Rome: The Emperor's Spy: Rome 1

by M C Scott

  He said, ‘You are familiar with the Sibyls’ prophecy regarding the requirements for bringing about the Kingdom of Heaven?’

  ‘The one for which we risked our lives in Hades?’ Hannah said drily. ‘It would be hard to forget.’

  ‘Then you should know that Akakios was my man, not I his.’

  Hannah frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I found the prophecy and I gave the orders. Akakios was never going to enter Hades; it was to our advantage that he could not approach the Oracle and must send me in his place. It was I who needed to find the date, and I did so.’

  ‘You lied to the Oracle?’

  He shook his head. ‘Every word I spoke was true. I would be dead, else, you know that. But I was not asked for my motives in entering, and did not give them.’

  The air grew thick between them. Hannah looked down first. For a while, she studied her fingers. ‘I risked my life to lead you to the Styx. I did it in good faith.’

  ‘And I went in good faith! Hannah, you must believe that. Rome must burn. It must. You said yourself that its decadence is destroying all that is beautiful and worthy. And the Oracle alone had the date. The dog star rises over Rome tonight. I can do all that is needed to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven.’

  ‘You can burn Rome?’

  ‘And then destroy Jerusalem. Yes.’

  ‘The Kingdom of Heaven.’ Hannah studied Saulos’ face as if seeing it for the first time. ‘Do you believe in a world where the god of Abraham rules alone, where his laws reign inviolate?’

  ‘My men do. They are sworn to the new covenant and the Kingdom that will arise from it. They will die to make that happen.’

  Abruptly, Hannah stood. Saulos remained on the bench. She felt his gaze pierce between her shoulder blades as she walked downhill through the market to the old Syrian apothecary.

  Returning, she held her purchases in her cupped hands, a gift not yet given. ‘I dressed your wound in Antium,’ she said. ‘I think it has not been dressed since.’

  Saulos blushed deeply.

  Hannah said, ‘It may be you have a physician … ?’

  ‘I have Poros.’ Saulos spread his hands.

  ‘So my presence may not add anything to your cause.’ Hannah turned away.

  ‘No!’ Saulos’ fingers gripped white on her forearm. ‘You would add everything. Everything. But I question my right to ask you to take the risk of staying.’

  ‘You’re not asking,’ Hannah said, ‘I am. You only have to say yes.’

  They completed their errands together. At the end, close to noon with the high sun a blazing pyre roasting the city to tinder dryness, Hannah had everything she needed for the dressing and Saulos had food, wine and bread for two hundred men.

  ‘Two hundred?’ Hannah asked as they walked down from the market through the maze of tiny alleyways that marked the ghettos of the Palatine.

  ‘And more arriving through the day.’ Saulos caught her elbow, turning her to the side. ‘Turn left there, under the cow-hide flap. And then right immediately after. You’ll have to duck down, the ceiling is low. This pen was made for sheep and goats, not Alexandrian healer-women.’

  Inside, cool air met them like a welcome lover, so that Hannah only noticed the stench as an afterthought. Under Saulos’ direction, she passed through a narrow channel that stank of goat manure and out into a second alley. A little way down, two men in legionary dress stepped out of the shadows to stop them. Saulos gave the passwords, and introduced Hannah to each in turn. ‘You’re well protected,’ she said, as he led her on down the hill.

  ‘We need to be.’ Saulos’ face clouded over. ‘Yesterday, we were betrayed. Akakios had rented a cattle barn half a mile downriver from here. He was slain there and Poros was lucky to escape with his life. You’ll meet Poros at the warehouse. He’s as loyal a man as I have ever met, but we may have traitors within our ranks. For safety, we must assume so.’

  Hannah looked about. The alleyway was so narrow they could barely walk down it together. ‘This isn’t an easy place to assault.’

  ‘It’s almost impossible,’ Saulos said, with grim satisfaction. ‘Nothing short of the entire Praetorian and Urban Guards could assault us here. And even then there are ways out of this place that even I haven’t found yet. I think five men, left living, could burn Rome if they were properly prepared, and we are nothing if not that. Excuse me—’

  He leaned past her and pushed open a door. Noise spilled out, loud as a rushing tide. A wall of heat gave them momentary pause.

