they had discussed beforehand. She cursed again, this time using the word that was their signal, indicating that she had seen someone move on the upper floor. At least one of Paul’s captors, if not all, had grown distracted by the unfolding drama on the street below.
Aquila could hear his wife’s screeches growing more hysterical. The muffled sound of laughter echoed from the chamber on the opposite side of the house, overlooking the street. By the sound of it, Priscilla and Theo had managed to keep three of the guards distracted.
He hoped he would not come upon the fourth at Paul’s side.
He found the narrow stairs leading to the ground floor without running into unwanted company and crept below, intending to make a systematic search of every room. The first chamber proved empty save for dust. The second contained dilapidated baskets, but no Paul. The third also appeared empty, except for some broken furniture. He was about to turn away when a faint sound caught his ear. He went back inside and looked carefully.
A pair of feet were sticking out from behind a shabby couch. They were tied roughly with rope. “God be thanked!” Aquila exclaimed and fell on his knees next to the bound man.
Paul lay on his side, face bloody and already bruising, hands tethered by rope to an iron hook wedged in the wall.
“Aquila?” Paul mumbled through swollen lips.
Aquila cut Paul’s bonds with his dagger. “Can you walk?”
“Can try.”
Aquila hefted his friend to his feet, allowing Paul to lean heavily on him as they limped out. If he could only make it to the back door without being spotted, they might have a clean getaway. Five steps. Ten. Fifteen, and he was there! A heavy wooden slat barred the door. Aquila gently settled Paul against the wall and grabbed the beam in a two-handed grip and pried it loose. To his straining ears, the sharp, cracking noise of wood grinding against wood seemed as loud as a thunderbolt. He winced and placed the bar on the floor, then dragged the narrow door toward him. The hinge, long neglected, moaned like a hurricane.
Abruptly the noise he had been dreading echoed above his head. The sound of racing feet pounding toward them.
“Run,” he hissed, then half pulled, half dragged Paul’s body with him.
One of Paul’s attackers shouted a curse behind them. “You are dead men!”
They had determined their escape route in advance, which made their progress faster as they cut through one alley into the next. In the third street, a door opened, and before their pursuers were close enough to observe, Aquila and Paul slid inside and the door promptly shut behind them.
Aquila heard the pounding of feet pass by outside, growing faint as their pursuers continued on without slowing. They had managed it. They had escaped with their lives.
“Thank you,” he mumbled to Galenos, Theo’s foster father, in whose house they had sought refuge, before collapsing on the floor, lungs on fire.
Paul gave him a lopsided grin, teeth red with blood. “You should have told me you can run so fast. I would have sent you on more errands.”
“What did they want from you?” Priscilla asked, placing a bowl of hot broth into Paul’s hands. She and Theo had abandoned the scene of their charade when they realized they no longer had an audience. She had not known until she caught up with Aquila and Paul an hour later, that they were unharmed. That Aquila was safe.
She still shivered thinking of it.
“They thought if they beat me hard enough, I would grow too frightened to preach about Yeshua anymore.”
“What did you do?”
“I preached to them about Yeshua, of course. They seemed to need it very badly.”
Priscilla shook her head. “You lack sense, sometimes, Apostle. What were you doing with Sosthenes on that desolate road?”
He shrugged and winced with pain. He was covered in bruises, and she suspected that he had broken a rib or two. He took a sip of his broth. “He told me he wished to make amends. We met in a crowded street. I paid no attention as we began to walk and did not realize until it was too late that he had led me to a trap.” He closed his eyes. “Thanks be to God none of you was hurt on my account. How did you manage to free me?”
Aquila pointed to Priscilla. “Sometimes I forget my wife is the daughter of a Roman general. She can certainly strategize like one. She came up with a way to distract your jailers. And Theo climbed up the wall like an ape.”
Theo grimaced. “I seem to come off badly in this telling. How is it that she is a general and I am a monkey?” He rubbed a reddened cheek. “Not to mention the fact that Prisca slapped me.”
She cringed. “Your pardon, Theo. You were supposed to duck.”
“I ducked three times as we had planned. The fourth blow came as a surprise.”
“I grew distracted and lost count.” Priscilla’s smile faded. “We almost lost you today, Paul.”
The apostle became quiet. “There came a moment, all alone in that place, when I despaired of life. But then I remembered that Yeshua has delivered me from such deadly peril before, and he will deliver me again. On him I have set my hope.” His gaze turned to Priscilla and Aquila, an ocean of love in the bloodshot eyes. “You have been my true companions. And now you have saved my life.”
Priscilla’s throat clogged. A fist squeezed around her heart, a foreshadowing of things to come. Paul lived a dangerous life, one foot always poised over a precipice of death. She knew in that moment that they would have to part from the apostle, sooner perhaps than she had thought.
“You are not safe yet,” she pointed out. “We have to make certain Sosthenes does not try this again.”
“I know a friend who will help us,” Theo said.
By that very afternoon, Sosthenes found himself the recipient of a letter addressed to him from the office of Proconsul Gallio.
The missive informed him that an honored Corinthian had witnessed his involvement in the kidnapping of a Roman citizen named Paul of Tarsus. They also knew the identity of a certain member of the urban cohorts who had aided in the attack. But since the victim of this unfortunate incident had no wish to press charges against Sosthenes, they were willing to let the matter drop.
If there should be another attempt against the man, however, from Sosthenes or members of the synagogue he led, then Sosthenes would find himself chained in the pit of Corinth’s jail, awaiting a protracted trial.
The same evening, Sosthenes returned a message assuring the office of the proconsul that he would never harm a hair on Paul’s head. Priscilla believed his promise. Under the man’s bilious bluster lay a pitiful coward who would not dare further outrage now that he had been caught.
The apostle remained at Priscilla and Aquila’s house for a few days to recuperate from his injuries. Priscilla tried to convince him to rest. Paul had kept an overwhelming pace for months, often going without sleep, tentmaking in the early hours to generate an income and doing the work of God in the afternoons and evenings. His body had grown weary, and the wounds from his recent beating did not help.
Antonia volunteered to carry a tray of food to the apostle every day while he convalesced. Priscilla, who had never seen the woman perform any form of physical labor, gaped at her the first time she calmly began to fill up a bowl.
“What?” she said. “He is hurt.” She shrugged. “I remember how it felt to have someone help me when I was hurting.”
Thirty-Two
ONCE AGAIN PRISCILLA HAD FAILED to conceive. Another month of barrenness. She dropped her head in her palms. Palms that had never held a babe of her own. Grief had become a peculiar companion, coming at odd moments, twisting its bitter knife when least expected. Sometimes it arrived alone. Sometimes it came with its favorite companion, reproach, and tried to haunt her not only with the pain of loss, but also the added sting of blame.
