Simon came a little later, followed a few steps behind by a slim woman and a young man. By chance Ferox was at the back of the stall, leaning on their barrels and under the shade of the canopy. He tried not to react, and let his head hang as if half asleep, for, without a doubt, the young man was Domitius the deserter.

Nicopolis

The same day

THE FAMILY OF Simon could not have been kinder or more welcoming to a stranger. Domitius thought of the Good Samaritan and of Christians he had met who proclaimed that the Jews were a wicked, greedy and cursed people, going further than the empire which taxed the Jews and no other race just for following their religion, was suspicious of their loyalty and dismissed them as perverse for rejecting the gods. He also remembered Pausanias, the man whose words had first made him realise his need for Christ, and how the old man reminded him time and again that the Jewish race was chosen of God, that the Lord Jesus had lived as a Jew in his time on earth, that his family were Jews, and that for all those reasons the race and the faith were to be honoured.

Domitius had spoken to Pausanias whenever he had got an opportunity. Men and women like him lived their lives in a way he admired, which only made him puzzled when some Christians were so different, in their pettiness, jealousy and pride. Sin was everywhere, gnawing at every soul, including his. He had met Christians who would not have been anywhere near as generous as his hosts, and worried that he would have been no better in the same circumstances. In truth, he had never owned a house, and could scarcely invite anyone to stay in the couple of rooms allocated to an optio in barracks or billets, so the question was a theoretical one. Still, he worried that he was judging others, when he would probably have done no better or worse in similar circumstances. ‘Forget what might happen,’ Pausanias had told him. ‘That’s for the rich and leisured, who’ll probably do the opposite when it comes to it, if it ever does. Live your real life, and try to do it day by day and hour by hour in a way your heart tells you is right, and you feel would be pleasing to the Lord. That’s a hard enough thing to do, my lad, without dreaming up trials and tribulations in your mind.’ Pausanias had been a sailor, then a captain of a trading vessel and spent thirty years at sea before he saw the Light and became a servant of God. That had left its mark on him, and not simply in his strong arms. Pausanias spoke of faith in a way that was real, and had a directness about him that was lacking in others.

It was odd, but in many ways John reminded him of the preacher. The old man spent a lot of time with him. ‘Always wise to keep a watchful eye on any Roman,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen what they can do.’