  ‘This is the warehouse,’ Saulos shouted, over the din. ‘I apologize for the disarray. Until yesterday, it housed bales of wool. Poros is there.’ He pointed through the throng. A big bluff man looked up at the sound of his voice. He frowned a moment, then a wide smile split his beard across and he began to push his way through the mass of men.

  Saulos said, ‘He’s my quartermaster. He’ll introduce you to the men. I have some arrangements to make and then I must pay a visit to the water tower beside the Claudian temple further up the hill. You are welcome to join me. With Akakios gone, securing the city’s water supply is my responsibility. Before that—’

  ‘Before anything, we will dress your wound.’

  ‘Of course.’ He flashed a grin. ‘As my physician directs, so shall it be. There’s a dais over by the rear door that I’ll use to speak to the assembly tonight. It has a curtain round it now for privacy. We can use it, perhaps, so as not to alarm the men?’

  The dais was bare boards laid on bricks, but it was tolerable and there was light enough from a row of vents set high in the roof. Saulos’ wound had not liquefied as much as she had feared and the dressing went on cleanly. The old one was taken out and dropped in the river to keep its foulness from spreading.

  When she was done, Saulos stood, stretching his arms as he had done each time in Alexandria. He was turning away when Hannah grimaced in evident distress.

  ‘Hannah!’ He spun back. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘The heat …’ Hannah forced a tight smile and waved her hand in the way all women use to dismiss the things they can’t discuss in men’s company.

  ‘My dear.’ Saulos grasped her wrist and her elbow. ‘You must leave Rome. I should have said so earlier, but selfishness held me back. Go now. I’ve got gold enough to buy you a good horse and an escort.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But, Hannah—’

  ‘No!’ All around, men arrested their activities to stare. She dropped her voice. ‘I’m not leaving now,’ she said. ‘You can’t make me.’

  ‘The fire—’

  ‘Must start tonight. I know the risks better than you do. I’m a Sibyl. Never forget that.’

  ‘How could I? Your courage shames me.’ Saulos took her elbow and guided her away from the gaggle of watching men. ‘If you won’t leave, then at least rest here, behind the curtains. This isn’t a palace, or even the compound at Alexandria, but—’

  ‘Please …’ Hannah shook her head. ‘Allow me what little pride I have. In any case, walking helps ease the pain.’ She nodded back towards the door. ‘Perhaps I might walk up the Aventine and see the city from above? If I’m going to be useful tonight, I could identify the routes of the aqueducts nearest to here.’

  ‘You would do that?’ Saulos took her hand and bent to kiss it. When he rose, his smile was radiant. ‘I have to visit the water engineer,’ he said. ‘I will escort you that far.’

  Hannah lifted her satchel. ‘I’ll make sure I’m back before you talk to the men.’

  ‘It’ll be more than talk.’ Saulos’ eyes shone. ‘Tonight, I will tell them God’s truth one last time. They will eat of his flesh and drink of his blood, and go to the fire as living memories of their saviour.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Two men followed Hannah through the hot, dry morning as she left the warehouse and walked up the hill towards the high, white wall of the goose-keeper’s garden halfway up the Aventine.

  A lumpe
n, gap-toothed merchant lounged against a wall opposite Juno’s gardens, peering at her from under the hat’s brim. Hannah knew him and he knew that she knew him. His presence made no sense, except in the context of a warning Pantera had offered in Gaul.

  If you know of one person following you, then there’s at least one more, probably two. The first is a decoy. If you’re arrogant, you’ll believe yourself clever to have seen him and not look for the others.

  He had been talking to Math in the strange light of a fire-washed Gaulish meadow, with a dead man lying at peace beneath an oak tree. It had been the first of the promised tutorials, a small nugget, given out of mercy to a boy who was drowning in mourning.

  At the time, Hannah had barely listened. Now, she tensed her abdomen and slumped against the wall in apparent pain, cursing just loudly enough to be heard.

  The lumpen spy opposite spat into the dust and looked away, but not before he had locked eyes with a sour-looking boy inexpertly fingering bolts of coloured linens in the doorway of the cloth merchant a few doors down.

