1963

We are all completely rapt as Tron tells us his story. His voice is deep, sonorous, but not harshly masculine, and his visage shines, his olive skin, dark hair and chiseled aquiline features showing that yes, he must indeed have been born in that part of the world, however long ago. "At the moment of my conversion, for that is what had just happened to me, I looked at my boy, Thaddai, who was now no longer mine, who was kneeling next to me, and I could already see him being taken away from me. I said to him, "Thaddai, you are no longer mine. You never were. And I can hardly face you to beg your forgiveness for how I carnally misused you, of how I also drew you into sin against our Saviour. Thaddai, here before God and before this assembly of the faithful, I release you from my bondage, from the bondage of chains and from the bondage of flesh. Only tell me now please how I could best serve you. Here we both confessed to Christ and the faithful our sin, our renunciation and, as there was a spring nearby, we were both baptised that same night. Then, we embarked together on a journey for we knew it would no longer be safe for us to remain in Nicomedia. Once they heard of my conversion I would be a dead soldier before nightfall. We set immediately together to Damascus, for Thaddai yearned to see his mother and his brothers. His father himself was dead, murdered by brigands who abducted him to sell on the slave market, for adolescent boys were a particularly hot commodity then in the beastly market of human flesh...