As Sure as the Dawn(159)
Turning his head grimly, he looked at Anomia. She was the last person he wanted to see right now.
She watched his gaze move over her as he turned and faced her. She had chosen her tunic carefully, well aware how the white linen fell smoothly against the lush curves of her body.
Atretes noticed. He couldn’t help himself. She savored the moment, breathing in softly, inhaling triumph. His eyes darkened in a telltale way. Good. She relished his lust, even more so because he fought his attraction to her. Let him fight it. His inner struggle would make the consummation so much sweeter. And fierce.
“We should talk,” she said.
“About what?”
So terse. His emotions were high. “I’ve been listening to what you’ve had to say. The god of whom you speak sounds . . . interesting.”
“Indeed,” he said dryly.
She smiled up at him. “Do you doubt me?”
“Should I?”
He was not like Varus, but that was good. Varus was boring, weak, and predictable. “Are you afraid to discuss this Jesus of yours with a high priestess of Tiwaz?”
His mouth tipped. “I’m still having trouble seeing Ania’s little sister as a high priestess of anything.”
She didn’t show how his words angered her. How dare he mock her like some foolish, weakling child? Concealing her true feelings, she pouted for him, feigning amusement. “Are you worried I might ask a question you can’t answer?”
His eyes flickered at the challenge. “Ask.”
“How can you or I be held responsible for what one man or one woman did thousands of years ago?”
He explained about Adam and Eve’s encounter with Satan in the same way Theophilus had explained to him, but she laughed.
“A neat but ludicrous story, Atretes. No wonder the men won’t believe you.”
“What’s ludicrous about it?”
She pretended surprise that he would even ask. “You can’t be so easily swayed,” she said, widening her eyes in dismay. “Think about what you’re telling us. Why should we feel guilty for the choice made by a man and woman thousands of years ago in a place you’ve never seen or even heard of? Were you there? No. Was I? No. Would you have stood by while your wife was being seduced? I have a hard time imagining it, but then . . .” She paused deliberately as though something unpleasant had occurred to her. She let her gaze drift toward the woods where the Roman was finishing his grubenhaus.
Glancing up, she saw Atretes’ gaze drift as well. He was a passionate man and a possessive one. It wouldn’t be too difficult to arouse his suspicions about his Roman friend and the fidelity of that little black-eyed Ionian witch.
Atretes frowned. Where was Rizpah? He had sent her outside, expecting her to return when Caleb calmed down. She had been gone for more than an hour. He didn’t like the idea of her being alone with a man, even Theophilus.
Anomia saw with growing irritation that she was forgotten. When he started to walk away, she reached out quickly and placed her hand lightly on his arm. “Where are you going, Atretes?”
“To find my wife.”
She saw how much he wanted to find her, and a surge of jealousy heated her blood. What did he see in that olive-skinned foreigner? “She’s in the woods with that Roman friend of yours,” she said, planting a seed.
Atretes didn’t like the way she said it. What game was she playing?
“One more question, Atretes, about this idea of some vague sin of which we’re supposedly guilty. Why do you think a Roman would want you to believe such things?” she said, pouring water on the seed she had planted. Looking up into Atretes’ handsome face, she offered up a silent prayer to Tiwaz that doubt would take root and spread.
Let Atretes turn from that outsider and come to me! Bring your minions to bear upon him. Make him mine!
Atretes patted her hand distractedly. “We’ll talk another time,” he said and walked away.
Anomia stared after him, lips parted, hands curling into fists.
* * *
Atretes strode down the village main street.
“She’s in the woods with that Roman friend of yours.”
He was annoyed that one remark could set his thinking on such a dark path. Rizpah had given him no reason to doubt her fidelity, nor had Theophilus. Yet one blatantly false comment sent his imagination flying! He knew what Anomia was trying to do, but knowing didn’t help. In the space of an instant, he had seen his wife in Theophilus’ grubenhaus, lying on the earthen floor, entangled . . .
A growling sound came from deep in his throat. He shook his head, trying to shake the thought out. Rizpah was nothing like Julia. It would never even occur to her to marry one man and have another as a lover. Yet he felt an urgency to find them, to set his mind at rest.