“I love you. God help me, I love you, and you would do this!”
Her startling words filled him with a sense of relief and remorse. He knelt behind her and pulled her back into his arms, locking her there when he felt her body stiffen in resistance.
“I won’t hurt you. I swear on my sword.” He rested his head in the curve of her shoulder. “Let me hold you.” Her body shook with weeping. She made hardly any sound, which only made it worse. She didn’t trust him now, and why should she?
“I’m different,” he had said, but how different was he when he took out his wrath upon her? And why? Because she touched him with the tenderness she showed his son rather than the passion he craved?
“When you treated me like a child, I saw red,” he said against her hair, trying to find an explanation to wipe away the inexcusable. He shut his eyes tightly. “I was mad. I wasn’t thinking.”
“You’re always mad. You never think. Let me go,” she pleaded tearfully.
“Not until I make you understand—”
“Understand what? That I’m nothing to you, that you see me as no different from the women given to you in the ludus?” She fought again, gasping soft broken sobs when he held her so easily.
“You’re beginning to mean too much to me,” he said hoarsely. He felt her go still in his arms. “I’ve loved three women in my life. My mother, my wife, Ania, and Julia Valerian. All three are gone. My wife died in childbirth and took my child with her. My mother was killed by Romans, and Julia Valerian . . .” He closed his eyes tightly. “I’m not going to feel that kind of pain again.” He released her.
She turned and looked at him, her soulful dark eyes full of tears. “And so you’ll close your heart to anything that’s good.”
“I’m not going to love like that again.”
She didn’t tell him of her own losses. Family, husband, child. What was the use? “You’d rather I gave myself to you like a harlot, wouldn’t you? You’d rather have dross than gold.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to say it. You show me every time you look at me, every time you touch me!” Grief and anger mingled in her pale face. “You judge me for her actions and take your vengeance.”
“I should’ve known you wouldn’t understand. How can a woman understand a man?”
“I understand you refuse to let yourself love your own son fully because he might die or be taken captive, or grow up and disappoint you like his mother did. Does a man embrace such foolishness?”
A muscle jerked in his face, his eyes narrowing in anger. “Careful.”
“Of what? Your wrath? You’ve done your worst to me already. You’re brave with a sword or spear in your hand, Atretes. You have no peer in the arena. But in the things of life that really matter, you’re a coward!”
She rose quickly and returned to the other side of the chamber. Flinging herself down on her pallet beside Caleb’s basket, she curled on her side, and covered her body and head with the blanket.
Atretes lay back again on his own bed, but he couldn’t sleep for the soft sound of her weeping.
22
When Theophilus returned, Atretes lay in the dim light watching him. The Roman crossed the chamber quietly and stood over Rizpah. Caleb had awakened, and she had nursed him. When she had finished, she had kept him with her. Theophilus bent down and rearranged the blanket to cover her.
Atretes stood slowly, an uncomfortable heat tightening in his chest as he watched the tender gesture. Theophilus glanced toward him and straightened, not appearing surprised to see him awake. He smiled easily as he walked toward him, his smile dimming as he read his expression. “What’s wrong?”
“When can I get out of here?”
“We leave today,” Theophilus said in a hushed voice. “The city is in chaos. Soldiers have been recalled to fight the fire and control the panic. It’ll be easy for us to become a part of the mass of sojourners leaving the city right now.”
Atretes forgot his anger. “What about horses?”
“We’ll buy them farther north. They’ll be less expensive. Besides, if we’re in too much of a hurry we’ll draw the attention of the soldiers patrolling the road.”
“We’ll need supplies.”
“Rufus has already arranged it. We’ll carry enough provisions for a week and stay to the main roads where it’ll be least likely for Domitian’s soldiers to look for you.”
“What about Domitian?”
“His wrath is assuaged for the moment.”