The night passed without further incident. But Cassius’ words had had had their effect. While Jacob might have been willing to risk his own life, remaining in the mountain hideaway for any sign of his people returning, he was not willing to expose the girl. In his mind, in his heart, she had not only become like a daughter to him, but the one person, the one Jew, that his efforts might yet save.
He knew plainly what his wife would have wanted him to do. He knew the exact words, as surely as if she had whispered them in his ear.

“You can’t save the world, Jacob. It is too big, and you are only one

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man. The best you can hope to do is love those whom God has placed in your care.”
So with a single tear of age, of love for his wife who was gone, and for Ariel who yet lived, he opened the door of his house and stepped out into the light of day, with the quiet yet persistent tread of one whose faith remains, no matter the storms that lash him, or the dreams that he has lost.
Ariel heard his familiar knock at the door, and softly opened it. Cassius was still asleep, a rarity, and the boy remained beside him, sitting up with the unsheathed sword in his lap, and his own small blade bared and ready.
“Merciful Father,” said Jacob as he saw them. “So young, and already so willing to fight.”
“I know,” said the girl quietly, closing the door behind him. “In a way it’s tragic. But in another way it helps me to understand the man, the life he was brought up to. You must forgive him, Jacob, when he says things to hurt you. He’s not the man he wants to be now. His wounds, his loss, and the terrible danger we’ve all been in.....”
“No need to apologize, Ariel. After yesterday, after the fighting, I

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think I have a better idea of him myself. I will confess it is hard sometimes, never knowing when he is going to explode..... No, I don’t blame him for the way he is. It’s just so terribly sad to me, all the fighting, all the killing.” At that moment the Roman stirred, and sat up quickly. The boy handed him his sword.
“Jacob. Intruders?”
“No. I’m going to the lookouts now. I just wanted to arrange a meeting for this afternoon, to discuss our options. For leaving,” he added quickly. “I won’t dispute you any longer.” To this Cassius said nothing. There seemed little else to say.
“Oh, Jacob,” he put in, as the man was turning to leave. “Is Gaius still with us?”
“Yes. Still sleeping in my quarters.”
“Take him with you, will you? I don’t know his abilities, but I wouldn’t want you to be alone in an ambush.”
“Very well.”
“One more thing,” said the Roman, trying in his awkward way to show that he understood, and was sorry. “What are your impressions of

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him?”
“He is very young. As you might say, he is full of illusions. But he has a good heart, and I’m sure we can count on him. Well. I must be off.”
“Yes..... Jacob?” Again he turned. “Be careful.” The old man nodded.
#

The meeting was held in the long, two storied hall where Jacob had always envisioned it. But in that vision— in this dark moment he called it his fantasy— the room had been filled with the members of his congregation: men, women and children, planning a new life, and striking out for a brave destiny. The place seemed empty with just the five of them, just as the talk, and the poring over maps, seemed hollow and meaningless.
For the one thing that bound the three men together, was their love for Ariel. And the one man who possessed her utterly— Cassius— had no intention of sharing her affections..... The group would splinter, the girl would follow him, and he would take her where he would.
Nor was Jacob wrong. He soon found that Cassius listened, but only long enough to reject most of the escape routes he proposed. It was clear he

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had already decided for himself what course to take, and had no need of counsel, nor of any hand save his own. And with this came the slow, sad realization . . .that he could not help them. That for all his good intentions toward Ariel, his place was still here. That he must wait for his people, until the bitter end.
Cassius, in his turn, seemed to read this in the old man’s voice, his weary gestures. And as their eyes met, as Jacob shook his head, it was understood between them. As rabbi, he must remain behind. And while this saddened the Roman, for the girl’s sake, he knew it was probably for the best.
But by this time Cassius’ perceptions had made him aware of something else, infinitely more disturbing. For Gaius, though in his own mind furtive and discrete, could not help glancing at the girl with such a wistful yearning, that the two older men had no trouble at all in reading the tale of youthful infatuation behind it. Ariel, too, was aware of his glances, and on the rare occasions when she dared to look back at him, felt her face redden with the realization of his thoughts, and the effect they were sure to have on Cassius.
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And indeed, more than once he felt his hand grasp the hilt of his sword with open thoughts of murder. But each time something stayed him— something that went beyond consideration for her feelings, or his latent determination not to cause Jacob further anguish.
He could not explain it, and his animal nature raged against it. But somewhere inside him. . .a realization of his own was forming, though it galled him, and was far from complete. For the moment he let Gaius’ impudence stand.
#

But when the meeting was over, he asked Jacob to look after the boy. And as Ariel returned with him to their chambers, his sexual aggression would not be silenced. Without saying a word, or returning her questioning gaze, he poured out a goblet of wine, took a long draught, then handed the rest to her.

“Please don’t hurt him,” she said quickly, terrified to hear herself speak.
“Oh, I’m not going to hurt him,” said the man darkly. “Drink the wine, then take off your dress.”
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A month, a week, a day before, these words might have made her
pale with fear. But the night before he had been so gentle and loving, had taken her to him with such warm and passionate caresses..... And torn from her virginity by this strong and demanding man, reading in his burning eyes the intent behind the words. . .she only felt her heart beat faster, and the stirrings of a passion which she would not have believed possible, and which now came upon her with such urgency. She drank the wine, set down the goblet, and began to unbutton the dress.
But as she did he took the leather thong once more from about his neck.

“Do you remember this?” he said thickly.
“Yes,” she whispered in return.
“I’m going to do to you now what I should have done then, when you were helpless, and completely in my power.”
“Yes.”
He doubled the braided leather as before, wrapping it tight about his opposite hand. Then he came closer, and with both hands at her chest, tore open the front of her dress.
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“But your stitching,” she whispered. “And the promises you made.”

“What I have done I can undo. What I have healed, I can tear asunder.” And with the hand that held the leather he took hold of her hair, with his right hand opening the dress further to expose the treasures of her body. “And do you remember the day you betrayed me?”
“Yes.”
“And the Spanish soldier you ran to. What would he have done to you?”
“Raped me.”
“And what did I do to him?”
“You killed him.”
“Yes. As I will kill Gaius if he ever tries to act on his little boy love..... And then I came to you, like this. And holding open your dress, crushed you to me. Like this. What did you say to me then?”
“No, Cassius. Please don’t hurt me.”
“But I want to hurt you.” And he took her wrist in the strong right hand she knew so well, took the other in his left. And brought them together. And bound her, to his will alone.
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“Don’t move,” he said sternly. He went to the pack beside the bed, and took from it a length of cord. Returning to stand before her, he said. “With such as this I dragged you to the cave, where you were but a cowering child before me.”
With this her eyes looked searchingly into his. “You wouldn’t really hurt me, Cassius? You know that I love you.”
“Then show me,” he said. And before she could find the words to answer he had tied the cord about the bind at her wrists, and thrown the remaining length over the ceiling beam. Then with a sudden jerk he pulled the end down, lifting her arms high above her head. He put the remaining length through the loop, tied it off, and she was held fast.
Then slowly, with a deliberate strength that was unnerving to see and feel, he tore off the rest of her clothes. Until she stood, naked and exposed before him. Then took off his own clothes slowly, watching her.
He came closer, and just as she began to feel true fear she felt his strong and calloused hands upon her— reassuring, and at the same time commanding. They slid about her waist, down to her buttocks, then began to glide gently but firmly upward. Massaging her shoulder blades, clawing

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at the small of her back as his mouth nipped hungrily at her shoulder, her neck, healing with his tongue and then kissing her. Kissing and licking her mouth, her chin. Then her neck and down, yes, down to her breasts, her nipples firming beneath that warm, wet, mystical touch.
Then he was behind her, his hands firmly grasping her hips, pulling her back and to him. She felt his hardening penis lift between the skin of her thighs, his hands, too, massaging both front and back and opening her to him. As her vagina, wet and longing, parted in anticipation. And with a swift thrust he was inside her, his hands at her breasts and his face so close to hers.
“I want you to think of Gaius,” he said to her.
“No.”
“Yes. Your beloved Gaius. Imagine him standing before you now— naked, and with the look of adoring love in his eyes.” She could not resist him, nor did her flesh desire to.
“Yes,” he continued. “Now I burst into the room and find you. What do I do to him?”
“Don’t make me say it,” she pleaded, breathing harder.

