As Sure as the Dawn(78)

He saw a park not far ahead. “We’ll sleep there for the night.”

Rizpah noticed a gathering of rough-looking people loitering nearby, but made no protest. If they were attacked, it would be on Atretes’ head.

It was getting cold, and dark clouds gathered overhead. Atretes led Rizpah along a cobbled footpath between a copse of trees. Just on the other side was a vine-tangled fanum. She stopped and stared at it with misgivings.

“Thinking of the last time you and I shared one of these?” Atretes said mockingly.

“I’ll sleep over there,” she said, pointing to row of thick bushes.

“I don’t think so.”

“I don’t care what you think! I’m tired and hungry and I’m not going to argue with you!”

He heard the catch in her voice and knew she was close to tears. “It’s going to be cold, Rizpah.”

“Don’t offer to keep me warm!” Yanking the blanket from the pack on his shoulder, she left him on the path and headed for the shrubs.

Clenching his teeth, he went into the fanum and made a bed for himself. He could hear Caleb crying, the sound pitiful in the growing darkness. The clouds moved across the moon, shrouding the small fanum garden in darkness. His son’s crying frayed his conscience. A rumble of thunder rippled around him and rain poured down, pounding against the marble arch above him.

Atretes arose and went out to find Rizpah; his son’s crying made that easy. Stooping down before a heavy shrub, he looked at her huddled beneath the wet blanket. “Go away,” she said, and he could tell she was crying with the baby.

“Woman, I’m not the only one who’s stiff-necked and stubborn.” The cold rain was pouring down on his head and running down the back of his neck beneath the heavy woolen blanket around him. “Think of the babe.”

Teeth chattering, she rose and followed him back to the fanum. Shaking the moisture off her own woolen blanket, she lay down on the marble tiles. He sat on the bench and said nothing. Her body was shivering. He could hear her speaking softly to the baby. When Caleb cried harder, she shifted, rearranging her clothing so that she could nurse him.

Leaning back against a marble column, Atretes watched her body slowly relax in exhaustion. When he was sure she was sleeping, he lay down behind her and drew his own blanket over her and the baby. Her body was cold. He tucked her body firmly into the curve of his own so that his warmth could seep into her. She fitted him perfectly. The scent of her flesh aroused him, and he forced his thoughts to other things designed to chill his ardor. Gallus, for one.

Rizpah’s reminder had served its purpose. He had only met Pugnax once, and for business purposes. Bato had accompanied him. If not for the lanista’s presence, Atretes knew he might not have survived that night. The inn had been a mean little place compared to other establishments where he had been taken since then. Pugnax hadn’t much to show for his years in the arena. Atretes’ mouth curved bitterly. How much did he himself have to show for ten years of fighting for his life? Everything he had earned had been spent on that grand villa and its elaborate furnishings back in Ephesus. And for what? Julia. Beautiful, shallow, corrupt Julia.

Rizpah moved closer in her sleep, and Atretes sucked in his breath. Raising his head, he looked over her at his son. Even in her sleep, she snuggled the babe close, protecting and loving him. He brushed the stray tendrils of dark hair from her cheek and found her skin smooth and soft. He laid his head down again and closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep.

When he did, he dreamed he was chained in a small, dark cell without a door or window. There was no iron grate above him through which the guards could spy on him, only walls pressing in on him, the darkness growing. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came. He couldn’t breathe and struggled.

“Atretes,” someone said softly and he felt a gentle hand on his face. “It’s all right. Shhh.”

He drifted again, on calmer seas.

When he awakened, he saw Rizpah asleep beneath the marble bench. Annoyed, he prodded her. “It’s dawn.”

Atretes spent the last of his money on food on their way into the heart of the Empire. When he asked directions to the arena, Rizpah spoke for the first time all morning.

“Why are we going there?” He had been so determined to avoid it in Ephesus. Why was he seeking the place out in Rome?

“The Ludus Magnus is close by. I know a man there who can help me.” Just beyond the bustling construction of the colossal Flavian amphitheater was the ludus where he had spent the darkest years of his life.

“We can’t go there, Atretes.”

“There’s no other place we can go. You were right about Gallus,” he said grimly, “but there’s one man I can trust, and he’s at the ludus.”