by M C Scott
Math sat with his teeth clamped on his lower lip. Nero had no legal training, but believed himself to be the ultimate arbiter of Rome’s justice, and a competent counsel. He believed himself to be a god, too, on exactly the same basis: he was emperor and his word was law.
He stood now, with one hand on his hip, after the manner of the courts. ‘You are Shimon of Galilee, also known as Shimon the zealot?’
‘I am.’
Math winced, and stared straight ahead. Everyone else was gazing at Shimon in varying degrees of disbelief, waiting for him to say what he had not. Clearly, he hadn’t misspoken. Even in Coriallum, it was known that the Hebrews were particularly difficult in this regard.
Nero alone seemed untouched. Amiably, he said, ‘Did you know of the Sibylline prophecy before this night?’
‘I did.’
Again, the aching, painful gap.
‘He is your lord! You will name him as such.’ The centurion, Appollonius, cracked the back of his hand across Shimon’s face, sending strings of bloody mucus across Nero’s toga.
Math was beginning to hate that man. Nero, he thought, was not impressed either. Nor, it seemed, was someone else, newly come to the garden. A crisp, cold voice rang out through the silence.
‘Lord, why is this man still at liberty to assault your loyal subjects when he has spent the night burning your city?’
Three watchmen drew their blades and spun, then stood down. Their prefect stood at his ease under the rose arch with the glare of the rising sun behind casting him in living gold.
‘Pantera!’
Math ran past all the others. It might have been forbidden, it probably was forbidden, but some joys cannot be contained, some relief is impossible to hide.
He threw himself into the man’s arms and Pantera, a newly shining Pantera, lifted him high and hugged him and set him down lightly at his side. He did not send him back to Nero.
‘Lord, Appollonius has impeached himself by his actions of the night. He and his troop lit fires, not only on the Aventine, but in the suburra and around the forum. I have men aplenty who will testify in your name that this is true. I will personally testify that Shimon of Galilee was working to help prevent the fire, not to light it. And he saved my life in the fight with Akakios.’
A miracle had happened in the night, clearly, because Pantera was restored to himself again and sharply awake, which gave him an advantage over everyone else in the garden. He spoke with an authority that brooked no denial.
Nero looked a moment at the ring that lay on his palm, flecked now by Shimon’s blood. He crooked a finger. ‘You will approach us.’
At the dining couch, Pantera sank down on both knees with an elegance that stole Math’s breath.
Clasping Pantera’s head in both hands, Nero gripped a great fistful of hair on either side of his face, twisting it until Math saw the skin blanch where it took root. Pantera’s lips made a thin, hard line.
‘You are our prefect, the saviour of Rome.’ True grief roughened the emperor’s voice. ‘We have lost four precincts, but could have lost ten more – and would have done without you.’
‘My lord is kind.’ Pantera raised a brow; it was all he could move. He said, ‘Last night I had the honour to serve my emperor and did so with all my heart. This morning, as was agreed, I resign my post.’
‘Then we shall give it to Centurion Appollonius.’
A child’s threat. Pantera smiled. ‘My lord is too astute to do such a thing. He can smell treachery when it comes near him.’
Nero nodded. Appollonius jerked and was still. With so small a gesture, he had lost and everyone knew it. Nobody knew yet who might win.
‘Who then?’ Nero asked. ‘Who is fit to take your place?’ His hands were still knotted in Pantera’s hair.
Pantera pursed his lips. ‘Mergus is well placed. He excelled himself during the night and ill deserves the treatment he has had since dawn. To grant him the prefecture would undo the hurt he has suffered. But he is perhaps better a free agent, not weighed down with the duties of rank. And he is a centurion. It would be better to elevate a tribune. Annaeus of the sixth proved his loyalty many times over in the past hours and, as I said last night, he is a capable man. Either would suit.’
‘Which?’ The emperor’s hands tightened again. His knuckles grew white.
As much as a man can do who is held to kneeling by hands tearing at the roots of his hair, Pantera gave it thought. To those watching, it seemed that, without turning his head, he cast his eyes over the two men he had named. Exhausted and filthy, each came to parade attention.
