Chapter X
X
Felix paused on the street outside the church, while Mater and the girls filed in without him.
Oppia shot him a mournful look and tugged on his hand. “Why can’t you come inside, too?”
“You know why.”
She crossed her arms, head tossing from side to side as she recited in a rather spit-fiery tone, “Because you work with gladiators, and good Christians aren’t to have any part with violence.”
Felix nodded. “That is true.” After ten years away from his family in Alexandria, he’d been looking forward to worshipping with them, although it was rare that the rest day at the ludus coincided with a Sunday.
Months ago, however, when he’d tried to enter, a man of the church had drawn him aside quietly, to inquire after his work since he’d been seen entering the ludus.
To his credit, the man had kept the thing quiet but urged Felix to reconsider his place of employ.
Until he made the change, he wasn’t welcome inside.
“The church leaders take great care to bring people to repentance and right living. And because of where I work, it would look like—”
“But you don’t fight. You save their lives. You—you’re a hero.”
He smiled. “I’m glad someone thinks so.” He tugged her dark braid and turned her slim shoulders toward the open doorway where Mater, Felicia, and Cassia stood just inside waiting.
“Listen well and tell me all about it.” He gave her a gentle push.
The church was new by Roman standards, only having been a Christian meeting place for the past century and a half.
The basilica had once been the domus of wealthy Christian merchants and had been converted to a church sometime after their martyrdom.
Felicia had swooned over the story, but Felix couldn’t recall the whole thing.
Something about a marriage ban, clandestine weddings, and a rebel priest. She would enjoy stories like that.
Oppia pouted and balked. “What do you do while we’re in church?”
“I worship on my own.”
“I want to go with you.”
“You need to go with Mater.”
“I don’t want to go with people who judge you badly when they don’t even know what you’re doing.”
Felix bent in half, lowering his voice. “They know me, Oppia. I’ve told them everything. But I still cannot go in, for the good of all the others who only know me by what I do, and not why I do it.”
“It isn’t fair.”
“Few things are.”
“Come, Oppia,” Mater called holding out a hand. “We will be late.”
“Go on,” he urged. “Do not let your disappointment in people sour your worship of God.” His words, meant for her, needled his own heart as he straightened.
He pushed the feeling away. His situation with Pater was different.
His first responsibility was to his family, which God had given him.
If he didn’t work at the ludus, they’d all starve.
For the moment, being estranged from the church was a necessary sacrifice. Wasn’t it?
He made the mistake of meeting the side-eyed glance of a passing man who curled his lip before turning into the church.
Felix nudged Oppia toward Mater. He could endure the slight, but he wished it didn’t mean his sisters were friendless and his mater had to seek women out for greetings rather than be sought out herself.
Oppia cast one last mournful look over her shoulder as she dragged her feet after Mater and the older girls.
He wished he could blame the stiffness on his pater’s actions and absence, but this was his own doing.
He sighed and turned away as the call to worship began with a song, echoing through the portico and courtyard, wrapping around Felix with a tug of longing.
Shepherd of tender youth, guiding in love and truth
Through devious ways; Christ our triumphant King,
We come Your name to sing, and here our children bring
To join Your praise.
There was nothing more moving than to join others in worship, knowing that around the empire, thousands of others were doing the same.
He waited a moment longer, letting the music fill him, call to the surface an ache in his chest. But he kept his feet anchored in the street until the doors closed, muffling the song.
The sun had barely begun to rise, creasing the purple-gray sky with bars of sunlight. Somewhere in a courtyard, a rooster crowed. Then crowed again. And again.
A pot clattered. Someone shouted. And just like that, Rome was awake.
More and more people trickled into the streets, some heading to the various churches that had sprung up in the freedom of the last century, others heading to their labors.
He could do neither and headed toward the nearest public garden that might provide a bit of solace while he waited for Mater and the girls.
He glanced over his shoulder as he turned a corner, catching a glimpse of a man who stooped to retie his sandal.
Was it just his imagination, or had he seen him before?
Felix twisted down a side street made of worn stairs spanning the closeness between buildings.
Towering walls crowded out the sky high above his head and set his footsteps echoing in his ears.
Near the end of the alley, a man stepped out of a doorway, turning and descending the steps toward him.
Felix made eye contact and gave a slight nod of acknowledgment as he passed, which the stranger returned, along with a fist to his gut.
Pain exploded through his abdomen as he swung around to face the man, throwing up his forearm to block a second blow to his head.
His pulse leaped, sending a rush of energy to his limbs.
He stumbled down a stair, narrowly avoiding a fist to his kidneys, and landed two hits of his own before the stranger blocked the next one aimed for his head.
The man sent a lightning jab to Felix’s jaw.
His head snapped back, slamming into the stone wall behind him.
Blackness and stars shot through the alley.
He wasn’t weak. One didn’t wrestle fighters onto operating tables without having the bulk and muscle to do it. Even so, he felt his knees give.