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“Say it!”
“Kill him.”
“How?”
“Put your sword in him. . .deep into his chest.”
“Yes. With my sword,” he said, thrusting hard and deep. “My penis is a sword, and I’m killing you.” He pulled her back still farther, till with a groan from the pain in her wrists she felt herself being lifted into the air. He knew she was in pain. He felt the animal inside him full upon its prey, stabbing and killing. As he felt his brutal second nature beginning to respond with merciless orgasm.
But slowly, now gently, he let her down. Pulled back, and out of her. This was not what he wanted. Not now, not with Ariel. He stepped back, then went to get his knife. Her face clouded with fear as he came toward her, but he shook his head quickly, with eyes that had lost their love of violence. And cut her down.
“I said just now that if you loved me you must prove it. You have, many times. Now it is I, who must show you.”
And as her arms, still bound, came down around his neck, he lifted

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her by the legs, and was inside her once more. But this time as she wrapped tighter and held on to him he carried her gently, lovingly to the bed. And after he had set her so lightly upon it. . .his thrusts were no longer like those of a weapon, but more the tender strokes of love and longing.
“That I will never hurt you,” he promised. “That I will always care for you. Shelter you. And love, and love and love you.

“Ariel!”
And now as the orgasm came it was for her, only for her and it was sweet, and sad, and hurting and longing and knowing it was over but fighting and trying to go a little farther, feeling her vagina throb as the first orgasm of her life broke loose from her like a caged animal. Until they lay together, one flesh, breathing hard and knowing the bittersweet, the beauty and the ugliness, the fullness and the emptiness, the mortal, ending, living for this moment because there was nothing else and his arms held her close though he knew deep down..... But he could not know it yet. Not yet.
And for Ariel it felt so warm as he held her, and painful, and filling and answering yet full of so many doubts and questions. But her womb still throbbed with the movement his flesh had caused inside her, embracing and
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drinking in his seed, the life that with his life he had put inside her. And even then she knew.....
He was inside her.

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Thirty-Three

So passed the three days that Cassius had allowed before they must be gone. He would have taken them sooner but for two considerations. If they were to have any chance of eluding the Vandal horde, it must be at a time when they were deep in Suevian territory, and fully engaged in the pursuit and destruction of their enemy.
Just as importantly, though it was a hard thing to admit— still harder to feel— from the moment of his forceful and passionate intercourse with Ariel, he was at every moment beset by a weakness and fatigue that would not be allayed.
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He wanted to believe that it was nothing more than the chill he had received the day of the fighting— a simple chest cold that Gaius had brought with him from the battlefield. But in his heart, in his bones, he knew it was more. Often now when he rose he felt a rush of dizziness, an unnatural surging of the heart that sought to drag him down. It felt, combined with the weakness of his limbs, like the weight of a stone he had carried all his life, that grew heavier with age, and with each passing day. Even when he lay down to sleep there was no rest, no peace. If he turned on his side, or lay on his stomach the breath would not come, and he was forced to turn back with a sense of drowning and dismay.
What this did to his thoughts, his emotions, was indescribable. In a blank and horrible way, he felt as though his whole life had been preparing him for these last, dying days. But unlike the years of training and hardship which had prepared him for war, this empty weight of suffering, this hopelessness. . .prepared him only to surrender, to let go of life.
No! his spirit cried, and again he would turn to face the endless hardship. But sometimes, at night, when the girl lay down beside him, warm with love and affection and asked him how he felt, it was all he could

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do to remain silent, put his arms around her, and hold her ruefully for as long as he could, unable to breathe as the soft and despairing tears rolled utterly without feeling down his cheek.
On the third day he knew that he must rise, and walk, and by death or by life shake off this clinging malady which stole the resilience from his flesh, and the resistance from his soul. There was no other way. He rose with the morning, and called the old man to him.
No more deserters had shown themselves, but this could mean anything. And to be left with only fears instead of knowledge, instead of first-hand intelligence. . .this, too, was unacceptable.
So after a light breakfast, and leaving Gaius to guard Ariel and the boy, he set out with Jacob to explore the northernmost outlooks. It was a journey of some hours. And though on several occasions he felt his limbs weaken and his breath grow tight, he knew, or believed, or merely hoped, that this was what he needed: to stir the blood, breathe the free wind, and shake off the killing dust of despair.
Nor was reconnaissance the only reason for their journey. Aside from having a look at the surrounding countryside— important enough, just

that— he wanted to scout the granite rise itself, and to test the feasibility of a plan which, when his thoughts were not wholly black, had continued to form inside him.
But when they reached the northernmost edge of the eight mile spine of rock, as they looked down on the broken gap where the Vandals and the Sueves had first clashed, the grim battlefield where they had found the boy..... He saw, even from that height, a sight which destroyed any small stirrings of hope in that direction. Footprints in the snow that had fallen but a day before, formed a pattern his trained eye was loathe to read. The footprints were of varying size, which meant women and children, and there were small half-circles in the snow.....
“What is it?” asked Jacob, his aged eyes unable to penetrate the hard contrast of sunlit snow and deep shadow.
“The Vandals have been here: their women and children. To search the bodies, perhaps to take furs against the cold.”
“How can you tell?”
“The different sizes of the prints, the wandering nature of the smaller ones: children. And the way the larger ones move in a circle to avoid the

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most gruesome scenes of violence.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No barbarian, no man, would give death such a wide berth, but would put long stakes among the bodies to pry them apart, and take what they wanted.”
For a time Jacob brooded over this, trying to find some reason to discount Cassius’ interpretation of the signs. But there was none. And in the darkened state of his own emotions, the weariness of his soul, this mental picture of cruel men, looting the dead and decaying, was just too much to face. And as he started to rise and turn away, he was struck down by a still more terrible realization.
“But then..... The Vandals are still in the ravine, the river valley.”
“Yes,” said Cassius, “at least one tribe of them. And their men, returning from battle, must come this way.” He started to add that this ruled out all escape to the north, but saw there was something in this new intelligence that was far more disturbing to the rabbi. He looked as though he had lost the last semblance of hope.
“Jacob,” he said quietly, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve had to

