Illeus turned the key and he and Fortis entered the courtyard of the villa in Capernaum where the married soldiers and their families lived. Three boys were playing in the dirt of the courtyard. When he had closed and locked the gate, some girls appeared from behind the oven in the second courtyard of the villa, to the right.
“Cleo,” he said to one of them, a pre-teen, carrying a baby on her hip. “Tell Aunt Sophie that Fortis and I are here and we’re ready to go over the accounts.”
They headed for what had been the study of the nobleman who had owned the villa before, who was now leasing it out. Procerus, the oldest of the soldiers who lived there, held the lease, and the soldiers who lived there, in the rooms arranged around the two courtyards, contributed to the lease payments and the upkeep. Procerus’s wife, Sophie, kept the records and handled the money.
When they got to the study, Sophie spread out the scroll with Fidela’s contract. For the last three years, there had been no battles, no bonuses, no town or village that had not surrendered. So Fortis had nothing beyond his pay.
“Just 50 denarii this year,” he told Illeus, and Sophie made an entry in the scroll of accounts next to Fidela’s contract.
“No need to worry, my friend,” said Illeus. “Take as long as you need to. I’ve already got the contract set to default to you if I die first.” Illeus, a well-to-do bachelor who still lived at the garrison, had leant Fortis the money to buy Fidela from her previous owner.
Fortis sighed. “I’d hoped to be able to free Fidela by this time, and Talitha along with her. But at this rate, our second child will be born a slave as well.” His wife was expecting.
“Patience,” said Illeus. “Patience.”
“Fortis,” said Sophie. “Fidela is at the beach with Talitha and Nina. Would you like to take them this? And tell Nina to come home.” She handed him a basket with lunch.
He headed out with the basket.
“Thank you, Sophie,” said Illeus. “He needed that. He loves the water.”
When Fortis reached the place along the shore of the Galilee that the soldiers garrisoned in Capernaum called “their beach,” he saw Fidela sitting and watching the two girls play, while an older teen stood watch, twirling a rock in a sling in his hand.
“Nina,” Fortis said, “Your mother wants you. Head back with Marcus.”
Normally, three-year-old Talitha would have pouted to lose Procerus’ and Sophie’s daughter as her playmate, but she saw her father, and ran into his arms. He lifted her up into the air, to her delighted shrieks, and then set her down on the ground. Then he handed the basket to Fidela, who set out their lunch.
“He’s talking to them from the boat,” said Fidela, as they sat on the ground and ate.
After a while, the rabbi’s boat came in to the beach, close enough that Fortis and Fidela could hear what he said.
“Does he usually come this close to our beach?” asked Fortis, worried. The locals knew that the Roman soldiers who lived with their families in town went to this part of the shore, and usually gave them a wide berth.
“No,” she answered. “He’s usually over there.” And she pointed.
Fortis was just wearing a plain homespun tunic, neither the armor he wore on duty, nor the simple wool toga he wore otherwise in town, with nothing else but the belt and dagger he normally carried. Fidela wore the longer women’s tunic, with her scarf, the palla, around her shoulders, but not the over-tunic, the stola she usually wore in town.
With the boat coming aground so close, and the crowd moving closer to their beach, Fidela covered her head with the palla. Fortis put his hand on the dagger and stood in front of her. Any Roman who saw the little family would take them for a freedman or slave family, out in public with no toga for the husband or stola for the wife, and a little girl. Most of the Jews, though, just saw them as a Roman soldier’s family.
But some of them knew.
“They’re slaves,” said a man in a fine linen toga to the man next to him. They were standing closely enough for Fortis and Fidela to hear and he was speaking in Latin. “Roman slaves. I’ve been to Rome. I know how they dress.”
“With a dagger?” asked his companion, a well-dressed merchant. “That man is a Roman soldier, from the garrison here. I recognize him. He’s one of the soldiers who live in town with their families.”
“But his wife is a slave, which means the little girl is, too,” the man in the toga responded. “The soldiers have to buy their women because their law won’t let them marry.”
Fortis looked down, face hot with shame. He picked up Talitha and the basket. “Let’s go,” he said to Fidela.
Someone else in the crowd asked the rabbi a question. Neither Fortis nor Fidela were very good with the local Aramaic, using market Greek with most of the locals.
But the rabbi looked over at them and repeated the question in Greek. “I have been asked ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’” he said. “Fortis, Fidela, may I borrow your Talitha for a moment?”
Fortis looked at Fidela and she nodded. So he put Talitha down on the ground. “You can stay here if you want to,” he said. But she went over to the rabbi, and he put her on his lap.
“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”
He set her on the ground, and pointed her back to her parents. Fortis stepped towards him, picked her up, and carried her back to where Fidela was standing.
Then the rabbi stood up in front of the crowd and continued, still in market Greek, but now walking away from the little family. “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea….”
The little family sat back down, as the crowd followed the holy man away from their spot on the beach.
“I like him,” said Talitha. “And he knew my name.”
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Thank you, Ms. Mary. I loved this vignette. ♥️