“Attacked . . .”
“You’re not out of danger yet, and you’ve put me and my daughter in it along with you,” Ezra said grimly.
“Leave me. Send the patrol back.”
“You’d be dead by then, and I’d have to answer to God.” He lay the cloak over the man.
“Drop the rope,” he called up to Taphatha and caught it as it slithered down the incline to him. The man had passed out again. Ezra used the precious moments to wrap the cloak firmly around him and tie a makeshift harness.
Lord, help me, he prayed and began to pull the man up the incline. I’m too old for this. How am I going to get him up to the road?
“Father, you’ll hurt him more bringing him up that way,” Taphatha called down.
“He’s unconscious again,” Ezra said, gritting his teeth as he put his back into the chore of pulling the man a foot at a time. He stopped to get his breath. “A pity you aren’t a small wiry man, Roman. Then I could hoist you over my shoulder.” Clenching his teeth, he started again.
A cascade of rock and dirt nearby made him glance up sharply. “What are you doing, Taphatha. Stay on the road.”
“He’s too heavy for you.” She had his donkey by its rope. The other followed. “It’ll be easier to take him down into the wadi, Father. If he was attacked up here, the robbers may be waiting somewhere along the road.”
“You can’t get down here. It’s too steep.”
“Yes I can.”
He watched her lead his donkey down a diagonal cut. The small donkey followed docilely. How she had managed to find a place to take the animals safely into the wadi, he didn’t know. Bracing himself a foot at a time, he began to slide the Roman down, foot by foot, toward the floor of the wadi.
As soon as Taphatha reached the bottom, she left the animals and came up to help her father. One look at the Roman’s battered face and her eyes filled with tears. She grasped the other side of the harness and helped Ezra. When they reached the bottom, Ezra unlooped the water bag from his shoulder and lifted the man’s head so he could drink again.
The Roman’s hand grasped his wrist. “Thank you,” he rasped.
“Lie still. My daughter and I will make a litter out of what we can find,” Ezra told him.
Marcus lay wreathed in pain, listening to the man and his daughter speaking Aramaic. They came back and struggled to lift him onto the litter they had made, and he blacked out briefly. He drifted between a dark netherworld and agonizing consciousness. One eye was swollen shut, but he could make out blurred images from the other. The eroded walls of the wadi rose above him on both sides. Each jarring bounce laced his body with pain, but he was spared the brilliant glare of sunlight as they kept to the shadows of the cliffs.
A sea of pain rolled over Marcus. As he floated toward darkness, he could hear Hadassah whispering, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me. . . .”
15
“You’re doing too much, my lady,” Iulius said to Phoebe, shifting the bundles he was carrying as they walked the narrow alleyway near the docks. “You can’t keep on this way.”
“I’m a little tired today, Iulius. That’s all.”
The slave’s mouth tightened. She was wearing herself out trying to take care of the sailors’ widows and their children. She arose at dawn, worked until midmorning, and then called for him so she could take clothing and food to needy families. By the time she returned to the villa in the afternoon, she was exhausted and faced with hours of evening chores she had set out for herself. It wasn’t uncommon to find her asleep at her loom.
“You can’t clothe and feed everyone, my lady.”
“We must do what we can,” she said as she looked up at the shabby tenement they were passing. “There are so many in need, Iulius.” She saw women hanging old garments out to dry, while below them ragged children played soldiers in a street splattered with night soil. Phoebe recognized several of the boys and greeted them warmly.
Iulius saw all that she did. “The poor will always be with us, my lady. You can’t take care of them all.”
Phoebe smiled at him. “Do you reprimand me, Iulius?”
He shifted the heavy bundle again. “Your pardon, my lady. Far be it from me to reprimand my owner.”
Her smile faded at his obdurate manner. “You know very well I wasn’t reminding you that you’re a slave, Iulius. You may have your freedom right now if you so wish it.”
His face reddened. “My lord Decimus would not have wished me to leave you.”