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face a good deal of despair myself these past days. But we can’t give up. Not yet.”
“You don’t understand,” said Jacob blankly.
“Then tell me.”
“If the Vandals are still in the western valley, and beyond. . .then my people have no chance to reach us..... They are probably dead already.”
Cassius waited as long as he could. “Maybe they are, Jacob. But we’re not. And until we are, then none of us can give up. For her sake.”
“We,” said the other flatly. “You will take her. You will do what you want.”
“And if something should happen to me? Have you thought of that? Listen, Jacob. I want you to come with us.” The old man looked up at him. “Why? What possible use could I be?”
“You can keep me from killing Gaius, for one thing.”
“And the young man? You want to bring him, too?”
“You’re not listening, Jacob. I am not the man I was. True, a year, a month ago I would have taken Ariel and the boy, and gone my own way without a second thought. But my heart..... I think it’s truly failing.”
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Jacob studied him in silence, this man he thought he knew. There was

no deception in the Roman’s eyes: he was afraid for the safety of the girl. He was asking for his help. “I need time to think,” was the only answer he could give.
“Time is a luxury we do not have. We must set out tomorrow. I need

your answer now.”
“.....the Vandals are truly encamped by the river?”
“Yes. If you look behind you, you’ll see the smoke of a fire that was not there when we arrived. No deserter, no refugee, would light a fire in this broad daylight. Only someone who controlled the land. Only the Vandals.” Even as they watched, a second column of smoke appeared, first bending west with the wind, then continuing to rise toward the open sky.
“There is a cluster of abandoned houses there,” admitted the rabbi reluctantly. “Beneath a steep face that hides them from view. Perhaps enough to house.....”
“The women and children of a tribe of barbarians? Yes, and their men must return for them soon.”
“But if they were only women and children,” said Jacob, still fighting

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the hard truth. “Surely they would be more cautious.”
“The older men remain behind to protect them. And they can still fight, believe me, or they’d have been abandoned long before. Stop disputing me, Jacob! We must be gone at daybreak; I need your answer now.”
But as much as he wanted to grasp at this last straw of life and meaning..... No. The news that his people were beyond help, worse than dead. . .was just too much. He thought surely he must weep, but there were no tears left. Only words.
“What’s happening to the world, Cassius? Why the insanity, and the senseless killing?”
“I can’t answer for the world, Jacob. Sometimes I can’t even answer for myself. But there’s a beautiful young girl back there, and a little boy, who still deserve a chance at life. We’ve got to give them that chance. Nothing else matters. Jacob. There is nothing else.”
The old man took a deep breath. Then with an effort that was like re-shouldering a burden he had carried for many years and many miles, and but recently set down in despair, he stood up and said wearily. “All right,

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Cassius. I’ll come with you.”
“Good,” said the soldier, faltering. “That’s good.”
“You know,” said the rabbi, fighting back his own emotions and trying not to notice. “For a Roman, you’re a lot like a Jew.”
Cassius gave a heartless laugh. “In what way?”
“You’re at your best when things are worst. Then all the shallowness, all the selfishness, disappear, and you do what is right. You find a way to preserve your people.”
“But for how long, Jacob? How long.....”
To that there could be no answer. The two men stood, breathed in the mortal air, then began the long journey back to the place where they had left the ones they loved.






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Thirty-Four

While the two older men grappled with death and futility, Gaius and Ariel, in the innocence of their young hearts, struggled with something that was to them every bit as poignant and overpowering: Life and possibility.
For Gaius it was the hopeless and obsessive love he held for the girl. In his youth and longing, every obstacle placed in his path, from the menacing presence of her lover, the thought of whose rough hands upon her sweet body were as nails of ice into his heart, to her own melancholy resistance, which he attributed to the fear of arousing his wrath, only drove him on, and fanned the glowing embers of his love.
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And something else stirred in his breast as well, less noble perhaps: something which he had been able to feel for other women only in the abstract, and never in the flesh. Her gentle touch, her beautiful and sympathetic eyes, the dark hair and slender form which on the most primal level spoke to him of his mother when he was but a babe, and she little
more than a girl..... All combined to arouse in him what he thought could never be.
His body longed for her.
To be left alone with her now, to have the man he so dreaded and despised suddenly offer him his hand, and charge him with her safety, as he had always imagined a loving and protective father would..... To be alone in her room, at the foot of the very bed in which she slept..... Even the presence of the boy, whose hostility the girl must constantly check, and her own polite coldness toward him, could not stop the overflowing of his heart. Like a fountainhead forced by Spring rains, he could no more stop the flow of feelings than he could stop his heart from beating. After but a short time of watching her move about the room, her beauty all the more poignant for her self-conscious reserve, he felt the waters burst forth into words. He

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tried to choke them back, succeeded once, but then could fight it no longer.
“You know that I love you.”
Ariel stopped, her back to him, flushed and agitated. “Why do you say such ridiculous things?”
“Because it’s true,” he said passionately, taking a step forward and then drawing back. “Because I will not rest until you feel the same for me.”
She turned now, truly angry. “And what have you done to earn my love, Gaius? Tiberius Gaius, son of a Senator of Rome? Protected,
sheltered, eating off gold plates while men like Cassius fought and died to preserve your way of life.” She paced a little, gathering her thoughts.
“You think I stay with him because I have no choice. Don’t deny it. I read it in your eyes every time you look at me. I love him, Gaius. He saved my life. Can you understand that?”
“And that means he owns you?” pleaded the young man, his hands beginning to tremble.
“Of course not! Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? He’s been fighting and searching all his life: he deserves my love. He took me from a burning village, protected me, gave me food and shelter as best he could,

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and time to come back to my senses. While you..... You fight one battle and you think you’ve seen it all. You wake from your little hell to find me leaning over you, with a look of care and sympathy that I would have felt for anyone, and think I’ve dropped like a ripe pear into your lap. I’m not one of your slave girls, Gaius. You can’t fondle me as you please the moment we’re alone.”
But for all her righteous anger— her loyalty to Cassius, and the shame she felt at being tempted away from him— it was no less troubling to see the effect her words produced in him. He had gone quite pale, was trembling outright, and seemed on the verge of tears.
“But it’s not like that at all! If you only knew how it was for me. If you could only look into my heart, and see how purely— ”

But before he could finish the boy made a rush at him with the knife, which he barely had time to turn aside. At that the child kept kicking and struggling to be free of his grasp, until the girl came up and gently but firmly calmed him, and drew him back. Then turned to Gaius, her emotions a whirlwind.
“I think you should leave.”
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“But Cassius told me to protect you.”
“Then do it from outside this door. And don’t come through it again until you can stop talking nonsense, and act like a man.”
Gaius hung his head mournfully, and did as she asked. But as he looked back at her one last time through the closing door, he thought (or fancied, or merely hoped) that he saw a glimmer of pain in her eyes, a pain born not of anger but of sadness, and from doubting her own heart. But then her face was gone behind the impassible door, and the cold closed quickly around him.

#

He stood in the fleeting warmth and lingering cold of the Winter sun for what seemed hours. His thoughts, like the air around him, were one moment suffused with the light and warmth of hope, the next, snuffed out by cold despair, and the realization that she did not love him. He had just resolved, for perhaps the tenth time, to abandon his watch and seek shelter in Jacob’s cabin, and for the tenth time stubbornly held on, when he heard

