Rome: The Emperor's Spy: Rome 1

by M C Scott

  She said, ‘This isn’t just about the race, is it?’

  ‘Not any more.’ Ajax smoothed his palm across his scalp. ‘Math’s going to Rome and there’s nothing we can do about it. Nero will have him, one way or the other. If we’re to stay together, we have to win.’

  ‘You could do that with two colts.’

  ‘I believe I could. Nero, however, believes otherwise and Nero is our emperor. So if we’re going to avoid a bloodbath’ – Ajax lifted a headstall from the rack on the wall and threw it to Math – ‘we’ll have to spend the next three days running all four colts round that bloody track until they’re on their knees, too spent to fight.’

  Math caught the headstall that was thrown him. It was the last thing his father had made, pliable and beautiful and very light. ‘We’re using the racing harness?’ he asked, wide-eyed. ‘And the racing rigs?’ In his dreams. In his best and wildest dreams …

  ‘The racing harness and the racing rigs,’ Ajax agreed. He didn’t look as if it would be the fulfilment of every boy’s wish. ‘You’ll drive Brass and Bronze, they’re the better schooled. I’ll drive Sweat and Thunder in the spare racing chariot. By the time we’re finished, they’ll be so bored of each other’s company, they won’t bother to fight. Get everything ready today. Make sure you can wind the reins in your sleep. We’ll start tomorrow morning at dawn.’

  ‘Go Bronze! Go Brass! Go! Go! Go!’

  Math was flying. Out of control, without Ajax to help him, he was flying. The light racing chariot bounced under his feet, light as a leaping deer. On any other day, he would have fallen and, in falling, killed himself. But today, at last, his body seemed to have its own knowing.

  The parade race with Ajax had given him that, so that here, now, he could stand with his hands spread wide and his head back and he was not falling but flying, leaning into the turn, letting Bronze, hugely powerful, made of muscle, bone and teeth, made of rage and blood and hate, letting all of that go into pulling the light racing rig tight round the bend and up into the straight.

  Where he met Ajax, coming the other way, racing right-handed, with the sun, which was quite astonishingly difficult and went against all his horses’ training, but they needed to do it, so that they might pass each other twice on each circuit, letting Bronze and Thunder pass each other, left hand to left hand, so they could meet and match, but not fight. For only when immersed in a race did the blood-mist of winning rise higher in each of the colts than the blood-mist of killing his rival. And Ajax’s alchemy seemed to be working. For three circuits now they had met and met again, and while both colts flattened their ears to their heads as they passed there was no war yet; nobody had died.

  Nero’s watching men could report that they were genuinely trying and Poros could stand at the edge and fume and do nothing. Math didn’t have time to see if he was.

  He barely had control. Actually, he had no control. If the horses hadn’t known the track as well as they knew their own stables, they would have crashed into the walls at the end of the first short straight.

  But they did know it, and without the need to manoeuvre round other rigs Math had nothing to do but stand still and ride the wind. On the next long straight, he leaned forward and risked one single cast of his long thin whip to crack in the air above Bronze and Brass, to ask of them yet more speed.

  As a ship surges forward from a newly unfurled sail in a greater breath of wind, so did his horses give him a burst of power to take him faster down the straight so that he was more than flying and the tears streaming past his temples were for joy as much as speed and he knew at last, in the seat of his soul, what it was to fly loose from his body, freed from all the weights and sorrows of the earth.

  He understood in his soul why it was that Ajax came so alive out here on the sands and why his father had so loved battle.

  Lifting his head, Math screamed out his father’s name and heard it lost in the thunder of his own movement. Flying over the red hot sands, he knew, with an indescribable elation, that nobody could ever take from him the memory of freedom.

  Standing at the side rails, away from Poros and the emperor’s men, Hannah heard Caradoc’s name in the high hawk’s cry and wept for the joy of it, and the pain of a boy finding freedom who was too young to have lost it.

