His throat closed with emotion, and he couldn’t speak. He grasped her hand and kissed the palm, tears coming. He touched her face in wonder. He noticed then how her tunic was drenched with blood. He wanted to see to the wound lest the bleeding continue. Taking his dagger from its sheath with shaking hands, he cut the wool carefully. When he peeled the cloth back, he found her skin smooth beneath. Frowning, he searched for the injury.
Awestruck, he touched her skin, feeling gooseflesh rise over his entire body as he did so. The only evidence there had ever been a wound was a small circular scar just above her right breast, close to her heart. No one could have survived such a wound.
Rizpah had been dead. He knew it as well as he knew she was now alive. And as well as he knew that Theophilus had not worked this miracle. Nor had Tiwaz. Only one god had done this. Hadassah’s God. Rizpah’s God. The God he had so confidently dismissed as being weak and ineffective had done the impossible.
Atretes took his hands from her and drew back. He did not understand the way this God worked, but he could not deny the power he had felt and seen. His voice was filled with certainty when he spoke. “Your God is a God of gods and a Lord of kings!”
Theophilus turned. “The only God, Atretes. The only God.”
Atretes looked up at Theophilus. All his animosity toward the Roman was forgotten in his wonder at what he had just witnessed. “I give him my sword!”
Theophilus knew such a vow to a German meant his honor and life. “As I gave him mine when I came into his kingdom.” He held out his hand.
Atretes grasped it. “Baptize me,” he said. It wasn’t a request, but a demand. “Baptize me so I can belong to him.”
Theophilus clasped his shoulder. “And so we begin.”
30
“I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” Theophilus said, baptizing Atretes in the first spring they found. Atretes knelt. Giving the German support, Theophilus leaned him back. “Buried in Christ,” he said, submerging him, “and raised up in the newness of life.” He drew him up again.
Dripping wet, Atretes stood. Turning, he saw Rizpah standing ankle-deep in the water, holding his son, and made another decision that would affect the rest of his life. “I claim Rizpah as my wife.”
Rizpah’s gaze lost its dreamy haze. “What?”
“You said you love me!”
The look in his eyes as he slogged through the water toward her sent her pulse racing and made her want to run. She retreated from the spring onto the bank. “I love Theophilus, too, as I loved Timon and Porcia, Bartimaeus, Camella, Tibullus, and Mnason and—”
“You said you’d never lie to me,” Atretes said, his eyes pinning her where she stood.
“I’m not lying!”
He came out of the water and stopped in front of her, putting his hands out. “Give me the boy.”
“Why?”
“Give me my son.”
She did so with trepidation. Atretes took him, kissed his cheek, and set him on his feet. As he straightened, he smiled slightly. Her stomach dropped and she took a step back. Retreat gained nothing for he caught hold of her. When he drew her into his arms, she had only enough time to utter a soft gasp before he kissed her. It was a long time before he loosened his embrace, and by then she couldn’t think clearly.
“You love those others,” he conceded, equally affected, “but not the way you love me.”
“I’m not sure marrying you is a good idea,” she said shakily, alarmed by the power of the sensations he aroused in her. “For you or for me.”
Theophilus stood in the spring, laughing. “It will be a blessed relief!” He strode toward them, grinning. “Or have you forgotten God himself put the two of you together in Ephesus?”
“Not as husband and wife!” Rizpah said, trying to put some distance between her and Atretes. She needed time to think, and she couldn’t with him holding her the way he was. Was it proper to want a man so much? Was it Christian? She looked at Theophilus for help, but he seemed pleased.
Atretes had no intention of letting her go until she capitulated. “We’re mother and father to the same child. It makes sense we be man and wife as well. Say yes.” When she stammered, he cupped the back of her head. “Say yes. One word. Yes.” He kissed her again, as soundly as the last time.
“Theophilus!” she gasped when Atretes finally let her take a breath.
“Say yes, Rizpah,” Theophilus said, amused. “There’s one thing you should’ve learned a long time ago about this man. Once he makes up his mind, it takes an act of God to change it!”