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reaching the baby.
    The moonlight shadows from the statue that fell across the woman prevented him from seeing her face clearly. She was tall, seemed young. And she was clearly indignant, for her arms were crossed.
    This attitude startled Vitas. It was night. The woman was alone. She should have been frightened. Her courage, however, intrigued him.
    “Did Aristarchus send you?” She strode forward and pulled the baby from his arms. Moonlight flashed across her face. He’d been right. She was young. Perhaps a couple of years younger than his brother Damian. A girl recently turned woman, with an air of something he could not define, but something that plucked at his heart.
    “Are you not content that the baby has been condemned to exposure?” she demanded. “Or are you here to ensure her death arrives sooner?”
    “No, I . . .”
    The woman wrapped the baby in a blanket she carried, bent her head, and began to croon. The soothing sound worked and the baby’s wails became whimpers of hunger.
    “Are you the mother?” Vitas asked. He was bewildered at the turn of events.
    “Go away,” she said. “Don’t follow.” With that, she began to retrace her steps across the square.
    Suddenly three men broke out of the darkness beneath the columns at the front of the temple. They ran toward the woman.
    Vitas heard them first, then saw their fast approach . . . and the silhouettes of the swords in their hands.
    “No!” the woman cried.
    Without pausing to consider the rashness of his action, Vitas leaped forward.

    “Your brother.” In front of Caleb, Helius made a great show of sighing. “Explain to me these Christians. Are they not merely a fringe of your religion?”
    “No.” Caleb lost his cool watchfulness. “They are blasphemous. They believe that Messiah already arrived. More than that, they claim that Jesus was the one and only Son of God, claim He is actually equal with God.”
    “Your brother, then, has chosen to die for the very same Jesus who you say is a fraud?”
    “Yes,” Caleb answered quietly.
    “You still love him, even though it must be dividing your family?”
    “Yes.”
    “It strikes me as odd how much people are willing to give for this man Jesus and what He teaches,” Helius said. “Nothing in my experience has shown that kind of devotion to any other philosophy. Tell me, what would cause your brother to give up the Jewish faith and do this to your family? From everything I know about Jews, you would rather die than have your God insulted. Yet your brother and hundreds of others like him are turning their backs on their families, causing great rifts and hardships. And, yes, facing executions for their faith. What is it that gives them such determination?”
    Helius realized he had spoken his thoughts in a way that revealed too much. He waved away any answer that Caleb might have given. “My job is to protect Nero,” Helius went on quickly, as if explaining his slip. “My job is to ensure he doesn’t face troubling questions. He has millions of subjects and the entire world to administrate. He should not have to worry about things like this.”
    Helius lowered his voice. He was excellent at faking sincerity, and he knew it. “I will continue to be frank with you. The Christians were a convenient scapegoat for the Great Fire of Rome. Yet now rumblings of sympathy have begun for them because of how cruelly they are killed.”
    Helius shook the scroll. “So, yes, your proof would be of value to Nero. What exactly do you propose?”
    “I have gathered different letters circulating among the followers of Jesus,” Caleb said. “I have the knowledge and skill as a Jewish scholar and rabbi to prove from them that Christ Himself was a liar and a false prophet.”
    “You don’t need to prove it to me,” Helius said. “I’m not a believer.”
    “I propose that you find a Jewish rabbi who is a believer,” Caleb answered. “Let me debate him as if this were a Roman court and you