The galley-master squinted into the distance. Although the storm had obscured a rising moon, a strange glow, a kind of sea phosphorescence, revealed the dim outline of buildings along the docks.

  "The alleyway is up ahead," Mordecai repeated. "Go that way."

  Saturnilos shook his head. "We'll be trapped inside, unable to maneuver."

  "Not so!" he contended, his voice belligerent. "Two of my men and I will defend the entrance. You'll come out with the others near the customs building. Your galley is moored close by."

  After a moment of uncertainty, he nodded. "Hebrew, I hope your advice is sound."

  An instant after the refugees entered the alleyway the rain stopped, yet the eerie glow persisted in providing a dim illumination. Mordecai's narrow alley was paved, but without walkways. Muddy water gushed down the stones, further soaking shoes and tunic hems. Getorius pulled Arcadia back to be with him and ben Asher. Still sobbing, she clutched the old scholar's arm as her husband guided them around the crumpled bodies of drunken revelers left lying in the street, when rioters went to attack the villa.

  Mordecai had been correct—no attack materialized in the narrow passage.

  When Saturnilos reached the far entrance to the square that faced a customs house and wharves, he halted the group and sent a marine ahead to scout for danger. Mordecai returned with a wound on his forehead where a rioter's stone had opened a gash. Blood dribbled down his face. "Nazarite, I left two Judeans at the alley entrance to hold back the crowd."

  Aware of their probable fate, Saturnilos grunted, "Sacrificial lambs?"

  The Hebrew ignored his comment. "What is the situation on the wharf?"

  He pointed ahead. "Look for yourself."

  Storm clouds had passed on to the west. Above an eastern sea horizon, the light of a half-moon silhouetted docks, moored galleys, and warehouse sheds. Each dark form was accentuated by a blacker night shadow. All was quiet except for the sound of streamlets gurgling down paving blocks and emptying into the harbor. A distant lighthouse was dark, its warning fire extinguished by rain. The keeper was gone—or asleep in a drunken stupor.

  To the left, the actor's stage stood in place with the bloated and drenched body of Obeso still wedged in a makeshift grave.

  Theophilos lay moored at its wharf, bobbing on the waves, with no visible movement or sign of sentries who had been left on board.

  Getorius remarked to Saturnilos, "Thank God the galley is safe, yet what happened to the guards? Is an ambush waiting for us?"

  "Pray not…" He questioned the returning scout. "Did you see anyone?"

  "Sir, That prissy governor and his Goths are waiting under the basilica's south porch."

  "They wouldn't dare attack us," Getorius reasoned. "Word would get back to the capital and Philocalos would be held accountable and punished."

  Saturnilos scoffed, "How so, Surgeon? His Goths would massacre everyone, Christian and Hebrew. Theophilos would be altered in a shipyard or sunk. No one would report that we had even arrived at Nea Paphos."

  After moments of silence, ben Asher softly advised, "Let us continue to trust in the Holy One, Blessed be He, who brought us the storm."

  Saturnilos studied the frail, white-bearded scholar a moment, then ordered, "Enter the square in single file, one man, one woman. You, Surgeon, will lead. Walk to the galley. On board, tell the sentries to cast off the mooring lines…" He turned back to Mordecai. "I've lost men. Your Hebrews must help work the galley oars."

  "Toward our freedom?" he replied with a grim smile. "Gladly, Nazarite."

  The survivors were able to board Theophilos without interference by Goths. As Saturnilos looked around for his four guards, the sound of footsteps on deck had alerted one of them. Grasping a wineskin, the man peered out of the hold opening, his face flushed. Saturnilos cursed the crewman and ordered him and his companions to climb from the hold and haul in the gangplank.

  Getorius said, "We were fortunate that no one in that mob thought to board the galley."

  "Those wine-soaked marines will feel less than fortunate in the morning," Saturnilos growled, then ordered the oarsmen to their posts and deck crewmen to cast off mooring lines.

  Arcadia settled women and children in the aft cabin. Getorius tried to make ben Asher comfortable in the port side of the forward cabin.

  The three drunken guards—the fourth man had gone ashore to visit a brothel and not returned—were struggling to finish pulling in the gangplank, when leaders of the mob appeared at the mouth of the alleyway. With the rain ended, several rioters again brandished lighted torches, shouting and gesturing with them toward the galley.