‘I would choose Gaius Annaeus, tribune of the sixth cohort, as my successor to the post of prefect of the Urban Guard,’ he said.
With his words, it was so. Nero’s assent was a formality, haphazardly given.
‘Lord, the Centurion Apollonius …?’ Libo sought out three of the Watch with his eyes. With swift and subtle movements, they blocked the rose arch. Had Appollonius intended to leave, he had lost his opportunity.
Answering a glance from Nero, Pantera murmured, ‘As my lord knows, he was the son of a consul. He should be given the opportunity to fall on his sword as did his tribune. Mercy and compassion strengthen the giver as much as the receiver.’
Nero had already lost interest. His gaze had returned to Shimon and rested there, hotly.
Pantera still knelt at the emperor’s feet, his head still held in the rigid grip. Carefully, not looking at Shimon, he said, ‘My lord, parting is a grief, but it cannot be delayed for ever.’
‘Do not leave us!’ Early sunlight shimmered on trembling tears.
‘Lord, I have done all I can. As you said, the fire is less than it might have been. It may smoulder a while before the water tanks can be repaired and supplies restored, but no further precincts will be lost. A great many lives have been saved and my lord can rebuild a new Rome, with greater care for fire, and be known for a thousand years as the one who did so.’
‘But Akakios did not plot alone! He had succour and support amongst the Hebrews. In Gaul, you told us so, and again in our garden at Antium.’ Nero was scarlet with anguish. Foam gathered at the corners of his mouth. His hands, holding Pantera’s hair, were shaking.
‘I may have misspoken.’
‘You did not! This man, Shimon, is guilty.’ Made rash by grief, Nero flung out his arm, pointing at Shimon. ‘Guards! Take this man. We name him the source of the fire.’
‘Lord—’ With no apparent difficulty, Pantera was standing. Mergus had not moved and the only other watchman left, unwilling to act alone, flushed scarlet, but held his ground. Ignoring them both, giving all his attention to the man-child in front of him, Pantera said, ‘Shimon did not light the fire, excellency. I will swear that on anything you wish.’
‘On my name, claiming me as your god?’
‘If you desire it.’
‘But he will not swear so!’ Nero’s lips trembled. ‘He would not name me lord.’
Pantera stood with his hand pressed to his own sternum, near where Math knew there to be a burn mark the size of his palm. He kept his eyes on the emperor, and so held at least a thread of his attention.
‘Whatever Shimon’s other failings’ – his voice made them minor – ‘he did not light last night’s fire; indeed, he has aided the fight against it. Saulos is the arsonist, who was an agent of Seneca’s, loyal to Rome. He engineered every part of the blaze and our efforts to stop it, from first beginnings in Gaul. He and his followers are known to your officers. Libo will hunt down those who survived the fire and deliver them to my lord for his justice.’
‘They will burn, every one of them, as they made my people burn!’
‘And they will deserve it, lord.’
‘But Saulos will not be among them. Annaeus, our new prefect, cannot deliver to us a man schooled by Seneca; he has not the skill. Only you can find him, and bring him to us, fit for retribution.’
‘Lord, there are others equally capable who—’
‘No there are not!’ Nero swung round, suddenly searching. Math tried to will himself invisible, and failed.
By a snap of the emperor’s fingers, Math was summoned forward. He came on stilted legs that moved without any volition on his part. At Pantera’s side, he began to kneel, but Nero’s arm curved round his waist, drawing him in, and, openly, Nero’s hand stroked his hip.
For the barest fraction of a moment, Math saw desperation writ raw on Pantera’s face, gone before he truly understood it. A smile took its place, made for the moment. Pantera said, ‘My lord gave his word …’
‘We gave our word that you could take the boy to his brother, who had heard of the father’s death and come to look for him. Where is that man now?’
Pantera scratched the side of his nose, thinking. An old memory from Coriallum echoed in Math’s ear. Seneca saying, He is an actor. He can smell deceit from a hundred paces. Never risk it.
