Blood Wine

CRASH.

The crystal goblet exploded against marble like scattered stars, Falernian wine bleeding across white stone in dark rivulets. Marcus Pontius stared at the mess, then at the trembling boy holding the empty serving tray.

Claudia didn't even flinch. She'd been expecting it—had dreamed of breaking glass three nights running. Her hands shook as she lifted her own cup, the poppy extract she'd mixed with the wine making everything feel distant and strange.

"Brilliant," she said, voice steadier than her pulse. "Simply brilliant."

The new servant—Demetrius, purchased yesterday in desperate haste—dropped to his knees, frantically gathering crystal shards with bare hands. Blood welled from his palms, mixing with wine in patterns that made Claudia's vision blur. She'd seen this exact scene before, in the dream where everything ended in screaming.

"Stop." Marcus's voice cracked like a whip. "Just... stop."

Claudia took another sip of drugged wine, trying to push away the memory of dream-blood soaking into her husband's toga. The poppy helped, but not enough. Nothing helped enough.

"Leave it," she said, surprised by how calm she sounded. "Tiberius can deal with it in the morning."

If there was a morning. If the dreams were wrong. If she could somehow change what she'd already seen.

Demetrius scrambled to his feet, tunic soaked with wine and spotted with blood. He looked exactly like the other one—the teacher from her nightmares, beaten and broken and staring at her with those terrible, knowing eyes.

"Forgive me, Dominus. I didn't mean—the tray was heavier than—"

"Where did we find this one?" Marcus asked, and Claudia felt the familiar script unfolding.

"The slave market. Yesterday." She poured more wine with movements that felt rehearsed, inevitable. "His previous master died. Crucifixion."

The word landed like a stone in still water. Demetrius went very still, and Claudia saw recognition flicker across his young face. He knew. Somehow, he knew what was coming.

"Crucifixion," Marcus repeated slowly. "How... timely."

"Isn't it just?" Claudia's smile felt carved from ice. She'd practiced this conversation in her head for days, ever since the dreams started. "Poor boy's master was caught stealing from the temple treasury."

But that was a lie. She'd bought Demetrius because his master had been innocent, because she'd dreamed of his death too, because she thought maybe—just maybe—saving one innocent life might change the pattern of what was coming.

It hadn't worked. The dreams kept coming, night after night, more vivid each time.

Marcus moved to the window, studying Jerusalem below. "New servants," he said. "Always breaking things."

"Some things need breaking." Claudia drained her cup, tasting bitter herbs beneath the wine. The poppy made her bold, reckless. "Tell me, husband—what would you do if you knew exactly how tomorrow would unfold?"

"What?"

"If you could see the future. If you knew, with absolute certainty, the consequences of every choice you made today." She watched his reflection in the dark glass, memorizing his face before everything changed. "Would you choose differently?"

Marcus turned, frowning. "You're talking nonsense. Too much wine."

"Am I?" Claudia laughed, high and sharp. "Or am I talking like someone who's been having the same nightmare for five consecutive nights?"

The confession slipped out before she could stop it. Marcus's frown deepened.

"What nightmares?"

CRASH.

Demetrius again, this time with the backup amphora. Wine exploded across the floor in a crimson tsunami, and Claudia bit back a scream. This was wrong—in the dreams, he'd broken the amphora later, after the conversation about washing hands.

The script was changing. Everything was changing.

"Oh, for Mars's sake," Marcus muttered.

Demetrius dropped to his knees, using his tunic to mop the spreading stain. "I'm sorry, Dominus. I can't seem to—my hands won't—"

"Your hands are shaking," Claudia observed, though hers were worse. The poppy was wearing off, leaving her nerves raw and exposed. "Like mine. Like everyone's in this house tonight."

She stood abruptly, moving to the small shrine where household gods watched with marble eyes. The faces seemed to judge her, their carved expressions shifting in the lamplight.

"What did you dream?" Marcus asked quietly.

Claudia pressed her palms against cool marble, trying to ground herself in physical sensation. "Blood," she said. "So much blood. And you, standing in a courtyard with a basin of water, trying to wash your hands clean while a crowd screams for death."

The silence stretched taut as a bowstring. When she turned, Marcus had gone very pale.

