As Sure as the Dawn by Francine Rivers Page A

with a deep hunger for whatever it was that made a man so strong, so courageous.
    What gave you such peace, my friend? he wondered now as he had wondered many times before. And he was met with the same silence. The same emptiness deep within.
    Atretes took a step closer to Rizpah, seeing how she shivered in response to his nearness. “Caleb is a strong name, a warrior’s name,” he said, his voice low with an emotion she did not understand. “Keep it.”
    With that he picked up the blanket that lay by the mat, dropped it beside her, and went out.

    Rizpah obeyed Atretes and stayed within the walls of the villa. She offered to help the servants, but they said the master wouldn’t like it. It seemed she was relegated to some position between slave and free, a nebulous, undefined place within the household. Atretes avoided her and the others had resolved to be safe and do the same.
    She found herself wandering around the huge villa in much the same way Atretes wandered about at night. When Caleb wasn’t sleeping or nursing, she’d find a place in the sunlight and place him on her shawl. Smiling, she would watch him kick, play, and make noises.
    One afternoon, she entered a room on the second floor. It appealed to her, for sunlight streamed in from its balcony. It was empty of furnishings except for a big brass urn with a palm in it. She put Caleb on her shawl in a beam of sunlight. He rocked back and forth on his stomach, kicking his strong chubby legs. She sat down to watch him.
    “You’re a little frog,” she laughed.
    He gave a gurgling squeal and kicked faster. She saw what interested him and took hold of the edges of the blanket, pulling it across the smooth marble surface. “You always want what you can’t reach,” she said, patting his bottom.
    Caleb stretched out his hand toward the shiny curve of the large brass urn. His legs kicked again, toes catching in the shawl and pushing him an inch closer. His tiny fingers brushed the brass; he kicked harder, rocking and reaching. Her smile softening, Rizpah took hold of her shawl again and turned it so that Caleb was alongside the big urn. He turned his head, staring curiously at the other baby in the brass.
    “That’s you, Caleb.”
    He left fingerprints on the shiny golden surface.
    Loneliness engulfed her unexpectedly as she watched him reaching out to his own reflection. Were they always to be alone like this, cut off from the rest of the household? She stood and went out onto the balcony, looking down into the barren yard. Two guards passed the time near a gate, talking and laughing together. Other servants were tending the vegetable garden inside the walls.
    “Lord,” Rizpah whispered, “you know how much I love Caleb. I thank you with all my heart for him. Don’t think I’m ungrateful, Father, but I miss Shimei and John and all the rest. I know I didn’t talk to them very much when I had the opportunity, but I miss being among them. I miss standing beside the river and singing and hearing your Word.”
    The road that led back to Ephesus was just beyond the gate. As it dipped down and turned west, there was an old terebinth tree. She could see men and women beneath it, some sleeping, some talking, others looking toward the villa. Were they weary travelers resting in the shade? Or were they the amoratae Atretes so despised, waiting for a glimpse of their idol?
    The hills, green from a recent rain, were a more welcome sight. What pleasure it would be to walk up there, to sit on a hillside and let Caleb feel the grass between his toes.
    She glanced back at him and saw he had fallen asleep beside the urn. Smiling, she went and knelt beside him. She gazed down at him for a long time, thinking how beautiful and perfect he was. She touched his palm. He grasped hold of her finger, his mouth working as though he nursed even in his dreams.
    “What a miracle you are,” she said and lifted him tenderly. She laid him softly against her shoulder and lightly kissed