The sound of hurried footsteps reached them, and a moment later his parents burst into the room. Abigail had never seen such rapture on Ester’s face, and Jason smiled brightly into it.
“My children.” Ester did not stop until she could put an arm around each of them, hugging them at once. “The Lord has blessed us this day. Blessed be the name of the Lord! I am so happy.”
Jason laughed. “I praise him with you, Mother. Though there are a few things I will insist on. You must keep the wedding feast small, and make it soon. And now that Abigail is my betrothed, soon to be my wife, there will be no more eating in the kitchen; she will not be a servant. She will sit with us.”
“Of course!”
Abigail looked in dismay at their matching grins, landing her imploring gaze on Cleopas, too, though he would only smile at her. “I cannot! Jason, I cannot be served at the table where I served.”
“You can,” Cleopas pronounced firmly. “Abigail, the others adore you and would serve you gladly. You are the only one whom it would bother.”
She saw quickly that they would not be convinced; the Visibullises had decided that she would be one of them, and nothing she could say would dissuade them.
That evening, she sat at the table and was treated as though she had never been a slave.
Chapter Twenty
Menelaus tapped the hilt of his knife against the table’s edge and glanced over at Titus, who drummed his fingers on it. Lentulus sighed, a hand covering his face and the tips of his fingers buried in his hair. Apidius hacked without skill at a block of wood with his own knife. Their silence had covered the room for almost ten minutes.
“This is ridiculous,” Menelaus finally grumbled. “We must decide.”
Silence again. It ground on for another two minutes. Lentulus finally showed his face. “The general is going, and his wife. Pilate is considering it, too.”
“Pilate is going.” Menelaus had received the news only an hour before.
Apidius tossed his mutilated wood onto the table. “That is irrelevant. The general and Pontius go for Cleopas’s sake. They do not care who his son weds. But if we go, it will be for Jason. If we go, he will expect us to stand without shame beside him. We go now, and we profess ourselves his friends regardless of any decision he makes. We do not go, and we tell him clearly we are through with him.”
Menelaus considered for a moment, running his tongue over his teeth. Then he threw down his knife and stood, the clatter drawing all eyes his way. He set his face into the steely determination he imagined had been on his namesake’s countenance when he declared that he would not leave Ilium until he had his fair Helen at his side once more. “Jason is my friend. In Rome, he was higher in class and should not have graced me with his presence. But he did. Who am I to do otherwise in return?” He picked up his cloak and put it around his shoulders. “I am going to the wedding feast.”
Titus nodded, but by his grim expression Menelaus was not sure whether it was in agreement or resignation of another lost friend. Until he spoke. “I am going as well.”
Lentulus and Apidius looked at each other in relief and stood; their thoughts were obvious. If the mighty Titus Asinius would go with dignity to watch their friend wed a Hebrew slave, then they could, too.
By the time they arrived at the prefect’s dwelling, the feast was already underway. Music spilled onto the dusk-hued street, blending with the rays of the old sun. Laughter reached Menelaus’s ears, and many voices talking at once. When they arrived at the door, it was opened by the old, smiling slave he had seen a handful of times before.
“Welcome.” He motioned them indoors.
They all took off their cloaks and handed them to him, looking around and at each other as he led them in to where the feast was taking place. The aroma of food reminded Menelaus that they had not eaten in their haste to sit around and contemplate all afternoon.
They were not noticed as soon as they entered, which was unsurprising given the number of people within, and it gave them a moment to look around them, taking in the other guests and the bride and bridegroom. Jason was looking his best, decked out in wedding array and smiling with a light Menelaus had never seen in him before.
“He is happy.” Awe with that probably colored his tone.
“So it seems.” Titus hummed, but it sounded more like a growl as he looked toward the corner of the room. Menelaus turned to see what had snagged his disapproval and saw Abigail. She, too, was smiling, but the glow on her face was not that of complete happiness as Jason’s was, but rather of peace. The corner’s of Titus’s mouth turned up. “I am not so certain his bride is as content.”