"You dreamed about the trial."

"I dreamed about all of it." The words tumbled out now, unstoppable. "The teacher from Galilee, brought before you in chains. Caiaphas smiling in the shadows. The crowd choosing Barabbas. Your hands in that basin, water turning red even as you scrubbed."

"Water doesn't turn red," Marcus said weakly.

"Doesn't it?" Claudia gestured to the floor where Demetrius still knelt, cloth stained crimson with wine and blood. "Look around, Marcus. Look at what we've already spilled tonight."

Demetrius glanced up, fear naked on his young face. "Domina, should I—"

"Tell him about your master," Claudia said suddenly. "Tell him about Gaius Africanus."

The boy's face crumpled. "He was innocent, Dominus. He was delivering money, not stealing it. Someone else's debt to Roman merchants."

"Whose debt?" Marcus's voice had gone very quiet.

"The high priest, Dominus. Caiaphas owed gold to grain merchants. My master was just the messenger, but when he arrived..." Demetrius swallowed hard. "Caiaphas himself gave the order for arrest. Said he was stealing from the temple."

Marcus sank into his chair as if his legs had given out. "Another innocent man."

"There will be more," Claudia said, moving behind him to rest her hands on his shoulders. "In my dreams, there are always more. Innocent after innocent, sacrificed for political convenience, until the very word 'justice' becomes a joke."

"Dreams aren't prophecy."

"Aren't they?" She began kneading the knots of tension in his neck, feeling him relax despite himself. "Then explain how I knew about the basin. How I knew you'd wash your hands."

Marcus was quiet for a long moment. Outside, Jerusalem hummed with nighttime sounds—distant laughter from taverns, the cry of a night watchman, the soft shuffle of late pedestrians on cobblestone.

"What else did you see?" he asked finally.

Claudia closed her eyes, letting the visions flow. "A man who claims to be king, but speaks of kingdoms not of this world. Crown of thorns. Purple robe that's really just a soldier's cloak. Questions about truth that you can't answer because you've forgotten what truth means."

"I know what truth means."

"Do you?" Her fingers found a particularly stubborn knot at the base of his skull. "Then tell me—is it true that you're planning to release Barabbas tomorrow? Is it true that you've already decided the teacher must die?"

Marcus jerked away from her touch. "I haven't decided anything."

"Haven't you?" Claudia moved to pour fresh wine, hands steadier now that the confession was out. "Caiaphas visited this afternoon while you were reviewing the garrison reports. He brought gifts—that lovely silver bowl on the side table. Thirty pieces, if I counted correctly."

The color drained from Marcus's face. "How did you—"

"I was there, Marcus. Listening from the alcove like a good Roman wife. He made you an offer you couldn't refuse, didn't he? The teacher's death in exchange for continued cooperation with the Sanhedrin. Continued peace in the province. Continued favor with Rome."

"You were spying on me."

"I was trying to protect you." Claudia's voice cracked, revealing the desperation she'd been hiding. "From yourself. From choices that will haunt you for the rest of your life."

Demetrius had finished cleaning and stood awkwardly by the door, clearly wanting to flee but afraid to move without permission. Blood and wine stained his tunic in patterns that looked suspiciously like the map of Palestine.

"Boy," Marcus said without turning around. "What do you know about the teacher from Galilee?"

"I've seen him, Dominus. In the temple courts. He spoke about forgiveness, about turning the other cheek. Some called him prophet. Others called him fraud."

"What did you call him?"

Demetrius hesitated, glancing between Marcus and Claudia. "I called him... unsettling, Dominus. He looked at people like he could see straight through to their souls. Like he knew all their secrets, all their shames, but loved them anyway."

The words hit the room like a physical blow. Claudia felt tears prick her eyes—tears she'd been holding back for five days of nightmares and dread.

"In my dreams," she whispered, "he looks at you that way. When you ask if he's king, when you ask about truth, when you wash your hands. He looks at you with such sadness, such terrible compassion, and you can't bear it."

"Dreams," Marcus repeated, but his voice lacked conviction.

"More than dreams." Claudia moved to the window, staring out at the city where tomorrow's tragedy would unfold. "Warnings. Visions. Call them what you want, but they're real, Marcus. As real as that silver on the table. As real as the choice you'll make in the morning."

