An Echo in the Darkness(143)

Hadassah took up her walking stick and went back into the bedchamber. Setting the stick aside, she tidied the covers on the sleeping couch, then picked up clothing, separating soiled garments from discarded ones. She folded those that were clean and put them away. The rest she left dangling over her arm as she took up her walking stick again and left the room. Julia might eat something when she awakened, and Prometheus would be returning soon.

Holding her walking stick under her arm, she leaned on the railing as she went down the steps. When she reached the bottom, she turned to go through the peristyle to the kitchen at the back of the house.

Someone knocked on the front door.

Startled, Hadassah glanced back. No one had come to see Julia during all the weeks she had been with her. Alexander and Rashid never came at this time of the day and never bothered to knock. They knew she was upstairs with Julia and wouldn’t hear, so they entered unannounced.

Hadassah limped to the door and opened it.

The caller had already turned away and started down the steps. The man was tall, strongly built, and finely dressed. Hearing the door open, he turned with an air of reluctance and looked up at her grimly.

Hadassah caught her breath, her heart leaping. Marcus!

His dark brown eyes swept her from head to foot. He frowned slightly and came back up the steps.

“I’ve come to see Lady Julia.”





39

Marcus was surprised to see a woman in veils. He looked her up and down, and then frowned when she said nothing. “This house does still belong to Julia Valerian, does it not?”

“Yes, my lord,” she said in a rasping voice. Bracing herself with a walking stick, she stepped back so he could enter. He walked by her into the antechamber and was immediately struck by the emptiness of the place. It felt deserted. He could hear the fountain through the archways. The woman closed the door softly behind him, then limped past him, the soft tap of her walking stick echoing in the empty entryway. He found it surprising that Julia would have a cripple in her household. And why the veils?

“This way, my lord,” she said, preceding him to the steps.

He noticed the garments over her shoulder and surmised she was the laundress. “Where are the other servants?”

“There are no other servants, my lord. Only Prometheus and I. He’s taken work in the city.” She placed the garments in a neat pile at the base of the steps.

A cripple and a catamite, Marcus thought with dark humor. How Julia had fallen. Things must be bad indeed. He watched the servant mount the steps. She stepped up with her good leg and brought her crippled one next to it, one step at a time. It was a difficult process, probably a painful one as well. He felt pity, which was quickly overshadowed by curiosity about her foreign attire. “You are Arabic.”

“No, my lord.”

“Then why the veils?”

“I am disfigured, my lord.”

Which, no doubt, bothered Julia. He couldn’t imagine his sister even allowing a disfigured servant in the household, let alone near her. A dozen questions rose in his mind as he went up the steps, but he held his tongue. All he needed to know, he would soon learn from Julia.

“She was asleep when I left her,” the slave woman said in a hushed voice. Marcus followed her into a bedchamber. He stopped beneath the archways and watched the servant limp out onto the balcony. She went to the couch and bent down, speaking softly so as not to startle its sleeping occupant.

“A visitor?” Julia said drowsily, pushing herself up. She turned slightly and allowed the servant to help her sit up.

Stunned, Marcus took in the change in his sister’s physical appearance. Equally shocked, Julia stared at him from hollowed eyes, her face so white she seemed to be carved in marble. She reminded him of the starving Jews who had arrived in Rome after the long, grueling march from their fallen Jerusalem. And remembering that, he was reminded again of Hadassah and what his sister had done to her.

“Marcus,” Julia said tremulously and held out her hand. “How nice of you to come and call.”

Did she suppose he had forgotten everything?

Marcus remained where he was.

Julia felt his hatred. She had seen the shock in his eyes and been briefly gratified, thinking perhaps now he would feel sorry for her and regret all the cruel things he had said. Now she saw how cold his eyes were, how rigid his stance. She lowered her hand, discomforted at the way he stared at her, his mouth set. Without a hint of mercy in his eyes, he glanced over her, taking in the ravages of her illness.

“It would appear you’re ill.”

Was he glad of it? She lifted her chin slightly, hiding her hurt. “You could say that, though it shouldn’t surprise you.” When he raised one brow, she smiled brittlely. “Don’t you remember your last words to me?”