“I don’t have anything for you.” His one consolation.
Felix was answered by a grunt and the smack of fist on flesh. He winced at the sound, but no pain accompanied it. Something thudded nearby. He shook his head to clear his wavering vision as a hand gripped his shoulder.
“You well?”
Felix straightened, blinking a giant of a man into view. The giant stood over the unconscious man draped down the steps, the concern in his expression aimed toward Felix.
He pressed a palm against the back of his throbbing head. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Attacking in broad daylight?” The giant shook his head and stooped, wrapping a hand around the thief’s neck. “Thieves used to have more respect than that.”
Alarm shooting through him, Felix jerked forward to stop the giant from murdering the man. “There’s no need to—”
But the giant only turned his wrist, pressing two fingers beneath the thief’s jaw, to check for a pulse. He looked up. “Shall we deliver him to an Urban Guard?”
Felix let out a breath, then shook his head. “A lot of good that’ll do. The Urbans are likelier to feed and congratulate him than prosecute. This whole city is on the verge of collapse since the emperor left.”
The giant stood. “Just because something seems impossible doesn’t mean we do nothing.”
Felix waved a hand. “You’re welcome to reform him, then. I don’t have the coin for a lawyer. But I appreciate your help.”
The giant pressed a hand to his chest and gave a slight bow, sunlight glancing off the top of his bald head.
“I am Telemachus.” Three scars slashed across Telemachus’s temple.
He was younger than Felix had first thought.
Early forties, his dark beard trimmed and splashed with a sprinkling of gray near his ears.
“Felix Cassianus.”
“Yes,” Telemachus announced, as if he’d asked a question and Felix had given the correct answer. “Of the Ludus Gallicus.”
Felix took in the man’s height and build, the scars running in triplicate from his eye to his ear. This was no ordinary stranger. An ex-gladiator by the look of it. “Do you have something against the Ludus Gallicus?”
His no was not quite convincing.
Felix brushed his palms against his thighs. No sense in lying—the Cassianus family had been managing the Ludus Gallicus for generations. He gave a nod. “My uncle manages the school. I am there as a medicus.”
Telemachus nodded. “Do you not attend church?”
“I . . .” The change in questioning took him aback. Why had the man been following him? For the first time, Felix noticed the leather cord around the man’s neck and the Chi-Rho symbol carved into a wooden medallion dangling from it.
“You are . . . a man of God?” He hadn’t meant to sound so incredulous, but . . . a man did lie unconscious at their feet. That was not the sort of thing a proper man of the church did.
Telemachus lifted both palms. “Sometimes defense of the innocent requires . . . action. Evil runs rampant when good men do nothing.”
Felix could agree with that. Mater might wish him to sit in prayer, but idleness didn’t pay the creditors or keep his family safe. “So, you run the streets and chase it down?”
Telemachus chuckled. “When I can.”
“How do you know I didn’t attend church with my family? Are you a doorkeeper as well as a chaser of evil?”
The man on the ground moaned.
“We should go.” Telemachus gestured Felix forward and walked beside him. “I’m not a doorkeeper but I am a noticer. And I’ve simply noticed when God crossed our paths—perhaps it was for this moment.”
Perhaps. Though his own experience with God showed Him less involved.
They emerged onto a wider street and Telemachus stayed alongside him as Felix turned toward the gardens. He hesitated. Did the man want something? Payment for helping, perhaps? It’d be just like a team of thieves . . .
“Like I told your friend, I don’t have anything. If you’ve been following me, you’ll know creditors are taking everything anyway, so you can target someone else.”
The giant’s eyes went wide. “My friend . . .” He gaped over his shoulder toward the alley and turned back to Felix, offense puffing his chest and sputtering his words. “You think—I’d never treat a friend like that.”
“I meant no offense.” Felix held up his hand in surrender. “Forgive me.”
Telemachus crossed his arms and regarded him with a slight squint. “Done. Now will you meet some real friends of mine?”
Felix stiffened and Telemachus huffed, his expression falling flat. “They are in here.” He gestured toward a modest villa that had been turned into a nondescript and unadorned basilica. Several men in simple tunics entered and Felix recognized the place as a monastery.
Telemachus raised a brow. “Still think I’m going to rob you?”
“Why do you want to meet with me?”
“We’ve been watching you—”
“You have been following me!”
Telemachus crossed his arms. “Not that you would notice.”
“Why?”
“Come inside. We’ll speak there.”
“Are you going to try to convince me to leave the ludus? I’m only there to provide for my family. I do not condone the evil or violence of it. I’ve already told—”
Telemachus shook his head, cutting him off. “I want to speak about the ludus, but not for the reason you suppose.”
His expression was open, honest. Even innocent. And for better or worse, Felix gave a nod and followed the giant man into the basilica, trusting for some reason that a monk who’d knocked a man flat in an alley wouldn’t do the same thing to him.