  Alarmed, Getorius said, "We'll never get underway in time. The top deck is wet from the rain, but it's dry below where oarsmen are stationed. If enough of those torches can be thrown in—"

  His warning was interrupted by distant screams coming from the direction of the alleyway. Philocalos evidently had ordered his guard units to stop the rioters from reaching Theophilos. As the Goths hacked down those foremost in the mob, pale flashes of moonlight gleamed off their long-swords. Bodies fell. Sputtering torches rolled down the open square and were extinguished in black puddles or snaking streams of rainwater runoff

  Saturnilos's remark was sarcastic. "Surgeon, the archon seems to have thought twice about punishment. When he reports our arrival to officials at Constantinopolis, those corpses in the streets will be listed as drunken festival revelers dredged from the harbor."

  "We…we were fortunate to have escaped."

  "Not without losses. That guard, the helmsman and bow officer have not returned. Three crewmen are injured. Your servant and at least five Hebrews probably were killed."

  Getorius added, "That old couple, the young man who tried to help them, and Mordecai's two guards."

  Saturnilos stroked his scar, still a livid purple. "That leaves five inexperienced Hebrews to help crew the galley."

  Getorius slipped a leather-covered wooden box from his shoulder. "I brought my medical case. I can treat Mordecai and his injured men."

  * * *

  After attending to the wounded, Getorius noticed Saturnilos on the helm-deck preparing to guide Theophilos from its berth into the harbor. "You're going out on open sea at night?" he called up. "Isn't that risky?"

  "Surgeon, did you not see the dromons at the naval yard beyond the breakwater mole?"

  "I…I didn't. What are they?"

  "War galleys with sixteen oars each. A greater risk is that Philocalos will change his mind and order them after us. We wouldn't get out of sight of the harbor before being rammed and sunk."

  Getorius fell silent at the thought and looked away at a brightening sky. The half-moon rising in the east marked a shimmering path on harbor water directly ahead. That moonlight is in the middle, between the harbor moles as guiding beacon. He squinted beyond the breakwaters: a dense fog had crept in to blanket the sea.

  Saturnilos noticed and muttered, "If we can reach that fog bank…" He called to Mordecai, who had taken the place of the bow officer. "Hebrew! Guide me to keep Theophilos centered between those two breakwaters."

  As the bow of the galley veered toward the harbor entrance, Getorius told the master, "You led us from the villa back to the galley like a veteran legion officer. Where did you learn to command like that?"

  "On the 'Inhospitable Sea'."

  "I'm not familiar."

  "The Pontus Euxinus, beyond Constantinopolis. I commanded a war galley against Dacian pirates."

  Mordecai called out, "Mismol. Steer to the left."

  Saturnilos corrected his course to portside, then turned back to Getorius. "Surgeon, go to your wife. The loss of your servant has upset her."

  "Of course. I…I just wanted to thank you."

  "We've not yet reached Palaestina. The Holy Land."

  "True. I'll look in on my wife."

  Getorius found Arcadia in the forward cabin, lying on one of the bunks. Enough moonlight streamed through the single window to dimly light the cramped space and reveal dampness on his wife's cheeks. Her hair was a tangle of chestnut strands, her face drawn from fatigue. Ochre mud spattered her wet tunic. He sat on the mattress and reached for a hand that felt cold.

  Without opening her eyes Arcadia mumbled in a numb voice, "Brisios had less than a month of freedom. Why did he have to die?"

  "I…I can't answer that. Only that we did escape with our lives."

  "He was trying to help us by saving our belongings."

  Getorius massaged her fingers and blew on them to restore warmth. "I…I told him not to do that."

  "How could God have allowed this to happen? And that old Judean couple. What harm had they done?"

  He brought her hands up against his lips. "Cara, that drunken mob is responsible for those deaths. Moshe ben Asher believes that God brought the storm that allowed us to escape the same fate."

  Arcadia sniffled and drew an arm across her eyes to wipe off fresh tears, then sat up and stared at her husband. "At a terrible time like this it's hard to see things in that light."

