Medica. But it’s on the condition that you never speak of this night, nor of your origins, nor of me and this house. And you will not attempt to seek out Yaltha and Ana. Give me your oath and you may go.” He waited.
Diodora’s eyes trailed to Yaltha, who nodded at her. “I give my oath,” she said.
“If you break it, I’ll learn of it and bring charges against you, as well,” he said. He believed her to be a fragile girl, one he could browbeat into obedience. Right then, I didn’t know if he’d appraised her rightly or wrongly. “Leave now,” he said. “My servant will see you out.”
“Go,” Yaltha told her. “I’ll come to you when I can.”
She hugged her mother, then stepped through the doorway without looking back.
Haran strode across the room and yanked the door to the courtyard closed. He slid the horizontal bolt into the post and locked it with a key tied to a cord around his tunic. When he turned to us, his face had mellowed some, not from lack of resolve, it seemed, but from weariness. He said, “You’ll be confined here tonight. In the morning, I’ll hand you over to the Romans. It’s regrettable it came to this.”
He left, closing the main door behind him. The outside bolt slid into place with a soft thud. The key turned.
* * *
? ? ?
I RAN TO THE COURTYARD DOOR and knocked, gently at first, then louder. “Lavi is in the garden,” I told Yaltha. “He’s been hiding there.” I called out through the thick, impenetrable door, “Lavi . . . Lavi?”
No sound returned. I went on beckoning him for several moments, slapping my palm against the wood, absorbing the sharp stings. Finally, I gave up. Maybe Haran had ensnared him, too. Crossing the room, I shook the handle on the main door, as if I could wrest it free of its hinges.
I paced. My mind was whirling. The windows in our sleeping rooms were too high and too narrow to climb through, and calling for help seemed useless. “We have to find a way out,” I said. “I will not go to Nubia.”
“Conserve your strength,” Yaltha said. “You will need it.”
I slid onto the floor beside her with my back against her knees. I looked from one locked door to the other, a sense of futility gathering in me. “Will the Romans really punish us merely on the word of Haran?” I asked.
Her hand came to rest on my shoulder. “It seems Haran means to swear his case to the Roman court instead of the Jewish one, so I’m unsure, but I suppose he’ll set forth witnesses,” she said. “Ruebel’s old friends from the militia will be eager to say I poisoned him. Tell me, who saw you take the papyri?”
“Haran’s obnoxious servant.”
“Him.” She made a grunt of disgust. “He will take pleasure in bearing witness against you.”
“But we will deny their accusations.”
“If we’re allowed to speak, yes. We won’t give up hope, Ana, but neither should we allow our hope to be false. Haran has Roman citizenship, as well as the ear of the Roman prefect of Alexandria. He commands an important business and is one of the highest-ranking members of the Jewish council. I, on the other hand, am a fugitive and you are a foreigner.”
My eyes began to burn.
“There’s also the possibility my brother could bribe the court authorities.”
I lowered my head to my knees. Fugitive. Foreigner.
Tap, tap.
We looked in unison at the courtyard door. Then came the clatter of a key.
The key pegs found the pins in the lock and Pamphile stepped inside, followed by Lavi, who held up an iron key tied with a piece of identifying parchment.
I threw my arms around each of them. “How did you come upon the key?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“Haran has two for each door,” Pamphile said. “The extra ones are kept in a pouch that hangs on a wall in his study. Lavi was able to read the labels.” She beamed at him.