Page 46 of Of Love and Treason
Valens let the silence linger, quieting his own anxious heart. He prayed silently as many of the others did, preparing his heart both to teach and to learn. One of the women began to sing, softly at first, and the others joined in, their voices filling the room. Valens had always enjoyed singing. Music moved him as nothing else did, and he sang with everything in him, eyes closed.
When the singing fell away, Valens unrolled the scroll he’d nabbed from where it had hidden among Cato’s medical scrolls. The second letter the apostle Paul had written to the young leader Timothy was one of Valens’s favorites.
Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Entrust the word to faithful men who will continue to teach others.
Share in the suffering as a good soldier of Christ.
A good soldier follows the orders of the one who commands him.
The message flooded his restless heart with peace.
“We are soldiers of Christ. Not the kind to batter our enemies with swords and force, but soldiers who have been given a clear mission. A dangerous mission, to be sure, but one that extends love to our enemies, hope to those we meet.” He glanced around the room and let the scroll settle on his lap. “We fight a war which is already won, but that does not guarantee there will be no casualties, no danger. I know many of you are worried about the latest orders from the priests about mandatory offerings and sacrifices. We are commanded to stand firm in the Lord and not to be afraid.” He spoke to himself as much as to the rest of them. “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.”
Later, as dusk fell and Valens walked Aunt Bea home, he racked his brain to find an excuse to leave and check in with Hector at the tavern. Felix had mentioned that Hector needed to see him before tonight’s wedding.
They were halfway to their third-level apartment above the Markets of Trajan when Bea smacked her thigh. “I forgot!” She pulled Valens to a stop.
“What?”
“The box of empty bottles at the shop.” She sighed. “I meant to fill them for tomorrow.”
Valens straightened. He needn’t sneak out or invent a reason to leave after all. “I’ll get it. You go on ahead.”
“Are you sure? I can go with you.” She sounded tired. Even if she hadn’t, he would have refused her help.
“We’re almost home. You go on; it won’t take me long.”
He turned and trotted down the steps as Bea called after him, “The box is on the counter next to the door. Do you have your key?”
He held it up and continued down the stairs before crossing the barrel-roofed arcade with its two levels of darkened shops visible from the large open square on the bottom. He cut down the last set of stairs to emerge on the covered street of the shop-and-tavern-lined Via Biberatica, orDrinking Street. He paused at the bottom, the perfumery on his left, around the sloping curve of the street. He turned right.
The Centaur’s Cup was not far, but Bea would worry anyway when the task took longer than it should have. Perhaps his aptitude for lateness would finally serve him.
Where the Via Biberatica met the main road, the lights died, and darkness settled over the streets. Valens hesitated. Hector had always organized a contingent of his ex-legionnaire friends to act as guards whenever Valens moved about the city after dark. He’d been mugged more times than he cared to recall, and he didn’t much care for it to happen again. Still, there were no guards this time and Hector needed to see him.
He’d hardly stepped into the main road when two shadows peeled from the building across the street and moved toward him. In the dimness he couldn’t make out their features, but their walk and build betrayed them as soldiers, not common thieves. He relaxed. Hector had sent guards after all.
They stopped in front of him. “We’re looking for Valentine Favius Diastema.”
“That’s me.” The tension left his shoulders. “Thank you for—”
“You’re under arrest.” In one motion they both reached forward and grabbed his arms.
“On what charges?” Valens grunted as his wrists were forced up between his shoulder blades.
“You’ll know soon enough.”
Fear tightened his spine as he recalled the note. The investigator must have found something. The soldiers jerked him up the street. Valens prayed none of the couples he’d married had been found out.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The soldiers didn’t speak, and Valens didn’t press further for an explanation.
They marched down the streets, light spilling in yellow rectangles over square black cobblestones. The night rang with grinding cart wheels, braying donkeys, and bellowing oxen. Carters shouted at each other to quit hogging the street.
God, give me strength. Boldness. Fearlessness that points only to You.The hobnails of the soldiers’ boots crunched in his ears.I am weak. Be my strength.
They dragged him between colored marble temples of the Forum, light from torches and altars bouncing an eerie orange glow on the pillars. Pushing him up pale marble steps, the men shoved him into an office lit with a single clay lamp. Valens looked around. The dim room contained a broken desk, a mass of messy bookshelves, and two doors: one they had just entered and the other of iron-encased oak, chained and secured with an oversize lock. Valens’s stomach began to quiver.