"What choice?"

She turned to face him, memorizing his features in the lamplight. Soon—too soon—everything would change. The man she'd married would still exist, but buried beneath layers of compromise and guilt and the slow erosion of whatever ideals he'd once held.

"Between justice and expedience. Between conscience and career. Between saving an innocent man and saving yourself."

Marcus stood abruptly, knocking over his chair. "I didn't ask for this. Any of it. The posting, the politics, the impossible choices. I just wanted to serve Rome honorably."

"And now?"

"Now I learn that honor is a luxury politicians can't afford." He began pacing, energy crackling off him like lightning before a storm. "Three decades in the legions, Claudia. Three decades following orders, maintaining discipline, believing in something larger than myself. And what does it get me? A provincial posting where every decision is wrong, where justice and survival are mutually exclusive."

"They don't have to be."

"Don't they?" Marcus spun to face her, eyes blazing. "Tell me, wife—in your prophetic dreams, what happens if I refuse Caiaphas? If I release the teacher and damn the consequences?"

Claudia closed her eyes, searching through layers of nightmare and vision. "Riots," she said finally. "Blood in the streets. The temple guards turning the Passover crowds into a mob. Roman citizens torn apart by zealots drunk on righteous fury."

"And if I condemn him?"

"You live with it. Every day for the rest of your life, you live with the knowledge that you sacrificed an innocent man to preserve an unjust peace."

The silence that followed was broken only by Demetrius shifting nervously by the door, the soft hiss of oil lamps, the distant sound of someone singing drunkenly in the street below.

"I didn't have a choice," Marcus said finally.

"You keep saying that." Claudia's voice was gentle now, sad. "And maybe it's true. Maybe the choice was made long before today, in a thousand small compromises and convenient lies. Maybe we're all just playing out a script written by older, crueler hands."

She moved to the silver bowl Caiaphas had left, counting the coins with one finger. Thirty pieces exactly, each one catching lamplight like a captured star.

"But here's what I know from my dreams, husband. Here's what I've seen again and again in visions so vivid they feel more real than waking life." She picked up one of the coins, feeling its weight. "The teacher will die tomorrow. You'll wash your hands. The crowd will cheer. And none of it will bring you peace."

"Then why tell me? Why torment us both with visions of things that can't be changed?"

Claudia smiled then, sad and knowing and heartbreakingly beautiful in the lamplight. "Because even if we can't change what happens, we can choose how we remember it. We can choose whether to tell ourselves comfortable lies or face the truth of what we've done."

She tossed the coin back into the bowl where it landed with a soft chime. "And who knows? Maybe remembering honestly is its own kind of redemption."

Marcus stared at the silver, at his wife, at the young servant still standing frozen by the door. Outside, Jerusalem settled into sleep, unaware that its tomorrow had already been decided by political necessity and prophetic dreams.

"The boy will keep breaking things," he observed quietly.

"Yes. Reminding us. Every dropped cup, every spilled drop. Every mess that needs cleaning."

Demetrius straightened, understanding passing between the three of them. He would stay. He would serve. He would bear witness to the aftermath of choices that felt inevitable but might have been otherwise.

"Good," Marcus said finally. "Someone should remember. Someone should make it impossible to forget."

Claudia poured fresh wine with hands that barely trembled now. The poppy was gone from her system, leaving her clearheaded and strangely calm. The dreams would continue—she knew that with sudden certainty. But perhaps that was the point. Perhaps some truths were too important to be comfortable.

"To memory," she said, raising her cup.

"To consequences," Marcus replied, lifting his own.

They drank in silence while Demetrius cleaned the last traces of spilled wine from marble that would never quite look the same. Outside, the city dreamed fitfully, and in the governor's palace, three people shared the burden of knowing exactly how tomorrow would unfold.

The wine was bitter now, but they kept drinking anyway. Some nights demanded more courage than others. Some choices, once seen, could never be unseen.

And in the flickering lamplight of their dining room, Marcus Pontius learned that the heaviest chains aren't made of iron—they're forged from the terrible clarity of understanding exactly who you are and what you're capable of becoming.