  She bent her head to rest her forehead on her loosely clenched fists and so neither heard the footsteps nor saw the shadow at her side until a voice said, ‘It was Xenophon, I believe, who said a horse’s hooves should sound as cymbals on the sand. He was an exceptional horseman, but I’m not sure he heard cymbals as I hear them. I’d have said those four colts sound more like mallets driving pegs into wood.’

  ‘Akakios.’ Hannah kept her eyes on the track. Akakios came to lean on the rail by her side.

  ‘I’ve been speaking to men in Alexandria,’ he said conversationally. ‘Scholars of ancient wisdom, apothecaries, astrologers, priests. I have been honest with them about who I am, and what I want. They, in turn, have been honest with me. Five different men and one woman have independently told me the same thing so that even I begin to believe it.’

  Hannah squeezed her hands together to keep them still. Math was on the far straight. His team passed Ajax at the middle marker, as they needed to. The horses noticed each other less each time.

  Akakios waited until the two chariots were clear, then, ‘Can you guess what they told me?’

  ‘That if you enter the maze of the Oracle beneath the Temple of Serapis,’ Hannah said flatly, ‘you will never emerge alive.’

  ‘Exactly so. I did not kill Ptolemy Asul, but he was a man much valued by the Sibyls and they already know the part I played in his demise. Even if I were to reach the Styx – which I gather is unlikely – I would not cross it alive.’ He turned round, leaning back against the top rail with his arms folded. ‘Why did you not tell me this?’

  ‘I was about to. If you remember, we were interrupted.’

  ‘There has been time since then.’

  ‘In which you have been closeted with the emperor to the exclusion of anyone else, or abroad in Alexandria where I am now forbidden to go. You know, that’s what matters. We will cancel our arrangement. Nobody will be hurt.’

  Hannah turned away, as if to leave. Akakios caught her wrist. His fingers left livid prints on the burns he had made six days before.

  ‘I need to know what the Oracle knows,’ he said. His eyes held exactly the quality of humanity they had in Ptolemy Asul’s house, which was none. ‘I will find that out, and you will help me to do so.’

  ‘Then we will both die.’ She let the scorn show in her voice. ‘I thought you might value your own life more highly than that.’

  ‘I do. And because I do, I value your life highly also. You should be grateful.’ He released her arm. The marks of his fingers stood out white against the healing burns. ‘My sources tell me that I can send a surrogate, a man who is not as … tainted as I am. Is this true?’

  ‘It may be … if you can find someone prepared to take the risk. Crossing the Styx is not without its dangers, even for a man pure of heart.’

  ‘You’d be surprised who will take risks on my behalf.’ Akakios’ smile made the gorge rise in her throat. ‘Saulos, in this instance, has professed himself glad to do so.’

  ‘Saulos?’ Hannah stared at him in frank astonishment. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I told him you would die if he did not.’ Akakios tipped his head. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, he holds you in high esteem. He is, in fact, besotted. He’ll take whatever risks are asked of him to keep you safe. Is love not a wonderful thing?’ He turned again, to gaze out at the track where the horses were moving smoothly. There was still an obvious disparity between Ajax’s skill and Math’s, but it was growing less with each circuit.

  Akakios turned back to face Hannah. ‘And whereas you might not return Saulos’ love,’ he said, ‘I know that I can rely upon you to do whatever you can in your turn to keep Ajax and Math safe. Have you petitioned the
Oracle yet, to ask if you might conduct in a supplicant?’

  Hannah shook her head.

  ‘My sources say that you must, and soon. When is appropriate?’

  She found her voice. ‘The dawn of any day.’

  ‘Then tomorrow at dawn, you will ask for and receive permission to escort Saulos into Hades. At the time appointed, you will be his guide in all ways and will ensure that he remains alive and returns with the answer that I require. You will do this willingly and well or those whom you love will die as Ptolemy Asul died. You know I can do this, and I will.’

  Ajax found her later, being sick into a bowl in her own quarters. He was alight with the success of his venture, with Math’s skill, with hope for the race, so that she didn’t want to tell him what had happened and he had to draw it out of her word by word.

