Free The Centurion's Wife by Janette Oke, Davis Bunn Page B

sound of a man’s voice calling her name.
    Alban spoke for the first time. His voice was strong, clear, calm. She shivered, half relieved to know it was not his voice she had heard. Then she impatiently brushed the thought aside. She was not one for dreams and portents. Life was what it was.
    And there was no place in her world for a man. She neither needed nor wanted one in her life—not now, not ever.
    Leah knew soldiers. Her father had been a merchant to the local legate. Soldiers had been in and out of her house all her life. Many Roman officers used their brute force like a battering ram. She had learned to mark those who menaced others for pleasure.
    She had also known a few who seemed like this man, the rare officer who was a true leader. Officers who could stand before men like Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas and speak with the calmness of knowing precisely who they were. Not many, but a few.
    His hair was neither brown nor red nor gold, but a color that combined all three shades. His eyes looked to be the copper color of a burnished shield. His shoulders were almost too broad for such a tall, slender man. She could not pretend to be blind to the fact that Alban was rather handsome—what she could see of him between the woven slats of the screen.
    She held her breath and her trembling body as still as she could while she listened to others determine her fate.
    “Greetings, Centurion Alban.” Pontius Pilate made a vague gesture toward the nearest divan. Alban pretended not to notice. He had no intention of relaxing in these circumstances.
    To his eye, Pilate was an aging commander who had possessed power for so long he wore it like a second skin. He was strongly built, particularly for a man in his forties. His gaze was level, measuring, and utterly ruthless.
    The prelate motioned toward his guest. “You know of course the Judaean tetrarch, Herod Antipas.”
    Alban bowed a second time. “Sire.”
    Herod Antipas was a hyena in human form. His every gesture appeared to be a lie. His supposed ease, his smile, his quiet way of saying, “So this is your man.”
    “He brought us two Parthian captives. Is that not so, centurion?”
    “Indeed, sire. With another eighteen kept at our garrison, awaiting your orders.”
    But it was Herod who responded. “Eighteen more, how fascinating.” His narrow moustache slipped into a beard that was waxed to a shiny point. “And why, pray tell, are they not already dead?”
    Alban directed his answer to the prelate. “No one but the caravan masters have believed the Parthians raid as far north as the Damascus Road. I thought you might wish to question them and determine whether they are gathering forces for a larger strike.”
    The silence was broken only by the waves far below and the flapping linen screen overhead.
    At length Herod asked, “How can you be certain they are Parthians?”
    “The leaders speak neither Aramaic nor Latin, or at least claim so. But several of their men have been more revealing. And their dress, their swords, their style of battle are as the war scrolls describe.”
    “The scrolls—ah, the scrolls.” Herod wore a robe of midnight blue and embroidered gold threads. His every gesture glimmered and flashed. “Tell me, centurion. These are Parthian scrolls?”
    Alban fastened his gaze at an invisible point between the two men and did not respond. Early on Alban had learned that there was safety in silence, especially with a monarch who sought trouble.
    “But of course, they could not be Parthian scrolls. You don’t speak Parthian, do you, centurion? Not a word, I warrant.” His oily smile made Alban’s hands go rigid at his sides. “So why could not simple Bedouin bandits merely dress up in Parthian style, after reading the same scrolls as you?”
    The leather straps on Pilate’s chair creaked as he shifted impatiently. “That would hardly make them simple, would it?”
    “How astute of you to think thus.” Herod moved his viper’s leer