“Rapha,” she gasped.
Hadassah had never heard her sound more vulnerable.
The fear that had coursed so strongly through Hadassah vanished. She remembered singular moments of sweetness in Julia. She had been a girl of gaiety and passion. Filled with sadness, Hadassah looked at her now—thin, pale, and ravaged by disease.
She limped toward Julia, the sound of her walking stick tapping the tile floor. Julia stared, eyes wide, uncertain.
“Please forgive me for coming unannounced to your chamber, my lady. No one answered the door.”
“You are welcome,” Julia said formally as she sank weakly onto a couch near the wall and drew a soiled blanket around her shoulders. “And I am alone. Like rats, Didymas and Tropas have deserted the sinking ship.” Her mouth twisted sardonically. “Not that they were of particular use to me.” She glanced away and said quietly, “I’m relieved they’re gone. It saved me the trouble of selling them.”
“Is Prometheus also gone, my lady?”
“No. I sent him out into the city to find work.” She lifted a shoulder indifferently. “He may or may not come back. He belonged to Primus, not me. Primus was my husband, such as he was.” Her gaze lifted to Hadassah’s veils, and a small frown flickered over her pale brow. She fidgeted with the blanket nervously. “Why are you here, Lady Rapha? You touched me and nothing happened. The physician said there was no hope.” Her chin tipped. “Have you come back to see if your magic will work this time?” Her show of disdain did nothing to disguise the fear and hopelessness that had settled into her features.
“No,” Hadassah answered softly.
Julia felt ashamed, but she needed some sort of self-defense and so clung to disdain of others. “Perhaps you aren’t the miracle worker everyone says you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
Anguish settled on Julia’s face, and she wrapped her arms around herself again. She looked away. “Then why are you here?”
Hadassah came closer. “I’ve come to ask if I may stay with you and take care of you, Lady Julia.”
Julia’s head jerked up in surprise. “Stay with me?” Swallowing, she gazed at the veiled woman, defenseless, her loneliness and vulnerability exposed completely. “I have no money to pay you.”
“I ask for none.”
“I have no money even to buy bread for you.”
“I have money enough to provide for both of us.”
Julia stared at her in amazed confusion. “You . . . would provide for me?” she said tremulously. “Why?”
“Because I must.”
Julia frowned, not understanding. “You mean the physician changed his mind and sent you here to care for me.”
“No. The Lord sent me.”
Julia stiffened slightly. “The Lord?” she said in a choked voice. “Which god do you worship?”
Hadassah felt her withdrawal as strongly as if it had been physical. She saw also the wariness and fear behind Julia’s careful look. She moved closer and put her walking stick in front of her, using it as support. She knew God called her now to utter the same words she had said to Julia once before, words that had brought wrath and violence, words that had brought a sentence of death upon her.
O Lord, do you test me so soon? And then she felt ashamed. How many times in the past had she failed to speak out before that final night with Julia? Lord, forgive me. I denied you every time I was silent, every time I let an opportunity pass.
“I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Silence fell over the balcony. Even the breeze seemed to still. Only Hadassah’s words of faith seemed to echo in the air.
Julia shuddered and looked away, her face white and strained. “I tell you truthfully, Rapha. Your god did not send you to me.”
“Why do you say this?”
“Because I know.”
“How do you know, Lady Julia?”
She looked up at her, eyes wide and full of suffering. “Because if any god has reason to bear a grudge against me, it is this one.”
Hadassah was filled with hope by her answer. “There is but one thing I would ask of you,” Hadassah said when she knew she could speak without weeping.
“Now it comes,” Julia said sarcastically. “Yes. What do you want of me? What price must I pay?”
“I ask you not to call me Rapha.”
Surprise filled Julia’s face. “And that’s all?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why not?”
“It is a title I’ve never been worthy to hold. It was a name given me out of kind but mistaken motives.”
Julia gazed at her uncertainly. “What do you wish me to call you?”