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the door open again behind him.
“Your food is ready,” said the girl with perfect composure. “Come in out of the cold before you make yourself ill again.”
Without a word Gaius did as she asked, came inside, and sat in the chair she indicated. But he could no more eat in her presence than he could have drawn his sword in anger.
“May I just talk to you?” he said, as she and the boy sat down to join him. “I promise I won’t say anything. . .to upset you.”
“If you like.”
“Yes..... I just wanted to tell you that my life is not what you thought. True, I have known wealthy Romans, some of them my friends, who did the things you describe. But I.....” Again it was a hard thing to admit. “I am not my father’s legitimate son. My mother was not his wife, but his mistress. We were kept comfortably enough, it is true. It is also true that I was sent to school, then employed as a scribe, the reason that my calluses— earned with no small labor on the rowing bench— are still new. But you must believe, I have known my share of hard work. And though I may not have the build of a soldier, it is hardly that of a girl.”
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Ariel studied him now, in the pause that it took to gather himself. His shoulders, beneath the silk tunic, were certainly not those of a laborer. But they were solid enough, and merged quite well into his chest and neck, a bit slender perhaps, but graceful. His face, too, was fair: the finely chiseled nose and chin, the mouth drawn tight as he tried to explain. His hair was light brown and curling, combed forward in the Roman style. The wound on his forehead would heal. And the passionate eyes that so troubled her. . .were blue. But now they had caught her gaze, and she looked away.
“You must believe me,” he went on, in his urgent and imploring way. “I have known what it is to suffer. My father was hardly that when I was young. He came to see us perhaps twice a week, to take his pleasure, maybe bounce me on his knee for the sake of conscience. Then he was gone without a word. He only brought us to live with him a few years ago, when his legal wife died and left him without an heir.
“I don’t know if you can understand this. It is a very personal thing..... My mother was a slave, Ariel. This ‘arrangement’ is how she earned her freedom, and guaranteed mine. It is a hard thing to see one’s mother so used, little more than a plaything in the hands of a low and

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manipulative old man..... What’s wrong? Have I said something to upset you?”
“Nothing….. Go on.”
“There were no slave girls, Ariel. The truth is, I’m very shy. . .with women. There was a girl once, that I thought I could love.....”
He blushed deeply, but when he looked up she only said, more gently,

“Go on.”
“I don’t know what else to say. My mother is still young. . .still fair. And now she is given to a barbarian chieftain, whom I daresay treats her no better than my father. I don’t even know where she is..... God, it just kills me.”
“At least she is alive,” said the girl, her eyes misting. Then to cover her feelings she added quickly. “Where there is life.....”
But so absorbed was Gaius in thoughts of outrage, that he did not notice the emotions of the girl he professed to love. He came back to the present, but only to his own feelings.
“As for myself, it is partly true what you said. But only partly. However it is for Cassius when he fights, you must know that the battle of

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which you speak so lightly..... It nearly ended my life. Not from the wound, which was trivial enough..... They were all around me, Ariel, a sea of murdering horsemen. Friends who had been sent into exile with me, were dead and dying all around. Only my wits, and lying like a dead man beneath a bleeding corpse, saved me. Then in my eagerness to appear mortally wounded, I cut myself too deeply, and nearly bled to death. And then the dreams, and the struggle to get up and go on. I might well have perished there.
“It is true that when I first opened my eyes, when I saw you, I believed that God had sent you to me. But not as a whore. God, no. As an Angel of Mercy. I couldn’t help falling in love with you. I know, but it’s true. If you don’t wish me to say it, all right. But I swear I can’t stop feeling it.”
But now, as he looked close at her, and saw the pain in that beloved face..... “What’s wrong? Only tell me how to serve you, I will do it. Have I hurt you? Do you want me to leave?”
He was not overreacting. Her countenance, set and placid as he began, had slowly lost its composure. As grown up and self-sufficient as

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she was trying to be, as indifferent to his words and his existence, she was still, at heart, a lonely orphan girl. She could not help reading in his story, in his whole bearing, a similarity to her own experience.
But it was more than that. A lonely girl, for years kept from all contact with young men, then taken and wholly dominated by a man much older than herself..... She could not help but commiserate with Gaius, and feel an affinity, a youthful friendship, even attraction toward him. And it struck her as terribly sad that these two men, both of whom she cared for, could find no compromise to allow even this simple feeling. She hid her face, barely able to keep from crying.
“What is it?” he asked again.
“Oh, Gaius. I’m sorry for the hurtful things I said. It’s not what I feel at all. But couldn’t..... Couldn’t we just be friends?”
He started to answer in the negative, insisting that his love was too strong, for that. But when he realized she was crying, when he saw the anguish these words caused in her.....
“All right. If that’s what you want. I’ll try, for your sake. Just tell me this, please.”
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“What is it?”
“Does he. . .hurt you?” And he was fretted with tears of his own.
She shook her head. “No, Gaius. I love him, and he is not well. So please. Please. Don’t speak ill of him. Don’t push me to feel something. . . that can never be.”
He found that he could only rise, put an unsteady hand, so lightly, to her hair. And leave the room to control himself.
The two older men returned a short time later, and nothing more was said of it.

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When Cassius returned that night, he felt a little better: death no longer seemed imminent, only inevitable. His breath was still tight, and every muscle trembled with fatigue. But his heart, through simple use, felt less constricted, and he no longer experienced the horrible sensation of being dragged down and under every time he rose. If not for the anxieties of the coming day, when they must again leave behind all shelter, he might even have known a moment’s peace.
“And if my horse had wings it could fly,” he muttered to himself, opening the door of yet another home that would never be his.
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And though the girl came up and embraced him, though he ruffled the boy’s hair and greeted him in simple German, the darkness of his emotions would not be abated. It was as if, in his physical crisis, his fears and regrets had not been able to confront him directly, like a dreadful banshee cry that had gone beyond the range of human hearing. But now as his body calmed somewhat, his thoughts became more rational, the sound had slowed and descended enough to fill his ears with the horrible screams of the dead and the dying. Scenes of death and battle, rape and pillage that had meant nothing to him at the time, returned in their full human consequence to haunt him.
But he said nothing, and for the girl’s sake maintained his composure through the evening meal, though again he was able to eat little. And when they lay down together his thoughts were less troublesome. He was able to hold her without physical anguish, and the constant sensation of drowning.
“Are you all right?” asked the girl.
“I’m a little better. And you?”
“I don’t know,” she said suddenly, passionately. And her fingers gripped more tightly at his chest. He thought he knew why.
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“What passed between you and Gaius?” he asked in his turn, trying not to feel what he could not stop feeling.
“Words,” she said defensively. “Cassius? Why did you leave me with him?”
“To protect you.”
“But did it have to be here, in our home?”
“What did he do?” said the man, bristling.
“Nothing. No, Cassius, don’t upset yourself. He would never do anything aggressive..... He’s not like that. We just talked.” The man took a
few deeper breaths to control himself, remembered it was he who had brought them together.
“What did he tell you?”
“Nothing that was wrong, or hurtful. He just told me about his life.”
“About his sensitivity? about how hard it is to be young, sheltered, and misunderstood?” Though his sarcasm was real, though he tried not to be, he was interested. He wanted to know as much about the young man as possible.
“He’s not like that, Cassius. I won’t speak of it, if it upsets you.”
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“Nay, girl, I’m not angry. The truth is, I want to know.”
“You’re very sure?”
“Yes.”
So the girl, at first cautiously, then with greater ease as he remained calm, related the events of the day, withholding only what she knew he would not understand.
And when she had finished, all he could do was look up at the ceiling, watch the play of light and shadow, the slow, inexorable wane of the dying fire.
“And now you’re confused in your heart.”
“No..... Yes,” she said quickly, afraid of the effect this admission would have, on both of them. Yet he said nothing, only shifted a little on the bed.
But she knew, at least in some measure, what he had been feeling these past days: the presence of death, and the fear of losing what he had found. And she was only beginning to sense a deeper fear, one that had nothing to do with himself. “Oh,” she said, moving closer. “I wish it wasn’t like this.”
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“In what way?” he asked quietly, stroking her face.
“I wish that it was me. . .that there was another woman, and the

torment was mine.”
“But there is another woman,” he said emphatically, and with the strange quality that his voice assumed when something was coming from the depths. These were the rare glimpses of his soul that Ariel sometimes longed for. Yet when they came.....
“What do you mean?” she asked intently.
“There is another woman, Ariel. Arna. Don’t you know that you can never take her place in my heart?”
At the utterance of these words, both were driven deep into themselves, though they lay in each other’s arms.
For Cassius it was the stark truth of what he had just told her. With his own death seeming to loom so near, he found that the undercurrent of his thoughts, his soul, led him more and more to the wife and child he had lost. In some ways their presence seemed more tangible than that of the girl he now held, and of the strange, silent boy she had taken as her own. As much as he wanted to turn from the past, and embrace this second chance at life,

