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forward and gently dusted ash from the hair around his lip. “I would say it is more than I deserve.” As a shudder rippled through his body, she rose on her tiptoes and lightly brushed her lips against his.
    She pulled back with a pleased smile. “And what would you say if I surrendered everything?”
    “That I shall be forever in your debt.”

Epilogue
    “M OTHER, CAN YOU HOLD little Barek while I conduct business?” Ruth handed her infant son off to the woman who had not stopped talking since they moved into their new shop.
    Ruth glanced around, her eyes taking in the new loom, two real beds, a cradle, and an assortment of shiny weaving tools on one side of the expanded space. On the other side of the room were Caecilianus’s vats, snail buckets, and drying racks. From the rafters every skein of yarn had been hung in the precise order they’d worked out in his old shop.
    Ruth took the dog by the collar and placed him in the corner where the orange cat nursed a litter of orange and gray kittens. She went to stand beside Caecilianus at the loom and slipped her hand into his. He gave her raw and weary fingers a gentle squeeze as they waited to hear the decision of the young noble circling the finished tapestry.
    Cyprianus Thascius stroked his clean-shaven chin. “The colors are stunning.” He stepped back and cocked his head. “Shades that change with your position. How ever did you manage such magic in such a short period of time?”
    “My wife is a brilliant weaver,” Caecilianus said with a smile. “Her knots rival anything her father used to do.”
    “My husband is the best dyer in all of Carthage,” Ruth added proudly.
    Cyprian gave a slight nod. “Everyone knows the purple of Caecilianus saved your shop.” He smoothed the grape-trimmed creases of his white toga. “Had he not convinced me to seek an extension on your behalf, the house of Thascius would have missed its opportunity to acquire this exquisite piece of art.”
    Ruth gave Caecilianus a sideways glance. His involvement in the senator’s unexpected patience should not have been a surprise. “My husband’s generosity knows no bounds.”
    “Usually I can read the story of a tapestry.” Cyprian fingered the red knots she’d sprinkled like drops of blood across the different shades of garden. “I don’t know this one.”
    “It is the story of a debt forgiven.”
    “Whose debt?”
    “The world’s”— Ruth could barely speak around the lump that had formed in her throat—“and mine.”
    Cyprian’s fine brow scrunched. “Who could afford such generosity?”
    “The one God who watched his son pray in that garden.” She could see the broad shoulders of the nobleman’s son stiffen.
    He glanced around the shop. “Show me this wealthy god.”
    “He’s everywhere.” She wiped her hands on her tunic so as not to stain the wefted strands of yarn that alternated between crossing over and under the vertical warps. “In the yellow of light. The black of darkness. The brilliant blues of the sky and waters.”
    “And the red?” Cyprian asked.
    “Especially in the red.” Tears stung her eyes. “It is the love that flowed out with his blood.”
    “Your god bleeds?”
    “And died.”
    “Can a god die?”
    “Only if he wants to.”
    His face revealed his doubt. “And the green?”
    “My favorite.” She smiled. “New life.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “My God rose to live again. He offers forgiveness to everyone willing to surrender their debts.”
    “I have studied at the feet of Rome’s best scholars. These are not the teachings of the temple gods.”
    “No.” She could feel Caecilianus’s eyes upon her, begging her to proceed with caution. She took a deep breath. “They are the teachings of Christ.”
    Cyprian backed away from the tapestry. “I owe no man. And never will.”
    “Everyone has some kind of debt: to their friends, a teacher, their parents, a power greater than themselves.”
    “I am a Thascius. Son