Her eyes flashed and then cooled again. “You have a wife who doesn’t want you. You have a wife who’s a foreigner and doesn’t belong here. You’ve already come to realize that or you wouldn’t have abandoned her.”
He stepped back, wanting distance between them, needing it so he could think clearly. Abandoned. The word struck like an arrow, piercing him with guilt. With a groan, he stumbled away from Anomia.
Cold rage swept through the priestess. It came over her like an onrushing tide, jealousy in the crashing of waves. She watched him stumble and waited for him to fall. When he did, she approached him stealthily and knelt down beside him.
“You said someone named Julia bore your child,” she murmured, brushing his hair back from his face.
“She ordered him put on the rocks to die.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Roman women do that. They throw their children away when they don’t want them. If Rizpah hadn’t taken him, he would’ve died.”
“Don’t pass out yet, Atretes,” she murmured, pinching him hard in the side. “She took your son? Without you knowing?”
“A slave girl brought him to her.” He thought of Hadassah standing in the torchlight corridor of the dungeon, her face serene. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” He remembered how she had stood in the mouth of the cave where he had lived after Julia betrayed him. “The heavens tell of the glory of God, and their expanse declares the work of his hands,” she had said, looking out at the night sky. It was from Hadassah’s lips he had first heard the gospel of Jesus Christ and in her that he’d first seen the peace God could bring into a life.
He could see the stars now, looking up through the branches of the tree under which he sat. What he wouldn’t give to feel that peace again.
Forgive your enemies.
Jesus forgave.
Theophilus forgave.
Anomia saw him grimace as though he was in pain. He groaned, his head lolling back and forth. “Rizpah. . . ,” came the soft insidious voice that seemed to be worming its way inside his head. “I love her.”
“Not that. Did she bring the child to you?”
Troubled and drunk, he didn’t think. “No. I had to hunt for him. All I knew was a widow had him.”
“A widow?”
“She lost her own child.” Atretes rubbed his face, trying to clear his head. “I took Caleb from her, but he wouldn’t nurse from anyone else.”
“Bewitched.”
“As I’m bewitched,” he said bleakly. “She bewitched me from the first moment I laid eyes on her. Can’t stop thinking about her. Can’t stop.” All he wanted to do was sink into the void of dreamless sleep. And closing his eyes, he did.
Anomia’s mouth curved. He was too drunk to realize the power he had just placed in her hands. She leaned close, nuzzled his neck, and then whispered in his ear. “But you will. Just wait until you realize . . .”
She pulled his head back. The ale he had drunk had rendered him unconscious. She touched his face, marveling at how handsome he was, feeling bitter and thwarted in her desire, hungry for her own revenge at being scorned. If she couldn’t have him, the Ionian certainly wouldn’t.
“A pity you didn’t want me.” She pressed a hard kiss to his unresponsive mouth. “You’re going to have so much to regret.”
She left him sleeping in the woods.
54
Atretes awakened to someone calling his name. He thought he imagined it. Sitting up, he realized he was in the woods. His tunic was drenched with night dew, the stars still bright against the darkened sky. What was he doing out here?
He remembered leaving the longhouse, wanting to get away from the noise, needing quiet to think.
He vaguely remembered Anomia. He felt unclean, and niggling worry ate at him.
“Atretes!”
He didn’t feel like talking to anyone, but the voice was so urgent, he roused himself.
“Atretes! Where are you?”
“Over here,” he said, grimacing.
Herigast appeared. He was out of breath from running. “You’ve got to come with me. Gundrid and the Thing have had your wife taken from the grubenhaus.”
“What are you talking about?” Atretes said, shaken by a wave of nausea. “Taken her where?”
“To the sacred grove for trial. Anomia said she’s been with other men.”
The fog left Atretes’ mind and his head snapped up. He’d warned Rizpah never to speak of her past, for he knew the cost if it ever became known. “What did you say?”
“Anomia said you told her your wife had been with other men before you.”
He swore softly and tried to get up. His blood went cold as he sat down hard again. “Julia!” He remembered rambling bitterly about Julia!