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this second family..... They had been his flesh, his own. Arna was his true wife, the one he had taken utterly: who had carried, and borne . . .his son. The woman who had given her life to him, for him. Who had suffered his excesses, and still found a way to love him. Not as scintillating to touch, perhaps, not as exotically beautiful as Ariel. But more quietly warm when he held her, more truly joined to his flesh. More his.
For Ariel it was the unbelievable pain of what he had just told her. Can never take her place. After all they had been through. After she had consented to give herself to him, as she had never given herself to anyone. It would have been an unbearable sting, if she had not known him better, had not understood how hard these days were for him.....
“Why did you say that to me just now? Were you trying to hurt me?”
“No.” And the sudden pressure of his arms as he held her tight and kissed her forehead, told her this was true. “I don’t know. Sometimes..... Sometimes I think my place is with them.”
“With your wife and son?” But even the use of these words, which could not truthfully be applied to herself and the boy, confirmed the chasm that Death had opened between them. She could only add weakly. “But
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Cassius. They’re dead.”
And though she half expected him to say mockingly, and in the old, fatalistic manner: “Yes, and I’m likely to join them,” he did nothing of the kind. Instead she felt his chest heave.
“Yes, and I’m alive. And so long as I am I will always love you. But you must be prepared..... Must be able to go on..... If I can’t.”
To this she could make no answer. There was no answer. He only kissed her again, loosed his grip that he might breathe more freely. Then in sudden despair crushed her to him again.
And in time, both would sleep.

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It could be said that Cassius woke several hours before the dawn. It could more truthfully be said that he had not slept at all. His anxieties about their escape, long suppressed by the more immediate concerns of life and limb, now came upon him full and unrelenting. Where would they go, and how? Would there be enough to eat, or adequate shelter, day after day, from the onslaught of Winter? These questions so old, so endless. And underlying all, what if he dropped dead along the way, leaving them in Jacob’s old, or Gaius’ inexperienced hands?
His desperate plan to double back to the north— where the Vandals

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were least likely to expect survivors, and least likely to follow if they did— had all depended on their ability to follow the granite spine, then the ravine itself, to its roots in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Then move among the sheltering pines, eastward, toward the sea. Perhaps his boat was still there, where he had hidden it. Or there in some quiet backwater was another, that had somehow escaped destruction. From there to sail on to some remote and uninhabited island.
But the Vandal women, God damn them. Right in their path. Unless they could climb the ridge on the far side of the gap. And what if they could not? What if, as seemed likely, it became at some point impassible, and they were forced to descend? Or worse, turn back? And if the Vandals were here in the southern end of the ravine, what was to keep them from venturing, and settling, farther to the north? Nothing. They were not soft, southern Italians, afraid of wind and cold, but of German origin, undaunted by the Alps or Pyrenees. And before that, from the frozen North itself: the mighty barbarian invasion, which was in truth only the mass migration of peoples forged hard and ruthless by the hammer of ice and anvil of stone, while Rome had grown soft and fat. The wolf devours the lamb. Only he himself

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was wolf, and those he protected were not lambs, and all such thoughts were meaningless. Let the Greeks philosophize on good and evil. Without their Alexander, as ruthless and ambitious as any man who ever lived…..

And what if the Vandals simply returned from their battle with the Sueves the same way that he and Ariel had first come, pursuing his frightened horse across the open plain, and down into the ravine from the north? They would be met head on by the whole Vandal horde. At least they would die quickly..... No. They might still be taken by a single tribe, or divided among them— tortured and tormented before they were allowed to die. And perhaps Ariel would not die at all, but go on living, in bondage and in Hell.....
“No.”
There was no working it out. As Ariel and the boy stirred, he left off his fears and futile pacing. He dressed himself warmly, and went out to find Jacob.

The night sky was clear and cold. Even this worked against them. A steady snowfall might have covered their tracks, as they descended and moved toward the river. He released a weary sigh, shook himself against

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the cold. Then coming to Jacob’s door, knocked lightly. No answer. He knocked a second time, hard and impatient. This time, after an interval, the door was opened.
“Is it time?” asked Jacob, with Gaius right behind him. The old man’s face betrayed anxiety, but the younger man’s was set and determined.
“Not yet. But we need to talk, and have another look at your maps.”
“All right, then. Come in, come in.”
But after more than an hour of puzzling over charts, discussing options and dangers, Cassius was no closer to deciding. His mind was frayed, his heart confused. Every way his thoughts turned, they were baffled and betrayed by the maze of possibility and circumstance, or brought up short by impassible hardship and danger.
Yet despite all this he knew, knew in the marrow of his bones, that the greatest danger of all was to stay: to remain still and do nothing. A wounded comrade of his had done that when spotted by a bear in the black forests of Saxony. That comrade had been torn to pieces.
“So what is the plan?” asked Gaius finally, with the youthful belief that there must always be a way: one true path, that if followed, would lead

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through peril into dream.
“There is none, Gaius. Jacob, put away the maps. We will wait for snow, then descend to the south. From there we must take what comes, and make the best decisions we can.”
“Then we won’t be leaving with first light?” The rabbi could not entirely conceal his relief.
“No,” said the soldier wearily. “I’m exhausted, for one thing. If you and Gaius will watch the surrounding countryside, to the north and south respectively, we’ll hope for snow in the afternoon. If we get it, we’ll set out an hour before dusk. If not, we’ll leave when it’s dark, prepared to go all night. Are we agreed?”
Jacob nodded thoughtfully. But Gaius, to whom the question had not been addressed, could not help proposing an idea of his own. “I’ve been thinking— ”
“No one asked you!” said Cassius sharply. Then remembering, he added less harshly. “No one says you know nothing, Gaius. But when surrounded by dangers, there is no substitute for experience. You will admit, at least, that I have that in my favor.”
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Gaius reddened and turned away, unable to look his rival in the face, or call him by name.
“Well then, Jacob. With your permission, I’ll bid you what’s left of the night. Set out for the lookouts at dawn, and keep me informed of anything unusual. I’ll come out myself about noon. Gaius..... I wish you would look at me when I speak to you.” He did, reluctantly. “If you want to serve the group you will go the entrance, and watch all movements to the south and east. Take your sword, and be on your guard. Do you understand?”
“Of course I understand. And it seems to me, I have already served you.”
“And it seems to me,” said Cassius, straightening, “that you have only served yourself, and the seditious designs you have on my wife!” And in a swift moment all his fear and frustration turned to rage, seeking the old outlet in violence.
But true to the task that Cassius had assigned him (and to his own nature), Jacob put a quieting hand on his arm. The Roman took a deep breath.

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“Your desires may yet be realized, Gaius. But for that you must live long enough to see me dead.” And turning sharply, he left the room.

