The winery had exploded in flames.
Athanasius got to his feet and looked across the vineyard at the billows of flames and smoke shooting out of the façade from the cave in the cliffs.
They’ve blown the winery! On purpose!
Suddenly a streak of flames shot across the vineyard over his head to the red-clay tiles on the roof of the villa.
Melt! That was what Dovilin screamed. It must have been some kind of pre-determined order to self-destruct. The guests and slaves!
He ran into the villa and found chaos everywhere, as smoke and flames from exploding amphorae formed curtains of heated confusion. He heard coughing and saw Cota crawling on her knees beneath the smoke, trying to find a way out, then seeing him with fear and confusion on her face as he took her hand.
“Out the back!” he told her, and began to drag her to her feet.
Athanasius pushed Cota out toward the kitchen and stables and looked back to see the entire villa in flames on a scale that dwarfed the tragedy of his own family’s villa back in Corinth. And this time it wasn’t the Romans who ordered the destruction; it was Dovilin himself.
Dovilin would rather kill himself and everybody with him than name the third member of the Dei trinity, Athanasius realized with a shock. This is going to be much harder than I imagined, maybe impossible.
A distressed and incensed Gabrielle was waiting for him back in the vineyard as he brought out Cota and a stallion that he had grabbed from the barn before it went up in flames. Gabrielle immediately attended to Cota, taking moments to glare at him and the scene of destruction behind him. “Congratulations, Athanasius. Now that we have no one to lead the church of Asia, it’s yours for the taking.”
“This was Dovilin’s doing. How is she?”
“She’ll live. That’s more than I can say for the innocents in that inferno!”
“You know that wasn’t my intention. Look, Brutus is gone, the word is out. Someone must have seen us escape through the Angel’s Pass, Gabrielle. Rome’s legions now have the key to enter the caves that they’ve been looking for, and I’ve given it to them.”
He looked at her helplessly, and knew there was nothing he could say or do at this point to comfort her. She was completely beyond the reach of his power of words, and right now he was at a loss for them.
“I’m sorry, Gabrielle,” he told her.
She said nothing, only looked at him with horror, like he was one of those masked Minotaurs that they had escaped in the caves.
“You know what to do, Gabrielle,” he told her as he mounted the stallion. “You know the caverns and all the traps. You know how to collapse the tunnels. You have to block the Romans if they try to invade the underground cities.”
“You can’t leave us now!” she screamed.
“I have to get to Rome and make this right.”
“Make this right?” She was crying tears of rage now. “We need you here now, more than ever!”
“There is nothing more that I can do for you here, Gabrielle,” he said, steadying his stallion as it whinnied to escape the heat. He knew, however, he couldn’t leave her without any hope. “But if you and those in the caves can hold out for 40 days, we all might see a Christian world.”
Her wet eyes looked doubtful, and he could swear that she was crying tears of blood.
“Fast and pray for a new world order,” he told her with little conviction, and then kicked his horse to life and rode off into the night toward Kingdom Come.
With little hope for the underground church in Cappadocia that he had just left behind, Athanasius let pure, righteous rage fuel his race back to Rome. Rage at the Dovilins and the Christians here like Gabrielle who did nothing to oppose them, let alone Rome.
Athanasius now realized he had it all backwards. He thought the Lord’s Vineyard was all about the flow of Church influence into the world. In fact, it was the other way around. The Dovilins, with Dei help, had turned the churches of Asia into a market for their goods, primarily wine, foundational to the Communion ritual. That’s how they made money. The token shipments to Caesar were just that. Everything else came from the flesh and opium trade.
Quite ingenious and outrageous.
They were literally selling the Christians back their own sweat. The tithes and offerings that went to churches to pay for the wine were going into the pockets of the very family exploiting them all. A family cited for their Christian faith and blessings. They were profiting off the church.
No wonder old John’s Book of Revelation had Jesus standing outside the Church, knocking on its door. The Church was probably the last place on earth anybody would find Him.
VII
Stephanus was shaking as the Praetorians marched him through the private residences of the Palace of the Flavians to Caesar’s bedchamber. Caesar had finished his midday bath and was freshly dressed in royal robes and enjoying his sweets when Stephanus was escorted inside.
“Ah, Stephanus, I haven’t seen you since you worked for my cousin the consul,” Domitian said, referring to Flavius Clemens whom he had executed. “You’ll have to see the boys while you are here.”
“If Caesar allows it,” Stephanus said humbly.
“So what’s this I hear that about my niece Domitilla persecuting the loyal servant of my late cousin for defrauding her?”
“I stole nothing, Your Excellency.”
“Of course you didn’t, Stephanus. Why would you? The Flavians have been kind to you, even the traitors like my cousin. Did she do that to you? You seem to be in some pain.”
Domitian was referring to the bandage wrapped around Stephanus’s left arm.
“An accident, sir. She meant no harm.”
“But, of course she did, Stephanus. On the other hand, I will offer you generosity and grace. You will continue to do the work of correspondence between Caesar and his niece Domitilla and her sons. Only now, like the boys, you will live here and not that island to which I exiled my niece.”
“Thank you, Your Excellency. Thank you,” Stephanus repeated when the prefect of the Praetorian, Secundus, marched inside the bedchambers without warning.
“Your Excellency, I am sorry to be so bold, but there is news out of Asia Minor.”
Stephanus drew back so as not to be in the way, nor give Caesar easy reason to dismiss him. Perhaps this was news that he too had to hear. News from Athanasius or about him.
“Your assassin Orion is dead.”
“Dead?” Domitian repeated. “He can’t die. He’s the one who does the killing.”
“It gets worse, sir,” Secundus went on. “The Dovilins are dead too.”
“The Dovilins!”
“Everybody’s dead.”
Stephanus wasn’t sure if that meant Athanasius too, but it looked like Domitian had trouble standing as he began to pace the room.
“So Athanasius is dead too.”
“We think so, Your Excellency. We don’t know.”
“Don’t know?” roared Domitian, and Stephanus drew back in genuine terror. “Don’t know!”
Secundus kept his ground. “It’s impossible to identify the remains of so many, Your Excellency,” he said. “But spies have disclosed to your legions the location of the so-called Angel’s Pass into the mountains of Cappadocia.”
Stephanus saw fire suddenly flare up in the emperor’s otherwise dull eyes. “Angel’s Pass! At last!” Then he paused to summon up royal authority. “Orders are given to XII Fulminate and XVI Flavia legions in Cappadocia to use the passage of the Angel’s Pass to commence full-scale invasion of the cave systems surrounding the former Dovilin Vineyards. They are to exterminate the Christians inside, every last man, woman and child, in reprisal for their attacks upon Rome and its representatives.”