  "You helped save Hebrew women and children. I treated the men's wounds." Getorius bent down to kiss her face. "Remember before we left Pergamum? When I felt as confused as you are now. Didn't you tell me not to be so hard on myself, that medicine was the art…the 'garden' you put it…that I had chosen to cultivate. Well, you're choosing it, too." Moonlight in the room had dimmed, so he paused to glance out the window. "We've entered a fog bank I saw in the distance. Saturnilos believes it will keep the governor's war galleys from coming after us. Ben Asher will claim that the fog was sent by God."

  Arcadia worked her other hand free of his and reached up to touch his face. "Getorius, lie down with me."

  "All right, but you're soaking wet and so am I. Our clothes at the villa are lost, but we did leave a few things on board? Other night tunics?"

  "In that wardrobe."

  "Sit up and I'll help you change clothes before your humors suffer serious imbalance." Getorius unlaced Arcadia's sandals, then stripped off her wet tunic and underclothes. After she was nude, her skin puckered in an uncontrollable shiver. "Let me loosen this blanket on the mattress and pull it over you. I'll look for your night tunic."

  "I…I don't want to wear one. Take off your tunic and get in bed. Just…Just hold me."

  After Getorius slipped under the covers, Arcadia curled against his body warmth, still shaking in erratic spasms. He realized her trembling was not only a response to the cold, but an uncontrollable inner shuddering, a result of the terror his wife had experienced in fleeing the villa and seeing Brisios murdered. She needed reassurance. "Cara, if it's any consolation, nothing was your fault."

  "Don't talk, Getorius. Hold me."

  He reached an arm over her body, pressed against her, and waited for her trembling to ebb.

  * * *

  Getorius awoke to the soft sound of waves lapping against the galley's sides. The rhythmic cadence of the oarsmen had ceased. He felt a moment of alarm. Why did we stop? Are we to be boarded by patrol galley officers after all? He opened his eyes to a shaft of sunlight that angled through the cabin window and cast a square of slowly moving brightness on the opposite cabin wall. He glanced over at Arcadia—she was still asleep—then slipped out of the narrow bunk. After he put on a single dry tunic he found in the wardrobe, he opened the cabin door and looked outside.

  The fog had cleared. Theophilos bobbed on an azure sea whose color mimicked the blue of the morning sky. The Judean men had left their oars and stood together at the bow, facing east. All wore fringed head shawls and the forehead and arm phylacteries he recalled seeing Rabbi David ben Zadok and Nathaniel wear at Ravenna.

  The Judean women and children stayed apart, clustered along the two railings. Moshe ben Asher stood in the center of the men, his white beard translucent in the glare of sunrise, a slight figure stooped from years of poring over books and writing at a scribe's desk. Frail as he seemed, ben Asher's voice was strong as he bent lower, closed his eyes, and recited from memory in Hebrew. "Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Eloeinu, Adonai Ehad"

  During the recitation, the men stood with each one's feet held close together, right hand positioned over his left, above the heart. The men bent their knees, bowed their heads then stood erect, occasionally swaying forward or from side to side.

  After finishing the prayer, ben Asher bent down again, took three short steps backward, then recited a short verse in Hebrew. Conscious of the Christians who had rescued his group, he translated the final prayer into Latin they understood. "May He who ordains the order of the universe bring peace to us and to all Israel."

  As the group murmured "Amen," Getorius stepped from the door onto the deck. While the men returned to their oars, ben Asher came to meet him, shading his weak eyes against glare shimmering off the sea.

  "Surgeon, we are grateful for your medications."

  "Sir, fortunately your men's injuries were not serious, but they need to keep corrupt air from entering their wounds. May I ask? Was that a prayer you recited aloud?"

  "The Torah bids us pray three times each day, in the morning, the afternoon, and evening. Morning prayer is the Shema and may be translated, 'Hear, O Israel: Adonai is our God, Adonai alone'."

  Getorius told him, "Both Arcadia and I noticed that you have vision problems. May I again ask for permission to examine your eyes?"

  Ben Asher's impatient gesture waved off the request. "How is your wife after the horror of last night? The murder of your slave?"

  "Brisios wasn't a slave. We had freed him a few weeks earlier. Arcadia is taking his death very hard."

  "May He who will judge the world with justice, try his soul fairly. Surgeon, I should like to talk with Saturnilos about our arrival at Caesarea Palaestina. From there it is a two-day journey to Tiberias."