  When she was done, he sat on the edge of her bed staring straight at the wall. His face had taken on the smooth blankness she saw before a race, when his mind was turned inward. He said, ‘I could kill him, here, today, now. He wouldn’t threaten you then.’

  ‘He’ll have thought of that. If he dies, there will be an order left for you and Math to die. It’s the way men like him work.’

  ‘What will you do, then?’

  Hannah set the bowl down and wiped her mouth with the heel of her hand. Making herself meet Ajax’s eyes was harder than giving her word to Akakios had been. Ajax could read her in ways Akakios never could; he knew the cost of what she was doing. She was glad Math wasn’t there.

  ‘I’ll do exactly what he asks,’ she said. ‘I’ll take Saulos into the tunnels beneath the Serapeum that lead to Hades, there to cross the Styx and meet with the Oracle. What happens after that is between him, the Ferryman and the Sibyl. If he dies, it won’t be of my doing.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Dawn came slowly to the man lying in the rubble of the half-built building that backed on to the Temple of Serapis in Alexandria.

  Pantera had settled there in the dark, feeling his way, lit by grey stars. By feel, he had come to a place he had noted during the day, and to the oiled cloth he had hidden between the scattered stones. Then, feigning the appearance of a clerk sent to examine the site, he had made a space for himself, clearing it free of broken bricks and other debris so that he could lie unseen through an entire day if necessary.

  Before dawn, he had eased himself in, and drawn the pale cloth over his head, for shade and camouflage together. He had laid his knife where he could reach it then rested his chin on his fists and prepared to wait.

  And wait.

  Dawn was a pale thing, scented with eucalyptus and juniper, brought to life by mosquitoes flying in droves from Lake Mareotis and then cicadas that hid with the scorpions in the walls. After the insects, songbirds came in great profusion, to blast the temple and its surround, to shake it awake, and all the priests who attended the god.

  White-clad novices emerged and began to sweep the temple steps. Satisfied, the birds went away to sing other, less violent songs, except for one full-throated warbler that stayed behind to warn the priests and whoever else might listen of the man lying still under the canvas.

  Unless, of course, the warning was meant for the man, to tell him he was not alone. It had been true once, in Britain, when Pantera had lain in wait for a small band of Roman auxiliaries and the clucking of a blackbird had warned him of the scout who might have run over him if he had not listened to the bird and moved in time.

  He lay still, therefore, listening, scenting the breeze coming in off the lake, and so was not surprised when a single pebble bounced in front of his face and a light, acerbic voice said, ‘Leopard, must you lie in your lair in the full glare of the sun or will you come with me into privacy and shade?’

  ‘How may I come without being seen by the three men Akakios has set on watch?’ Pantera asked.

  ‘Slide backwards two lengths of your body and turn to your right eighty degrees. There you will find a stack of oak planking set at an angle against the wall. Behind it is an entrance such as a boy might crawl down. If your body will fit, you can go in there and nobody will ever see you.’

  ‘And if I don’t fit?’

  ‘Try it,’ said Hypatia of Alexandria from the thin air near the temple. ‘There’s no point in taking risks if what you desire can be achieved easily without.’

  It wasn’t easy. He had never been happy in confined spaces, particularly not those fashioned by men, but he inserted himself feet first into the small round portal and slid-wriggled through into the room below. A woman’s hands caught his ankles and he let them guide him down on to a ledge and thence to the floor.

  He stood in darkness made more complete by its contrast to the morning’s fierce sun. When he stretched his hands out his fingertips found smooth, flat limestone at each quarter. The roof was a bare hand’s breadth over his head. The walls were within reach on three sides. He could feel warmer air from the fourth, but also a hint of a fresh current that cut across to cool his right side, and brought with it the peppery tang of incense.

  Hypatia left him and returned from an outer chamber bearing an oil lamp of soapstone with a good wick that didn’t smoke too much. The light pushed outwards, showing the small, perfect room into which she had brought him, the bench cut into the far wall, and the paintings.

  The paintings: images of life, and greater than life. Behind him, instantly engaging, stood Cerberus, three-headed hound-guardian of Hades, made lifelike in a way men never were.

