“Marta!” Rizpah said, reaching for her, but Marta shook her head, backing away.
“Shake the dust of this place from your feet and leave,” Marta said, running away as villagers appeared.
“Leave us!” men and women shouted hysterically. “Take your foreign wife and god and go from us before you bring further calamity.”
Theophilus’ possessions as well as their own were thrown at them.
“Go!”
“No!” Freyja cried out. “The Lord Jesus Christ is the true God.” She ran into the midst of them, searching for Varus, for Usipi, for anyone who might listen.
Herigast and Rolf ran in search of their wives.
“Their god will destroy us!”
“Go away from here!”
Some picked up clods and stones to throw.
“Leave us!”
“Leave us!”
Atretes pulled Rizpah back. “We must go.”
“We can’t leave them.”
Grabbing up the gear, Atretes sheltered his wife and son as he urged them toward the forest east of the village. When Rizpah looked back, he caught hold of her hand and kept walking.
“Feed the sheep,” Theophilus had said, but something more impelled Atretes onward and kept him from looking back again: “And any place that does not receive you or listen to you, shake off the dust from the soles of your feet for a testimony against them.”
Rizpah wept for the lost, and so did he, but they’d made their choice, just as Rud had the instant before he fell into the pit.
“Wait!” someone called. “Wait for us!”
Atretes stopped and looked back, his throat working as he saw Rolf running toward him, holding his wife by the hand. When they reached them, Rizpah thanked God and embraced them each in turn while Atretes stood to one side, his gaze searching the forest for others, praying fervently more would follow. “Are there others coming?”
“I don’t know,” Rolf said, out of breath. “I didn’t wait. I didn’t look back.”
Atretes led them on through the forest.
55
They made camp on an eastern hill a far distance from the village.
As darkness fell, Rizpah sat in front of her husband, leaning into him, Caleb in her lap. Atretes put his arms around her, nuzzling her shorn hair, thanking God he hadn’t lost her. Then he closed his eyes.
Rizpah knew he was praying. He had said hardly anything all day. She knew what was in his heart and joined him in beseeching the Lord.
A twig snapped and they looked up. Atretes drew in a ragged breath, his heart in his throat. “Thank God,” he said in a hoarse voice.
With a soft cry, Rizpah set Caleb quickly aside and jumped to her feet.
Freyja came into her arms and clung to her. “Wherever you go, I will go. Your God will be my God.”
Others had come with her.
“Good thing you camped on a hillside,” Usipi said, grinning as he came forward, clasping Atretes’ hand. Marta set Luisa down and went into her brother’s arms, the children around her. Herigast and Anna had come, as well as Helda and her husband, Sig. Everyone was talking at once.
Atretes looked around at those who had come out of the darkness into the circle of light.
So few, he thought and then pressed the sorrow back. There were other things to think of, many things to do, and with the same fierce determination he had always possessed in matters of life and death, he turned his will and life to the task ahead.
“Feed the sheep,” Theophilus had said. “Feed the sheep.”
It was a small flock.
But it was a beginning.