The Divining

     Rachel's eyes grew big. "Simon is in Rome? I will think about this and pray for guidance."

     PRIMO COULD NOT SLEEP.

     Rolling onto his back, he looked up at the stars and saw by the position of the moon that dawn was near. He threw off his blanket and rose to his feet. The others slept on in silence—Sebastianus and Ulrika in their tent, Rachel in a tent she shared with no one, the slaves and soldiers under the stars.

     Primo looked out at the cold and barren desert, and realized he had changed. He was no longer the man he had been hours earlier.

     Rachel. So like that village mother of long ago ...

     The oasis had several ponds. At sunset, Rachel and Ulrika had bathed in one behind protective screening. As Primo had stood guard with his back to the women, he had heard the soft whispering of water, delicate splashes, gentle trickles, and he had imagined the feminine skin and curves down which the water cascaded. In that moment Primo had understood why Sebastianus had acted the way he had all these months. He was simply a man in love.

     Primo strode across the cold sand to the place where Rachel had said her husband was buried. The grave was unmarked. Ulrika had convinced Rachel that her husband's remains were no longer safe here but would be protected by the congregation in Rome.

     As a chill breeze blew through his thi

     Caesar had become obsessed with money. When their small party had stopped at oases and caravanserais, they had heard stories of the emperor's increasing instability and irrational behavior. He trumped up charges of treason against men of wealth, had them executed so he could seize their estates.

     When he reads my report, Primo thought, he will think that I am bringing fabulous treasure to him. Instead, they are the bones of an executed criminal. He will have the bones destroyed. I ca

     Primo drew in a deep, sharp breath and felt his heart come to life. It expanded in his chest like a bird expanding its wings until his heart was normal-sized again, beating with passion, full of life and feeling. Suddenly Primo no longer saw the world in black and white but in shades and hues of all the colors of the rainbow. Because Primo, who had lived his life by a code of honor and duty, now knew that there was a higher duty than that to master and emperor—a duty to love.

     ULRIKA WOKE SUDDENLY WITH a vision: a papyrus document rolled up and sealed with red wax. Primo affixing his ring to the wax.

     He is the one I sensed as the betrayer in Sebastianus's midst.

     Slipping into her cloak, she went into the cold pre-dawn in search of him, and found Primo sitting at the campfire, staring into black coals.

     "I had a vision of you back in Antioch," she said. "I saw you betraying Sebastianus. And yet you did not."

     He looked at her with the eyes of a man who had not slept. In a voice curiously soft for so rugged a man, he told Ulrika an amazing tale of oathsand emperors, spies and secret reports—and when he was done she thought for a long moment, taking in the deformed nose and scarred face, and said, "You are a man of honor, Primo, and also one of great strength. You have been burdened with a moral dilemma since the day we left Rome, and you kept it to yourself. I believe now that what I saw in that vision back in Antioch was not a traitor but a man who feared he would betray his own loyalties. I misjudged you."

     "And I, you," he said softly. "From the moment I first met you, I thought you were going to bring harm to my master. But I know now that you have in fact been good for him, that you helped him to tap his own strength. We should have been friends, all this time. I am sorry now that we were not."

     "I, too," she said with a smile. "And now we must tell Sebastianus the truth about Nero."

     Ulrika roused the slaves, ordering them to build a fire. Then she woke Sebastianus, who immediately threw on his cloak and stepped out into the biting air. Wakened by voices, Rachel looked out and, seeing her companions gathering at the fire, wrapped herself in her cloak and joined them.

     "Noble Gallus," Primo began, startling Sebastianus with such formality, making him wonder what extraordinary confession they were about to hear. "I have always been loyal to you, but as a soldier I thought my first loyalty was to my emperor. I became caught between these two loyalties, and in my desperate attempt to serve both masters—that is, to satisfy Caesar and yet save you from charges of treason—I laid the blame on Ulrika and sent it in a report. I told Caesar that you are under a witch's spell."

     "A witch's spell!" Sebastianus said.

     "I accused Ulrika of being a witch."

     She stared at him in shock. And then her blood ran cold.

     In Rome, it was legal for a husband to force his wife to undergo abortion if he suspected the child was not his, or even if he did not want the child. But it was illegal for a woman to procure an abortion for any reason. And so such women sought the help of those who knew the secrets of ending conception. Midwives, wise women, female physicians, and herbalists were all suspected of being abortionists. When their deeds were found out, they were called witches and the punishment was death by stoning.

     Primo looked at Ulrika and said, "I am so sorry."

     "You had your reasons," she heard herself say, but she had suddenly gone numb with fear. Was that how her life was going to end? Before she was even thirty years old, tied to a post in the Great Circus, while gladiators hurled rocks at her until she was dead?

     "Master, we must take a ship to Alexandria," Primo said quickly, "and find a place that is beyond the emperor's reach. I will protect all of you, upon my oath as a soldier."

     But Sebastianus shook his head. "I must go to Rome to clear my name, my family's name. But you will take the women to Alexandria."

     Ulrika placed her hand on Sebastianus's and said, "I will not let you face Nero alone, my love. Besides, I must clear my name as well. It is not just for my sake, but for my mother's. Wherever she is in this world, she is an honorable healer whose reputation is unblemished. If her daughter is condemned for witchcraft, and executed, it could have disastrous consequences for her."

     Rachel then spoke up, saying, "And I have been in hiding long enough. It is time I joined my own kind. I will join the congregation under Simon Peter."

     Finally Sebastianus said to Primo, "Then save yourself, old friend, for now you are party to treason and you have broken your oath to Caesar." But even as he said it, Sebastianus knew Primo would return to Rome with them.

     As the first golden rays of dawn broke over the distant cliffs in the east, and the four at the campfire felt the promise of the day's warmth, each pondered the fate that awaited them in Rome.