  Two then, at least.

  Hannah levered herself from the wall and, looking round, appeared to notice the weathered oak gate for the first time. Hesitantly, she smoothed down her tunic, ran her fingers through her hair and pushed the gate inward.

  ‘Hello?’ The shout was designed to be heard from the street outside, not inside. ‘Do you have any water?’

  The geese came to greet her, nuzzling her hand. She had no crusts to give them, but picked grass and let them tease it from her fingers.

  The cottage stood at the very back of the garden, down the length of the wall. Thick-walled and ancient, it lay slumbering in the sun with its windows half shuttered against the sun and its only doorway curtained by a hanging hide. No windows from neighbouring buildings overlooked the garden either; it was not considered either wise or lucky to look down on the gods’ geese.

  Hannah was halfway there when she heard a woman’s voice, raised in anger. ‘No!’

  She began to run, and then stopped as a man spoke, calming, his voice so soft that it was lost in the stream’s song.

  The woman’s answer came sharply again. ‘How can you say that, you who gave up love for the sake of a man who escaped early into death?’

  And so Hannah knew who it was, and that Hypatia must be truly shaken to use such knowledge as a weapon.

  She moved neither forward nor back, but stood frozen, listening, as from the cottage Shimon said mildly, ‘I wouldn’t call crucifixion an escape, but you’re right, I gave up love for the Galilean and would do so again. And I will die to preserve what is left of him if I must.’

  ‘Hannah is all that’s left of him,’ Hypatia said.

  ‘I know.’

  A chill raised the hairs on Hannah’s arms. After a long while, Shimon went on, ‘You will die for her too, if you have to, when the time comes. Why else are we here?’

  ‘What if I fail?’ Hypatia sounded close to despair. ‘My courage isn’t like yours, able to give my life for a dream that may never be real.’

  ‘Then do as much as you can. It’s all that is asked of us. If I get you water, will you drink?’

  There was a murmuring of quiet conversation. Water splashed into fine clay and a cup was set down.

  Hannah backed along the path to the bleached oak gate through which she had entered. There she rattled the handle once, and then again louder until the geese hissed alarm and, at last, someone in the cottage pushed open the door.

  Shimon came to greet her as she walked along the path. Before he could speak, she said, ‘I’m here with menstrual pains, seeking help from the goose-keeper. Saulos doesn’t trust me fully yet. Two of his men followed me up the hill. They’re outside now, so I don’t have much time. Is Pantera here?’

  Shimon shook his head. Gently, he said, ‘He’s with Mergus, organizing a fire drill. But you should know Hypatia is here. You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to.’

  His compassion, as much as anything, moved her to tears. ‘I’ll come,’ Hannah said. ‘The world is bigger than my grief.’

  The cottage was mercifully cool after the noonday heat. Hannah stood in the single sparse room, looking out at the pond. Older goslings sported in the noisy water, racing each other to the island behind the weeping alder.

  She said, ‘I have to leave before the men outside start to ask what I’m doing here.’

  Hypatia came forward from the shadows by the fireplace. ‘You can tell them that the keeper of Juno’s geese gave you something for your condition,’ she said. ‘And you could take this, which would make it true.’ She held a mug of foaming sherbet balanced on her hands. Shreds of marigold petals clung to the crease across her palm that marked her heart, her spirit, her life. It was as deep and long as Hannah remembered it.

  Hannah is all that’s left of Judas the Galilean. You will die to preserve her …

  You will too.

  Hypatia misread her hesitation. ‘I wouldn’t drug you.’

  ‘I know.’ Hannah took the mug and set it on the table. ‘I’ve just spent a morning soliciting the company of the man who killed Ptolemy Asul. I feel filthy and murderous together. Would you … ?’ She opened her arms. Hypatia stepped forward to meet her.

  There was no passion in their embrace, but a world of kindness, and strength. Hypatia showed no sign of her earlier grief, and presently Hannah rested her forehead on her cool shoulder and let go the weight of the morning’s deceptions.

