Peter and Barnabas ran in front of their shelter, playing a lively game of some sort, as they usually did each day. “Can’t catch me! Can’t catch me!” Peter shouted. Barnabas, following, caught his foot in the rope that held their shelter secure and almost brought it down.
“Boys!” Camella said in irritation.
Sometimes their youthful zest was extremely annoying, as it was now, when their ruckus frightened Caleb and started him crying again. Rizpah picked him up and comforted him. Something fell over not far away, and she wondered what destruction the boys had caused this time. Yesterday, when the weather was clear, they had annoyed the sailors with their racing back and forth and getting in the way. When Timon had finally interceded and told them to play something else, Peter had worked at the knots holding several crates.
“Atretes reminds me in some ways of Lysia’s father,” Camella said when the boys had run back toward the others. “Handsome, commanding, virile. Am I embarrassing you? I won’t speak of him, if you’d rather I didn’t.”
Rizpah wasn’t sure if she meant Lysia’s father or Atretes. “Somewhat,” she admitted ruefully. “Though not for the reasons you might think. I’m no stronger than you, Camella.”
Camella recognized the acceptance offered, as well as the confession. “Good.” She put her hand over Rizpah’s. “We’ll keep one another accountable and ward off temptation when it comes.”
Rizpah laughed. Caleb had scooted as far as he could go. She picked him up and set him back down near her, so he could try again.
“He’ll be crawling before you reach Rome,” Camella said, watching him.
“And walking by the time we reach Germania.”
“You’re not eager to be going, are you?”
“Would you be?”
“Very. More than anything else, I long for a new beginning.”
“You can begin anew wherever you are, Camella.”
“Not when you have someone reminding you of your past every step of the way or expecting you to fall prey to the same failings.”
Something struck their tent, startling them both. A ball of material rolled in front of Caleb. “Those boys, again,” Camella said, picking it up as Peter appeared around the corner.
“That’s our ball,” he said, out of breath.
“Yes, we know. Please play elsewhere,” she said tossing it to him.
He darted away, out of sight but not out of hearing.
* * *
The weather changed for the better. Peter and Barnabas were running along the deck, weaving around people and sometimes bumping into them in their exuberance. Capeo and Philomen joined them for one round on the deck before their father, Parmenas, stopped their wild play and settled them at more peaceful games. For a little while, the children settled down, and then Peter and Barnabas began to shout and laugh and race about again, annoying every member of the crew as well as passengers too polite to do anything. Timon and Porcia made no effort to curb their offspring’s activity, even when Peter knocked Antonia down.
“For heaven’s sake, Porcia!” Eunice said, obviously frustrated at having the conversation she’d been having with Mnason interrupted. She bent to pick up her daughter.
“He didn’t mean to do it,” Porcia said in quick defense, sending Peter off again while Eunice wiped her young daughter’s tears away. “Besides, you have little room to judge! Your attention has hardly been focused on your family!”
A dull red filled Eunice’s face and she glanced uncomfortably toward Mnason, then fell silent.
Atretes came to stand beside Rizpah. Camella looked up at him and then glanced at her. “I think Lysia and I will take a walk around the deck,” she said, taking her daughter’s hand.
“You needn’t leave.”
“Yes, leave,” Atretes said coldly.
Sorry she had said anything, Rizpah turned to look out at the sea, mortified by his rudeness. She could feel Atretes watching her and wondered what he was thinking. “Did you want to talk to me about something?” she said when the silence began to wear on her nerves. He didn’t answer. “Would you like to hold Caleb?”
“Are you so desperate to distract me?”
“Yes!”
Grinning, Atretes took him. “In all things honest, aren’t you?”
“I said I would be.”
His mouth flattened into a hard line. “Even with yourself?” She refused to rise to his baiting. She watched her son, troubled that she had handed him over to a man who could take men’s lives without the least remorse. Sometimes she struggled with it, wanting to withhold Caleb from his father. This was the first time since the dreadful night they had left the villa that Atretes had held him, other than when he had carried Caleb onboard the ship. Why had she handed him over so eagerly? Just to distract Atretes’ interest in her? She half expected, half hoped, Caleb would put up a fuss. He didn’t. Instead, he grabbed the ivory chip around his father’s neck and chewed on it. He looked at the interesting object and then pounded it on his father’s chest. “Da . . . da . . . da . . .”