“Name it.”
“I’ll deal with you the same way I dealt with your father.” He tossed the parchment onto the burning coals in the brazier and extended his hand.
Throat closing, Marcus grasped it.
The next morning, at sunrise, Marcus sailed for Ephesus.
Over the long weeks of the voyage, he spent hours standing on the bow of the ship, the salt wind in his face. There, at last, he allowed his thoughts to turn again to Hadassah. He remembered standing with her on a bow like this one, watching the soft tendrils of her dark hair blowing about her face, her expression earnest as she spoke of her unseen god: “God speaks . . . a still, small voice in the wind.”
Just as her voice seemed to speak to him now, still and small, whispering to him in the wind . . . beckoning him.
But to what? Despair? Death?
He was torn between wanting to forget her and fear that he would. And now it was as though, having opened his mind to her, he couldn’t close it again.
Her voice had become an insistent presence, echoing throughout the darkness in which he now lived.
2
Disembarking in Ephesus, Marcus felt no sense of homecoming or relief that the voyage was over. Leaving his possessions in the hands of servants, he went directly to his mother’s villa set in a hillside not far from the center of the city.
He was greeted by a surprised servant, who informed him that his mother was out but expected home within the hour. Weary and depressed, he went into the inner courtyard to sit and wait.
Sunlight streamed down from the open roof into the atrium, casting flickering light on the rippling water of the ornamental pool. The water sparkled and danced, and the comforting sound of the fountain echoed through the lower corridors. Yet there was no comfort for him as he sat in the shadows of a small alcove.
He leaned his head back against the wall, trying to let the musical sound wash over and ease his aching spirit. Instead, haunted by his memories, his grief grew until he felt almost suffocated by it.
It had been fourteen months since Hadassah had died, yet the anguish of it swept over him as though it had been yesterday. She had often sat on this same bench, praying to her unseen god and finding a peace that still eluded him. He could almost hear her voice—quiet, sweet, like the water, cleansing. She had prayed for his father and his mother. She had prayed for him. She had prayed for Julia!
He shut his eyes, wishing he could change the past. If only that was all it took to bring Hadassah back again. Wishing. If only, by some stroke of magic, the agony of the past months could be wiped away, and she would be sitting here beside him, alive and well. If only he could speak her name, as an incantation, and make her, through the power of his love, rise from the dead.
“Hadassah . . . ,” he whispered hoarsely, “Hadassah.” But instead of her rising from the mists of his imagination, there came the obscene, violent images of her death, followed by the turmoil of his soul—the horror, grief, and guilt, all of which were collapsing into a deep and relentless anger that now seemed his constant companion.
What good did prayer do her? he wondered bitterly, trying to obliterate the vision in his mind of her death. She had stood so calmly as the lion charged her. If she had screamed, he had not heard it above the din of cheering Ephesians . . . one of whom had been his own sister.
His mother had said before he left for Rome that time healed all wounds, but what he had felt that day as he watched Hadassah die had only grown heavier and harder to bear, not easier. Now his pain was a constant solid mass within him, weighing him down.
Sighing, Marcus stood. He couldn’t allow himself to dwell on the past. Not today when he was so tired, bone-weary from the long monotonous sea voyage. Going to Rome had done nothing to obliterate the inertia he felt; it had only made life worse. Now here he was, back in Ephesus, no better off than the day he had left.
Standing in the peristyle of his mother’s hillside villa, he was filled with an aching, unspeakable sadness. The house was filled with silence, though there were servants in the household. He sensed their presence, but they had wisdom enough to keep their distance. The front door opened and closed. He heard soft voices and then hurried steps coming toward him.
“Marcus!” his mother said, running to him and embracing him.
“Mother,” he said, smiling and holding her at arm’s distance to see how she had fared in his absence. “You look well.” He bent to kiss both cheeks.
“Why are you back so soon?” she asked. “I thought not to see you for years.”
“I finished my business. There was no reason to linger.”
“Is everything as you hoped it would be?”
“I’m richer than I was a year ago if that’s what you mean.”