Math repeated the words over and over in his mind, trying to send them to Pantera, that he might remember.
Pantera frowned. ‘I believe he is at the port of Ostia, or will be so by early afternoon. Of course, if he spent the night in Rome, the fire may have delayed him.’
He spoke the truth. It shone from him and Nero believed it. It made no difference to what came next.
Looking back, long after it was over, Math thought there was nothing else Pantera could have done or said that would have made any difference, and that Pantera had known it from the moment Nero called Math to his side. Possibly, he had known it before he ever stepped into the garden.
‘Then we see an obvious answer to Rome’s dilemma.’ Nero’s smile was joyful. ‘We gave our word and we will keep it. We grant you permission to take Math, for whom we have a great affection, to Ostia, after which we require that you return and undertake to hunt down for us the man Saulos, who so inflamed our mercy. Unless you wish to break the night’s covenant and depart from us now? In which case our agreement is void and the boy remains in our company. We will bless him with all possible care.’
Math swayed. His knees turned to water.
Nero’s grip kept him upright. Nero’s softest, most dangerous voice said, ‘See how greatly he desires to stay?’
Pantera stood very still. His face had lost all colour, except for the two flaring patches of red at the hairline just above his ears where Nero had held him. ‘My lord will accept my sworn word that I will return after Math’s ship has sailed?’
‘We shall.’
‘The boat, of course, must reach its destination unhampered and without delay.’
A man does not make bargains with his emperor. Nero’s lips tightened. Stooping, he kissed Math on the cheek. ‘If it does not, it shall be through no agency of ours.’
‘My lord?’
A woman’s voice rang out across the garden. ‘It may be that the former prefect, Pantera, is required to travel with the boy to keep him safe and deliver him to the womb of his family. If that were the case, I would undertake to hunt Saulos the Herodian for you in his stead. The Sibyls have resources no man can match.’
Math drew a tortured breath. A man may perhaps bargain with this emperor, but a woman would do well to remember that Nero had ordered his own mother slain; that he routinely took lovers of both sexes without care for his wife’s shame – his second wife. The first, too, had died by his word.
Nero’s head turned to Hypatia with dangerous slowness. ‘You wrote the prophecy that destroyed our city. Your life is forfeit. We shall have retribution. The people require it.’
Pantera stepped between them. ‘Lord, she did not speak the prophecy. What does my lord gain by her death? Is harmony served by insulting the Sibyls?’
‘Ha!’ Clinging to Math, Nero spun round in a circle, jabbing a finger at Pantera’s chest, and then at Shimon’s. ‘But this Hebrew insults us and you say it is nothing! Doubtless, you would have us free him too?’
‘I seek only justice, lord, done and seen to be done, for the greater glory of our emperor and of Rome.’
‘Then we shall release him’ – Nero clapped his hands to the sky – ‘when he names us his lord.’
Shimon’s smile was full of pity for the tortured youth in front of him. Math wished he hadn’t seen it. ‘It is my very great regret,’ he said, ‘that I cannot do that. There is no lord but the god of Israel whose name alone is for ever held in awe. You are Caesar, a man, ruler of men, lord only of the material world. You hold temporary ownership of our lands, nothing more. I cannot name you lord.’
In the garden, nobody moved except Nero, who turned with a dreamlike slowness back to face Shimon. His face was blotched white and red; his breathing had the jerkiness of a man who has just slaked his lust.
When he spoke, it was in a whisper, yet easily heard. ‘Then you will die,’ he said. ‘You will burn on the Field of Mars this night to light the darkness of those who survived this fire, wrought by your countryman. All those who aided him will die at your side.’
Releasing Math, Nero subsided on to his dining couch and selected an olive. To those standing in attendance, to Pantera, to Math, to Hypatia, and to Mergus, who gently held Shimon, he said, ‘Leave us. Take the boy to the docks and return before dusk. We would contemplate alone the ills brought upon our city and how we may best repair them.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Ostia lay white and blue at the mouth of the Tiber; a mirage of shimmering marble caught between blue sky and bluer sea. An uneven line of ships’ masts needled the southerly horizon. The horses caught the breath of sea air before Hannah did, and quickened their pace, so that the harbour came into view more suddenly than she expected.