  Each head was of a different kind of hound, one a great, broad-jawed mastiff, the next wise Anubis, the last a running dog from Britain. They had teeth to rend and their throats were red with blood. But the birds flying across the other walls unsettled him more.

  ‘Three herons,’ he said, tracing the outline of the first with his finger. ‘They’re souls, travelling to the underworld – am I right? And when they come down out of the sky, Charon, the Ferryman, takes them in his craft across the Styx to the landing stage guarded by the triple-headed hound. And this …’

  He took the lamp from her hand and brought it close. The paint was old, and worn, but as clear as anything he had seen in Ptolemy Asul’s house. Around and above, ghosted images of birds and sexless men, of cats, ibis, oxen and hounds, ran all towards the third and final panel of the frieze.

  There, the three herons came to rest, standing in a high domed room, with their wings spread as covers over the lying figure of a sleeping youth. He or she – it was impossible to tell which – had dark hair bound at the brow with a fillet of silver, and was covered from neck to foot by a thin white shroud, except where the arms were folded over the breast, hiding what might lie beneath.

  ‘This is the soul, brought home at death,’ Pantera said hoarsely, and wondered why it moved him so.

  ‘You’re right.’ He thought Hypatia sounded surprised, possibly impressed. ‘What you see there are the Ka and Ba – the first two herons – seeing the soul safely home, that it might not be lost in the world. We who are alive fear the manner of our death, when what we should fear is an unwitting death, in which our soul does not know itself free and cannot navigate its way forward. In which case—’

  ‘In which case it roams the place of its death, seeking to return into life.’ Pantera shivered and watched the shadows float about the room. ‘In Britain, the dreamers can speak with such lost souls and send them home. Here, I know of no one who could do that.’

  ‘Such people exist,’ Hypatia said drily, ‘but we’d be sewn into sacks and thrown into the Nile for heresy if we revealed ourselves openly.’

  She stood close enough to touch. Her scent was the same as it had been when they had first met: a breath of wild roses, with ever more subtle tones of other flowers beneath. She wore it sparely, so that she smelled also of brick dust and eucalyptus and water from a cold, deep well.

  Pantera turned his back to the herons. ‘The sisters have been here a long time, then.’ He made it half a question.

  Hyp
atia took back the lamp. ‘We were here before Alexander ever set foot on the isthmus,’ she said. ‘We will be here long after Rome is dust.’

  ‘So the tale of the wheat flour poured on the sand to draw the streets of a city is a myth?’

  ‘No, the wheat flour is true; Alexander wanted to see how to lay out a city. What’s false is that he did it on an empty land. We were here, and had been so since before the pyramids were built. And it’s also not true that Ptolemy Soter alone decided to build the Serapeum.’ She waved her hands upwards. Pantera had a sense of a great weight pressing down on this room. ‘He was helped in the making of his new god.’

  Pantera tried not to imagine the entire Temple of Serapis falling in on his head, heavier than the sky, and far more likely to collapse. He swept his arms overly wide, encompassing the room and its old, old murals. ‘The sisters designed the Serapeum to hide this?’

  ‘And all that it leads to.’ Unexpectedly, Hypatia smiled. ‘You are clever. And I am a poor host. Wait.’ She took the lamp and left him in darkness with her voice echoing in his ears.

  She returned with two pewter mugs. The sides made satin mirrors, curving her reflection around her hand. She was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. And still the most unreadable.

  Formally, she handed him a mug, saying, ‘I swear by the god we both believe in that this is untainted, and so safe for us to drink.’

  ‘Thank you. They say the oracles drug their petitioners to make them suggestible. I’m glad to hear it’s not true.’ He sipped self-consciously, tasting stone and the deepest earth. ‘Do we both believe in the same god? I didn’t know the Sibyls were given to Mithras.’

  ‘We’re not. But if you don’t know by now that the god’s name and shape is a shield, a bright pattern to catch the eyes and deflect them from the greater truth behind, then you shouldn’t be here.’