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Thirty-Seven

The clouds had been gathering since morning, billowing down from the frozen North, till now they filled all the sky, dark and lowering. The temperature, too, had fallen steadily, and the light snow that had begun an hour before was now turned heavy, blotting out the sky. And even in the shelter of the rock walls the wind swirled thick, harbinger of blizzard.
The company stood assembled on the small, elevated ground before the buildings, all the belongings they felt it necessary and prudent to carry in large fur packs on the ground before them. The faces of all, from the aged rabbi to the German child, were taut and uncertain. Only Cassius

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seemed to hold their purpose and resolve firmly in his mind, and this but the necessary illusion of command. He was the first to shoulder his burden. Seeming to feel it a kind of challenge, Gaius was the next to put his arms through the straps, and lift the heavy bundle onto his back. Then Jacob and Ariel, looking to each other for encouragement.
“Shouldn’t we really wait.....” he began. But the murderous look of the Roman silenced him.
But violence was not what Cassius felt. Nor courage. Nor angry determination. Nor even fear, in its truest and most direct sense. What he felt most of all, in the moment he could least afford to, was an overwhelming sense of impossibility. The snow that he had longed for, in his way even prayed for, had come. Yet the heavy, swirling powder, already forming into drifts about them, was like a drowning flood in answer to a farmer’s prayer for rain. This lunatic storm. . .would smother them before they had gone five miles.
And yet they must go on. With the Vandal settlement on one side of the ridge, the deserters on the other, a presentiment of danger, indeed, a gut level fear had been growing inside him all the long, sleepless night and day.

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That fear now penetrated the weak armor of his resolve, and joining together with the sense of absurd futility, nearly drove him to his knees in despair.
But not quite. There remained enough courage, enough simple human stubbornness, to make him stand beneath his burden, howl silently at the sky, then begin to move forward. “The time is now,” were the only words he could find to give the others. But knowing their peril, and seeing they had no choice, they followed.
The first steps were the hardest, descending by the rough-hewn
stairs of the platform. It seemed to each as they filed down in turn, that these few irrevocable steps had carried them forever from the world of safety and shelter, into a storm that would rage for a lifetime. But their leader continued forward, never looking back, and they must follow. And indeed, after but a few steps more, the compound was lost to sight, as if it had never been more than a secret place within the heart, a memory of safe and warm childhood into which these children who were grown had slipped for but the briefest escape from the horrors of the wakened world.
They plodded on, through the high walls which steered their

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inescapable course, toward the entrance which would lead them back to the harsh and violent world below. Cassius went first, more afraid to stop than to continue. For if once he did, for a single moment allowing himself to feel the wretchedness of both mind and body, he knew that all was lost. It was probably lost already, and the weak tremor of his limbs, the sick flutter of his heart, told him he would not live to see the journey’s end, or taste the salt air once more upon his tongue.

The Sea, that his whole soul longed for, that had kept him alive as he fled from Rome in torment. If only once more to set his boat upon the breast of the waters, himself, alone, lying down now to surrender. As in the blinding snow he felt that he moved not at all, through a world without shape or form, his mind adrift.....
In his boat, lying on his back, feeling himself float above the void. The water so gentle. . .now turned to air. . .and he was rising toward the sun, a dazzling light that grew until it filled all the sky—
A shock of horror brought him back. He had reached the entrance, the ledge beyond, and nearly stepped out into nothingness. But this was not what froze the blood in his veins and rooted him there, unable to move or think. A half defined human form, two, three, were on the slope below him, climbing upward with their heads down, as blind to him now as he had been to them but a moment before.
Cassius forced himself, hands trembling, to draw his sword. Then

turned and with his arm waved the others forward: Jacob with his bow, Gaius with his sword. But they were not there. And still the shapes drew on, not randomly but in a file, as if they knew. . .had been told.....

#

Ariel saw Jacob slip down, then give a muffled cry as his leg struck a root of stone, half buried in the snow. She called out for Cassius to stop, but he was too far ahead and could not hear her. But Gaius heard, and came running back. The boy was still beside her.
She knelt down in the snow next to Jacob, asked Gaius to help lift him off the injured leg. Then together they set him back against the stone wall, straightened both legs out before him. As she ran her hands along the affected area, she felt no blood or broken bones. But several times he winced from the pain, and the area just below the knee seemed particularly tender.
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“We’ll have to take him back,” said the girl. “Gaius, help me lift him.” But at that moment, through a lull in the wind they heard Cassius cry out in rage, followed by a confusion of sounds: shouting, the clash of arms. The wind blew harsh again, and by the time it died down, all was ghostly quiet. Ariel began to run toward the entrance, but Gaius caught her by the arm. She tried to break free but he only caught hold of her more firmly, with both hands turning her toward him.

“I’ll go to him as soon as I can! Right now we’ve got to get you to safety!” And though she struggled he drew her back toward Jacob, put one arm beneath his shoulder and tried to lift him. Ariel, coming back to herself, got on the other side of him to help. The three stood up, for a moment facing toward the entrance.....
But toward them walked a man who was not Cassius. And behind him two others, one supporting the next as if he had been wounded. Gaius drew his sword. Ariel screamed, and began to run. Jacob, now standing on his own, threw up his arms to the heavens.

Ashamed, Ariel stopped and turned round. Gaius was standing with the sword poised, keeping the men at their distance. Jacob had fallen as

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from a blow, his head down. She ran to him, hot tears stinging her eyes. And in her heart the more terrible sting of knowing all was lost. “Jacob, forgive me. What have they done to you?”
“They have broken my heart,” he said in Hebrew. Then more loudly. “Isaac, is it really you? Isaac the blacksmith and his two strong sons?” Then Ariel saw Cassius, his shoulder supporting a fourth man, with a shadowy figure behind.
“What is happening?” she cried, in her distress not understanding.
“A miracle,” said Jacob. “My people have come home.” And he was able to say no more.

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Thirty-Eight

But words, and more importantly, actions, were still needed. The man called Isaac, a large and heavily muscled man with a thick and curling black beard, approached the rabbi in a manner not at all befitting celebration. His large, dark eyes shone intently as he said.
“Jacob. My wife is very ill, and none of us have eaten for days. We were forced to leave her, with several others, in a cluster of houses to the north of here.”
“Then it was you,” said Jacob, his eyes glowing. Then, “Yes, of course. How many more of you are there?” By now he could identify

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Joshua the vintner (the man Cassius had assisted), and his only daughter, Meryl. Of Isaac’s sons, the one who was wounded came forward.
“What is the meaning of posting this man as a guard?” he demanded, pointing back at Cassius. “A Gentile, and one who speaks no Hebrew?”
“Be silent, Malachi!” snapped the father. “Your own foolishness injured you, striking at a man who did no more than give you warning. Jacob, I tell you again, there is work to be done. My wife is ill, and Vera and the grandchildren remain below. This storm is a God-send, though like all his works, a judgment on the weak and foolish. The snow will cover our tracks, and cover is needed. It must be done now!”
“How many men do you need?” asked Jacob.
“We must be four, one of whom is willing. . .and able,” he added with a black look at his son, “to fight. I will go with Ezekiel, my firstborn. Malachi, as you see, is wounded and in need of attention. Your sentry, and the young man beside you, are they willing?”
Jacob looked first to Cassius, fearing the worst. He would become angry, take possession of Ariel, and set off on his own..... But he was wrong. The soldier seemed resigned, even relieved, as if his faith too had

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been restored. His words:
“What do you say, Gaius? Shall we do it for Rome?” The younger man nodded. Then turning to Isaac, as to one of like mind, he said plainly.

“Do you need stretchers?”
“Just the one, for my wife, who waits for us below. What we need most are strong arms and a firm tread. Two of the others are women.”
“Then let us be off,” said Cassius. “Jacob, the young man has
lacerated muscles in his thigh, though the cut is not deep. It was the only way I could knock him down,” he said to the father, not an apology but a statement of fact. Then turned back to the rabbi. “Take him and the others..... I’m sorry, Jacob. You know what to do.” And in a move that surprised them both, he put a warm hand on Jacob’s shoulder and whispered in his ear. “Congratulations, old man. You did it.”
Then drawing back, he indicated the entrance with his arm. Isaac led the way, followed by the soldier, with Ezekiel and Gaius behind. While Jacob, in pain but in triumph, led the others back to the great hall, where fires were lit, and food and beds made ready.