‘There.’ Ajax rose up in the saddle and pointed. ‘Towards the back. The banner of the Sun Horse rides at the mast head.’
That had a history; his voice resonated with a lifetime’s stories just of that banner. Hannah wanted to ask what they were, but they were moving too swiftly now, and there was no time, and in any case they had not yet spoken, except the barest words needed to find their way here.
For eleven miles, she had wanted to ask a lot of things, to talk, to explain about the night, to find out if she would be welcome on the ship, whether Pantera might come too. If she wanted him to come. If he wanted to come with her. If the world were not so hopelessly divided and she caught on the blade’s edge, unable to tilt either way.
She needed to speak and could not until Ajax spoke to her, and he had not done so yet, except once, at the cottage to ask her if she needed a hand to mount, and then to speak directions in single words that she didn’t need. She wanted to ask how he knew the way to Ostia, too, and couldn’t.
The ship he had pointed to was not the greatest of those swaying at anchor in the bowl-shaped harbour, but far from the least. Lean and racy, it looked good enough to outsail most of those there, to cut through the waves rather than having to roll over their crests as had the ship that had borne them all to Alexandria so long ago.
A man sat on a fisherman’s stool nearby. She wouldn’t have noticed him, but that he stood and shaded his eyes, looking towards them, and then waved.
She said, ‘Who is it that waits?’
‘My mother’s brother.’
‘He looks like a Roman.’ From a distance, Hannah thought he was not unlike a somewhat older Pantera, but taller, with longer, blacker hair that shone like a raven’s wing in the sun.
‘He served with the legions for many years,’ Ajax said.
His tone was too even. ‘You don’t like him?’ Hannah asked.
‘I don’t know.’ For the first time that morning, he sounded human. ‘It wasn’t only my sister’s dreams that sent me here; Valerius’ dreams of many nights mirrored hers and it was by his leave that I came. By his order, you might say. Very little happens amongst our people now without his blessing.’
‘I find it hard to imagine you taking orders from any man.’
Once, Hannah could have said that and they could have laughed at
it together, seeing a truth that applied to both of them. Now, it sounded like an embarrassing attempt to curry favour.
Ajax ignored it. ‘When I left Britain, I would have said that, while I respected him, I would not have grieved at news of his death. Today, I find that I’m glad to see him.’ He smiled, not at her. ‘Some good has come of this, then.’
‘Ajax, stop.’ Hannah put her hand on his arm. He braced against her, but did slow his horse. The man, Valerius, let his hand fall and sat down again.
Hannah said, ‘I won’t say I regret last night because that would be untrue. But it wasn’t …’
Throughout the eleven-mile ride, Hannah had rehearsed this. Under his bright hawk’s gaze, she lost her tongue. Gathering herself was an act of will.
On a taken breath, she said, ‘It wasn’t an ending. Unless you want it to be. I can ride away now and we can never see each other again. But if you want that, it might be best if I didn’t come to meet your mother’s brother.’
‘And then Pantera can meet you at the place you have arranged. After he has delivered Math.’ Ajax’s face was blank as polished stone. The morning sun marked out the bruises of the night, the burns on his cheek, the welts where he had been struck, but not a whisper of anger or of grief. Either would have been better than this.
‘I haven’t arranged anything with Pantera,’ she said. ‘He may be detained in Rome, or he may join us on the ship. I don’t have any more idea than you do.’
‘But do you want him to be on the ship? Does he? We’re travelling beyond Gaul. The voyage won’t take nearly as long as it took to get to Rome from Alexandria although it may seem like it for a while. In my experience, ships can become … crowded after the first days.’
‘We managed before.’ She sounded like a child and could do nothing about it.
‘But Pantera wasn’t with us on either voyage. In fact, we have never been all three together for long. You have had my company or his. Only in the Temple of the Oracle under the Serapeum at Alexandria did you truly have us both.’
‘I don’t think that counts.’