  Shimon stood at the window watching the goslings with his back turned to them. Hannah studied him over Hypatia’s shoulder. Her mother had spoken often of this man who had been her father’s lieutenant; how he was the most savage in a fight, and the most loyal to her father’s cause. In Gaul he had seemed a threat, sent to drag Hannah into a life and a conflict she didn’t want to be part of. Over the past six months, he had become a friend without her noticing.

  ‘Thank you.’ Hannah pressed a kiss to Hypatia’s neck and stepped back. Hypatia offered her the sherbet again and she accepted. Her mouth ached at the memory of flavours. She said, ‘When will Pantera come back?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Shimon said. ‘He left after you did. He’s still got Mergus’ century of the Watch at his command. He’ll bring them when we have the location of Saulos and his ninety.’

  ‘Two hundred,’ Hannah said.

  ‘Two—?’ Shimon’s mouth snapped shut. ‘Where?’

  ‘In the old wool warehouse that backs on to the river below the Palatine market. It’s the central one of the line and Saulos has filled the ones on either side with traps. His men know at least sixteen ways out but anyone trying to get in would lose ten men for every one that got through. A frontal attack is almost impossible; the only entrance is down a narrow alley that won’t take more than two men side by side and his door-guards are all ex-legionaries, so he—’

  ‘He has legionaries in his group?’ Hypatia gave a sour laugh. ‘Are they believers?’

  ‘They believe in the power of his gold,’ Hannah said. ‘What else they may believe will become clear tonight when he preaches. He’s planning a Dionysian rite, with bread as flesh and wine as blood.’

  ‘Cannibalism.’ Shimon spat on the floor.

  ‘But powerful. When he’s finished, his men will believe themselves god-filled and immune to danger. It will be … interesting to watch.’ As she spoke, Hannah backed towards the door until her hand lay on the latch. ‘The warehouse could be destroyed by fire,’ she said, thinking aloud. ‘If it was done properly, with men ringing it, you might be able to trap Saulos and his two hundred, but the alleys are so narrow there the fire would surely spread.’

  ‘It would be unfortunate if Rome were burned by those trying to save it,’ said Hypatia.

  Hannah nodded. Her fingers worked the latch, easing it up. The geese crooned from the meadow outside. ‘There’s an alternative that might work,’ she said. ‘But it needs someone on the inside. I’ll go back now and do the best I can. If
I haven’t come out to you by sunset, then burn the warehouse and do what you can with the water towers to stop the fire spreading. Make a firebreak first. Pantera will know what to do. Tell him this is for Math: the living matter more than the dead.’

  Hannah stepped smartly back, pushed the door shut and dropped the oak stave across that barred it from the outside. It wasn’t impossible to escape; Shimon was already climbing out of the window as she reached the gate in the wall, but it stopped either him or Hypatia from asking what she was going to do, or trying to stop her when she gave the answer.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  ‘Math?’

  It was the middle of the afternoon and Math was asleep, as his physician directed. He had been ordered not to wake until dusk.

  He eased his eyes open a fraction and closed them against the sun’s brilliance. It definitely wasn’t dusk, but Constantin tapped his collar bone in their private signal that meant it was safe to rise. ‘Math, you must wake up.’ He fumbled, lost in a sea of white silk.

  If his health had been predicated on the luxury around him, Math would have been immortal by now. The bed was crafted from cedar and ebony, the headboard carved to show hunting scenes in the Egyptian fashion, with flat-faced archers and gem-collared leopards coursing lean, long-necked deer.

  Beyond its foot, the afternoon sun shone in from Nero’s garden to glance brilliantly off a polished bronze war shield placed artfully on a pedestal for just that purpose. Nero liked his rooms to be brightly lit at all times of day and night; he hated darkness.

  Math, by contrast, had found that since the accident in Alexandria he couldn’t bear bright light. Always, when he woke in the afternoons, he kept his eyes half shut against the shield’s glare. It helped ease the tenderness in his head, although it did nothing to stop his ribs hurting, particularly now, when Constantin was being unaccountably clumsy.

  Always before the boy’s touch had been deftly sensuous, but not today. Math caught his breath and hissed it out slowly as he came to sitting.