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#

By the time they reached the cluster of houses at the base of the cliff, the darkness had closed all around them. What Cassius saw were not buildings, not even shapes, but a nearer darkness against the black cliff behind. The second wind that had come to him when Jacob’s people had appeared (and he realized that the Vandals were not encamped beneath the very walls of the mountain fortress) had carried him this far, but now was failing badly. Only the knowledge that this same blizzard, the same drifting snow through which they now labored, would also slow the Vandals, giving them a few more days to rest and recover, kept him going. But they had arrived, his heart still beat inside him, and now a door was being opened.
An orange firelight lit the doorframe in front of him. The one-roomed house was small, its warmth fleeting, and Isaac urged them hurriedly inside, closing the door after. A prematurely aged woman was lying in a narrow bed which had been brought dangerously close to the fire. A younger woman knelt beside it, so intent on her patient that she did not turn to see the others, but continued trying to get the woman to drink something from a

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small clay vial. But the woman just kept turning her face from side to side: a round face red with sweat, and moaning incomprehensibly.
“Vera,” said Isaac plainly, his breath still coming hard. “The time has

come. We must leave here.”

“But we can’t move her!” insisted the younger woman, finally turning

around. Her hair was straight and dark, simply cut, with bangs stopping just above the eyebrows. Her face, too, was plain and unadorned, with close-set eyes and a nose too hooked and large to be quite feminine. But it was an honest face, thought Cassius in that moment, intelligent and intense.
“Daughter,” said Isaac firmly, “we have no choice. The rider who saw us this morning.....” At this Cassius heart froze inside him. “.....was only a scout. But he will tell the others. And you have seen, Vera. You know what they will do.”
“But she will die, Isaac.”
“Or she will live. In either case she would not bring death on you, or on her grandchildren.” At this point Ezekiel, her husband, came forward, and as she rose and turned away, put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

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“It must be done, Vera. We must protect the children.”
But even in his uncharacteristic willingness to embrace these people, to see the best in them, Cassius caught something in the woman’s swift glance back at himself and Gaius, then the look she exchanged with her husband, that made him pause. But then it was gone.
“Prepare my wife as best you can,” said Isaac to them both. “I will check on the children and get them ready. Then we must leave here at once.” Without further speech he left the room, with the two Romans behind.
The second house was little larger, but the fire was burning brightly. Too brightly. Cassius remembered the columns of smoke that he and Jacob had seen from above. The first must have been lit to warm the sick woman— a desperate, but perhaps necessary action. But the second? By Isaac’s own words there had been no food to prepare.....
Here two children, a boy and a girl, had been left in the care of a middle-aged man who seemed, by the distance they kept from him, to bear no familial relation to them. He thought this odd, and almost at once felt an instinctive dislike for the man. He had a cringing, cornered look about him,
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and there was something unsettlingly familiar in his face. But now he was beginning to speak.
“Is it safe there, Isaac?” he said, in a whining and wheedling tone. “Who are these men?” But by the menacing look he gave him, it was clear that the blacksmith had no more taste for the man than he did. As if to appease him, the smaller man adopted another course. “I did as you asked, protected the women and children. Someone had to stay behind, and I did it. You were right. You had to be sure the mountain hideaway was safe..... Is it safe, Isaac? Is that where we’re going now?”
The blacksmith made him no answer, but only continued to hush his grandchildren— to wrap them in warm garments, which fit them well, and heavy furs, which did not. “I’m hungry,” moaned the boy, perhaps seven years old, the very image of his father.
“We’re going to a place where you can eat your fill,” said Isaac, in a softer tone he had not yet used. “But I need you to be strong a while longer. It is a hard journey, and we must be brave. You are the eldest, remember, and must set an example for your sister. All right?” And the boy, hungry and exhausted as he must have been, bit his lip and nodded in assent.
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I can see why these survived, thought Cassius, his earlier confidence returning. Strength in the father and grandfather, intelligence and determination in the mother. But this strange, distasteful man..... Clearly he had somehow latched onto the others, who did not know what to do with him. But I know, thought the soldier grimly. I know.
“I will carry the boy on my back,” he said, returning from his dark reverie. “Gaius can carry the girl. Are there others?”
“There is another family still in the caves,” said Isaac, “but they are no longer our concern. And you need not carry the boy, only guide him with your hand. If you could keep the sword drawn and ready in the other, my mind would be more at ease.” Cassius nodded, and the blacksmith turned his full attention to the girl.
“Sarah,” he said, as he finished dressing her. “This young man here is going to carry you.” She turned away shyly, her pretty face unsure. “There is no time for this,” he began harshly. But Gaius came up quietly and said:
“Would you please let me carry you, Sarah? It will be a great adventure.” His manner and smile were so easy and natural that she stayed a moment, looking up at him. “You don’t want your brother to eat all the

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supper, do you?” She frowned, pouted, then shook her head. “Then what do you say? We can play horses.” The girl looked first at her grandfather, who nodded, then let the young Roman lift her to his hip.
“Is Mommy coming, too?”
“Of course she is, sweetheart. Are you ready?”
“Okay.” And she hid her face against him.
“Let us be off,” said Isaac. The company assembled outside the first house, each bearing their separate burdens, and set off through the snow.

#

It was many hours before Jacob heard a heavy thumping on the door of the two-storied hall. He went to it as quickly as the pain in his knee would allow, and opened it wide. Ariel remained cooking before the great hearth fire, with Meryl and Malachi sitting at a table by themselves. Joshua and the German boy were asleep upstairs, among the double row of beds to be found there.
Isaac and Ezekiel entered first, bearing the stretcher, which they

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immediately set on chairs before the fire. The woman on it, pale now, shivering and coughing badly, was clearly in a desperate state.
Ariel, who had given way before them, now stepped back again to make way for Vera, who knelt quickly to tend her. Her attention thus diverted, she had not yet seen the man who came slinking in after, and stood now a short distance away, staring at her in disbelief.
But when she did turn, and when she saw his face, she felt the room spin about her, and darkness envelope her senses. The next thing she knew she was lying on the floor. But this time as her eyes opened it was no dream, and he was holding her in his arms.
“Father,” she wept, kissing him again and again. “You’ve come back.”
Cassius, standing in the open doorway, could only watch and grind his teeth.




