He shut his eyes and opened them again, thinking his wine-sodden brain had concocted Rizpah as a child. But the girl was still there. She was shivering violently, whether from cold or fear, he didn’t know. Perhaps both.
When he moved, she cowered back, seeming to grow smaller before his eyes. “I won’t hurt you,” he said and took a coin from the money pouch in his belt. “Here. Buy something to eat.” He tossed it at her.
She tried desperately to catch it, but her cold fingers wouldn’t close around it. The precious coin dropped with a small plunk into the muddy puddle. With a soft cry of despair, she dropped on her knees in front of him and felt around in the mud trying to find it.
Atretes stared down at her, his heart twisting in disgust and pity. No human being should live like this, especially not a child! He shut his eyes again and saw Rizpah on her hands and knees in the mud.
“Did I sell myself? Yes. When I was so hungry and cold I didn’t think I could live through the night.”
The girl’s weeping was like salt on an open wound.
“Leave it,” Atretes said gruffly. Hungry and desperate, she paid him no heed. “I said, Leave it!” She scrambled back again, frightened. When he stepped toward her, she raised her arms to ward off a blow. “I won’t hurt you.” He took another coin from his pouch. “Here.” She didn’t move. “Take it.” He held it out. She looked into his face and then at the coin. “Take it,” he said quietly, as though coaxing a frightened, hungry animal with a morsel of food. Still distrustful, she watched him warily while her muddy fingers closed around it. “Hang onto it this time.”
“An aureus,” he heard her say as he walked into the rain. “You give me an aureus! The gods bless you, my lord. Oh, the gods bless you!” she said, weeping.
Atretes kept walking, hardly feeling the cold wind. The effect of the wine gradually lessened, making him feel even more raw. He reached a narrow bridge crossing a stream just north of Grosseto. The sky lightened as dawn came. He was tired and depressed. His head was pounding.
He wondered if Rizpah had stayed in the room the way he had commanded her or if she’d gone to the baths. Considering what she had told him and his frame of mind when he’d left, he could expect her to be gone by the time he returned.
What about his son?
What a fool he was! He headed back into the town.
Roman legionnaires passed him. The sound of their hobnailed sandals made his muscles tighten. He saw the gates of the fort. The tabernacles lining the street in front of it were opening for business. There were things he had wanted to buy yesterday, but he doubted they’d be necessary now.
The inn was quiet when he reached it. He strode along the corridor and stopped at the door of their chamber. He put his hand on the latch and then paused. Instead of going in, he stood outside, listening, tense. There was no sound from within. It was well past dawn. So much for her obedience! Swearing under his breath, he opened the door and entered. He’d rest before he went looking for her.
Rizpah was standing near the window. She turned, relief filling her face. “You’re all right! Thank God.”
She still wore the same torn, dirty tunic. She hadn’t even washed her feet. “You didn’t go to the baths.”
“You said to stay here.” When he said no more, she walked to the couch and sat down, her knees too weak to hold her.
He wondered if she’d been standing at the window all night, waiting for him. She looked it. He turned away from her, disturbed by the emotions churning inside him. She hadn’t run away. She’d done as he commanded and waited for his return.
No matter the cost.
He looked around and saw Caleb wrapped in a blanket and sleeping comfortably among the pillows he had tossed on the floor the night before.
“Where’s Theophilus?”
“He went out to look for you a few hours ago.”
He looked at her again and knew that whatever she had been, she was someone else now. He couldn’t see that other person in her, no matter how hard he tried. And he knew something else. He trusted her. It was a piercing realization and one that filled him with a sense of peace such as he hadn’t known in years. He didn’t care what she’d been; he knew what she was.
“You never killed anyone,” he said simply. Nothing she had done to stay alive was worse than what he was.
His words amazed her, for in them she knew he exonerated her for everything she had done. Thankfulness and joy filled her and then softened as she realized he had also revealed something deep and dark and painful about his own life. He condemned himself. She rose and came to him. “Your sins are no greater than mine, Atretes. The Lord doesn’t measure the way man does. He—”