  "That's your destination?"

  "If it please the Holy One, blessed be His name. I have both Hebrew and Christian friends at the port on the Genneseret Lake."

  "You said 'Christian.' Mordecai calls us by another name."

  "Nazarites, our ancient term for the apostate Judeans who believed that Yeshua ben Yosef was the Messiah. I have spoken to Mordecai about conquering his anger."

  "You mean Jesus?" At Ben Asher's nod, Getorius asked, "Why is your pupil angry at us?"

  "Surgeon, almost a century ago the great-grandfather of Mordecai was captured in our Sepphoris revolt. His punishment was to be blinded by Christian officers."

  And now you don't want me touching your eyes? "But that was a long while ago."

  Ben Asher shrugged. "Ten years later Julian, the emperor you call an apostate, began to rebuild our Temple in the Holy City."

  "To antagonize our bishops. Julian tried to re-institute pagan sacrifice and banish Christians from teaching positions."

  "Mordecai believes the rumor that Julian was assassinated by Christian officers in his army." The old man touched Getorius's sleeve in a gesture of reconciliation. "As you pointed out, these events are in the past. Will you go with me now to speak with the galley-master?"

  "Of course. I'll guide you up the ladder to the helmsman's deck."

  Saturnilos had agreed to give the Judeans time to recite their morning prayer. Now occupied with again getting Theophilos underway, he stood on the main deck directing crewmen in raising the galley's two sails. The linen squares would catch the morning breeze and relieve oarsmen who had rowed all night. When the master returned to the steering oars, which had been taken over by a marine crewman, Getorius brought the old man to him.

  "Saturnilos, Moshe ben Asher wishes to speak with you."

  He ignored the request and told the marine next to him, "Olympios, you'll be helmsman until we reach port. I'll alternate three-hour watches with you." Saturnilos eyed the billowing linen, then, without looking at ben Asher, asked, "What is it this time, Hebrew, about your Sabbath? Do your men want to laze about this galley all day, as if they were on a Nile cruise?"

  Getorius was about to protest the insult, but ben Asher explained, "I have disciples in the port of Caesarea Palaestina who will shelter me and the Cypriot Judeans. Good roads lead from there to Tiberias."

  "What is that to me?"

  "Your help has been a mitzvah. May the Holy One, Blessed be He, reward you. And, yes, this sunset does begin our Shabbat, yet our men will continue to row. The Shabbat Commandment may be broken if lives are to be saved. It is that I wondered how long it will take to reach Caesarea."

  Saturnilos looked toward the horizon and rubbed his scar for a long while before responding, "I am not going to Caesarea Palaestina."

  "Not…Caesarea?" Ben Asher registered puzzlement, then his wrinkled face went even more sallow. "Wh…where then?"

  "Ascalon."

  "Ascalon? That is to the south. Even with good fortune, a four-day's coach journey along the Via Maris to Caesarea."

  At the implied rebuke, Saturnilos's face flushed and the scar turned livid. His knuckles stood out white grasping the steering oar; he managed to hold his temper by staring at the horizon. "Hebrew, Theophilos will dock at Ascalon," he repeated evenly. "I must navigate the dangers in two hundred miles of open sea, and a fool of a Cypriot governor who might yet decide to stop me. You are both dismissed."

  CHAPTER IV

  Moshe ben Asher stumbled down from the helm deck, held his forehead in unconcealed anguish, and leaned over the main deck railing. His hand shook as he grasped the wood with white-knuckled force.

  Another bitter disappointment for the old man. "Sir, that mob was led by Dionysus and too much wine, yet why do Cypriots hate Hebrews so much?"

  For a long moment Ben Asher trembled, then replied in a voice almost drowned out by the hissing of seawater sliding along the galley's hull. "Our people have not always been compliant, willing to be shaped like clay on a potter's wheel."

  "I'm not sure what you mean."

  "Over three hundred years ago, in the last days of Emperor Trajan, Judeans on the island rebelled against restrictions placed on them because they were not Christian. Our protesters killed gentiles at Salamis and burned much of the city. Following the carnage, authorities forbade us from setting foot on the island. After the bar Kohkba rebellion failed, Jerusalem was closed to Hebrews. Some returned to Cyprus."

 

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