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looked across at Leah. Their eyes met briefly. Then she dropped her head, torn with emotion.
    One man, a man she might be able to love, had taken great risk to rescue her by bribing Helius. The other man, her father, had been put at great risk because of her and was still willing to rescue her at any cost. She felt as if she’d been placed between them, and she could find no words.
    The tension was broken by the appearance of a large man stepping through the archway of the courtyard. He had a well-scarred face and a savage smile. He carried a sack in one hand. Tigellinus, prefect of the emperor’s soldiers.
    Gaius Ofonius Tigellinus had become friends with Nero when Nero was still a teenager, and had always encouraged Nero’s excesses. It was Tigellinus who had revived the hated treason courts, and Nero used this new power with ruthlessness, taking property and life with mere accusations.
    Tigellinus caught Helius’s eye and lifted the sack high, as if it were significant.
    “Go now,” Helius immediately told Leah, Hezron, and Chayim. He waved at the slaves standing at the far side of the courtyard. “These slaves will ensure each of you is placed under guard in separate quarters.”
    “Me!” Chayim said. “You have no right to do this to me. Not after what I’ve paid for this.”
    “Of course I do,” Helius said. He turned his attention to Tigellinus, who was nearing them. Red liquid seeped from the seams of the sack.
    “If you want to make an issue of this,” Helius told Chayim, “we could always have Tigellinus here add your head to the one he carries now.”

    Vitas was tempted to let himself fall back into unconsciousness. The swaying of the ship would make it very easy. But he needed to find the scroll!
    Before Vitas could rise, however, he sensed, rather than felt, a presence beside him.
    “Drink,” a soft voice said. “Your body needs it after your fever.”
    A hand cradled the back of his head and helped him sit completely upright. It hurt Vitas to turn his head sideways.
    The man helping him was dressed in a simple tunic, a covering that left only his arms exposed, showing corded muscle. Vitas guessed him to be in his fifties, but he could have been older, for his face showed no softness that came with easy living. His hair matched his beard—gray hairs far outnumbering the remainder of black.
    Vitas knew this man. He was a Jew. He’d been on the same riverboat from Rome to Ostia and had introduced himself as John, son of Zebedee.
    Vitas groaned. Not from recognition but from renewed hopelessness. Both had been placed on this ship as prisoners; neither had known why or where the ship was headed.
    Would the scroll have answers to these questions too?
    John responded to the groan by lifting a ladle of water and helping Vitas drink.
    “How long?” Vitas said after gulping the water.
    “Your fever?”
    Vitas nodded.
    “The first night,” John said. “All of yesterday. And last night.”
    Vitas blinked. A full day and a half on the water. A full day and a half of travel from Rome. From Sophia.
    “Do you know why we are here?” Vitas asked.
    The older man smiled. “The will of God.”
    “Our destination?” Vitas asked, impatient with the man’s vague answer. Regardless of what the scroll might tell him, Vitas needed to get back to Rome. To find Sophia. “Did you find out from any of the crew?”
    “Alexandria.”
    “Alexandria!”
    Vitas was not a naval man, but he knew the route to grain ports of Alexandria. Depending on winds, the ship would reach the Straits of Messana on the third or fourth day. He could leave the ship when it stopped there.
    Vitas lurched, trying to get to his feet. He was first and foremost a man of action. He’d find the magister and convince him that he needed to get off the ship at the first port.
    The sudden effort was too taxing. A wave of nausea knocked Vitas to his knees. Then came the convulsions of his stomach. He’d eaten so little in the past hours