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Thirty-Nine

He stood in the open doorway, the confused fire before him, the cold and barren wind at his back. The snow had stopped. And though his first impulse was to block the grotesque scene from his mind, Cassius’ heart would allow no such retreat. He loved his Ariel, and now more than ever, she needed him.
And strange to say, the sight of this girl who had touched him so deeply, showering affection on a man who deserved only scorn. . .struck a chord of rebellion in his spirit that made him turn far from thoughts of death, futility, and the danger that awaited them below. His stubborn will,

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long dormant, or simply overwhelmed by circumstance, returned to him. What was happening, right in front of him, was wrong, and must not be allowed to continue.
So he closed the door slowly, trying to think. One thing only was clear to him. Any hostility he showed the man in her presence, any attempt to keep them apart, would only widen the chasm that had opened so suddenly between them— would only drive her to him. And so, for all the effort it cost him, he remained with his back to the door, and tried to prepare himself mentally for what was to come.
And that is well, for what came was not pleasant. With the help of her father Ariel had risen, and after crying a while longer on his shoulder, lifted her head to look about her. And when her gaze at last found Cassius, it was full of such reproach, such warning..... It said as clearly as words: Don’t you dare say anything to him, or accuse him of anything. He is my father, and he has returned, to me.
And every unspoken word, another mile he must walk.
He was not overreacting. The almost miraculous appearance of Jacob’s people, and the reprieve it gave them, had started a chain of thought

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inside her that her mind had named a ‘rebirth of faith.’ Jacob was right. It was in God, and not in the will of Man that they must trust. He was there, He was real, and He had delivered them. And in choosing Jacob’s beliefs (or simply the part of herself that agreed with them), she had subconsciously begun to reject those of Cassius, who had so nearly led them off into disaster. And not coincidentally, the more she recalled his words, “Don’t you know that you can never take her place in my heart?” the angrier she became. How could he be so callous? How could he be so cynical? He didn’t like Jacob; he didn’t like Gaius. He fled from love and safety every time he found them.....
And with the truly miraculous appearance of her father, the rebirth of Faith was complete. Not only was Cassius wrong about God. . .he was wrong about her father as well. Yes. All the terrible things he had said about him. “Sold your mother to the richest man in the village. . .made a prostitute of your mother.” Through her bitterness she felt a pang of sorrow, almost of conscience. But this new energy, this new line of thought, pushed her forward.

Yes! Her father had not abandoned them, only gone off for a time, to

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find a better life for his family. The merchant had done the rest, taking advantage of his absence. And then the barbarians had come.....
All these thoughts and many more raced through her, all exonerating her father, all condemning Cassius, and his brutal and fatalistic view of life. So when at last she came back to herself, she introduced her father to Jacob first. Then almost in scorn, to Cassius.
“Father,” she said, as together they approached him. “This is Cassius, a Roman soldier. He took me away when our village was destroyed. We were going to be married, but now I’m not sure.”
Enraged, Cassius drew breath through clenched teeth as if the very air were poisonous. And for all his resolve, he could not stop the look of pure hatred that now fixed itself upon this weak and manipulative man: the face that was so like hers, but in grotesque parody, the large eyes that were Ariel’s chief source of beauty, because of the depth of emotion they conveyed, were in the father slinking and cowardly, intelligent, but only in a devious and self-serving way. His nose, too, was thin and undecided. Even his hair and beard were weak, half gray and half black, as if he possessed neither the innocence of youth, nor the wisdom of experience.
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Slowly Cassius forced his gaze to soften, though he must look away to do it. The only words that he could find, were these. “Perhaps you should stay with your father tonight. Yours has been a long separation.” Again he could not help looking at the father in scorn and reprimand. “Your daughter must have been a child when you left her. She is a woman now, as you see.”
And all in a moment he knew what he must do. The words, coming from the depths of his bitterness, had shown him the course he must take. Cruel perhaps, but necessary. His face relaxed.
“You must forgive me,” he said to them both. “If my manner seems harsh, understand, it is the way I am with strangers. But you are a stranger no longer. You are welcome here, and my wish that you remain together is sincere. You must be hungry. Please sit down. Ariel, won’t you bring your father something to eat?” And though neither Ariel nor the man quite knew what to make of the change in him, Cassius withdrew to a far table, where
he sat down with Gaius and the children.

#

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The meal had been cleared away. The sick woman, on Jacob’s instructions, had been moved to a bed upstairs, near enough its second fire to be warm, but not to propel the fever still higher. Gaius had been sent to check the entrance, and returned to report that though the snow had stopped, the wind, and the drifts it caused, had effectively covered their tracks. All was as well as it could be. And by now it was morning, and the company was exhausted.
“You must all sleep,” said Jacob, standing like a father before them. “Our troubles and sorrows must be looked to, but not now. Let us thank God that we are all here, and given shelter from the storm. Well. Beds await us upstairs, and safety and quiet for a few days at least. Shall we retire?”
“Yes,” said Cassius, rising from table and extending his arm toward the stairs. “You must be truly exhausted. Have no fear for your safety: Gaius and I will keep watch. Sleep well, and dream of the good life that is still possible.”
The company rose, and began to file upstairs. Cassius waited, then

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started for the door. But as he was about to pass, Jacob put out a hand to

stop him.
“Won’t you stay with us?” he said. “It might help to smooth what is bound to be an awkward situation.”
“What do you mean?” said the soldier, his face unreadable.
“You and Gaius have both done well to earn my people’s trust. I don’t mean that. But surely there is some tension between yourself and Ariel’s father.”
... “Yes, Jacob,” said Cassius, relenting. “I will confess to you alone that I do not like the man. I do not trust him, and we are all in peril so long as he remains among us.”
“But he is her father.”
“Yes, exactly. I can only let things run their course..... But as for staying here tonight, this morning, I cannot. I too am exhausted, and will not sleep well among the company of strangers.”
“Then won’t you at least say goodnight to the boy? He missed you sorely when you left. I believe he thought you had gone off for good. And he has felt..... I hope you understand when I say that he has felt neglected.

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Ariel and I have given him what we can, but it is to you that he feels the deepest attachment.”
At these words Cassius felt a pang of remorse. In his battle with death and despair, he had in fact been pushing the boy away. His motives had been true enough, perhaps, wanting the child to be able to go on without him..... But that is not how it would appear to a four-year-old boy.
“Yes, that is best. And Jacob. Thank you.” Together they ascended the wooden staircase.
The company had already begun to disperse to different parts of the large, upper story, among the double row of beds to be found there. Once established, the chosen area could be screened off with ready partitions, and curtains hung from two long rods mounted to the ceiling beams, and skirting either side of the aisle that ran down the center. This remained open, with a fire burning steadily in the broad hearth at the far side of the room. The air within was warm and free of drafts, the stout beds and hushed activity suggesting a place of healing, of rest and tranquility. The sick woman, from her place nearest the fire, could be heard coughing intermittently. But the cough was no longer violent, and the ceaseless moaning, the restless turning

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had stopped. It was to her bed that the two men went first.
“How is she?” asked Jacob softly, pulling back the curtain at the foot of the bed.
“She is quieter,” said Vera, looking worn. “I don’t know if that’s better or worse. Whether she is improving, or simply wasting away..... At least she can sleep.”
“And so should you, child.”
“Yes, Vera,” came the voice of her husband. “There is nothing more
you can do. Eat some of the food we’ve brought, then sleep.” Jacob let the curtain fall, and left them.
“Where is the boy?” asked Cassius.
“I don’t know.” And though together they looked up and down the aisle, under the uncovered beds, and inquired at the place that Ariel and her father had chosen, they could not find him.
“I thought he was with you,” said the girl, becoming alarmed. “Noah,” she called— the name that she had given him. “Noah? Where are you?”
“Here he is,” came a voice, that of the vintner, who had retired earlier.

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A curtain was pulled back from within, and Joshua’s gentle and melancholy face appeared. He stepped around the foot of the bed, opened the curtain wide. And there on the floor beneath a jumble of blankets, and curled into a forlorn ball with one foot protruding, was the boy.
Putting out a hand to stop the girl, Cassius went to him, and down on one knee. And though the child resisted, he gently but firmly took off the blankets that covered him. But when he took him by the shoulders and

made him stand before him..... His heart sank. The same expression of nameless pain, of bewildered loss and despair that the boy had worn when they found him on the battlefield, was in his glossy eyes again.
Cassius embraced him gently, knowing nothing else in the room. Then he held him at arm’s length and said quietly in German