As Sure as the Dawn(169)

42


“Roman!” came the whispered voice. “Are you awake?”

“Awake and waiting,” Theophilus said, yawning hugely. He had spent most of the day hunting. The Lord was provident, for he had been hunting for a meal and now had enough meat to last through the coming winter. Even now, the strips of venison were hanging above alder smoke. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”

“I brought my wife.”

A wife. That narrowed the possibilities of who the man of shadows was. His late-night visitor couldn’t be Rud as he had begun to suspect. Rud was a bachelor. Nor could he be Holt, who was a widower. Nor could the night visitor be any one of a dozen younger warriors who had not yet taken wives.

“You are both welcome,” Theophilus said. “Bring your children next time.” He knew he had erred with the remark, for a tense silence followed his words.

He heard the woman whisper something, and the man responded in a sharp whisper, “Do not speak of it. Not a word about it.” His whisper dropped again. “He’s a friend of Atretes’. . . .” The words became indistinct as the trees rustled from a breeze.

It was cold tonight. Theophilus knew he was far more comfortable in the warmth of his grubenhaus than the man and woman crouching outside in the late autumn night air. His remark had caused them needless alarm. He regretted trying to satisfy his curiosity.

These are your children, Lord. Let them settle long enough to hear your good news. Let love cast out their fear.

“I want you to tell my wife about Jesus.”

Theophilus could hear the woman’s teeth chattering. “Your wife is cold.”

“Then tell her quickly.”

“The Word of the Lord isn’t something to be rushed. If I put on a blindfold, will you both come inside where it’s warmer?”

He heard the woman whispering.

“Yes,” the man said.

Taking his dagger from the shelf, Theophilus cut the edge of his blanket and ripped off a strip. He tossed the dagger beside the lamp he had placed in the center of the room to allay other possible concerns. Closing his eyes, he tied the blindfold securely.

He heard them enter and close the door he had finished yesterday. The woman’s teeth continued to chatter, perhaps less from cold than tension.

“Be at ease, my lady,” Theophilus said, feeling to the left of him until he found the fold of his extra blanket. “Take this and put it around you.” He heard movement, and then the blanket was taken cautiously from his hand.

“Go back to the beginning,” the man said, no longer whispering. “Tell her about the star in the heavens that proclaimed the birth of the Savior.”

* * *

A party of Bructeri came with goods for trade. They displayed Celtic brooches, pins, shears, and pottery items, as well as silver and gold vessels from Rome. The Chatti bartered with furs and animal skins as well as amber, the fossilized resin much in demand in the Empire’s capital markets.

“The merchants who brought this north will hurt from the loss,” one Bructeri was heard to say, but few Chatti believed these traders had come by their goods through the honorable means of attack and plunder. Pride pinched less with no questions asked.

Roman traders were infiltrating Germania, seducing tribes with gifts and bribes in order to open commerce. Boats sailed north on the Rhine, carrying goods to Asciburgium and Trier. A brave few brought caravans, tempting death as they followed the Lippe, Ruhr, and Main, entering the valleys of the north by way of the streams of Weser and the Elbe, knowing their lives would be avenged if they failed.

When several Romans had come to the Chatti two years before, they had met with a quick and violent end, and their goods were confiscated. Roman retribution had followed swiftly, leaving the village burned and eighteen warriors, three women, and a child dead. The others would all have been taken as slaves had not they fled to the woods and remained hidden there until the legion had departed.

They only returned once to the old village site, to honor their dead in quickly constructed funeral houses. In the months that followed, the Chatti rebuilt the village on land northeast of the sacred wood.

And now, Rome came again, encroaching ever northward, this time through the representation of the Bructeri, supposed allies to the Chatti cause against Rome. Chatti warriors talked of war when they left.

“We should’ve killed them while they were here!”

“And have another legion breathing down our necks?” Atretes said.

“We’ll take the war south this time.”

Despite Atretes’ counsel, a band of warriors set off to make their ire known. Atretes remained behind, watching them leave with mixed feelings. He knew enough now of God’s way that his conscience forbade him accompanying them. Yet another part of himself longed to ride with them. How long since he had felt that hot rush of excitement in his blood? The closest thing to it was when he held Rizpah in his arms, yet it wasn’t the same.