Read Online As Sure as the Dawn by Francine Rivers - Free Book Online

expression was utterly implacable. But was he?
    O Lord, God, soften his heart toward me.
    Heart beating dully, Rizpah came and stood before him. She held his sleeping son out to him. “Take him.” Frowning, he straightened. His eyes narrowed warily on her as he took his son. Caleb awakened immediately and began to cry, and Rizpah saw a flinch of raw pain flicker across Atretes’ face.
    “Hold him next to your heart,” she said gently, fighting tears. “Yes, like that. Now rub his back gently.” His hand was huge against Caleb’s back.
    Atretes held his son uneasily, half-expecting the soft pitiful cries to turn to screaming.
    “I beg your forgiveness, Atretes,” Rizpah said, meaning it. “My tongue is like a fire sometimes. I’m sorry for the cruel things I said to you. I had no right to judge.”
    Surprise flickered in his bleak face and then a cynical smile twisted his mouth. “Sweet,” he sneered.
    Why should he believe her after the way she had acted?
    She looked at Caleb nestled in Atretes’ powerful arms and thought how fragile he looked there. Her throat closed and she nodded slowly, blinking back tears.
    Atretes studied her intently, disturbed by the feelings stirring in him. Her brown eyes were dark with exhaustion, her cheeks smudged with dirt and streaked where tears had run. She looked up at him now, her expression full of appeal.
    “I know by all the laws of Rome, Caleb is yours to do with as you will,” she said shakily, “but I ask you to think of his needs.” When he said nothing, her heart sank. “Caleb and I are bonded as strongly as if he had issued from my own womb.”
    “You are not his mother.”
    “I am the only mother he’s known.”
    “Every woman I’ve known since being taken in chains from Germania has been a harlot, save one. You appear no different from the majority.”
    She drew the shawl more closely around her shoulders, chilled by the anger she saw in his blue eyes. It made no difference that he condemned her without even knowing her. Other things mattered more. “Caleb will awaken in a few hours. If he still won’t accept the wet nurse, send the guard again. I’ll be outside the gate.”
    Surprised, Atretes watched her leave. Frowning, he listened as her soft footsteps receded down the darkened corridor. He felt a vague disquiet as he sat down and looked at his sleeping son.

    Mouth grim, Atretes strode across the barren courtyard, dismissed Gallus with a jerk of his chin, slammed the bar back, and opened the gate. He went out and looked around. The widow was exactly where she’d said she would be, sitting with her back against the wall. Her knees were drawn up against her chest, her shawl drawn around her for warmth.
    When his shadow fell across her, she awakened and lifted her head. Her eyes had dark circles beneath them.
    He stood over her, arms akimbo. “The wet nurse tried again with no more success than last night,” he said, feeling it was somehow her fault. “Come feed him.”
    Rizpah noticed that he’d come to issue a command and not make a request. She rose stiffly, her body aching from her long vigil in the cold. Caleb was not the only one who was hungry. She’d not eaten since leaving Ephesus yesterday morning.
    “You will stay,” Atretes said in a tone that said the decision was made whether she liked it or not. Smiling in relief, she said a silent prayer of thanksgiving as she followed him up the steps and into the villa. “Silus will go for your belongings,” Atretes said. “You’ll have quarters near the kitchen.” He glanced back and saw her smile. “Don’t think you’ve won.”
    “I will not pull at Caleb as though he were a bone between two dogs,” she said, following him through the atrium. She could hear the baby’s cries. “It would be better if he was with me.”
    Atretes stopped and glowered at her. “You’ll not take him outside these walls.”
    “I didn’t mean that. I mean it would be better if he was with me in my